Batchelors of Broken Hill b-14 Read online

  The layers of the handkerchief were reduced until the disc emitted a short diaphanous beam without form. The beam moved. An easy-chair crouched like a petrified troglodyte to one side of a massive steel fireplace, blackly gleaming. A small table bearing an electric lamp and two books swung into being, and then the bed beside which stood the table, a three-quarter-size bed, made ready, as though for the woman who would never return.

  The dressing-table appointments were expensive and in excellent taste. The chest of drawers and the wardrobe were old-fashioned and of rosewood. The clothing within appeared to be beyond the reach of policewomen and the wives of police inspectors. There was nothing of value to Bony in this room save the pictures on the walls. There were five, and all were photographic enlargements of a woman in period costumes.

  “Passage outside this room?” Bony asked Jimmy, who had accompanied him on the tour of inspection.

  “Don’t know. To the front is the lounge room the Lodding woman used. To the back two more rooms. Blinds are always down. Must be empty.”

  “We’ll examine the lounge.”

  Jimmy’s slim hand closed about the door handle, slowly turned it. The door was locked. Steel glinted in the other hand, and steel teeth entered the lock. The door was opened without sound. The passage waited, darkly.

  Jimmy closed the door after them but did not re-lock it. Bony glided to the door of the lounge. It was locked. Again Jimmy turned a key and opened a door.

  Their feet sank into thick pile. The torch revealed the gleaming outlines of polished wood and the pattern of upholstery, the shapes of small tables, a writing-desk. Glass protecting a large bookcase behaved like mirrors. Jimmy crossed to the windows to make sure they were thoroughly masked.

  Yet another massive steel fireplace, the grate concealed by a low screen of floral design. Above the mantel stood the youthful Queen Victoria. She was like someone Bony knew but could not recall. The picture was in oils and unsigned. Against another wall stood either Empress Josephine or Madame de Pompadour, also in oils, and the face was like that of Queen Victoria, and yet different. The resemblance was in the eyes. Bony again looked upon Queen Victoria. Itwas the eyes. And at some time he had looked into those eyes. He was sure of it.

  The eyes, he felt, watched him as he moved the torch beam along the books in the glass case, as he examined the writing-desk, as he explored the contents of the camphorwood chest set between the two windows.

  Again he stood before Queen Victoria. There was something about her mouth too. Ah! The mouth resembled that of Mills’s drawing of the woman seen by Mrs Wallace. He leaned against the mantel, lowered the beam of his light, strove to remember, and the beam fell behind the fire screen to reveal the grate filled with coloured paper ribbons.

  Among the coloured paper something gleamed like gold.

  Bony removed the screen and the paper, disclosing a large tin. Jimmy held the torch, and when Bony lifted out the tin he saw it was fitted with a press-on lid. There was no label. The metal was quite clean.

  “Open it, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy removed the lid with his window-opener. The torch beam revealed its contents to be dark in colour, part powder, part lumpy.

  “Cocoa?” guessed Jimmy.

  “No, cyanide. Put the lid on.”

  “ ’Struth! ’Noughto kill an army.”

  The tin was put back among the paper and the fire screen replaced.

  “We’ll go through the other lounge on this floor,” Bony said, and they passed into the passage which immediately gave entry to the hall.

  Beyond the hall a second passage reflected light from the kitchen. It was sufficiently strong to reveal the carpet, the hat-stand, a Jacobean chest, a wall mirror, a small table bearing a bowl of artificial flowers, and the front and lounge doors.

  Silently they crossed the hall, observing that where the staircase was flush with the wall it was blocked by a polished wood door. Four steps led to the door: noted by men who missed nothing. They stopped at the passage leading to the lighted kitchen. No sound came from the kitchen. No sound came from above. Bony estimated that from the hall to the kitchen was fifty feet, with one door to the right and two to the left.

  Where was Mrs Dalton?

  “Stay here,” he told Jimmy. “I’ll take a chance to see what is in the kitchen.”

  Jimmy waited, seeing Bony steal along the passage to pause outside the kitchen door, edge round the frame, and enter.

  The kitchen was roomy. The wood range was polished like ebony. The table was scrubbed white. The dresser was decorated with green-spotted china. The usual cupboard beside the range, filled with pots and pans. A tall cupboard contained brooms. The dresser was fitted with two drawers above a cupboard. One contained cutlery, table mats. The second drawer contained a meat saw, two butcher’s knives, and a butcher’s steel. The cupboard held two new buckets and six chaff bags. In another cupboard was a used bucket, floor polish, and mop heads.

  The meat saw was brand new. The butcher’s knives were new. The steel had never been used. They were set out as though displayed in the window of a hardware store.

  There was a scullery off the kitchen, but Bony could delay no longer and drifted back to Jimmy.

  Together they ‘went through’ the second lounge, furnished formally and without the intimate objects found in that other lounge once occupied by Muriel Lodding. Leaving this room, they re-crossed the hall and sat in the mouth of the passage leading to the bedrooms.

  “Just as well be comfortable while we wait,” Bony said. “Wish I could smoke. What do you think they would want with a butcher’s meat saw and knives?”

  “Well, a butcher wants ’emto cut up carcasses.” Jimmy was silent for many seconds before gripping Bony’s arm and asking:

  “Where was those things?”

  “In a drawer of the dresser, laid out as though ready for employment. Never been used yet. Clean-and sharp.”

  Silence again. Then Jimmy:

  “Can’t get that stink.”

  “I should know it.”

  Again silence-a long silence. A board creaked and both men were on their feet. Another board creaked. Someone was coming down the stairs. The hall light blinded them, and instinctively they withdrew farther into the passage.

  They heard the stair door open, and then they beheld Queen Elizabeth stepping down the hall-as though from a throne to forgive again her Essex. The years had ravaged her face, but the royal dignity was superb. She turned to the kitchen passage. In each hand she held a white Persian cat. She held them by their back legs. They made no protest. They were dead.

  She could have taken the cats no farther than the kitchen, for almost at once she returned and mounted the steps to the door, closed it. The lights went out. A board creaked. Then another.

  “Ninth and thirteenth treads, remember,” Bony murmured.

  “Them cats dead-or me?” Jimmy asked.

  Minutes passed-perhaps five-when again the first of two stair treads creaked.

  “Hell! She’s coming down again,” Jimmy hissed.

  The hall light flashed up. They heard the stair door open. They saw Marie Antoinette step down to the hall. She was magnificent. She carried in each hand a Persian cat, held them by the back legs. They were dead.

  Marie Antoinette disappearedkitchenwards, reappeared without the cats, went upstairs. The hall was blacked out. Jimmy moaned.

  “How many more?” he asked fiercely.

  “Queens or cats?” countered Bony.

  Prolonged silence, until Jimmy plaintively asked:

  “Whatis this joint?” No answer from Bony. “I’ll tell you, then. Lunatics’ Retreat, that’s what it is. Do we have to stay?”

  Further silence, this time terminated by knuckles upon wood. There was someone at the front door.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Henry and Dear Henrietta

  “BACK TO the bedroom,” ordered Bony. “Have both window and door open for a fast getaway.”

  The man on th
e porch-it could not possibly be a woman-again thudded a fist against the door, insistently, rudely. The sound was swallowed by the house, without echo, and in the ensuing silence the creak of the stair treads seemed almost as loud as the knocking. The hall light flashed up, and the stair door was opened.

  Descending to the hall came Mrs Dalton. She walked slowly, and with something of the sleepwalker, to the front door. Deep within the passage Bony heard her release the chain and turn the key. On again seeing her, she was backing to the centre of the hall, and there said harshly:

  “Come in.”

  The door was shut and the key turned. A clergyman appeared, a tall man and stooping, with white hair and ragged beard. The hands clasping the round clerical hat were large and capable.

  “Forgive me for calling at so late an hour,” he said mellifluously, as though the years of intoning Gregorian chants could not be put aside. The woman’s voice was icy.

  “So considerate of you to telephone. Having watched you last night, I expected you to enter by a window.”

  “It was my intention, but, Madame, I decided it would be undignified, and, ah, unoriginal, in view of my errand. I am happy to find you looking so well.”

  “I cannot compliment you on your role. The hair-”

  “Required only for street lights. Pardon me.”

  The beard vanished. The white hair became grey and short. The figure gained in stature, lost its frailty. A handkerchief appeared, to be used as though to wipe the face of perspiration. The mopping done, the face was that in the Tuttaway file. The man stood as though awaiting applause, and said when Mrs Dalton was silent:

  “Are you not going to invite me to your sitting-room? Perhaps a little refreshment? I am indeed your sorely tried brother.”

  “State your business and go.”

  “It demands time, dear Henrietta. One does not gulp good wine. Let us be comfortable, for there is much to discuss, to achieve the grand finale. Unless for the purpose of art, haste of movement and of speech, is unseemly. Therefore-lead on.”

  The same mocking voice. The insolent bow. The old stagey artificiality. The woman’s breast rose and fell as though she had held her breathing. Her expression was of resignation as with a slight shrug she turned to the stairs. Her back was to the visitor, her face cold, remote, triumphant.

  She went on and up, and Tuttaway followed, leaving the stair door open. Mrs Dalton told him to switch off the hall light and where to find the switch. Bony slipped into the darkened hall. He watched them mounting the stairs. Save for a room light, the upper floor was in darkness. Against this light, first one and then the other was sharply silhouetted. The carpeted landing muted their footsteps, and without sound they passed from Bony’s view. Then he heard their voices in the lighted room but could not distinguish the words.

  He went up the stairs, to stand on the landing and within the deep shadows. In the lighted room the two were seated either side of a low hexagonal table bearing a bronze Eros, a silver box of cigarettes, and ash trays. Tuttaway occupied a straight-backed chair. His hands were interlocked and resting on his crossed legs.

  Beyond Mrs Dalton was a settee, and on the settee lay an Elizabethan ruff, the gown worn by Marie Antoinette, and a navy-blue handbag having red drawstrings. To Tuttaway’s left was a fireplace, and on the hearth-rug lay five white cats.

  “After all these years, dear Henrietta, I am so glad to see you,” boomed the Great Scarsby. “So many gales have howled across the Atlantic since we parted; so much has passed into the silence of time.”

  “I am not glad to see you,” Mrs Dalton said tonelessly, and her following statement was made also without emotion. “I’ve disliked many men and hated but one. Such is my loathing and hatred of you that words to express it are not to be found in any language.”

  “Hatred is warmer than love, my sweet,” Tuttaway chided. “Hate does endure. Believe me, I know. And waiting stokes the fires of hate. I know that too. I have waited so long.

  “Since the moment I returned to the house in London and found you and dear Muriel absent, I have never doubted we would meet again. I was naturally grieved to discover you had deserted me, but heartbroken that Muriel had gone with you. You knew so well my hopes for her, my ambitions. Your plan was laid bare in that awful moment. You feigned illness when we were to embark for America, and you planned that Muriel should run away from me and slink back to London.”

  The man appeared about to weep.

  “All my affection for you, dear Henrietta, went for nothing, meant nothing to your callous heart. All my love for Muriel was scorned, mocked. That girl had great gifts, and despite her stubbornness I would have made her famous throughout the world. You were jealous. You stood between us. I took Muriel from the gutter to make her great, and you thought to hide her from me. How stupid! Of course you were always mad, and I should not have trusted you.”

  “It is you, Henry, who have always been mad.”

  “Poor Henrietta,” he drawled, his eyes like small agates. “The mad invariably consider themselves sane and all others mad. It is proof of your madness. When a child you were mad. Remember when you were in pigtails and I found you by the brook quite naked and with half a hundred worms in your hair? Had I not loved you, trusted you, protected you, you would have been certified like poorHetty.”

  “I am not insane, Henry. I was born with a gift of humour. It was always you who couldn’t see a joke. See a joke! A calculating sadist is incapable of appreciating a joke. A sadist can only destroy and glory in destroying lovely things. You killed Muriel’s affection for you and in its place put fear. She was grateful to you for bringing her from that filthy tenement, for having her educated, for giving her ambition and dreams-and you killed her gratitude because you couldn’t possibly do else but kill it. She loved me, but you even killed that. And in the end you must kill her body.”

  “Dear, dear! How melodramatic we are! Surely you will not accuse your own dear brother of murdering your cats?”

  “Knowing you were going to enter this house, and with that foul purpose, I killed them that you should not torture them.”

  “With what did you put them to sleep?”

  “With a little something obtained from the wood merchant. An obliging man. There’s none left, so you won’t poison me.”

  The man chuckled sonorously. He smiled, and without apparently looking at what he did he took a cigarette from the box, balanced it at the edge of the table, tapped the free end, and it fluttered to his lips. A hand went to a waist coat pocket and came away with an ignited match.

  “Mad! Of course you’re mad, Henry. You raved even at Muriel. Slapping her face when she was tired. Tying her to a chair when she defied you, and making her watch you put her kitten into the stove and turn on the current, and laughing when she shrieked. You’ve always been mad: breaking little puppies’ legs to see them limp, tying cats together by the tails and putting them on a clothes line to watch them fight to death. You will not torture my cats.”

  “I intended, dear Henrietta, to kill you mercifully. I will reconsider that. You knew, of course, it was I when the papers reported the glass dagger?”

  “I knew you would come here, knew it the instant you escaped. Muriel wanted to go away, but stayed for my sake. I waited. For you!”

  “A glass dagger!” Tuttaway chuckled. He plucked a crimson dagger from his hair and another of jade green from behind an ear. “Remember when I bought these in that singular curio shop in Milan? You wanted me to share them with you and Muriel, and I would not because they were so beautiful lying on white satin within the glass-domed case. But I did promise, remember, to share them one day. To give the blue one to Muriel and the green one to you. Muriel received hers.”

  Mrs Dalton did not speak. She smiled.

  “And presently you will receive yours.”

  “You wouldn’t have the courage to plunge the red dagger into your own body Henry. I know that.”

  “The red one! Ah, Henrietta, that is for t
he girl for whose sake I was martyred. She married and went to England, whither I go a few weeks hence.” The daggers vanished, and Tuttaway stubbed his cigarette and took another from the box. He stretched his legs and glanced about the room, nodded with satisfaction at something Bony could not see.

  “I wasn’t so foolish as to bury all my treasures in one hole,” he said. “Much money, a few valuable diamonds, and the daggers I left in a safe-deposit vault, and some of my wardrobe and useful make-up boxes were hidden in a safe and secret place. I wasn’t then decided what to do about you and Muriel.

  “A fellow sufferer from man’s inhumanity was to be released, and I arranged with him to purchase clothes for me-these same clothes-and hire a drive-yourself-car and be at a certain place on a certain date. It was quite easy. The car was stopped twice before we reached the city, and on both occasions the police apologised to ‘his reverence’. You see, they looked for a madman, and I’m not mad. I only needed a silly false beard and wig: merely reddened my face and expanded my cheeks with paper wads and used an Irish accent. Do I see beer on the cabinet?”

  “I’ll get you a drink, Henry.”

  “Pray do not trouble, dear Henrietta.”

  The stilted manner in which these two talked, especially Tuttaway, verged on the ridiculous. Not for an instant did they cease to watch each other. After Tuttaway left his chair to cross to the cabinet, Mrs Dalton watched his every movement, and, from her attitude, Bony knew Tuttaway watched her.

  On returning to his chair, he carried a bottle of beer under an arm, a tumbler in one hand, a bottle-opener between his teeth, and the green dagger in his other hand. He sat down before unloading.

  “And then what did you do, Henry?” the woman asked.

  “Sought you, of course. Found you had left Sydney for Broken Hill. Had I not been taken up with training that fool of a girl, I would have found you before you left Sydney. I was forced, therefore, to be cautious on coming here. Could not permit Muriel or you to hear I was making inquiries concerning you.