Madman's Bend. Arthur W. Upfield
were still seated at the table when the telephone rang.
They’ve just left,” said the Superintendent. “That is, Doc Leveska and Inspector Bonaparte. The Inspector would like to have a look around, perhaps do a little fishing and shooting. You won’t mind?”
“I’ll let you know later if it’s a pleasure or not. When are you and your wife visiting us? I’m finding the need to gossip.”
“Not before the flood. We could be caught there a long time. Did you have the wind indicator put in place?”
“Heavens, no! I forgot about it. I’ll see to it at once.” To the girl she said, “The doctor has left, and I promised to put out the indicator.” Manipulating the instrument she contacted the maid. “The men home yet, Ethel?”
“Not yet, Mrs Cosgrove. Steve was here a moment ago wanting to know if he had to keep their lunch.”
“Of course he has to. Run along and tell him to come to the phone.”
Mrs Cosgrove waited impatiently to hear the groom’s voice. She told him to take the wind indicator out to the strip, to use the grey truck, and to wait there for Doctor Leveska. She was annoyed with herself, for it was only ninety-eight miles from Bourke, and the doctor might arrive before the indicator was in place.
He was a good physician, but often offensive. Although he was a good airman, he often refused to fly when in one of his moods, which people thought were associated with a bottle. This was why Mrs Cosgrove sought his aid through her friend, the Superintendent in Charge of the Western Division. Seated again at the table, she regarded Jill Madden. The girl was rolling a cigarette, and after she had lit it she said, “If Mother dies, will they hang Lush?”
“No, they mollycoddle murderers in this state. But they’ll put him away for a few years. You should find that a relief. Did he ever strike her before this last time?”
Jill nodded.
“If Mother doesn’t die, if she gets well again, what will they do to Lush?”
“I believe nothing, unless your mother complains to the police.”
“She’ll never do that. If he does attack her again I shall shoot him.”
Mrs Cosgrove slowly shook her head, saying, “It would make bad worse. It would be justifiable homicide if you shot him while he was actually attacking your mother, or about to attack you, but I was thinking of the after-effects: court hearings, publicity, and the rest. Your mother must be persuaded to complain to the police, and he might be sent to jail for six months. Might, because it’s more likely he would be put on a bond of good behaviour.”
Mrs Cosgrove was to recall this conversation, and she pondered on the wretched lives of these two women while, despite the girl’s protests, she helped with the washing of the lunch utensils and the general tidying. She was again looking down at the unconscious woman when a car was heard approaching.
It was Constable Lucas. His hazel eyes were stern, but he was gentle with Jill and, after looking at the woman on the bed, announced that he had been ordered to come by his Superintendent.
“Lush still absent, I suppose?”
“Yes, Mr Lucas, still absent,” Mrs Cosgrove told him. “You may have to track him for murder. My son and the men are searching for him, as we told you.”
“Jill, has this sort of thing happened before?”
The girl admitted that it had.
“Then why the devil didn’t you say what happened this time when I was here yesterday? What stopped you?”
“Mother. She always dreaded scandal. And she wasn’t like she is when you called yesterday.”
They were in the living-room-kitchen, off which were three rooms. Lucas casually looked about and noted the three doors. They were all of the heavy, old-fashioned type. He found the axe outside where he had previously seen it, and was about to stroll around when he heard voices from the river and went to tell the women the doctor was here.
Doctor Leveska was slight, sharp of feature, bright of eye, and acidulous of tongue when he said, “What’s been going on here? How did she fall? Couldn’t be hurt that bad she couldn’t have been brought up to the hospital. Now, where is she?”
Jill and Mrs Cosgrove went with him into the bedroom. Lucas and Bonaparte remained in the living-room. In the bedroom it was very quiet until Jill Madden broke into sobs, and Doctor Leveska came out. He said softly, “She just died, Lucas. And it was no fall.”
Chapter Four
Bony Takes Command
After receiving Constable Lucas’s report by telephone and being told that Doctor Leveska insisted on an autopsy, Superintendent Macey instructed Lucas to obtain statements from Jill Madden and Mrs Cosgrove and convey the body to Bourke. Action was prompted by the flood now rolling past Bourke; it would certainly cut off both Madden’s Selection and Mira, perhaps for weeks.
Mrs Cosgrove insisted on taking Jill to her own homestead. When the two women and Doctor Leveska had gone, Bony helped Lucas to service Lush’s utility for the trip to Bourke, and together they placed the body on the vehicle.
“I’ll remain until you return,” Bony told Lucas. “I’ll look around meanwhile. If Lush turns up I’ll hold him.”
“I can’t see that plain door hung to an inside frame,” Lucas said, and Bony said he would look for it.
After the constable had gone he wandered through the house and made sure the door was neither in use nor stored. Then he rekindled the stove fire and brewed a pot of tea, which he sipped while sitting at the table. He was beginning to think there could be a perfectly simple solution to the mystery of the missing door.
The door and the axe on the ground outside the back entrance, plus the continued absence of Lush, had decided him to cut his scheduled departure from Bourke. He was like a beagle testing the air, and like the beagle he had to follow the scent to its source. He had spent the morning in Macey’s office writing his report on the investigation of a crime far out from White Bend. The results of the investigation had pleased the Superintendent, who because of an outbreak of influenza, was short-staffed and raised no serious objection to Bony’s cancelling the afternoon air trip to Sydney. Mrs Macey was serving their lunch when the clerk came to say that Mrs Cosgrove was ringing from Madden’s Selection. Bony had accompanied the Superintendent to the office, there to learn that Lush had not returned home.
“Very well, Bonaparte,” Macey had said. “If Leveska will take you it would help. But you’ll be doing your own washing if the Commissioner bursts the collar off his neck.”
“I find commissioners easier to deal with than constables,” Bony had said blandly. “That girl said nothing to Lucas about her mother having fallen and so injured herself that this morning she is in a coma and Mrs Cosgrove is much alarmed. The change of doors could have a simple answer, but you’ll agree that changing a good one for an old one isn’t normal procedure.”
The girl was so upset that it had been difficult to obtain a statement from her covering the assault by her stepfather, and neither Lucas nor Bony had bothered her about the doors. Now, sitting at the table, Bony found himself in a commanding position to undertake a new investigation which might or might not become interesting enough to hold him to Madden’s Selection.
Having smoked one of his badly-made cigarettes, he examined the rear door. The hinges were as old as the door, and the insets into the frame were longer by an inch, proving that a succession of doors had been hinged to it. He swung the present door. It squeaked. The paint was blistered by sun and wind. Dust clung heavily to the panel surrounds, as thick on the inside as the outside. There was no dust on the inside window-sills, no dust on the dresser shelves or the mantel, and no dust on the top of the skirting-boards, proving that Mrs Madden and her daughter were meticulous housekeepers and that the old and dusty door had recently been rehung.
He