‘I hope you enjoyed the party,’ he said.
‘Real nice do,’ said Merv, in his surly way.
‘We must do it more often,’ said Wickham, with a mental shudder in the direction of Lucy.
‘Beaut idea,’ said Merv.
There was silence. Somehow they never found much to say to each other.
‘Better be getting up the hill for the lecture,’ said Wickham, dragging heavily on his cigarette.
He fetched his gown, and started up to the lecture-room, chatting with such members of his staff as were around about the previous evening. He was, as always, completely unembarrassed about his own or Lucy’s delinquencies as hosts. Probably they had already passed completely out of his mind. Quite a short period of time enabled him to throw a haze of conviviality over the dreariest or most disastrous occasions. So he chatted on quite unself-consciously as he walked with Merv and Bill Bascomb up the hill. It was only when he stood in the doorway to the lecture-theatre and surveyed the rather thin assembly there that a thought struck him. He turned around to his little band of followers:
‘Where’s Belville-Smith?’
Everyone looked at him.
‘Didn’t anyone go and get him?’ asked Wickham, with his familiar gesture of banging his fist against his forehead.
‘We thought naturally you’d be doing that on your way in,’ said Bill Bascomb.
‘I had a tute. Oh Christ in Hell. Stand at the door, and don’t let any of these students out.’ And throwing a glare at all his staff, as if the negligence was entirely theirs, he hared off down the hill.
‘Mrs McArthur,’ he shouted to the secretary as he went past the office. ‘Phone for a taxi to go to the Yarumba Motel. Why do I have to think of everything?’
He picked up the phone in his room and dialled the motel. He’d have to make it right with the old man. Again.
‘Yarumba Motel? I want to speak to Professor Belville-Smith. At once, please.’
The genteel voice at the other end answered calmly: ‘I’m awfully sorry; Professor Belville-Smith has been found with his throat cut. Is there any message?’
• • •
On the little shelf by the outside wall in the room at the Yarumba Motel occupied by Professor Belville-Smith stood a large and well-filled breakfast tray. Coffee in a little jug, with another little jug of milk and two little paper pouches with sugar; three pieces of toast made from pre-sliced bread, with plastic-packaged portions of butter and marmalade. And a large plate of steak, bacon, sausages and kidneys, with two overdone fried eggs on top. It was not the breakfast Professor Belville-Smith had ordered, but he would never now get a chance to tell them so.
On the bed, pyjamaed, lay the body of the distinguished visiting literary figure. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, and there was a great deal of blood, red blood, over the sheets and the pillows. There was a large red stain on the wall, and another pool on the floor, quite spoiling the nondescript beige carpet. There was nobody to utter the obvious quotation from Macbeth, but sentiments appropriate to the play were not wanting. The cool, tanned receptionist in her tasteful floral print frock looked with mild distaste at the scene from the safety of the doorway, and said: ‘Dreadful to think of it happening in this motel.’
And the motel caretaker, standing by the bed until such time as the police turned up, said: ‘Not a very nice thing to happen anywhere.’
The rebuke went unnoticed.
‘We’ve always tried to have things so nice here, haven’t we?’ the receptionist continued. ‘Never any trouble with the police before, except that case of the manager and that girl under the age of consent, and he hushed that up, though it cost him a packet. Do you think he might be able to hush this up?’
‘Not a hope,’ said the caretaker. ‘Might be if the chap was an Abo, but he’s not.’
Now the receptionist really was shocked.
‘I should think not! Watch your language! An Abo in this motel!’
• • •
‘Hey, Fred!’ shouted the police constable to one of a little ring of sergeants playing whist round a table in the smoky back room of the police station. ‘Call from the Yarumba Motel. They say there’s been a murder.’
‘OK. Tell ’em I’ll be round. Just finish this game.’
‘They say it’s urgent.’
‘Aw, it’ll just be some drunk Abo.’
‘No, it’s not. They said it was some Professor or other. He was staying there.’
‘Some egg-head, eh? OK. Speed it up a bit, Jack. Just finish this hand.’
• • •
‘Isn’t it dreadful,’ said Lucy Wickham with ghoulish pleasure into the telephone. ‘I haven’t got any of the details yet, but as far as I can make out his throat was cut.’
‘Poor old chappie,’ said Mrs Turberville at the other end. ‘Seemed so full of life yesterday, too.’
It was the first time for many decades that Professor Belville-Smith had been described as full of life, and he was not alive to appreciate it.
• • •
The little knot of sergeants and constables stood around the motel bed, with the caretaker looking on. The two sergeants looked at each other regretfully.
‘It’s murder all right, Fred,’ said Sergeant Jack Brady to Sergeant Fred Malone.
‘Looks like it, Jack,’ said Fred.
They both looked towards the caretaker to see if he showed any admiration for their powers of deduction. He seemed, on the contrary, to be repressing a sarcasm.
‘Poor old bugger hardly woke up, I wouldn’t wonder,’ said Sergeant Brady. ‘Doesn’t seem to have put up any fight.’
‘He was about eighty,’ said the caretaker. ‘Would you expect him to do a swift bit of ju-jitsu, swing around from the chandelier, or something like that?’
‘What the hell are you doing here anyway, smart Aleck?’ said Sergeant Brady.
‘Get lost,’ said Sergeant Malone. The caretaker left them reluctantly, as if he thought they might bury the body under the floor-boards, and try and forget the whole thing.
When they were alone, they looked at each other again.
‘It’s murder all right,’ said Sergeant Brady. Sergeant Malone nodded sagely.
‘We’ll have to call Royle, you know.’
‘He’ll be wild.’
‘I know he’ll be wild.’
‘He hates being called when he’s on the job.’
‘I know he does. But what did he give us the phone numbers for? If we can’t phone him when we’ve got a murder on our hands, what can we call him for?’
Sergeant Malone thought for a bit.
‘If he won the lottery?’ he suggested.
‘Come on,’ said Brady. ‘Here’s the list. Wednesday 11.30-12.30. Drummondale 4561. Are you going to phone him, or am I?’
‘You are.’
Sergeant Brady sighed and went towards the reception office.
CHAPTER VII
INSPECTOR ROYLE
THE JOB that Inspector Royle was on was Mrs Winifred Fairweather of 59 Bardell St, Drummondale, and she was just beginning to get excited when the phone rang.
Mrs Fairweather obliged Inspector Royle on Wednesdays at 11.30 with the full permission of her husband, Fred Fairweather, whose only conditions were that the inspector should be out of the house by the time he came home for lunch at one, and that whatever they might do together while he was out should not prevent his lunch being on the table when he came in. These conditions had been scrupulously observed, and the arrangement seemed to suit all parties. Fred Fairweather found it convenient to oblige the police. Not that his activities could in any way be described as criminal; but he had a small removal firm, and it was as well to make sure that the authorities would turn a blind eye to such small details as defective brakes or headlights or — in the case of one of his vans — complete unroadworthiness. So Mrs Fairweather had joined the list which included Mrs Jones (9.30 Mondays), Mrs Randle (2.30 Tuesdays), Mrs Ford (2.00 Thursdays)
and Mrs Beecham (12.00 Fridays). She had replaced a Mrs Westerby, a widow with scruples who had been consigned to outer darkness because Inspector Royle felt she took more time than she was worth. Since Inspector Royle started paying his visits to the Fairweathers, Fred had stopped slipping small sums to one of the constables, so what one was gaining on the roundabouts, another was losing on the swings.
‘Christ,’ said Inspector Royle hoarsely as the phone rang. ‘What a bloody time to ring.’
‘Let it,’ said Mrs Fairweather, putting her fingers around his shoulder-straps.
‘Can’t,’ said Royle. ‘Got a hell of a rocket last time I didn’t answer.’
‘When was that?’ asked Mrs Fairweather. ‘You weren’t with me.’
‘Oh, a long time ago,’ said Royle evasively. ‘Will you go and answer it, Win?’
‘No, I won’t. Do it yourself if you must. Bound to be for you. All my friends know not to ring Wednesday mornings.’
Royle lumbered off the bed and into the hall.
‘Yes,’ he said cautiously.
‘Brady here, sir,’ said the voice.
‘You fucking idiot,’ said Royle, exploding. ‘What the hell do you mean ringing at a time like this? I’ve told you before. You’ve put me right off my stride.’
‘Couldn’t help it, sir. There’s been a murder.’
‘Some blasted black, I suppose.’
‘No, sir. A Professor of some kind. Pommie, I think. On a visit here. We’re at the Yarumba.’
Inspector Royle groaned.
‘Christ in Hell. Not the bloody University mob. OK. I’ll be right over.’
He slammed the receiver down with a force fit to disrupt the instrument and stumped towards the bedroom.
‘Who’d be a bloody policeman?’ he said, making a bad-tempered grab at his trousers.
‘Worse if you was a fireman, I expect,’ said Win, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and pouting a little.
‘Number of bloody murders we get in this place you’d think it was Chicago,’ said Royle, stuffing himself with difficulty into his trousers.
‘Careful with that zip,’ said Win. ‘You don’t want to do yourself an injury.’
Royle took his hat off the chest of drawers, and adjusted it carefully in front of the wardrobe mirror. There might be photographers around, and he could do with some good publicity.
‘Will I see you later — after lunch, say?’ asked Win.
‘Course you won’t. This is a murder not a bloody parking offence.’
‘Who was it then?’ asked Win.
‘Some pommie Professor or other, unless Brady’s got the wrong end of the stick, which he usually does.’
‘English, eh?’ said Win. ‘Not really your business, is it? I mean, him not being an Australian. Couldn’t they send somebody out from Scotland Yard?’
Rosy visions went through Win’s tiny brain of including among her very special friends Inspector Alleyn, or even Lord Peter Wimsey. Royle followed her train of thought.
‘Scotland bloody Yard,’ he said in disgust. And when he went he banged the front door, and failed to achieve the nonchalant manner that he was usually so careful to assume when he left the various houses that he called at during the week.
He strode down the street to the car which he had parked round the corner — a touch more traditional than subtle. He was tall, heavily built, with dull eyes and a permanent midnight shadow. The criminals of Drummondale — about twenty per cent of the population — had a healthy respect for his fists and his boot, and none at all for his brain. But though he did not do a great deal to keep down crime, many people — and not just married women — were glad to have him around. For example he was well-known to the local publicans not only for his huge capacity with the beer glass, but also for his friendly readiness to ring them up before an after-hours raid. The local graziers found him very accommodating, too — but then, those whom they did not find accommodating never lasted long in Drummondale. He had a wife and two little girls in a weather-board house on the outskirts of the town, but mostly he tried to forget about them, and they in their turn tried not to think too much about him either.
He eased himself into the police car, and put the key in the starter. As he drove off he groaned with his whole great body. Some University toff. Just the very worst kind of case. Now, with an Abo, you could just round up some of his friends and neighbours, thump the living daylights out of a few of them, and you’d have someone on a charge in no time. And with the graziers, well, you could come to some sort of amicable agreement. The trouble with University people was that you couldn’t thump them and they couldn’t afford to bribe you. Most of them were so feeble, anyway, that if you tried to thump them they’d collapse in a dead heap on the floor. But in any case, it wasn’t worth it. He’d tried it once when he first arrived, but never again. There had been letters in the Australian and the Nation, questions asked in State Parliament, and a protest meeting organized by the Civil Liberties people. He’d been reprimanded by his superiors for that little lark. True, they’d winked while they did it, but it had gone down on his record, and he’d had to give up the practice entirely for some months. It might even have put back his promotion. No, there wouldn’t be any thumping this time. But then, how else was he to find out who did it?
He drove the police car past the reception office of the Yarumba Motel and over to the doorway which Sergeant Brady was standing in. Some of the other cabins also had people in their doorways, or peering out of their windows, showing that the good news had travelled fast. Royle looked down to see that his dress was properly adjusted, and got heavily out of the car. He looked at Brady vindictively.
‘It’s coming to something, it really is,’ he muttered. ‘When a chap can’t even have a quick naughty without being pestered and . . . Oh my Christ.’
He had brushed past his sergeant into the room, and was now surveying the feeble old body and the bloodstained bed, with the spurt on the wall over the reading light, and the red-brown stain on the carpet. It was the sort of thing that he rather enjoyed on TV, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d come across much in real life. Murders he had known of course, in plenty. He often said proudly that Australia was the country for murders. He’d been on a couple of cases where husbands had found their wives in bed with another man, and done them in; then there was the man who ran down his mother-in-law when she was coming home from a bridge party, only the old monster didn’t die, and recognized the car; and of course there had been several knife fights after the pubs closed. All these had been beautifully clear-cut. Royle knew, instinctively, that this case was going to be different.
‘Well, what have you done?’ he said to the two sergeants, who were watching him with dogged devotion, or something, in their eyes.
‘Well, nothing really, sir. We were rather waiting for you . . .’
‘Christ, you’ll be wanting me to put you on the potty next.’
‘To tell you the truth, sir,’ said Sergeant Brady slowly, ‘we weren’t quite sure what to do.’
They watched him closely. To tell the truth, nor was Inspector Royle sure what to do. One thing was clear. His experience was not likely to come in handy in this case — any more than his usual methods were likely to be useful. He tried to cast his mind back to all those television serials, those Perry Masons and those Mannixes, watched in a haze of beer and post-prandial somnolence.
‘Get on to the station,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll want a doctor and a fingerprint man.’
• • •
Three hours later Royle decided that, surprisingly, they were making progress. He was wondering, in fact, if he might not cut a figure in the national press, perhaps be asked to write a short article for one of the Sundays. True, there had been no fingerprints in the room (devilish cunning of the murderer, that, Royle thought) except those of the victim himself and the cleaning-lady. But he thought he knew how the killer had got in, and that was something.
The motel back
ed on to a vacant block, where the council was proposing to erect a tourist office — happily oblivious to the fact that tourists only went where there was something to see. The bathroom of Professor Belville-Smith’s room looked out on to this block, and had a long, fairly low window, which it would be easy enough to climb into and out of. Some traces of dirt had also been found on the sill. Now this last piece of evidence, which Inspector Royle was particularly proud of, was not exactly conclusive, since the cleanliness of the Yarumba Motel was only of the obvious and superficial kind which is nowhere near godliness, but still it indicated a probability. He could make a good deal of it when he reported to his superiors. Now all that remained to do, he reflected with considerable self-satisfaction, was to find out who it was who had climbed in and out. That was the rub. If any of the police who should have been patrolling the town had noticed anything suspicious of that sort, word would surely have got to him by now. Anyhow he happened to know they had been occupied with a darts marathon at the station, for he had seen the scores all over the walls of the games room when he reported for duty that morning. When they really got involved in something big they tended to forget entirely that they were supposed to be on patrol.
He decided to go and talk to the girl in reception. This was just what she had hoped, since she was meeting her boy-friend that night, and wanted to have all the latest details. She had been following every sign of activity across the courtyard with great interest from her window, but when Royle banged into her office she was sitting decorously at her desk answering correspondence. She had decided that brisk efficiency was the best way of meeting him.
‘Oh, Inspector,’ she said. ‘You’ve finished now, I hope.’
‘Not nearly, miss, not nearly,’ said Royle impressively, sizing her up casually, but not in the light of a suspect.
‘That’s most inconvenient,’ said the girl. ‘Now we won’t be able to let the room tonight.’
‘Christ, woman,’ said Royle, throwing off his majesty-of-the-law pose, and reverting to his usual self in the surprise of finding someone more stupid and insensitive than himself. ‘Are you off your rocker? You won’t be letting that little slaughter-house for quite some time to come, I can tell you that.’
Death of an Old Goat Page 6
