Now he saw the man forking the imprisoned buckbush over the fence and experienced relief that this job he would not have to do before setting off again on another trip. For two hundred yards back from the creek the fence had been cleared of buckbush, and the worker leant on his long-handled fork whilst watching the approach of man and camels.
Blue eyes set widely in a dark-brown face noted every detail of the fence-rider’s appearance, and then the thin-lipped mouth beneath the straight nose and the dark brows of this Australian half-caste resolved into a kindly smile.
“Good day!” greeted Dreyton.
“Good day!” responded Joe Fisher, alias Bony, alias Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. “It is a day to be appreciated after yesterday. A glorious wind, that. It has provided me with a job of work.”
“So I see,” Dreyton said dryly.
“And all day I have been observed, I hope with admiration, by someone on the hotel veranda. He, or she, owns a pair of glasses.”
The fence-rider laughed with quick amusement and named the culprit. After that he stared at Bony, and, less openly, Bony stared at him. The result was that neither could “place” the other, and mutual interest quickened.
“Mrs. Nelson is a woman possessed of a remarkably sharp sense of curiosity,” Dreyton explained. “She owns almost the whole of the township, and wishes to own everyone in it as well—You’re a stranger here, I take it.”
“Yes. I came along on the look out for work,” Bony admitted. “I—er—put the hard word on Mr. Borradale for a job, and so, fortunately, clicked. Have you heard about the girl, Mabel Storrie?”
“A rumour, yes.”
“Ah! You are English, are you not?”
“Of course. My accent, I suppose?”
“Less your accent than your national reserve. I saw Constable Lee riding away along the fence to the west, and it is more than probable that you met. He was bound to talk of Mabel Storrie, and yet you say you have heard nothing more than a rumour about her and of her terrifying experiences near here the night before last.”
“You are, then, a sort of bush Sherlock Holmes?”
“I am,” admitted Bony gravely.
Dreyton smiled.
“In that case, you have examined the scene of the latest crime?” he said, not without sarcasm.
“Certainly. I, too, have a sharp sense of curiosity.”
“And discovered the murderer?”
“Not yet,” confessed Bony, still grave.
Dreyton laughed good-naturedly.
“You are a strange fellow.”
Bony unconsciously bowed. He was thinking that this fence-rider also was a strange fellow. He had seldom met men like this Donald Dreyton—so seldom, in fact, that he was as puzzled by him as he was puzzling to Dreyton.
Then he thought he saw light, and asked, “How long have you been working on Wirragatta?”
“Just two years now. I started here three days before the half-caste girl was murdered at Junction Waterhole. Heard about her?”
Bony nodded.
“Was that your first introduction to the bush proper? he asked carelessly.
“It was. It was not a good moment for the introduction. You see, the detective fellow certainly thought I was the murderer.”
So this fence-rider had had no experience of Australian blacks, because shortly after his arrival in the bush those then on Wirragatta had cleared away. And, too, shortly after his arrival, Alice Tindall had been strangled.
“Would you care to see the place where Mabel Storrie was attacked?” asked Bony.
“No, thanks. I am not that much interested in the details. On the road, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, on the road,” Bony agreed. “She was left for dead on the road.”
Again Dreyton laughed good-humouredly.
“I am afraid, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you are a little out in your statement of the crime,” he said. “Mabel Storrie was found some twenty yards off the road by the mail-car people.”
“Admitted, my dear Watson. Even so, she was left for dead on the road. When she recovered consciousness, she walked blindly off the road for twenty-odd yards. Then she tripped over a tree-root, and in falling received a severe blow on her forehead. There she lay till she was found.” Dreyton’s blue-grey eyes narrowed. “How do you know all that?” he demanded. “Lee doesn’t know it.”
“Lee? Oh, the policeman! Perhaps not. Perhaps he does and didn’t think to tell you. Come with me and I will prove my statement. We must run the grave risk of killing the cat on the hotel veranda. Even then I saw the sunlight reflected by her glasses.”
Having vaulted the fence, Bony led the way up along the creek-bank till he halted at the edge of a fairly large sand patch. Across the patch was the upper surface of a tree-root, and on it were the imprints of many feet. On this patch the girl was found. Bony explained:
“Those footprints were made by people who came here early this morning. The imprints left by the coach party and Constable Lee were, of course, wiped out by the wind. Now, the girl was walking home when the night was as black as a stove. Quite naturally, she clung to the road, and on the road she was attacked. Remember, no efforts were made by the murderer to conceal the bodies of Alice Tindall and Frank Marsh: so we may assume—if we take it for granted that Mabel was attacked by their murderer—that he, thinking he had killed Mabel, merely let her slip out of his hands and then fled. There was no purpose in carrying her to the place where she was found, because, although her assailant might have known her brother was due to pass on the truck, he knew that before the dawn the wind would have wiped away his tracks.”
“That seems a reasonable argument,” conceded Dreyton.
“It is. The Strangler’s tracks were quickly expunged from the ground. So were his victim’s—save in one place—Come here!”
Motioning the other to follow, Bony led the way towards the road where there was a small wind-swept area of claypan—sun-dried mud of a once-filled surface puddle. Pointing downward, he said:
“On that claypan are the impressions of cuban heels, the heels of Mabel Storrie’s shoes. Her walking shoes, for she changed her dance shoes for them before she left the hall.”
“My eyes are good, but I can see no tracks,” objected Dreyton.
“No? Then step back here a little. Bend low, like this, and look across the claypan, not down at it.”
The fence-man did as instructed, and at the lower angle he thought he could make out faint indentations. Still——
“I can certainly see something,” he admitted.
“I can see heel-marks plainly. Look! I will outline one of the marks.”
Standing over Bony, Dreyton watched him scratch the hard grey surface with a match-point, and there grew the outline of a woman’s shoe-heel at the position where the woman would have taken her second step to cross the claypan.
“I say,” he said apologetically, “I’m sorry I chaffed you about Sherlock Holmes and all that. Hang it! You must have eyes like telescopes.”
“It is a gift bequeathed me by my mother. You will see that if Miss Storrie recovers, and can recall all that happened to her, she will tell how she got up from the road and walked dazedly away, only to trip and fall and remember nothing more. Now I must get back to my job, or I will be getting the sack at the end of my first day.”
Continuing his work, Bony watched Dreyton and his camels travelling down the creek road to the homestead until man and beasts disappeared round a bend and so were hidden by the box-trees. Although mystified by the fence-rider, he had come to form a favourable opinion of him. He was a gentleman by his manner and appearance. Regarded on his present situation, he was a gentleman no longer.
“I wonder what he was, for what he is he has been only for two years,” Bony said aloud.
For a further half-hour he tossed the light filigree straw balls over the netted fence, so that the next of the prevailing westerly winds would roll them across the track and away to the
east.
It was five o’clock when he shouldered the fork, unhooked the water-bag from the fence, and began his return to the homestead. Along the creek road, plainly to be seen, were the fresh imprints of the camels’ feet. Here and there was a solitary imprint of a boot; here and there but a portion of a boot mark. The camels following after the man, almost but not quite, had blotted out his tracks.
Eventually Bony rounded the creek-bend, the bordering track now running to the south-west to Junction Waterhole. On the left of the track grew the line of box-trees, and between their trunks the detective could see, across the flat, the timber bordering Thunder Creek drawing nearer as he proceeded. On the right of the track, two hundred yards round the bend, there grew out on the bluebush plain a thriving leopardwood-tree, in the vivid branches of which a party of crows vociferously quarrelled.
On reaching an imaginary line to be drawn from the leopardwood to the nearest creek box-tree, Bony saw that Dreyton’s camels had been halted for some time. Now there was no necessity for the fence-rider to halt at this place, for he no longer was patrolling his section. Bony’s mind at once sought for an explanation. Without the smallest difficulty he saw Dreyton’s boot-tracks walk off the track to the creek box-tree, and, on following them, he saw where they circled the trunk. He was further astonished to discover marks on the tree-trunk, clearly indicating that Dreyton had climbed it.
Why? Bushmen do not climb trees for exercise or the fun of it. Dreyton was on his way to the homestead after a tiring day, and there must, in consequence, have been something up in this tree to successfully entice him to climb it.
Bony climbed the tree, too. He climbed high to the point reached by the fence-rider.
Later, when he continued the walk to the homestead, he wondered much about Dreyton, and if his climb had had anything to do with the crows quarrelling in the leopard-wood-tree.
Chapter Six
Dreyton Refuses Promotion
THE FIRST TO be seen of the Wirragatta homestead by anyone following the creek track from the Broken Hill road were the stockyards; and then, as he swung round a sharp bend in what had become the Wirragatta River, there came into view the trade shops, the men’s quarters, then the office-store building, and finally the large bungalow surrounded by orange-trees, which in turn were confined by a white-painted wicket fence.
To Donald Dreyton it was like coming to a palm-fringed oasis after a wearying journey over the desert. It was not quite five o’clock and work for the day had not stopped. The clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer on iron, the methodical clanking of the two windmills raising water to the tanks set on high staging, and the voices of the birds ever to be found in the vicinity of a dwelling, all combined to give him a feeling of prospective peace and content.
Some distance from the men’s quarters, which had first to be passed by anyone wishing to visit, Dreyton turned off the track to follow a pad leading down and across the dry bed of the river and skirting the top end of a beautiful lagoon beside which the homestead was built. On the river’s far side stood a small hut given entirely to the use of the two fence-riders.
The camels having been put into their especially fenced paddock, his gear carried into the hut, and he himself shaved and bathed and arrayed in white shirt and gabardine slacks with tennis shoes on his feet. Dreyton again crossed the river and sauntered to the office. The westering sun was gilding the tops of the gums and slanting between them to lay bars of gold on the surface of the waterhole about which the galahs and cockatoos created constant din. The homestead, being built on a shelf below the level of the bluebush plain, the township of Carie could not be seen. In its direction the cawing of innumerable crows indicated that the cowboy was at work killing mutton sheep.
Within the office Martin Borradale and Allen, the book-keeper, were at work before their respective tables, and at Dreyton’s entry the squatter glanced up sharply. An expression of slight worry gave quick place to a smile of welcome.
“Hullo, Donald! In again?”
“Yes, Mr. Borradale. I see that I have a day’s work along the Broken Hill road assisting that new man.”
“You need not trouble about that. He can finish it. How are things outback?”
“All right. I did another two strains of footing over the Channels. Might I suggest that when the bullock-wagon goes out again it takes a dozen rolls of netting and drops them at the Fifty-mile gate? I could get them from there to where the netting is wanted.”
“Yes, certainly,” Borradale instantly agreed. “The bullocky will be taking a load of rations outback next week.” He paused and tapped the table with a pencil end. Dreyton waited. Then: “I think I’ll send a couple of men and a horse-dray out there to do that footing. It will take you too long to complete it. Any rabbits along that section?”
“None. But I understand they are numerous less than thirty miles to the north-west.”
“That’s so. Yes, I’ll send men and a dray to do the work. Hear about Mabel Storrie?”
“Yes. Pretty filthy, isn’t it? How is she now?”
“Very bad, I hear. She was taken home this morning. Not only was she half-strangled, she was knocked about, too. Every one, of course, has the wind up.”
“Naturally. That new man—Fisher, he said his name is—seems to think that the girl regained consciousness on the road and then, dazed, walked away and tripped over a surface root at the place where she was found. Her head injuries, according to Fisher, were caused by that tree-root and not by the Strangler.”
“Is that so?” Borradale sighed, then fell to staring at the fence-rider.
“A strange fellow, Joe Fisher,” Dreyton said with conviction. “Is he a half-caste?”
“Yes. As you say, he is a remarkable fellow. He was camped at Catfish Hole the night Mabel Storrie was attacked, and he happened to be here when Lee called the next afternoon. Lee and I had him in. He argued like a lawyer and proved that he could not possibly have committed the crime.”
Dreyton smiled.
“He should have been a detective,” he said. “He’s wasting his time as a station rouseabout. Seems quite well educated. Are all half-castes like him?”
“Hardly,” dryly replied Martin. “The fellow evidently has had a good schooling. What about your coming back into the office?”
The fence-rider’s eyelids drooped before he glanced at the book-keeper. Martin went on:
“Allen wants to leave as soon as possible, because his mother is ill in Adelaide. I thought of you at once. You must be getting sick of the fence by now.”
“That I am not, Mr. Borradale,” Dreyton admitted smilingly. “Still, if Mr. Allen wishes to leave immediately, I will take over.”
“You will? Good man!”
Again the fence-rider flashed his quiet smile.
“On one condition,” he stipulated.
“And that is?”
“That you really will try to get another book-keeper without delay. Honestly, I am far happier on the fence than I was when anchored to this office.”
The quick gratification in Martin’s face subsided.
“Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll do my best. You’re a strange fellow yourself to prefer that hard life on the fence.”
“It is not so hard. You try it.”
“Not I.” Martin swung round to face the book-keeper. “When do you want to go, Allen? By tomorrow’s coach?”
“Yes … if possible, Mr. Borradale. My mother’s condition is worrying me.”
“Then that settles it, Donald. Officially you begin here in the morning. Agreed?”
“Yes. And you will not fail to write to the agency for a new man?”
“Very well,” assented Martin ruefully.
He might have said more had not light footsteps been betrayed by the veranda beyond the open door. Into the office came Stella Borradale, dressed in tennis-rig and carrying two rackets. A swift smile broke on her face at sight of the fence-rider.
&nb
sp; “Hullo, Donald!” she exclaimed coolly. “Are you really still alive? I wonder you did not choke to death in those two days of wind and sand.”
Dreyton’s face registered an answering smile, but no longer was his body relaxed in the easy stance of the bush-man, and no longer were his eyes unguarded. When he addressed her, he spoke as easily as he had done to her brother.
“I wanted to be a rabbit, Miss Borradale, so that I could burrow deep,” he told her. “It was no use wishing to be an eagle. Those I managed to see were perched in dead trees and looked extremely miserable.”
“They could not have looked or felt more miserable than I,” Stella said lightly, taking the others into her confidence. “In addition to the physical discomforts I was obsessed by the dread that something would happen. It spoiled the dance, and I was thankful to get home. Haven’t the detectives arrived yet, Martin?”
Her brother shook his head, and both he and Dreyton noted the look of horror deep in her eyes.
“I hope they send someone better than Sergeant Simone,” she said quickly. “He is an obnoxious person.”
“I think that half-caste fellow, Joe Fisher, would do better,” offered Dreyton.
“I have not seen him,” the girl said indifferently, staring at the fence-rider.
She possessed the trick of steady scrutiny without being rude, and Dreyton knew that he was being examined and approved much as his mother used once to do when he returned home at the end of a term at school. Her friendliness, he was well aware, was due to the absence of snobbery in her mental make-up. Her present attitude to him she adopted with all the men. It was never taken as ground for familiarity. It has ever been the general rule for those who live in “Government House” to address the men by their Christian names, and the rule has been in force for so many generations that were a man addressed by his surname he would accept it as an insult.
Bony - 05 - Winds of Evil Page 5