Читать книгу The Carson Loan Mystery - Aidan de Brune - Страница 4

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"IT'S the queerest bit o' business I've seen."

Constable Nicholls was standing on the sandhills that border Little Bay, looking down into a shallow depression, in which lay the body of a naked woman. His large, red, good-humoured face wore an expression of almost comical dismay, as he leisurely scratched his thinly covered head with the peak of his official cap. Nicholls was not recognised in the New South Wales Police Force for his readiness to grasp a situation.

The woman had been about forty-five years of age. The features, once possessing a measure of beauty, had been coarsened and lined by a life of dissipation and want. The hair, roughly bobbed, was sprinkled with grey, and the liberally applied cosmetics had formed grotesque channels through the action of the heavy morning dew.

The woman lay on her back, her knees slightly drawn up. Under her had been strewn a rough bed of rushes, and, for some reason, the murderer had carefully folded and placed across the lower part of the body the clothes the woman had worn in life. Her face was placid, but for a queer twisted smile that curved the thin bloodless lips.

Nicholls looked at his watch. It was just five o'clock, and the first rays of the morning sun were lifting above the eastern horizon. A haze, almost thick enough to be called a fog, hung over the sand-hills, giving the surroundings an effect of long distances. About three hundred yards north of where the constable stood the waters of the bay shone intermittently through the haze.

"They should be here, soon," commented Nicholls, stowing in an inner pocket the massive silver timepiece he had consulted. Then he turned to his companion, a long lanky youth of about seventeen years of age: "There's no work for you t'day, m'lad."

Archie Clarke nodded vacantly, and continued to stare down at the woman's body.

"She was like that when I found her," he said, hesitatingly.

"Likely, lad," replied Nicholls, magisterially, "Them as 'as been treated as she 'as don't move much after. Leastways, not till we moves 'em."

"I didn't touch 'er," continued the youth. "'Struth, I didn't. She's just as I told you I found 'er. I was comin' across that 'ere path, game as I've done every day this year past, to go to work, when I seed 'er."

"Is it more'n a year, or less'n a year, you've come across 'ere'?" The constable stuck his hands on his hips and frowned down on his companion. "You've got ter be exact, y'know, in these eases."

Archie looked puzzled.

"You might remember later on," added Nicholls, shaking his head, sadly. "Go on wi' yer tale, Archie. It ain't many as remembers th' exact particulars when face ter face wi' th' lor, Yer 'ave ter be trained to it."

"I've told you all I know about it, Mr. Nicholls," protested the youth.

"So yer 'ave, an' I writ it all down," replied the constable, "But it won't 'urt yer t' say it all over agen. You'll tell a better story when yer comes affore th' magistrate. I does it m'self. I goes over an' over it agen, an' agen, an' adds a bit 'ere, an' leaves out a bit there, as don't count. Y' don't know wot you're up agenst, If yer tells it wrong they may even take yer up for th' murder. They've done it affore, an' they'll do it agen, I can tell yer."

Nicholls paused, and looked down at his companion, now duly impressed.

"You're a decent lad, Archie Clarke. I've 'ad me eye on yer fer some time, you livin', so t' speak, in my district. An' I makes no complaint, tho' there's them as might seein' th' row you an' your mates make in Main Street ov a Friday night."

"We don't do no 'arm, Mr. Nicholls," argued Archie.

"P'haps not. So I gives yer a word of advice." Nicholls spoke authoritatively. "You tells your tale as you told it me, an' as I writ it down, an' don't yer make no h'errors. When we lays 'ands on th' bloke as done this, you tells your tale to th' Judge and jury—an' th' Loord 'ave mercy on yes soul."

"All right, Mr. Nicholls," answered Archie cheerfully. "They won't do anythin' to me, will they. I couldn't 'elp findin' er."

"Not if yer do as I ses," replied the constable. "An' there's one thin' more. Beware of them noospaper blokes. They'll be all over yer, er tellin' yer wot a fine feller y'are, an' ow yer saved the country by findin' this 'ere female. Then, they'll take yer words an' cut an' twist 'em, an' turn 'em up-side-down an' yer won't know wot yer sed, an' then th' H'Inspector 'll call yer a fool, an' worse, an'—Yes, sir."

The constable sprang to attention as a tall form loomed out of the mist.

"There you are, Nicholls. Had a devil of a time getting here. Ah, there she is. Bad case, eh!"

"Very bad, sir. It's—murder," announced Nicholls pompously. "This 'ere's the principal witness, sir."

Inspector Richards looked at Archie Clarke, casually; then nodded.

"I'll hear what you have to say presently, my lad," he said, brusquely. "You've not touched the body, constable?"

"No one's been down there, sir, 'cept th' murderers. Clarke and I 'ave stood up 'ere ever since 'e fetched me."

With a nod of approval the Inspector walked down into the hollow and stood beside the corpse. Bending down he looked, earnestly, into the still face. Then, silently and methodically, be circled the body, carefully examining the ground.

"Humph!" Richards climbed on to the high ground, and stood beside the constable and youth. "You don't seem to have done any damage, Nicholls. She's dead, so we'll leave things as they are until the doctor and others arrive. I'm a few minutes ahead of them."

The Inspector looked down on the dead body, thoughtfully, for a few seconds. Then he turned briskly to the boy.

"So you are the boy who found her? What's your name?"

"Archie Clarke, sir."

"Where do you live, Clarke?"

"14 Milton Street, Maroubra, sir."

"Good. Now, how did you come to find the body? Speak up, smartly."

"I've got it all writ down, sir," interposed Nicholls, importantly.

"Then keep it so," snapped Richards. "We may want it later, but I'll get my facts first-hand. Now, Clarke, tell your story."

The constable stepped back, somewhat abashed. Archie Clarke hesitated.

"Get on with it, boy. You say you live at Maroubra. Well, how did you come to be on these sandhills so early in the morning?"

"I come across 'ere every morning', sir."

"What for?"

"To go to work."

"Early or late, this morning?"

"'Bout usual time, sir. I leaves 'ome about 'arf-past three an' gets there about four. I shall be late this mornin'."

"Afraid you will." Richards smiled, grimly.

"What's your job, Archie?"

"Milk round, Walker's Dairy, Randwick. Can I go now? Mr. Walker told me not to be long."

"Not unless you take Constable Nicholls with you, my lad. Do you think he would look pretty on the cart. No, I can see you don't. For the present you'd better stick close to the constable. Later, you may be able to go home or go to work, just as you please. Now, lets get your tale straight. Your name is 'rchie Clarke; you live at Maroubra, and you work for Mr. Walker, a dairyman, at Randwick. Then you said you come across this track every morning between three-thirty and four o'clock. That right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then how did you come to see this woman? You can't see into this hollow from that track?"

"I wasn't walkin' right on th' track sir," replied the youth. "Just alongside, an' I saw some ov them things flutterin'. So I came over to see what it was—an' then I saw 'er."

The youth hesitated.

"Go ahead, Archie," urged the Inspector kindly. "What did you do then?"

"Ran all the way to Mr. Walker's, an' told 'im."

"And then?"

"Mr. Walker rang up the police station an' told 'em. Then, when Mr. Nicholls came, he told me to bring 'im 'ere. An' I did."

"That lets you out," observed the Inspector. "Wait a moment."

Richards left the pair and walked over to the track. There he carefully scanned the ground, walking along the pad a considerable distance both ways.

"Quite right, Archie," he said, when he returned to the edge of the hollow. "When I've heard the constable's report I may be able to indulge your secret passion for work. Yes, constable."

"Robert Nicholls, constable, number 41,593, stationed at Randwick, sir." Nicholls drew himself up erect, and spoke in a severely official voice. "At 4.10 a.m. received instructions from Sergeant Appleby to go to Mr. Walker, a dairyman, at Randwick, in reference to a ease of suspected murder. At Mr. Walker's saw witness, Archie Clarke, who stated he had found the dead body of a woman on the sand-hills near Little Bay. I accompanied him to the spot indicated and investigated, sir."

"Your investigations taking the form of mounting guard," commented Richards, drily. "I admire your discretion, constable."

"I was examining the witness, sir." Nicholls assumed an air of injured rectitude. "Then I was—"

"Perhaps it is as well I arrived before the examination concluded," observed the Inspector, grimly. "There seems to be few clues as it is, and if you had commenced tramping the ground down there—"

"What's that?" Archie Clarke was pointing over the sandhills to where the indistinct form of a man clad in a long white coat loomed out of the mist. He was acting in a very peculiar manner, stooping low, and dodging from bush to bush.

"Who's that?" shouted Nicholls, importantly.

The man halted, and dropped behind a clump of bushes. For some minutes the officers strained their eyes to see where he had gone to. Presently Clarke touched the Inspector on the arm, and pointed well away to the right. Richards caught a glimpse of a white coat vanishing around a clump of rushes. Beckoning to his companions, Richards led the way towards where the man had disappeared. Again Clarke pointed to the right. The man was evidently circling to get to the place where the woman's body lay.

"Halt, or I fire," Nicholls rushed forward, tugging at his revolver.

The man gave a swift look round and then started to run, curving around in the direction of Randwick.

"You damned fool," muttered Richards, angrily. "If you had kept your ugly mouth shut in the first place he would have walked into our arms. Come on, he's getting away from us."

It was heavy running on the loose sand. Nicholls plodded heavily along in the rear, groaning and spluttering. Clarke, younger and lighter, drew steadily ahead, and noticeably gained on the fugitive.

"There's a road over there," panted Nicholls, heavily.

"What's the good of that?" shouted the Inspector, testily. "A road's not a wall. It's up to that boy. He can run."

The fugitive breasted a steep sandhill that slowed the pursuing officers to a walk. Archie Clarke made up a lot of ground on the climb, and was only half a dozen yards in the rear when the man reached the summit. There, the man turned and waved a derisive farewell to his pursuers, and slid out of sight.

The Inspector struggled gamely up the loose, shifting sand, confident that when he reached the top he would have his quarry under observation into the town. Once there he halted and looked around. The man had disappeared.

At the feet of the officer lay Archie Clarke, insensible, and bleeding from an ugly head wound.