The Murder of Mrs Rockcliff

ITHAPPENEDat Mitford some time during Monday night. Sprawled on the northern bank of the River Murray, and in the State of New South Wales, Mitford is wide open to the cold southerlies of winter and the hot northerlies of summer. A broad tree-shaded boulevard skirts the river, and Main Street is flanked by squat emporiums crammed with goodslikely, and unlikely, to be needed by people who own the surrounding vineyards and who operate the canning works for ten weeks every year.

It wasn’t Sergeant Yoti’s first homicide case, but it was destined to give him a new and not altogether unpleasant experience. He wasn’t much to look at… in civilian clothes. He was square andgrey, and the foolish ones thought him soft. You think of a kind, understanding uncle when at the point of inebriation you own the town, and you may wake up and faintly recall that what Sergeant Yoti failed to do with his fists, he accomplished with his boots.

This Wednesday opened as every other day in February: hot and windy and dusty outside the Police Station, still and hot and boring within. The morning was governed by dull routine, and the afternoon was given by the Sergeant to polishing his cases for presenting to the magistrates the following day. Shortly after three o’clock the mail was delivered, and Yoti read a letter penned by the Chief of the State CID, in Sydney.

Dear Yoti [wrote Superintendent Canno], I’ve seized the opportunity of snaffling Napoleon Bonaparte to look into those baby cases out your way. Don’t know if you have ever met this bloke, but you must have heard of him. Anyway, give him all the rope and he’ll pay dividends. You’ll find him the most aggravating feller you could think of, but there’s nothing lousy in his makeup. How’s things up your street? Drop me a line sometime. Remember me to Joan. Your George is shaping well in the Traffic Branch, I’m told…