LITMIR.BIZ

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have my sympathy, Yoti. Well, I’ll be seeing you. I’ll do the p.m. tonight. About nine do?”

      “Yes.”

      The doctor took up his tattered bag. Footsteps in the hall halted his first step to the door. He looked at Yoti, and knew they were in agreement about the footsteps not being made by First Constable Essen, or one of Yoti’s constables.

      The sunlight shimmered upon the table, flowed across the linoleum, to frame in the illumined doorway a grey-suited figure carrying a velour hat. It was like looking at a framed portrait. They could see the faint stripe in the grey cloth of the creased trousers and the creaseless double-breasted coat, the sheen of the maroon-coloured tie about the spotless collar. They noted the straight black hair parted low to the left, the dark complexion of the face, the white teeth, and the whimsical smile. They could not evade the sea-blue eyes, or side-track the feeling that everything about themselves, inside and out, was being registered by those blue eyes.

      “What the devil ...!” thought Dr Nott.

      Although Sergeant Yoti had never before seen this man, he experienced swift release from depression.

      Chapter Two

      ‘Am I Correct?’

      “Sergeant Yoti? I am Inspector Bonaparte.”

      Dr Nott, the practised observer, noted the evidence of physical and mental virility, how the light gleamed on the black hair like newly broken coal. Yoti, who stood with military stiffness, said:

      “Glad to see you, sir. This is Doctor Nott.”

      Nott inclined his head, continuing to be intrigued by a name.

      “The constable at the Station told me where to find you. Homicide?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Oh! Of little concern to me ... unless ...” The blue eyes were abruptly masked. “Unless the absence of an infant is in question.”

      “The baby is missing,” Yoti said. “It could be the Fifth Baby.”

      “Ah!” The grey velour was dropped on the table, and fascinated, Dr Nott watched slim fingers make the worst cigarette he had ever seen. “Could this murder be assumed to be an effect of the theft of a fifth infant?”

      “Assumed, yes,” replied Yoti.

      “Then the murder is within the assignment given me to locate the thief or thieves of several infants. Do you agree?”

      The senior police officer stationed at Mitford hesitated before nodding assent, for, being a civil servant by training and by nature, it was natural to avoid wherever possible the awful bugbear—responsibility.

      “I am pleased you are willing to concede so much,” Bony went on, and puffed out the match. “Four kidnappings, and not a lead gained by the CID, and now the fifth ... assumed ... supported by a murder which, also assumed, wasn’t premeditated and thus should give a dozen leads. Having one lead in hand, I require but one more. You are about to leave, Doctor? Please delay a moment until I learn the meagre details from Sergeant Yoti.”

      It was Bony who first left the room, preceding the doctor and Yoti to the porch, where waited Essen with the constable and Thring.

      “There is a point concerning which there must be no disagreement,” he told them. “Mr Thring, to your knowledge the only persons who have been inside this house since Mrs Rockcliff was last seen alive are we five men?”

      “That’s so, Inspector.”

      “Thank you, Mr Thring.” Mr Thring failed to understand what prompted the smile in and about the friendly blue eyes. “Now please return home. I shall be calling on you soon. Oblige me by ignoring the cement path leading to the gate and by walking on the bordering flower-bed.”

      The strip of cultivated ground between the path and the drought-stricken lawn was four feet wide, and the surface was dry and sandy. Mr Thring obliged, and Bony walked the cement path halfway to the gate, when he turned and called to Dr Nott to walk the flower-bed. Essen was asked to follow the doctor, and only Yoti was annoyed when requested to make his footprints to be studied by a man who never forgot footprints. The rubbernecks at the gate were entranced.

      “Now Sergeant, you and I will re-enter the house, see what is to be seen and what is to be felt. I want no one else inside the house until we have done.”

      They stood in the hall, Yoti having closed the door and released the lock snib. Bony switched on the light.

      “I detest wall-to-wall carpets,” he said. “Harbours all manner of wogs ... and cannot register footprints. Mrs Rockcliff was a wise woman when she selected linoleum, and a good housewife when she polished it, I should think, at least once a week. You might stay here while I look over the scene. Where is the body?”

      Yoti indicated the bedroom and then, like those at the street gate, became an entranced spectator. He watched Bony sidle along the walls to reach the bedroom, noted how he placed his feet as close to the skirting as possible, and as closely to the door-frame when he sidled into the bedroom. The light went on, and he regretted he was unable to watch the man who had never failed to finish an assignment.

      It seemed to Yoti that Bony was in the bedroom a long time, when he was surprised less by the identical manner of his return than by the pair of woman’s shoes he carried.

      “We will have to retain these,” Bony told him, gazing upon the soles and heels. “I disliked the task of removing them.”

      The dark tan at the corners of Bony’s mouth was oddly pale, and, having passed the morgue test in his training days and since being inured to death and violence, Sergeant Yoti felt a spasm of contempt for this man who betrayed fear of death. Bony said:

      “I have to run about like an ant in search of a lead, and I’m not going to ruin my favourite suit.”

      Removing the creaseless coat, he passed it gravely to Sergeant Yoti, who was distinctly disturbed when Bony removed his trousers and proceeded to match the crease of one leg with that of the other. The trousers were carefully placed over the coat resting on the sergeant’s forearm, but Yoti’s attention could not be given to anything save the sky-blue silk underpants and the sock suspenders of the same hue.

      “Open the door, please. I require more light.”

      Hoping that the crowd at the distant gate would be denied this spectacle, and that his staff wouldn’t faint, Yoti obeyed. Again turning, he found Bony on hands and knees, his face close to the floor as though trying to locate a small pin.

      The blue-panted figure backed like a bull-ant before a thrusting twig, then forward again like the bull-ant determined to attack. It was not unlike a voodoo rite, but could have been more realistic were it not for the blue pants and the cream shirt. Quite abruptly, the figure moved with astonishing nimbleness to the front bedroom and disappeared.

      Yoti heard the bedroom blinds snap up. The flies were persistent, the air heavy and dank with the odour of the dead. The little noises outside seemed too fearful to come in, and the sound of the flies within seemed hushed as though they flew with crepe-draped wings. He could feel the presence of Essen and the constable on the porch, and wondered if they smiled at sight of him waiting like a well-trained valet.

      Bony’s reappearance was a relief. He came from the bedroom on all fours across the hall to the lounge. When again he appeared, he halted at the hat stand to make obeisance by bringing his forehead to the linoleum many times.

      On his final reappearance from the rear of the house he was walking like a human being. Saying nothing, he donned his trousers. Perhaps he hoped Yoti would assist with the coat, but the sergeant wouldn’t play. The coat on and the shirtsleeves carefully pulled down, Bony smiled, for Yoti enigmatically, and said:

      “Bring in the constable, Essen I think, who found the body. We’ll discuss the matter in the lounge.”

      They

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