Rays of Light
THEgarden gate snapped shut. Mr. Luton’s eyes puckered expectantly. When footsteps sounded from the veranda, he began to smile, and he shouted:
“Come in and be damned.”
The door was flung open to admit a young woman wearing a light raincoat and a kerchief tied round her hair. A man followed her. His belted coat emphasised physical strength and lent distinction to his carriage. He bowed stiffly.
“Why, Sunset!” exclaimed Mr. Luton, advancing to meet his visitors.
“I do hope I’m not damned, Mr. Luton,” teasingly said the girl, and Bony liked her low, rich voice.
“Didn’t know it was you. Didn’t recognise your step on the veranda.”
“You did recognise mine, I presume,” stated the man, wryly smiling at Mr. Luton and attempting to include Bony. The dark eyes succeeded where the smile failed, accepting Bony’s face, feature by feature, his hands, his feet.
“You… You are Inspectore Bonaparte, yes?”
“That’s right,” interjected Mr. Luton, saying to Bony: “Meet Doctor Linke. And this is Miss Jessica Lawrence.”
‘Sunset’ Mr. Luton had called her. Herhair, her skin, her eyes, were of the sunset, and when she smiled Bony was unaccountably reminded of apples lying on meadow grass. Not to be out-pointed, he bowed, and a Frenchman would have envied him.
“We came down to gossip, Inspector,” she said. “You don’t mind?”
“To talk with you would be a privilege, Miss Lawrence,” Bony gallantly replied. Then his hand was being crushed in a clamp, and he was faintly annoyed at not being quick enough to counter the clamp.
“I, indeed, am happy to meet you,” said Dr. Linke, and because he smiled infectiously was forgiven the hand-grip. “As my Jessica said, we came to gossip, to speak of many things including the kings and… and what you say?”
“Cabbages,” laughed the girl.
She removed the kerchief. Her hair was then a delight to behold. The man assisted her with her coat and Mr. Luton took it from him and indicated chairs. Bony noted that the cat had fled. Linke found a pipe and tobacco, and was unable to mask his interest in Bony and yet conceal the basis of his curiosity.
“You learned I was staying with Mr. Luton… from whom?” enquired Bony.
“At dinner to-night Mr. Weston mentioned the fact,” replied the girl. “Afterwards, when we had left the house for a walk, Carl suggested that we call, Inspector. There’s been something on his mind, and-well, here we are.”
“That is so. Here we are,” agreed Dr. Linke, beaming at them, his expressive blue eyes bright and his wide shoulders lifted. “We have talked, my Jessica and I, and we are not-how you say?-easy of mind. Incidents lately have indicated, slightly, a pattern, and patterns are the fire of the smoke. You understand?”
“Of course. Go on, Doctor.”
“Forgive me if I seem toproceed cautiously, Inspectore. If I make error, please correct. Your purpose in being here?”
“I am visiting Mr. Luton for the fishing,” replied Bony. “Mr. Luton and I are old friends who haven’t met for many years. He heard I was in Adelaide, hence the invitation. I applied for leave of absence and obtained ten days.”
“You are, naturally, a detective?”
“Yes, but not of the South Australian Police Department. I am a Queenslander.”
“The pastor also said at dinner that you knew Mr. Wickham. True?”
“I did know him,” calmlylied Napoleon Bonaparte, and added: “Years ago.”
Dr. Linke leaned forward as though to emphasise his next remark.
“Could we agree, Inspectore Bonaparte, that Mr. Luton has put before you his thesis on the hoo-jahs?”
The pronunciation of ‘hoo-jahs’ brought a smile from his hearers and he caught its infection. That he was extremely earnest in striving to reach a goal was obvious, and Bony eased the road a little for him.
“Mr. Luton has explained his convictions, based on experience, concerning the effects of alcoholic poisoning. He has also put forward his conviction that Mr. Wickham did not die from alcoholic poisoning. He has proffered sound argument in support of his contentions. I am still keeping an open mind, Doctor.”
“I thank you, Inspectore,” Dr. Linke said, formally. “The incidents of which I spoke just now, seemingly to form a pattern, lead me to agree with Mr. Luton that Mr. Wickham could have been liquidated.”
“You agree with me about the hoo-jahs!” exclaimed Mr. Luton, plainly delighted.
“I am-howd’you say?-being pushed to the belief, Mr. Luton.” He frowned as though finding it difficult to choose words from the limited vocabulary at his command. “I want… I think…”
“Let me explain, Carl,” the girl interrupted. “Inspector Bonaparte, Carl, as you must know, is a New Australian. He came to Australia after the war, and he had to serve two years as an agricultural labourer, even though he is quite famous as a meteorologist. You know how it is; with all foreign medical men, scientists, professional men and such.”
“I know how it is, Miss Lawrence, and how ridiculously stupid is the neglect in our country of their abilities.”
“Well, Mr. Wickham contrived to have Dr. Linke assigned to his estate, and, once here, there was no intention of wasting Carl’s gifts and knowledge on milking cows and grooming tractors. Last year, Carl was granted full Australian citizenship, and he naturally is a little nervous of attracting official notice by being, shall we say, associated with murder, to put it bluntly.”
“Yes! Yes, my Jessica. That is how it is. You see, Inspectore Bonaparte?”
“I see,” replied Bony. “Let me assist in clearing the fog for all of us. I am a foreigner in South Australia, on holiday, and not on official duty. How I spend my leave can be of no legal concern to anyone, provided I don’t break the law. I don’t know if you have in Germany what we call private detectives, and the Americans call private eyes, Doctor, but you may regard me as a temporary private eye.” Bony chuckled. “I have on many occasions been strongly tempted to urge my superiors to journey to the nether regions and myself to carry on as a private eye. I would be fully occupied in winding up unsolved murders.”
“In other words, Doctor, you can spill it,”chortled Mr. Luton.
“I thank you, I thank you,” energetically acknowledged Dr. Linke, addressing himself in turn to Mr. Luton, to Miss Lawrence and to Bony. Bony addressed himself to the girl.
“When those at dinner spoke of me, what was their attitude?”
“Mr. Weston mentioned you were with Mr. Luton, shortly after we sat down,” was the reply. “He seemed cynically amused. Then Dr. Maltby said he had met you, and, further, that he had heard in town you were interested in the death of Mr. Wickham. Without speaking, something passed between him and Mrs. Parsloe, as though both followed the same thought and needed support from the other. It was seen, too, by Mr. Weston, who said: ‘I am reminded, my dear Agatha, that this extraordinary person’s namesake, the Emperor, often advised that when in doubt it is best to do nothing.’ ”
“That I do not comply with,” argued Dr. Linke. “When doubt comes, it is best to do something. I have doubted and I have acted. I am here. I will tell you. Mr. Wickham was a very good friend to me, and to my Jessica. He was a fine man. He brought me here. He gave me work I love. Slowly, for you understand I have scientific training, he brought me to see there could be much in his line of research. I came to understand how valuable accurate long-range weather forecasts would be to agriculturists and to the world. And as we worked together, so I came to fear the hostile forces gathering to oppose him and halt his work.”
“What is your situation now he is dead?” asked Bony.
“It is this, Inspectore. The day after the ashes were released, Mrs. Parsloe came to my office for, she said, an understanding. She wanted to know where her brother kept his papers, his data on his weather work. I told her it was there in the office safe. She opened the safe, and what she sought was not there. It was nowhere in the office.
“Then I told her the book must be somewhere. A thick notebook having green covers. I had myself seen it a thousand times. Her brother guarded the book. He would take it from the safe, consult it. Sometimes he would add data and ever return it to the safe before he left the office. So it was not there in the safe, and I went with Mrs. Parsloe to the house and we searched all about for that book and did not find it.”
“Did no one have access to the safe other than Mr. Wickham?” Bony asked.
“No other person.”
“There were two safes, Inspector,” offered the girl. “Mr. Wickham’s private safe, and the general office safe. As Carl has said, Mr. Wickham guarded that green notebook always. He told me it contained his tables and ultimate calculations, the factors controlling solar eruptions and other vital data which eliminated error.”
“So,” agreed Dr. Linke. “When the green notebook was not discovered, Mrs. Parsloe was angry. She said it must be somewhere and I was to find it. I believe that if my Jessica hadn’t proved it was kept in the private safe, and we had no key, Mrs. Parsloe would have said I had stolen it. Because the next day I was visited by a policeman and another man.”
“Yes, that was strange, Carl. Tell the Inspector about that,” almost ordered the girl.
“They came, these two, at a quarter of noon,” continued Dr. Linke. “The policeman was a sergeant of the police from Mount Gambier. The other manwas, how you say? a civilian. He said he was of the Commonwealth Investigation Service. He had my dossier from theU.N. O. and from the Australian Immigration Department. He questioned me many times about my life in Germany, my political affiliations, everything. I had told everything before, to officer after officer; there was no more I could tell him. Then he questioned me about my life here at Mount Mario and the work I had been doing for Mr. Wickham. They stayed at the quarters for lunch, and continued the interrogation till five o’clock.
“When they were gone, Mrs. Parsloe came. She told me she had to report the loss of the green notebook, and as I was her brother’s chief assistant, and a German, she felt she must report me. I… I was angry. She said she was sorry. She said that the second assistant was to leave the next day, she had dismissed Mrs. Loxton, our housekeeper, and that I was to eat at the big house-which I do. For many hours that evening we all searched for that notebook, and the second assistant urged that the pastor and my Jessica search his luggage before he left. He made the pastor search his person, too. The next night the office was broken open and searched by burglars.”
Dr. Linke almost glared at Bony. Mr. Luton bent forward and poked at a log. Bony’s brows lifted a fraction.
“After I had examined everything, it was known that the burglars had taken nothing. It took us hours to restore order. They entered by the door and left that way. So they must have had a key to the front door of the office. None of the windows had been forced, d’youunderstand? And they had opened the safe, too.”
“The private safe, Doctor?”
“That is so.”
“Let us trace the key to that private safe. Do you know how Mrs. Parsloe came to have it?”
“No, Inspectore. I have thought. It must have been on the body when it was brought from Mr. Luton’s house. When she came to the office that day, Mrs. Parsloe used the key, and she locked the safe again and took the key away.”
“You told her of the burglary?”
“But naturally.”
“What did the police do… say?”
“Do… say… nothing. Mrs. Parsloe would not send the report to the police.”
“They decided that the publicity would be unwelcome,” said Miss Lawrence. “The family, I mean. They held conference. As the burglars hadn’t stolen anything, they agreed to do nothing about it.”
“Curious,” murmured Bony. “What have you been doing, Doctor, since Mr. Wickham died?”
“Seeking to work through to his achieved objective by the examination and study of the data, what we have. Mrs. Parsloe had told me she does not want me to leave Mount Mario.” Dr. Linke braced his powerful shoulders. “I will not go, Inspectore. There is something… what you say?…funny going on. It began weeks ago. On July 3. When two men came to call on Mr. Wickham.
“They came in a fine car. From my desk I could see the car drive to the front door of the big house. I saw one man go to the front door and ring, and the maid came and pointed to the office. The man entered again into the car and they drove to the office door.
“The men came in and asked for Mr. Wickham. The second assistant asked the man his purpose and the man said he wished to speak private business with Mr. Wickham. The second assistant went to Mr. Wickham, and returned to inform the man Mr. Wickham would see him, if he stated his business. The man told the assistant he had a mission to place before Mr. Wickham, and the assistant enquired his name. The man said ‘Smith’.
“You see, by then I had summed this man. His name was not Smith. It was not evenSmidt orSmudburg. He wore Australian clothes, but he had been going to an alien barber, possibly a New Australian whose name few Australians could speak. I didn’t address him. You understand why? We unfortunates of the world have learned caution. The second assistant escorted him to Mr. Wickham’s office at the far end of the building, and then reported to me: ‘Speaks English all right, but doesn’t look it.’ And although he spoke correct English, it was too correct, and his haircut was a… revelation.”
“How long was he with Mr. Wickham?” Bony asked.
“About one hour.” Dr. Linke applied a match to his pipe with studied deliberation. “Ten days after that, on July 13, Mr. Wickham had a strange call from the Commonwealth Bank. He wasn’t in the office when it came. He went to the bank in Cowdry that night at ten o’clock.”
They watched the expression of pleasure grow on the brown face and light the deep blue eyes of Inspector Bonaparte as he said:
“You know, Dr. Linke, I find your conversation decidedly captivating.”