“You do not seem to be very pleased with the results,” Martin said, regarding the detective curiously.
Having lit the cigarette, Bony looked up.
“No, I am not too well pleased,” he confessed. “I never really considered Hang-dog Jack as the guilty man. He did not—in fact, even now he does not—square with the steps of my investigation.”
“That iron collar and the acid paste smeared on it was an excellent idea. Yours, I suppose?”
“Yes. You see, having myself been almost strangled to death one night on Nogga Creek, I came to have a great respect for the fellow’s strength. He has hands of iron.”
“Indeed!” Martin murmured, his expression tragic. “Like these, I assume.”
Borradale’s hands had been concealed below the table’s edge. Abruptly they came upward. In the right was a revolver, which now steadily pointed at Bony’s heart. The left hand was held palm outward for Bony’s inspection. It was red-raw and blistered.
“You see, Bony,” Borradale said slowly, “your trap was cunningly prepared, but you have captured the wrong man.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Bony’s Unfortunate Friend
“NOTHING, INSPECTOR BONAPARTE,” Martin said, making a great effort to speak calmly, “nothing would grieve me more than to shoot you. I have certain statements to make, certain requests to ask of you, and then a certain thing to do. Should you reach for your gun, or attempt to leave your chair, I shall kill you. I must!”
The almost placid expression with which Martin Borradale had first met the detective this morning was now distorted into the reflection of a terror-filled mind. Bony shivered, but his voice was steady when he said:
“The effect of the surprise given me by this denouement is much less than the blow given my pride. Not to have examined the cook’s hands is one of the very few—but the greatest—mistakes I have ever made. However, all this is compensated for by the fact that after all I was sound in my reasoning right up to the moment I saw you setting a gun-trap in one of the Nogga Creek trees. Probably you will be good enough to explain just why you did that. If it was done to mislead me completely, then it was wholly successful. To retrieve my own self-respect, you could escape only after having killed me. Even so, you would have then to deal with Constable Lee and Sergeant Smithson, who so ably represented the prospector.”
“You mistake me,” Martin said, speaking rapidly. “I am not contemplating escape from you, but rather from myself—from this body and this brain. Let me speak. Lee and the sergeant will soon find that Hang-dog Jack’s hands are not burned. So there is little time left. When I have finished, you will get up from your chair and leave me here without feeling the slightest desire to arrest me, for you are not a Sergeant Simone.”
“That remains to be seen. Please proceed.”
Borradale sighed, and the agony of his mind was portrayed on his face. The pain of his hands must have been severe, but he gave no sign that he was conscious of it.
“Until an hour or so ago I did not know who was the Strangler,” he said, battling for control. “I am glad—immensely glad—that your trap has succeeded. But I must begin at the beginning.
“When I was at school I gave much trouble by sleep-walking. Sometimes I was rescued from sitting on the sill of the dormitory window with my legs dangling over a sixty-foot drop. Sometimes I was found on the roof of the building. Once I was watched climbing to the roof by way of a rain-spout. On another occasion I was followed to the park beyond the road where, in a line of ornamental trees, I climbed about like a monkey.
“On awakening I never could recall the details of these escapades. My school fellows used to regard me as something like a Tarzan of the Apes, and I took no little pride in my unconscious antics. My somnambulism almost came to be taken for granted. I never committed harm to anyone or to myself. Dieting had not the slightest curative effect. And then, when my father died and I had to come home to manage Wirragatta, I was assured by the head that I had grown out of my somnambulism, as I had not walked in sleep for several months.
“Arrived home here, I was claimed physically and mentally by Wirragatta and my father’s old overseer, who almost took my father’s place in my affections. I thought but little of my former somnambulism. It had never been real to me, because I recollected nothing of what I did. My adventures were related to me as though they were the experiences of someone else.”
Bony’s cigarette had gone out. Interest in what was being said, and speculation on what was about to be said, completely mastered him, but he noted with an underlying interest that the pistol in Borradale’s hand never wavered off the direct line to his heart. He could see in Martin’s face, as well as hear in his voice, the emotional tempest which was being chained by will-power. If the chain broke, then he might be presented with the chance to take charge of the situation.
“From my earliest memories,” the younger man went on, “a violent wind-storm produced in me extraordinary effects. First would come mental depression. That would be followed by a period of acute nervous tension. When in this back country, both before and after I was at school, at the height of a dust-storm, I can produce vivid sparks by gently rubbing my hair. I retire to bed at the normal hour, feeling tired and yet nervously jumpy. When I awake the next morning every muscle in my body aches and my mind suffers great depression. These last symptoms are not singular to me. A woman who occasionally visits us suffers hysteria when a wind-storm breaks, and I have heard of a man who nearly goes mad with headache while the centre of the disturbance is passing.
“Now I must hurry. Like everyone else, I was greatly shocked by the dreadful murder of Alice Tindall. It was done, as you know, at the height of a bad wind and sand-storm. Simone came here, fussed and bullied a lot, and achieved nothing. The blacks cleared out after a while, and their action was attributed to their fears and superstitions.
“One windy night, when returning from Broken Hill, my car broke down opposite Storries’ house. From there I walked home. It was after midnight. When on the creek track I heard someone coming towards me, and, wondering who it could be at that hour, I stopped under one of the trees and waited.
“It was Hang-dog Jack, and the following day I called for him and asked for an explanation. The earnestness with which he spoke prevented me from laughing. He told me that he had been deeply in love with Alice Tindall, and that after her murder he talked with the blacks, who told him that for some time they had known a bunyip to inhabit the trees. He had discovered that, bunyip or not, something haunted the bush at that spot, and he was offering himself as a victim, being confident of his own tremendous strength to deal with it.
“Because of Simone’s behaviour, I decided to tell him nothing of what Hang-dog believed. When Marsh was murdered I again talked to the cook, and pointed out to him that it was improbable that the blacks’ bunyip would wander so far from the trees. After some hesitation Hang-dog Jack confessed that he had found the body of Marsh on the Broken Hill road where it inclined to the bed of Nogga Creek, and that to frustrate Simone, or another detective, and so save the bunyip for himself to deal with, he carried the body to the Common gates.”
“Why did you not inform me of all this?” Bony naturally asked.
“Because from the first I was sure you would find out about the bunyip and its activities in the trees, and because I did not wish to get the cook into trouble over moving the body of Marsh. I was convinced that Hang-dog Jack was not the Strangler.
“I thought you would question my conduct as a man of substance and a Justice of the Peace. You will find it difficult, inspector, to believe me, but it is the truth spoken by a man about to die. Please do not let me think you intend to act hostilely. I am a good shot, I assure you. But to proceed. …
“Not until some time after Frank Marsh was murdered did I have the faintest suspicion that I might be the murderer. I awoke one morning to discover in my left hand an ugly wood splinter. I
could not recall how or when or where I had come to get it. The day before I had returned from a trip outback, occupying eight days. I had not been near a box-tree all that time, and I was convinced by a piece of bark attached to the splinter that it had come from a box-tree—and Nogga Creek. I sent it to an expert down in Adelaide and he pronounced it to be a splinter of box-wood. No matter how I concentrated my mind in going back over the preceding week, I could not account for the splinter being in my hand. I was positively sure it had not been there the evening before.
“It was the splinter of wood which first made me think about those old somnambulistic stunts of mine, and the question which became a kind of mania with me was: Had I committed two murders when in a state of sleep-walking? These two crimes were committed during the night of a dust-storm, and always had I walked in my sleep at school when a wind-storm was raging.
“If you will look to your left, you will see on a chair my day clothes neatly folded. It has been a life-long habit with me, first formed by my mother when I was a child, always to fold my clothes neatly and place them over a chair-back before going to bed. For many years I have never omitted to do that little task.
“It stands to reason that if I walked in my sleep at night, and went prowling among the trees along Nogga Creek, that the clothes I wore would reveal rough usage. My folded clothes never revealed anything of the kind. In fact, I have tied cotton round them before getting into bed and always found the cotton unbroken in the morning. It was the same with my pyjamas and dressing-gown. They were never torn or soiled, as the garments must have been had I worn them out of doors and when climbing trees.
“In short, inspector, I could never find any shred of evidence against myself. Am I plain?”
“Perfectly,” Bony replied. “Please go on.”
“Very well. I haven’t much more to say. Obsessed by the idea that I might be a murderer, I took a trip to Sydney and interviewed my old head master and house master. Careful questioning brought to light a significant fact. I had never been known to walk in my sleep unless a gale of wind was blowing from the land, from the west. Sea gales never affected me. While in Sydney, too, I visited an authority on somnambulism, giving him a false name and address. From him I learned that sufferers from somnambulism had been known to commit crimes, chiefly theft, and that in Austria, before the war, there was a case when a husband cut his wife’s throat when in a state of somnambulism.
“You will, I hope, begin to appreciate my dreadful problem. What should I do? Without any evidence against myself, I decided that to confess my fears would be foolish. A confession not based on some evidence would only cause my sister great distress and achieve nothing save possibly to have myself confined to a mental hospital for observation. If I could have been sure I was the murderer, then I could take my own life and no one need ever know the reason for the act.
“When Frank Marsh was so horribly attacked, I knew that something would have to be done. I appreciated the extraordinary cunning of this devil who went out and killed, but yet never attempted an attack on Hang-dog Jack, who could most certainly handle and kill him. He knew that. And so did I. Searching for evidence against myself became a frantic effort. I had to know the truth before I could even hint at my fears, even to my sister.
“Then I thought of you. We had heard quite a lot about you from Marion Trench and her husband, of Windee, and as my father knew your Chief, Colonel Spendor, I wrote to him, feeling fairly sure he would send you if it were possible.”
“That you did not confide in me when I first arrived is to be much regretted,” Bony said steadily, although the recital was tensing his nerves and sweeping him with a great compassion.
“It would have achieved little, and I might then not have found myself master of the situation. The crimes had been committed before you arrived, remember. After all, my suspicions might have proved groundless—the outcome of a too vivid imagination. If only I could have got evidence incriminating myself! If only I could have found the clothes I wore on those expeditions along Nogga Creek! A dozen times have I ransacked this room and my study. God … can’t you understand what I have gone through, and what I am now going through?”
Bony was mute. He had never seen agony painted on a man’s face as it was painted on this virile young man’s face lit by the flickering oil lamp and the sinister light of the day beyond the room. The wind mocked and screamed and bellowed in turn. The chairs on which they sat and the floor beneath their feet vibrated ceaselessly. Martin’s voice was higher, and he spoke more rapidly when he continued:
“When Donald Dreyton found a scrap of grey flannel cloth in one of the Nogga trees, I searched again for clothes, this time for a damaged pair of grey flannel trousers. I never found them. I possess two pairs of light-grey trousers and these are in good condition and perfectly pressed.”
Borradale paused to pass the back of his left hand across his wet forehead, but not for an instant did he remove his gaze from Bony, or move by a fraction of an inch the muzzle of the revolver aimed at Bony’s heart. First despair, then rebellion, and now a great weariness was in his voice.
“No, I have never found a shred of evidence pointing at myself. I can’t understand it. I have thought and thought about it until I thought I would go stark raving mad. I am not normally a vicious brute. I have never consciously thought of injuring anyone. Why, even to sack a man gives me pain.
“And then the other day—or was it yesterday?—you told me you would finalize your case within a week. I knew you would succeed, for I had summed you up and knew you to be not a boastful man. I thought if I really was the murderer, if I really was the man who swung himself from tree to tree along Nogga Creek, as Hang-dog Jack had shown me the murderer did, then I would set a trap for myself. You see, I intended never to stand on a drop with a rope about my neck or live my life in a lunatic asylum. So I arranged the shot-gun on the tree-branch I knew the murderer would leap to, and I aimed the gun so that when it went off it would kill him.”
“I saw you setting your trap, Mr. Borradale,” Bony cut in, “and after you left I took out the cartridges. I thought you were trying to get ahead of me by catching the Strangler. Had it not been for that trap, I would not have made the bad mistake about Hang-dog Jack this morning.”
“I take it that prior to that trap-setting you guessed that I was the murderer. I would like to know how you guessed, but there isn’t time for me to hear that. Last night I went to bed as usual. I awoke with the report of a gun in my ears and a violent stinging pain along my right ribs. I found myself clinging to a tree-branch, and in a kind of horrible nightmare I hung from it, not knowing where I was, and yet knowing I was somewhere on Nogga Creek, and what I had been doing there. Can you imagine a more terrible awakening than that?
“Then at a little distance from me someone fired shots. I thought that they were directed at me, and I fell from the tree to a soft patch of sand on the creek-bed. I was feeling sick from the pain at my side. Close to me there were men shouting and fighting.
“I knew then, as I crouched on the bed of the creek, that I was the Strangler. I felt—for I made no effort to make a closer examination—that I was wearing old clothes and old tennis shoes. In my mind was the one idea—to get away and get back into this room, where I always kept the means to escape myself should I find the evidence of my guilt.
“So I crept away and then ran hard all the way back to this room, where I lit the lamp and found myself wearing a grey-flannel undervest of the kind I have never bought, a pair of dark-grey flannel trousers I never remember to have seen, and a pair of tennis shoes I remembered having purchased in Broken Hill. You will find the clothes and the shoes under the bed.
“Where I have kept them I don’t know; I cannot tell you. I found my hands to be not only red-raw, but stained with green tree-bark. I have never seen that stain before, and on my return formerly I must have carefully washed them and then emptied the water out into the garden before hiding my old clo
thes and shoes—where, I do not know—getting into my pyjamas and then into bed.
“That, inspector, is all I can tell you. There is nothing I can add. The whys and the wherefores I cannot explain. Now for my requests. I know you will grant them. Afterwards, after I have escaped from myself, please relate all I have told you to my sister. Please try to convince her, as I have tried to convince you, that consciously I am entirely innocent of these terrible crimes.”
“Yes, but——”
“There can be no buts. I have seen my road for so long that I cannot mistake it. I am a kind of monster—a Jekyll-Hyde man—but I did not make myself what I am. If I surrender to you, I may escape the rope, but I will surely be confined to an asylum for the remainder of my life.” The steady voice broke at last. “I could not bear that; it would be too terrible. I don’t deserve the agony of a trial. I am innocent, I tell you, innocent! But … but look at my hands.
“I want you to tell Dreyton about everything, too. I want him to know that I am not a conscious monster. My sister loves him, and I have thought sometimes that he loves her, but would not speak on account of his poverty. I have willed him my half-share of Wirragatta so that no longer will he be poor. I wanted him in the office because I desired that he and Stella should be brought more often together, and because I was losing grip on the station’s affairs. Lastly, I want you to ask my sister to be sure that young Harry West is made boss stockman and given one of the cottages to take his bride to. No, not last. There is something else. I am going to ask you to grant me this request as a favour.”
Borradale stood up. His eyes were terrible and his gun hand was as steady as a rock. With effort, he mastered the trembling of his lips.
“I want you to plead for me with Dreyton,” he said. “I want you to try to show Dreyton that, although I am a monster in human shape, my father and mother were normal, decent people, and Stella is clean and normal too. I want you to impress that on him, because he might think that my abnormality is a family trait. It may be that I am a kind of throw-back, like a colt sometimes is a throw-back over generations. I don’t know. Will you try to make Dreyton see it in a sensible light? I’d like to know at the end that Stella would be happy presently.”
Bony - 05 - Winds of Evil Page 23