A Guardian for Morris
BONYLEFTANSWERTH’SFOLLYshortly after eleven fifteen, and at eleven forty-five he made himself a couch of leaves on the bank of a running stream, and slept until three. Being fortunate to thumb a lift, he was in Edison by half past three, and took time off to shave and bath and make himself presentable to Mr Samuel Harston at five minutes after four.
“Yes, Inspector, what can we do for you?” asked the large, bald man with the sharp, dark-brown eyes and the office-white hands. “Sit down. Smoke?”
Mr Harston’s private office was, like himself, large, pleasant and comfortable. The outer office manned by two clerks was additional evidence of the prosperity he enjoyed. Bony settled himself with the air of a man prepared to relax for several hours. Having rolled a cigarette, he looked up at the stock and station agent before striking a match, and placidly opened what he knew, and the other now suspected, was to be battle.
“How many cattle have the Answerths lost this year?”
“I don’t know that… Have you a reason for asking?”
“I never seek for information…” Bony lit the cigarette and added “… without a reason.”
“Yes, of course, Inspector. I was thinking that Miss Mary Answerth would be in a better position to supply that information.”
“Miss Mary Answerth is indisposed.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. I didn’t know.”
“I had it hushed up by Constable Mawson,” asserted the omnipotent censor. “Last night Miss Mary Answerth was strangled.”
The effect exhibited by the agent was not overdone. Bony’s statement raised him from his chair to lean with his hands upon his paper-littered desk and stare for long moments at his visitor. The visitor stared at him, and he was the first to wilt.
“Strangled!” breathed Mr Harston. “I don’t understand.”
“She will recover,” calmly announced Bony. “Dr Lofty, who accompanied Mawson and me to the house last night, left her in the charge of Mrs Leeper, who, as you probably know, has had extensive nursing experience.”
Mr Harston sat down, and from a drawer took a cigar and lit it with a match which trembled. He waited for supplementary data, and Bony supplied it.
“Having been lassoed with power flex, and then hauled backward to the ground, Miss Answerth found speech most difficult. That was before Dr Lofty gave her a sedative, from which, when I left late this morning, she had not awakened. Someone called her from the house in the middle of the night, and attempted to kill her. Only her unusual physical strength and mental agility saved her. I hope you will not make the matter public. Miss Janet concurs with me that publicity would be harmful to the family.”
“Of course, Inspector, of course… Dammit, these crimes cannot be permitted to continue.”
“My only interest in these crimes,” Bony said, coldly, “is to establish who is committing them. Miss Mary being out of circulation, forgive the idiom, I have to turn to you for information she doubtless would give me. How many cattle have the Answerths lost this year?”
“I understand that the number to date is twenty-nine, but how many were actually stolen, and how many merely strayed and will subsequently be recovered, remains for time to prove. Not a few farmers and pastoralists have suffered losses this year. Last year, too.”
“Have any losses been reported since the death of Edward Carlow?”
The agent gazed hard at the questioner and shook his head.
“What of sheep losses, Mr Harston?” was the next probe.
“The figure is much higher.”
“How many sheep have the Answerths lost this year?”
“Only the other day Miss Mary told me she thought she had lost well over a hundred since March 16th, when the entire flock was yarded.”
“Do you know if she suspects any particular person of stealing her stock?”
“I think she does,” replied the agent. “However, she was never explicit on this point. Suspicion, of course, isn’t proof.”
“There would be fewer criminals at large if suspicion were enough, Mr Harston. Tell me… this Edward Carlow was a very prosperous butcher, was he not?”
Bony could see the growing caution in the other’s brown eyes.
“Yes, he was, Inspector. He opened this business just where and when it was badly needed here in Edison.”
“Would you say he was extremely prosperous?”
“I think I can say that.”
“Pardon my pertinacity. Was he more prosperous than even the circumstances of his business warranted?”
“These are prosperous times, Inspector. Everyone is prosperous.”
“Excepting me, Mr Harston. Let us discuss wool. You marketed the Answerths’ clip?”
“I did.”
“What was the number of the bales?”
The brown eyes flickered.
“Ninety-two. They are to be offered at auction in the second series.”
“Did either Miss Mary or Miss Janet tell you they had lost wool?”
Mr Harston was now decidedly uncomfortable. Doubtless, stepping down from the Bench to be cross-examined like a witness wasn’t to his liking, and it was really odd how the examiner could hidehimself behind eyes of bright blue.
“Miss Mary told me she suspected some of the wool had been stolen during the shearing,” he felt compelled to answer.
“When was it she told you this?”
“It would be some time after the shearing. We went into thefigures, or rather we checked the figures Miss Mary had worked on.”
“Taking the number of sheep and lambs, working on average weight of fleeces, and deducing a loss of approximately two bales?”
“That is so.” Mr Harston was admittedly astonished, and Bony said:
“I also am intelligent. Was the loss reported to the police?”
“I think not.”
“Why not? Two bales represent a lot of money. To a tax-riddled salary like mine, anyway.”
“Well, it was like this, Inspector. The position was a little obscure. The early losses of cattle were reported to the police, and when, later, some of the cattle were found to have strayed, subsequent losses were not reported. Miss Mary… you have met her and assessed her character… isn’t easily influenced. I advised reporting the matter of the wool to Constable Mawson, but she refused to listen, saying she would track down the thief or thieves and exact her own justice. But, of course, she didn’t.”
“How can you be certain that Miss Mary did not?”
“Well, I… I cannot be certain, Inspector. But, having known the Misses Answerth for so many years, I am quite sure that Miss Mary didn’t really mean what she said. Mind you, I am sure that if she suspected a particular man, she wouldn’t go to Mawson, but if she held proof she would report the matter to him for action.”
“On what date did Miss Mary tell you she would exact her own justice?”
Mr Harston took his time over this one, frowning the while at his silver inkstand. Patiently Bony waited, rolling himself another cigarette. Harston didn’t know it, did not realize that this dark man’s patience was inexhaustible. Otherwise he might have saved himself the trouble of trying to escape from the trap he felt had ensnared him.
“I really cannot recall the exact date,” he replied.
“Try, Mr Harston. It is important.”
“Now look here, Inspector. As I told you, I’ve known these Answerths for many years. The original Answerth was a thorough blackguard, and his son and grandsons were almost on a par with him. But these two women, Mary and Janet, are at heart kindly folk. Miss Janet is renowned for her generosity and good works, and although Miss Mary is often unorthodox in her approach to a problem, calling a spade a spade when it is actually a garden trowel, she would not…”
“The date, please, Mr Harston.”
Mr Harston sighed.
“It was the day after the shearing was finished.”
“When Miss Mary discussed the wool loss from her figures?”
“Yes.”
“And five days later the body of Edward Carlow was found in the Folly. Did you not consider it probable that Miss Mary had exacted her own justice? Pardon me, that’s not a fair question. Do you think that Miss Mary is physically capable of handling a man of the weight and strength of Edward Carlow?”
“To that, Inspector, I must answer yes. One afternoon at the hotel across the street Miss Mary tackled a bar full of men. Five needed Dr Lofty’s ministrations. But murder… no! I’ll never consider the possibility. It’s… it’s damnable.”
“I agree,” murmured Bony. “However, I have to weigh and assess every possibility. What do you say when I tell you that Edward Carlow had in his slaughter-yard shed the wool stolen from the Answerths’ shed?”
“That I still refuse even to consider that Miss Mary killed the man. When a little tipsy, she loves a brawl. But murder… no! Murder in cold blood… preposterous!”
“Miss Mary says she was awakened by someone throwing earth against her bedroom window. A man standing below asked her to go down to him as he wanted to talk about the theft of her cattle. Only by exploring every avenue can I settle the questions who and why. My long experience shows me that a threat spoken in anger dies at birth.”
Mr Harston was instantly mollified, unaware that Bony had not yet finished with him, and feeling that he himself had been at fault. Bony moved to fresh pastures.
“Tell me why the causeway hasn’t been maintained,” he pressed. “The property, though comparatively small, appears to be in good and efficient order. With the ruling prices of meat and wool, there must be plenty of money.”
Mr Harston relit the stub of his cigar, made a mess of it and killed it on the ash-tray. Having lit a fresh one, he said:
“I don’t think I can answer your question, Inspector. Meaning that I’m doubtful that I know the answer. As you mentioned, there’s no lack of money. The fortunes of those two women must be considerable, and I have no idea just how much they’re worth today.” Harston chewed the cigar, caught himself in the act and refrained before it was ruined. “I have not been unaware of changes these last ten or a dozen years, changes towards me due much less to anything held or imagined against me than to something which has been building up in them.”
When the agent paused, Bony encouraged:
“Perhaps you would care to elaborate.”
“I’ll try. When old Jacob Answerth was alive, my work as his business agent was smooth. His views were consistent, and more often than not he acted on my advice. After he died, the daughters were content to carry on under my general supervision, that is, with marketing and finance, the actual management of stock being outside my province. However, as time went on they became ever more independent of my advice, and more reticent in financial matters. Time appeared to effect changes in them, too, and I cannot explain these changes excepting that Mary seems to have become even more intolerant and Janet more secretive, or shall I say… oh, I don’t know. My wife says they should have married. I am inclined to think they were born under most unfavourable stars.”
“Janet, I understand, is something of a philanthropist,” Bony suggested.
“That is so,” conceded Mr Harston. “Janet is least like any of the Answerths. She is brainy, cultured, likeable. We have three churches in Edison, and she never fails to hear their appeals for financial assistance and personal effort. When old Carlow died, and the farm was bankrupt, Miss Mary insisted on letting it to other people, and Miss Janet rescued the Carlow family and set them up, Edward in the butcher’s shop.
“Miss Mary is equally generous in her way. She’s hostile to the churches, but generous to the local hospital and the aged. Janet seems to like people knowing about her good works. Mary appears to be indifferent to what people think of her, good, bad or half-way.”
“When Miss Janet took under her wing Mrs Carlow and her two sons, what was Miss Mary’s attitude?”
“In this very office she called Janet a hypocritical little bitch. They were here to settle the lease of the farm to new tenants. She also said, very much to my surprise, that Miss Janet’s only interest in the Carlows was Edward. Miss Janet was furious.”
“H’m!” Bony’s face was masked. “Who does the booking… household accounts, and such things?”
“Miss Janet. She’s a clever little thing, you know. After she came home from school she studied accountancy, and when her father died she compiled the Stock and Income Taxation Returns. Which is why I do not know just what their financial position is. ”
“They would not spend money on the causeway, I think you said.”
“I did. When it was again apparent that the causeway would have to be raised, they said that the Local Council should bear the cost, or that the Government should open the river mouth. The last time work was done it cost a thousand pounds. This time the estimate was treble that amount. I pointed out that it might be wise to build a house to the right of the men’s quarters, a modern house with up-to-date amenities, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Mary said that what the first Answerth had built she would never desert, and Janet produced the hare-brained idea that if the water rose high enough it would itself burst out to sea.
“Eventually, they employed an elderly man by the name ofWinter to build a boat. Although deaf and dumb, the old chap is a good boat-builder, and a reliable handyman. When needed, he rafts wood over to the house and saws it into required lengths.”
“He has been going to Venom House, how many years?”
“Oh, a full dozen, might be more.”
“Visitors, I understand, are not welcome.”
Mr Harston shrugged.
“They have never entertained like their father used to. Miss Mary thinks only of work and the stock.” The big man smiled. “I could not imagine Miss Mary in a lounge, or at a meeting of our literary society. Miss Janet occasionally comes to town to spend an evening with one or another, or to attend a charity meeting or church function. But no one is ever invited to Venom House.”
“Mrs Leeper appears willing to stay there. What do they pay her?”
“Twice as much as they need to employ a cook-housekeeper.” The agent looked grim. “I imagine that she believes she earns it.”
“Tells me she is saving to acquire her own mental hospital,” Bony said, casually, and the agent agreed a trifle too readily.“Seems a capable woman.”
“Very. Just the type to manage the family.”
“You found her for them?”
“Yes. Her credentials were excellent. It was I, in fact, who suggested to them that they ought to employ a nurse to help with Mrs Answerth and Morris. They both said Morris was well cared for, but they did realize that Mrs Answerth was growing old.”
“Is it correct that Jacob left all his money to his daughters and nothing to his wife and son?”
“That is so. I knew nothing of his intentions until the will was read. I wanted the daughters to settle an annuity on the wife, but Mrs Answerth wouldn’t hear of it. Said she didn’t want any of Jacob’s money. She had a little of her own.”
“The Misses Answerthhave had their wills drawn up, I suppose?”
“Yes. They sought my advice about that.”
“Who did they appoint their executor?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Who inherits the bulk of the money?”
“I don’t know that either, for sure. I think it is to be held in trust for Morris. I advised it.”
“That implies a guardian,” Bony murmured. “Who has been appointed?”
Mr Harston coughed, and rose as though to indicate that the interview was ended. His eyes were uneasy. His face was flushed. When Bony declined the hint, and remained in his chair, the agent said, angrily:
“You know, Inspector, I think I ought not to continue this particular subject. After all, I am breaking a confidence. The solicitors, perhaps, may have another view. Mark and Mark, of Manton, are the solicitors.”
Blandly, Bony regarded the agent, and negligently waved him back to his chair. Mr Harston sat. He glared.
“Solicitors are always difficult,” Bony said. “Their training and practice withers in them the precious gift of imagination. May I accept the point that you have at heart the welfare of this Answerth family?”
“Of course! Of course! I’ve known them since they were babies.”
“I am happy to have your assurance, Mr Harston. You see, I have two objectives. One is to establish who murdered Mrs Answerth, and in addition, who attempted to murder Miss Mary Answerth. The other is to prevent another Answerth from being murdered. Therefore, I may claim also to have the welfare of this family at heart. I may expect your willing co-operation in my efforts to prevent another murder?”
Bereft of words, Mr Harston nodded as though counting.
“A detective’s job is to suspect everyone until they are proved to be innocent,” Bony went on. “His job is to gather evidence amounting to proof with assertion that a particular individual is guilty. Among many who it is now my job to suspect of strangling Mrs Answerth is… you.”
Again the agent was on his feet.
“Me!” he came close to shouting.“Why me?”
“Have I not explained? I suspect everyone here in Edison, everyone at Venom House, everyone in this district, and I shall continue doing so until Mrs Answerth’s slayer is named. You could have killed her, Mr Harston. That you cannot deny. So, too, could Constable Mawson, Robin or Henry Foster, one of the station hands, an Answerth, even the guardian appointed by their will. Who is the guardian?”
Mr Harston waved his hands helplessly. He saw nothing of the dark face: only the enormous blue eyes. The voice was like a gimlet another twist of which would enter his brain.
“The name of the guardian, Mr Harston?”
“Mrs Leeper,” whispered Mr Harston.