Upfield was now more matured, much less excitable, more aware of responsibility to himself. He hadn’t lost the habit of firing questions like bullets, but he had gained the patience to listen fully to the answers. Having followed him into the kitchen, and eventually having opportunity to note its extreme tidiness, I saw at the end of the table, against a wall, a shallow wood box partially filled with foolscap, and this provided such interest that, on my friend leaving the kitchen for a minute, I could not forbear investigation.
And in that box was the solution of several mysteries concerning my friend.
The idiosyncrasies were all explained. The shape of his head should have elucidated them for me long before, for I am no stranger to the teachings of the great Italian, Lombroso. The unusual mixture of humility and arrogance, the unusual combination of patience and impatience, and a contempt for the human herd together with a passion to study the herd’s instincts, all indicated the individualist, the rebel, and the sensualist in one. Circumstances could have made this man a great criminal, a great crusader. Inherited attributes are more often than not submerged by unfavourable circumstances, or opportunities wrongly timed.
About a month after I bade farewell to Upfield at Wheeler’s Well, I received from him a letter in which he said he was writing a novel of crime detection and that he had decided to build his investigator on me and name him Napoleon Bonaparte. In modern parlance: just like that. Obviously I could not fail to be interested in the career of this fictional character destined to become popular in the Americas, Great Britain and many countries of Europe. I have, of course, read all the chronicles for which I have supplied most of the basic material, but my main interest has been in the evolution of a man who has surmounted obstacles even greater than those with which I have had to contend, and, moreover, has achieved a commendable degree of success without having battered down competitors to do so. No outstandingly successful man in commerce or politics may claim that. From Log Cabin to White House is a much easier road than that followed by Arthur Upfield, and, also, very truly yours,
Napoleon Bonaparte, D.I., Queensland P.D.
CHAPTER ONE
THE MAN TO BE
I
Toward the close of the nineteenth century, Gosport, England, was a fortified town, and a main supply base of the British Navy. Situated on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, it might be thought that Gosport was merely a suburb of the greater town, when actually the growth and maintenance of British sea power and the threat to England by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte contributed to the preservation of Gosport’s independence.
To Gosportonians the Navy came first. The very mention of the Senior Service almost caused the hearer to pull his forelock or raise his hat, while the Army, although greatly respected, remained in the background until the Boer War again brought it into prominence. They had a sublime faith in the Navy, their living came from the Navy, they were ever one with the Navy, and God help old Boney if he landed the Grand Army either side of the harbour and tried to storm the chain of forts, and the earthworks connecting them, which protected Gosport.
From the land side, you could enter Gosport only by one of the few bridges spanning the moat, and then through a tunnel in the rampart, or you could cross the harbour from Portsmouth by ferry. Shortly after the Napoleonic threat had faded to St. Helena, there landed from a ferry an Oliver Upfield, to become an assistant in the shop of a draper on the High Street, and eventually to set up in business for himself, choosing rambling premises in a street which had become the main outlet to the new suburb of Forton springing up outside the rampart. The premises were renovated and became a compact structure, having some thirty- odd rooms above the shop.
Oliver Upfield married into the Way family, a member of which subsequently became the Chief Justice for South Australia, and, for a term, Deputy Governor. On the other side of the picture was an Upfield who was in America when the Civil War broke out. He also was a business man, and something of an inventor, for it is recorded that he manufactured a clothes prop which he hawked up and down the country, incidentally collecting military information and making extra profit. He ended his career at the extremity of a rope, and therefore was regarded with some disfavour by those at home.
To Oliver Upfield were born seven children, of whom James was the eldest. He grew to become much like Oliver: shrewd in business and generous to the limits of wisdom. James entered his father’s business, eventually became a partner, and ultimately the sole proprietor.
As James’s two brothers passed from this business to distant places, so the shop staff increased until there were a dozen or more assistants living in. Old Oliver stood for no nonsense by his sons with his female assistants, and he pressed on James advice which James came to pass on to his sons. Excellent advice, too, for a young man whose father has made himself financially sound, but advice at which Cupid thumbs his nose. There came to join the staff a young girl from Birmingham. Eighteen she was, and, according to pictures of her, truly lovely. James was twenty-six when he married Annie Barmore, and to them were born five sons, the first being the subject of this record.
2
The child was registered and christened William Arthur, but when the shop boys began to ask after little Bill, the aunts and the grandmother had the names reversed, as Arthur was less likely to be degraded. However, temporarily they had forgotten the influence of Charles Dickens and the child came to be called Arker-Willum.
Arker-Willum entered a world composed of Queen Victorias, circuses, jubilees, naval reviews, military bands, and naval and military pickets who appeared to have fluttering eyelids at sight of the nurse-girl in charge of him.
There were several Queen Victorias–three, in fact. There was Grandmother Way and her two unmarried sisters who always dressed like the Queen, even inside the house. Grandfather and grandmother had left the business premises to live in the later-established suburb which was swiftly to extend to the outer residential area named Alverstoke. The sisters owned, above all things, a butchery business, and their treasured and only male assistant was a person named Pafford. Pafford took in the sides of beef and carcasses of mutton, and cut them up. Pafford delivered meat to customers per handcart. Pafford it was who kept his eyes on dogs that entered with their owners.
When visiting Grandmother Way on Sunday afternoons anecdotes about Pafford caused these ladies to laugh softly, and the one about Pafford and the customer’s dog served for many weeks. Pafford was exceptionally ugly; the customer was a grand dame who alighted from a brougham and swept into the shop followed by the poodle. She was paying her account when the poodle cocked a leg against the chopping block. Then the dog yelped and fled to the carriage without. Miss Way said sternly, “Pafford! What did you do to that dog?” Pafford replied, innocently, “Nothing, mum. I only looked at him.”
These Queen Victorias were to have great influence on Arker-Willum, marriage placing many burdens on his young mother. As a bride she found herself mistress of a multi-roomed house, three domestics and a house boy. She had to order and check supplies to feed the assistants living in, and even in those days, when a cook left on impulse, she had to do most of the cooking, teaching herself to cook with the aid of Mrs. Beeton. The monthly household accounts had to be audited and passed to the office, where the chief cashier would write the cheques. And on every occasion there was a storm of protest by her husband before signing the cheques.
What with all this added to the succession of babies, it is remarkable that at the age of sixty Annie Barmore had not one grey hair. She never had the depth of wisdom possessed by her mother-in-law, but she learned much from the older woman whose advice was: “When your husband raves about bad trade and the terrible cost of living, remember that trade was always bad and living costs always terrible. The good wife bides her time. All the Upfields are rampant lions one minute and docile little lambs the next. And remember, too, that all the Upfields are genuine lambs, and only imitation lions.”
The year following William Arthur’s appearance, there came Edward, and the year’s difference in age was almost unmarked when both could walk. They were taken out in the same pram, and were invited together to children’s parties. When a circus came to pitch its tents in