“Jacko about?” asked Bony.
“I lets ’im off from three to five. Decent sort of bloke. ’Course, most of these no-hopers are all right. I’ve done a bit of tramping in me time. I suppose we all has. Got to see what’s round the next bend.”
“That’s true,” Bony said. “I find myself that way sometimes. Now I want the answers to a question or two.”
“Try me and I does what I please, eh?”
“Were there any swagmen camped down by the shed that night Lush abandoned his ute?”
“That I couldn’t answer. I can say that old Peter Petersen poked his head in through the door in the middle of the afternoon, and I went crook ’cos I was havin’ a shut-eye for five minutes. I told him it wasn’t the time, and he said he’d been out of tucker since the day before. If he camped here that night, or which way he was travelling, I don’t know.”
A motor was heard approaching, and Fred tossed tea into two new buckets, added boiling water, and stood them by the door. The vehicle was stopped and a man came in for the afternoon smoko; the truck roared away with it. The cook sat again, and loaded a pipe.
“Did The Brothers do much shooting over at their camp?” asked Bony casually.
“Don’t think so. Never heard any firing. Blokes on tramp don’t usually have rifles with ’em. Too much to hike with without taking on a rifle. Have a few fishing-lines, though. Lines come in handy. Only time I had a gun was when I pushed a bike. Pack a hell of a load on a bike, you know. Knoo a bloke who always pushed one with the pedals off.”
“Well, no one will be fishing for a long time, by the look of the river.”
“That’s so, Inspector. But when the flood goes down and the bends run dry the water left in the billabong will soon clear and the fish’ll be asking to be hooked. I got a twenty-seven-pounder cod in a billabong once. Then Petersen come along, and we lives on fish for a week. Got starved for mutton, and I took a cooking job on Netley.”
Bony maintained interest in fishing for several minutes before steering the cook round to Petersen.
“How old? Oh, something like sixty. Ain’t as old as he looks. Pretty good blacksmith. Could get work any time, any place, but he’s kept to the track for the last ten years. Decent old coot. Able to use himself once. I did hear he has a revolver. I’ve never seen it, but blokes have said he owns one. Always travels alone, and that ain’t healthy, so a gun could come handy like. You gets tough characters along this river during the shearing.”
“Locals?”
“Locals! Crikey, the locals is all right! It’s the city blokes follering the sheds. ’Course, there’s some tough nuts you might call locals, but not mean. The shearin’ being just over, it could have been a city tramp what skittled Lush.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Strong Suspects
BONY ADDED the name Peter Petersen to his map, and he was still in the office when the men knocked off work and the manager came in.
“I’d like to be a detective, my word I would!” he said dryly. “Going for boat-rowing in the morning and lolling about all afternoon. I doubt you deserve a snifter. Why didn’t you help yourself?”
“I haven’t felt like it, Mac. How did your day go?”
“Hard. The mullock’s heavy with moisture, and the work’s slow.”
“Have you been bossed?”
“Not today. I had to be firm yesterday.” The Scotsman smiled. “I’d have made a good husband, but I’ve never been one. Yesterday I thought the men would walk off the job. This morning she increased the bonus. She rattled it into Ray, though, for cruising with you.”
“It was well for me that he stowed away and worked his passage. I could have got into serious difficulty.”
MacCurdle sipped his whisky before venturing to ask, “Was the trip worth the risks?”
“Yes, it was, Mac. I made a step or two. By the way, have you heard The Brothers shooting about their camp or in the bend?”
“Not that I can recall. Why?”
“Do you sell cartridges here?”
“No. Never stock them.”
“Would other homesteads do so?”
“I wouldn’t think so. You see, a homestead store wouldn’t stock clothes and personal items; that is, along this river. Well out west on the border they might want to trade with the aborigines, and cartridges would be in stock. Not to sell to the abos: to white stockmen and others.”
Bony refrained from saying that he knew the conditions out west, and began on another subject.
“Have you ever found at the mail-box letters deposited by someone else, or letters left there by the mailman for someone not working at Mira?”
“Yes, but seldom. The last time it was a letter for Silas Wishart. Couple of days later there was a letter waiting for the mailman.”
“What of parcels, Mac?”
“No parcels.”
“You are being patient. Just one more thing. The Brothers have been in camp on the other side for several weeks. I think that odd. Men on tramp invariably keep on the move. Can you explain it?”
“There’s no particular reason, I think,” MacCurdle replied. “They’re peculiar men in that one won’t work without the other two. They worked through the shearing for Mira, then spent a couple or three days down at the White Bend pub, and came up here to camp where they did. That side belongs to Murrimundi, but, as you must have seen, the entire area is useless, and as the men have never been bothersome we can’t object to them camping.”
The telephone rang. MacCurdle said the call was for Bony, and departed. Lucas reported that the storekeeper had been most co-operative, and he read from a list of names persons supplied with ·32 calibre cartridges. On the list were William Lush and Raymond Cosgrove. Lucas said he knew all the customers, and officially had nothing against any one of them.
Regarding parcels, the policeman reported that the mail driver had on two occasions delivered a parcel consigned to The Brothers, and that in each instance one of them waited on the track about a mile south of the Mira box. One parcel was sent by the publican, who remembered filling an order for half a dozen bottles of whisky, and the other contained a pair of boots and three shirts. Finally, Lucas had three names for Bony’s map. Bosun Dean was camped at the Murrimundi shearing-shed, and Champion and a man called Miner Smith were seen fishing at a bend hole two miles north of Murrimundi on the opposite side.
Having added these names to the map, Bony could find no pointer to the killer of William Lush. All of them with the exception of Wally Watts—for he had only Jacko’s word that he had stayed over at Markham Downs—could reasonably be suspected. Yet another suspect was Raymond Cosgrove, and Bony decided to test him.
After dinner he asked the young man to accompany him to MacCurdle’s private room; there he shut the door and abruptly began the inquisition.
“Do you happen to own a ·32 calibre rifle?”
“Yes, I do. Want to borrow it?”
“If you have no objection,” Bony said. “I’d like to fire half a dozen bullets from it and submit those bullets to our ballistics people.”
“All right, shipmate.” Ray’s smile was open; then it vanished as his eyes widened. “You are thinking I shot Lush?”
“I believe it’s possible you shot Lush. There are several men who could have shot him, but to date I can apply no motive to any one of them. You could have had a motive. You had opportunity. And since you own a rifle of the same calibre as that which killed Lush, you had the means.
“First: motive. You are in love with Jill, and she with you. You are thought to have been the first to find the abandoned ute. You could have found Lush tinkering with it, and what you knew of his violent assaults on his wife and threats to Jill could have prompted you to shoot him and toss the body over the cliff. In that you had opportunity. You certainly had the means.”
“But that’s all bloody rot!” asserted Ray, eyes blazing.
“Of course it is,” said Bony calmly. “It’s why I want to borrow yo
ur rifle, and if others of the same calibre are here, then those as well. Are there any others?”
“No other thirty-two here. Vickory has one.”
“Very well. Tomorrow I’ll take specimen bullets from yours. Meanwhile, have you at any time given or sold some of your cartridges to anyone?”
Ray shook his head.
“Would you know if one or more had been taken from your stock?”
“Yes. Yes, I would. I blew out of ’em, and got a fresh supply from White Bend only two weeks ago. I haven’t opened a box.”
“Bring them here, and the rifle, too, please.”
Thoughtfully rolling a cigarette, Bony felt sure he had come to yet another dead end, for he could detect no defence blockage, no hidden current of opposition, in this boyish young man. Ray brought the rifle, which was beautifully kept, and three boxes of cartridges corresponding with Lucas’s report of the purchase.
“No one borrowed this weapon?” he asked, and knew the answer before it was given. “Tell me, have you heard any shooting by The Brothers? Anyone else?”
Ray said he hadn’t heard shooting for months, and then it had been Lush hunting in Madman’s Bend.
“You think it possible I could have shot him?”
“Possible, but improbable. Are you aware that there were two men camped with The Brothers?”
“No. But now you mention it I remember that you spoke of five men this morning.”
“I started on this case too early,” Bony said, eyes directed to his shoes. “When I first visited that camp on the day the flood came down I was almost convinced that Lush was alive because I was almost convinced that Jill’s bullet through the door hadn’t killed him. I am certainly baffled, and admit it. You have often been in mind as the killer, and I trust you will understand why.”
“I understand it, Bony. As you said, I had motive, I had opportunity, and I had the means. Come to sum it up, to suspect me is your job. There’s no bad feeling about it.”
“I am glad you said that, Ray. I may again call for this rifle, but I shall hope not. D’you know of anyone on Mira who owns a revolver or pistol?”
“I don’t think anyone does. We’d have no use for one.”
“Can you tell me anything of a man named Peter Petersen?” Bony persisted, and was given the smell of oil, if not a strike.
“Old Petersen! Yes, I know him. I was talking to him only a few days ago.”
“The day before Lush disappeared?” asked Bony sharply.
“Yes. It was in the afternoon,” replied Ray. “He was boiling his billy at the shearing-shed. Used to work here sometimes, and I asked him how he was coming along.”
“And he said—?”
“Said he was keeping all right. He said, too, he was headed for a job. I must have looked a bit doubtful, because then he told me he’d heard that his married daughter in Adelaide was sick and up against it. The daughter once worked with her husband for us, but he died, and Petersen was worried.”
“Did he say where this job was?”
“Yes. For the Vospers. They have a place eight to nine miles out west from Madden’s. In fact, they’ve taken over Jill’s sheep.”
“These Vospers would be on the telephone, of course?”
Ray nodded, and Bony rose to ask the White Bend exchange to put him through. Ray could hear him speaking.
“Mr Vosper? I am Inspector Bonaparte ringing from Mira. Have you taken on a man named Petersen? You have. When?”
“On the twentieth of this month, Inspector.”
“He would have arrived at your place the day before, I take it?”
“He did that. What can we do for you?”
“I rather want to talk with him, but the river fetters me. I could have Constable Lucas deputize for me, but I don’t wish to bother him. I wonder, now, would you see Petersen, and ask him confidentially if he still carries a pistol or revolver, and ascertain the calibre.”
“Of course, Inspector. It’ll be serious for him if he does, won’t it?”
“That’s why I don’t want to bother Lucas. Lucas will probably be ringing you to ask what swagmen camped or called round about the time Lush vanished, and you need not mention my interest in Petersen. Could you obtain the information for me tonight?”
“Certainly. I’ll ring you back.”
Bony returned to the inner room, saying to the expectant young Cosgrove, “Can I rely on you to forget what you’ve heard?”
“I’ll not repeat any of it, Bony. None of my business.”
“Good! Now tell me this. What kind of man is this Petersen? Bad-tempered, argumentative?”
“I don’t think either. He’s a blacksmith. As I said, he’s worked for us lots of times. Quiet man. No, he never argued about anything. Of course, he’s getting on. Must be over sixty. What would he want with a pistol? He’s harmless enough.”
“Yet he would encounter on the track men who are not harmless.” Bony rolled a cigarette, studied the young man, glanced at the clock. “What time of day was it you saw Petersen?”
“About three-ish.”
“Did he say where he intended to camp that night?”
“No. He hadn’t unrolled his swag, so I can’t give a pointer.”
“It’s more than likely that he did camp that night at the shearing-shed. The next day, the day that the utility was found at the boxes, he arrived at the Vospers’. Sometimes I err. I proffer an assumption when I ought to be explicit. If Petersen stayed the night here, then he would have seen the utility the following morning, the utility being on the route from Mira to Vospers’. Now why didn’t I cut his tracks in the vicinity of that utility?”
“Easy answer, Bony. He was wearing rubber-soled tennis shoes. Always does. Those on him were worn. Ground was hard and the wind at the boxes would have blown out the tracks on the soft ground.”
“I am not excused.”
He relapsed into meditation, and Ray took up a stock journal. Thirty minutes passed, then the phone called. Vosper said, “I tackled Petersen, Inspector. He admits carrying a ·32 calibre pistol, and says he’s had no cartridges for it for more than a year.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The Ponderous Enemy
DISTURBING reports of the river were received the next morning, and Mrs Cosgrove with MacCurdle worked to assess the extent of the danger to Mira. The main crest of the flood could be expected ten days hence, but added to the course of the steady rise would be the run-off from the recent rain. Hope lay in the possibility that the runoff might pass Mira before its influence could disastrously affect the main crest. If the two coincided the levee might well fail to hold it.
“Those three men out back with the sheep had better be brought in,” suggested the manager. “The sheep being off the river country will be all right, but we could get the Wilga people to send one of their men to check if we’re flood-bound longer than a fortnight.”
“Very well, send for them,” assented the owner.
“Good! Then Ray had better go straightaway.”
“See to it, Mac. I’ll get the latest weather map.”
Mrs Cosgrove contacted Superintendent Macey.
“Ah! Good morning, Betsy! How’s your flood?”
“Going to be worse before it’s better. What says the latest weather chart?”
“I thought you’d want that, so I rang Dubbo as they get the paper very early. The chart’s a dry one. The central point of a high is placed at Kalgoorlie, and there’s nothing in front to worry you. Could arrive at this longitude in forty-eight hours.”
“Is there a following low?”
“No, but the rear isobars indicate a low west of Port Hedland. Too far away for worry. More than fifteen hundred miles away.”
“Thanks, Jim. Keep an eye on that distant low. It could bring a strong westerly, and Mac’s afraid it might raise waves from this long reach to smash against the levee.”
“It could, too. I’ll get tomorrow’s weather map from Dubbo, first thing. How is our friend
progressing? Keeping you all cheerful, I hope.”
“I cannot say anything of his progress,” reported Mrs Cosgrove. “He took a river trip yesterday in the smaller of our boats. Went tramping about on the other side. That idiot of a Ray went with him. Why they weren’t upset and drowned I’ll never know. Mac asked him whether the trip had been profitable, and he said it had. Nothing more than that, Jim. Oh yes, they brought a mongrel dog and her five puppies back with them. As though we haven’t enough dogs to feed.”
Macey chuckled, saying that if Bony was happy doodling about the place everyone should be happy, too.
“Tell him, Betsy, that his Commissioner is getting cranky, and that he could be sacked once again and for keeps.”
“And you tell his Commissioner that he’s marooned and could be that way for a month or two.”
While this chit-chat was going on Bony was standing on the levee gazing upon the Gutter. The water was light red in colour. The level was only five to six feet below the edge of the near bank. The opposite bank had disappeared, and the bordering gums stood in water. Madman’s Bend was carrying water from the upper bend right across it: actually there were now no bends, and because of this release from confinement the river itself was running comparatively sluggish. Its rise, too, was now slower.
The men at work this morning were beyond the shed, and the noise of the machines reverberated between the red-gums. Bony heard also the light truck being driven by Ray for the reinforcements. It was another brilliant day, the wind cold from the south, the scents of the revivified earth sweet and alluring. Who would want to be a city cop?
Bony was becoming uneasy about this case, for his old ally, time, was being defeated by the Gutter of Australia raising the water to wash out for ever the clues and leads that the ground would have contained.
Even normal procedure was now upset by the flood. He should question The Brothers about the two recent visitors to their camp, although he gravely doubted that they would reveal who the two were. They are very close, these men of the outback tracks, and to question them without at least the probability of being told the truth would be unwise.
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