An Author Bites the Dust

by Arthur W. Upfield

  He hoped he was acquitting himself well, because his mind was unsettled by the framed portraits that covered the whole of one wall of this luxurious room.

  Mrs Blake evidently noted this distraction, for she said, “I see you are interested in my friends, Mr Bonaparte. Let me introduce them to you.”

  They rose, and she led him to the end of the gallery nearest the door. Ella Montrose wheeled the trolley out of the room, closing the door after her, and Mrs Blake continued talking, more vivacious in manner and warmer in voice.

  The pictures were not of the same size, but the frames were uniform in size and of the same wood. They were spaced along three rows, and there must have been more than forty.

  “I am, Mr Bonaparte, more liberal in my views than was my late husband and Mrs Montrose,” Mrs Blake told him. “That man, for instance, had published nine novels and two volumes of verse when he died a few years ago. His name was Edwardes. He wrote very well, but just failed to make the grade. Actually, he wrote better novels than Mr Wilcannia-Smythe is doing, but it is said of Mr Wilcannia-Smythe that his prose is exquisite in balance and rhythm. The next portrait is of Mrs Ella Montrose. Her work is much appreciated by the discerning, and we are still expecting her to produce the Great Australian Novel.”

  Bony was introduced to Professor Zadee and Mr Xavior Pond as “powerful friends of Australian literature”. Mrs Blake discoursed on several others, men and women who were revealing “great promise”. Then he was looking at a picture of the late Mervyn Blake, whom he recognized from the pictures of the man contained in the official file.

  There was something about this picture that disturbed him. Mrs Blake spoke of her husband’s novels and literary work in general. “He was the acknowledged premier critic in Australia,” she told him, and still the picture disturbed him. For one thing it appeared to be in the wrong position in this gallery, and the thought occurred that Blake should have the place beside Wilcannia-Smythe and Mrs Montrose.

  Then he was being introduced to Dr Dario Chaparral, and the Blake picture passed from his mind.

  “Dr Chaparral visited this country early last year,” Mrs Blake said. “He stayed with us for a little while. A charming man, he spoke English fluently—which was fortunate for us, as he is a Colombian.”

  “I have read his book, The Literature of the Western Pacific Peoples,” Bony confessed, for the first time feeling himself on firm ground. “I thought it a very sound piece of work. Miss Chesterfield commended it to me.”

  “Indeed! Yes, Dr Chaparral’s study was well done, although perhaps he might have been a little less conservative in his final judgments. He could well have been more generous to little Twyford Arundal here. If it were not for a slight weakness, I could confidently predict that Twyford Arundal will become Australia’s greatest poet of all time.

  “There is Mr Martin Lubers,” Mrs Blake went on. “He is a great friend, and he has done a very great deal in his own sphere to assist the growth of public appreciation of our literature. Often we need a check upon our vanities, and Mr Lubers provides the check. A country’s literature, you will agree, is a plant that must feed on the spirit of its people, and become deep-rooted in the generations of its writers. We in Australia have been inclined to force the plant to grow in accordance with our pet ideas, and therefore it tends to become a hybrid. Mr Lubers, being a Director of Wireless Talks, is distinctly valuable to the growth of our literature.”

  They went on from picture to picture, every one of which was autographed. There were forty-three altogether. They came to the picture of a man who was a poor imitation of the late G.K. Chesterton, even to the black ribbon attached to the pince-nez. He was introduced as Mr Marshall Ellis, and passed by to come to Nancy Chesterfield.

  “Miss Chesterfield is a beautiful woman,” Bony commented.

  “And a very talented one, Mr Bonaparte,” supplemented Mrs Blake. “Nancy has always been a powerful supporter of Australian writers. She has done more, perhaps, than anyone else to bring our writers to the notice of the public.”

  They were coming to the end of the gallery, and Bony thought it strange that literary people did not possess a particular cast of countenance like army officers, naval men, and churchmen. Those before whom he had passed had no common denominator. The pictured Americans, Europeans, South Americans, and Australians would have been of interest to any criminologist had they been included in a Rogue’s Gallery. Standing a little back, he wondered which of them had murdered Mervyn Blake.

  Mrs Montrose came in, and he sensed a subtle change in his hostess. Mrs Blake reverted to that shade of stiffness he had felt on first meeting her, and the absurd thought entered his mind that she had revealed to him a side of her character never revealed to her friends. Mrs Montrose once again examined him with her fine eyes, seemingly trying to probe into the inner recesses of his mind.

  “I do wish you would come to our next literary meeting on the twenty-fifth of the month, Mr Bonaparte,” she said. “So many people would like to meet you. May I send you a little note of reminder?”.

  “The twenty-fifth!” he murmured. “I’m not sure, but it is unlikely that I shall be in Victoria on that date. However, if I should be, I’d be delighted.”

  As they gravitated towards the door, Bony made another comprehensive examination of the picture gallery. The feeling that there was something not quite in order returned strongly to him.

  In the hall, he said, “Permit me to offer my sympathy in your bereavement, Mrs Blake. There are other novels by your late husband I have not yet read. It will be a pleasure tinged with sadness. If it is at all possible, I’d very much like to have a portrait of him for inclusion in my book.”

  Mrs Blake smiled wanly.

  “I appreciate your kindness, Mr Bonaparte, as my husband would certainly have done. I’ll try to find a picture for you. The last time he sat for his portrait must have been at least ten years ago.”

  They accompanied him to the shaded porch and appeared reluctant to let him go, these two handsome women with their dark eyes and positive personalities. They shook hands with him, and smilingly bade him au revoir, and he heard them speaking of flowering shrubs as he walked along the well-kept driveway to the front gate.

  Sid Walsh reached it first, opened it, and they passed out together.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Further Donations

  Smilimg oilily, Mr Sidney Walsh closed the gate after Bony and proceeded to walk with him to the corner and the main road.

  “Bit cooler today,” he observed, the watery brown eyes craftily assessing. “Good day, any’ow, for a guts-shudderer.”

  “Meaning?”

  “A drop of the doings, a deep noser, a snifter, a Jack London, a gargle, a lady’s waist, a corpse reviver, and so on and so on,” replied the casual gardener. “I am myself partial to guts-shudderer, meaning what used to be called whisky but what’s coloured metho.”

  “Ah! But I understood that one of your complaints against the Government is the limited output of beer.”

  “Beer’s easier to say than guts-shudderer.”

  “I incline to agreement,” Bony said, finding the change from one strata of society to another somewhat jarring. “Have you finished work for the day?”

  Walsh changed the old suitcase he carried from his left to his right hand. He dragged his left foot just a fraction, making a soft noise as the boot scraped over the loose surface of the sanded footpath.

  “I’ve finished work for a long time,” he said, slowly. “Made up me mind about it today. I’ve got a bit sunk here and there and I’m now going to retire, sort of. One thing, I won’t have to pay no ruddy income tax.”

  “For most people that will happen to them only in the next world.”

  “I mean to make it happen in this one.” Walsh spat and did not miss the fly on the fence of the vacant allotment. They turned left at the corner and proceeded down the main road, Bony’s destination being Miss Pinkney’s garden gate. Never could the c
harge of snobbery be levelled against him, but he hoped that Miss Pinkney would not see him in the company of his derelict. There was neither the superiority nor the inferiority complex in Sid Walsh’s make-up.

  “What about a drink?” he said.

  Against his inclination, Bony accepted the suggestion and five minutes later they were occupying a quiet lounge. With Bony’s money, Walsh went away to the bar, and Bony gazed with idle curiosity at the old suitcase that had so often necessitated a change of hands. Picking it up, he found it quite heavy. Walsh returned, wiping his lips with the tip of his tongue, indicating that he had got in ahead of his fellow debauchee.

  They wished each other luck, without meaning it, and Bony suggested refills, the suggestion being accepted with an eagerness a trifle pathetic. Seated in an old chair, Bony’s mind travelled erratically until it alighted on the long wall upon which hung three rows of portraits. What was wrong with that picture of Mervyn Blake?

  Walsh returned with the filled glasses, and sat down.

  “Been living here long?” Bony inquired.

  “Twenty odd years.”

  “Did you work for the people who lived in Mrs Blake’s house before she took it?”

  “Too right, I did. Old Ben Thornton owned that place. You interested in the property?”

  “I’d like to buy it if I could,” replied Bony.

  Walsh regarded Bony with distinct respect.

  “You couldn’t,” he said. “The Blakes had a lot done to it. Still, you don’t know what Mrs Blake might do about it. You asked her?”

  “Oh no,” Bony said quickly. “Don’t you mention it, either.”

  “Me! I’m the most secret bloke in the ’ole of Orstralia. ’Ave another?”

  “At my expense.”

  When Walsh was again absent, Bony leaned back and closed his eyes to recreate the picture of the portraits on the daffodil-tinted wall. They were arranged so symmetrically, and there was something wrong with them.

  He was finding the problem tantalizing when Walsh returned, to sit down and look intently over his glass, and to say, “That Mervyn Blake was a funny sorta bloke. Up today and down termorrer. Some days he wouldn’t say good day, and the other days he was all over a bloke—when he wanted me to buy an extra bottle for him.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “Ya. Mrs Blake uster scream at him for drinkin’. He’d go off the guts-shudderer for weeks at a time, and when he was on it he was on it and made no bones about it, if you know what I mean. Then he’d get me to buy a few extras on the quiet. Brandy it was, and it would be me to get rid of the bottles so’s she wouldn’t know about ’em.”

  “She wore the trousers?”

  Walsh shook his head and gazed into his empty glass.

  “No, she didn’t wear the trousers,” he said, without looking up. “He was man enough to stand up to her. The drunker he was the calmer he was. Without raisin’ his voice he’d tongue-lash her from here to Young and Jackson’s. Ever been in there? Grand pub and all. He’d use words I never even heard of, tellin’ her she was makin’ herself cheap and lowerin’ herself to be popular, just to feed her un’oly vanity.

  “Any’ow—pity they uses such small glasses these days. Good, hefty pint-pots is one of the four ’undred freedoms we been robbed of.”

  With renewed interest in life, he left Bony for the bar, and on his return took up the conversation where he had broken it off.

  “Any’ow, he took pretty good care to plant his empties for me to collect and dump in an old gravel pit back of my place. A few times he forgot where he did plant ’em, and the last time he forgot was just before he rattled the pan. Once I found three of ’is bottles under a japonica. Another time I found a bottle and a glass, and a—no, that wasn’t it. It was two bottles and a glass. I found ’em buried near the front gate.”

  Mr Walsh wiped his eyes with what once might have been a handkerchief. He looked at Bony suspiciously, and Bony suggested a refill.

  When again he came shuffling in, Bony said, “He must have been drunk to bury a glass with his empties.”

  “Blind all right,” Walsh agreed. “In all me days I never seen a bloke stand up to it like he did. If you seen him coming like a parson to a funeral you could bet he was as drunk as Chloe.”

  “When was it he buried the glass?”

  “When was it? Lemme think. The Melbun Cup was run on the Toosdee. It was on the Fridee before. No, it wasn’t. It was the Fridee after, because there was a policeman in plain clothes muckin’ around the place tryin’ to prove that Mervyn Blake was short circuited, sort of. He was short circuited, all right.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Poison.”

  “Oh! Sure?”

  “Too true. Poison outa a bottle, a brandy bottle, dozens of brandy bottles. Hundreds. Boy, oh boy! What a death! And here’s me can’t even get a bit giddy on this guts-shudderer.”

  “Better try again,” urged Bony, and for the seventh time, Walsh tried again. When he had lowered the tide once more, Bony yawned and said without interest in his voice, “You didn’t throw the glass into the gravel pit, did you?”

  “I did not,” Walsh replied with indignant emphasis. “It was a real cut-glass tumbler. Throw that away! I got it home right now.”

  “That was a find, all right. Use the glass at all?”

  “Ya. I puts me false teeth in it at night. Never use a glass for drinkin’ except in a pub.”

  “One way of employing a find. How did you get on when Blake wanted to give you a drink?”

  Without any fault in articulation, Walsh said, blinking at his interrogator, “He was a card, that Blake bloke. I’d be doin’ a bit of weedin’ or a bit of diggin’, and he’d come along and sort of pass me casual like, and say in a whisper, ‘In me writin’-room, Sid.’ Or it might be, ‘In the garridge.’ And then I’d let him get well ahead and sorta follow him careless like after I takes a decko to see where his old woman was. When I caught up to him, he was all set and we’d have a couple of drainers.”

  “Drainers!” echoed Bony, and Mr Walsh grinned.

  “Ya. Drinks what goes down without swallerin’.”

  Bony chuckled. “Two more drainers,” he said. “And then I’m going home.”

  “Pretty good ’ome, too,” remarked Mr Walsh, standing at the door, the glasses in his shaking hands. He winked, evilly, and added, “When you gets the chance, you have a look round for Miss P’s little store. She’s got some whisky there somewheres what was never bottled in Orstralia. Musta been some what her brother brought ashore.”

  Mr Napoleon Bonaparte was determined that the next drink was to be the last, and so far he had not arrived at his objective.

  “They used to have plenty of company, didn’t they?” he asked over the last glass.

  “Ya, plenty,” replied Walsh. “All sorts. All la-de-da stuckups, too.”

  “They tell me they often played ping-pong.”

  “When they ’ad guests, most of the time. Blake, he never played. Reckoned he couldn’t see the ball.”

  “What did you have to do? Pick up the balls?” Bony asked lightly.

  “I’d have to find ’em,” replied Walsh. “I was always ’untin’ for ping-pong balls. Why, I remember about a year ago spending all of three days doing nothink else. They had a champeen stayin’ there. Brought his own balls. Thought they was made of gold or somethink by the way Mrs Blake made me hunt for ’em. I seen Mr Pickwick playing with one, but I didn’t say anythink about it. They could afford to lose a ball now and then. ’Ave another?”

  “No, thanks. I’m finished. You ought to be, too.”

  “I am,” Walsh agreed with astonishing alacrity. “It’s me for a hard-earned feed. I’m goin’ your way.”

  It was unfortunate for Bony that Mrs Blake was accompanying Ella Montrose to the railway station, and that they passed them before he could part from the friendly Mr Walsh. Both ladies recognized his salutation with frigid smiles which did not include the said Mr
Walsh, who eventually parted from Bony at Miss Pinkney’s gate with a loud, “Hooroo! See you again some time.”

  Throughout dinner, and afterwards, Bony’s mind constantly reverted to the little problem concerning Mrs Blake’s picture gallery, and he was still thinking about it when he entered the police station at half past eight that evening.

  Mrs Farn might have climbed high had she married a Napoleon Bonaparte, or an author with social ambitions. She welcomed Bony with smiling eyes and the confidence of a woman able to live outside herself, and at once took him to her small lounge and there introduced him with formality to Miss Ethel Lacy.

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” the girl said, and Bony still liked her voice. “Mrs Farn’s been telling me all about you, and I’m just thrilled to bits at meeting an author.”

  “I hope that Mrs Farn hasn’t been giving away too many of my secrets, Miss Lacy,” Bony said over their clasped hands. “As a sister-in-law, she is sometimes a little trying. She has been telling me about you, too, so we may have to join forces in mutual defence.” He sat down and leant forward to gaze at Red-head as though all the thrills were his. “I’m not a famous author, you know, and you have met a number of really famous writers. I do wish you would tell us something about them, what they are like, what they talked about and what they ate. What did you think of poor Mervyn Blake?”

  “He reminded me of the feeling I had when I saw a fat spider inside a daffodil,” Red-head asserted, giving a very prettily excited shrug. “He was all right, you know. Nothing sexual, or anything like that. Always a thorough gentleman. But the spider had a horrid look of being satisfied with itself, and Blake had a look like that. He was clever all right. Could talk about anything under the sun.”