Читать книгу The Widows of Broome - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 8

Medical Opinion

Bony slept soundly that first night at Broome, and he was reading the reports and statements gathered by the Perth detectives when he heard Mrs. Walters calling her children to breakfast. They came racing in from the compound, where they had been watching Abie breaking-in a horse; the boy’s eyes were alight with admiration for the aborigine, and the girl’s face glowing with admiration for the horse.

“Now eat your breakfast and don’t talk too much or you’ll be late for school,” Mrs. Walters told them. But they were anxious to tell Bony about the horse and the breaker, and he nodded encouragingly.

“How far away is the college?” he asked eventually.

Two miles, he was informed, the journey being done by the boy on his bicycle. The girl walked to her school, which was much nearer. She told Bony that she liked her school, and the boy said that his was not bad, as though he were a connoisseur of public schools.

“We’re having our Activities Day on Sat’day,” he announced with pleasure. He nodded acceptance of his mother’s correction of his pronunciation of the word Saturday, and hastily went on to tell more of Activities Day. “Will you come? Pop’ll be driving Mum and Nan, and there’ll be plenty of room in the car. Good afternoon tea on the lawn an’ all that. Old Bilge’s bound to do a bit of spruiking, but he isn’t too bad.”

Bony looked his doubt, and Nanette entered the lists.

“Yes, do go, Mr. Knapp. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Won’t he, Mum?”

“Mr. Knapp will be too busy, I expect,” replied Mrs. Walters, although the invitation was confirmed in her eyes.

“On Saturday, is it?” asked Bony. When assured that it was, he nodded, saying: “Since the forty-hour week came in and no one works on Saturday, why should I? Yes, I’ll be delighted to go. I assume there will be an exhibition of hand-crafts?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Knapp,” both children answered. “Stacks of all sorts of things. But the afternoon tea’s the best. It’s a beaut. You can eat as much as you want.”

Inspector Walters came in and sat down to breakfast. The boy and girl rose from the table and each removed their chair to back against the wall. Mrs. Walters smiled at them, and the inspector said:

“You get down to work, Keith. You’ve been slacking lately. And ride that bike on the road and not on the sidewalk ... or else.”

“All right, Pop. Say, Mr. Knapp’s gunner go to Activities Day on Sat’day.”

Mrs. Walters uttered the beginning of an exclamation. Her husband nodded his interest. Keith, who realised his error, reddened, and deflatedly left by the rear door, the girl taking the passage through to the front. Walters chuckled:

“Young feller is in for a surprise today,” he remarked. “I wrote a complaint to Old Bilge about Keith’s ‘gunners’ and ‘jists’. What the devil we are paying terrific fees for, I don’t know. Just as well the boy isn’t boarding and out of our reach for a term at a time.”

“I hope you weren’t too sharp with Mr. Rose,” said Mrs. Walters. “He has a very big job with all those boys, and he does take a tremendous interest in them.”

“Don’t worry, Esther, I was polite enough. I don’t expect the headmaster, or even the form masters, to be listening all the time for errors of pronunciation, but when it becomes a conspiracy to distort and torture the language, then they should know about it.” To Bony he said: “You gunner be ... Oh damn!”

They broke into laughter, and for Bony the day began well. He said he was going to be very busy, and might even ask for a portion of Sawtell’s valuable time. All the morning he spent studying the reports and statements compiled by the Broome police on the two murders, and checking them with those he had brought with him from Perth. After lunch, he began the compilation of his Case History, and at four-thirty he called on Dr. Mitchell, by appointment.

Dr. Mitchell was short, rotund, red of face and rapid in speech.

“Sit down, Inspector. If I can help in any way ... Ah, I must remember. Inspector Walters said you wish to be known as Mr. Knapp. A drink? Or will you wait a moment for tea?”

“You are very kind, Doctor. Tea, if it’s no bother.”

“None at all. It’s on the way. I’m delighted at meeting you. Heard of you from a pal of mine, Dr. Fleetwood. He was concerned in the case of that author feller being murdered with coffin dust. I took him up on the point. Don’t believe it can be done, but he says that Professor Ericson is sure it can, following his series of experiments. Now, I suppose, you want to talk about strangulation, eh?”

“That is the reason for my call on your time,” Bony gravely agreed. “I have studied your report, and I find there are one or two points concerning which I would like further information.”

“Righto! Go ahead.”

“Thank you. Perhaps question and answer will serve best. It is correct that death from strangulation may occur instantaneously?”

“It is. Sudden and violent compression of the wind-pipe often causes immediate insensibility and death. I am not certain, but I think it probable that those two women strangled here in Broome died without a struggle, such was the brutality with which they were slain.”

“Your report states that they were killed by the hands of the murderer, and not by a rope or string or anything of that kind. Would you say that the murderer’s hands were exceedingly powerful?”

“Without hesitation.”

“Another question, Doctor. You describe the precise injuries suffered by those women, and I am not concerned so much by that as by the answer to this question. Were the hands of the murderer short- or long-fingered? I admit your difficulty.”

Dr. Mitchell took thirty seconds.

“I cannot be definite,” he said. “I’m sorry. A guess any good?”

“It would help.”

“I might have been able to be sure about it had the question been asked before or immediately after the post-mortem. My guess is that the man’s hands are neither long- nor short-fingered, and that the palm is longer than average. Meaning that the measurement from finger-tips to the base of the palm is longer than average. Is that clear?”

“Quite. Now with reference to the man’s finger-nails. Can you tell me anything about them?”

“They were trimmed. I’d say they were well kept.”

“That is not your guess?”

“No. It is my opinion based on the areas of ecchymosis.”

The door was opened by a lubra who brought in a tea-tray. She wore a white cap and apron over a brown frock, silk stockings and flat-heeled shoes. She regarded Bony with momentarily startled large black eyes, set down the tray on a table at the doctor’s elbow and retired.

The doctor poured the tea, and Bony regarded his hands. They were sun-tanned, large and capable hands. He rose and walked to the door, opened it and re-closed it.

“Pardon my rudeness,” he murmured. “I thought the girl had left the door ajar, and I want our conversation to be confidential.”

“That’s all right,” the doctor breezily conceded. “That lubra can hardly understand a word of English. Take sugar?”

“Were there any marks on the shoulders of either victim?” Bony asked, sipping his tea.

“Yes. There were bruises on Mrs. Cotton’s shoulders. Why?”

“Well, d’you think they were killed when standing or when lying down?”

“Don’t know. Does it make any difference?”

Bony was evasive. He put another question.

“Mrs. Cotton was five feet and eleven inches in height ... tall for a woman. If she was killed standing by a man of lesser height, I’m inclined to think that his wrists would bear down very hard on her shoulders. Do you think the marks on her shoulders were caused by that?”

Dr. Mitchell regarded Bony intently. Then he nodded, saying:

“She was strangled by a man behind her. She could have been standing, and he could have borne heavily on her shoulders with his wrists.”

“Thank you. Mrs. Eltham was five feet and nine inches in height, and, you stated, she was strangled from the front. Would you be good enough to demonstrate on me how, in your opinion, the murderer placed his hands about the necks of his victims?”

“Oh, yes, I’ll do that,” the doctor agreed. “I’ve already worked out that for myself. Sometimes, you know, a strangler uses one hand across the windpipe and the other at the back of the neck to counter the pressure. This fellow encircled his victims’ necks with his two hands, in the first case with his fingers meeting at the jugular vein and his thumbs together at the spinal column, and in the second place the position entirely reversed. Thus we know from which side he strangled.”

“What is your opinion now on the question of the position of his victims when killed? Standing or lying down?”

“Well, it seems they must have been killed when standing. Is it important?”

“Yes,” Bony agreed. “It has significance. Will you demonstrate those holds now?”

He stood up and turned his back to the doctor. He was five feet ten inches, and the doctor was three if not four inches shorter. When the large and capable hands were clasped about Bony’s neck, the wrists were distinctly heavy on Bony’s shoulders close to the base of his neck. Bony asked the demonstrator to bear downward more heavily on the wrists, and without increased pressure of the hands the weight placed severe strain on Bony’s back and knees.

He was smiling when they faced each other, and the doctor demonstrated from the front. As his hands encircled Bony’s neck, Bony attempted to lift a knee towards the doctor’s groin, and the little man chuckled and easily threw him off balance.

Well satisfied with his interview with Dr. Mitchell, who would not permit him to leave too quickly, and who appeared hungry for details of Bony’s career, Bony strolled back towards the police station. The sun was westering, and a soft cool zephyr met him from the salmon-coloured sand-dunes. The wind was a little stronger when he came to a break in the sand-dunes, and he stood gazing out over the turquoise sea, which bore on its placid surface one dark-brown sail.

It seemed then so impossible that far beyond the horizon, far away in the sea-wastes to the north-west, could be born a monstrous wind which with its strangling hands could destroy little stout ships and every soul aboard them. It is said that no insurance company will do business with lugger owners and their crews, so treacherous is that beautiful and serene section of the Indian Ocean.

Well, who would believe that here in this little drowsy town of comfortable bungalows and windowless shops, cut off from civilisation by hundreds of miles of virgin land, there could flourish a human being capable of being ecstatically triumphant when feeling through his hands the life of another seeping into the vacuity of death?

Turning to continue his way, Bony saw Mr. Dickenson.