“Being aware of what the outcome of the post-mortem will be, I shall need to call on your services as a Justice,” he said. “It will be necessary for you to sign affidavits covering identity, and also statements concerning the operation of the postmortem, as the body will have to be interred here. I could not ask Father Savery to convey it to Bourke, since it will not be necessary. He is being very co-operative as it is.”
“Anything you wish, Bony. It has to be done, unpleasant though it may be. And then we can give our attention to the flood.” Mrs Cosgrove pursed her lips; the phrase “a well-preserved woman” suited her this morning; she was without make-up, and dressed for business.
“The result of the post-mortem will not be what you are thinking, and I want to take you into my confidence because the case has become most serious. You see, Lush wasn’t drowned: he was shot.”
“Oh! That is bad.” Mrs Cosgrove regarded Bony intently. “By Jill? That night she sat up waiting for Lush?”
“We shall not know for some days.”
“She told me straight out that if Lush had broken into the house she would have shot him. I for one would not blame her. The circumstances were terrible for her.”
“My opinion will be influenced by what Father Savery discovers. We must keep our minds open. Quite apart from the case, I find myself liking Jill. What is your feeling?”
“Quite a nice young woman,” answered Mrs Cosgrove. “The school gave her tone and manners. Of course, this is the first occasion I’ve met her socially, as it were. I agree we must keep open minds, and I shall continue to be Christian in my attitude.”
“I am sure you will. We were talking yesterday, and I rather think she would be happier if you could find her something to do in this flood crisis—after the result of the postmortem is known.”
“Yes, I think that would be wise. All right, I’ll find something to occupy her. You don’t know when Father Savery will arrive?”
“Not precisely. Some time this morning. The indicator in position?”
“Yes. I thought you and I could run out to meet him. He’ll let us know when he arrives. He’s a wonderful man.”
Father Savery let them know of his arrival by flying low along the straight river reach, roaring upwards over the men’s quarters and circling the big house without spinning his wheels on the roof. Mrs Cosgrove drove the car the half-mile to the landing-strip, and they were in time for Bony to help anchor the machine against the wind.
Father Savery was a very large man padded by energetic muscles rather than fat. His face was large, too, and topped by stiff brown hair which increased his six feet by at least three inches. His voice was soft and distinctly English, and when he was introduced to Bony his hazel eyes became the centre of radiating wrinkles.
“I have a package for you from Constable Lucas. Remind me of it. I have, too, a message from Superintendent Macey to the effect that you are ordered to return to your headquarters in Brisbane at once, leaving here with me today.”
“How kind of Superintendent Macey to convey the order, Father, and how kind of you to transmit it! So much time in the past has been ill spent with such trivialities. I’ve no doubt that further time will be wasted in the future.”
“Ha! A rebel! A confounded nonconformist. I’ve been told a great deal of you. Some say you won’t even conform with nonconformity. What is your opinion of him, Betsy Cosgrove?”
“He won’t give me time enough to form an opinion,” Mrs Cosgrove replied, and braked the car to a stop outside the office. “Now come along, both of you, and we’ll have morning tea on the veranda.”
Father Savery appeared quite uninterested in the cause of his visit, for he talked about Mrs Cosgrove’s neighbours at homesteads upward of a hundred miles away. With Jill Madden present, Bony considered it most diplomatic of him. Afterwards Bony escorted the priest to the office and there told him of the suspected wound in the dead man’s head.
“If the bullet is still in the body we shall need it for ballistics, Father.”
“That won’t be difficult, Inspector. Macey hinted that the death wasn’t accidental. You have, of course, had the body identified as that of William Lush. An ill-disposed man. His wife, God rest her, was a homely, gentle woman. Well, shall we get to him?”
“It’s on the floor of the carpenter’s shop. You’ll want it on the bench, I presume. I’ll call for an undertaker’s assistant. Excuse me for a minute.”
Bony drove to the men’s kitchen and collected the small man who, when he eventually stood beside the priest, was dwarfed.
Father Savery boomed out, “I know you, Jacko. What happened to that daughter of yours?”
“Got married to a butcher, your reverence. Down at Mildura. Doing well. Got another kid and all.”
“Glad to hear it. Glad she didn’t turn out like her worthless father. You are still a vagrant, I suppose.”
“Who, me, Father! I’m workin’.”
“Excellent! Keep on.”
Conducted to the shop, Father Savery supervised the placing of the body on the carpenter’s bench. Bony stood at the window, refusing to look at the operation. Jacko, however, took a deep interest in it. Bony heard the following chit-chat.
“That’s where the bastard got it, Father. Sorry, your reverence. Just there, the bullet went in. Bet a quid on it.”
“Humph! Get out of the light. Must be shot to death. Don’t look drowned.”
“Came up arse first,” asserted Jacko. “Drowned men come up stomach first.”
“Interesting, Jacko, but mere theory. No corresponding wound, so it should be inside the skull. Bullets become erratic after entry. Didn’t know I was a military surgeon in the last war, did you?”
“Was you, Father? Crikey!”
“So you see, experience in tracing bullets will be of value this morning. Hold the head, so. Keep it steady.”
“Reminds me,” said Jacko. “Me and the boss had to collect a body one day. We arrives with the basket. The bloke’s lying on the bed pretty comfortable like, and just then the telephone in the hall goes off and the boss answers it as there’s no one around. Then the boss rushes back yelling, ‘Hop it, Jacko! We’re in the wrong house!’”
“You’re not looking at what you should be doing,” said the priest. “Keep your eyes on the job.”
“I thought I was good, Father. Now I’m not feeling so bright.”
“Keep your mind on the work, not your stomach. Now, where do we find the bullet? There was one feller I investigated for a bullet. Point of entry was below the left ear, and the point of exit was between the second and third rib on the left side. Ha, this could be it! No, hold to it. The feller would have been upset if he’d woken up and found himself in a basket. Reminds me—Ha! Here it is, Jacko. A nice shapely little thing fired from a ·32 calibre gun. Astonishing! It must have orbited inside the skull. Push the stuff into the bucket, and we’ll take a look or two at the lungs.
“I’d sooner do the embalming, Father.”
“No preferences. Get along with it.”
“That’s funny,” observed Jacko a moment or two later. “Looks like sheep’s lungs to me. How’s she coming?”
“No water there. Dead on immersion.”
“Wish I’d been educated. Ten to one on that emershion word.”
“Now we’ll clean up, Jacko. And thanks for your help.”
“All right by me, Father. I’ll empty this lot, and be right back.” Bony would not have turned for a hundred pounds.
Father Savery chuckled, saying, “We’ll be respectable again in a minute, Inspector. Every man to his trade. I’ll have friend Jacko wash the bullet.”
“Can you say whether the bullet was fired at close range?” Bony asked.
“No, I cannot. As I mentioned, the course of such a projectile is always erratic after entry. Being ignorant of the muzzle velocity I could not even offer a guess. Anyway, there’s no evidence of burning, but that amounts to nothing since the yabbies attacked the wound.”
Jacko returned to say:
“Crikey! You got him lookin’ pretty, Father. All ready for the box. If there’s one handy. For me, I’d bulldoze him into the levee. The bas—”
“That’ll do, Jacko,” Father Savery told him, sternly. “The man’s life is no longer our affair, but we must respect the Almighty’s creation. Now wash the gloves after we place the body in this woolsack, and then remove the iron sheet outside and swill that down. I shall ask Mrs Cosgrove to make you a present of half a pound of tobacco.”
Bony stepped outside and breathed deeply. Ten minutes later he was joined by the priest.
“There was a fellow in a house who discharged a bullet from a ·32 calibre rifle,” Bony said. “The bullet passed through the plaster ceiling and then through the iron roof above it. If the man who slew Lush was standing, say, about ten feet from him, would not the bullet have passed right through his head?”
“Hard question, Inspector. Everything depends on angles and curves, and distance from the gun to the point of impact. Is your question important?”
“Until the laboratory determines that the bullet you recovered was or was not fired from the gun Lucas fired this morning, yes. To have that information will take days. I’ll parcel this bullet you found in Lush and, with the packet you brought from Lucas, ask you to deliver it to the Superintendent as quickly as possible.”
“You speak in riddles, but I’ll do as you ask. You will be returning to Bourke with me?”
“No, Father. I shall not be returning to Bourke until I have completed my investigation. How would you feel to be ordered from church in the middle of your discourse?”
“I might lose my temper.”
“I try not to lose mine, but often I have to make a real effort not to lose my patience.”
“You are refreshing, Inspector. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. Now I’ll return and scrub up. A surgeon, yes. But I am not as tough as friend Jacko. He’s completely insensitive. And fortunate.”
“Greatly so when on the scales with me, Father. Please come to the office when you can.”
Chapter Eighteen
At the Swagmen’s Camp
THE TEN swagmen taken on by Mrs Cosgrove elected to remain at the shearers’ quarters instead of moving to the men’s quarters. They were united by the tenuous bond of the track, influenced by the same spiritual power activating the aborigines. They were much closer to the secret nature of this land than is the average employee on stations, some of whom stay put for years.
When the wind again came coldly from the south-east they were gathered about the open fire between shed and levee, some seated on their heels, others on old cases or kerosene tins. The wind played upon a near-by gum tree. The river had a voice all its own, and the firelight painted red the faces of the only free men in Australia. When Bony drew near they were trying to persuade Jacko to tell them the outcome of the postmortem.
Jacko had skated close to the truth. With verve he had described Father Savery’s manipulation of knife and saw, making awful comparisons between the body of William Lush and those of road-accident victims he had serviced in his former profession. Yet his audience knew he was keeping something back. He was on the verge of desperation when Bony stepped from black night into the ring.
“You can release the news now, Jacko,” he said, and sat on a spare petrol tin. Making a cigarette, he waited for Jacko to talk, and felt the stony silence, and was aware of the hard eyes directed at him. Being a policeman, he was beyond the pale to these men, though they could not be classified as lawbreakers; their attitude was inherited from the bad old days.
“I asked Jacko not to broadcast what happened to Lush,” he told them. “I did this so that Lush’s step-daughter would not learn of it by a roundabout track. Since I’ve been here I haven’t heard one good word for Lush, but I have heard much sympathy expressed for his unfortunate wife. What mystifies me is why Lush wasn’t dealt with years ago. Now, Jacko.”
“Well, it was this here,” Jacko began; then, expertly squirting tobacco juice at the large fire, he restrained his relief and continued to tease the men’s curiosity. “The pardray says to me did I think he oughter take a decko at Lush’s lungs to make sure he had drowned. I said it would be a good idea, although I was positive Lush hadn’t drowned as he’d come up arse first. The Inspector will back me up on that.”
Jacko paused, and Bony nodded agreement.
“It’s a well-known fact that a body in water what’s been drowned comes up belly first, and, as I’ve said, Lush came up the other way round.”
“You’ve said all that before,” asserted Mick the Warder.
“Well, the pardray agreed, and he opened up Lush, and we didn’t find a drop of water in him. I could see the pardray looking a bit concerned, like, and I suggested that Lush could’ve been bumped off by something like a rock he hit when he fell over the cliff.”
“Who was doing the bloody job, you or the Father?” mildly inquired the large man called Wally Watts.
“We was doing it together. I held him and the pardray sliced him,” Jacko compromised. “Well, then we looked him over, and blow me down if I didn’t find a bullet hole in his head. Ain’t that right, Inspector?”
“Quite right,” Bony agreed. “You found the bullet hole.”
“So we mucks him around to see where the bullet come out, and it hasn’t come out. Then the pardray says we’ll have to take a bit off his crust and look around inside. And there was the bullet, a nice little thirty-two.”
Jacko again paused, this time as though expecting applause. Silence descended upon them, and in the background could be heard the soft gurgling of water and the barking of a distant fox.
“He was shot,” a grizzled elderly man said flatly.
“He was shot. He had a thirty-two in his head,” Jacko assured the company. “All nicely planted in the old conk. You know, a bloke didn’t oughter be surprised, but I was, even though he hadn’t come up belly first. He shoulda been shot years ago. That’s so, eh, Champion?”
The white-haired, white-moustached man who had previously related William Lush’s origin nodded his heavy head.
“That’s so, Jacko,” he said. “Old Bill Lush made his pub pay handsome. Ma Lush worked like ten women, and give away some of what her husband made. She was a grand woman. Never see a man go hungry, and never let him loose on the track after he’d spent his cheque without a full tucker-bag and a half-bottle to get him over the screws. They should have joined hands and strangled the kid at birth. He put both of ’em in their graves and scattered what they had to the four winds.”
“Then he comes down here, marries Mrs Madden, kicks her to death, and gets a bullet in the conk,” concluded Mick the Warder.
“And the police’ll arrest the bloke what done it and jail him for ten years,” said a lean man with a squint. “Ain’t that so, Inspector?”
“It’s the law. I didn’t make it,” Bony said. “I saw Mrs Lush after she died, and I agree with Champion that he should have died much earlier.”
“There! What did I tell you blokes?” demanded Jacko. “Where in ’ell would we be if it wasn’t for the coppers? You tell me. Why, the big blokes like Wally Watts would rule the flaming roost, and little blokes like me’d be bashed to death for looking sideways.”
“I got no time for ’em. Never did have,” said a solemn man wearing a coat the rents of which the wind was flapping.
“Can’t say I have, either, but we gotta have ’em all the same,” argued Jacko.
A very tall man who had been sitting on a case and resting his elbows on his knees straightened and from the pocket of his old green overcoat withdrew a harmonica. The firelight gleamed upon it. He placed it to his lips and produced one note before Mick the Warder reached and took it from him.
“None of that, Harry. We’re workin’,” he said quietly.
The would-be player made no protest and resumed his former attitude. Bony recognized him. He was Dead March Harry, shav
ed and barbered.
“What beats me,” said Champion, “is how Lush got to be where he was found. I’d have thought he’d have been collected by the first rush of water. Musta been in a hole up-river, likely enough in the hole where his ute was found, but you’d think when the first wave of rubbish tumbled into it he’d have come up. But he don’t. He bides a while and then comes up to float, nice and quiet like, downstream.”
“What d’you reckon, Inspector?” asked the large Wally Watts.
“I’m not an expert on bodies in water, drowned or otherwise,” Bony admitted. “That seems to be Jacko’s hobby. The condition of Lush’s body certainly proves it had been in water for several days. I think we could bet it was in the hole below the mail-boxes. According to Jacko, Lush didn’t drown: he was dead when he fell into the hole or was dropped into it. The body would, I think, sink quickly and finally rest on a log or sodden branch at the bottom.
“The bottom being so far down, when the first and subsequent flood rushes past into and across the hole it wouldn’t have been disturbed. When, according to natural law, it rose, the river was feet deep, and the current sweeping round the bend brought it to the straight reach, then brought it across to the opposite side, this side. If you study the surface of the river you’ll see that along the edge there are short reverse currents holding against the bank small masses of debris, and one of these reverse currents caught and held the body.”
“Easy when you know how,” a man said to his neighbour.
“You was lucky to walk along the bank and spot him,” commented Champion.
“I didn’t spot him. I saw two crows that appeared to be standing on water, and others flying about. As we all know, crows don’t walk on water. They will stand on a dead sheep. Those two were standing on the body of Lush.”
“And you put two and two together took a chance what come off,” said Mick the Warder. “Well, I don’t suppose they made you an inspector unless they had to.”
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