Batchelors of Broken Hill b-14 Page 16

  There are very few stone-built, two-storeyed houses away from Argent Street.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Fearful Burglar

  JIMMY’S WORLD was so unstable that he was mentally giddy. Having to work by day and sleep by night was a prospect irksome and degrading. Evil influences were at work, and he felt unable to cope with them unless and until he could stage a rebellion and regain his freedom.

  The worst menace was this damned Bonaparte, who seemed determined to cruel his pitch-giving orders and blackmailing him. Burgle a house for a handbag or a baby’s dummy, or else! Take your pick! Just plain blackmail. Then there was the Attraction. She demanded that he proves his intentions by taking a steady job at the mines before she’d marry him. Give up independence to become a slave. Yes, Mr White! No, Mr Black! Watching the clock every morning, and again every afternoon. What a fate!

  Being intelligent, Jimmy Nimmo knew that when a burglar falls in love the end of his career is in sight. And he was wise enough to know that to retire from the game when on top was to invite stagnation. What to do, therefore, when an Attraction just couldn’t take it when you told her you were a respectable burglar? Not tell her, of course-and then you couldn’t be a married respectable burglar. Blast! Why did he have to fall in love with a woman who wouldn’t be a burglar’s wife?

  He must do something about this inactivity. To be an artisticscrewsman you have to practise constantly, just as a concert artist must practise, and why not now?

  Even as a lover Jimmy had no time for the moon. It interrupted business, was uncontrollable, an ally for the cops. Next week it would rule the night. He reached the two-storeyed house at midnight.

  There she was, the House of his Dreams, large, spacious, solid. Standing at the little wicket gate, Jimmy could barely see the outline of the slate roof against the sky to one side of the solitary pine tree. His ground-work had been completed: habits of the occupants, type of locks and window fasteners. He could go in with no more trouble than entering Goldspink’s shop.

  He needn’t take anything-much. Just go in for practice, to feel the thrill of deep stillness, to feel again that power of movement in a small world asleep. Before he decided, his feet had taken him into the garden via the wicket gate.

  First to merge himself with theti -tree bush. The wind sighed among the branches of the pine, and the sighing became a softly played tune when he stood beneath the tree with his back to its trunk. But a few yards distant was the front of the house. There were two windows either side of the spacious porch, and five windows to the upper floor. The front was in darkness.

  To the right of the house stood a wooden garage containing no car and used chiefly for firewood. Between house and garage a wide path led to the rear entrance and the kitchen. The old dame must be at the back, as it wasn’t yet a quarter after midnight, but he would have to make sure.

  There was no light in the kitchen or other rear room, and Jimmy went back to the pine tree, perplexed and alert.

  Two women lived here, and the rhythm of their lives did not appear to vary greatly. They used a room next the kitchen as a dining-room, but one occupied the top-floor front and the other the ground floor. About ten every evening one or other would go to the kitchen and prepare supper, which would be eaten in the dining-room, and then the younger woman would return to her part of the house and put out her light round about eleven, and the other would go to her upstairs room and keep her lights on until two.

  Since the younger woman had been killed with a glass dagger, the other had continued the routine. Tonight, almost two hours before the routine time, the upstairs lights were out.

  Bad. You had to know where every occupant of a house was before you went in. It had been Jimmy’s intention to prospect the ground-floor rooms, and now he could not be sure if Mrs Dalton was asleep or on vacation. Either asleep or awake on the top floor, Mrs Dalton would have been no worry, but not to know her exact location was to make an entry unethical.

  Peculiar, how it had all turned out. Before the female cop had been done in, Jimmy the Screwsman had stood under this tree on a dozen or more nights and had wandered round to the back to see the women in the kitchen or dining-room. They appeared to get along very well, but they certainly occupied separate quarters, as though each had her own flat. Occasionally they had gone out together, but were never later than midnight in returning home. They had had no visitors, and nobody remotely like Tuttaway had called-not when Jimmy had been around.

  On two of his visits Mrs Dalton had been sick and he had watched the younger woman leave the kitchen with a dish piled high with diced raw meat. On those occasions the lights on both floors had burned all night.

  It seemed obvious that the female cop had said nothing about meeting with Tuttaway. Not so much of the female about her either. Supposed to be a man hater. Since when! Walking at night with a man, and such a bloke as G. H. Tuttaway.

  Time slipped. Jimmy’s watch, luminous only when he raised it to within an inch or so of his eyes, said it was twenty-four past one. He was suddenly conscious that his legs ached from standing so long against the tree trunk, and then he was aware of movement having nothing to do with the pine tree.

  It was between the garage and the house, coming towards him along the house wall like a black beetle on a black curtain. Must have come in through the back gate off the rear lane. Not a bad route to come by, although the laneway was littered with garbage cans.

  The man passed round the house corner and stopped at the first window. Jimmy could not make out what he was up to. Or when he passed on to the second window and stopped there.

  Movement at the sill of the upstairs window above the porch. It looked like a bird perched up there, about the size of a crow or a magpie, but it didn’t move like a bird.

  The man left the window and went up to the two wide steps to the porch door, and Jimmy lost him. The object on the sill moved, became larger, resolved into the shape of a human head. It could only be Mrs Dalton, and she was leaning well forward, trying to see the man at the front door, and frustrated by the narrow porch roof.

  A cop testing doors and windows! Very unlikely, here in Broken Hill, and beyond Argent Street. Another professional! Could be. The windows were easy. The front door was out. Besides a Yale lock, there was an inside door-chain.

  The man left the porch, and the head above the upper sill became small and then still as the woman drew back a little. The man went on to the next window, remained there, went on again to the next. It seemed to Jimmy he stayed by that window for a long time, and he was beginning to wonder why, when he decided the man was standing with his back to the window and waiting for something to happen or someone to join him.

  Well, you can be lucky. If Jimmy had gone in he might have been bailed up in a flood of light and persuaded by a pistol to remain whilst Mrs Dalton telephoned the cops. And he could have done little about it.

  Must be a cop standing there with his back to the window. No real pro would behave like that. No… Tuttaway! The chill of glass slid up Jimmy’s back and remained between his shoulders. Tuttaway! He had bumped off one sister and was thinking of bumping off the other. And the other knew and was watching him, watching him from a dark window in a dark house.

  The telephone! Why hadn’t she telephoned the police? Perhaps she had, and the cops were even then on their way. No place for Jimmy Nimmo.

  Wait! Think, you lovesick fool! The cops might already be on the job, already surrounding the grounds, moving inward to surround the house itself. The man at the window was waiting for the chance to get away.

  He was taking it now. Coming directly to the pine tree, perhaps to hide among the branches, perhaps to trek to the nearestti -tree bush. There was no sense in waiting for a man who might have another glass knife with the blade nicely filed ready to be snapped off when the deed was done.

  Jimmy slid round the trunk and, keeping it between the man and himself, retreated to the nearest bush. Better to back into Sergeant Crom
e and do a stretch than meet a murderous maniac. From the bush he slid silently to the next one, breathlessly to reach the low fence.

  No cops-as yet. But the man was certainly coming his way. Beyond the road and the low houses and trees on its far side, the sky was pale with the reflected arc lamps on the mines. He’d be a clear silhouette if he climbed the fence. Jimmy lay flat at the base of the fence and hoped he wouldn’t be used as a step.

  The unknown went out through the open front gate. Still no cops. Jimmy couldn’t pause, and he couldn’t hurry, for the man stood at the kerb of the pavement as though waiting for a tram or something. He could just be seen against the outer glow of the nearest street light.

  Then he vanished and Jimmy waited to hear footsteps coming his way, gave him ten seconds, and slid over the low fence and walked rapidly in the other direction. Ahead of him was another street light, on the other side of the road, and it was the only one. Jimmy did not dally.

  He had proceeded fifty yards, hugging the fences, keeping close to pepper trees, when he knew he was being followed. How? Not by sight. Not by sound. By thescrewsman’s Instinct out of Time by Experience.

  He kept on, resisting the urge to run. On reaching the end of the street, he rounded the corner and vaulted a gate and crouched below the top rail. Here were no trees. The starlight was enough to reveal anyone coming round that corner. No one did. There wasn’t a sound save the low rumble of the mine machinery. Instinct must have betrayed him.

  Again he vaulted the gate and went on. He should have gone the other way, round that corner, made sure Tuttaway wasn’t lurking there, waiting and watching. Always take Fear by the throat.

  Hewas being followed. No mistake-no imagination about it. There was no sound, and nothing moved behind him, but he was being followed.

  This street took him to a main road. It was a wide road, and light standards were on either side. It was almost 3 am. For the first time in his career Jimmy regretted he didn’t carry a gun. He was still being trailed. No cop could walk as silently as this shadow. No cop could conceal himself like this lunatic.

  Jimmy came to a small shop and slipped into the dark doorway to peer in the direction he had come. Still he saw nothing-and heard nothing save the distant roar of machinery on the broken hill.

  This could not go on. Where were his nerves of steel? Might as well get married, if he’d slipped that badly. Farther along the street was yet another light, and he kept on, trying not to hurry, reached the circle of illumination, passed through it to the far darkness, and turned and waited. He saw the follower enter the light. He saw the fellow raise a hand signalling stop.

  He should have known it.

  What the bloody hell was the use?

  He might have guessed it was that damned Bonaparte.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Why Extra Meat?

  JIMMY WAS given the only chair in Bony’s bedroom, and Bony sat on the bed and poured beer into tumblers.

  “Surely, Jimmy, you are not interested professionally in that house?”

  “I was. I’m not.”

  Jimmy drank without the usual reference to Luck. He was sour, and Bony countered the mood with gentleness. He waited for an explanation before saying thoughtfully:

  “It’s a good night for a burglary. Did you enter?”

  “You know damn well I didn’t.”

  “I seldom ask questions without reason, Jimmy.”

  “You weren’t testing the windows and the front door? You didn’t fox me to the fence and then follow me all the way to that street light?”

  “I was not testing doors and windows, and I did not see you until you climbed over the fence. I was then approaching that front fence, and I stood against a pepper tree to permit you to pass. Guilty of following you from the tree. By the way, my pride is hurt. How did you know you were being trailed?”

  Jimmy sighed, and Bony again filled his glass.

  “You’re no mug attrailin ’,” he said with assurance. “I never heard you, never saw you, not even a smell. My scalp told me I was being dogged. I didn’t like it, ’cosI was thinking things.”

  “What things?”

  “A glass knife between me shoulders, and the haft being snapped.”

  “Let me have the story behind that thought.”

  Jimmy omitted nothing, proving ability as a raconteur, and when done, Bony brought another bottle from the wardrobe.

  “You are sure it was a woman watching from the upstairs window?”

  “Sure about everything. Why didn’t she telephone the cops? She’s got a phone.”

  “An interesting point, I agree. What gave you the impression that the man could be Tuttaway?”

  “Look at the set-up,” Jimmy almost pleaded. “It’s gone one in the morning. It’s a dark night. A bloke is walking round the joint and stopping to admire every window and the front door, and probably the back door. He could be a working pro, like me, prospecting the joint before timing the job. When he stood for some time in one place, I thought he must be a policeman until I recollected the dame who was watching him from up top.

  “Then I argued that it wouldn’t be a pro, for he wouldn’t hang around afterdoin ’ hisprospectin ’, and he had no reason to wait if he wanted to go in. It wouldn’t be a policeman, not even you, waiting about like that. That’s what I thought. I thought that the old girl must have phoned the cops, and close on that chunk of think I decided to scoot, but before I could get going the bloke came straight to the tree I was against.

  “I couldn’t be sure he hadn’t screwed me off. The point what stuck in my mind was the old girl couldn’t have phoned the police, and she was waiting in a dark house to watch that bird testing her windows and doors. She might have seen him prowling around before and expected him to have another go. She wasn’texpectin ’ me ’cosmy clients never get the chance.”

  “Did he look anything like Tuttaway?” pressed Bony.

  “Not that I could swear to. He was taller than you and me, and so is Tuttaway. Still, Tuttaway has never been a you or a me, and this gent moved like a pro. You never saw him?”

  “No. He must have left in the opposite direction a few seconds before I arrived. It was probably friend Tuttaway. The haft of the glass dagger was found inside the wicket gate. He’d been there before tonight. How long have you been keeping that house under observation?”

  “Off and on for a couple of months.”

  The beer failed to lift the gloom from Jimmy’s face, and almost savagely he seized the second bottle and removed the metal cap with his teeth. Bony probed further into the habits of Mrs Dalton and her sister, and learned of their arrangement of separate apartments excepting for meals. He could not assess the value of the item that Muriel Lodding took a dish of diced raw meat upstairs when her sister was ill.

  “Several things don’t angle to my mind,” Jimmy said. “Whatd’you reckon they’d want eight pounds of steak for every day?”

  “Eight pounds of meat per day for two women?”

  “Eight pounds of steak a day is what I said. Extra to porter-house and chops and legs of lamb at week-ends. And since the sister’s been murdered the order’s no different.”

  “Dogs?”

  “Seen none. Or cats.”

  “What of other foods-bread, milk-since you know so much?”

  “Ordinary for two women. Yougoin ’ to do nothing about that sneaker? Could be Tuttaway after Mrs Dalton.”

  “There’s a man posted there. He accompanied me. However, it’s unlikely that the prowler will return tonight.”

  Jimmy grimaced.

  “Think I’ll give up working in any state where you happen to be. There’s another angle I don’t get. The front and back is kept tidy enough, and flowers and things them women tried to grow in winter. At the back, though, there’s a bit of ground about four times the size of this room, fenced with wire netting and a little gate in it. They don’t grow nothing inside that fence. The sort of plot used for burying things, far as I can ma
ke out.”

  “Kitchen refuse,” suggested Bony, and Jimmy negatived this.

  “People don’t bury refuse in calico bags. Besides, the Council cart empties the bins in the back lane three times a week.”

  Bony rolled a cigarette and said before lighting it:

  “You know, Jimmy, you are entertaining.”

  “I can be, Inspector. A feller like me can be veryentertainin ’.”

  “The butcher’s name?”

  “McWay, Main Street South.”

  “And the milkman?” pressed Bony, making a note.

  “People namedLudkin -out atUmberumaka. The baker is Perry Brothers, South, and, bringing in our old pals, the wood merchant is Frederick Albert Goddard. He delivered wood there two days ago.”

  “Your information appears remarkably detailed, Jimmy.”

  “I’ve beenpayin ’ acoupla school kids to give what I couldn’t get in daylight.”

  “Indeed! I’d like to meet them. They might tell even more. Yes, we’ll give them an ice-cream tea at Favalora’s Cafe. Try to have them there at four tomorrow afternoon. Anything else?”

  “You’ve got the entire brain box. Can I go home to bed sometime?”

  “Right now, Jimmy. See you tomorrow at four.”

  Bony let Jimmy out by the front door, slept for three hours, and was up at six. He prospected for the kitchen, found the yardman there, who, having lit the stoves, was drinking tea with a liberal dash of the dog that had bitten him the previous evening. It was much too soon for polite conversation, and, refreshed by tea and biscuits, Bony reached Headquarters at seven. Crome was in his office.

  “Nothing doing,” Crome said. “Saw nothing; heard nothing.”

  “Not even a light switched on?”

  “Not a glimmer.” I went in as far as the pine tree and sat there till first sign of break o’ day. You nab that prowler who came over the fence?”

  “No. He turned out to be a dear friend of mine. We arrived a little too late. My friend had been watching a man testing the house windows and doors. We could assume it was Tuttaway paying another visit to Mrs Dalton’s house.”