Battling Prophet b-20

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “You can fetch me a bottle of them kidney pills. I’ve just about run out of gin. And order me a double issue of bread while you’re in there. I’ll get the money.”

  “Youstayin ’ long, Miss?” Harris asked, and Bony detected an underlying note of unease.

  “Maybe a week,” replied Alice.“Might be a month. See how I like being here, and how uncle behaves himself.”

  “Why I’maskin ’ is becausethere’s some funny goings-on around here, like,” explained Knocker.“What with a blokearrangin ’ to come back for bait, and his car being burned up. Andme dog sort ofrunnin ’ aboutsniffin ’ all the time, like he got a burr up his nose. And three menpretendin ’ they’refishin ’ with their boat anchored on a sand-drift only a foot under surface. And there’s John here keeping his kitchen door locked of a morning, like.”

  “Don’t be a crying fool, Knocker,” shouted Mr. Luton. “I’d just got back from a walk to look-see that burned car when my niece arrived and we come in the front door. I don’t rush about throwing open the doors andflingin ’ up the winderssoon’s I get home again. And what’s wrong with them three men fishing off a boat? What sort of boat?”

  “Open deck motor-boat, like. You can’t tell me they’d catch a fish in a foot of water over a sand-drift. Anyhow, I watched ’emgoing up-river, and they hardly know how to steer the boat. Theywasn’tfishin ’, like. Theywas keeping an eye on this house. Seems like there’s no end to thisespinage. You had word from the Inspector since he went away?”

  “Not yet. But he’ll write sometime if hedon’t come back for more fishing.

  “Well, I suppose I’d better beshovin ’ off, like. You look after your uncle, Miss. He wantsfeedin ’ up, like, at times when heain’t so well. I done me best.”

  Bony heard the door closed. Alice said:

  “That’s my cue to go ahead with the cooking, Uncle. What have you got on hand for lunch?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Alice ThinksIt’s Fun

  MR. LUTON’Sreactions to Alice McGorr ultimately balanced in her favour. He disapproved of her smoking. He disapproved of her taking complete control of his kitchen-living-room. He wasn’t quite in favour of being called ‘uncle’. Oppositely, he did like her direct approach in conversation. He did like the way she dressed her blonde hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, because he was reminded of the days when he was young, and he did like her brown eyes, which could be so expressive of warmth and intelligence. It was a great pity that her chin was negligible. And as he listened with her to Bony’s outline of past events in and about his cottage, he came to admire the manner in which she received the story.

  “I am sure, Mr. Luton,” Bony continued smoothly, “you are in agreement that the position as it has developed is, shall we say, delicate. We are living in darkness, and all we have seen are shadowy figures best described perhaps as ‘sinister’. I am confident you won’t take umbrage at what I am going to say-that Alice will be completely able to meet all contingencies.

  “When I returned from Adelaide, I considered it necessary to lie low, like Brer Rabbit, and just wait on events. Since then, however, I have found that I must have greater freedom and at the same time be assured of your personal safety.”

  “I can well look after myself,” Mr. Luton protested.

  “Of course, Mr. Luton. By the way, is thatembrocation doing any good to your knees?”

  “It is so. I better get some more from Knocker. Hey!” The old man smiled ruefully. “All right, Inspector. I can’t win.”

  “This house might be attacked front and back at the same time, and the attack might not take the form of gun-play. It might be a matter of being compelled to answer questions, and, because the attackers will be men, let us say, like Boase and Sergeant Maskell, such questions can more quickly be defeated by a woman than by a man. You may find that hard to believe.

  “I am asking you to remove from your mind the error that Alice is a weak, defenceless young woman you have to protect. This new niece of yours is tough. I heard it said by an authority that ‘when she can’t roll ’em, she bumps ’em, and when she can’t bump ’em, she tosses ’em, and when she can’t toss ’em, she flattens ’em.’ All the tricks she learned from the police experts were mere variations of better ones she knew all about before she joined the Police Department.

  “I’m telling you this because should anything rough break loose, you must accept orders from her. She represents the Law, whatever that might mean. She is far more responsible for anything ugly that might happen to you than you could be responsible for anything that happened to her.

  “So both of you will act normally as uncle and niece. Lock the doors only at dusk. You will do outside chores and Alice will attend to the cooking and the house. Now and then you may stroll about the garden and see to the hens. At night, keep the dogs chained. All clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “A final point. When I decided to lie low on my return from Adelaide, it was less to conceal myself from the police than from those who are interested in Ben Wickham’s secrets, and thus encourage them to move. Just now I am reminded of two opposing armies manoeuvring for position.”

  When Dr. Maltby called shortly after three that afternoon, Alice was briefed and ready. She opened the front door in answer to his knock, and his surprise was genuine. Heavy and yet agile, his dark eyes moved swiftly over her, and she said politely:

  “Well?”

  “Who are you?” he asked, and she could see suspicion in his eyes.

  “Who am I!” she repeated. “Who the hell are you is more to the point. Whatd’youwant?”

  “I came to see Mr. Luton. Is he in?” countered the slightly nettled Maltby.

  “Go down one and come on, mister,” snarled Alice. “All I asked you was who you are.”

  “The name is Maltby… Doctor Maltby.”

  “Oh! I never sent for you. My uncle is all right, so far. Whatd’youwant to see him about?”

  Maltby tried to smile. The hard brown eyes and straight brown eyebrows of this person, the small but somehow grim mouth, the direct hostility, were outside his experience as a country doctor.

  “I must explain, Miss… Miss…” Alice declined information. “I live at Mount Mario, you know, and often I call just to see how your uncle is getting along. He’s not as young as he was, and all that. Sometimes…er… sometimes…”

  “Sometimes he gets a neck-ache tipping bottles,” Alice now assisted. “Still, I’ll be knocked flat if you ever reach his age. You needn’t worry about uncle, and when he’s sick I’ll send for you fast enough. He’s in bed this afternoon. Got a cold. I sent him there, and there he stays. From what he’s been telling me, it’s time I turned up. What with people, pounding on his door at all hours, and others threatening to put him in an old men’s home. Drive anyone screwy. I’d like to hear anyone threaten to put me in an old men’s home!’ Alice’s voice became shrill. “So you live in that great stable of a place on the hill! Well, stay there, and don’t come poking your nose into other people’s affairs.”

  “My dear young lady…” protested Maltby. But it wasn’t any use. She shrilled him to silence, and slammed the door in his face.

  Seated at the table with Bony in the living-room, Mr. Luton was startled, until he recalled that Bony had directed Alice to ‘receive’ Dr. Maltby when he had seen him leave the car. Alice came in from the front room, smiled at Bony’s expression of approval, and sat with them. Mr. Luton was asked to step outside to ascertain if the doctor was making for town.

  Mr. Luton’s hearing wasn’t defective. He heard the car crossing the bridge.

  “The next caller could be the policeman or the doctor’s wife,” Bony said, adding gravely: “The latter will extend you, Alice.”

  “Think so?” she challenged, smiling at him, and making them both oblivious of her chin. “What are they really after?”

  “Ben Wickham’s will and Ben Wickham’s weather secrets. Their immediate interest undoubtedly wil
l be you. I am overwhelmed by the manner in which you repulsed Dr. Maltby.”

  “Want me todefongerate anyone else?”

  “Er… yes. And with the hard pedal this time on the rights supposedly remaining to the ordinary citizen from Magna Charta. Should Mrs. Maltby come, you will have to out-talk her, and you could suggest that no one is going to cremate your uncle to get away with any nasty work.”

  “What if the parson comes?” musingly asked Mr. Luton.

  “Alice could deal with the Reverend Weston,” replied Bony, “on the lines that she doesn’t require any assistance from him in the reclamation of a drunken sot.” The light in Bony’s eyes blotted out any intended offence, even had Mr. Luton not understood that these counters were applicable only to each of those persons who had troubled him.

  The man who called was neither the parson nor the doctor. Only the dogs gave warning, for he came on foot, and shouted from the outside of the picket fence. From between the hem of the lowered blind and the sill of the window, Bony surveyed him. He had not before seen this character. He was short, and dapper in appearance. He sported a thin dark moustache, and he carried a small suitcase.

  Alice went out to the veranda and asked what he wanted, in words meaning the same. The man said he had soaps, lotions, and things for sale. She asked him who he travelled for, and he mentioned a well-known firm. The dogs growled and barked, and Alice raised her voice to a scream, demanding to know where he had come from, how long had he been working for his firm, and so on, until the man was clinging to the fence as though his body was drained of strength. Unable to gain ground, he departed, leaving Bony undecided about him.

  The policeman came about four. He had in his car a small terrier that at once infuriated Mr. Luton’s dogs. He was, to use a colloquialism, ‘right up Alice’s alley’. When she opened the door to him, he stepped back at sight of her ruffled hair, the flour on her nose and arms, and the glint in her eyes. As usual he was in civilian clothes. His opening revealed contact with Doctor Maltby.

  “Day-ee, Miss. I’m Senior Constable Gibley. Mr. Luton in?”

  “Well, he is, and he isn’t. What’s he done now?” Alice asked, with delightfully assumed concern.

  “He hasn’t done anything, so far, miss. Who might you be?”

  “That’s telling. Any reason for knowing?”

  “Well, could be. Me and Luton’s known each other some time. Him living alone, I call in now and then to see how he’s shaping.”

  “You do, do you!” snapped Alice. “So that’s why he’s been getting a bad name. The policeman always on his doorstep, they say. Questioning him about robberies and hold-ups, and things. Serving summonses on him for alimony and such. Well, I don’t like it, Constable.”

  “So you don’t like it! Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking, miss?” lunged Gibley with sarcasm.

  “I’m his niece, and the name’s McGorr. And I’m not telling me age or giving you me fingerprints.” Up rose the voice. “And I may as well tell you now as later that I’ve come to this outlandish place for two things, see? To keep me uncle off the sherry and to keep you from dragging thefambly name in the mud. I know all about you and them who’d send him to a home or something. And if you want to barge in here, show us the search warrant, and if youain’t got a search warrant, get going.”

  “Now look here, miss…” Gibley started.

  “I’m not lookingnowhere I can’t see,” she shouted at him. “And I’d like to see you try to drag me to the lock-up. Go on, have a go if you think you can use yourself. No? Right! Then what did you come for?”

  Gibley was furious, and somewhat daunted.

  “All I come for was to ask after Mr. Luton,” he replied with exaggerated courtesy.

  “And all I been telling you is that uncle is not stinko, is going to stay that way, and he won’t be going to any old men’s home. And I’m kept busy feeding him. Anything else you want to know?”

  “Yair. I want to see Mr. Luton.”

  “Not a hope. He’s abed with a bit of a cold, and I’ve hid his clothes.”

  Senior Constable Gibley shrugged with desperation and strode to the gate. He appeared ringed by dogs, and he drove away with his terrier yapping defiance of the larger dogs, who kept beside the car all the way to the bridge.

  And Mr. Luton was roaring with laughter in the room behind Alice, and the smiling Bony standing with him. Abruptly their laughter was stilled. Someone was knocking at the back door.

  Bony nodded to Alice. She passed to the living-room, Mr. Luton at her heels and Bony remaining in the sitting-room, behind the fractionally closed door. Mr. Luton crossed to his bedroom, Alice waiting to see him enter it before she opened the kitchen door.

  Bony saw her stiffen a moment before she backed rigidly into the room, and then appeared an automatic, followed by the arm of the hand which held it, then the little man with the dark moustache.

  The intruder dropped his suitcase to the floor, but not for an instant did his eyes leave Alice, or his automatic waver. At close distance, there was nothing hesitant about him. Reaching behind, he pushed the door shut.

  “Move away,” he ordered.“Back! Now stop. So! Luton is where?”

  “In bed,” replied Alice, stiff as a board, but poised on her toes. Mr. Luton made no move, and Bony was thankful that the old man had sense enough to realise that to make a move would certainly discharge the automatic at Alice.

  “The policeman coming and going suited me most well,” the man said in the precise way which reminded Bony a little of Dr. Linke.“Luton! Come from your room, your hands up.”

  Bony’s case was in Mr. Luton’s room. His automatic was in the case, and he didn’t blame himself for this situation. Now that Mr. Luton was being cautious, he had no fear for Alice McGorr. Only a slight unease for the gunman.

  Mr. Luton did not appear. Alice began to sway on her toes, her head to jerk. Her knees were giving way, and suddenly she slumped to the floor.

  The gunman stared down at her. He commanded her to get up, but Alice was presumably in a dead faint. He again ordered Mr. Luton to come from his room, and although the conversation between Alice and the policeman had told him Mr. Luton was abed with a cold, he did not know which of the rooms off the living-roomwas Mr. Luton’s bedroom.

  He could not continue to point his automatic at a woman collapsed in a faint. He could not menace a man who refused to appear. This situation wasn’t taken care of when the stick-up rules of procedure were laid down by the gunmen’s union.

  There was a jug on the wash bench close to the tap, and the gunman was kidded by the old-fashioned theory that to bring a woman from a faint you dashed cold water over her. He moved towards the bench. That was fatal.

  It was as though Alice McGorr was shot out of a gun at a fair. She sprang from the floor to the gunman. The gun exploded and arched through the air to land on the floor beside Bony. The gunman rose in the air, too, as far as the ceiling would permit. He was coming down most ungracefully when each ankle was grasped by a hand, and each leg pulled as far apart as a human frame can span. Then he was on his back, and the instep of a shoe was gouging hard into his throat. He began to object, but the split of his legs was widened a fraction beyond possible. He did shout something before realising that surrender was indeed the best policy.

  “Bravo, Alice!” Bony cried.

  “You wouldn’t read about it,” chortled Mr. Luton stepping from his room, and Alice said brightly:

  “I don’t think I’ll ever leave the Police Force. It’s always such fun.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  In The Feminine Manner

  ANinterior water-pipe between the living-room window and the wash bench, and Alice’s handcuffs, produced no discomfort while the prisoner was seated on the floor.

  Small in stature, he wasn’t small in courage. For the first half-hour his will-power was strong enough to resist Bony’s questioning, supported by Alice. And this brought afternoon tea-time, which, in Australia, is sa
cred to the god of leisure.

  In the Iron Curtain countries they use drugs and implements to make a man talk. In the United States they employ bright light and relays of questioners. In Australia, if a criminal won’t talk, they give him afternoon tea; in other words, leisurely soften him with kindness. It is a sad fact that these several methods of extracting information, based no doubt on scientific research and study, were ever man-controlled. Huge steam hammers to crack eggs! But interrogation by women!

  Alice addressed the prisoner on the floor:

  “I’m giving you a cup of tea and a slab of cake. If you swill tea on the floor, I’ll smack your face.”

  The prisoner, who had shown silent hostility under polite questioning, glared at Alice when she stooped to place the cup and plate on the floor beside him. It is probable that he would have withstood the steam hammers applied with such labour by real he-men with brains. Since he had risen to and descended from the ceiling, he hadn’t uttered one word.

  At the conclusion of the afternoon tea-break, Alice nodded to the sitting-room, and Bony and Mr. Luton accepted the hint and withdraw. There Bony again examined the contents of the prisoner’s wallet, which told them little more than that the prisoner’s name was Tolnic, which could be of Slavonic origin. The suitcase did contain a few packets of soap, boxes of pins and the like.

  Into Bony’s concentration crept Alice’s voice, raised to that shrillness she had used to annihilate the callers. The voice rose to a screaming jumble of abuse, dropped to a nasal whine, and continued. The diatribe was punctuated by the clatter of pots and pans and the banging of what could be a rolling-pin on a pastry board.

  Bony watched the clock. When he glanced at Mr. Luton, he saw the old man frowning and wincing.

  “Glad I’m not married,” avowed Mr. Luton, and Bony smiled thinly.

  It wasn’t only what Alice was saying to the unfortunate prisoner with such remarkable verbosity; it was the timbre of the voice, which seemed to pierce a man’s head like the point of a surgeon’s probe. Down through the ages, millions of men have heard this voice, going on and on and on until the mind reels and the stomachsuffers as though from the effect of a rough sea.