Sunday
“WHAT’S TO be our next move?” Bony asked, when Sloan had gone. The sergeant had pushed his notes aside and was loading his pipe.
“Concentrate on those unescorted women. One of them must have done it.”
“We’ll winnow, Crome. There were four tables at which sat sixteen people-fourteen women and two men. Sloan knew the two men and nine women. We have their names and addresses. The remaining five women were not known to Sloan, so we will concentrate on them. Or rather I will, because you and your men have much to do. Leave Mrs Wallace to me.
“I’m sorry to push the routine work on to you, but it must be done. Being Saturday and already late, and many people at the cinema, we’ll both start in earnest in the morning. You check up on those people known to Sloan, with the exception of Mrs Wallace, ask if they remember a woman with a blue handbag having red drawstrings, and at the same time get their background. You may find a lead connecting them with either Goldspink or Parsons.”
“Seems the next move,” agreed Crome.
“Then on Monday put your gang on to all chemists and wholesale stores and check up on their sales of cyanide. It was done before, but it must be done again. You yourself, visit every mine where cyanide is used in the extraction of gold or for other purposes, and check on that source of supply. You sent Abbot to fine-comb Gromberg’s house?”
“Yes, sir. Ought soon to be back.”
“I’m reminded that I have to send a report through the Super to Sydney. Must avoid interference. Don’t permit the public reaction to worry you. The Super is the man to take all that. It’s what he’s paid for. Your job, and mine, is to unearth this poisoner.”
“Be less worrying if we could get a clear lead,” grumbled Crome.
“We have several leads.”
“Well, that blue handbag with red strings can’t be called-”
“The good investigator deals with items, such as that handbag. Through them he can understand the quarry’s motives and uncover his identity.
“This unfortunate Hans Gromberg is a part of what is now certain to be a pattern. He was a bachelor. He was elderly. He was a robust eater and a hard drinker. Like Goldspink, but unlike Parsons, he was a generous man. Are those three victims highlights of the pattern because they were unmarried, or because they were elderly, or because they were elderly bachelors, or because they were robust, or careless feeders? Or did each one of them represent a hated figure of one man?”
“What’s careless eating got to do with it?” asked Crome. “A dried-up spinster could go barmy and have a dead set against old bachelors. Read of a case like that some time or other.”
“What is your reaction to the man who slops his food and his front is stained and greasy?”
“Disgust.”
“How much more so would an old spinster be disgusted?”
“Then you think the three common factors make a picture of the three murder victims as one, in a mind hating like hell?”
“That is what I am inclined to think,” answered Bony. “The shop assistant told me that Goldspink’s waistcoat was food stained. The waitress told me that Parsons’s clothes were stained with food. And I saw that the waistcoat worn by Gromberg was similarly soiled. So you see-we have progressed.”
“Then we have to look for a ratty old maid?”
“Yes and no. I feel that we can be confident that the poisoner is a woman. We may, of course, have to alter these theories. We can find no link between Goldspink and Parsons, but we may discover a link between Gromberg and Goldspink or Parsons. Mrs Robinov benefited fromGoldspinks ’ death, but no one did from Parsons’s death. As illustration: should we find that Mrs Robinov is to benefit under Gromberg’s will, then we would with reason assume that she is clever enough to have poisoned old Parsons to make the motive appear as though emanating from the brain of a near-insane woman-which she is not. In history there has been a series of murders done to hide the motive for killing a particular person.”
The sergeant pounced.
“Near insane?” he exclaimed. “Can anyone be near insane?”
“Oh yes, Crome, yes, of course. Our asylums are full of the partially insane. Some never enter an asylum, not being ill enough and their relatives willing to care for them. Others fall into a distinct category. They suffer from what is called progressive insanity, eventually compelling the authorities to certify and confine. Of all the ills to which mankind is subject, initial insanity is the hardest to detect.
“I’ll go back one step. If through Gromberg’s murder we find that greed, or jealousy, or ambition is the motive, then we look for a sane and clever murderer. If, on the other hand, Gromberg’s murder links in no one respect with those of the others to give us a motive, then we must look for the near-insane person possessed of intense hatred of elderly, slovenly bachelors.”
Crome sighed. Seriously he said:
“Well, I’m just an ordinary ruddy policeman. I can pinch drunks and keep vice in check. Stillman’s another policeman. He can wage war with gunmen and pinch men who cut the wife’s throat because she nags, or is mucking about with another man, or because he wants a clear field to marry another woman. I can deal with those sorts of murders too. When it comes to these near-insane killings, I’m stonkered. Andso’s Stillman and the Super.”
The tacit admission did more for Bony than Crome was ever to know.
“One must be patient and refuse to be sidetracked,” Bony said. “And now I must write my report for the Super. You go home to bed.”
“Can’t. Must wait to see what Abbot brings in.”
Crome left the room and Bony brought his mind to composing his report, knowing that to achieve freedom of action he would have to write in a manner divorced from his verbal bouts with superiors. The task occupied him an hour, and on his way out to return to his hotel he met Crome again.
“Abbot found nothing like poison in Gromberg’s house,” he told Bony. “He did find a set of diaries, and he read back for the last six months and couldn’t find a link with either Parsons or Goldspink. Found a will, too, dated a year ago. The will leaves everything to a nephew in New Zealand. Doesn’t say how much.”
“Thanks! Put a man on routine investigation into Gromberg’s background. I’m going to bed.”
It was not particularly late when Bony turned in, but he slept till nine next morning, then rang for Sloan, asking the steward to be generous and fetch him a breakfast tray. It was eleven when he left the hotel and, without difficulty, found a taxi.
Sunday morning, and Argent Street deserted save for men supporting veranda posts, some of them having coursing dogs in leash and most of them talking sport. The famous street was silent, and the silence was emphasised by noise of the mine machinery which, although reduced, never stops.
The car carried Bony down Argent Street, turned to cross the railway and pass the Trades Hall, where so much of local history has been made, turned again to skirt one of the two railway terminals, and proceeded along what was formerly a low ridge, enabling Bony to see the broken hill and what man had done to it.
Even the brazen sky lookedSundayish, and the spiralling smoke and spurting steam about the mine heads pretended to be taking this day off-or wanting to.
Finally the taxi stopped before a small house set close behind a peeling picket fence. The driver was asked to wait, and Bony passed through where once a gate had been, and mounted two steps to the front door.
In answer to his knock the door was opened by a girl of school age, who said her mother was at home. She left him standing at the open doorway, and he heard her shouting:
“Hi, Mum, a gent wants to see you.”
A woman’s voice: “Blast! Tell him to wait. Iain’t dressed yet. What’s he look like?”
“A-ah, just a man. Got his best clothes on.”
As though this conversation could not possibly have reached the caller, the girl reappeared, to say that her mother wouldn’t be long. Again the deserted Bony stood on the porch, this time for ten minutes, when a figure in a voluminous house-gown of lollipop-pink confronted him.
“Pardon my disarray,” she said genteelly. “Hate being rushed on a Sunday morning. What is it?”
“I’m from the Detective Office, Mrs Wallace. Wally Sloan told me you might be in a position to help us in a certain matter.”
Mrs Wallace was fifty, amazingly blondish, and her hastily applied ‘Morning-Glory’ make-up was somewhat misty.
“Blimey! You don’t say,” she said. “Come in.” Bony was taken to the front parlour, a place of signed photographs, bric-a-brac, cushions, and a velvet lounge suite. “Right about Gromberg, then?”
“You have heard?”
“That old Gromberg died in the Western Mail, sudden-like? What did he die of-Mr-Sergeant-Inspector?”
“Inspector. Mr Gromberg died of cyanide.”
“You don’t say!” Mrs Wallace settled herself comfortably. This was going to be good-not to be hurried. She lifted up her voice and screamed: “El-sie!”
“Yes, Mum!” shouted the girl from somewhere at the rear.
“You made that coffee yet, luv?”
“Yes. You want it now?”
“What’d you think? Bring an extra cup for the gentleman.” To Bony she said placidly: “Getting serious, isn’t it?”
“The poisonings, yes. Sloan told me that you left the lounge at the Western Mail Hotel only a few minutes before Gromberg took up his glass of beer, drank it, and immediately died. The glass had last been filled about twenty minutes past five and he emptied it at twenty minutes to six. You left, as far as Sloan remembers, at five and twenty to six.”
“Yes it was about half past five. Mrs Wallace raised a hand to warn him of the approach of the girl. Self-consciously she carried a silver-plated tray covered with a lace cloth and bearing cups and saucers, sugar, hot milk, and a coffee pot. The mother swept knick-knacks off a small table to make room for the tray, and the girl departed. Mrs Wallace then produced a bottle of brandy, smiled at Bony, poured a liberal portion into one cup, and presented him with the bottle.
“All yours,” she told him. “Went to a ‘do’ last night. Got an awful itchy throat.”
Bony voiced appreciation of the coffee but declined the brandy.
“Where you sat in the lounge you could see everyone and watch everyone entering and leaving, couldn’t you?”
“You bet,” agreed Mrs Wallace. “I likelookin ’ at people.”
“Do you often spend a few minutes there?”
Mrs. Wallace chuckled, and the bosom reminded Bony of the groundwork of Mrs Robinov’s pearls.
“More like a couple of hours, Inspector. I go there mostSatdee afternoons. Only little pleasure I get these days. Used to work in a bar one time, y’know. I like the atmosphere.”
“It’s because you are used to bars and lounges that I am hoping you can give me one or two pointers.” Bony sipped his coffee. “The little girl can certainly brew coffee.”
“Too right, I’m teaching her to be refined. Sing out when you want another cuppa. You wassayin ’?”
“On leaving your table for the front door, you had to pass behind Mr Gromberg, didn’t you?”
“I had to, yes.”
“Did you notice how much beer was then in his glass?”
“I fancy I did. Being a barmaid, I can tell beer at a glance, and you’vesorta brought it to my mind. Gromberg’s glass, I’d say, was a bit over half full. I remember thinking as I walked out that the beer served to Gromberg was a bit off, and I couldn’t get it because my beers had been OK. The beer in Gromberg’s glass was cloudy, and I said tomeself in the street that it was the first time I’d seen cloudy beer at the Western Mail.”
The woman’s eyes grew small, and her large mouth pursed in an expression of genuine horror.
“That cloudiness! You don’t think-”
“And don’t you, Mrs Wallace,” Bony urged. “Let’s have these times straight. Wally Sloan last filled Mr Gromberg’s glass at about twenty past five, and you left the lounge at twenty-five to six. Can you remember who left after twenty past five and before you did?”
Mrs Wallace frowned as though Bony had made an indelicate remark. She continued to frown as she filled Bony’s cup and added brandy to her own.
“Several people went out-mostly women from my end of the lounge. The party next to me left just before I did.”
“Did you happen to see these people pass Mr Gromberg? They would all have to pass at his back, wouldn’t they?”
“They’d all have to do that, the way he was sitting. I’d seen some of ’emthere beforeyesterdee. That’s funny! The party sitting next to me was a queer one. I spoke to her twice, and she never said nothing, so I didn’t bother. Drank ginger ale, too. First of all I thought she was there waiting for a man to turn up. Then I reckoned that couldn’t be as she wasn’t the sort to be waiting anywhere for a man.”
“Can you recall if she passed particularly close to Mr Gromberg?”
“No closer than need be,” replied Mrs Wallace. “I thought she knew the woman sitting my side of Gromberg and with her back to the passageway. Just as she got to this woman she put out her hand as if she was going to touch her, thensorta altered her mind and went on past Gromberg. She never put her hand near Gromberg’s glass. I’d swear to that.”
“Just now you said this woman was a queer one. What was queer about her?”
“Well, she drank ginger ale in a pub lounge, for one thing. There was another thing. She didn’t want to talk to me-not that I pressed her. Them that’s independent can be, far as I’m concerned. Looked to me like she’d never been in a pub before and wasexpectin ’ to meet the devil any time.
“Old-maidish. You know, you can tell ’em. She didn’t wear aweddin ’ ring, but that’s neither here nor there these days. This one was about fifty and got up to be thirty. Some of ’emare pretty good at it, but they don’t pull no wool over May’s eyes.
“Then there was her handbag. Kept it on her lap all the time and fumbled to get at her purse, and Wally waiting for his money and people yelling for more drinks. Once she nearly knocked her ginger ale all over her dress, what shemustar kept in lavender. It was blue and white, and I haven’t seen thatsorta silk for years. And do you know what I got a peep of in her handbag? I’ll tell you. It was a baby’s dummy.”
“A baby’s dummy!” echoed Bony.
“A baby’s dummy. I seen the thing, I tell you. Pale brown rubber teat like beer. I hate ’em. Never give my kids them filthy things. Poor little mites. They trail all over the floor, with the cat playing with ’emand the dog licking ’em. And then the fond mother picking it up and stuffing it back into the little rosebud of a mouth-flies, dirt, spit, and all. The only thing a baby should have to suck is a good big clean mutton bone. No meat on it, of course-not at the start.”
“What kind of handbag was it?” came the inevitable question.
“Handbag! Blue, I think. The old drawstring sort. Red drawstrings they was. Now what would a baby’s dummy be doing in a virgin’s handbag? You tell me that, Inspector.”
As Mrs Wallace expected an answer, Bony murmured:
“It’s beyond me. Would you know the woman again?”
“I certainly would.”
“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll show you some pictures I have out in the taxi.” He was back under the minute, and Mrs Wallace looked at Artist Mills’s work and slowly shook her head.
“No, she wasn’t anything like them women,” she said in a manner precluding any doubt. “The handbag looks like the one, though.”