“Let’s get ’emand take ’emover to my plant.”
When Bony returned with four of his six bottles of beer it was with difficulty that he discovered the Water Rat sitting on the running board of one of the many parked cars.
“Hush! Go quiet,” Mr Thorn implored. “Me old woman’s taking a bird’s-eye view out of the door. Don’t speak, or she’ll spoil the game.” And then, after a minute, with relief: “Come on! She’s gone. Follerme.”
Mr Thorn marched off to the rabbit fence with extraordinary caution, walked north along the government track beside the fence until they reached a dense wall of bush, into which he vanished with Bony close on his heels. The detective was conducted, with all the secrecy of an initiate to a lodge, to a small clearing in which was Mr Thorn’s plant. It was evident to the amazed Bony that that clearing was the site of many plants dating from the opening of the hall several years before. Empty bottles, dozens and dozens of them, littered the clearing, and if none had shared this plant with Mr Thorn, then that man’s capacity for beer must be inexhaustible. With wonderful sagacity he found his two remaining full bottles and glass among the welter of empties.
“I couldn’t wait,” he said complainingly. “I beenwanderin’ round like alorst dog all theevenin ’ ’cosIain’t got no real friends here. Open one of yours whiles I opens this one.”
He drank, and sighed with ecstasy. He sighed again with equal appreciation after his second glass. Each bottle contained three glasses, and when Bony had taken one glass from his bottle he filled his friend’s glass twice.
“I feel better,” Mr Thorn stated when he had carefully concealed Bony’s beer with his own. “I got to watch me chance now, and see that I don’tdarnce the nextcupplerdarnces with the old woman. A terrible nose for beer, ’as the old woman. She’s my cross, she is.”
“We had better go before Mrs Thorn begins to suspect,” Bony advised, observing that Mr Thorn was loath to leave his plant.
At the hall entrance the Water Rat hung back among the usual crowd of young men always to be found stationed at the door at a dance hall, but the detective wormed his way through the bashful youths to discover that a dance had just started and that Mr Jelly was sitting it out alone. There being room, Bony sat down beside the farmer.
“Where have you been?” demanded Mr Jelly with mock sternness.
“I went for a walk because I was feeling unwell, and when I came back I was met by Mr Thorn, who persuaded me to accompany him to his plant.”
“Plant! What plant?”
Bony smiled.
“Near here he has a secret reservoir of alcoholic refreshment which he terms his plant. One cannot help but like the man, for he is a truly companionable spirit. In the course of a year he must drink much beer.”
“In the course of one year he drinks one complete brew made by the biggest brewery in Western Australia. I should say about ten thousand gallons,” Mr Jelly estimated with twinkling eyes. “Look at him now, dancing with Mrs Poole. His eyes are oozing beer, and Mrs Poole is trying hard to escape his breath.”
“All of which is being noticed by Mrs Thorn,” Bony pointed out, slyly directing his companion’s attention to the grim lady watching her husband with gimlet eyes and a lipless mouth.
“She will jaw his poor head off going home, but likely enough he’ll fall asleep,” Mr Jelly murmured. “Do you think old Loftus cleared out for Leonora?”
Bony met the quick change of topic with trained facial control. “What do you think about it?” he parried.
“Why, that the feller at Leonora isn’t Loftus at all.”Mr Jelly was silent for a full minute. He spoke again only when he found his companion hesitant to give an opinion. “Why should Loftus clear out like that? There is no reason why he should, unless the reason was provided and waiting for him when he reached home from Perth at two o’clock in the morning a day or so before he was due.”
“Ah! Just what do you mean by that?”
“I’ll trust you not to pass it on,” replied Mr Jelly slowly. “You just keep your eyes open like you did when you worked for the Queensland police. Watch how Mrs Loftus looks at Landon when he dances with another woman, and if she isn’t jealous I’ll hop on one foot from here to my veranda.”
“You really think that she is in love with the hired man?”
“Sure ofit-and he with her. He is better able to control it than she is.” When Bony glanced round at Mr Jelly he saw that the farmer’s lips were compressed into a straight line. Mr Jelly went on: “Supposing-I say, supposing-that when old Loftus reached his house he found that Mick Landon wasn’t in his bed. Old Loftus might have turned back and got the first car driver he met to take him anywhere, from which place he could have took train to Leonora. Or-”
“Well? What would be the alternative?” Bony asked quietly, thinking how strange it was that Mr Jelly always referred to the missing farmer as “old Loftus”, when Loftus was at least ten years his junior. Mr Jelly spoke with conviction.
“It’s possible, if not probable, that old George Loftus, finding that Mick Landon was in the wrong bed, started to kick up a row about it, a row in which he got hurt. If so, the question is: What did they do with body?”
“Really, Mr Jelly, your imagination is boundless,” Bony said, laughing outright but thinking rapidly. Mr Jelly was serious when he said:
“Not a bit-not a bit. It’s more than likely that Landon was not in his right bed. It’s more than likely that old George Loftus did reach home that night. As I said, Loftus could have done one of two things, and, knowing old George as I do, I am sure he would have used his bare hands in preference to sneaking away to Leonora.”
“Yet you cannot be in earnest,” Bony still objected, but, remembering the short yellow hair he had found in the lace of Mrs Loftus’s pillow. “Surely you are not seriously suggesting that Landon and Mrs Loftus killed George Loftus because he came home earlier than was expected and found themendeshabille? ”
Mr Jelly remained obstinate.
“I am stating possibilities,” he said. “Look atLaffer, andSmythe , and Thorpe. You wouldn’t think them vicious enough to kill a fly. I tell you it only wants a particular set of circumstances to raise Satan in active blood fury in five men in every hundred. I’ve studied criminals. I’ve lived among ’emfor years as a warder, as you know. I learned to pick out the killers long before they killed anybody, and most of them had those slate-blue-coloured eyes Landon’s got.”
Mr Jelly paused to nod and smile at Sunflower when she passed with her partner, who happened to be the drooping Mr Poole. Then he said:
“I have less experience with women, but I am glad that I’m not a fallen fighter in a Roman arena looking to Mrs Loftus, sitting in the Emperor’s box, and hoping she will turn her thumbs up.”
“You do not like her?”
“I don’t. I never did. She always reminds me of a poorly baked cake covered with beautiful sugar decorations.” After another short silence he went on: “I may not be as good a judge as the chief warder of one prison I was in. He used to run his hands over the head of every new birdwho came inside, taking particular interest in first offenders. Used to feel their bumps and enter notes into a large book. More than once, when a feller was taken for murder, he would refer to his book and there find the murderer’s name. If at the time the chief warder felt the killer’s bumps it had been decided to keep the bird inside for good, the poor victim might have lived his or her allotted span. A couple of years back at a picnic I felt Landon’s bumps for a joke. I didn’t tell him just what they told me.”
“What did they tell you?” asked Bony, whose interest was now aroused.
“That he was likely to commit murder at any time. And I won’t be surprised to learn that he’s done it.”
Chapter Seventeen
After The Dance
THERE WAS no defined reason actuating Bony’s decision to pay a second visit to the Loftus farm the night William decoyed the dogs away from Burracoppin.
&nbs
p; Mr Jelly’s suspicions-he had refused to impart to Bony the grounds on which they were based, if grounds there were-had strengthened his own created by the short hair found in the lace of Mrs Loftus’s pillow and her own extraordinary poems written in a notebook.
Knowing that Landon was the secretary as well as theM. C. of the dance, Bony thought it likely that the Loftus party would be the last to leave. He, with theJellys, had left immediately the dance broke up, and as he had politely declined to stop at their homestead to eat a light supper, he was aware that the Loftus party had not passed north on the public road. When a quarter of a mile past the Loftus farm gate, he requested Fred to stop and drop him, as he desired to walk the remaining distance to Burracoppin, and having speeded the astonished garage-man, he turned back, jumped the rabbit fence, and eventually arrived at the cart shed north of the Loftus house, wearing his sheepskin boots, his white collar camouflaged by the black handkerchief.
And here in the concealment offered by farm machinery he waited the arrival of the Loftus party, smoking cigarette after cigarette, his mind occupied by Mr Jelly’s suspicions and his own discoveries. It was twenty-three minutes after two o’clock when the Loftus car turned in on the farm track.
The car stopped immediately in front of the house door, so that the lights, shining directly into the open-fronted cart shed, compelled Bony to keep hidden behind a small cart. When the lights were switched off he could see that the lamp had been lit in the living-room and the living-room window swung open. The figure of Mick Landon was revealed when he entered through the doorway.
Bony could hear one of the women laughing, and it presently became apparent that the party had no intention of retiring at once. He was as a black smudge of shadow gliding from the cart shed to the north wall of the house, where he disappeared into deeper shadow. Now he could hear the low murmur of conversation, which grew in volume as he edged his way round the corner. It became distinct when finally he reached the window and was enabled to look into the room through the gently swaying lace curtains.
“Make that wretched kettle boil quickly, Mick. I’m dying for a cup of tea,” Mrs Loftus was saying. She was seated in one of the leather chairs, her back against the dresser, whilst she faced the window. Miss Waldron occupied the second leather chair facing the crackling stove, permitting Bony to see her rather fine profile. Landon was bending over the stove, coaxing the flames beneath the iron kettle. The farmer’s wife, flushed by the cool night air after the heat of the hall, was looking her best while speaking to her sister.
“I saw you dancing with youngSmedley more than once,” she said in her clear, cold voice.“ ’Ware! ’Ware! He hasn’t a penny to fly with. This harvest will see the end of him.”
“He’s a nice boy, but I’m not mushy,” Miss Waldron stated with emphasis. Not as good-looking as her sister, Miss Waldron was less brilliantly hard, less sophisticated, consequently more likeable to ordinary people.
“And whatever made you dance with that blackfellow?” asked Mrs Loftus, with just the suspicion of a frown she was careful always never to permit to mar her forehead.
“He asked me to very nicely,” replied Miss Waldron coldly.
“But he is black, sis,” objected Mrs Loftus.
“I prefer a black gentleman to a white boor.”
“Oh! Please yourself, of course. What did he talk about?”
“Mostly about you.”
“Me!”
“Yes. He said he thought you to be the most beautiful woman in the hall. He said he never had seen anyone quite to equal you, but-”
“Well? Go on,” commanded Mrs Loftus impatiently.
“He said-he said-” Miss Waldron hesitated. It seemed that she was less desirous of offending her sister than Mrs Loftus was of offending her. “He said that although you danced well, he thought I danced better.”
“How does he know? I never allowed him to dance with me.”
“It would not be necessary for a judge to dance with a woman to see how she danced,” Miss Waldron said with dangerous sweetness, knowing quite well that Bony had never asked to dance with her sister. “Anyway, he’s not properly black. He’s rather good-looking, and certainly is good company. I like a man who talks well and doesn’t splutter and gasp all over you like some of the men did tonight. Oh! Make the tea strong, Mick, there’s a good fellow. I had only one rotten dance, and that was with that man Thorn. Do you know, I think that mandrinks. ”
The delighted Bony almost joined in the laughter of the others at this grave pronouncement on Mr Thorn.
“Oh, sis,” Mrs Loftus gurgled, “how can you say such a dreadful thing?” To which Mick Landon added:
“Surely you are mistaken, Miss Waldron?” And then, seeing the indignant look in her eyes: “Drink! Why, he couldn’t be drowned in beer.”
“But there was no drink at the dance, was there?”
“No, but you may depend that old Thorn brought a few bottles with him in spite of his wife’s watchfulness.”
“I don’t like her, and she doesn’t like me,” Mrs Loftus remarked with suddenly hardened eyes. “There are a lot in Burracoppin who’d like to cut me since George went down on this rotten farm. When we had money they crawled to us.”
“They might crawl again if George strikes gold at Leonora,” suggested her sister, now pouring out the tea Landon had made.
“No doubt about that,” Mrs Loftus agreed. “People are funny when folk come down in cash values. But I don’t care. They amuse me rather.”
“The black seems well in with the Jelly crowd, eh?” Landon said.
“Yes. I thought Lucy Jelly was sweet on the fence-rider.”
“So she is, or was, anyway,” Landon replied. “He’s a bit of a mystery, that black. Poole was telling me that he tracked a lost child for seventeen miles over rough country in Queensland once, and found the kid in time. How he got a job with the Rabbits whenthere’s so many white men out of a job beats me. Pity they can’t give a Burra man a chance.”
“Somehow I don’t like him,” Mrs Loftus said, reaching for the carton of cigarettes. Landon struck a match and politely held it for her use. Between puffs she added: “And I don’t like theJellys either. The girls are stuck up, and the old fellow is too superior.”
It appeared that Mrs Loftus did not like many people.
“Yet George thought well of him. When I was here last year they were great friends,” objected Miss Waldron.
“Blow George!”Mrs Loftus murmured inelegantly. “Let’s forget him. He ran away, so let him stop away for keeps. I don’t want to see him again.”
“But-”
“Don’t argue, sis. I’m too tired.”
“So am I. I’ll go to bed. Give me a candle. My last one burned out.”
Miss Waldron stood up. Mrs Loftus turned round in her chair and pulled open one of the dresser drawers, from which she removed a candle-box, opened it, and took out two candles.
“That’s funny,” she said, looking up at her sister. “Are you sure you didn’t take one?”
“Of course I am. Mine was dying out in a splutter just as I finished dressing.”
“But there were three candles in this box when we left,” Mrs Loftus insisted. “I’m positive about it. I went to the drawer after I was dressed to get Mick some adhesive tape for a petrol leak, and three candles were halfway out of the box. Don’t you remember, Mick? You were standing near me.”
“Yes. You took candles and box out of the drawer. There were three candles there then.”
“Well, what does a candle matter more or less? We’re not that broke, surely,” Miss Waldron exclaimed impatiently. “Give me one, instead of looking at them as though they were hundred-pound notes, before Iyawn my head off.”
“That’s very funny,” Mrs Loftus again said, giving one of the two candles to her sister.
“Don’t let it keep you awake all night,” urged Miss Waldron, laughing and yawning. “Good night, Mavie! Good night, Mick!”
“Good n
ight!” Bony heard them reply while he slipped back to the north wall angle, round which he saw Miss Waldron emerge from the house, stand for a second looking up at the glittering stars, and then disappear round the south vine-protected veranda on which was her bedroom. Two minutes he gave her before he took the grave risk of her returning to find him at the window.
When again he peered into the living-room it was to see Landon standing with his back to the stove, smoking a cigarette and looking intently about the room. After a little time Mrs Loftus came out of her bedroom, when they regarded each other steadily for several seconds. It was he who spoke first.
“Anything disturbed?” he asked.
“Not a thing. Yet I am sure about those three candles.”
“So am I. I’ll look round in the morning and see if there are any strange tracks around the house.”
Bony saw Mrs Loftus’s eyes widen, whilst on her forehead gathered the forbidden frown.
“Mick!” she whispered.
“What?”
“The dogs?”
“What about them?”
“Oh, Mick! Where are they? They never met us tonight, and they have always barked and gone mad when we’ve come home late.”
“By Jupiter! It is strange. I’ll call them.”
When he strode to the door Bony slipped back round the house corner. Landon came out and with index finger and thumb whistled shrilly. Then he shouted. He came to the corner, and Bony darted back to the west side of the house. Again he whistled, then stood listening for answering yelps, or, perhaps, for a distant bark. He whistled and called again before returning to the lighted room, Bony at the window two seconds after he had entered.
“I advised you to chain them up before we left,” Mrs Loftus was saying. To which he replied:
“They were better loose. Gip would tear a prowler to pieces. Their being away is peculiar. I don’t like it. They’ve never cleared out like that before.”
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