Venom House Page 11

  “Bit of a doer, ain’t she?” remarked the laconic Mike Falla.

  Bony slipped into top gear, and chuckled to hide from his companion the thrill of admiration for Mary Answerth’s horsemanship and dexterity with a fourteen-foot stockwhip. Gross, superbly efficient, as contemptuous of an enraged bull as of her head stockman whom she had tossed into her wagon like a sheaf of hay, the woman was ruthlessness personified.

  “I must agree, Mike,” Bony said, and gave himself to meditation until they arrived at Manton.

  Tanter’s house was brightly painted and the centre of wide and verdant pastures on which sheep were white dots on green. Tanter himself was short, alert, quiet.

  “I won’t occupy much of your time, Mr Tanter,” Bony said when they were seated in the classer’s office. “I understand that you classed the Answerths’ wool this year.”

  “I have classed their wool for the last nine years, Inspector.”

  “The shed routine is, I assume, the same as that on outback stations?”

  “Yes, the same.”

  “Did you at any time note, or even feel, that anything was wrong with the fleeces and wool left overnight in your bins?”

  The classer’s face registered his answer before he spoke it.

  “Well, that’s strange you should ask me that,” he said, quickly. “It was only a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Not a conviction, else I’d have spoken about it. In fact, I blamed myself, coming to doubt my memory, thinking I must be slipping somewhere.”

  “You said nothing of this, as you say, doubt of yourself to anyone?”

  “No. Had I become certain that anything was amiss, I’d have spoken of it to Miss Mary Answerth.” Tanter hesitated. “You see, Inspector, Miss Answerth isn’t the kind of woman one can talk to easily. She is...”

  “I think I understand. You, of course, placed the wool in the several bins?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The only man to remove the wool from the bins was the presser?”

  “That is so.”

  “And the presses were in the same shut-off part of the shearing shed as were your wool tables and bins?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one worked there other than the presser and yourself?”

  “No one.”

  “If during the night someone entered your room and took out half the fleeces in your bins, and placed sacks under the top fleeces left in each bin, you would not notice the loss?”

  “No. The bins there aren’t large, and three rolled fleeces would make a perfect top layer over sacks. But...”

  “Well?”

  “The sacks placed in the bins to take the space occupied by the stolen fleeces would have to be removed somehow to stop the presser finding them immediately he began work in the morning.”

  “Well?”

  “The presser?”

  “To employ that method of stealing wool, Mr Tanter, the presser would have to be an accomplice of the thief ... an accomplice at least. However, I put forward that method only as a possibility. As yet, I am not sure that wool was stolen from the Answerths’ shed, so we must be careful how we proceed. Tell me, do the flocks in this wide district vary much in overall classification?”

  “Not to a great degree.”

  “Could you determine from a sample of wool what station it came from?”

  “If from a station where I classified the wool, I think so.”

  Bony produced his specimen envelopes. There were three, although Mike Falla had seen only two. Tanter was given the first, and from it extracted the wool and examined it.

  “That’s Answerth wool,” he stated. “I can give you the strain, if you like.”

  “Give your verdict on this sample, please.”

  The classer opened the second envelope and said this, too, came from the Answerth flock. The third envelope opened, he gazed at the wool it contained. Then putting it back in the envelope he said:

  “This has been cut by a sharp knife from the skin of a dead wether. The animal isn’t an Answerth sheep. It was bred on a place called Lake Nearing, which is owned by people named Smythe.”

  “Thank you, Mr Tanter,” Bony smilingly said. “I cut the wool from a sheepskin with my penknife. The skin was in the shed at the slaughter yard owned by Mrs Carlow, of Edison. Obviously from an animal purchased in the course of business. You will not, I hope, be offended by my little test of your powers of judgement.”

  “Of course not, Inspector.”

  “If, in the course of a few days, I send a telegram asking you to examine wool in a place I won’t at this time mention, would you oblige?”

  “I would be very glad to do so,” replied the classer. “I infer that you have traced wool thought to be stolen, and, like all my neighbours, I’d be only too glad to help in nailing the thief.”

  “Much thieving of wool and sheep been going on?”

  “Of sheep, yes. Constant nibbling rather than serious raids.”

  “We may be able to put a stop to it.” Bony rose and Tanter accompanied him to the car. Recognizing the lolling passenger, he wished Mike good day with a warmth betraying long acquaintance.

  On the return journey to Edison, Bony said:

  “What’s your opinion of young Alfred Carlow, Mike?”

  “He ain’t properly branded yet, Inspector. Bit silly now he thinks he’s grow’d up. ’Tain’t him, though. That bagged wool’s been in the shed some time.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Yair. I been thinking.”

  Bony stopped the car, cut the engine, and proceeded to roll a cigarette.

  “Take it easy, Mike. Don’t think too hard. That’s my job. Beside, too much thinking aloud is often dangerous.”

  Mike laughed, long, softly. He stretched his arms and brought his hands behind his head.

  “Did you happen to notice which way them wool bags was tied?” he asked with naive nonchalance.

  “Of course I did,” replied Bony. “The man who tied the mouth of the sacks used what seamen call a reefer knot. Edward Carlow was a life saver, wasn’t he? He could sail boats.”

  “That’s jake. Young Carlow couldn’t have tied them sacks. You couldn’t get him on the water or in it for all the dough in the Commonwealth Bank. Cripes! And I thought I was going to put one over you. What a flaming hope!”

  “As you say, Mike,” Bony murmured before starting the engine. The car moved on, and he added: “What a flaming hope.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Pleasant Evening

  WITH THE GOING down of the sun it turned unusually cold, and Bony was appreciative of the fire lit in his sitting-room. He had dined well, and had dawdled at table with coffee whilst relating some of his triumphs to Mrs Nash and her daughter, who appeared to be, and were, enthralled.

  He was at work on his notes when Mawson called and was told sit and smoke until the writing was complete. That done, Bony left the table to share the fire with his visitor, and now the constable experienced no difficulty in putting from his mind the fact that his host was a V.I.P.

  “Had a good day?” he asked.

  “A happy day,” replied Bony. “Spent it with young Mike Falla. That lad is going to make something of his life despite the lack of education set against initiative. D’you know his father?”

  “One of the local characters. Any progress today?”

  “Progress. I always progress once I take up an investigation. It’s not absence of progress, but the speed of progress which sometimes upsets the mighty. If ever you decide to relinquish your job of collecting statistics, serving summonses and prosecuting drunks, remember to refuse to be hurried. Wait upon time. Exercise your mind with but six questions per diem, and rebel against additional problems such as irate superiors, and you are bound to succeed.”

  Mawson laughed. It began with a chuckle and ended in a guffaw.

  “You’re not serious when you say you thumb your nose at the big shots, are you?”

  “I am,” asserted
Bony, blue eyes twinkling. “After your third successful murder case you can stick out your chest.

  After your thirteenth success you can stick out your neck.”

  “Wonder to me you get away with it and not be sacked,” commented the now sober constable.

  “One has to adopt an attitude of mind. When an office detective declares he could have solved a murder in a tenth of the time it occupied me, I am amused. Once you can laugh at the ignorant and ignore the frowns of the mighty, you are indeed a king in your own right.

  “I have specialized in murder, Mawson, for several reasons, and one reason is that of all the crimes on the calendar murder is least necessary and therefore least pardonable. The starving man may be excused for stealing bread, and the bank teller for robbing his organization to purchase drugs for his wife dying of cancer. The hungry must eat, and money can be refunded, but restitution of a life stolen cannot be made.

  “The psychological impulses of the murderer are vastly at variance with that of the hungry man, or of the bank teller. Murder is the climax of a drama, not the drama itself, and the investigator more often than not must work back to the prologue. His progress, Mawson, is determined as much by his patience as by his mental calibre. In fact, patience is of the greatest importance, for without it the clever man often stumbles in the dust and is blinded. Interested?”

  “Too right,” replied Mawson.

  “Ninety-five per cent of murderers have been sadists all their lives, though outwardly they might act like little gentlemen. The five per cent murder by succumbing to overwhelming fear or a kindred emotion, and do not concern us. Our ninety-five per cent are, as I have stated, sadistic beasts, many of them able to wear a halo with distinction. All are extremely vain, and it is through the vice of vanity that the investigator is given his chance. Once the crime is committed, then the murderer’s vanity is in full swing, and with patience and perspicacity the investigator need only wait for the murderer to tell him, in so many actions, how he did it and why.”

  “Sounds easy,” commented the constable. “Mind me butting in?”

  “I have come to welcome your opinions, Mawson.”

  “Whilst waiting for a murderer to trip himself up mightn’t he commit another murder?”

  “It is the business of the investigator to establish who committed a murder, not to bother himself with a probable one. Naturally, if he has reason to think a person is going to be murdered, he will take all steps to prevent it, not only to save the life of the prospective victim but to use that life as a bait for the man he seeks for murder already done. Is your question related to the murders which have been committed here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it would seem that you connect the two as being accomplished by the same person. You may have evidence of this. I have none.”

  “Both bodies were found in Answerth’s Folly,” argued Mawson.

  “But the circumstances surrounding the one do not touch the other. Let us consider the first murder, for certain developments have encouraged me to consider probable motives actuating this crime.”

  As Bony related the steps by which he had discovered the theft, and then the whereabouts, of a portion of the Answerths’ wool clip, Mawson stopped drawing at his pipe and omitted to relight it.

  “Thus we may be sure that the wool at the slaughter yard came from the bins in the shearing shed owned by the Answerths,” Bony went on. “We may be sure that the theft extended over a period, that the wool was taken by the fleece not by the bale. With me, view the scene of that crime.

  “After the first days of shearing, there were several bales of wool in the shed. Those bales were branded and numbered, and every day others were added to the store. To break open the wool shed would have been easy but to steal wool in the bale most difficult unless transport could be had from the shed. The thief or thieves couldn’t carry a three-hundred pound bale of wool to a transport sufficiently far away as not to attract attention.

  “So, the thief or thieves, with the connivance of the wool presser, stole half a dozen to a dozen fleeces every working night from the open bins in the unlocked shearing shed. The thieves could carry rolled fleeces bound into a bundle for a considerable distance, even to the logging stage. Men who have worked hard all day, either in the shed or out of doors, sleep soundly. And that goes for the working dogs, who because of the advent of many strangers were less alert than normally.

  “The shearing, remember, began on the last day of June and ended on July 27th. The wool stolen from the bins was conveyed, ultimately, to Edward Carlow’s slaughter yard. He was either one of the thieves or he was the receiver of the stolen wool. Which do you favour?”

  “He’d be the receiver,” promptly replied Mawson.

  “Until we have proof, we cannot assert either one or the other against him, because the wool could have been placed inside his shed after he was killed. Improbable but possible.

  “For the moment, let us accept assumption. Let us assume that the presser, either alone or with another, stole the wool and conveyed it to Edward Carlow waiting with his van at a point where its movements could not possibly be detected by anyone at the men’s quarters. On accepting the wool, he conveyed it to his shed and bagged it. The theft was completed not later than July 27th, for on that date the last fleece was placed by the classer in his bins. And five nights after the night of July 27th, Edward Carlow was attacked and made to fight for his life. A large man and still powerful, he was overcome and held under water until drowned.

  “It indicates that more than one man attacked and killed him, and assuming that two men attacked him, and both were powerful men, they could have conveyed him to the Folly and drowned him. Two strong men could have carried him bound to poles like a stretcher for a considerable distance.

  “Motive! Was Carlow a bilker? Did Carlow refuse to pay what the thieves thought a fair thing? Was the motive nothing whatever to do with the theft of the wool? Was it revenge? Or one of half a dozen other motives we could think of? Remember that the stolen wool was inside a shed which could be broken into by thieves who thought themselves wronged. To you, Mawson, I leave the motive for Carlow’s murder. And try to beat you to it.

  “Meanwhile, we wait for vanity to work in the murderer of Edward Carlow, like yeast in a bread batter. If we are sufficiently intelligent we shall detect him because, Mawson, a murderer cannot stop still. The act of murder is a door opened to let into his mind a veritable flood of imagining. Imagination drives him on to action which normally he would never even think to do. He has become to himself a person of supreme importance. By the simple act of pressing a trigger, or wielding a bludgeon, he has made himself famous. People are talking about him, reading about him. The coppers are looking for him, and when people fail to recognize him, he exclaims to his alter ego: ‘Ah, if they only knew!’

  “Then fear attacks, and leaden doubt replaces the volatile essence of imagination. How much do the police know? What are the police doing? Where in his build-up for escape did he make a mistake? Ah yes, he made such-and-such a mistake. What a fool he had been. He must rectify that mistake whilst there is yet time. Instead of sitting down and reading comics, or a good mystery yarn, he must ... must... cover that mistake.

  “Sometimes, as you inferred, the mistake is not killing someone else. We could say, but have no licence for doing so, that the murderer of Edward Carlow made the mistake of not killing Mrs Answerth. It took him four or five weeks to realize his slip, then to rectify it. We could say, and fervently hope that it will not be so, that the murderer of Mrs Answerth even now is realizing he has made a bad mistake, and in the very near future will rectify it by killing another person thought to be vitally dangerous to him.

  “The mistake, of course, could be any other vital omission. Thus, as I have pointed out, Mawson, the murderer cannot keep still. All his life he may have been conspicuously successful in hiding his light under a bushel, but once he becomes a murderer that, shall we say, virtue is utterly des
troyed.”

  Mawson remained thoughtful when Bony ceased speaking. What did strike him as singular was that Bony laid no stress on the acumen of the detective, and stressed the stupidity of the murderer. He began to ponder on the theft of the wool, and the discovery of it in the murdered man’s shed, when Bony interrupted the flow of thought.

  “Do not permit yourself to be unduly taxed by the puzzle,” he advised. “Put more wood on the fire, and then employ your mind usefully on the more recent murder. So far I cannot find any connexion between the two slayings excepting perhaps in the fact that had both bodies been submerged until putrefaction raised them the marks of violence might not have been detected by the post mortem ... in the mind of the killer.

  “It would seem, according to Dr Lofty, that the body of Mrs Answerth was dragged either over the causeway or along the shore shallows and pushed into deep water. First, survey the people living at Venom House. Who could have killed Mrs Answerth? Any one of them, of course. Even Morris could have killed his mother.”

  “But he can’t get out,” expostulated Mawson.

  “Once his door was left unlocked, Mawson. It could have been left unlocked again that night. The padlock to the bolt is of the type like that securing the door of Carlow’s shed, and I opened that with a piece of wire in three or four seconds. And, anyway, the key to the padlock on Morris’s door is kept suspended by a nail in the wall close by.

  “Let your mind wander freely, and take a peep at Mrs Leeper. Having been a hospital sister and a matron, she would know the action of putrefaction on a drowned body. She could anticipate murdering the two sisters, when Morris, being next of kin, would inherit the estate, and she, being experienced in the care of the mentally unstable, could anticipate being appointed his guardian by the sisters’ trustees.”

  “You might have something there,” Mawson said, and Bony was now satisfied that the constable had been led far away from stolen wool in a murdered man’s shed. Mawson pushed back his chair and rose, saying: “I’d better be off to bed.”