The Answerths at Large
BONYREFASTENEDMORRIS’Sdoor and pocketed the key. If Morris hadn’t found his door unbolted, so much the better. Who had unbolted his door was of less import now than the probability that he was a participant in a game which Bony hoped he might finalize before it ended in tragedy.
The obvious course was to makehimself known, light a lamp or two, bring the inmates together and prod them to explain their antics. However, invest the Law with personality and you find… the insane. Prod these people to produce explanation, and where would that lead him, and what would it achieve?
Precisely nothing and nowhere. These people would offer a very good reason for being outside their rooms in the dead of night. They would say they were awakened by an intruder whom they sought to hold until the police arrived. And the only person illegally engaged in this game in the dark was Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.
As the Chief Commissioner delighted to inform him, he wasn’t a real policeman’s bootlace, and the association of the Colonel’s face, when animated by blood-pressure, with a bootlace in a constable’s boot somehow produced miles of red tape wrapped about a volume of “Powers, Duties and Prerogatives of the Police Officer”. Not included among these “Powers, etc” was entering private premises without authority in the form of a warrant. Even he, who thumbed his nose at “Powers, etc.”, wouldn’t get away with this entrance to private premises. It was open defiance of Magna Carta, or the Constitution orSomething, at which to thumb one’s nose is unpardonable.
One event only would excuse him. The event hadn’t happened… yet. If it did not occur, he must leave as he had entered, unseen.
He failed to hear Janet, or detect her approach until her perfume met his nose. She wasn’t loitering this time, and she evinced no interest in Morris’s door. Only when she rounded the right-angle of the passage did he hear her breathing. It was a trifle fast. She managed her bedroom door very well… for a white woman… betraying herself only by making a sound when turning the key with unsteady pressure.
The key would be on the inside. It was a pity, Bonydecided, otherwise he could have locked her in.
Without doubt Morris was the expert. With intelligence, he would have been a worthy competitor with Bony to reach perfection in the art of scouting. He omitted an important point. Had he rolled himself in the mustiness of those abandoned rooms ruled by spiders… after washing his hair with scentless soap… he might have passed Bony undetected. His hair oil was a torch for Bony to see him for five seconds.
Janet had been in a hurry to reach her room. Was her haste occasioned by the stalking Morris?
Bony was still unsure of the answer when he smelled Janet. She was standing before Morris’s door, and within reach of his free hand, and tiny sounds told him she was touch-examining the bolt and padlock. She remained there for a full minute, and he felt relief when she departed towards the back stairs.
He decided to remain pressed within the shallow recess, for he was as well here as anywhere. Unlike those others, he had no immediate objective. His role was a waiting one. He contemplated leaving the house and pounding on the front door, demanding admittance to interview one or the other on the pretext of official necessity. That course might prevent tragedy this night, but it would not advance his investigation or prevent tragedy in the future. Confusion of purpose was due to the unusual behaviour of Mary Answerth.
Right now she should have been in bed and asleep, her light on guard, and Inspector Bonaparte keeping both eyes on her door. Instead, she was sweeping past him on the smell of wintergreen.
Some time afterwards, sound erupted to fill every corner of the mansion. It seemed to come from the back of the house, and it began with the beating of two trays against plate glass, dwindling to the rising crescendo of bass drums, and ending by each of a thousand devils tearing a sheet of canvas. Because of the unexpectedness of it all, the shriek of someone being killed would have been a lullaby. Silence squatted again.
Bony could hear the heart of silence throbbing like a distant tom-tom. The beat changed in tempo, but not in volume. It came from a human throat. Close to him, Morris Answerth was striving to control his laughter. From which point he had come and to which point he departed, Bony was uncertain.
For some time after that, none of the players came his way and he heard not a sound until a voice said:
“Got-cher!”
At last the event… perhaps. Stone walls distort sound. He could not tell whose voice it was or be sure that the second word was “cher”. If the back-stairs’ door was open, the speaker could be in the kitchen. The other point was the hall, and the hall was nearer.
Moving from the staircase, Bony gained the dining-room doorway, leaned against it and waited. He had been there for perhaps three minutes, when the lounge door was gently closed.
He assumed that Mary Answerth had retired from the game.
Feet softly padded along the passage upstairs. Theycame padding down the stairs. They padded across the hall to the front door. The handle was turned without attempt to stifle the sound. The feet re-crossed the hall, padded up the stairs. There was haste in the sound. It was like a rat realizing it was trapped and frantically seeking escape. Bony heard the padlock to Morris’s door-bolt being handled.
Bony followed, and at the gallery he paused to listen and could hear nothing. The point of the wire sword prodded the yielding void before his face, seeking obstruction. He advanced along the passage, passed Janet’s room, was halted by the clink of metal. Yet again the perfume of hair oil met his nostrils, and he was aware it was not advancing to him buthe to it. He continued to advance till the tip of his cat’s whisker contacted some part of Morris’s body.
“No! I’m sorry. I want to go in. I…”
“Stand aside, Morris, and I will open the door.”
“I’m frightened. I want to go in.”
Bony was gripped by his left arm, and the pressure was painful. He managed to free the padlock and open the door. “Go in now,” he said, and with a stifled whimper Morris scurried back to his prison.
There remained at large Janet Answerth and Mrs Leeper.
Traversing the passage to the back stairs, he floated down the inclined stone tunnel to the heavy door at the bottom. Soundlessly he entered the kitchen, and instantly was assailed by a perfume different from those others. A tiny particle of ice struck between his shoulders. Magically it grew in size, spreading up the back of his neck, spreading outward to cover his scalp.
The strange odour was registered by instinct rather than by the senses which recognized the perfume of flowers. During seconds, Bony was stripped of the veneer laid upon the white man by education, training, experience. During those seconds he was elemental, completely subjugated by fear of the dreaded Kurdaitcha: the Thing Who walked the earth and left no tracks because It soaked Its feet in the blood of men and to the blood glued the feathers of eagles: the Thing having something like the face of a man, the teeth of a dingo, and the nose of a mopoke: the Thing from which there is no escape for the aborigine It catches away from his camp at night.
The sweat dripped from Bony’s face.
Thenprevailed the pride of Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, who prospected for the body and with his wire whisker found it on the hearth hard against the stove.
The night beyond the window failed to provide the merest glimmer to illumine the scene. Slowly Bony’s knees bent to permit his erect body to sink while his eyes continued to probe and his ears to strive with the silence. His right hand touched cloth, discovered the outlines of a female body. The fingers found the face and explored the features. His arm slid under the body, and the wire sword was discarded that the left hand could hold the woman’s head. That Janet Answerth’s neck was broken could not be doubted.
Mrs Leeper was the last at large… unless Mary Answerth had once again left her room.
With unabated stealth and cautiousness, Bony left the kitchen. At the closed lounge door he listened with an ear to the key-hole. He heard nothing. Within was no light. Entering, he listened. Slowly he crossed to the bed.
Bending over the foot of the bed, at last he caught the sound of soft but regular breathing, and as now the event had happened to release him from questions concerning his presence inside Venom House, he switched on his torch, aiming the beam at the floor.
The woman on the bed didn’t stir. The reflection of the light revealed the outline of her massive form. The position of her arms caused the light beam to slant upward to the ceiling, when the reflection became stronger. Mary Answerth was lying on her back. Either she was asleep or unconscious. Each wrist was lashed to a bedpost, and the divergent range of bedclothes ended at each of the foot posts. Her feet were likewise bound.
Pocketing the torch, and aided by his wire whisker, Bony went hunting for Mrs Leeper. Again in the hall, he could hear nothing of her. She was not in Janet’s studio or sitting-room. She was not in the kitchen, nor in her own sitting-room. He came upon her in Janet’s bedroom, and from the doorway directed his light to encircle her.
She was on her knees before a chest of drawers. About her was a great litter of clothes and oddments. She spun round to face the shattering light beam, and always politely formal in dramatic situations, Bony enquired:
“For what, Mrs Leeper, are you searching?”
Astonishingly agile, she sprang to her feet. Her white face expressed incredible relief, but her voice was shrill with hysteria.
“Inspector Bonaparte! They’ve hidden all the matches, and I can’t find what they’ve done with them.”