Why Extra Meat?
JIMMY WAS given the only chair in Bony’s bedroom, and Bony sat on the bed and poured beer into tumblers.
“Surely, Jimmy, you are not interested professionally in that house?”
“I was. I’m not.”
Jimmy drank without the usual reference to Luck. He was sour, and Bony countered the mood with gentleness. He waited for an explanation before saying thoughtfully:
“It’s a good night for a burglary. Did you enter?”
“You know damn well I didn’t.”
“I seldom ask questions without reason, Jimmy.”
“You weren’t testing the windows and the front door? You didn’t fox me to the fence and then follow me all the way to that street light?”
“I was not testing doors and windows, and I did not see you until you climbed over the fence. I was then approaching that front fence, and I stood against a pepper tree to permit you to pass. Guilty of following you from the tree. By the way, my pride is hurt. How did you know you were being trailed?”
Jimmy sighed, and Bony again filled his glass.
“You’re no mug attrailin ’,” he said with assurance. “I never heard you, never saw you, not even a smell. My scalp told me I was being dogged. I didn’t like it, ’cosI was thinking things.”
“What things?”
“A glass knife between me shoulders, and the haft being snapped.”
“Let me have the story behind that thought.”
Jimmy omitted nothing, proving ability as a raconteur, and when done, Bony brought another bottle from the wardrobe.
“You are sure it was a woman watching from the upstairs window?”
“Sure about everything. Why didn’t she telephone the cops? She’s got a phone.”
“An interesting point, I agree. What gave you the impression that the man could be Tuttaway?”
“Look at the set-up,” Jimmy almost pleaded. “It’s gone one in the morning. It’s a dark night. A bloke is walking round the joint and stopping to admire every window and the front door, and probably the back door. He could be a working pro, like me, prospecting the joint before timing the job. When he stood for some time in one place, I thought he must be a policeman until I recollected the dame who was watching him from up top.
“Then I argued that it wouldn’t be a pro, for he wouldn’t hang around afterdoin ’ hisprospectin ’, and he had no reason to wait if he wanted to go in. It wouldn’t be a policeman, not even you, waiting about like that. That’s what I thought. I thought that the old girl must have phoned the cops, and close on that chunk of think I decided to scoot, but before I could get going the bloke came straight to the tree I was against.
“I couldn’t be sure he hadn’t screwed me off. The point what stuck in my mind was the old girl couldn’t have phoned the police, and she was waiting in a dark house to watch that bird testing her windows and doors. She might have seen him prowling around before and expected him to have another go. She wasn’texpectin ’ me ’cosmy clients never get the chance.”
“Did he look anything like Tuttaway?” pressed Bony.
“Not that I could swear to. He was taller than you and me, and so is Tuttaway. Still, Tuttaway has never been a you or a me, and this gent moved like a pro. You never saw him?”
“No. He must have left in the opposite direction a few seconds before I arrived. It was probably friend Tuttaway. The haft of the glass dagger was found inside the wicket gate. He’d been there before tonight. How long have you been keeping that house under observation?”
“Off and on for a couple of months.”
The beer failed to lift the gloom from Jimmy’s face, and almost savagely he seized the second bottle and removed the metal cap with his teeth. Bony probed further into the habits of Mrs Dalton and her sister, and learned of their arrangement of separate apartments excepting for meals. He could not assess the value of the item that Muriel Lodding took a dish of diced raw meat upstairs when her sister was ill.
“Several things don’t angle to my mind,” Jimmy said. “Whatd’you reckon they’d want eight pounds of steak for every day?”
“Eight pounds of meat per day for two women?”
“Eight pounds of steak a day is what I said. Extra to porter-house and chops and legs of lamb at week-ends. And since the sister’s been murdered the order’s no different.”
“Dogs?”
“Seen none. Or cats.”
“What of other foods-bread, milk-since you know so much?”
“Ordinary for two women. Yougoin ’ to do nothing about that sneaker? Could be Tuttaway after Mrs Dalton.”
“There’s a man posted there. He accompanied me. However, it’s unlikely that the prowler will return tonight.”
Jimmy grimaced.
“Think I’ll give up working in any state where you happen to be. There’s another angle I don’t get. The front and back is kept tidy enough, and flowers and things them women tried to grow in winter. At the back, though, there’s a bit of ground about four times the size of this room, fenced with wire netting and a little gate in it. They don’t grow nothing inside that fence. The sort of plot used for burying things, far as I can make out.”
“Kitchen refuse,” suggested Bony, and Jimmy negatived this.
“People don’t bury refuse in calico bags. Besides, the Council cart empties the bins in the back lane three times a week.”
Bony rolled a cigarette and said before lighting it:
“You know, Jimmy, you are entertaining.”
“I can be, Inspector. A feller like me can be veryentertainin ’.”
“The butcher’s name?”
“McWay, Main Street South.”
“And the milkman?” pressed Bony, making a note.
“People namedLudkin -out atUmberumaka. The baker is Perry Brothers, South, and, bringing in our old pals, the wood merchant is Frederick Albert Goddard. He delivered wood there two days ago.”
“Your information appears remarkably detailed, Jimmy.”
“I’ve beenpayin ’ acoupla school kids to give what I couldn’t get in daylight.”
“Indeed! I’d like to meet them. They might tell even more. Yes, we’ll give them an ice-cream tea at Favalora’s Cafe. Try to have them there at four tomorrow afternoon. Anything else?”
“You’ve got the entire brain box. Can I go home to bed sometime?”
“Right now, Jimmy. See you tomorrow at four.”
Bony let Jimmy out by the front door, slept for three hours, and was up at six. He prospected for the kitchen, found the yardman there, who, having lit the stoves, was drinking tea with a liberal dash of the dog that had bitten him the previous evening. It was much too soon for polite conversation, and, refreshed by tea and biscuits, Bony reached Headquarters at seven. Crome was in his office.
“Nothing doing,” Crome said. “Saw nothing; heard nothing.”
“Not even a light switched on?”
“Not a glimmer.” I went in as far as the pine tree and sat there till first sign of break o’ day. You nab that prowler who came over the fence?”
“No. He turned out to be a dear friend of mine. We arrived a little too late. My friend had been watching a man testing the house windows and doors. We could assume it was Tuttaway paying another visit to Mrs Dalton’s house.”
“I said so.”
“It would seem so,” Bony corrected. “Now you go off to bed. Tonight might yield much. When will Abbot report?”
“At eight. Anything I can do?” Crome asked hopefully.
“Nothing-till after you have slept. You’ll be out of your bed again tonight. Hit the pillow while you may.”
Sergeant Crome departed in irritable mood. He was not liking several matters, among which was Bony’s evasiveness. The kids had found the haft of the dagger, and a blooming black tracker happened by sheer luck on the kids. He had sat half the night against the tree, and a blinkingscrewsman had been there before him and reported to Bony a mouthful, of which Bony said next to nothing. Bonaparte was always in front. And now he was ordered to bed and Bonaparte would work out another move and be farther ahead than ever.
Senior Detective Abbot came on duty, to find Bony waiting for him.
“Come and help me dig into Staff Records,” Bony invited. “The clerk in charge will not be here yet?”
“No, sir.”
“I am interested in Muriel Lodding,” Bony said when they stood before a card index.
Abbot extracted the requisite card. It gave the date Lodding had joined the staff, the date of one promotion, the date she had been discharged dead. Bony sought for additional particulars, and Abbot produced a loose-leaf ledger and turned up the sheet devoted to Policewoman Lodding.
Abbot was told to go, and Bony studied the details of Lodding’s service. She had invariably taken her leave when due, and on a number of occasions she had worked on Sunday and had Monday off. There was no reference to sick leave until the previous year, and the dates under this heading Bony rapidly noted.
Again in his office, he set out in tabulated form the notes he had made, and at once found that coincidence could not be claimed for the juxtaposition of dates. He went into Crome’s office and studied the calendar nailed to the wall, then asked Switch to inform him when Superintendent Pavier arrived.
Pavier was going through the morning mail when Bony walked in.
“Won’t keep you long, Super,” he said, and was invited to be seated. “Reference your late secretary. I find that these last few months she had been granted sick leave. Can you tell me if she appeared to be ill at those times?”
“Jittery nerves, I believe,” replied Pavier, a question in his eyes. “Told me she was worried about headaches, and she thought they might be a kind of migraine.”
“D’youknow if she consulted a doctor?”
“I don’t know about that, Bonaparte. In Records if she did. Or ought to be.”
“There’s no reference to a doctor in Records. I find, too, that on an average of about once in two months she worked on Sunday and took the day off the following Monday. Why?”
“She didn’t ask to work on Sunday that she might have the Monday,” Pavier said. “It occasionally happens that there is an accumulation of reports for Sydney which must be got off, and Lodding always consented to work on a Sunday when I asked her. She was a smart woman, and I am only now beginning to appreciate how much I relied on her. What’s on your mind about her sick leave?”
“Take a glance at these notes.”
Bony placed them before the Superintendent.
1. Lodding on sick leave October 22 to 26.
(Goldspink murdered October 28.)
2. Lodding on sick Leave December 19 to 21.
(Parsons murdered December 23.)
3. Lodding on sick leave February 16 to 23.
(Gromberg murdered February 25.)
Pavier looked hard at Bony, the frown drawing vertical lines between his eyes. The fingers of his left hand tap-tapped on the desk, and for seconds he was silent.
“Very odd, Bonaparte,” he said. “In each case, on the second day after Lodding returned from sick leave a man was poisoned.”
“There is a period of two months between the first and second murders, and two months between the second and third murders,” Bony pointed out. “It’s why I asked you about the Sunday work. Probably no significance, as she worked on Sundays at your request. She could not have arranged the work to bring about your request, I suppose?”
Pavier was emphatic that Lodding had not done so, and Bony evaded his probing questions and returned to his own office.