Читать книгу Murder Must Wait - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 8

Alice McGorr

Superintendent Bolt, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Victoria Police, was verging on sixty and hated the thought of compulsory retirement. He had many friends and admirers in the Department, and one of them was First Constable Alice McGorr.

Bony had never met Alice McGorr, and he had not heard her story from Superintendent Bolt, although aware of Bolt’s warm regard for her.

It appeared that old man McGorr was the finest ‘can opener’ of his generation, having served an apprenticeship with an English firm of safe makers and kept his knowledge up-to-date. Bolt was a sergeant when he came in contact with McGorr, who at the time was on vacation from gaol, and was chiefly instrumental in terminating the ‘can opener’s’ holiday.

McGorr died in durance vile, and it happened that Mrs Bolt heard through her church association that Mrs McGorr and the children were facing the rocks. She visited the house owned by the widow to see what was what, and arrived an hour after Mrs McGorr had been taken to hospital with a fatal complaint.

Mrs Bolt was invited into the front room by Alice, a thin slab of a girl of fifteen who explained that her mother had been desperately ill for a long time. There was no animosity towards the visitor and Mrs Bolt learned that the eldest son was nineteen and in steady work, the eldest girl was eighteen and still in her first job as a stenographer. Next to this girl came Alice, who was followed by a girl of six and finally twin boys aged two and a fraction. She learned as well, from other sources, that Alice McGorr had been running the home for eighteen months, nursing the mother, caring for the small sister and the twin baby brothers.

The Bolts, having no family, became the parents of that one, when the mother died soon after entering hospital, and not one member of the family took the slightest interest in safes and the problem of opening them without keys.

Alice McGorr went to night school, and when Alice looked at Superintendent Bolt she was beautiful to see. She studied between making beds, sweeping rooms, even as she cooked, and Alice passed the Intermediate. They lived in an inner industrial suburb, and Alice took a keen interest in the people of the district, becoming the social worker of the church ... and something more. She had the knack of spinning threads of information into patterns, and the bread Bolt launched upon the water was returned to him by the baker’s batch.

When the twins left school and went to work, and the eldest son’s wife took over the home, Alice joined the Force. She had all the gifts the job demanded. She could fight like a tiger before she entered the training school for women, and when she passed for duty she could master the instructors in ju-jitsu. They put her into the worst districts, and she was never hurt. Attempts to cripple her were made by thugs, and the thugs were crippled by their own. A gunman shot at her, and the gunman had his face slashed. A low type once told her what he’d do to her, and the bad man’s wife bided her time and emptied a pot full of boiling cabbage over him. No one seemed to know why, save Bolt and the church minister.

The evening came when Alice was instructed by the Senior Officer of her district to report to Superintendent Bolt at his private house. Bolt said:

“Alice, will you do me a favour?”

“Of course. Anything,” she replied with quiet earnestness.

“I got a pal,” Bolt went on. “He’s the most conceited man in Australia. The most aggravating cuss in the world. He thinks he knows everything ... sometimes. I’ve known him for years, and we’re still pals. He’s half-abo but whiter than me. He’s ...”

“Couldn’t be, Pop.”

“He is, so don’t argue. The name’s Napoleon Bonaparte.”

“I’ve heard things, Pop. Go on.”

“Bony ... he’s Bony to all his friends ... seems to have been persuaded to investigate the abduction of those four babies at Mitford. Bit out of his line, ’cos he concentrates on difficult homicides. Anyway, he’s up at Mitford, and has asked me to send you up to off-side for him. You know, just like that. No thought of us being in the Victoria Force and him working for New South Wales. Oh, no! Such matters as State boundaries and inter-State jealousies wouldn’t register with Bony. Just asks ... just expects. Will you go?”

“I’d like to.”

“Good! I’ve arranged it. You’ll have no authority in Mitford, of course ... being Bony’s private assistant. There’s a plane for Broken Hill in the morning at ten which will put you down at Mitford. Catch the bus leaving Airways House at nine-thirty. Apply there for your ticket, which will be paid for.”

“All right! No uniform, of course.” Alice rose. “Thanks, Pop! I’ll not let you down, or your pal. Those vanished babies will be right in my handbag in no time. I’ve read all about them ... poor little mites.”

At eleven the next morning Alice McGorr landed at Mitford and was welcomed by First Constable Essen.

“Ordered to meet you, Miss McGorr, and told to take you straight home. You’re staying with us, and we have to make you take morning tea before you join up with the Big Boss. Give me your case.”

Alice McGorr liked Essen and his wife. She liked her room. She fell in love with the baby. She liked Main Street. She liked the smell of the town itself, of fruit ripening, fruit drying, fruit cooking, fruit rotting, and could not name that other smell, the indefinable, the haunting essence of the untamed hinterland of saltbush plain and mulga forest.

She liked No 5 Elgin Street, although she had read about the murder in the paper when on the plane. Essen conducted her to the lounge.

“Miss McGorr, sir,” he said, and withdrew.

“Ah, Miss McGorr! I’m delighted that you were able to come. Please sit down, and smoke if you wish.” Bony set the chair for her, smiled at her, the shock she gave him never rising to his eyes. He held a match to her cigarette, sat down and asked after Superintendent and Mrs Bolt.

She liked Napoleon Bonaparte.

He listened ... and wondered. The face was a tragedy and yet heroic. The tragedy lay in the almost entire absence of chin. The eyes were softly brown, large, beautiful when she was telling of Superintendent Bolt. Her hands were beautiful, too, and well kept. Later, on suggesting she removed her hat, he marked the wide forehead, and disapproved of the blonde hair-do, drawn hard back to a tight roll. The hat was low-crowned and of white straw. It was better off than on. Her clothes ... there was something the matter with them ... and before he could make up his mind where, she gave him a letter from Superintendent Bolt.

Dear Bony. Now you have it. Think yourself in luck. Remember what I told you about her. She will serve you well, for she has the most extraordinary variety of capabilities I’ve ever come across. You can unload your secrets, confess all your low sins, and she won’t tell ... excepting to me. Yet be warned. There’s no weakness anywhere, save with children and sick people, and you may take my word for that.

Attached to the letter was a report by a detective who had interviewed Dr Browner of Glen Iris. Dr Browner declared he had no knowledge of a Mrs Rockcliff, and during the last eighteen months had had no case of an expectant mother which had not been completed by the birth of the child.

Having dropped the letter on a pile of papers, he found her eyes directed to him, and they didn’t waver, but held in the mutual summing-up. She was, perhaps, thirty-five, tall and angular, with good shoulders and well-developed arms. When Bony smiled, her look of appraisal vanished.

“The Biblical writer stated that there is a time to be born and a time to die; he should have included a time to be frank,” he said. “I will be frank with you now. When I want photographs, I apply to an expert. When I want to know why a man died in convulsions, I apply to a pathologist. I want to know more about babies, which is why I asked especially for you. You do know something about babies?”

“I was thirteen when Mother fell ill, sir. There were twins as well as a little sister. Yes, I know something about babies.”

“And learned more when you joined the Force.”

“More about parents, sir.”

“I have agreed to investigate the disappearance of five babies in this town, Miss McGorr. You would like to work with me?”

The eyes only betrayed eagerness. “I would indeed, sir.”

“We will work in harness. Later I’ll want you to study the Official Summaries on the four missing infants, and will outline what is known of the fifth child, who was, almost certainly, stolen at the time the mother was murdered in this house last Monday night. Those Summaries were compiled by men—mark—by men who when glancing into a pram couldn’t tell the sex or the child. Could you?”

“With very young babies, it would mean guessing, but I wouldn’t often be wrong.”

“H’m! Wait there. I have something to show you.”

The brown eyes watched him leave the room. She sat with remarkable passivity, her shapely hands resting on the table and in sharp contrast to the hard and muscular forearms. A smile hovered about her unfortunate mouth, but it had vanished on his return with two feeding bottles, which he placed side by side on the table.

“Tell me what difference you find in those bottles,” he asked. “You may touch them, they have been tested for prints.”

Alice McGorr viewed the contents of each bottle against the window light. The liquid in each was a coagulated mass of seeming solids and bluish water. She took up each bottle to examine closely the teat, and then, arranging them as he had done, she sat down.

“Although of different makes, sir, both bottles are of standard size,” she began. “This bottle contains a preparatory food, and this one contains cow’s milk. The teat of the bottle of preparatory food has been in use for some time, it’s soft from constant sterilisation. The teat on this bottle of cow’s milk is quite new. It has been sterilised, but very seldom used, if at all. There’s another difference, too. The hole in the old teat has been enlarged with a hot needle, but this other one, the new one, hasn’t been treated like that.”

“Well done, Miss McGorr. The teats when bought would have a standard-sized hole in them, no doubt.”

“Yes, sir. You see, the makers say the size of the hole is just right for the average baby, and that it induces the baby to exercise its mouth and throat muscles when getting its food. Much more often than not, though, a baby isn’t strong enough, or too lazy. It’s like drawing at a cigarette that’s too tightly packed. So the mother enlarges the hole with a needle.”

“And then the baby is content?”

“Yes. But the hole mustn’t be too large or else the baby will have hiccoughs,” Alice continued gravely.

“H’m, reminds me of the beer swill,” said Bony, not daring to smile. “I’ll replace these bottles. Wait there, please.” On returning, he went on: “Mrs Rockcliff leased this house, but furnished it herself. Last Monday evening she went out at shortly after eight o’clock, leaving the baby in the cot at the foot of her bed. It appears that she often went out at night, leaving the infant unattended.

“I will not tell you more than that now, and before we go to lunch I want you to do what you like with the place to find the answers to these questions. One: What was Mrs Rockcliff’s character? Two: What were her habits in the house? Three: Why does the bottle in the bedroom contain cow’s milk, and the bottle on the kitchen bench preparatory food? And any other information you may glean.”

For a full hour Bony silently watched Alice McGorr at work, effacing himself. She examined the bedclothes, the interior of the baby’s cot, and the clothes in the wardrobe. She rummaged into drawers and cupboards, removed the contents of shelves and expertly looked at cooking utensils. She brought the washing in from the line. She fingered the curtains, examined the backs of the few pictures, lifted the linoleum along the edges. She glanced through the magazines and opened the covers of the few books. And when she was done, her hair was wispy with dampness and her hands were dirty.

“That woman was proud of her baby,” she said, when seated at the lounge table and smoking the cigarette from Bony’s special case. “The baby’s clothes are hand-made, and expensive material. The needlework is simply glorious. I can see her making those little garments, every stitch a beautiful thought for the baby.”

“And yet Mrs Rockcliff left the infant alone for hours at night,” murmured Bony.

“It doesn’t square,” Alice McGorr admitted, her eyes puckered, three vertical lines between her brows. “What did the woman do for a living?”

“We don’t know.”

“No money ... handbag?”

“No handbag, money or bank-book. Her picture has been shown at every bank and no one can identify her.”

“She must have had money to live, and she lived well. She knew how to cook, and wasn’t satisfied with plain ingredients. She hated dirt and untidiness. She took an interest in geographical subjects and read travel books in preference to novels. Her taste in clothes was beyond what I understand, but then I never had a hope. Her clothes were expensive. She must have had money ... more than I earn.”

“I haven’t omitted the matter from my calculations,” Bony said. “Go on, please.”

“Things don’t square, sir,” she reiterated. “She had to go out at night and leave the baby alone in the house. She wasn’t hard up. The baby’s clothes are all made with the most expensive materials. It lacked for nothing. She didn’t entertain, for no one entertains these days without having empty bottles in the back yard. But she had to draw money from some place or person. D’you know what place or what person?”

“No.”

“I think she lived here under an assumed name,” Alice proceeded, her eyes almost closed. “There’s something here I don’t catch. You said her name was Pearl Rockcliff, but on some of her clothes is a name tag with the initials P.R. overlaid on others which could be J.O. or J.U. And she didn’t buy her clothes second-hand, I’ll bet a pound.”

Because he hadn’t observed her taking special interest in clothes’ tags, Bony secretly gave her a hundred marks. He was rather liking the role of maestro encouraging a pupil.

“Go on,” he said softly.

“Mrs Rockcliff took care to rub out all evidence of her life before she came to Mitford. She came here to escape the consequences of a crime, or because she feared someone. Her Christian name wasn’t Pearl. It was Jean or Joan ... for preference.”

“Why Jean or Joan for preference?”

“The paper said the woman’s age was about thirty, and thirty years ago it was the fashion to name baby girls Joan or Jean or Jessica.”

“There are, then, fashions in Christian names?”

“Oh yes. Read the death notices and compare names with ages.”

“I should do so, but ... What do the feeding bottles tell you?”

“Before Mrs Rockcliff went out that night, she fed the baby. The baby didn’t take all the food, and she took the bottle to the kitchen, where she should have washed it. She didn’t wash it because she must have been in a hurry. The steriliser is still on the stove, face powder is spilt in the bathroom cabinet and two dresses have fallen from their hangers. Everything else is tidy, so she would have replaced them. The baby was being fed on a preparatory food; I found a large tin partly used, so the bottle on the kitchen bench is the baby’s real bottle.

“The person who came to steal the baby brought the other one, the one near the cot. It was brought to keep the baby from crying while it was being taken away. It was a man who stole the baby.”

Alice McGorr fell silent, flushing slightly as though suddenly conscious of talking too much, assuming too much to this man Bolt had often told her was the finest investigator in Australia. Quietly, Bony pressed her.

“Why do you vote for a man? It should have been a woman.”

“A woman would not have risked a bottle having a teat with a hole so small. A tiny baby might not have been able to draw the milk and would have yelled, which would be the last thing she would want to happen. A woman would have been sure about that teat. A woman, in any case, wouldn’t have brought the milk at all. She’d have brought an ordinary dummy and dipped it in malt extract or honey, which she could have carried in a small jar. That would keep any baby quiet for ten minutes at least ... all the time she needed to take it out of the house.”

Bony rose, smiling.

“Put on your hat,” he ordered. “We are going to lunch.”

He watched her putting on the absurd hat without bothering to stand before the mirror over the mantel. As she was flushing when she joined him in the hall, he said:

“I’ve known Superintendent Bolt for many years. Bolt calls me Bony. Even my Chief in Brisbane invariably does so. All my friends so address me. It would be nice if you could make yourself believe you are one of my friends.”

She said wistfully that it would not be difficult, and added that she would be very happy to call him Bony on the condition that he called her Alice.

As his illustrious namesake is said to have done when pleased, he pinched her ear, laughed outright at her startled face, and opened the front door. Bolt would have been astounded that he got away with that pinch.