Madman’s Bend

by Arthur Upfield

  “The rain’s steady, and the river’s rising faster because of the local run-off, Bony. The levee sunders and only the house and this office will stand above water. You’ll probably be with us a long, long time. Still, there’s nine more bottles in my private cupboard. Help yourself when you want.”

  Ray came in with his bottle of beer, filled his glass twice, rolled a cigarette, dangled a leg over the arm of a chair.

  “Mum’s having a wonderful time,” he said. Bony raised his brows. “Out there in the rain with the men. Directing them, sooling them on, and the rest. They’re going on strike if she isn’t a bit more casual. Should have known by now that the Australian won’t take orders from a woman. She’ll learn.”

  “Never,” said MacCurdle firmly.

  “If they down tools we’d better learn to swim.”

  “Can’t you swim? I thought every boy was taught to swim,” commented Bony.

  “I mean long distance. You know, about twenty miles.”

  The telephone rang, and the manager went out to take the call. It was for Bony. Macey spoke.

  “The ballistics report’s just come to hand. The doors are out. The bullet in Lush wasn’t fired from the rifle belonging to the Maddens.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Just Pottering About”

  “AH! THERE you are! I’ve been looking for you, Jill.”

  “Have you, Inspector?” The girl was seated at a sewing-machine, and her dark eyes searched his face.

  He sat down and said, “Good news, Jill. The bullet you fired through the back door didn’t kill Lush. The laboratory fellers have proved it. Unless you had another thirty-two rifle, or a pistol I didn’t find.”

  “There were only the thirty-two and the forty-four, Inspector.”

  “Then the little, tiny, tenuous, make-believe shadow is lifted from you. I could not be confident about you till now, Jill, and I am truly happy. I left Ray with Mac, and I’ll leave you to tell him, and we can all forget about that night of tension. By the way, can you remember a man calling for tucker known as the Paroo Bikeman?”

  “Yes, I can. I saw him once. Nasty eyes. Dad said he always travelled light, and could ride a hundred miles a day over any kind of track. He’s been known to be in Bourke one week, and down at Mildura the next. Lush was terrified of him. Would always have Mother see to his handout.”

  “When was the last time he called for a handout?”

  “A week or ten days before Lush left the utility. I can’t be exact. I was out when he called, and Mother just mentioned it.”

  “Did she tell you which way he was travelling?”

  Jill shook her head, and Bony persisted.

  “The three men who were camped down here opposite the shearing-shed who are called The Brothers—did they come for a handout lately?”

  “No. I know who you mean. They haven’t come to us for a long time. I remember Dad saying they were the greatest loafers in the outback.”

  “Thanks, Jill. If you think of anything unusual happening just before Lush tried to smash down the door, please tell me. Or of anyone calling at the house.”

  Cosgrove was informed that Jill wanted to speak to him, and to the manager Bony directed questions concerning the Paroo Bikeman and the others. MacCurdle had little information on the no-hopers, save that he sold them tobacco and tinned food at odd times, and Bony was aware that he would not come in contact with them so much as would the men’s cook. He knew that The Brothers had been camped for several weeks on the far bank because they had bought tobacco from his store.

  Lunch that day was a quiet affair, Mrs Cosgrove saying little and betraying annoyance over what Bony surmised was her failure to get from the men the work she thought they should have done despite the discomforts caused by the weather. Once he caught Ray impishly winking at Jill, and once he found MacCurdle giving Ray a warning glance.

  After lunch Bony went to his room and lay on the bed, and there fought to make his mind disgorge an item it had registered. He fell asleep during the battle, and on waking found that it was after four o’clock. It was still raining. Again in the office, he contacted Constable Lucas.

  “Ballistics report that the bullet which killed Lush wasn’t fired from the rifle you have,” Bony said, and Lucas’s voice told him that the policeman was glad to hear it. “I’m going to give you the names of ten men, all come in off the track and now working here. Jot them down.” Lucas recorded the names. “We know where The Brothers were camped that vital night and morning. Jacko says he was camped at Markham Downs. Harry and Mick the Warder were camped at the old wool-scour at Murrimundi. Will you check as closely as you can?”

  “Will do. What about the others?”

  “Trace their movements at that period, and meanwhile I’ll question them. There could have been others in the vicinity, on the way up-or down-river.”

  “I’ll do my best, Bony. How’s the flood with you?”

  “They’re worried that the run-off from the rain will raise the level to make conditions dangerous. Been working all day despite the rain. I haven’t manned a shovel yet.”

  “You will,” predicted the policeman. “It’s going to cut White Bend off, too, if this rain continues. The weather men who didn’t predict it now predict it won’t last overnight.”

  Having hung up, Bony relaxed in the easy chair and rolled a cigarette. In front of him was the wastepaper basket, and the latest contribution in it was the wrapping from MacCurdle’s whisky bottle. There again came that nagging sense of frustration, and two seconds after it began the mind surrendered. He remembered the small piece of tissue paper he had found in the heart of Madman’s Bend, found and discarded, contemptuously tossed aside as something captured by the wind.

  There was a wall mirror, and he stood before it and glowered at his reflection. From the mirror there came to him the words he spoke softly:

  “Am I growing old and tired? That piece of paper could have been part of a bottle wrapper. Supposition. Easy deduction. It isn’t like me to forget about it. Yes, you are growing old. You are coming to be mentally limited, able to think only of one subject at a time.”

  Smoothing out the ball of tissue retrieved from the waste basket, he found the brand of the distillery on it and the words Cape’s Finest Whisky. Bottled in Scotland. He could see again the shred of tissue found in the bend, with the letters el against the ragged right margin. He almost ran to the telephone.

  “Lucas, I may have a lead. Find out from the publican if the bottles of whisky sold to Lush that night were wrapped in tissue, and the brand.”

  “Right. Hold on. The pub’s only across the street.”

  Bony’s impatience was replaced by the accustomed cold control he exercised over his mind; while waiting he again accused himself of growing old and tired, this time adding the word senile. He could hear a voice, probably from a radio; he heard a rooster crow, and this reminded him of Jill’s kookaburras. Waiting, he tried to hear what the voice was saying in the policeman’s office. Then the instrument gave a knocking sound, and Lucas began to speak.

  “The bottles were sold to Lush with the tissue paper about them. The brand was Skilly’s Green Label Irish Whisky. Any use?”

  “Possibly,” said Bony cautiously. “Thanks a lot.”

  E L were the terminal letters of the word Label. The scrap of tissue was so clean and fresh it could have formed part of the wrapper taken off a bottle an hour before he had plucked it from a bush. He remembered that then he had thought it probable that the easterly wind had brought it from the Mira homestead: it could also have been carried by the wind from the camp of The Brothers. It could not have been brought by the wind from the abandoned utility or from Madden’s homestead. However, check.

  He sought information from Jill.

  “From the bottles I’ve seen lying about, Inspector, Lush drank Irish whisky,” she answered. “But I’ve seen Scotch bottles, too, and he must have bought them, because Mother never touched it.”

  “Ha
ve you noticed the tissue-paper wrappings?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen such paper sometimes.”

  “Thanks, Jill. I may be getting warm, as the children say. What are you sewing?”

  “I’m making an afternoon-tea apron for Mrs Cosgrove. She asked me if I would, and I said, of course, I’d be glad to do anything.”

  “You are a little happier than you were?”

  The girl nodded, her eyes bright.

  “You are a very kind man,” she said. “I’ve heard the others call you Bony. Would you let me?”

  “I’ve been wondering when you would, Jill.”

  MacCurdle pulled the men off the job at four o’clock, and he and Ray came in both tired and wet. Bony met them at the door to the private room.

  “Could I persuade you?” he asked blandly, and might have been skittled in the rush.

  “Two points off three inches,” Ray announced. “No sign of easing, either.”

  “Lucas told me the weather men predict fine for the night.”

  “They didn’t predict the rain coming, Bony. Anyway, how have you been putting in time?”

  “Just pottering about: just pottering. This is good whisky, Mac. D’you ever buy Irish—Skilly’s, Green Label?”

  The Scotsman’s sandy eyebrows shot upward.

  “I drink Irish?”

  “Why not? I’m not a drinker, but I have imbibed Irish whisky and found it very good.”

  Still indignant, MacCurdle parried. “You don’t imbibe Irish, Bony. You toss it down fast to by-pass the taste.”

  “So we agree that you don’t buy Irish?”

  “Listen to him, Ray. We work hard in the rain all day, and he starts an argument about Irish whisky.”

  “I’m not buying into it, Mac,” Ray said, laughing. Then, to Bony, “Yes, Mister Holmlock Shears, you may take it for truth that Mac has never bought Irish. Of course, he wouldn’t be slow in racing forward if someone offered Irish on a silver salver. You interested in Irish whisky?”

  “Yes, I am, Ray. Have you or Mrs Cosgrove purchased Skilly’s Green Label? Say, within the last six months?”

  “No. I’ve never seen it here. But there’s a good sale for it down at White Bend. Well, I’m for a hot shower and dry clothes.”

  MacCurdle’s flash of temper had vanished, and he said he would follow suit.

  “Before you go, Mac, let me have the weather records for the past month and this one, will you?” Bony said. In the outer office he began to study the sheets which noted wind direction and cloud formation. He found that the last day on which the wind came from the west was July NM, and, from the north-west, July 9. The records did not show wind strength.

  Over after-dinner coffee Ray brought up the subject of Irish whisky, and asked why Bony was interested in it, and because Bony intended to seek a favour he told them of the scrap of tissue paper which had come from a bottle similar to one bought by Lush before leaving town.

  “The wind doubtless impaled it on the bush, and because I could see no other pieces of it, and had cut no recent human tracks, I permitted myself to assume that the wind had brought it quite a long way: say from Mira, or from Madden’s homestead, or from the abandoned utility.

  “On the ninth of this month the wind came from the north-west, and, at the point where I found the piece of tissue, Madden’s homestead would be to the north-west. The next day the wind came from the west; that is, from the abandoned utility. Can you make a guess what the strength of the wind was on those two days?”

  MacCurdle said he thought neither day was very windy, not as windy as the days when the wind came from the east and south-east. Ray thought he might get a clue by referring to the work diary, and hastened to the office. He returned able to say that he was right: the diary proved that on the tenth of the month he and Vickory with two men had tidied up about the shearing-shed. The rubbish and debris had been burnt, and he recollected that the smoke wasn’t bothersome, proving that the wind that day was not strong.

  “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t strong enough either day to carry a bit of tissue to the place you say you saw it, Bony.”

  “Do you agree that the east wind was strong enough on other days to carry it there from Mira?” asked Bony.

  “Strong enough to carry it, Bony, but the odds laid by the trees and things would be terrific. You say it was clean and new-looking. How d’you think it got there if the wind didn’t take it?”

  “I dislike offering a wild guess,” Bony replied.

  “It’s certainly a teasing puzzle,” said Mrs Cosgrove. “I remember going into that awful place with my husband. Halfdead trees, billabongs which looked like the pits on the moon, banshees peering over fallen logs.”

  “I didn’t like it, either, Mrs Cosgrove,” said Bony. “However, I shall have to go again. You have taken the boats from the river. Would you tell me why?”

  “They were afloat on the bend hole for so long that we thought it best to get them up and re-pitch them or something of the kind in case we needed them for the flood. Have they been attended to, Mac?”

  “They were, Mrs Cosgrove. They’re ready to take to the water again.”

  “You’re not thinking of crossing to Madman’s Bend, are you?” Ray asked.

  “I have decided to do so, Ray.”

  “But the river’s in flood. It’s full of trees and logs, dangerous enough to sink a ship.”

  “I expect I shall manage. Better a boat than swimming,” Bony smilingly announced.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A Gamble Pays Off

  THE KOOKABURRA chortled and cackled; the galahs swooped in flocks of hundreds, chattering and performing aerial feats as though intending to show off their best before the flock broke into the annual mating period; a billion frogs came up to honk, honk, honk. From the flawless sky the sun radiated warmth, bringing a promise of fast growth of grass and herbage on the sandy plains.

  Once again Bony stood on the levee and studied the Gutter of Australia. Water was running into the billabong behind the garden. It could be seen running there, the sluggish rivulets giving it animation. The water mass of the river itself slid rather than ran into the wide sweep of the angle, slid round and by Bony, slid on down to pass the shearing-shed and the abandoned camp on the far bank. And this opposite bank, much lower than the Mira side, seemed to be merely four feet above the water.

  Like the inner bank at all these bends, the one opposite Mira shelved to the river bed, and there, too, the river had collected white sand to form a spit. This bank would not have been difficult to climb, whereas the steep banks of the reaches, now drenched by rain, would have been as difficult as a greasy pole, and infinitely more dangerous.

  The cliff-like bank fringed by the levee was now only twelve feet above the yellowish water. The river continued to carry small masses of debris, larger masses of small branches, and occasionally what seemed to be an entire gum tree. Now and then the metallic surface was broken by logs which had once sunk to the bottom and which the long drying period before the flood had made semi-buoyant. These were rising and sinking, eventually to sink permanently; if they rose under a boat they could fling the occupant into the water. There lay the greatest hazard. To navigate the crossing successfully required only mapping and timing.

  Bony weighed the risks against the profits, if any, to his investigation. The risks were evident, the profits nebulous. He had visited the camp abandoned by The Brothers, had poked among the rubbish, but this he had done merely to discover anything that might connect the three men with Lush and his utility. Even if he found a Green Label Whisky bottle he would have no proof of The Brothers’ complicity in the murder. They had money to buy tobacco and food; therefore they had money to buy whisky.

  However, Bony was being prodded by a sense of urgency and by the prospect of the river itself denying him further opportunity to examine the scene of the crime for signs of the activity of those having possible connection with it. By the coming evening the opposite bank would be subm
erged, and Madman’s Bend merely a tree-studded lake. If he failed to apprehend the killer of William Lush he would most certainly regret not having paid the abandoned camp one more visit.

  “You would be foolish to attempt it, Bony,” said Mrs Cosgrove, who was standing beside him. Ray, appearing at his other side, earnestly agreed with her.

  “I think it feasible to scull a boat close to the bank up to the place where Lush’s body was held,” Bony explained, “then to row fast across the river, when the current would take the boat downstream and permit a landing on that sand spit over there.”

  “Looks feasible, but it’s damn dangerous,” Ray said. “And how do you plan to get back this side again?”

  “By the return route. Up along that far bank, then cross to be swept down to land where I started.”

  “Just why do you want to do it?” asked Mrs Cosgrove. “What d’you hope to find over there?”

  “Something missed at my last visit.”

  “But no sure purpose?”

  Bony sighed, shrugged, and fell to making a cigarette. “I have a long record of crime-investigation successes,” he said, so softly that he might have been talking to himself. “The record is founded on patience, tenacity, observation. I’ve had a great ally, time. Should I fail in this particular investigation, no one is going to concede that it was the river which defeated me. That will be bad enough, but what will be far worse is that I myself will know that, had I not feared this day, I would have crossed and might have found a clue to add another success to the total. So I must cross, or never want to see myself again in a shaving-mirror.”