Venom House. Arthur W. Upfield
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running-board of the car.
“Good-dayee, Inspector. I’ll sit and yap any time, but I don’t know much.”
The long tail to the “day” was further proof that Albert Blaze had been bred somewhere near the heart of the continent. There was music in the way he drawled the greeting.
Chapter Five
Sisters at Home
“How long have you been cooking for the Answerths?” was Bony’s first question. The reply wasn’t delayed.
“I told Inspector Stanley that.”
“Did you? Now tell me.”
Bony’s expression was bland when regarding the little man seated beside him. Despite his age, Blaze hadn’t forgotten how real men sum up each other. Calmly, unhurriedly, he examined Bony’s face feature by feature, and so came to discard his first impression for another more accurate. Here was no bashful half-caste, no slinking half-caste, no simple half-caste. Here was a half-caste never to be found in the vicinity of such places as Darwin, where the riff-raff of both races congregate. Here was a half-caste who could have come from the Tablelands, the Diamintina, the Murchison.
“I began working here in ’24,” Blaze said, easily but coldly.
“Before then you were, of course, riding the stock routes with cattle. How many years were you on the cattle roads?”
“All my life before I came here. If you want to know why I left the cattle country to work on a place no bigger than a cattle station’s backyard, I won’t be telling you. That happened a long time ago.”
“I’m not prying, Blaze. I was wondering if you and I know the same places. I believe we do, and we will swap yarns later, if you care to. At the moment we’ll concentrate on the death of Mrs Answerth. You have been cooking for the men ... how long?”
“Nine years. I was head stockman before that,” answered the ex-cattleman. “Got too old and stiff for the work. I’m near eighty, you know.”
“Don’t believe it.”
“All right ... bet-cher. No good, though. Can’t prove it. But I’m eighty this year accordin’ to the bloke what brought me up.”
“All right! You win. You were having breakfast when Miss Mary Answerth called you all to rescue the body of Mrs Answerth, were you not?”
“The men were at breakfast. I never eat none. I was in the kitchen when she came in with the news, and I went with the others down to this causeway. She sung out to us to take the boat. Boat’s always locked up, and I keep the key.”
“Why is that?”
“Been locked up since young Morris Answerth got out one night and went for a row on the Folly. Anyone wanting to leave the house, or go over to it, has to wade, and if they falls in a hole they has to swim. And if they can’t swim they has to drown. Only time boat’s used is to take over rations, tow over wood, and carry Miss Janet, who won’t always wade. I got orders to take you and Mr Mawson over, if he wants to go with you.”
“How often did Mrs Answerth leave the house?”
“Oh, pretty seldom. She’d always wade, night or day. She wasn’t over this side the night she was murdered, if that’s what you’re after.”
“How d’you know?” flashed Bony.
“No one seen her, anyway.”
“That night two men were employed here in addition to yourself. Are they as sure, as you seem to be, that Mrs Answerth was not here that night she was drowned?”
“Sounded as though they were. You ask ’em. Robin Foster, he’s head stockman now, is up at the pub on a bender. Young Tolly had to ride out, but he’ll be home come lunch time.”
“When did Foster leave to go on a bender?”
“Yesterdee mornin’. Went to town with Miss Mary drivin’ the body, and stopped in town. Wave a feather dipped in whisky across his nose, and Foster would leave a job for the nearest pub if he was a thousand miles away.”
“Oh, that kind of man.”
“That kind of man. You would know ’em.”
“Of course. When Edward Carlow was drowned, Robin Foster was on a bender in town, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. Seems to know when to go.”
“There was no one with you in camp?”
“No. I was cooking for myself.”
“And you had a fancy for roast duck?”
“Teal. Just a couple. I don’t eat overmuch.”
“And you shot a couple. Where ... from here?”
Blaze stood, and Bony stood with him. The cook pointed a steady finger.
“See that tree what looks like Billy Hughes in a temper,” he asked, indicating a dead trunk having two threateningly poised arms. It was a hundred yards off-shore and about half a mile distant. “Well, I shot me teal about opposite that tree, and I had to wade for ’em. I’d picked up one, and was going after the other, when I kicked against something soft and giving-like. I stirs it around with me foot, and up comes Ed Carlow.”
“How deep was the water at that place?”
“To me waist. It’s pretty shallow out from there. Course, I was a bit surprised. Ed Carlow hadn’t no right being there. He wasn’t workin’ on the place. I said to him: ‘What in ’ell’s the game, Ed?’ He looked crook, too. Anyway, I wades after me second duck, and then I comes back and tows Ed ashore, the yabbies dropping off him all the time. What with the excitement of reporting him to Miss Janet, who had to telephone to Mr Mawson, I forgot to put me teal into the safe and the dratted flies ruined ’em. Couple of plump birds they was, too.”
“Pity, about the birds,” agreed Bony. “Take us over to the house now, please.”
“All right.” The cook stared at Bony with a hint of anger in his screwed-in eyes. “Well, ain’t you goin’ to ask if I had it in for Ed Carlow, and that it’s funny I happened to kick him up from the bottom?”
“No. Why?”
“’Cos Inspector Stanley did. You’re a policeman, too.” Bony smiled, and said softly:
“Ah! But you see, Blaze, you and I know the same places, and therefore, I am not so dull.”
Mawson thought that all this back-chat was a waste of time. He was unaware of Bony’s purpose decided upon when he and the cook were coming from the kitchen. Blaze walked to the boat tethered to a stump, walked to it mincingly, despite his years and the slippers on his feet. When he was pulling at the oars, Mawson asked if there were as many ducks as in other years, and Blaze said there were not.
They were midway to the house, when the front door was opened and Mary Answerth came out to stand on the levee, and watch their progress.
“Gud-dee!” she said to Mawson, who was first to leave the boat. “Gud-dee!” she said to Bony when his turn came. “Bert, you camp in the boat until Inspector Bonaparte wants to go back.” And without further speech she led the way to the house.
The distance from the levee to the house front was something like fifty yards. Greensward stretched away upon either side, swung away round the flanks of the building. Six ewes were as lawn mowers always in action. The house porch was arched and deeply inset, there being one broad step to reach the studded door. Either side the porch was a tall side-light of frosted glass, and above the porch was a stained-glass window reaching almost to the wide cornice. To the right were three upper-storey windows, and movement at the second attracted Bony’s attention.
The second and third windows were guarded by steel lattice in a diamond pattern, and from one