Bushranger of the Skies

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Bony was not displeased that Price and their hostess conducted the conversation and that McPherson was taciturn and answered questions monosyllabically. He was still feeling like a man bushed and the gleaming table and soft light, the smooth service and the atmosphere of solidity and security, failed to banish from his mind the array of grim men who watched from the canvassed walls.

  Flame in the shadow!

  On what was McPherson pondering? His replies to questions were abrupt; once he made an affirmative answer by mistake. Had he taken Errey’s attaché case from the swag, to destroy the dead sergeant’s notes on the murder of the two stockmen? Both he and Burning Water must be held suspect of knowing who might be the murderous pilot. Well, after preliminary probings here at the homestead, he would have to go out to that hut and endeavour to follow Errey’s trail. Yes, up to the point when Errey decided to take Mit-ji to Shaw’s Lagoon.

  Mit-ji—ah—yes, Mit-ji. Mit-ji knew something about those murders; otherwise Errey wouldn’t have arrested him. Mit-ji was probably in league with the Illprinka men, because the stockmen had been murdered during the theft of a large number of McPherson’s cattle. Supposing the theft of cattle was connected in some way with the pilot of the aeroplane, as seemed likely since the machine had come from, and returned to, the country of the Illprinka. Then supposing that the pilot had destroyed Errey’s car, not for the purpose of killing the sergeant but for the purpose of silencing Mit-ji?

  The theft of the cattle and the killing of the aborigines who guarded them at first appeared all black. The murder of Sergeant Errey by a man flying an aeroplane appeared all white. Yet the last might have been dependent on the first, and the two together partly white and partly black.

  It was going to be a really good investigation, he was sure. He was pleased now that he had decided not to present Price with the real facts of the death of Errey and Mit-ji. Price appeared in an excellent light; a man eminently suited to his particular job which was much nearer the administrative side of police government than “pinching drunks.”

  Then, of course he, Bonaparte, had as usual his old ally, time. There was plenty of time to conduct the investigation, which would have to include two separate cases of crime appearing to have a joint origin....

  Probably because of his non-participation in the conversation, Bony was the first to hear the sound of a distant aeroplane engine. One of the two aboriginal maids was standing at his side, offering a dish when he heard the faint and somehow sinister sound. He turned slightly sideways, the better to look up into her face to ascertain if she, too, had heard this sound.

  None of the others saw the quick clash of gaze, the swift understanding of a man and a woman. Bony knew then that the lubra knew the truth concerning Mit-ji’s death with Errey, as did probably every aborigine within hundreds of miles. He saw in the big black eyes naked fear.

  Flora McPherson was speaking to Price and her uncle of the possible assistance which might be rendered the widowed woman in Shaw’s Lagoon. McPherson was saying he would do anything suggested.

  “Pardon me, everyone,” Bony said, his voice clear and quick. “Mr McPherson, I hear the approach of an aeroplane. I suggest that all lights are extinguished.”

  “Why on earth——?” began the girl.

  “Yes,” snapped the squatter. “Out with those lights.”

  Bony bent over the table and blew out the candles in the sconces. McPherson jumped to his feet and strode to the lamp on the sideboard.

  The room now was illumined only by the reflection of a light in the passage without, and Bony saw the tall figure of the squatter for a moment. Then that light vanished, and McPherson could be heard shouting for all lights to be put out.

  Price was demanding to know this and that, supported by Flora McPherson. Bony moved to the open French windows, through which quite plainly came the noise of the oncoming machine. Through the windows passed the half-caste, across the wide veranda and down the steps of the rose-bedded lawn. The stars were bright. The night air was soft, warm and laden with rose scent. The croaking of the frogs by the great dam of water was banished by the rising roar of engine exhausts. Bony went on between the small beds of standard roses, managed to escape the arms of the sprinklers, and stopped when he reached the bottom fence. There he stared into the night.

  Presently he saw it. It had no navigation lights. It was flying at a great height beyond the dam, and when it began to turn in a giant circle Bony knew that the pilot had sighted the dull star-reflecting sheen of the water and had picked up his land-mark.

  He was coming down. The sudden decrease of engine power told that. The plane became a shadow passing across the faces of the stars, and because it appeared lower than it actually was, it seemed to Bonaparte that its descent in giant circles was much prolonged. It drifted out over the plain, vanished, reappeared, coming to pass directly over the house. But no, it passed over the dam, its engine breaking into periodic bursts of power which finally became sustained.

  Now the plane was away to the north, beyond the sky-cutting edge of the house roof. That the pilot had nerve to fly at night was proved. That he had complete confidence in his engine and his instruments was proved, too. The roar swiftly increased. It was approaching the house. Bony waited, no fear in his heart, only a fierce desire in his mind to identify the machine with that from which Errey’s car had been bombed.

  Then the roof edge, silhouetted against the sky, was abruptly blurred by the shape of wings and dragon-fly body. The plane was a bare five hundred feet from the ground, and the thunderous song of its engine deafened the staring Bony, who was confident it was the same machine he had seen at noon. His feet registered a slight shock. A missile had struck the ground close to him. He knew its position, and he flung himself down and waited. No explosion came.

  Possibly it was not a bomb, but a message! If it should be a message of some kind, then Bony simply had to have it. On his hands and knees he moved forward to the approximate position of the missile, fear now a stabbing torment. The arrival of McPherson on the veranda drove him on. The squatter was asking for him. Price was wanting to know why the lights had been put out, and the girl was saying that perhaps the pilot of the machine was urgently looking for a landing place.

  Then Bony’s hand came in contact with the “bomb.” It was a treacle tin with an air-tight lid. The force of the concussion with the ground had forced off the lid, and from the tin opening lay a ridge of fine sand. It had been filled with sand—and a sheet of paper.

  Bony pocketed the paper. The tin he emptied of the remaining sand, and hastily buried it, with the lid, in a rose bed. Then he strolled towards the house, murmuring:

  “All things are for the brave—even a big slice of luck.”

  But his heart was a thudding hammer in his chest.

  1 Scots language name for The Church of Scotland. Back

  Chapter Six

  Bony is Persistent

  IT was after midnight when the squatter and Bony said goodnight to Price on the road above the gully, in which lay the remains of a modern car and two men. Price drove on to Shaw’s Lagoon: Bony and his host returned to the homestead, which they reached shortly before one o’clock.

  “Well, I suggest a peg, and then bed,” McPherson said.

  “I find that suggestion good,” Bony agreed quietly. “I too will make one: that we have the peg in the office. There are a number of questions I would like settled before I go to bed. Otherwise I will probably not sleep for worrying about them.”

  “Hope they won’t be many,” the squatter objected, almost rudely. “I’m tired—and sick.”

  “So am I—which is another reason why I don’t wish to go to bed yet. Memory is the devil at times.”

  “Humph! ... All right. You go into the office and light the lamp. I’ll get the drinks.”

  McPherson found Bony making cigarettes, the number of which did not appear to indicate an early retirement. There were four cigarettes already made, each with the “hump”
in the middle, all lying in a row. Bony did not look up until he had rolled the fifth cigarette and placed it beside the fourth. Near to the cigarettes McPherson set down the tray.

  “Just help yourself,” he said. “I feel like a good stiffener.”

  “So do I, although I seldom drink,” Bony confessed. “I find alcohol blurs my mind, not exhilarates it. Ah—well! I think we both have an excellent excuse tonight. That pilot did his foul work efficiently. I can hardly think he is that Dr Whyte who visited here two months ago. Is there a romance, do you know?”

  “Er—Yes, I believe so. Whyte seems a decent man, but not good enough for Flora. No man would be.”

  Bony drank and then lit his first cigarette. There was no hint of levity when he said:

  “On several occasions I have been sentimental to the extent of defying red tape and regulations and that kind of thing. I have a failing for match-making—or I ought to say clinching a match. I have asked Price to get in touch with Dr Whyte. I want the doctor to pay a visit here in the near future.”

  “Oh!” McPherson slowly exclaimed.

  “Yes. You see, I hope to persuade him to take me up in his machine. I’d like much to have a look over all that open country to the west. Somewhere in that open country that renegade pilot must have his headquarters—a shed for his plane, petrol supply, which is doubtless replenished by a truck transporting the oil. And a truck leaves tracks to be seen easily from the air. Price spoke highly of Sergeant Errey. I have a duty towards the sergeant’s widow and son.”

  “And that is?”

  “To set that pilot on the road which ends at an open trapdoor. You know, there are killers and killers. I could discourse on them for an hour. All fall, roughly, into three classes, the worst by far being that claiming the cold, clever, deliberate murderer. Cold, clever and deliberate is that pilot. He killed Errey because Errey had found out too much. Or he killed Mit-ji because he feared Mit-ji would betray him. He couldn’t kill either without the other; and it made no difference to him how many he killed. How old was Mit-ji?”

  “Six years older than Burning Water.”

  “Did Errey bring him in from the camp of the murdered stockmen?”

  “Yes. There were the three of them. He managed to escape when the Illprinka blacks raided the camp and speared the others.”

  “The two killed—were they old men, too?”

  “Oh no; both were young. The lubra of one told Errey, so Burning Water tells me, that Mit-ji was an accomplice of the raiders, that she often had seen him sitting alone by a little fire sending messages, and that the night the attack was made he was not in the camp. Can’t blame the lubra for talking to Errey. A black girl can love as passionately as a white woman.”

  “Yes, that is so,” Bony agreed slowly, staring hard at the squatter. “What you say of Mit-ji indicates that he was disloyal to his own tribe. There may be other traitors. You really have no idea who that airman might be?”

  McPherson answered in the negative by shaking his head. He did not look at the questioner.

  “Forgive me for being a bore so late at night, but I have so much to accomplish before next week,” Bony continued. There were now four cigarettes remaining on the table. “Forgive me, too, for being unpardonably inquisitive. The vice is born early in all journalists—and detectives. Now we know one facet of the character of the man who killed Errey and Mit-ji. He is an expert pilot and, too, an expert bomber. I understand that this Doctor Whyte was in the Royal Air Force during the latter portion of the Great War. That’s by the way, however.

  “A man doesn’t take grave risks without just cause. This unknown pilot took risks when he attacked the car, and he took risks when he flew over this house earlier this evening. Although he did everything he could to make himself sure there would be no witnesses of his destruction of Errey and the black, he certainly accepted the risk of being observed. Therefore, his motive for killing those two in the car was powerful. If it were not then the fellow must be a lunatic.

  “What was his motive for the double murder? I believe this to be a question easily answered. His motive was to destroy evidence against himself for complicity in another crime—that resulting in the killing of your two stockmen. He knew that Errey had obtained evidence, or he feared that Errey would obtain evidence through the mind of Mit-ji.

  “I find support for this theory in the fact that Australian aborigines do not run off with cattle in the mass. I know of only one instance in history when an aborigine stole stock wholesale, and, like Burning Water, he was outstanding. I refer, of course, to the Black Squatter, a Victorian native who, in the early days of settlement, compelled his tribe to drove off mobs of sheep to stock a portion of tribal land still left from the robbing white men.

  “That the pilot of the aeroplane is directly connected with the murder of your stockmen, the theft of your cattle, totalling some three thousand, the unrest of the Wantella tribe and boldness of the wilder blacks, the Illprinka, is a theory one can be pardoned for believing to be a fact.”

  There now were but three cigarettes lying on the table. Bony, unusually indulgent, helped himself to whisky and water.

  “I am, Mr McPherson, conscious of your difficulty in accepting me for an inspector attached to the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Queensland Police Department. Price is experiencing the same difficulty. However, I can assure you that I was not raised to my present rank through political or social influence. My birth was a serious bar, and, to achieve eminence in my profession, I had to prove myself not only worthy of it, but doubly so. This is a democratic country—I don’t think!

  “As a policeman I am a fearful failure; but as an investigator I am a success. I fail as a policeman because my mind refuses to be confined within prison bars of red tape. But I am what I am because—well, because I am Napoleon Bonaparte.

  “Now, at the beginning of my investigation here, I find that the murder of Sergeant Errey and Mit-ji is the culmination of a series of outrages committed against you. I mean, the culmination of the series to date; for that air pilot will strike again and again until I finalize his career of crime.

  “From what you have told me of your history, and from what I have learned through preliminary inquiries, together with the result of study of your circumstances, I can well understand your attitude of hostility to what you regard as outside interference. Such hostility, however, cannot prevent me from finalizing my investigation. Please tell me, who is that airman?”

  There followed a profound silence. McPherson’s gaze was directed to the remaining cigarettes on the table. There were but two. His face angled upward and his cold grey eyes stared at the slighter man lounging easily in his chair. The full grey moustache actually bristled, whilst rising blood reddened still deeper the sun-reddened complexion of his face. Then with swift violence his hand rose, and the clenched fist crashed upon the table. His head was thrust towards Bonaparte like that of a mongoose attacking a snake. His voice, when he spoke, was low, but vibrating with passion.

  “I tell you I don’t know,” he said. “If you call me a liar, I’ll fetch my people to tie you, and I’ll flog you as I flogged that Illprinka man. When I say a thing I’m finished with saying it.”

  “Well, then, let us pass to another subject,” Bony compromised, but with an icy gleam in his eyes. “Tell me about Miss Flora McPherson and this Doctor Whyte.”

  “I know next to nothing about Whyte. Flora is my sister’s only child and she came here after my mother died. Do you want to know how much money I’ve got in the bank?”

  “I wouldn’t ask you that,” Bony said, quietly. “If it were necessary for me to know, I would find out—through other channels. No, I don’t wish to know how much money you have in the bank. I would, however, like to know why you find yourself unable to be frank with me.”

  “Blast you! I’m being as frank as I intend to be with a damned, interfering, half-caste detective. And now I’m going to bed.”

  “Very well, then,” Bony
said quickly, and McPherson made no move to retire to bed. “Tell me why you refused to launch a prosecution six years ago, against the person who forged your signature to cheques amounting to close upon three thousand pounds.”

  “I refuse to say. It’s my business. It was my money. I’m going to bed.”

  The squatter now stood up. Bony remained seated. His right hand went out to take the fourth cigarette of the five he had made. He found this one to have a hole in the paper and so discarded it for the last.

  “I must point out that the murder of Sergeant Errey falls into a different category to those misdemeanours you name annoyances,” Bony proceeded, whilst steadily regarding the standing squatter. “By the way, Sergeant Errey’s small attaché case was stolen from my swag.”

  “When?” barked McPherson.

  “After my arrival here, I think.”

  “Rot! Who would take anything from your swag?” McPherson demanded—and sat down.

  “I placed the attaché case inside the swag, before Burning Water and I left the cabbage-tree camp. I made it quite secure. When I unrolled the swag in my room this evening it was not there, but all my other possessions, such small objects as shaving brush, hairbrush and comb, were exactly as I had placed them. Burning Water carried the swag down from the hills and across the plain, as I required freedom to use my pistol arm. After his people met us one of them carried it and left it propped against the rear wall of this building. Who brought it to my room, d’you know?”

  “I don’t. The groom, a black, took it to the kitchen. One of the two maids would certainly take it to your room. I didn’t steal the damn thing—if it were stolen and didn’t fall from the swag.”

  “I am not accusing you, my host. Its theft is not so very important, for after all I like to gather my own evidence in my own way. You mentioned that Mit-ji was an old man suspected of communicating with the Illprinka blacks. Are there any other Wantella men so suspected?”