The Bachelors of Broken Hill. Arthur W. Upfield

youth. I’m thirty-eight. My type wears genuine pearls round her fat neck and blue diamonds on her fat fingers. There’s a burglar alarm to the front door, and no doubt other alarms are fixed to all the back windows. But what are burglar alarms to Love?”

      “Mirages that vanish in the twilight,” answered Bony. “Your girl friend doesn’t look very intelligent. She sulked when Stillman questioned her. You know Stillman, of course?”

      “The world’s greatest living wonder?”

      “How so?”

      “That he’s lived so long.”

      “H’m! Let’s get back to your lady friend. She will never be driven. She may possibly be led. A man and two women sat where I am that afternoon Parsons read his magazine and sipped tea. The man is out. The two women are of value. The first one left before Parsons drained his poisoned cup. She could have dropped the cyanide into it. The second one was seated where I am when Parsons did drain his cup and collapsed. She could have added cyanide to Parsons’s cup. Pump your lady friend about those women. Lead her mind back to recall them, their age, clothes, mannerisms.”

      Jimmy groaned.

      “I took her to the fight last night. All she did was to suck boiled sweets like water going down a sink and squeeze my hand like a dishrag. And giggle! She’d giggle with a pint of cyanide in her. What do I get in return for all this agony?”

      “No restitution of that Sydney bookmaker’s ill-gotten gains,” Bony said.

      “Hell! You still rememberin’ that?”

      Bony nodded and poured tea.

      “There are,” he said, “many honest bookmakers. Perhaps you don’t know that that particular bookmaker dabbles in blackmail.”

      “I do know, but that didn’t worry me.”

      Bony smiled, and Jimmy’s uneasiness increased.

      “Regarding those jobs you put through here, three in number and totalling in cash and value six hundred and sixty-two pounds, I shall expect to receive restitution. Let me have the money in a neat parcel here tomorrow at the same time.”

      Jimmy looked wicked. The watching blue eyes blurred and their place was taken by a commodious two-storeyed house, not a mile away, which had become an exceptionally promising prospect. What he looked like losing on this Bonaparte roundabout he could pick up from that two-storeyed swing. He said quietly:

      “That’s a lot of money, Inspector.”

      “You must make a lot of money every year, Jimmy.”

      “About three thousand quid—on average.”

      “And no income tax. You can be lucky.”

      “I’m doubting it. All right, you win. What next?”

      “I like your style, Jimmy,” Bony conceded generously. “Honestly, I regret having to cramp you now and then. My investigation into these cyanide poisonings is going to extend me and I’m sure will provide you with fun and games. Continue to enjoy relaxation from business and don’t worry concerning the future. You are the only man in Broken Hill versed in the highways and byways of crime and yet not a policeman. Who knows! I may want you to take a peep into a house or two before I’m through. I may even ask you to examine, among other objects, the treasures of your charming friend who wears ropes of pearls and hoops of diamonds. The sum you lifted from the bookmaker’s flat that late Saturday evening was, I understand, just under three thousand.”

      “Bit over,” Jimmy corrected.

      “No matter. Do we play around?”

      “We do,” cheerfully replied Jimmy the Screwsman.

      Chapter Five

      Salvage

      On leaving the café, Bony wended his way to the establishment of S. Goldspink, and, observing that the large woman wearing the pearl necklace was not engaged with a customer, he approached her and presented his card. Before she could read his name he drifted to the rear of the shop and became interested in floor coverings, and there she followed him and said coldly:

      “Yes, Inspector?”

      The dark brown eyes were hostile, the mouth grim. The pearls gleamed with automatism indicative of suppressed emotion in the ample bosom on which they rested.

      “I am assuming that you are Mrs Robinov,” he said, brows slightly raised. She made acknowledgment by inclining her head, her expression unchanging. “Could we talk privately for a few moments?”

      He was taken to what was obviously a fitting-room, for it contained a large cutting table, several chairs, three wall mirrors. Bony was not invited to be seated.

      “I have been assigned the investigation into the death of Mr. Goldspink,” Bony explained. “There is——”

      Mrs Robinov cut him short. Furious anger made her speak with emphatic deliberation.

      “I am not going to answer your questions, and I am not having my girls questioned, unless my solicitor is present. You can wait here while I telephone him.”

      “That would incur unnecessary expense,” Bony said, faint horror in his voice and eyes. “Surely I don’t look like an ogre? As you wish, of course, but why not put me on trial first? I’m not in the least suspecting that you or one of your assistants, had anything whatever to do with Mr Goldspink’s death.”

      “Inspector Stillman did,” retorted Mrs Robinov. “He nagged me almost to insanity and made Mary Isaacs a nervous wreck. I won’t have any more of it.”

      “Inspector Stillman!” exclaimed Bony, and then vented a long and understanding “Oh!” Mrs Robinov, who was actually on her way to the telephone, hesitated, turned fully to him. “Now I can understand your attitude, Mrs Robinov—and sympathise with you. I’m sure you won’t find me an Inspector Stillman. And I certainly wouldn’t force my presence on you were it not for the fact that the person who poisoned Mr Goldspink and Mr Parsons hasn’t yet been apprehended. It’s all very unpleasant, I know. Don’t you see, someone else may be similarly poisoned, and so I was hoping to have the help of everyone in the position to do so.” Carefully placing emphasis on the first personal pronoun, he added: “Please don’t think I am another Inspector Stillman.”

      The voice, the quiet assurance, the soft smile turned aside wrath.

      “He is just a bullying beast,” Mrs Robinov declared. “We got along with Sergeant Crome all right, and Superintendent Pavier was always the gentleman. We didn’t kill Mr. Goldspink. Everyone here loved him.”

      “That’s what Sergeant Crome told me,” Bony said soothingly, although Crome had said nothing of the kind. “Don’t be afraid of me. I am sure we’ll get along splendidly if you will give me the chance. You will?”

      The hostility faded.

      “Very well, Inspector. What do you want to ask me?”

      “I don’t want to ask you any questions today,” he said. “But I do want to interview the assistant who was serving the customer when Mr Goldspink was taken ill. Mary Isaacs is the girl, I think.”

      “May I be present?”

      “If you wish, and will refrain from interrupting.”

      “I don’t know. I think I should be. Inspector Stillman almost drove the girl crazy. I’ll fetch her.”

      Bony thanked Mrs Robinov and, when she had departed, he regarded himself in one of the long mirrors. He sauntered to the wall farthest from the entrance to the shop, and when Mrs Robinov entered with Mary Isaacs, he advanced to greet them.

      “Come along and sit down, and let’s all be easy,” he purred. “I’m happy to meet you, Miss Isaacs, and I am quite sure you are going to be happy to meet me.”

      He