The New Shoe b-15

by Arthur W. Upfield

“The barman couldn’t remember if Lake was accompanied, meaning that he was alone when he entered the bar. However, in the bar were three men who knew Lake, and the barman was able to give me their names and addresses.

  “I interviewed the three men. They remembered drinking with Lake that afternoon. They are agreed that he entered the bar alone and also that he bought a bottle of brandy which he put into a pocket of his overcoat. They are also agreed that Lake did not take more than four small glasses of beer, which to them was strange as they had never known him to drink small beers.

  “One of the three could tell more than the others. They wanted Lake to stay drinking with them, but he said he’d have to keep sober as he had a girl friend out in the car. One man followed him outside the bar, continuing to urge him to have a last drink for the road. He says that inside the car, in the back seat, were two people. One of them he thinks was a man, and the other could have been a woman. He can’t be sure, as the side-curtain window was yellow and dirty. He watched Lake drive off along the road to Anglesea and Split Point.”

  Bony said nothing for a full minute, and then thanked the detective for a good job of work.

  He had hoped for a sprat and had been given a whale.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Ed Penwarden’s Mistake

  THREE MEN HADleft the Belmont Hotel for Split Point, for Bony could not accept the view that one of Dick Lake’s passengers was a woman. Lake was dead. His companions had been careful to avoid recognition by remaining in the back seat of the car, and of those two, Eldred Wessex was surely one. The other was dead, were he Thomas Baker.

  The clue of the red-gum shaving found in the Lighthouse had produced a result, although a scent rather than a fingerprint. Elimination had reduced the possible agents of conveyance from the carpenter’s workshop to the Lighthouse to one of three men: the murderer, the murderer’s accomplice, the victim. Now the victim could be discarded, and there remained the two agents named, viz: Dick Lake and Eldred Wessex.

  Either one or both had been inside Penwarden’s workshop immediately before the nude body was entombed in the Lighthouse wall. And old Penwarden knew it.

  How to tackle the coffin maker? With the sharp scalpel of the expert investigator, or with the soft and soothing blah of the diplomat? Bony chose the alternative.

  The day was sunny and warm for the month of May, and after lunch he strolled with Stug down the curve of the highway, and so to the building where laboured the master craftsman.

  “Hullo, Mr Rawlings, sir!” greeted the old man. “Come on in and sit you down and gas.”A throaty chuckle.“My old woman’s allus on to me forgassin ’. Says I do nothing else the live-long day. Gas, gas, gas, and sheworkin ’ her fingers to the bone. Youever seen your wife’sfingerbones?”

  “They are too well padded,” replied Bony, occupying his favourite end of the bench. “Any further word about the bloodwood logs?”

  “Not yet. The railways take their time these days. Could be a full week, even two, aforethem logs arrive in Geelong.” The work-hardened fingers combed back the long, white hair, and the blue eyes beamed. “Tell you what, Mr Rawlings. I’ll make and polish a shelf for your sitting room. Scarlet she’ll be, with the shine to her like my daffodil-yellow one. You come in for a cup of tea with me and the old woman afore you leave Split Point… just to look at that bit of flotsam.”

  “Thank you. I’d like to.”

  “Your holiday got much more to go?”

  “Perhaps another week.”

  The old man took up a rule and measured a rough length of scantling. He jotted figures on the slate, pondered on them, and having pencilled a mark on the wood and sawn along it, he straightened and regarded Bony with eyes narrowed by the broad smile.

  “I’ve assembled her,” he said. “Put her together this morning. No polishing, mind. Still see the joins. Like to look at her?”

  “Of course,” replied Bony, slipping off the bench.

  “Takes a time to put the gloss on her,” went on Penwarden. “Ilikes to put in an hour or two every day for a week, and then give her a rest for a week or so. You know, wood’s wood. When a man dies, he rots. When a tree dies,’specially them red-gums, she never rots… leastways not for centuries. The sap dries out after she dies, but the wood keeps a sort of spirit that goes on for years and years.

  “You have to love the wood, and coax it, and talk to it while you polishes and polishes, and after a bit, if you listen hard enough, you’ll hear the woodtalkin ’ to you like a cat when she’s stroked. You seen the coffin I made for Mrs Owen. I’ll make yours to look as good, and, centuries tocome, me and you will still be lying snug. I got her in the parlour.”

  Having by now conquered the superstitious dread of coffins, and able calmly to regard objectively Mr Penwarden’s creations. Bony followed the ancient to the “parlour” with pleasurable anticipation.

  “Here shebe,” cried the old man when they stood either side the dull-red casket on the trestles. “Here shebe in themakin ’. The unpolished gem, thesmoulderin ’ fire, the untested character.”

  He raised the lid in its hidden hinges, and the lid remained in its balanced upright position, and he regarded Bony with eyes lit by pride and undimmed by the decades. Bony felt the satin smoothness of the wood, was reminded of the red sand of the inland, the real heart of Australia which fools continue to claim is dead. He lowered the lid and heard the air compression, so perfect was its fit.

  “You should be very proud of your work,” he said.“Wrong word, for which I’m sorry. Art, is the word, for you are indeed an artist.”

  “Nay, Mr Rawlings, sir. A good tradesman, that’s all. I’ve lived a long time in the one abiding place, but I’ve learned much and Time has done a bit ofpolishin ’ to me, too. This here job is good, I’ll say that for it, and all that’s needed is to work on her and coax her to show us the glory of her heart. Now just you take afittin ’ to make sure youlies comfortable, and then when you get her home, you pushes her under the bed and don’t think of her… only now and then. We all want a corrector, Mr Rawlings, sir, and there’snothin ’ like the sight of a coffin to melt away pride and vanity. Now let’s take that fitting.”

  “You want me to lie down in it?”

  “Just to make sure she’s right to take the small of your back, and the fit of your neck. No need to take your shoes off. They won’t dono damage.”

  “Very well,”assented Bony. The old man, had he a beard, could be Father Time, and the rule he waved in his left hand the scythe.

  Bony settled himself, and Penwarden placed his legs straight and his feet together. All that could be seen of him by Bony was the upper third of his body.

  “Ah!” breathed the craftsman. “My guess of your length was true. Now how does your neck and head rest? Just you say. We’ll make sure she’s nice and easy.”

  “A little could be taken off the curve of the neck rest,” Bony decided, and sat up to indicate a point where the carved rest pressed too sharply.

  “That’s so!” exclaimed the old man. “About ashavin ’ or two will fix that. Down you go, and we’ll make sure of your back.”

  “The back seems to be all right,” Bony said, moving his body and relaxing.“Yes, quite good. There’s no doubt…” The broken sentence was completed before his mind registered the slam of the lid “… you are a good tradesman.”

  Accident, of course! He expected the lid to be raised, instantly, and when it was not, he lifted his hands to press it upwards. He was able to raise it… a fraction of an inch.

  “Mr Penwarden!” he called, and used his knees to assist his hands. The lid could not be raised higher than that fraction of one inch. “Mr Penwarden! Raise the lid!”

  Leg and arm muscles relaxed and the lid sank, the air being compressed like escaping steam. The blackness of the grave, and confines of the grave, encompassed him. A great shout pounded in his ears, and he realized it was his own voice. With all his strength, he pushed upwards… and forced up the lid that frac
tion of an inch.

  “Penwarden!” he shouted. “Penwarden, let me out. This is beyond a joke. D’youhear? Let me out at once.”

  “Ah, Mr Rawlings, sir. ’Tis indeed beyond a joke.”

  The voice was far distant and yet blared in his right ear. He maintained the upward pressure of the lid, and heard the scrape of the small wedge. His mind was cool, but his body trembled violently. Again the voice spoke into his ear.

  “As we just agreed, this is not a joke.”

  “Then let me out, Mr Penwarden,” cried Bony, and was mortified by the note of fear in his own voice.

  “You see, Mr Rawlings, sir, it’s like this,” went on the old man without. “I took you for a visitor to Split Point, a pleasant gentleman taking a holiday. I sort of took to you, and liked to do a bit ofgassin ’ with you. But you’re not what you make out. You came to Split Point to make more trouble for them who’s been troubledmore’n enough. What’s done was done, and what’s past is past, but you, Mr Rawlings, intends adding trouble to trouble and grief to grief.”

  “What the devil do you mean?” demanded Bony, knowing that the only escape was via his tongue.

  “Evil doers tread in the steps of evil doers. You are an octopus that crawls from the sea to trap good clean life in God’s own world. I am going to leave you for a little while, Mr Rawlings, sir, just for a little while. I’ll leave the lid wedgedso’s you will get the air and take the opportunity to make your peace with the Eternal. You won’t raise the lid any more because she’s set fast. And no one will hearyourshoutin ’, exceptin ’ the Eternal.

  “What are you driving at?” shouted Bony. “I’ve done you no injury. Release me at once.”

  “We know all about the man in the wall of the Lighthouse, Mr Rawlings, sir. We know what he did to Eldred Wessex, and what Eldred did to him. We know you came here to find out what happened to that man and who killedhim, that you can blackmail poor Eldred’s parents into telling you where he is.”

  Bony continued to expostulate, conscious of the note of desperation in his voice.

  “We know,” continued Penwarden, “we know you went to the cave under the cliff, and found what you found. You came here to blackmail Eldred’s father and mother. And no mercy on them. And no mercy on you. You shall die in your coffin and be buried evermore.”

  There was no exultancy in the ancient’s voice, no hint of an unbalanced mind. The voice was hard, the enunciation distinct. The voice was without heat, implacable. Fighting for control, Bony said:

  “Now you listen to me, Mr Penwarden. I am not an associate of the man found dead in the Lighthouse. I am a police officer, investigating the murder of the man who is known as Thomas Baker. I am Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. You must remember that my friend who sent you the telegram saying he’d dispatched the bloodwood logs, also said for you to remember him to his friend Bony.”

  The echo of his voice within the coffin dwindled into the fetid twilight. The silence was unbroken, and Bony thought the old man had gone away. He said, rapidly, however:

  “I know that Dick Lake was in that crime. Constable Staley and I found the revolver in Dick’s trunk at his camp, the weapon which killed Baker. The experts at Police Headquarters have examined it, and the bullet found in the body has the marks on it made by the barrel. If you kill me, Penwarden, other policemen will come to search for me. They will carry on where I left off. They will inform Dick’s parents about that revolver and say that Dick shot Thomas Baker. You can’t stop it, Mr Penwarden. You can’t stop justice once it begins working.”

  Again that withdrawal of sound into the twilight. Again the dreadful silence. This time the silence was ended by a plaintive cry. The lid was lifted. Daylight rushed upon Bony, and the sweet aroma of wood shavings swept like brooms through the corridors of his haunted mind. Arms slid under him, lifted him, assisted him up and out of the coffin. His legs were almost paralysed, and his breathing wasstertorous. Old arms, strong yet, and made stronger still by emotion, helped him to the wall, there to let him down with his back resting.

  Old Penwarden fell to his knees before Bony, his hands upon the floor. Horror lived in his blue eyes matching the horror still living in the blue eyes of Napoleon Bonaparte. His voice was like the wind in bulrushes.

  “Mr Rawlings, sir! Mr… Inspector Bonaparte, sir… Mr Rawlings! I didn’t know. I made a mistake, ’deed I did. Take your time, Mr Rawlings, sir. Just you take your time.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Master Mind

  IT WAS BONY who first recovered. He assisted Penwarden to his feet, felt the trembling of the old body, was perturbed, by the prospect of heart failure cutting off a vital source of information.

  “We’ll go out to the workshop and talk about it,” he said, finding it necessary to steer the old man to the packing case at the bench. Having sat him down, Bony took from the wall shelf the pipe and the tin of tobacco, and liftedhimself to sit on the bench. With effort to control his fingers, he rolled a cigarette.

  “Be easy, Mr Penwarden,” he urged the old man, who sat with face turned down to the hands resting on his knees. “I am, indeed, a detective inspector investigating the death of the man in the Lighthouse, and it seems that you have had the idea that I was a bird of entirely different plumage.”

  “That’s how ’twas, Mr Rawlings, sir.” Penwarden reached for pipe and tobacco, and the hand trembled violently. “I am truly sorry I was somistaken, and very glad that the mistake didn’t end in a bad way… for both of us. What will yoube doing about it?”

  “Having admitted the mistake, and the mistake not having ended in a bad way, nothing. We will forget about that little episode, and concentrate on matters of greater importance. Now light your pipe and be easy. As you urged me to do, take your time.”

  “Thatbe very kind of you, Mr Rawlings, sir. What I done was inthinkin ’ for others. Now I can see what an old fool I was. Ah me! ’Tis a sad thing that the Lord thrashes those He loves, and if you would spare ’emall you can, I’m sure your reward in the hereafter would be certain.”

  “If you refer to the innocent, Mr Penwarden, I have known many instances when the police have striven to lessen the suffering of innocent persons occasioned by the guilty,” Bony said, quietly. “After all, we policemen are ordinary men. We are fathers and sons or brothers. We uphold the law, and try to do so impersonally, and the older we become, so are we the more inclined to be sympathetic, even to the criminal, who is, of course, suffering an illness of the mind.”

  Penwarden puffed vigorously at his pipe without speaking, till he put the pipe down on the bench and heaved a sigh. The unwrinkled face was gaining a little of its normal pinkness, and the hands were less agitated. Bony waited patiently, his mind sponged clean of rancour, and presently the old man spoke.

  “Itwere Fred Ayling who told me about you finding their old cave, and then telling me you must be a friend of the man they found dead in the Lighthouse. That man had Eldred Wessex in his clutches. Fred warned me against you, and I sharpened my wits and put two and two together. I happened to see you going into Moss Way’s campt’othernight, and I sneaked close and heard him and you talking. You played him well, and I come to be sure about you. Now I’m sad at heart, Mr Rawlings, sir, that I gave you such a fright.

  “I’ll have to go back a long way to the time I came here as a lad with nothing but the strength in me arms and back. In them days, Eli Wessex was a mere boy, and Tom Owen wasn’t born. No one hereabout had much money, and to journey to Melbourne was a big thing to do.

  “In course of time, we all took wives and sired children, and we never hadno quarrels like most neighbours have. When the present Lake’s father and mother came to take up land, we helped ’emto their feet. When the fires came and burned the Owens out, we set ’emup again. When the present Lake broke his leg, Tom Owen bossed the lads and seen to it they did their work. All of us did our best to be upright and God-fearing.

  “Itwere Eli Wessex’s father who set me up as w
heelwright and undertaker. He advanced me a hundred pounds, and when I was able to repay the debt he was dead, and Eli wouldn’t take the money… wiped out the debt, saying I’d already paid it in service.

  “My sons grew up before Eldred and Dick Lake and Fred Ayling, and it was Eli who had ’emover to his place and read and talked to ’emand set their feet firmly on the road. To this day, my sons haven’tforgot Eli, and what Eli did for ’em.

  “Then came up Eldred, with Dick and Fred, and Eli did for them what he did for my boys. Boys are boys, and the generations don’t change ’em. There’s no difference between boys and young horses. They like to show off. They wants to be men before their whiskers sprout, and when their whiskers do grow long enough to shave off, most of ’emquiet down and get a bit of sense. My sons did. So did Dick Lake, in his own way, and Fred Ayling in his.

  “But Eldred, he never got sense, never got past the showing off stage, never took in anything from his father. Several times before the war, a policeman came to find where Eldred was, and to tell Eli and his wife that, if they didn’t put a brake on him, he’d find himself in gaol. All of us thought that the Army would tame him.

  “He never went to America after the war. He never came home neither. Said he was trying to make good before he came home. I know he didn’t make good, ’coshe wrote asking me for money, and saying I was not to tell his parents about it.

  “I sent him the money to Sydney. It was a fairish bit, too. A couple of months after that he wrote for more, and more I sent him, thinking about that hundred pounds I never repaid his grandfather. When he wrote for the third time asking for money, I refused him. It was only the other day that I learned that his mother used to send him money, and even Dick Lake did.

  “And then one morning Dick Lake popped in here to tell me that Eldred was coming home. He’d had a telegram from Eldred saying he’d be arriving at Geelong that veryday, and Dick planned to meet him and take him home to give Eli and his wife the surprise of their lives. Dick borrowed Eli’s car and went up to Geelong, but he didn’t come back that day, or the next day till ten that night.