"An Author Bites the Dust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Upfield Arthur W.)

Chapter Twelve

A Couple of Locals

AFTER lunch, Bony returned to the shade of the lilac-trees andGreystone Park. Despite the heat, I. R. Watts got it across, for Bony found this book emotionally powerful and soundly written, the characters being clear and strong in their presentation. Watts was a born story-teller, restrained and therefore dramatic, humorous and therefore human. When Bony had read a third of the book he was determined to get in touch with this writer, for he was sure that the author of such a story would also be indisposed to over-statement as well as under-statement.

He was engrossed byGreystone Park to the extent of becoming oblivious to heat and annoying flies, but the world of historical romance into which I. R. Watts had inducted him was not proof against a lazy voice saying, “Some people has all the ruddy luck.”

Bony looked up from his book to see a man leaning on a hoe not four yards distant. He was large and disreputableThere were pouches under his filmy eyes and purple lines criss-crossing his shapeless nose.

“It would seem so from your point of view,” Bony said. “Who are you?”

“I’m the casual gardener around here. You a friend of Miss Pinkney?”

“Yes,” Bony confirmed, and then added as though by an afterthought, “Warm afternoon.”

“ ’Tisso. Good day to drink beer, but thereain’tnone. Good day for a smoke, too, but thereain’t no tobacco. Things is crook all right. How do you stand?”

“For beer, no good. For a pipe of tobacco, fairly good.”

The gardener shuffled towards Bony and held forward a huge and grimy hand for Bony’s proffered tobacco tin. He helped himself generously and stuffed the finely shredded weed into the bowl of a broken-stemmed pipe.

“Thanks,” he said, without meaning it. “What this ruddy country is coming to beats me. No beer, no tobacco, no meat half the time, and work all the time. It’s ‘When are you coming to my place?’ and ‘You promised to give me a day last week’, and so on until I gets giddy picking and choosing who I’ll work for.” He lit his pipe, from which, in spite of the eternal shortage, dangled streamers of Bony’s precious tobacco. “Everythink’sshort,” he went on, becoming fierce.“Couldn’t be anything else but short when wegotta pay for the politicians, thousands of ’emhaving holiday tours all round the ruddy world. What do they care for the likes-”

“So you help to keep other people’s gardens in order, do you?” Bony cut in. “Earning good money?”

The gardener pulled at his pipe, puffed his cheeks and emitted a cloud of smoke.

“Pretty good,” he replied. “I don’t work for less than thirty bob a day and noSat’day work. But what’s the ruddy use? Them dopes in the city goes on strike after strike for more money, and about a week after they get the rise the cost of everything catches up with ’emand then they’re still behind. Any’ow, what’s the use of money when you can’t get enough beer and got to scrounge for a bit of tobacco? Wewas all better off on a quid a week and unlimited beer and unlimited tobacco. What Isays is-”

“How often do you work for Miss Pinkney?” inquired Bony.

“Whenever she wants me to,” with a leer.“I neversays no to Miss Pinkney, and I never said no to Mr Blake next door, when he was alive and kicking. For why? I’ll tell you. Miss Pinkney always gives me a reviver just before I goes, just a little taste, sort of. Ilikes working for her sort. Thereain’t many of them around here. The doctor’s all right, but, ah”-and a sigh floated into the still air-“that Mr Blake was a bonzer bloke. He’d never see a man dying of thirst.”

“Generous, eh?”

“Never failed. My name’s Sid Walsh. What’s yours?”

Bony told him, and Sid Walsh repeated the name, and said, “Seems familiar to me. Musta met you somewhere before. Lemme think.”

“Don’t. It’s too hot. Is the Mr Blake you spoke of the author?”

“Yes, that’s ’im,” Walsh replied, expectorating with remarkable accuracy at a waltzing butterfly. “One of the best, he was. He’d come along sometimes when I was working in there and he’dgimme a wink, and that was the office for me tofoller him, sort of casual like, to his writing-room or the garage where he’d have a bottle planted nice and handy.”

“H’m! In the garage as well as his writing-room?”

“Too right, he did. Always kept a bottle and a couple glasses in a cupboard inside the garage.” Walsh winked, glanced nervously towards the near-by fence, and went on, “His missususter go crook at ’imfor drinking, especially when there was no one staying there, and he’d have plants all over the place. But he was cunning, though. He never left the garage unlocked while I was working for him.”

“And you have a little luck with the doctor?” remarked Bony.

“Oh yes, the quack’s all right in his way. He tells me I drinks too much, and then when I’m knocking off and I tells him I’m all a-tremble with exhaustion, he takes me into his surgery for what he calls a tonic. It’s tonic all right. The real McKay from Scotland. Gripes! There’s Miss Pinkney looking at me. I’d better get on with my slavery.”

Sid Walsh drifted back to his hoeing, and Bony took upGreystone Park. He found it easier to read than to meditate and the next intrusion came when Mr Pickwick sprang up the back of his cane chair and settled himself comfortably on his right shoulder.

“If you continue to kiss me, you’ll have to get down,” Bony told him, and went on reading.

The shade cast by the lilac-trees lengthened. The flies continued faintly to irritate the reader of novels. The gardener proceeded with his hoeing, and the third intrusion came when Miss Pinkney said, “Well, I never. Dr. Nicola, I presume.”

“You refer to Guy Boothby’s famous character of thirty years ago,” he murmured, and then was on his feet with Mr Pickwick clawing for support and the book in his hands. Miss Pinkney had brought him afternoon tea.

“The same. You are the image of him, and Mr Pickwick is the very identical cat. But please don’t date Dr Nicola-and me.”

Bony put the cat down and took the tray.

“The inference cannot possibly apply to you, Miss Pinkney,” he told her gravely. “Thank you for the tea. I’ll bring in the tray later; I have letters to write.”

“The post closes at five o’clock, remember.”

“I will.”

Miss Pinkney departed and Bony sat down. He heard her call to the gardener, “Walsh! Your afternoon tea is in the kitchen waiting for you. You don’t deserve it because you’ve done very little work so far.”

And then Walsh, “Sorry, Miss Pinkney, but me rheumatism is crook today. Thiskinda weather always plays hell with me joints.” He staggered after her as though one foot were in the grave and the other almost in.

Bony smiled, and Mr Pickwick lapped milk from the saucer.

After another hour withGreystone Park Bony took the tray to the house and there wrote a letter to Superintendent Bolt, saying that he was picking up one or two threads of the Blake case and asking that the Editor of theJohannesburg Age be primed to counter the chance that an inquiry might reach him concerning a member of his staff, to wit Napoleon Bonaparte, now on holiday in Australia.

Having posted the letter and noted that the time was half past four, he walked on down the street with the intention of calling on Constable Simes. Simes was in the narrow front garden of the police station disbudding dahlias and, on seeing Bony approaching, he stepped to his gate, smiled in his broad and open manner, and said, “Having a look round?”

“No, I am hoping to pay a call on Dr. Fleetwood. D’youthink he would be at home now?”

“Yes, almost sure to be.”

“I wish you’d go inside and ring him and tell him that an important friend of yours is about to pay him a visit. Nothing more than that. I’ll go along. His house is just round the bend, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Only house there.” Simes regarded Bony steadily.“Any developments?”

“Nothing, so far. I’ve been reading novels all day. It’s been too hot to engage in my profession. When there are developments, I’ll tell you of them.”

Arrived at Dr Fleetwood’s house, he was conducted by a maid to the doctor’s surgery where he was met by a tall, stoop-shouldered, ascetic-looking man bordering on sixty.

“Slight, dark, blue-eyed-that’s the police description and it fits you,” he said with a mere trace of Scotch accent. “Sit down. What can I do for you? You don’t look ill.”

“Thank you, doctor. I am, in fact, remarkably well,” Bony said, accepting the invitation to be seated. “I have not come to you as a patient but as a police officer engaged upon the recent death of Mervyn Blake.”

When the doctor again spoke, the accent was more pronounced.

“Indeed! Well?”

Bony told him who he was and who and what he was pretending to be, before saying, “Inspector Snook, who had charge of the inquiry, apparently became satisfied that Blake died from natural causes. Superintendent Bolt, Snook’s superior, is not quite so satisfied, and he prevailed upon me to see what I could do to satisfy him completely that Blake died from natural causes-or-or unnatural causes. Er -I have succeeded in gaining Constable Simes’s confidence. I’d like to have yours, doctor.”

The grey eyes were steady.

“Well, go on.”

“Simes has also consented to collaborate with me,” Bony continued. “So has his sister, whose brother-in-law I am supposed to be. Inspector Snook is an efficient and somewhat ruthless policeman. I was associated with him once and he then incurred a little debt I wish to collect. Perhaps you feel the same way?”

“Perhaps I do,” and the thin lips barely moved.

Bony felt he was making no progress. Still he persisted.

“Having read all the data collected by Inspector Snook, I find that I cannot be as satisfied as he that Blake died from natural causes. My opinion is based partly on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, and the evidence that led both Simes and yourself to believe that someone entered the room after Blake died and before he was found the next morning. Now, doctor, I’ll be blunt. I want your collaboration.”

The grey eyes narrowed.

“Very well, inspector, I’ll do what I can to assist you.”

“Thank you,” Bony said, making no effort to conceal the satisfaction he felt. From a pocket he took the crumpled envelope containing the powder from Mr Pickwick’s ping-pong ball. “I have here a substance that mystifies me. I want it examined and identified. I don’t want to send it to the Victorian C.I.B. Would you analyse it?”

“I’ll do my best,” assented Dr Fleetwood. “If I do not succeed, I could send it to the University foranalysis.”

Bony unscrewed the envelope and preferred it to the doctor. Fleetwood looked closely at the contents and then rolled it slightly from side to side. He sniffed at it, wetted the ball of his little finger and thus carried a grain, or flake, to his tongue. Finally he picked up a magnifying glass and used that to look upon the powder.

“Peculiar substance,” he said.“All right! I’ll do my best this evening, or as soon as possible. You have no suspicion of what it is?”

“None. I came upon it by chance, and that it has any bearing on the Blake case appears at the moment to be fantastic. It might be, let us say, chalk from the downs of England, or heather from the Highlands of Scotland. It might even be dust from the western plains of the United States. It might be-no matter. I want to know what it is.”

“Very well. I’ll see what I can do to name it. Where are you staying?”

“I am staying at Miss Pinkney’s cottage.”

Dr Fleetwood smiled for the first time. “I’ll wager that you’ve gained her confidence at least,” he said dryly.

“Yes. I like her very much. In her way she is quite a character.” Bony rose, smiled and added, “Another character I’ve met here is Mr Pickwick. I understand that Miss Pinkney gave Blake a tongue-lashing when he threw a stone at Mr Pickwick, threatened to change the position of his face to his-ah-posterior.”

“Miss Pinkney is downright in everything she does and thinks,” Dr Fleetwood said, and laughed. “A good woman, though. Genuine and all that.”

“Have you any opinion of what caused Blake’s death?”

The smile vanished from the lean features.

“Yes, an opinion based on a probability. His death was not caused by stomach ulcers, from which he had suffered for some time. His heart was sound, meaning that its condition was normal for a man of his years and manner of living. It seems probable that he ate or drank something which of itself is harmless and yet becomes a virulent poison when in contact with something else. For instance, strawberries are harmless and yet in some people strawberries will produce a violent upsetting of their health.”

“Thank you, doctor. Did you visit Blake, or his wife, at their home?”

“No. Blake came to me for an overhaul.”

“Well, thank you for giving me so much of your time Please let me know through Constable Simes the result of your work on that powder, will you? And you will treat the subject of our talk with strict confidence, I know. Thank you again. I must be off. Tomorrow I have to meet a cosmic blonde. Have you ever met a cosmic blonde?”

“Cosmic?”

“Yes, cosmic, doctor. I understand that they are more dangerous than the atomic genus of the species.”