Venom House. Arthur W. Upfield
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eh? You’re telling me. I’ll be bloody vulgar if you insinuate I murdered Mother. I told her to come into the house. She’d been standing under Morris’s window to call good night to him, because you’d refused to let her go to his room to say good night. I sent her up to bed, and I followed her upstairs and heard her shut her door before I closed mine.”
Janet Answerth began to cry. To Mary, Bony said:
“How was your mother dressed ... when you brought her into the house?”
“Same as when I found her dead in the water next morning.”
“How d’you know that, Mary?” sobbed Janet. “There’s never any light in the hall.”
“I’m not saying there was a light in the hall,” snapped Mary. “I’m not blind, and the stars were out. Mother was wearing her usual day clothes, and she was dressed in them same clothes when I found her. And you keep your gob shut when the Inspector is asking me questions. If you don’t, I’ll slap it shut that hard you won’t open it again for a month.”
With astonishing alacrity, Mary Answerth left her chair and advanced towards her sister. Janet’s sobs were cut. She stood. The sunlight falling upon her red-gold hair appeared to create a scarlet dye seeping downwards to stain her face. Her eyes were abruptly large, and bright green. Her nostrils were thin and white. She was about to speak ... and Mawson was between them.
“Now, now,” he soothed. “No fireworks, please. Sit down and just answer the Inspector’s questions.”
Bony helped himself to one of his own “tailor-mades” and touched its tip with a match. Above the lighted match, he regarded the tableau, his face calm although inwardly he was delighted. The tension waned, and Bony spoke:
“I would like to visit Morris Answerth.”
Mawson was too late to hinder them. They slipped by him to confront Bony, anger replaced by dismay, and in unison exclaimed:
“You can’t see Morris!”
Chapter Six
The Fisherman
Old Man Memory produced from his card index a picture for Bony, and whilst regarding these two women so did he gaze on the picture of a small Australian terrier standing beside a bulldog. Janet stood before him in an attitude of entreaty: Mary stood with lordly and contemptuous indifference.
“Morris isn’t normal,” Janet Answerth said. “He’s never been out of his room for years.”
“Which is why I will go to him and not order Constable Mawson to bring him down here.”
“But, Inspector ...” Mary began. “His room?” interrupted Bony.
“I will take you,” Janet said, sadly resigned, and walked to the door.
On leaving this modern architectural creation for the original building, Bony felt as though he passed, in two steps, from summer to winter. He caught a glimpse of a large woman in white within the kitchen, and then the darkness of the passage was like smoke until they entered the hall. Treading the royal-blue carpet, he resisted the impulse to touch the gleaming honey-hued balustrades, and, on arriving at the gallery at the head of the staircase, was shocked to observe that the carpet running both ways from it was threadbare and colourless. Still following Janet Answerth, his gaze clung to that hall of extraordinary beauty.
And then he was walking along another dark passage till Janet stopped before a confronting door at the angle. From a wall hook she took down a key, with which she unlocked a padlock securing a stout door-bolt. As she drew back the bolt, Bony placed a hand on her arm. “I will go in alone, Miss Answerth.”
“Oh, no! You must not. Morris mightn’t be friendly towards you.”
“Constable Mawson will come at my call. Miss Answerth will not enter with me, Mawson.”
“Very well, sir.”
Bony opened the door, entered, closed the door and paused with his back to it.
No one was within the room. It was spacious ... long and narrow. It was lighted by two windows in the front wall of the house and one at the end wall. All were guarded by steel lattice fixed to the outside. In the centre stood a large mahogany table on which was a mechanical train set, a Ferris wheel, a contraption of some kind, and a litter of what small boys call their junk. There was a magnificent stone fireplace and on the wide mantel one object only, a tall cloisonné vase. Two common kitchen chairs, a dilapidated leather arm-chair, a throne chair of cedarwood, a large glass-fronted bookcase having two panes broken, and a faded chintz-covered couch completed the furniture. The floor was covered with modern but worn linoleum. The walls were black-panelled to the smoky ceiling.
The room was tidy and the air clean. It was almost a pleasant room. The application of furniture oil and wax would have made it bright and wholesome. Following the first swift survey, Bony’s gaze returned to the throne chair. Once it had been painted or varnished black. Now the seat was worn to natural tan, and the tops of the massive and carved side posts were equally worn. The oddity was interesting, but Bony hadn’t the time to cogitate upon it, for through a doorway opposite the fireplace there appeared a boy.
He was cleanly dressed in the uniform of Eton. The dark-grey trousers needed pressing. The short Eton jacket needed to be brushed, but the wide Eton collar was spotless, as were the white shirt-cuffs. He came forward with measured tread, to look down upon his visitor with eyes, either blue or grey, expressive of astonishment. His hair and trimmed beard were the colour of Janet’s hair, the hair being combed low on the left side and smelling strongly of the oil making it gleam. His voice was soft and well accented.
“I saw you ... coming in the little boat. Does Janet know you are here?”
“Yes. You are Morris Answerth, aren’t you?”
The man in the schoolboy’s clothes gravely nodded, saying:
“I think I oughtn’t to speak to you. Janet mightn’t like it.”
“But I have her permission.” Bony failed to read the effect of this statement. The face was pale like all faces of the imprisoned, but the physical well-being was undoubted. With a slight shock, Bony realized that his training in the art of defence, plus his natural ability to counter violence, might serve him little should this man go into action. He said: “Surely you do not mind me coming up to talk with you?”
“Talk with me?” came the puzzled voice.
“Yes. About your train. About your magnet. About you. About anything you would like to talk about.”
Morris Answerth smiled, slowly, shyly, and it was the most pathetic smile Bony had ever seen on a grown man’s face.
“My magnet!” he exclaimed. “I fish with that, you know. Did you see me catching fish?”
Bony chuckled with creditable realism. “Yes. You did splendidly.”
“Do you like my room?” The voice was eager.
“Very much. Will you show me your things ... your fishing-line and magnet?”
The eagerness seeped away. The eyes were troubled. Then uneasiness was banished by cunning, and the scrawny red beard heightened the effect. A large hand gripped Bony’s arm below the elbow, and Bony determinedly refrained from wincing.
“You would tell Janet.”
“I would not,” asserted Bony, indignantly.
“Yes, you would.”
“No fear, I wouldn’t,” came the ungrammatical assurance. “I never tell Janet anything. Doesn’t do, you know, to tell her anything.”
The cunning vanished. The smile returned. The painful grip was removed. Morris said:
“Janet would scold me if you told her things. She makes me cry when she scolds. She’s