The New Shoe. Arthur W. Upfield
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takes a fittin’ afore I puts the boards together, and then again just after I lays the bed to make the lying nice and comfortable. Nothing worse than an uncomfortable coffin you have to lie in for years and years maybe. That casket inside is for Mrs Owen. She be getting on, too, and for years wouldn’t have no coffin to lie alongside Tom’s under the bed. Took him a time to persuade her to take a first fitting. Then one day he brings her along, and we talk and talk persuadin’ her to lie atween the boards I just leaned together, sort of. Got her legs straight at last, and her arms nice and cosy, and I’m making me marks when up she jumps screeching like a hen what’s laid her first egg. Took Tom a long time to quiet her down, and my old woman had to lend him a hand. Now we’re waitin’ for the final fitting, but we don’t have no hope of getting her again.”
Bony was quite sure that no amount of persuasion would induce him to “take” a fitting and he said:
“Old English name, Penwarden, isn’t it? Cornish?”
“Devonshire, me father came from. There’s people here called Wessex. That goes way back. Used to be a part of England called Wessex. Had its kings, too. This local Wessex was born here. His father took up land in them hills back of the Inlet. The Owens lives this side of the Wessexes. Dearie me! The Lord blesses some and thrashes t’others. He blessed the Owens and thrashed the Wessexes, and with us Penwardens, He seemed to take turn and turn about.”
The plane was placed carefully away, and the coat was taken from the nail in the wall at the end of the bench.
“Time for grub,” announced the old man. “Staying up at the hotel, eh? Sound people, the Washfolds. Ain’t been there long, but they’re sound.”
“Thank you for being so neighbourly, Mr Penwarden,” Bony told him. “I’ve really enjoyed talking with you and viewing your work.”
“’Tain’t nothin’, Mr Rawlings, sir. Come along again some time. Allus glad to see you.”
Bony strolled back to the hotel, undecided whether to chuckle or to be horrified by the picture of Mrs Owen undergoing the trial of being fitted.
Chapter Four
The Glass Jewel
Bony found a tall and weathered man seated at his luncheon table. Mrs Washfold bustled in to introduce them.
“This is Mr Fisher from the Navigation Department,” she said, “Going to work at the Lighthouse. Thought you two might like to sit together. Meet Mr Rawlings, Mr Fisher.”
“Working at the Lighthouse, eh!” exclaimed Bony. “I’d like to go over it.”
“Any time you like,” assented the engineer. “I’m startin’ work about two. Walk right in. I’ll leave the door open for you.”
“You take them steps easy, Mr Rawlings,” interposed the licensee’s wife. “There’s about a hundred and twenty of ’em, so they say, and when you’re not used to it the climb will make your legs ache that much you won’t get no sleep for nights. A little vegetable soup, now?”
It was easy and quite natural, and every time Mrs Washfold appeared they were talking about coastal lights and of Fisher’s experiences in many of them.
Towards three o’clock, Bony left the private entrance and at once was joined by the hotel dog. Stug, it was called, and when Bony had asked for the meaning, he was advised to reverse the letters. The name, in reverse, was well chosen in view of the animal’s condition. He wanted to be acknowledged and greatly appreciated Bony’s attention.
With the dog who kept with him all the way, its interest in this new friend never obscured by the alluring scents it came across, Bony arrived at the gate in the Lighthouse fence, paused to examine visually the heavy padlock attached to the chain, and passed inside, closing the gate after him and the dog. Within the enclosure stood a forge and bags of fuel, and to one side against the iron fence was a lean-to shed.
The fence, the yard, himself and the dog were, of course, dwarfed by the mighty structure towering to the cloud-flecked sky. On glancing upwards, the overhanging balcony prevented him from sighting the windows of the Light and the red dome surmounting it. It had been painted recently, and Bony wondered how the painters had done their work.
The yard interested him particularly and for one purpose. When above-surface objects such as the forge and the shed might have interested the city detective, it was the ground which automatically claimed this man’s attention.
Since the last of the police investigators had been here, rain had wiped clean the ground within this yard, and since the rain had fallen there was one set of footprints between the fence gate and the Lighthouse door. Obviously they had been left by Fisher.
The Lighthouse door was open, and on entering the building Bony found himself in a narrow chamber flanked by rows of tall steel gas cylinders. Beyond this small chamber was the bottom of the spiral staircase, and on the bottom step sat Fisher.
“Ah, there you are, Fisher,” Bony said, and drew forward an empty case to sit with him. “Don’t move. I’ll smoke a cigarette and we’ll talk before going up. How’s the leg?”
“The leg, Inspector! All right. How did you know I’d damaged my hip a few years ago?”
“Little bird. Right hip, wasn’t it? Caused a limp.”
“Yes, it did. But I don’t limp now.”
“Just a little. Spent most of your time at sea?”
“That’s so. All us Lighthouse men have been seamen in our time.”
“Well now, let’s get to work. First, you played your part well at lunch. Superintendent Bolt talked to you?”
“Yes, Inspector. Told me not to give you away as a detective.”
“Then forget I am one, and remember that my name is Rawlings ... that I’m a sheepman. Are you the man who found the body?”
“Yes. It was crook because I wasn’t thinkin’ of the naked and the dead. I was thinkin’ of sun-valves at the time.” A humourless chuckle rose from the vicinity of the man’s belt. “Bodies in lighthouses aren’t so thick as daisies in a paddock. I walked in here to do a job to one of the spare cylinder connexions, and I found the sun-valve ...”
“Wait. We’ll come to that. I understand you have been with your department for nine years. You would know the routine. This Lighthouse is inspected four times annually, is it not?”
“Yes, as near as possible in the first week in February, May, August and November each year. It happens that this is inspection time. In fact, Superintendent Bolt only just told me in time about you being here. I was due the day after tomorrow.”
“Did you inspect the Light in February, the usual routine time?”
“Yes.”
“Then your visit here on March the First was not a routine visit?”
“No, it wasn’t. When I was down here early in February, I couldn’t finish a job, so I fixed it up pro tem, and reported to the office that it might last all right until the next inspection. The office said it should be looked at before then, and that’s why I was sent down three weeks later to fix it properly.”
“Anyone outside your office know you were coming?”
“No.”
“Therefore, anyone familiar with the inspection periods would not anticipate anyone coming here again till early in May? Many local people know the inspection periods?”
“All of ’em would know.”
“Apparently the police did not know it,” Bony said, and Fisher caught the note of satisfaction. “They understand you came here on a routine inspection.”
“Well, they asked me why I came down, and I told ’em I came on inspection duty. That’s what I am ... engineer-inspector