Writing on the Wall
THEDAYWASgrowing up… an unruly child. On Bony’s emerging from the house after breakfasting with Janet Answerth, he found that the sun was Chinese yellow instead of Australian gold. The wind was coming from the nor-west, and already little waves were throbbing against the island called Venom House.
Standing on the levee, he could see the mark in the bank made by the prow of Blaze’s boat. There were several similar marks obviously older than twelve hours. He could not observe marks made by a swimmer wading to and climbing over the levee. To be sure that no one had swum or come by boat to the island the previous night, he followed the levee clockwise.
The levee, of earth and stone, was sufficiently broad at the top to provide a pathway six to eight feet above the water. Half a dozen sheep were feeding inside the levee, and they followed him with the expectancy of hand-fed animals until a fence stopped them.
Beyond the fence was the vegetable garden, the fowl pens, the woodstack and, protected by tarpaulins, the sawing-bench and the oil engine to power the circular saw. Here Bony was at the rear of the house, and he paused to watch the busy hens, among which were two mothers fussing with many chicks, at the same time noting the position of the kitchen and back doors. There was much more land on this, the north, side, and the rising wind was vigorously flapping the clothes on two lines. Near the kitchen door was built an open-fronted shed containing the split wood. The man who came overspecially to saw and chop wood, and do other chores, might be worthy of examination. At the moment, the situation of the covered sawing-bench and oil engine in the lee of the stack of unsawn wood was of greater import.
Eventually the levee conducted him to the east side of the house and so opposite that corner where Morris Answerth had his rooms. There was nothing out of position with the steel lattice guarding the bedroom window. The casement was open a few inches, but he could not see Morris, probably because he was sleeping after his exciting night. The thought brought awareness ofhis own need of sleep.
On coming again to the causeway, he was sure that no stranger or unauthorized person had landed from a boat or had emerged from the water to attract Mary Answerth’s attention and so lure her out of the house, and thus there could be no argument to contest the fact that her assailant lived at Venom House.
Bony turned to gaze once more at the front of the mansion, for mansion it was. He fancied someone was watching him from the lounge. The front door was open as he had left it, but long since the dew on the grass had vanished, and with it the tracks which he had read as easily as the printed page. There was slight movement at the first of Morris Answerth’s two living-room windows and he saw the hand from which a dun-coloured line was creeping down the grey stone face. Morris was fishing, not sleeping. It would be Janet who watched from the lounge, as Mrs Leeper would be in her kitchen.
Just why was Morris Answerth confined to those two rooms? Unable to swim, the “island” itself was for him a prison. Was that eternal confinement dictated by periods of violence when restraint was difficult even to such a pair as Mary and Mrs Leeper? Save for the one exhibition of violence when Morris had threatened to throw the lamp, Bony had seen nothing indicating that he required such constraint.
On the occasion when he had escaped from the house, he had taken the boat, aimlessly rowed on the Folly and landed to play with young lambs. Blaze had supported that story, in addition to Mrs Leeper. The thought that Morris, by watching his sister and others wading over the causeway, also knew the pathway hidden by the muddy water, had previously been explored by Bony. Had he managed to escape on occasions other than when he had rowed on the Folly? It inferred, of course, that his door had been accidentally left unlocked, and this in turn inferred a habit of forgetting to lock his door. That no one knew of his escape via the window could be accepted.
The hiding-place of the blanket rope, the old trousers and the sand shoes was sufficient proof of planning and cunning to outwit his sisters. He was much more than an obedient, polite boy of ten or twelve years, and Bony wondered how much, if anything, had his mother contributed to that part of his seemingly arrested mind.
Bony walked to the magnet being lowered from the upper window. The string was ordinary parcel twine and the magnet was large and powerful. On touching the ground, the fisherman manoeuvred it as much as the window opening would permit, and it collected a toy railway line, two nuts and a metal knob which had probably come from the top of a chair. Although the fisherman could not have felt the “bites”, the magnet was drawn up and disappeared through the window.
Bony noticed many metal objects lying so wide that the fisherman would never catch them, and, the magnet again being lowered, gently he moved it to catch so many objects that it fairly bristled.
This catch eventually disappeared, and a hand was thrust far out and waved to him. Again the bait was lowered, and againraised bristling with the catch. Then a shower of objects fell from the window, and the game was continued.
It was played for half an hour, and might have continued longer had not Janet Answerth appeared on the porch and come to investigate. Solemnly, Bony loaded the magnet, and, solemnly, he watched it being drawn up by the fisherman.
“Whatever are you doing, Inspector? Why! Playing at fishing with poor Morris.”
“Your brother is happy because never before has he caught so many fish in so short a time, with such little effort,” Bony said. “Wait and see. Dear me… I’m being quite political… Churchill and Asquith.”
The magnet came down, rested on the ground, lifted to sweep in narrow arcs, gather a Meccano part, a bolt. Bony picked up other objects and dropped them against the magnet, and presently the loaded “hook” was moving slowly up the wall.
“Morris will want to play all day, Inspector. And I’ve to tell you that Blaze has just rung up to say he advises coming over to fetch you, as very soon the Folly will be too rough for the boat.”
“Oh! In that case I’d better accept his advice. It means, too, that Dr Lofty will not be able to visit his patient this afternoon. Has Miss Mary wakened?”
“No, not yet. Mrs Leeper says that she can do everything the doctor tells her by telephone. She’s quite a good nurse.”
The sun said it was ten-thirty, and Janet knew by the manner in which Bony estimated the house shadow that he was satisfied to know the time by this method rather than to look at his wrist-watch.
“The doctor told us that Mary ought to waken about eleven,” she said, calmly. “You are, of course, very welcome to stay as long as you wish. But if the Folly grows too rough for the boat, you may have to stay until tomorrow. We should be rather glad to have you.”
She had perfect control of her eyes and her face, but slipped a trifle with her voice as many a hostess does when secretly wishing the guest to the devil. Bony decided to leave as soon as Blaze could come for him, and he was taken to Janet’s sitting-room for morning tea whilst waiting.
Later, on looking back, Bony could find no note of discord. There was neither probing nor shying away from the purpose of his presence. They discussed her pictures, when she admitted that her study of art had been terminated by her father’s death, whilst her knowledge of world events proved that mentally she was not limited by her life at Venom House. When interested, as well as when emotional, the lisp was absent.
Buffeted by three women, Bony felt a trifle less spiritually buoyant than usual, for he realized how far apart in mental stature he was from the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who had claimed: “All the women in the world would not make me lose an hour.” Bony was perturbed when admitting to himself how little he knew of feminine psychology. An intelligent woman like his wife would have talked nineteen to the dozen, noted voice inflection, eyes and mouth expression and, having added all together, would have multiplied the answer by intuition, divided by imagination, and thus accurately summed up these three women. An hour! They had cost him six hours in a row.
Three women under the one roof! One able to kill by pressing on a nerve in the neck. Another able to crack a whip hard on the nose of an infuriated bull. And the third conscious of her power over men and silly enough to believeherself infallible with all men. And with these three women under the one roof, a subnormal man of twenty-seven who claims with impish triumph to know who strangled his mother. As the outback bushman, like Blaze, would say: “Things is crook.”
Standing on the porch, Janet waved to him. His acknowledgement was also accepted by Morris Answerth, and old Blaze shouted to makehimself heard:
“Gettin’ a good send-off. In a manner of speakin’ you’re going to get a good welcome. I got summat to show you.”
“That sounds good.”
“Reckon you’ll think so. Robin Foster and the lad are away shifting sheep, so you can take your time. Did she give you a cuppa tea?”
“She did. Any fish in this lake?”
“Plenty. You like fishin’?”
“Yes. My favourite sport.”
With the wind astern the crossing was fast, and, having locked the painter to the stump, Blaze led the way to the men’s quarters. At the kitchen door, he said:
“What I got to show you’s in the wool shed. I was doing a bit of moochin’ around when I seen it.”
“Can we enter without being observed from the house?”
“ ’Fraidnot. Why worry?”
“True… why worry. Tellme, is the pathway over the causeway very difficult to follow?”
Blaze stopped when between the kitchen and wool shed that he might not miss the effect of his words.
“You aimingto make it one night?”
“I might be. What do you think of the idea of Morris watching Miss Mary and you crossing and returning by wading, and charting the hidden pathway in his mind so clearly as to be able to make it himself?”
“Let me stew a bit.”
The little cook went on and together they entered the wide door of the wool shed. It was completely empty, and there Blaze again confronted Bony.
“There’s a sort of knack of getting over that causeway,” he said. “Going from this side you take a sight at the left corner of the house, and coming back you keeps your eye on the right corner of the shearing shed. There’s four big holes and one small one you got to get by. No, I don’t think Morris could make it, no matter how he nutted it out from his winder. I’m sure he couldn’t in the dark night. Takes me and Miss Mary all our time not to get slewed and fall into deep water after dark.”
“Thanks. Pass it. What have you to show me here?”
“That.”
Blaze pointed to the wall, on which figuring had been done with blue raddle. Rows of figures had been lined out, and others substituted above them. There was a number tallying with the number of sheep recently shorn. There were many small sums of addition, and of division. And there were the figures 94.
“So Miss Mary worked out the theft of the wool the same way that we did,” Bony murmured.
“Thought you might like to see it,” Blaze said with enormous satisfaction. “Now, why in hell didn’t she squawk about that stolen wool?”
“Tell me.”
“I could tell you easier how many seven-ounce glasses of beer ought to be in a niner. You say, Inspector.”
“One day I will. Meanwhile inform me on another point. Tell me who goes over to saw and split the wood.”
“Old bloke by the name ofWinter. Does that and other jobs about every three months. Been doing it for years. Had a lot of bad luck in his time.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. When he was a young feller he went to sea and fell down a hatch. Just happened to bite his tongue off as he was going down. Never talked since. Anyway, he kept going to sea until he got that deaf he couldn’t hear the orders, so he took to growing pineapples, and one night the house burned down and he couldn’t get his wife and daughter out.
“Twenty year ago that was. He sold the farm and come to Edison ’cos he’d be near the sea, and took a job as yardman at the pub. Been there ever since, and takes a break by coming here and making a raft outer logs and polin’ it over. Decent old coot.”
Bony warmly thanked the cook for his co-operation, and began the four-mile walk to Edison. He had proceeded half a mile when his mind focused on old manWinter who was deaf and dumb. Had the idea of employing him at Venom House emerged from Boccaccio’sDecameron?