A Stage with Coffee
“THIS IS the life! Be ready in two ticks.”
Mrs Wallace did remarkably well, just under ten minutes, and she settled herself in the back seat of the police car as though off to a civic reception. Seated with her, Abbot talked of the weather.
Meanwhile Bony faced a difficulty with Superintendent Pavier, in whose office sat the woman brought in by two detectives who had worked the trams. The woman was dressed as described by Patrick O’Hara, and her handbag was blue. But the red handles were of thick cord, and the bag was not the drawstring type.
Moreover, the woman readily admitted stopping at the street fountain and patting the unfortunate dog. She gave her name as Sandra Goddard, living with her husband in South Broken Hill, where they conducted a grocery and wood-and-oil store.
“We’ve made a bloomer,” Pavier stonily admitted.
“How old do you think she is?” asked Bony.
“Under forty, I’d say.”
“Any children?”
“Didn’t ask her. Important?”
“Could be. I’d like to see the contents of her handbag. You come along and leave the questions to me.”
On their way, Bony learned from Pavier what information had already been gleaned, and when they entered the Superintendent’s office the new secretary rose from her chair to leave at a nod from her Chief.
Only in figure was Mrs Goddard similar to the woman described by Mrs Wallace, supported by Mrs Lucas. She was certainly not more than forty. Bony was presented as Inspector Knapp, and, having become seated, he proceeded to soothe.
“We are really regretful, Mrs Goddard, at having inconvenienced you,” he said, presenting a box of Bond Street cigarettes.
“Well, it’s a beastly nuisance,” the woman fumed. “Besides being dragged here like a criminal. I don’t know what my husband will have to say about it. Thank you.”
“I do think, Mrs Goddard, that when I’ve explained the circumstances you will forgive us. Could I ask you to treat in strict confidence what I would like to tell you?”
A secret! A secret to a woman is like fish to a starved cat. A favour sought by a debonair, good-looking man with wonderful blue eyes and such a voice! Then Bony smiled, and annoyance vanished.
“Of course, Inspector. I promise.”
“Well, it is this. The dog you petted at the fountain died a few minutes after you left. She drank water from the trough at the foot of the fountain, and the water was poisoned. The owner of the dog is a Mr Patrick O’Hara, who, being fond of the animal, was very aggrieved. He remembered you patting the dog, and we thought you had something to do with its sudden death. An unfortunate mistake, but one brought about by over-zeal. By the way, you live at Number 1 Willow Street, South Broken Hill. In business there, I understand?”
“We are. I manage the grocery store and my husband runs the wood-and-oil business. We’ve been there for eight years now.”
“Family, I suppose?”
“No, we haven’t any children-not living. I had a little boy, but he died when he was two.”
“A sad blow, Mrs Goddard. Being the father of three boys, I can offer sympathy with sincerity. I won’t keep you more than another minute. Would you like to be taken home in one of our cars?”
“It would save time, and my husband will be wanting his dinner.”
“Being a mere policeman,” Bony went on, “there are occasions on which I cannot be a gentleman. Suspicious to the very end, and all that kind of thing. No doubt you have already allied the death of the dog this afternoon with the death of several men.”
“I couldn’t help but do that,” Mrs Goddard admitted, a frown deepening the lines between her eyes.
“I do dislike having to ask you,” lied Bony. “Would you let me look into your handbag?”
Mrs Goddard offered no objection-and the handbag. It was, of course, navy blue. The handles were of red cord, and the bag was fastened by clips. The contents were normal and limited. There was certainly no cyanide-and no baby’s dummy. Bony carefully restored the articles, closed the bag, and proffered it to its owner.
“I am thankful that nasty little suspicion of mine is smashed,” he said smilingly. “And very grateful indeed for your generosity in return for our silly mistake. Permit me to conduct you to the car.”
Superintendent Pavier came round his desk to offer his hand and also expressed his regrets, and Mrs Goddard, obviously mollified, left the office with Bony. In the Public Office they had to pass Mrs Wallace, who, after one swift glance at the navy-blue handbag, said:
“Why, Mrs Goddard! How’s things? Haven’t seen you for ages.”
“How are you, Mrs Wallace? No, I don’t get out much during the day. The shop keeps me tied.”
Bony paused while the women chatted for a few moments and then led Mrs Goddard to the waiting police car drawn up behind that which had brought Mrs Wallace. The driver opened the door. Mrs Goddard smiled, and Bony bowed.
“Aurevoir,” he murmured. “Should I think of any way in which you could assist me, you would call again?”
“Certainly. We are law-abiding citizens, you know,” replied Mrs Goddard. “You’ll find our number in the telephone book.”
Bony stepped back and the car moved off.
When he returned to Mrs Wallace she said conspiratorially:
“That can’t be her, Inspector. I’d have spotted Mrs Goddard in that lounge. She and that woman are the same height, same build, and she’s got the same hennaed hair like that woman. But… But it couldn’t have been Mrs Goddard.”
“You have known Mrs Goddard long?”
“Couple of years, I suppose. Haven’t seen her for six months before today, though. But it couldn’t have been her, Inspector.”
When she had gone, Pavier appeared.
“Hoadly’s analysis proves it was cyanide in that metal cup and on the blotting paper,” he said. “Come home to dinner and talk.”
“Thanks, Super. I’d like to.”
“All right. Car’s at the back.”
“Just how far have you progressed?” Pavier asked when they were on the road. Bony hesitated, and the Superintendent said with strange inelegance: “I won’t cook your pork and beans.”
Bony gave in.
“The oddities are so many that the pattern will not emerge clearly, Super. And with all the forces you have placed at my service I am unable to make it emerge. Two men have been poisoned in the same way. They were both elderly and both unmarried. There is a third similarity, which is that both men were murdered on a Friday afternoon.
“The poisoning of the third man gave much and strengthened confirmation of theories. It gave us a description of a woman who could have dropped cyanide into the man’s beer. Like the first two, the third victim was also unmarried and elderly, but the third man wasn’t poisoned on a Friday afternoon. Finally we have the attempt to poison O’Hara on a Friday afternoon. But O’Hara was twice married. The two common denominators are that those four men are elderly and they are not careful of their clothes when at table.
“Leaving out the O’Hara case, a woman seems to be associated with the three poisonings. In two of those cases we have a particular type of handbag to support the belief. Through a glass darkly, therefore, we see the dim shape of a woman.
“Motive? Apparently there isn’t one. But of course there is a motive. There must be. As I pointed out to Crome or Abbot, it could be that the series of murders is meant to hide the motive for the murder of but one man. So far we have nothing to prove or disprove that idea.”
“You aren’t sure that the poisoner is a woman?” interposed Pavier.
“I can be sure of nothing,” admitted Bony. “I am inclined to the belief that it’s a woman.”
Pavier purposely drove slowly, and presently Bony said:
“After Goldspink was poisoned, Crome and his men tapped all the sources of supply of cyanide in Broken Hill. After Parsons died, Crome and his men doubled their efforts and were spurred on by Stillman. Since Gromberg was poisoned, all that work was done over again. Results nil. As you know, commercial cyanide is sold to stations and country stores in two-, three-, and seven-pound tins, and our poisoner would require much less than a two-pound tin to start operations.
“We think a woman is the poisoner, but after today I am inclined to consider that it might be a man. Tuttaway escaped on September twenty-seventh, and Goldspink was murdered a month later, that murder being the first of the series.
“The woman followed by Mary Isaacs entered a hotel which we searched five minutes after she went in, and she had vanished. The Great Scarsby could have rung the changes with clothes and handbag, having seen his follower reflected by shop windows. And yet, artist though he was, I doubt if he would have deceived a woman like Mrs Wallace, an ex-barmaid who knows all the answers, as the saying goes. Simple isn’t it?”
“Still, you have made decided headway,” Pavier said approvingly. “You’ve got far beyond where Stillman left off.”
“That is to be expected,” blandly agreed Bony. “The final touch of confusion is that Tuttaway is also careless at table.”
“What!”
Bony avoided explanation on this point, saying:
“I hope you will continue to approve of the road blocks?”
“I’ll keep them there until you ask for their removal.”
“Thanks.”
A few minutes later Bony was being presented to Pavier’s sister, who managed his house, and then Luke appeared, to suggest a ‘snort’ before dinner.
That dinner was to linger in Bony’s memory. The red glow of the sunset seeped through the open windows to gleam on the cutlery and crystal and tint faintly red the solitary diamond on his hostess’s finger. Birds chirped in the pepper tree beyond, their voices triumphant over the rumble of the distant mines.
There was no ‘shop’. The elder Pavier talked books, and the son almost shyly admitted to writing plays.
“Haven’t been successful so far,” he said candidly. “But I’m hoping.”
“But you have,” argued his aunt. “You had a play staged last August.”
“That’s not success,” Luke argued, and explained to the guest that one of his plays had been twice performed in aid of charity.
“It was so well done, Mr Bonaparte, that several hundred pounds were raised,” the aunt declared. “The local talent is very good. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m sure Luke will show you his miniature stage after dinner. It’s fun. I help him move the various characters about.”
The stage was brought in with the coffee and set up on the table. The technique was explained to Bony, who was interested in any subject presented by people knowing something of it. It was evident that Luke’s knowledge of plays and players was extensive, and that his enthusiasm was hot, but after half an hour Bony was dismayed by his own ignorance.
“What kind of shows were staged by the Great Scarsby?” he asked.
“Scarsby!” Luke shot a swift glance at his father, as though for permission to discuss ‘shop’. “The Great Scarsby, and the Great Martini, and the Great Lafayette depended largely on spectacle to achieve effects. For instance, the Great Lafayette had an easel put up and a canvas placed on it. He smashed a hole in the canvas, and from behind the easel a Nubian thrust his face into the hole. Lafayette slapped whiskers on the black man’s face, painted him with white and pink wash, and stood back to reveal a portrait of Edward VII. Then he went behind the easel-and the Nubian stepped away and came round to the front, tore off the whiskers and wiped his face, and there stood Lafayette himself.”
“Clever,” agreed Bony. “He could, I suppose, change his clothes quickly-and that kind of thing?”
“Walk behind a mirror and emerge as a woman wearing an evening frock, disappear and come again as Queen Victoria, go round once again behind the mirror and reappear as a well-known statesman. And he wouldn’t be behind the mirror longer than it would take him to walk from one side to the other.”
“You saw this act?”
“Oh no. I was only a kid when Lafayette died in a theatre fire in Edinburgh-trying to save a wonderful white horse. Some say that Scarsby was his equal, none that he was superior to Lafayette in the show business.”
Following dinner Bony left with Pavier, who wanted to return to his office. Luke accompanied them to the car, and it seemed that he felt he could talk shop outside the house.
“That picture you have,” he said to Bony, “it recalled to mind someone I knew, and I couldn’t place her. Remember?”
“Of course.”
“There’s something about that woman strongly resembling a woman who acted in my play and who I thought was the best of the lot of us. The name’s Goddard, and she lives at Number 1 Willow Street.”
“In what particular does she resemble the picture?” asked Bony, and Pavier stood motionless.
“Mouth and chin. Mean anything?”
“What were you doing late this afternoon?”
“Been home since four. Why-Mr Friend?”
Bony laughed, and the Superintendent said:
“Thank heaven for that.”