"The Widows of broome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Upfield Arthur W.)

Chapter Nine

Medical Inspection

IT was four o’clock when Bony entered the police station by the rear door and discovered Mrs. Walters baking scones. He sniffed with exaggerated noise, saying:

“Ah! Hot buttered scones! And strong hot tea!”

“Where have you been all day?” Mrs. Walters asked accusingly.

Bony placed the sugar sack he had brought with him on a side table.

“Merely pottering about. Plenty of butter, now.”

“You haven’t had lunch?”

“It wasn’t convenient. I’m glad now…” and sniffing again loudly, he sat down at the floured table. “Six buttered scones and two cups of tea, and I won’t want any lunch. Who would?”

“Did your mother have any morelike you?” asked Mrs. Walters, buttering hot scones.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “You see, I was abandoned by her and found under a sandalwood tree. You get along with that baking. I’ve something to show you.”

“Have you?” Mrs. Walters looked at him intently. “This is the last tray to go into the oven, and I’ll clean up in no time.”

“Good! I want to ask a question and not be slapped for it. Promise not to slap?”

“I promise.”

“All right. Do you wear silk underwear?”

“What a question! Very often. Why?”

“I’ll tell you in a moment or two. Excuse me.”

With a scone in one hand and a tea cup in the other, and his mouth whitened by flour, Bony hurried along the passage to the office door. He made sure no member of the public was doing business, and was pleased to find both Walters and Sawtell, with a third policeman, working at their desks. He had already been introduced to Constable Clifford.

“Mrs. Walters wants you, Inspector, and Sergeant Sawtell… at once,” he called from the doorway.

“What the hell…” Walters began to explode, but Bony had vanished. He and Sawtell left their desks like dutiful children and obeyed the summons. Bony closed the door.

“I understand,” he began, “that when Lily Mallory, Mrs. Eltham’s domestic, reported that she couldn’t get into the house, you, Sawtell, went there and broke in. Almost immediately afterwards you telephoned Walters, and he joined you in the house. Did either of you then or subsequently examine the floor of the wardrobe in Mrs. Eltham’s room?”

“No. We waited for the Perth men to get here,” replied Sawtell. “But I was present when the C.I.B. man stripped the wardrobe of all its contents from top shelf to floor. Why?”

“Did you see a bundle of rags pushed into a far corner?”

“No. There was nothing of the kind there.”

“I find that satisfactory,” murmured Bony as though tohimself. “Now look… all of you.”

From the sugar sack he took the bundle wrapped in blue silk and opened it out on the side table.

“Examine those pieces of silk, Mrs. Walters, and tell me what you think about them.”

She handled the coloured pieces, lifting a strip of lime-green silk to which was a hem of fine lace. The three men silently watched her fluttering hands, the eyes of both Walters and Sawtell hardening as they understood the significance of this wilful destruction.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Walters.“Oh, what a shame! Such lovely undies, too. Why, it’s almost new.”

There was indignation in her dark eyes when she turned to Bony.

“I found that bundle in a corner of Mrs. Eltham’s wardrobe,” he said. “Thank you for your confirmation of what it represents. It’s expensive material, is it not?”

“Very. I very much doubt that it was purchased here in Broome… not since the war.”

“Black-market goods, perhaps,” contributed the inspector.“Could have been brought in by a lugger. What’s it all mean?”

“That Mrs. Eltham’s murderer destroyed all her silk underwear. Can you spare an hour to run out to Dampier’s Hotel?”

“Certainly. What’s breaking? Come on, out with it.”

The inspector’s face was almost ferocious.

“D’youknowwhat happened to Mrs. Cotton’s personal effects?” persisted Bony.

Walters referred to Sawtell, and the sergeant replied:

“I believe all her personal effects were stored in her bedroom and the room locked up.”

“Good! We’ll run out there at the first opportunity. Was Constable Clifford ever inside Mrs. Eltham’s house… after she was found, of course?”

“Yes. He was often there with us.”

“Ah! This case is beginning to break,” Bony cried, and none had seen him so excited. “I’m glad I came to Broome on two counts. One because I am your guest and the other because you gave me a real puzzler of a case. Now, Walters, do something for me immediately. Ring up Dr. Mitchell and tell him your wife has taken a bad turn and to come at once.”

“But Esther’s all right,” objected Walters.

Bony sighed, and Mrs. Walters snapped:

“Go and do what he asks, Harry. I’m having a real bad turn.”

The inspector stamped away. Sawtell grinned, and Mrs. Walters looked impishly at Bony. They said nothing but could hear the inspector at the telephone in the office.

“Have you ever charged anyone with destroying women’s clothes?” Bony asked Sawtell.

“No, and I’ve been here fifteen years.”

“I’ve known of it but not in connection with homicide,” Bony said. “This fellow is exceptionally clever. He works with silk or rubber gloves. No finger-prints. We’ll send these remnants down for expert examination, but I think they’ll find only my prints or those of Mrs. Walters: How long has Constable Clifford been with you?”

“Almost two years.”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Well, engaged?”

“I don’t know that one,” averred Sawtell. “He’s efficient and ambitious. We’ve found him a good bloke. He boards with us.”

Inspector Walters returned to say theM. O. was on his way.

“I’m sitting back. You can make the explanations,” he said to Bony.

Three minutes later, Bony began the explanations to Dr. Mitchell, who was certainly astonished to find Mrs. Walters looking quite sweet in her cooking apron.

“Inspector Walters brought you here under false pretences, Doctor,” he said. “However, I believe that the real reason will prove to be of such interest that you will readily forgive him. You see, we’re so positive that you will assent to help us in clearing up these murders at Broome.”

“Naturally. Anything I can do. Lead me to it,” pleaded Dr. Mitchell, setting down his bag.

“We thank you, Doctor,” murmured Bony, producing his pocket wallet. “I believe I know what these objects are, but I require that they be definitely identified. Look!”

From the specimen envelopes he shook free on to the table the three small flaky objects he had retrieved from the floor of Mrs. Eltham’s bedroom. The doctor bent over them. He tested one with a finger-nail.

“They are particles of human skin,” he announced. “They come from a person afflicted with psoriasis, a disease of the skin for which there is no known cure.”

“Is its incidence rare or otherwise?”

“Neither common nor rare,” replied Dr. Mitchell. “It’s more prevalent in southern climes than in the tropics, I think. I know of four cases of it here in Broome. Patches of skin become dry and flaky and can be rubbed off or will fall off. It’s not anotifiable disease, forit’s not contagious. In fact, many doctors tell the sufferers that they will outlive their medical advisers, for itoccurs much more often than not in healthy people.”

“Does it favour, if I may use the word here, one sex particularly?” asked Bony.

“No, I think not. It’s no respecter of persons. Redheaded people are sufferers equally with blonds and brunettes. As I stated, there’s no known cure, and there is no known cause. Because its effects are not serious, medical science hasn’t given much attention to it, both time and money being so urgently needed for the defeat of considerably more serious diseases.”

“And you know of four cases of it in Broome?”

Dr. Mitchell nodded and lit a cigarette. Bony pursed his lips, and the doctor, guessing what the next question would be, said:

“I’ll give you their names in strictest confidence, and in the hope that the information may lead to the identity of this strangling beast. Mind you, there are doubtless others in Broome who, knowing there is no cure, rely on the chemist for ointment to give relief.”

“There is a chemist in Broome?” promptly asked Bony.

“Yes. He might know of other sufferers. I’ll enquire if you wish.”

“That’s kind of you. Well, now, the next step. The persons afflicted with psoriasis: is it all over their bodies?”

“In the majority of cases not entirely. Most of them have it only on parts of the body, on their legs or their arms or on their back. Those specimens of sloughed skin have, I think, come either from an elbow or a knee where the skin is coarser than elsewhere.”

“Every sufferer, then, would not show it on the face and hands and forearms?”

“That’s so,” agreed Dr. Mitchell. “In those cases the disease would not be observable without the patient’s consent.”

“Have you got it?”

“I… oh no. Thank goodness.”

“Would you consent to prove that?”

The doctor declared he would be delighted to prove it, and Bony explained his reason for establishing a fact, telling where he had found the portions of dead skin, and pointing out that the doctor had been inside Mrs. Eltham’s house. Turning to Mrs. Walters, he asked:

“If you will permit the use of a spare room…”

“Certainly, Bony.”

“Then I will inspect your carcase,” Bony said, almost gaily. “Now don’t run away, my dear Walters. It’ll be your turn next.”

“Be damned if it will,” snorted the inspector. “You can take my word for it, backed up by the wife, if you want it.”

His eyes clashed with the half-caste’s calm gaze, and Bony said:

“I regret that in this matter I cannot accept the word of any person known to have been inside Mrs. Eltham’s house prior to, by one day at least, her demise, and subsequent to it. When it’s proved that everyone known to have entered the house is free from this psoriasis, then I can logically assume that those particles of skin fell from the body of the man I am seeking for double murder.”

He was absent with the doctor for five minutes, and on returning from the bedroom to which they had retired, he nodded to Walters and the inspector went in to be examined by the doctor, went without demur. Sawtell followed him, and they brought Clifford from the office to undergo the same inspection. When the inspection of the police force was concluded, Bony asked who removed the body of Mrs. Eltham to the morgue. The local undertaker and an assistant had done that, and the doctor was able to vouch for the undertaker, who was his patient. The assistant wasa Malay, and therefore free, for the disease does not occur in that race.

“Well, that covers everyone with the exception of the homicide men,” Bony decided with satisfaction. “We’ll write an air-mail letter to the Chief of the Perth C.I.B. and have him establish if those three men he sent up here are free from psoriasis. If they are, then our search for a murderer in a population of some eight hundred people can be reduced to, whatd’you say, Doctor, a round dozen?”

“Probably less than a round dozen.”

“Well, I am truly grateful to all of you for your willing co-operation. By elimination, and by finding tiny bits and pieces and fitting them together, we shall eventually come to see the cause of horribly tragic effects. If you will let me have those names, Doctor, and any others provided by the chemist.”

“The names of my patients I’ll write now,” said the doctor, producing his prescription pad. Rapidly, he tore off the sheet, scribbled and presented it to Bony. Bony slipped it into a pocket, and accompanied the little doctor to his car.

“It’s truly good of you to be so helpful,” he said when the medico was behind the steering-wheel.

“Anything I can do, well, it’s my job in a case like the one you’re handling. I’m a little nervous that the swine might kill again.”

“Have you studied psychiatry?”

“Yes. That any help to you? Somehow I think it might be.”

“I think that, too. I’d like to talk one evening soon.”

“Do. Any time after seven. Give me a tinkle in case I’m out. Busy place this… for me. Cheerio!”

Thoughtfully, Bony returned to the station office.

“Who’s on that list?” asked Walters, and Sawtell evinced keen interest.

Bony produced the scrap of paper. He looked round. Constable Clifford was not present.

“Mrs. Janet Lytie,” he read out, and paused.

“Old dame who runs a tea-shop,” supplemented Sawtell.

“Miss Olga Templeton-Hoffer.”

“Starchy old bird who nurses a martinet of a father. Go on.”

“Master Leslie Lee.”

“Schoolboy about fifteen. Next.”

“Mr. Arthur Flinn.”

“Oh! Might be worth keeping tag,” Sawtell said.

Bony placed the paper in his pocket wallet.

“The doctor has added a fifth name,” he almost lisped, and watched for the effect. “The fifth name on the list is Albert Mark.”

There was a long pause, and then Sawtell breathed:

“Black Mark.”

“I’d like to run out and see him before dinner,” Bony said.