In The Feminine Manner
ANinterior water-pipe between the living-room window and the wash bench, and Alice’s handcuffs, produced no discomfort while the prisoner was seated on the floor.
Small in stature, he wasn’t small in courage. For the first half-hour his will-power was strong enough to resist Bony’s questioning, supported by Alice. And this brought afternoon tea-time, which, in Australia, is sacred to the god of leisure.
In the Iron Curtain countries they use drugs and implements to make a man talk. In the United States they employ bright light and relays of questioners. In Australia, if a criminal won’t talk, they give him afternoon tea; in other words, leisurely soften him with kindness. It is a sad fact that these several methods of extracting information, based no doubt on scientific research and study, were ever man-controlled. Huge steam hammers to crack eggs! But interrogation by women!
Alice addressed the prisoner on the floor:
“I’m giving you a cup of tea and a slab of cake. If you swill tea on the floor, I’ll smack your face.”
The prisoner, who had shown silent hostility under polite questioning, glared at Alice when she stooped to place the cup and plate on the floor beside him. It is probable that he would have withstood the steam hammers applied with such labour by real he-men with brains. Since he had risen to and descended from the ceiling, he hadn’t uttered one word.
At the conclusion of the afternoon tea-break, Alice nodded to the sitting-room, and Bony and Mr. Luton accepted the hint and withdraw. There Bony again examined the contents of the prisoner’s wallet, which told them little more than that the prisoner’s name was Tolnic, which could be of Slavonic origin. The suitcase did contain a few packets of soap, boxes of pins and the like.
Into Bony’s concentration crept Alice’s voice, raised to that shrillness she had used to annihilate the callers. The voice rose to a screaming jumble of abuse, dropped to a nasal whine, and continued. The diatribe was punctuated by the clatter of pots and pans and the banging of what could be a rolling-pin on a pastry board.
Bony watched the clock. When he glanced at Mr. Luton, he saw the old man frowning and wincing.
“Glad I’m not married,” avowed Mr. Luton, and Bony smiled thinly.
It wasn’t only what Alice was saying to the unfortunate prisoner with such remarkable verbosity; it was the timbre of the voice, which seemed to pierce a man’s head like the point of a surgeon’s probe. Down through the ages, millions of men have heard this voice, going on and on and on until the mind reels and the stomachsuffers as though from the effect of a rough sea.
Mr. Luton rose and closed the door. Bony smiled as he returned to his chair. Mr. Luton closed his eyes and groaned, because the door made no difference. Through it, through a brick wall, through sheet steel that voice would penetrate.
Aware of the purpose of the domestic nagging which, possibly, is the cause of thirty murders in every hundred, Bony became entranced by the raw phrases, the inane questions, the ridiculous charges, the atrocious innuendoes. And, above all, the astounding sincerity of Alice’s performance. There wasn’t any doubt that a man was being verbally lashed by a furious spouse.
Mr. Luton exploded. “I can’t stand it. It’s worse than the hoo-jahs. Can I go outside, Inspector? Ought to chop a bit of wood.”
“No, Mr. Luton. It’s likely there are confederates outside.”
“But when’s shegoin ’ to stop?”
“When the prisoner breaks. It’s her intention to break him.”
“But she doesn’t know him,” argued the old man. “He’s not married to her, is he?”
“No, and if he’s not married now, he never will be,” chuckled Bony.
Still accompanying the terrible voice were crashes and bangs, the clatter of tin-ware, the slam of the oven door. Never ceasing, on and on and on, skewering through your brain, the endless insults, the endless accusations. Rising, falling, swirling, snarling streams of words. Nothing mattered save the shrill voice with the relentless wailing-whine. On and on and on!
Now and then the prisoner shouted. The effect on the voice? Not the slightest. A rhythmic noise, produced by the handcuff on the ankle being pounded against the pipe, was as the feet of King Canute opposed to the waves. Mr. Luton paced the sitting-room, sometimes his hands pressed against his ears, sometimes his teeth biting upward at his moustache. Bony wanted to burrow his head into something, but the linoleum was tacked to the floorboards.
On and on and on! Shrill piercing, hammering at the mind with twenty million blows to the minute. The uselessness of walls and doors to shut it out! The naked defencelessness of the brain!
One hour and six minutes did the trick. The prisoner was screaming “Stop!” Bony opened the door to the living-room, where Alice was still talking and the prisoner watching her with mouth agape and eyes glassy.
“I tell! I speak!” he moaned.
“Of course you’ll tell,” snarled Alice. “I can go on till to-morrow night without stopping. And I will, too. If you’d lived in our street when I was a kid you’d have talked an hour ago. You tell now, or else!”
“Your name?” asked Bony. “And address?”
“IvorTolnic. Two-nine Alford Street, Hindmarsh.”
“Why did you come here threatening bodily injury?”
He was an illegal immigrant. When he had jumped his ship at Port Adelaide, he thought he had jumped his country. That was five years back in history. An engineer, he had obtained work as a cleaner in an engineering shop, had joined a union, had married, was buying a home. Then his country had caught up with him.
Tolnic was stopped in the street when going home from work the previous day. The man he did not know. He was told what to do, and what would happen, either way. The man, British, spoke like an Australian. In the car, two men. They were non-British. All three men knew everything about him. No, his name hadn’t been Tolnic on the ship, or in his own country, but they knew it.
He had recognised Constable Gibley from the description given by the men, and this was backed by the conversation between the policeman and the young womanwhich he had overheard from near-by bushes. The presence of the young woman did not affect his determination to stay in Australia. Yes, he would have pulled the trigger if…
He ate the meal prepared by Alice when still sitting on the floor. The door was shut and bolted. Without, the world was calm, quiet, and the dogs, unseen, were lazily lying on the outside mat.
This evening the moon was at full. After dinner Bony stood in the dark sitting-room, gazing beyond the window at the trees beyond the wicket fence and the sheen of the river beyond them. The risen moon was tinting the topmost leaves of the trees withsilverfrost. In the outer room the clatter of plates and cooking utensils spoke of the washing-up being done by Alice and Mr. Luton.
At this hour Mr. Luton was supposed to be tied up and the doors open.
Into the clearing, to the left, appeared a shape. The shadows prevented Bony from nailing its identity. It came across the clearing towards the cottage and remained mysterious until it reached the car track opposite the gate, where it resolved itself into two men, one following closely the other.
The first man raised the gate-latch. The dogs met them, obviously doubtful. The first man was Knocker Harris. The second man Bony did not know. In the same order they advanced along the cinder path, and Bony slipped to the door and whipped back the bolt.
He could hear thedogs whingeing a welcome. He heard the scrape of boots groping for the veranda steps. He stood braced on his toes, the automatic in his right hand, the door-knob in his left. The two men crossed the veranda. Someone pounded on the door. Then Knocker Harris shouted:
“Don’t open the door, John! Keep her locked! Keep her…”
Bony snapped the door inward. Knocker Harris was sinking to his knees, writhing in contortion, his mouth wide to scream or shout another warning. He slumped, and as he went down, Bony saw the gleam of steel in the hand of the other man racing for the wicket gate, and slashing at the charging dogs.
He said, in a low whisper:
“Halt! Police here!”
Then fired once.
The second man dived at the gateway and lay still. Bony stooped over Knocker Harris, partly lifted him, dragged him into the house, re-bolted the door and flashed down the blind. The light went up. Over the prone figure of Knocker Harris, Bony saw the startled Alice McGorr with Mr. Luton behind her.
It was obvious that Mr. Luton’s neighbour wasin extremis. His breathing was difficult. Perspiration soaked his face and hands. The wound was bleeding inwardly from the point of contact above the left kidney.
“What happened?” gently asked Bony.
“Sort of… sort of baled up, like. Wascomin ’ along… see… if John wanted any more from town. Didn’t see him. Came behind me… prodded with knife… told me keep going. Said tell John open up, like. I wouldn’t…”
“Well?” softly urged Bony.
“I…”
“Please, Knocker.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘Open up’. Told John not… notopen up.”
Harris drifted into unconsciousness, and Bony drew aside to permit Mr. Luton to pour a little more brandy between the partly open lips.
“Did you fire that shot?” Alice asked.
“Yes. Harris was brought to the gate and marched to the door by another man. When Harris’s warning was cut off, I opened the door, to see him falling, and the other running to the fence gate. I called out: ‘Stop! Police here!’ He did not stop, so I fired. Er… I hope you heard me order him to stop?”
“Of course, Bony. I hear everything you say. Didn’t you know?” A moment later she whispered: “He can’t last.”
Mr. Luton heard her and looked up. His mouth was slack. His eyes dimmed. He stood helplessly.
“I… We must fetch the quack,” he said dully.
Bony slowly shook his head.
Knocker Harris attempted to sit up, and Alice held him.
His glazing eyes passed from Mr. Luton, upward to Alice, round to Bony. The voice was almost a gurgle:
“John was me only friend. Got to… explain… like,” he managed. And Bony nodded and knew that Knocker Harris died knowing that no explanation was necessary.