Degrees of Neglect
THEYWEREabout to visit Mrs Norman Coutts, when Bony asked: “Yesterday, when returning from the River Hotel, you did a sum in mental arithmetic and arrived at Neglectcausated in Booze. Pardon the verb. To what else could child neglect be attributed?”
“I’d say bargain-hunting at the store sales. A lot of women leave everything, desert anything for the chance of a bargain.”
“Of our five babies, we have examined the background of four, and in no case have we found physical neglect. D’youknow anything about writing novels?”
“Do I look as though I wrote novels?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Now I have to pardon your verb. And myself for using it. I never kid. My reason for asking you is that Mrs Norman Coutts writes novels. In Dr Nott’s opinion, that is another cause of child neglect.”
For fifty yards Alice pondered on this angle, her stride matching her companion’s, head straight, shoulders back, mouth grim and tight. Unless she fell in love and married, she was doomed to become a replica of the lady novelist whose picture was menacing the readers of current magazines and was at the moment occupying a corner of Bony’s mind.
“D’youwantme to keep to the subject of infant neglect or to argue about verbs?” she asked, as they turned into a side road.
“The subject ofneglect, that we might arrive at the degree of neglect. After calling on Mrs Coutts, we shall probably know that she merely forgot about her baby when in the throes of inspiration, not neglected it to the extent of physical distress. We can then consider whether the degree of neglect covering the five babies has anything to do with their abduction.”
The house occupied by the Town Engineer stood well back from the street and was seemingly built on a well-tended lawn which successfully defied sun and heat. The house was of the bungalow type, having a spacious front veranda, now shaded by coloured blinds.
The front door was opened by a tall blonde, arrayed in a gay Japanese kimono and armed with a foot-long cigarette-holder, and instantly Bony was reminded of Mrs Thring and the lady novelist in the magazines. She was obviously displeased, and ungraciously conducted them to what could be the lounge. Here the furniture was good enough, but the carpet felt lumpy beneath their feet, the hearth was strewn with cigarette-ends, and the one table by the window was littered with books and writing materials. The close, fuggy odours of food, cigarettes and lemons were at least authentic.
“Well, Inspector, what is it?” asked Mrs Coutts, seating herself before the writing materials. “Have the police found my baby?”
“Regretfully, no, Mrs Coutts,” replied Bony, who was unaware that Alice, although seated demurely, was again pricing everything visible. “I’ve been assigned to the investigation into the kidnapping of your baby, and the others, and I’m trying to get the general picture clear. Tell me, what was the weather like that afternoon your baby was stolen from the front veranda?”
“The weather! What an extraordinary question.” Mrs Coutts fitted a fresh cigarette to the long ebony holder, and Bony presented the match. “You know, the suspect is often caught out when asked where he was on the night of the crime, isn’the? I write, as you may know, straight novels, not these beastly thrillers.” Carelessly, she indicated the partially filled sheet of foolscap on the pad, the pile of covered sheets to her right hand and the wad of virgin paper on her left.“The weather that day. Why, it was hot and thundery. In fact, it did thunder now and then, but as usual I was busy with my writing, and the baby was asleep.”
“Your husband saw the child sleeping in the cot when he left for his office. At what time did your husband leave?”
“Ten minutes to two. He always leaves at that time.”
“And you found the cot empty at half past three, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a particular reason to visit the cot at that time?”
“My husband and I rose from lunch at about a quarter to two. He went to his room for something and then, as I told you, he left the house by the front veranda. I came here to write as the inspiration was very strong. I worked until half past three, and then remembered I hadn’t cleared away or fed baby. So I went to the cot, and found him gone.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Rang my husband, of course. I thought that he had taken the child with him to his office. A moment after he said he hadn’t done anything of the kind and would ring the police, I flew to the front gate, hoping I might see the person who must have taken it.”
“You saw a car outside a house towards Main Street, an elderly woman on the far side of the road who was carrying a suitcase, and two boys running away as though to escape the thunderstorm?”
“That is right, Inspector. That is the scene I gave the police.”
“You said then that you could not recognise the elderly woman with the suitcase. Since then, Mrs Coutts, has memory of that woman reminded you, say in general, of anyone you know?”
“I wasn’t able to see her face as she was hurrying away from me. The police thought those two boys might have noticed her, but they hadn’t. You know all that, of course. You don’t think that woman stole my baby, do you?”
“No. But if she could be found she might tell us of something she saw which could assist us. Your description of her to the police was rather vague, understandably, naturally, in view of your distress. I was hoping that since then memory of her might have recalled to mind someone you do know, someone with whom we can make a comparison.”
“I see what you mean. Well, she was not unlike Mrs Peel, or Mrs Nott, the doctor’s wife, or even Mrs Marlo-Jones… shortish, stoutish, quick in movement. But it wasn’t one of those women.”
“Why are you so definite?”
“Because that woman was wearing bright blue, so unkind to the elderly woman, Inspector. The other women I have mentioned usually wear pastel colours. And when they forget their age they wear dizzyflorals.”
“H’m!” Bony rose to go. “The baby was only seven weeks old. Was he a healthy child?”
“He never had a day’s illness,” replied Mrs Coutts, remaining seated. “He hardly ever cried, and he slept well, too. That’s why I didn’t bother about him immediately after lunch that day.”
Mrs Coutts nodded to Alice, and, on glancing at Alice, Bony found her nodding in reply… or in sympathy. Alice departed, and Mrs Coutts hastened to say:
“I find my writing so very absorbing, Inspector. I become quite lost in it, and very often the characters take full possession of me.”
“It must be absorbing.”
“Yes. I hope to succeed as a novelist. I’ve written several short stories, you know. I gained first prize at our Mitford Literary Society.”
“Congratulations! How many have you had published?”
“None, as yet, Inspector. Our President, JamesNyall, the well-known Australian novelist, says I have to master the art of writing down to please editors. One has to learn to commercialise one’s talents. Not that I really want to do that, but I must be practical. My husband, who is very practical, insists that if a story isn’t acceptable to an editor it’s worth nothing. So silly of him.”
“Perhaps one oughtn’t to be too practical in any of the arts,” Bony suavely agreed. “Er… The Mitford Literary Society, by the way. Do Mrs Peel and Mrs Nott and Mrs Marlo-Jones belong?”
“No. Mrs Marlo-Jones has given talks, but, as she says, she’s far too busy to undertake another interest.”
“You have met these ladies, socially?”
“Oh yes. At sherryparties, and that sort of thing.”
“During the vital period of time, after your husband returned to his office and you found the baby missing, were you called to the telephone?”
“No. I mightn’t have heard it if it did ring. I was barely conscious of the thunder.”
“What led you to think your husband had taken the infant with him to the office?”
Shutters fell before the green eyes, and Mrs Coutts almost hurriedly pushed back her chair and rose from the table. Alice appeared in the doorway, and Mrs Coutts looked at her and would have spoken had not Bony remained with obvious expectancy of being answered.
“Oh, I don’t really know, Inspector. Sometimes my husband teases me about my writing. Says it takes me away from everything.”
“Including the baby?”
“Of course not.”The green eyes were hardening. “He came in for lunch one day when the child was whimpering and I was in the kitchen. I couldn’t leave what I was doing, preparing something, and he accused me of neglecting the baby and said he’d take it with him to the office and let his fool of a secretary mind it. More in fun than not, naturally.”
“Quite.” Bony expressed the hope of ultimately recovering the child, and Mrs Courts accompanied them to the front gate. Again in Main Street, he said:
“Well, give, Alice.”
“Filthy house,” Alice stated as though in the witness-box. “You said I wasn’t to ask the woman questions, and I didn’t… out loud. She’s balmy on her writing, and everything else rots. She didn’t give a damn about the baby, and she deserved to lose it. I know the type. Baby probably died of sheer neglect, and she buried it in the garden.”
“What a prognostication! Why were you and Mrs Coutts making faces at each other?”
“Oh that! I was making excuses so that I could see the rest of her house.”
“So that now we know…”
“The pattern, Bony. Five babies kidnapped. Five tiny babies. Five boy babies. Five healthy babies. Five neglected babies. Sounds like a horrible nursery rhyme,” Alice recited grimly. “Three mothers in the same social set: two mothers outside. Three mothers drink sherry, one mother drinks gin, and one is thought to drink nothing worse than tea.”
“It’s possible that the infants were not chosen for abduction because they were superficially neglected by the mothers, but because that superficial neglect made easy the abductions.”
“You don’t think that, Bony.”
“No, I do not believe it, because the abduction from the bank was not easy, and the abduction from the pram outside the shop and the pram outside the hotel was decidedly risky. Let us go into the Library and make a few discoveries about Mrs Rockcliff.”
“Has it occurred to you that the abductions began after Mrs Rockcliff came to Mitford?” Alice asked when they stood in the portico of the Grecian front of the Municipal Library.
“Yes, I have considered that point. Now, leave me to interview the librarian. If Essen is still here, interest yourself in the robbery.”
Essen was no longer in the building, which, being a museum as well as a library, entertained Alice. For a while they remained together, examining cases of aboriginal relics, photographic sections of the Murray River, the bridge nearby, of the local fruit and wine industries. There were models of the paddle-wheel steamers, now almost extinct, models of water-wheels, pictures in oils, etchings, water-colours, and displays of native weapons.
For a few moments, Bony studied a large-scale map of the district, showing Mitford to be the hub of radiating roads. Including the river, there were sixteen exits from the town, and through one of those exits five small infants had surely passed.
Other than a young woman at a bench rebinding a book, and an elderly man seated within a glass-fronted office, the place was empty. Bony strolled into the Reference Room, where he found a Who’s Who and looked up Marlo-Jones. Born 1881, making him 71. DSc, Adelaide. Dip. Anthropology. Research Fellow in Anthropology, Adelaide. H’m! Well up in his field. Publications: ‘Ceremonial Exchange Cycle of theWarramunga Nation’. Married Elizabeth Wise. No mention of children. Recreations: gardening and walking. Knowledgeable old bean. Full of sting at 71. Would live beyond a hundred.
Bony spent a further ten minutes with the famous, looking up one who ought to have been hanged four years previously, three who should be serving gaol sentences, and one concerning whom he was slightly doubtful. Then he studied the insect specimens in glass cases, and wondered who had classified the case ofmollusca found in the Darling and Murray Rivers Basin. Alice was looking at a journal in the Reading Room when he entered the glass-fronted office.
“I am Detective-Inspector Bonaparte,” he said to the scholarly-looking man, and as usual noted the flash of astonishment, disbelief, caution, reserve. “You may wish to telephone to Sergeant Yoti. I am investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Rockcliff, and I understand she was a regular borrower from this library.”
Interest now predominated in the pale grey eyes.
“Yes, Inspector Bonaparte, Mrs Rockcliff was a regular borrower. In fact, there are three of her books not yet returned to us. They are, presumably, still at her house.”
“Do you happen to know her taste in literature? One of the books at her house is a biography, and two are classics.”
“I do know that her taste wasn’t the usual run of the mill,” replied the librarian. “She liked biographies, having a special preference for world-famous authors. Her novels could be only the best. I was decidedly grieved about her.”
“Was she interested in writing, or any of the arts?”
“Not to the extent of practising one of them. She wasn’t very communicative about herself.” The librarian smiled, and Bony liked that smile. “So many women are, you know. They seem to think this is a Gossip House, and my assistants sometimes chide me with being too friendly. But I like to be helpful, especially with earnest people and students.”
“Tell me, was Mrs Rockcliff aloof? I mean, did she give the impression of being without interest in other people?”
“Well, hardly that, Inspector. She often talked to me. About literature, of course. I found her rather intelligent, and not objectionably so. Her interest in famous writers is shared by one of our bank managers. They became acquainted here, actually, and would often retire and talk for twenty minutes or half an hour. I’m sure Mr Bulford will miss her. He has a passion for Joseph Conrad, and she almost worshipped theBrontes.”
“And the Library is open in the evenings?”
“Until ten o’clock. We have discussion groups, and neither my daughter nor I regret the extra time we give.”
“Your work must be more engrossing than mine,” Bony said. “I have to keep to one world, that of abnormal psychology; you may live in other worlds far more wholesome. You have had a robbery, I hear. Lose much… books… pictures?”
“Nothing like that, Inspector. It’s most peculiar. The object stolen was an aboriginal rock drawing. I’ve only been in charge here for six months, having previously lived in Sydney, and I don’t know much about its history. I must dig up the records.”
“A painting of the original rock drawing, I assume?”
“No. It was actually the section or stratum of the rock on which the drawing had been done in white and yellow ochre. It must have weighed a hundred pounds, and it was supported by a special stand in the Reading Room.”
“H’m! Peculiar thing to steal. Valuable?”
“As a museum or collector’s piece, without doubt.”
“And what did the drawing portray?”
“No one knows. My predecessor might have known, but he died shortly after I took over. It even baffled Professor Marlo-Jones. He thinks the drawing might have something to do with the rain-making ceremonies of the Arunta Nation.”
“As you say, an extraordinary thing to steal from a Library,” Bony agreed. “Well, thank you very much for your co-operation. I will see that the books are returned from Mrs Rockcliff’s house. Goodbye.”
Alice was waiting for him in the main room, her interest being captured by the ceiling.
“I like it, don’t you?”
“The colour, yes.”
“I think I’ll do our lounge ceiling in that colour… duck-egg blue ceiling and ivory matt walls for the lounge at least.”
“You decorate?”
“Too right. Get the brother to give a hand. Can’t afford to employ house decorators these days. Nice place this Library. I could spend a lot of time here.”
“Alas, Alice, our time is spent.”