Five Strange Women
HANS GROMBERG, the metallurgist employed at Zinc Corporation, died at twenty minutes to six. From that moment no one was able to leave the lounge. At five minutes to six Bony with Crome and Abbot and other detectives entered by the rear door and took charge.
Familiar with the construction of the Western Mail Hotel, Bony immediately had the smaller lounge cleared of staff and the curious, and the customers, confined in the larger lounge by the prompt action of Sloan and the barman, transferred to it.
There were thirteen men and nineteen women, and police procedure threatened to hamstring Bony. Abbot and another man noted their names, addresses, and occupations. Before this task was completed John Hoadly had arrived and examined the body. To the anxious Bony he said:
“Without an autopsy I can’t be sure, but, just between us, I think it’s cyanide. Not for a million would I drink the dregs in that glass someone said Sloan retrieved.”
“Thanks, Doctor. We’ll have the body in the morgue under the hour. Would you examine it as soon after that as possible?”
“Of course.”
Bony’s smile was wintry. The doctor was conducted through to the back of the building, and the photographer began to work. At a table in that corner near the serving counter Crome was taking down Sloan’s statement, and Bony joined them and smoked a cigarette until the statement was concluded.
“Any leads?” Bony asked the sergeant.
“No, sir.”
“People coming and going all the time, I suppose, Sloan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, we cannot keep these people here longer than absolutely necessary. Come with me.”
Sloan and Crome accompanied Bony to the adjoining lounge, and there Bony asked the steward:
“How many present, do you know?”
Sloan looked over the small crowd, and, to Bony’s surprise, replied:
“Everyone, sir.”
“Name them, please. Check, Abbot.”
Without hesitation, Sloan did so, and Bony then addressed them.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s most regrettable that you should be present this afternoon when Mr Hans Gromberg had a fatal seizure, and that what I am sure was a pleasant afternoon for all of you should be so tragically terminated. Now in view of the fact that it’s remotely possible that Mr Gromberg was poisoned, I am going to ask you to agree voluntarily to be searched before leaving. If Mr Gromberg was poisoned, I am sure the poisoner isn’t here, but you would greatly assist justice by eliminating yourselves from all suspicion. Obviously, if the dead man was poisoned, someone did it, and that someone was in the outer lounge at some time during the period Mr Gromberg was there.”
“Suits me,” a man said, and a woman offered a sound suggestion: “Why not? Two of the barmaids could search us women. Good idea. Old Gromberg was a decent sort.”
All agreed to submit to a search and, as Bony anticipated, not one grain of any poison was discovered. He had done all possible.
It was late when he dined, and when done he sought Sloan.
“Can you recall where your assistant was when Gromberg died?”
“He was serving in the little lounge, sir,” Sloan replied. “He came into my lounge only to get the drinks from the serving counter.”
“Then I won’t bother him now. I’d like you to come along with me to Headquarters. Talk over matters in general.”
“Certainly, sir. I’m only now beginning to sort things out. If old Gromberg was murdered, it’s a ruddy shame. Good-hearted old bloke. Once a month he took lollies and books up to the kids at the hospital. Did it for years.”
“Too bad. Let’s go now.”
Sloan was given a chair in Bony’s office and asked to wait. Crome came in, saw Sloan, nodded. He said nothing when placing a document before the seated Bony.
“Too bad,” Bony said, and Sloan noted the repeated remark. Bony returned the report. “Nothing from the uniformed branch?”
“No, sir. No fingerprints on the glass excepting those of Gromberg and another’s. Expect they were made by Sloan. What about it, Sloan?”
“Take mine when you like.”
“Ask the fingerprint man to come here,” Bony said. “I want to keep Sloan’s mind on the job. Draw up your chair, Sloan, and smoke if you want to. Have those pictures brought to me, Crome.”
The desk phone burred, and a little impatiently Bony took up the receiver.
“That you, Bonaparte? Pavier here. Trot along for a minute, will you?”
“Very well, sir,” replied Bony, and replaced the instrument with a sigh.
“In confidence, Sloan, it was poison-cyanide. When you leave here will you try and find Luke Pavier and persuade him to be as considerate as possible? He won’t be far away. His father’s worried sick.”
“All right, I’ll do that, Inspector. Known Luke since he came to the Hill as a kid. Smart lad, sir. Did right well at the Adelaide University. There’s a lot of good in him.”
“What’s bad in him?”
“Cockiness, chiefly. Mother died ten years back. Sort of upset things.” Sloan attempted a smile, adding: “Young Luke gave Inspector Stillman merry hell in his paper, and I suppose he couldn’t help dragging in his father. I’ll do what I can.”
Bony nodded his thanks as the fingerprint expert entered and was left with Sloan whilst Bony went to see Superintendent Pavier.
At her desk sat Superintendent Pavier’s secretary. It was a quarter to nine. She was engrossed in a document, her forehead resting on the palm of her left hand, a pencil in her right. The fingers were working with a kind of nervous tension, and the pencil appeared to be sliding in and out among them like a snake among tree debris. At Bony’s approach the woman looked up and the pencil vanished.
“You working late tonight, Miss Lodding?”
“Yes, sir. I still have a great deal to catch up with.”
The dark eyes were brilliant, the face a dull white beneath the low-hung light. The voice was tired, but still pleasing to Bony, and she appeared so fatigued as to be ill.
“Better knock off,” he advised smilingly. “Remember you’ve been sick.”
For the second time Bony glimpsed the other woman, and he smiled again and went into Pavier’s room. The Superintendent swung round in his chair to face him.
“Any leads?” he snapped out.
“No, Super. I have the drink waiter at my office now. Crome made his report to you?”
“Yes. You did right in persuading those people to be searched voluntarily.”
“I can recall portions of police procedure,” Bony admitted. “Still determined not to hush up this business?”
“Yes. Can’t do anything else.” Pavier looked as tired as Miss Lodding. “I must report the main facts to Sydney tonight. That’ll mean an invasion again.”
“That will be a pity-the invasion, I mean. Mess it all up. Delay me seriously, so seriously that most likely another unfortunate elderly man will be murdered. Better strongly recommend that poor old Bony be left in peace to finalise thesecyanidings. You see, I have progressed. I do know why these three men were murdered.”
“You do? Why?”
“My little secret. And I have one or two others. I am not sharing them with anyone from Sydney. I shall finalise these cases and hand them over to you all neatly tied up. I have still eight of the fourteen days allotted to me. I have all the assistance I need. No one here wants anyone from Sydney to cramp our style.”
“Neither do I. Damn it, Bonaparte, I’m not complaining. I am only foreseeing.”
“I know that, Super. In your report tonight, why not say you will be posting my report to you by the first airmail out? I’ll flatten them. Now I must go back to work. All right?”
“Yes, Bonaparte, and good luck. We’ll all need that.”
At the door Bony stopped:
“I like your son, Super. We get along very well. More co-operative, in fact, than you have been regarding hushing up the cause of death.”
“He has his job; I, mine. Been a good lad, but we’ve drifted apart somewhat.”
“We can all drift two ways. See you later.”
Bony said nothing to the secretary as he passed through her office, and back in his own he found Crome with Sloan. Crome had the pictures, and Bony set them on a shelf against the wall.
“Ever seen that woman, Sloan?”
The steward settled back in his chair and gazed at the pictures. Then he left his chair to stand nearer to them. On turning to Bony, he shook his head.
“Face is a bit misty, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes. Ever seen that handbag?”
Sloan turned to look at the pictures again, and again he shook his head.
“All right, let’s forget the pictures. Stop fidgeting, Crome. Settle down and smoke, Sloan. Mentally relax. Gromberg and two men entered your lounge about four o’clock, and at twenty minutes to six Gromberg took up his half-emptied glass of beer and drank cyanide with it. You saw the person who added the poison to Gromberg’s beer.”
“Sir!” exclaimed the horrified Sloan.
“You served that person with a drink, probably more than one. According to your statement, you did not leave the lounge whilst Gromberg was there, so you must have seen his murderer. You assured me that you knew every man and woman who was in the lounge at the moment Gromberg drank his poisoned beer, and all those people consented to be searched and were searched for poison. Although we cannot be definite, we can assume that the poisoner left the lounge before Gromberg died. Tell me, and think clearly, when did you fill that glass of beer for Gromberg?”
Sloan took time and Bony waited. Crome sat motionless, contrasting this interrogation with those conducted by Inspector Stillman.
“I think,” said Sloan, “I filled that glass about five twenty-five. It was nearer twenty past five than half past, anyway.”
“Good! Now relax properly this time, Sloan, and recreate that lounge scene at twenty minutes after five. Let me help you. Gromberg sat alone at his table. He occupied a chair bordering the main aisle, to which he had his back. His table was nearest the entrance doors. At the table on his right sat two men and two women, until a third man removed a chair from Gromberg’s table before Gromberg’s two friends left the lounge. The two friends are out because you served Gromberg with beer at least once after they left. Now those five occupying the next table. What about them?”
“Regular customers, all of them. Two men with their wives The odd man’s wife was with another party. The five were included with those searched.”
“When Gromberg died, all the people present you vouched for. About how many people in the lounge were there you couldn’t have vouched for when you served Gromberg with his last drink? Don’t hurry.”
There was a tap on the door, and Bony motioned to Crome to attend to it. Crome spoke with a man in the corridor, came back and placed a report on the desk. Sloan sat with his eyes closed. Bony read:
“Fingerprints on the glass those of the dead man and Walter Sloan.”
Sloan coughed and Bony looked up. The steward’s eyes were open. He said:
“I can’t be sure about the number. The place wasn’t as full as it was half an hour before, some of the men having left for the public bars. There was a party of two men and two women at a table halfway from the front entrance, and several women right back at my end who I don’t remember seeing before.”
“Unattended women?”
“Yes. They seem to like getting as far from the front entrance as possible. I don’t know why.”
“Those several women left before Gromberg died?”
“Must have done. They weren’t there when he died.”
“And when leaving they passed close behind Gromberg?”
“Yes. They’d have to, to reach the front door.”
“Concentrate on them. Did a woman stop, or pause in her progress, at Gromberg’s chair?”
“I didn’t see one, sir,” replied Sloan, and the return of the ‘handle’ indicated returning confidence. “Just a minute, sir.”
Silence, and Bony and Crome waited. Sloan again studied the coloured drawings.
“No, I don’t know her,” Sloan said. “Never saw her. Unattended women! There were a dozen of ’em, at least. And them I knew. Two married women. Three respectable molls. A widow who used to be a barmaid. Woman who runs a frock shop. And a single woman I don’t know what she does. Howmany’s that?”
“Eight,” replied Crome.
“That- There was Mrs Lance, that makes nine. There were five unescorted women I didn’t know. Yes, five.”
“Was one of those five fairly tall, average weight, dark eyes, wearing glasses?”
“Don’t remember. Don’t think so, sir. There was a big woman, grey hair, face like a clock at twenty to four. Drank brandy-neat. There was one all dolled up to kill, kept fiddling with her handbag, wasting my time as she dug out the price of her drinks.”
“That leaves three, Sloan,” murmured Bony. “Concentrate on them. Did one of them wear glasses and look over them at you?”
“No. One was youngish. Drank gin and water-silly fool, at her age. Another time-waster was about fortyish. Dolled up too. She drank ginger ale. And the other was an old dame, short and fat and beery.”
“The time-waster about fortyish. You mean she, too, doodled with the money?”
“Yes. Drank ginger ale.”
“That unusual?”
“ ’Course, sir. Why go to a pub to drink rotgut all by yourself? Cafes are the places for that. Women call for soft drinks in a pub when they’re with a husband or man friend.”
“And this one was all dressed up?”
“Yes, sir. Plenty of powder and paint. Fairly well dressed, I think. Blue and white, and a white hat.”
“Handbag?” prompted Bony.
“Handbag!” Sloan frowned. “Don’t remember. Too many handbags around. Damned nuisance, littering up the tables when I want to set down drinks.”
“Does a blue handbag with red handles register?” pressed Bony.
“No.” Sloan was decidedly despondent. And then he brightened. “I’ll tell you what, sir. Mrs Wallace, who used to be a barmaid, might remember. She sat next to the woman in the blue and white dress.”
“An idea, Sloan. Mrs Wallace! D’you know where she lives?”
Sloan did know, and Crome noted the address, and also the addresses of several of the other women Sloan knew.
“Just where did she sit, the woman in the blue and white dress?” Bony went on.
“With her back to the rear wall, sir.”
“She could see Gromberg all the time?”
“Yes. She went out… I remember now. She left after Mrs Wallace did. She went just before I was asked for four double whiskies. I was waiting for the whiskies at the service bar, when people stopped talking and I turned round to see Gromberg pass out.”
Knowing the wisdom of not tiring a witness, Bony stood up and dismissed the steward, saying.
“You have done remarkably well, Sloan.”