Venom House Page 2

  “Inspector Bonaparte?” the advancing man queried, and Bony’s attention reverted to him. “I’m First Constable Mawson. Hope you understand, sir, not being able to meet you.”

  Bony acknowledged the salute and nodded. Mike Falla called from his car:

  “You coming on to Edison with me, Inspector? Can’t wait ... long.”

  Mawson accepted Bony’s cue and told Mike to go on. He moved stiffly, and the tint of his face wasn’t wholly due to wind and sun. Then the woman was confronting Bony, and her greeting reminded him of the horseman who had met the service car.

  “Gud-dee, Mister...”

  “Bonaparte ... Inspector Bonaparte,” Bony returned suavely.

  “I’m Mary Answerth,” she said, and would have edged Mawson behind her had he not stood his ground. Again the hands were clenched hard to the leather belt. The feet encased by riding boots were planted wide apart and like century-old trees, giving the impression that nothing human could topple her over. “I take it you’ve come from Brisbane to investigate my mother’s death?”

  “That is why I am here, Miss Answerth,” Bony agreed, still suavely.

  “Then I hope you do better than those fools who came down to find Carlow’s murderer,” she said challengingly. “No one here expects anything from Mawson. As he says himself, he’s a policeman, not a detective. I shall expect better from you. These killings must be stopped.”

  The dark brows were met above the eyes no larger than farthings. The constable intervened:

  “Now, Miss Answerth...”

  “I tell you...”

  What she intended to add was blanketed by the roar of Mike’s engine, and when speech was again possible, Mawson was ready to employ further placation.

  “Naturally, sir, Miss Answerth is much upset by last night’s tragedy. She insists that Mrs Answerth be buried tomorrow, and I have explained that the formalities may not be completed to permit that.”

  “Now, look here, Inspector,” the woman snarled, for her large square teeth were bared. “They took the body to Edison early this morning, and Doc Lofty’s had it all day. There’s no sense in keeping it after the post mortem.”

  “Please accept my assurance that the delay will not be protracted one minute longer than is necessary,” Bony said. “I have yet to examine the known facts governing the lamentable tragedy, receive the post mortem report and confer with the coroner.”

  “Leave the coroner to me,” commanded Mary Answerth. Constable Mawson opened his mouth to speak, but was cut out by Bony’s voice, now low and yet metallic. The words were icily distinct.

  “I have been assigned to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of the late Mrs Answerth. I will leave nothing, or anyone, to you, Miss Answerth. You will be notified by the coroner in due course. The matter is entirely in the hands of the police. I am the police. If you wish to make a statement concerning the death of Mrs Answerth, Constable Mawson will take it down in writing, when you can sign it.”

  “I’ve already told Mawson what I know about that. Now look here...”

  “Pardon me, Miss Answerth.”

  The flat stomach sank inward as the vast bust expanded. The woman’s square chin jutted like a doorstep and her eyes flashed. She stared into the blue eyes of the slight man she confronted, tried to stare him out, slowly realized that in this she would never succeed. Abruptly she turned away and strode to the station wagon. It rocked when she entered it, and silently the two men watched it being driven swiftly away. Sighing with relief, Constable Mawson said:

  “Quite a tartar, sir. Lives too late, in my opinion. Should have lived a couple of hundred years ago when the scum knuckled to their betters.”

  “The body is at Edison?”

  “Yes, sir. I had it conveyed to the morgue at 8.50 this morning. The doctor hadn’t completed the post mortem when I left the town at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Then we had better run along and hurry him.” A minute later, when they were on the track, Bony said: “What accommodation does the local hotel offer?”

  “Not so good, sir. I was thinking that perhaps you’d like to put up with my sister, who sometimes takes paying guests. She’s a good cook.”

  “I’ll try her cooking. We must pick up my case from the service car. However, first things first, Mawson. Relate to me the happenings of today.”

  “At 7.57 this morning I was called to the telephone by Miss Mary Answerth. She said that on her way to give her men their orders for the day she had found the body of her mother floating on the lake we call Answerth’s Folly. With one of the men, she had gone in the station boat and retrieved the body. There was no doubt that Mrs Answerth was dead.

  “As Miss Answerth proceeded to give me orders, I cut her short by saying I would leave at once with Dr Lofty. I had to wait ten minutes for the doctor, but we reached Answerth’s Folly at 8.35. While the doctor was examining the body, I got Miss Answerth to tell me about her discovery of it.

  “It appears that every work-day morning Miss Answerth leaves the house and wades over the causeway to the men’s quarters on the shore end. There’s a long story behind how the house came to be surrounded by water, and the rest. Anyway, Miss Answerth was nearly over the causeway when she saw something unusual floating on the Folly, and presently she saw it was her mother’s body. It was about twenty yards off-shore and half that distance from the causeway.

  “The men were at breakfast when she reached the quarters, and she ordered the cook to fetch the boat and went with him to bring the body to land. She then went back to the house and telephoned me. The cook ... feller by the name of Blaze ... substantiated her story in part.

  “This being the second drowning in Answerth’s Folly, and the first being medically proved to have been homicide, we thought that Mrs Answerth had been murdered the same way, that is, by being held under the surface and drowned, like Edward Carlow was murdered. On examining the body, Dr Lofty found a red mark about the neck indicating that the woman had been strangled with a light rope or a cord having distinctly bulging strands. However, he would not be definite about this until he had done the post mortem.”

  “Was the body clothed?”

  “Yes, fully dressed. The air imprisoned by the clothes kept the body floating. When subsequently I visited the house to interview the inmates, I learned that Mrs Answerth was last seen alive when going up to bed. There was no suggestion of suicide.”

  “What was the reaction of Mary Answerth when you arrived with the doctor?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary, sir. I didn’t expect to find any difference in her front. She was very angry ... and most times she’s angry ... and demanded that I get going and arrest the murderer. You know, like being annoyed at having a steer lifted. She roared when we insisted on having the body brought to the morgue, but made no bones about bringing the body to the morgue in her station wagon, she herself driving it. At the morgue she bullied Dr Lofty to get on with his examination so’s she could hand the body over to the undertaker, and I’m thinking that Lofty has purposely delayed his report just to get his own back for what she said to him.”

  “She seems unusually masculine,” Bony observed.

  “I’ll be candid, sir,” Mawson said, grimly. “There’s no one in this district I’m afraid to handle if he has to be handled. Excepting that he-woman. She’s ruddy dynamite. I’m more than glad that Headquarters sent you down here at once.”

  “I was not sent, Mawson. I chose to come. The case promised interest, in view of the other murder. We’ll discuss that tonight. Tomorrow we’ll visit the scene and pay our respects to the Misses Answerth. May I hope for your co-operation?”

  Mawson made no effort to hide his eagerness.

  “Certainly, sir. Only too pleased to give a hand. Inspector Stanley didn’t want any co-operation when he came down on the Carlow drowning.”

  “And failed to finalize it, Mawson,” Bony reminded. “I understand that you have been stationed here eight years, and t
herefore would know the district and the people as well as your own quarters and your family. I am familiar with Inspector Stanley’s attitude to the uniformed men. He cross-examined you, and you felt he was trying to trap you into making an error. Naturally, you were unable to give of your best. He wanted only the bald facts, I’m sure. In addition to facts, Mawson, I shall want from you opinions, suppositions, ideas. I shall want you to treat me as a colleague, and eventually as a friend. Thus we shall succeed.”

  “Glad to hear it, sir. It’s like breathing fresh air to listen to you.”

  “Good! Take your first breath by omitting the “sir” when there isn’t a third party present. I am Bony to all my friends. Even the Chief Commissioner calls me Bony to my face. Did you ever meet him?”

  “Only on Passing-Out Parade.”

  “Choleric, Mawson. Horrible blood pressure. I am sometimes concerned that he will drop dead before me ... when damning and blasting me for declining to obey orders at the double. But at heart a kindly man, Mawson. Like myself, Colonel Spendor is unable to suffer fools gladly or otherwise. So this is Edison.”

  “This is Edison,” repeated Mawson. “Situation very healthy. People just like people of other towns, having the same virtues and vices. One pub, two churches, three banks. The bank managers don’t associate with the publican, who could buy up the banks, and the publican don’t associate with the parsons. Usual women’s leagues and such-like. Average number of drunks, till-ticklers, scandal-mongers and snobs.”

  And yet, Bony found Edison in advance of “other towns”. When the track became a macadamized road, the policeman’s car began to work up a long slope. The road entered the town, and Main Street continued the slope upward. They passed a bank, some shops and the Shire Hall. They stopped beside the service car halted outside a dilapidated tin shed, from which Mike Falla emerged to transfer Bony’s case. They proceeded up Main Street, passing the police station on one side and the home of The Edison News on the other. Bony caught a glimpse of the butcher’s shop, other banks, a church either side the street.

  The hotel was of red brick, a modern monstrosity and a travesty in this street of weatherboard and cement sheet and corrugated iron. Then Bony was looking at a neat little villa at the very top end of the street, guarded by two poplars and a white-painted picket fence. He was given a momentary vision of wide spaces in which lay folds of tree-covered hills, long white sand dunes, a wide arc of vivid blue sea. The light abruptly dimmed, and he found himself in a small hall furnished with a hat-stand, two chairs and a telephone on a small table. He heard Constable Mawson say:

  “My sister, Mrs Nash. Inspector Bonaparte, Jean. Like to put up here for a bit.”

  He bowed to a gaunt, grey-haired woman in her early forties. He was not charmed, for her face was wrecked by recent illness, and her dark eyes were without expression. One second that impression lasted. The next second she was smiling at him. The dark eyes were alive. The lips were parted in a smile of welcome, and swiftly-drawn lines brushed away all the hardness.

  He was introduced to a large front bedroom exceptionally well furnished, and then to the lounge, colourful and inviting, which he could consider his own. Having showered and dressed, he was introduced to the dining-room, where he ate a first-class meal with his hostess and her daughter.

  When the light was almost gone from the inverted celestial bowl resting upon the world at a lower altitude than the town, he entered the office of the police station to find Constable Mawson at his desk.

  “Now, now, Mawson, don’t get up. Smoke if you wish. Both of us will probably do a lot of hard smoking before we’re through.”

  “Thank you, sir ... Bony.”

  Bony drew a second chair to the side of the constable’s desk, and proceeded to manufacture an alleged cigarette.

  “The P.M. report come in yet?” he asked.

  “Doctor said he’d like to bring it himself. Suggests I ring him when convenient to you.”

  “Oh! Considerate. Better call him now.”

  Mawson’s hand was beginning to reach for the instrument when its alternating buzzer demanded attention. Mawson lifted the instrument. Bony could hear the distant voice. The policeman looked at him beneath quizzing sandy brows. He spoke with grave politeness.

  “Yes, the Inspector is here now. Yes, very well.”

  The large sandy-haired hand was cupped about the mouthpiece.

  “Miss Answerth wants to speak to you,” he said. “Miss Janet Answerth.”

  “Oh! Oh, how d’you do, Inspector Bonaparte. I’m Janet Answerth. I’m so glad you are available. You can spare me a few minutes?”

  The voice was soft and the enunciation clear save for a slight lisp. What could have been nervousness in the caller Bony at once unchivalrously attributed to woman’s paving the way to the naming of a want. He was right, too.

  “Yes, Miss Answerth. What can I do for you?” he purred.

  “I’ve been wondering, Inspector, if we can come in the morning for poor Mother’s body. I do hope ... I hope, indeed ... that Doctor Lofty didn’t think it necessary to mutilate it. Mary, my sister, has been most upset. You will forgive her for being a trifle brusque, won’t you?”

  “Naturally, Miss Answerth.”

  “You see, Inspector, we often read of these dreadful things in the newspapers, and then when we are ourselves involved in such a tragedy we are horrified that anything of the kind could enter our lives. You will understand, I’m sure. We hate to think of poor Mother lying cut up on a cold slab or something. It’s just too grim. You will let us come for her in the morning?”

  “Regretfully, Miss Answerth, I am unable to make a decision,” Bony told her. “However, I shall be calling on you at nine tomorrow morning, and may be able to advise you.”

  “Oh!” There was a distinct pause. “You wish to come here?”

  “To make a few enquiries. Formality, you understand.”

  “Yes, of course, Inspector. How silly of me to be shocked by the idea of a visit from a detective-inspector. I will arrange that the boat is ready to bring you. You see, the causeway is dangerous to anyone who doesn’t know just where the deep holes are. It’s under water. We can easily wade over it, but as the water is often coloured, strangers cannot see it and would step into a deep hole for sure.”

  “Very well, Miss Answerth. At nine in the morning.”

  “You really could not decide to let us have the body ... in the morning?”

  “No.”

  The negative reply was softly but stressfully given, and the voice from the Answerth house betrayed nothing of disappointment when the conversation terminated.

  “Your opinion of Janet Answerth?” Bony asked Mawson.

  “Very nice little woman,” replied the constable. “Much younger than the other, more civilized. Reminds me somehow of a little moorhen. Quite a good type, I think.”

  “Are you married?” Bony blandly asked.

  “I’m a widower,” replied Mawson, openly wondering. “Another sister keeps house for me. Why?”

  “I wished to assess the value of your opinion.”

  Chapter Three

  Dr Lofty’s Views

  “BEFORE WE CONTACT your Dr Lofty, tell me about the first murder,” requested Bony. “Take your time. Begin with the victim’s early background, his history. More often than not, homicide is the climax of a story beginning years prior to the act.”

  “When I came out here eight years ago,” Mawson said after thought, “Edward Carlow was nineteen years of age and worked for his father, a farmer. The old man was never much good, and when I’d been here two years his drinking habit reached a climax and he left the family dead broke. Beside Edward, there was his mother and his young brother, Alfred, still at school.

  “When the old man dropped out, the owners of the farm decided to find another tenant. The rent hadn’t been paid for years. The owners were these Answerths, who were influenced by their local business agent named Harston. Harston, by the way, is our deputy coro
ner.

  “I never got to the real rights of that farm matter, but it seems that Miss Mary was with the business agent all the way, Miss Janet being against throwing the Carlows out and all for giving Edward Carlow the chance to succeed. I’m still not certain, mind you, but it seems that Miss Janet put Edward Carlow into a butcher’s shop here in Edison and found a house for the family close by.

  “In those days, Edward Carlow was big and dark and handsome. Although he’d worked on the land he wasn’t dumb, and it’s been said that his mother gave him a better education than he’d have had at the local school. Anyway, Miss Janet took the wheel and started him off in the butchering line. Edison badly needed a good butcher, and Carlow never looked back. Began deliveries with an old truck and within a year was delivering with a smart new van.

  “They left the house Miss Janet found for them for a better one Edward Carlow bought. There was new furniture, too, and Alfred was sent to finish his schooling in Brisbane. The business certainly flourished.”

  Constable Mawson paused to light his pipe and hesitated to proceed. Receiving no comment from Bony, he went on:

  “A little more than three years ago, a farmer reported the loss of steers. Then another man reported that the number of his sheep was down by thirty. While I was making enquiries about the sheep, they were found on virgin country, and there’s a lot of it in spots. Finding these sheep sort of put a question to the loss of the steers, for they also could have taken to the scrub and remained lost.

  “One day I was over towards Manton delivering a summons when I chanced to meet the Forest Ranger. As it was near midday, we boiled the billy and had lunch together, and during the yabber he mentioned that several farmers and one or two sheepmen had asked him about stock which had got away.