Ed Penwarden’s Mistake
THREE MEN HADleft the Belmont Hotel for Split Point, for Bony could not accept the view that one of Dick Lake’s passengers was a woman. Lake was dead. His companions had been careful to avoid recognition by remaining in the back seat of the car, and of those two, Eldred Wessex was surely one. The other was dead, were he Thomas Baker.
The clue of the red-gum shaving found in the Lighthouse had produced a result, although a scent rather than a fingerprint. Elimination had reduced the possible agents of conveyance from the carpenter’s workshop to the Lighthouse to one of three men: the murderer, the murderer’s accomplice, the victim. Now the victim could be discarded, and there remained the two agents named, viz: Dick Lake and Eldred Wessex.
Either one or both had been inside Penwarden’s workshop immediately before the nude body was entombed in the Lighthouse wall. And old Penwarden knew it.
How to tackle the coffin maker? With the sharp scalpel of the expert investigator, or with the soft and soothing blah of the diplomat? Bony chose the alternative.
The day was sunny and warm for the month of May, and after lunch he strolled with Stug down the curve of the highway, and so to the building where laboured the master craftsman.
“Hullo, Mr Rawlings, sir!” greeted the old man. “Come on in and sit you down and gas.”A throaty chuckle.“My old woman’s allus on to me forgassin ’. Says I do nothing else the live-long day. Gas, gas, gas, and sheworkin ’ her fingers to the bone. Youever seen your wife’sfingerbones?”
“They are too well padded,” replied Bony, occupying his favourite end of the bench. “Any further word about the bloodwood logs?”
“Not yet. The railways take their time these days. Could be a full week, even two, aforethem logs arrive in Geelong.” The work-hardened fingers combed back the long, white hair, and the blue eyes beamed. “Tell you what, Mr Rawlings. I’ll make and polish a shelf for your sitting room. Scarlet she’ll be, with the shine to her like my daffodil-yellow one. You come in for a cup of tea with me and the old woman afore you leave Split Point… just to look at that bit of flotsam.”
“Thank you. I’d like to.”
“Your holiday got much more to go?”
“Perhaps another week.”
The old man took up a rule and measured a rough length of scantling. He jotted figures on the slate, pondered on them, and having pencilled a mark on the wood and sawn along it, he straightened and regarded Bony with eyes narrowed by the broad smile.
“I’ve assembled her,” he said. “Put her together this morning. No polishing, mind. Still see the joins. Like to look at her?”
“Of course,” replied Bony, slipping off the bench.
“Takes a time to put the gloss on her,” went on Penwarden. “Ilikes to put in an hour or two every day for a week, and then give her a rest for a week or so. You know, wood’s wood. When a man dies, he rots. When a tree dies,’specially them red-gums, she never rots… leastways not for centuries. The sap dries out after she dies, but the wood keeps a sort of spirit that goes on for years and years.
“You have to love the wood, and coax it, and talk to it while you polishes and polishes, and after a bit, if you listen hard enough, you’ll hear the woodtalkin ’ to you like a cat when she’s stroked. You seen the coffin I made for Mrs Owen. I’ll make yours to look as good, and, centuries tocome, me and you will still be lying snug. I got her in the parlour.”
Having by now conquered the superstitious dread of coffins, and able calmly to regard objectively Mr Penwarden’s creations. Bony followed the ancient to the “parlour” with pleasurable anticipation.
“Here shebe,” cried the old man when they stood either side the dull-red casket on the trestles. “Here shebe in themakin ’. The unpolished gem, thesmoulderin ’ fire, the untested character.”
He raised the lid in its hidden hinges, and the lid remained in its balanced upright position, and he regarded Bony with eyes lit by pride and undimmed by the decades. Bony felt the satin smoothness of the wood, was reminded of the red sand of the inland, the real heart of Australia which fools continue to claim is dead. He lowered the lid and heard the air compression, so perfect was its fit.
“You should be very proud of your work,” he said.“Wrong word, for which I’m sorry. Art, is the word, for you are indeed an artist.”
“Nay, Mr Rawlings, sir. A good tradesman, that’s all. I’ve lived a long time in the one abiding place, but I’ve learned much and Time has done a bit ofpolishin ’ to me, too. This here job is good, I’ll say that for it, and all that’s needed is to work on her and coax her to show us the glory of her heart. Now just you take afittin ’ to make sure youlies comfortable, and then when you get her home, you pushes her under the bed and don’t think of her… only now and then. We all want a corrector, Mr Rawlings, sir, and there’snothin ’ like the sight of a coffin to melt away pride and vanity. Now let’s take that fitting.”
“You want me to lie down in it?”
“Just to make sure she’s right to take the small of your back, and the fit of your neck. No need to take your shoes off. They won’t dono damage.”
“Very well,”assented Bony. The old man, had he a beard, could be Father Time, and the rule he waved in his left hand the scythe.
Bony settled himself, and Penwarden placed his legs straight and his feet together. All that could be seen of him by Bony was the upper third of his body.
“Ah!” breathed the craftsman. “My guess of your length was true. Now how does your neck and head rest? Just you say. We’ll make sure she’s nice and easy.”
“A little could be taken off the curve of the neck rest,” Bony decided, and sat up to indicate a point where the carved rest pressed too sharply.
“That’s so!” exclaimed the old man. “About ashavin ’ or two will fix that. Down you go, and we’ll make sure of your back.”
“The back seems to be all right,” Bony said, moving his body and relaxing.“Yes, quite good. There’s no doubt…” The broken sentence was completed before his mind registered the slam of the lid “… you are a good tradesman.”
Accident, of course! He expected the lid to be raised, instantly, and when it was not, he lifted his hands to press it upwards. He was able to raise it… a fraction of an inch.
“Mr Penwarden!” he called, and used his knees to assist his hands. The lid could not be raised higher than that fraction of one inch. “Mr Penwarden! Raise the lid!”
Leg and arm muscles relaxed and the lid sank, the air being compressed like escaping steam. The blackness of the grave, and confines of the grave, encompassed him. A great shout pounded in his ears, and he realized it was his own voice. With all his strength, he pushed upwards… and forced up the lid that fraction of an inch.
“Penwarden!” he shouted. “Penwarden, let me out. This is beyond a joke. D’youhear? Let me out at once.”
“Ah, Mr Rawlings, sir. ’Tis indeed beyond a joke.”
The voice was far distant and yet blared in his right ear. He maintained the upward pressure of the lid, and heard the scrape of the small wedge. His mind was cool, but his body trembled violently. Again the voice spoke into his ear.
“As we just agreed, this is not a joke.”
“Then let me out, Mr Penwarden,” cried Bony, and was mortified by the note of fear in his own voice.
“You see, Mr Rawlings, sir, it’s like this,” went on the old man without. “I took you for a visitor to Split Point, a pleasant gentleman taking a holiday. I sort of took to you, and liked to do a bit ofgassin ’ with you. But you’re not what you make out. You came to Split Point to make more trouble for them who’s been troubledmore’n enough. What’s done was done, and what’s past is past, but you, Mr Rawlings, intends adding trouble to trouble and grief to grief.”
“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Bony, knowing that the only escape was via his tongue.
“Evil doers tread in the steps of evil doers. You are an octopus that crawls from the sea to trap good clean life in God’s own world. I am going to leave you for a little while, Mr Rawlings, sir, just for a little while. I’ll leave the lid wedgedso’s you will get the air and take the opportunity to make your peace with the Eternal. You won’t raise the lid any more because she’s set fast. And no one will hearyourshoutin ’, exceptin ’ the Eternal.
“What are you driving at?” shouted Bony. “I’ve done you no injury. Release me at once.”
“We know all about the man in the wall of the Lighthouse, Mr Rawlings, sir. We know what he did to Eldred Wessex, and what Eldred did to him. We know you came here to find out what happened to that man and who killedhim, that you can blackmail poor Eldred’s parents into telling you where he is.”
Bony continued to expostulate, conscious of the note of desperation in his voice.
“We know,” continued Penwarden, “we know you went to the cave under the cliff, and found what you found. You came here to blackmail Eldred’s father and mother. And no mercy on them. And no mercy on you. You shall die in your coffin and be buried evermore.”
There was no exultancy in the ancient’s voice, no hint of an unbalanced mind. The voice was hard, the enunciation distinct. The voice was without heat, implacable. Fighting for control, Bony said:
“Now you listen to me, Mr Penwarden. I am not an associate of the man found dead in the Lighthouse. I am a police officer, investigating the murder of the man who is known as Thomas Baker. I am Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. You must remember that my friend who sent you the telegram saying he’d dispatched the bloodwood logs, also said for you to remember him to his friend Bony.”
The echo of his voice within the coffin dwindled into the fetid twilight. The silence was unbroken, and Bony thought the old man had gone away. He said, rapidly, however:
“I know that Dick Lake was in that crime. Constable Staley and I found the revolver in Dick’s trunk at his camp, the weapon which killed Baker. The experts at Police Headquarters have examined it, and the bullet found in the body has the marks on it made by the barrel. If you kill me, Penwarden, other policemen will come to search for me. They will carry on where I left off. They will inform Dick’s parents about that revolver and say that Dick shot Thomas Baker. You can’t stop it, Mr Penwarden. You can’t stop justice once it begins working.”
Again that withdrawal of sound into the twilight. Again the dreadful silence. This time the silence was ended by a plaintive cry. The lid was lifted. Daylight rushed upon Bony, and the sweet aroma of wood shavings swept like brooms through the corridors of his haunted mind. Arms slid under him, lifted him, assisted him up and out of the coffin. His legs were almost paralysed, and his breathing wasstertorous. Old arms, strong yet, and made stronger still by emotion, helped him to the wall, there to let him down with his back resting.
Old Penwarden fell to his knees before Bony, his hands upon the floor. Horror lived in his blue eyes matching the horror still living in the blue eyes of Napoleon Bonaparte. His voice was like the wind in bulrushes.
“Mr Rawlings, sir! Mr… Inspector Bonaparte, sir… Mr Rawlings! I didn’t know. I made a mistake, ’deed I did. Take your time, Mr Rawlings, sir. Just you take your time.”