“Never mind who I am, and never mind what Constable Lee might have told me. You answer my question and no slinking round corners. What’s your name?”
“Joseph Fisher.”
“You were camped at Catfish Hole the night Miss Storrie was attacked and left for dead?” the question shot out.
“That is so,” replied Bony, further fanning a smouldering fire.
“What time did you make camp that night?”
“That I couldn’t say.”
“Well, what time did you leave camp the next morning?”
“That I could not say, either.”
“Well, you had better say, and mighty sharp, too, or you’ll be for it. I don’t standno nonsense from nigs and half-castes. You’re a likely looking bird to have done this last crime. And you are wasting my time.”
The slight young man was looking at Bony miserably, but the face of Constable Lee registered a flash of genuine happiness. Bony’s calmness gratified him, and now he was mentally licking his chops.
“My dear sergeant-” began Bony, when Simone cut in:
“Don’t you ‘dear sergeant’ me,” he roared without removing the cigar from his mouth. “What time did you camp that night at Catfish Hole?”
Bony sighed with emphasized despair.
“I tell you I don’t know,” he said. “There was no sun visible and I had no watch. Because I had no watch and because later the stars were invisible, too, I could not state the time that the truck crossed Nogga Creek on its way to Carie and the time when it came back.”
“Then guess the time-do you hear me?”
“I can guess and be nearly correct. I camped about half-past six o’clock. It was about eight when the truck passed on its way to Carie, and it was about half-past two when it returned. It was about a quarter to two that I heard the curlew scream from about here. It was a wild night, and I was dozing when it screamed, and, as I told Constable Lee, it might just as well have been Miss Storrie screaming as that bird. It is all down in the statement I made to the constable here.”
“Humph!” grunted the hugely fat sergeant from somewhere deep in his stomach. He took a fresh bite on his half-masticated cigar. Then:
“I don’t like that statement. To me it smells fishy, and I’ve got a good nose for fishy statements. I didn’t rope in Moorhouse Alec and half a dozen other crooks without knowing a thing or two about statements. Yes, my lad, there is a lot queer about your statement.”
“I trust that I omitted nothing,” murmured Bony.
“What’s that? Omitted nothing? You might have done. I reckon you made up that statement, and what’s more I reckon you spouted it from memory, having been learnt it by someone else.”
“Why do you think that?” Bony inquired mildly.
“I’ll tell you, my lad, why I think it,” Simone vouchsafed, at the same time bending forward and leering down at the detective. “Igotta sister what reviews novels in alit’ry paper, and you and that statement is what she’d say wasn’t in character.”
“Dear me! I hope all the participles were correct.”
“What’s that?”
“I said I hoped all the participles were correct,” Bony replied. “I was always weak on participles.”
“I suppose you are trying to be funny. Well, I’ll tell you where you and that statement don’t square. It is too well put together for a half-caste swagman and fence cleaner.”
“You relieve my mind, sergeant. For the moment I actually thought you had discovered an error in the participles,” Bony said gravely, and even the slight young man forgot to be miserable. “Really, I did dictate the statement and Constable Lee really did take it down.”
“All right. We’ll return to the statement later on. Come on with me and no tricks, or I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks. I want you to show me just where you camped at this Catfish Hole, and where you sat all night with your back to a tree-according to your statement.”
The four men walked under the bordering box-trees to the lower extremity of the sheet of water called Catfish Hole. There Bony pointed at the charred embers of his fire, now partly submerged by wind-driven sand. Then he indicated the big tree-trunk, around which no man could have reached to strangle him. Simone expectorated with practised neatness before again glaring down at Bony from his superior height.
“Where did you come from?” he roared, to add without a pause, “Come on, now! Out with it!”
“I came up from Broken Hill.”
“You don’t belong there. I’ve never seen you before.”
“Oh, no. I came across to Broken Hill from Barrakee Station. You see, I was working at Barrakee.”
“Barrakee, eh! We’ll soon check up on that. Who owns Barrakee?”
“Mr. Thornton.”
“Humph!” Againcame the devastating grunt. Then Simone turned to the slim young man.
“Now, Elson, what time was it you left Miss Storrie to come on alone?” he barked.
“I don’t know the time exactly,” replied Barry Elson, who was dark, good looking, dapper, a horseman writ large all over him. “It would be about twenty to two in the morning.”
“It was a nice thing to do, any’ow, leaving a poor defenceless young woman to come on home alone a night like that, with this strangling brute in the offing,” Simone said insultingly. “To date we’ve only got your word that you didn’t go hurrying after her-if you parted with her at all-and try hard to do her in. Oh, yes, you can fidget, Elson. I’ve got two eyes and a bit right on you, same as I got ’emon Mister Fisher, here.”
“Let us hope you will not contract eye-strain,” Bony murmured.
“What’s that? You talking to me?”
“I am under that impression, sergeant. You have been staring so hard that you fail to see certain facts. Miss Storrie was attacked by the man who murdered Alice Tindall and young Marsh. When Alice Tindall was murdered, Mr. Elson was on holiday down in Adelaide, and I was not within hundreds of miles when either of the two crimeswere committed.”
Simone for the first time took from his mouth the now almost completely eaten cigar. His lips creased to express heavy sarcasm.
“Quite the detective, eh? So you and Mister Elson can be acclaimed innocent little lambs? Now let me tell you that the feller who attacked Mabel Storrie wasn’t the bird who done in them other two. If he had been that bird, he would have done the job on the Storrie girl good and proper. As it was, she was attacked by an imitator of the murderer, and a darned poor imitator, too. I’ll tell you two some more. The real gent is strong. The feller who attacked Miss Storrie wasn’t so strong. That’s why he failed to kill her. So don’t you two think you’regonna get out of it as easily as all that.”
“There are, of course, other facts,” Bony said carelessly. He was enjoying himself thoroughly, and Lee, guessing it, was enjoying himself too.
“I don’t want to hear aboutyour facts andyour ideas,” shouted Simone, viciously flinging to the ground the remains of a once beautifully symmetrical cigar. He was now standing rule-straight, his head thrown back, the velour hat appearing to be much too small for his bullet head, three layers of fat welling over his linen collar. “I’m headserang* of this investigation, and you aregonna know it before I’m through.-Now then, you, Fisher! How did you know Mister Elson was down in Adelaide when Alice Tindall was done in?” *The boatswain of a Lascar or East Indian crew.
“I’ll tell you,” Elson began to say when he was cut off like water gushing from a tap.
“You’ll tell me nothing till I ask you to tell me things, and then you’ll be mighty quick off the mark,” Simone snapped. “Now-you-”
“I met Mr. Elson in Carie last night,” explained Bony with unruffled calm. “It appears that a good many people regard him with grave suspicion, and so I asked him if he remembered just where he was when both Frank Marsh and Alice Tindall were murdered. As their murderer undoubtedly tried to murder Miss Storrie, when it came out that Mr. Elson was not in the district when either
of those other two were murdered, it seems very unlikely that he murdered the girl he is in love with. That’s obvious.”
“And it’s obvious that you and him have been in collusion,” sneered the sergeant.“Oh, no, my bucks! That won’t go down. The feller who attacked Miss Storrie wasn’t as strong as the birdwho did the murdering. And I can see two gents right now whoain’t so very strong. Now we’ll have a squint at the scene of the crime.”
Huge though he was, Sergeant Simone walked with strength and easy carriage. A bull-doggish appearance gave to him a personality not possessed by the easy-going Constable Lee, albeit a personality rudely overbearing and ruthless. He would not be lacking courage when dealing with armed desperadoes, but as a detective dealing with a bush case and with bush people he was a freak.
Lee managed to wink appreciatively at Bony before striding off at Simone’s side, and at half a dozen paces behind them walked Barry Elson and Bony.
“Thanks, Joe,” whispered the young man.
Bony smiled. His first impression of this overseer who was employed on a neighbouring station named Westall’s had been very favourable. It was continuing to be favourable, but a wide experience had taught him not to value a first, or even a second, impression. The reason why he had crossed the doctor’s name off his list was his conviction that the Strangler possessed agility above that of the average man. Mulray was long past physical agility up to the standard set by the average man. So was Mrs. Nelson and Grandfer Littlejohn and many others, and their names would be erased in due time.
What had impressed Barry Elson’s innocence on Bony had been the young man’s sincerity when, the previous evening, he had made open confession. Then, his handsome dark eyes and quivering lips bespoke sensitiveness and frankness. He explained how, for several years, he had been the Don Juan of the district, and how, when he finally and honestly fell in love with Mabel Storrie, his reputation rode him like an old man of the sea. Without foundation, Mabel had accused him of flirting, and she rashly presented him with his ring. To make matters worse, he had then got drunk on the day of the dance, but before the dance actually began he was sobered and had striven to “make it up” with her.
Then hadoccurred the walk following the non-appearance of Tom Storrie and the truck. At the Common Gate Elson had made another desperate attempt to obtain forgiveness, whereupon the still unappeased object of his adoration complained about his drinking. All the evening Mabel really had been as miserable as her lover, and even at this late hour the ghost of his reputation haunted her. It was that wretched ghost, and not the fact that he had been far from sober during the day, which had withheld her forgiveness. They argued for the next several hundred yards, and then, as Elson confessed, he blackmailed her for a kiss or two, with the threats of a dark night and a prowling strangler.
Mabel Storrie, however, was not the girl to be intimidated by threats of such a nature. She was no shrinking miss. She called Elson’s bluff and refused his escort farther; and he, as he said, like a fool, took her at her word and walked back to the township. No one had seen him arrive at the hotel, and no one had seen him enter and go to his room.
So now, as the policemen and the suspects walked back to the place where Mabel had been found by the coach people, Bony inquired of himself if Barry Elson could have been made strong enough by the emotion of anger to strangle into unconsciousness, at least, a healthy and robust young woman. “Angergiveth strength,” as someone might or might not have said.
“As far as I remember, Lee,” Simone was saying, “this Mabel Storrie is quite a hefty wench.”
“She’d weigh about a hundred and fifty pounds,” Lee estimated as the party arrived at the sand patch examined by Bony in company with Donald Dreyton.
“Humph!” grunted the sergeant, and then he glared at a kookaburra impertinently watching them from a nearby bough. “It was dark that night?”
“As dark as a rabbit’s hole.”
“That being so, I can’t understand why she walked off the road. You’d think she would have stuck to the centre of the track. Of course, she might have been dragged off the road by her attacker. That seems likely enough when we pass out the murderer of them other two and reckon she was attacked by an imitator. The murderer made no attempt to conceal the bodies of them he done in.” Baleful green eyes glared at Bony and Barry Elson alternately. “No, she didn’t walk off the road to this place. She was dragged off it by the imitator, who expected her brother to pass on the truck.”
The kookaburra at this moment chuckled throatily.
“But shewas attacked on the road and shedid walk off the road, to trip over that root and stun herself,” Bony said lightly.
“You’re mighty fly, ain’t you, Mister Fisher? How do you know that? Bit of a tracker, eh?”
“You really would like to have proof?”
“You spout your stuff and give less lip.”
“Very well.”Bony detailed the movements of the girl after the Strangler had let her slip from his hands, concluding with: “On that small claypan are the imprints of her shoes.”
“Show ’em!” snapped Simone, striding to the claypan.
Bony pointed to the outline of one shoe-heel he had mademore plain with a match point.
“Someone drew that,” Simone said scornfully.
“I did,” admitted Bony.“But here is another, and here another, which I have not touched.”
The sergeant squinted and could see nothing.
“Like hell, there are. You drew that mark on purpose to mislead the police.”
“If you stand here and bend low and so look along the surface of the claypan, you will see four heel-marks beside the one I have outlined,” urged Bony politely.
With ludicrous effort, Simone stooped and screwed his eyes to pin-points. Then he jerked straight and snorted:
“I can’t seeno heel-prints. Theyain’t there, and you know it. Oh, no, Mister Fisher! You’ve had your little joke.”
When he moved away, Constable Lee took his place and bent low. After a little period of strain he said with semi-conviction:
“I think I can see them.”
“You can’t see nothing, Lee,” raged the sergeant. “You imagine you see tracks ’costhis nig said theywas there. Come on! Enough of this. We’ll go and interview the victim. You come, too, Mister Elson, so’s you can see the results of a dirty piece of work. That goes for you, too, Mister Fisher. And don’teither of you ever forget that I can reach out and take you in just when I want to. This time I’m not going back to the Hill without a prisoner.”
And then that kookaburra opened wide its beak and cackled and screamed and chuckled, paused for breath and then gave himself a hearty encore.
Chapter Ten
Winged Allies
AS BONY HAD explained to Constable Lee, the detection of criminals in a city is much easier than the detection of the rarer criminal in the bush. Detectives engaged on city crime receive many important clues from the underworld itself. The allies of a city detective are many, because the criminal operates against a static background, such as a house interior, or even a street. The city detective, trained to follow defined lines of investigation, is out of his element when his background of crime changes from the static to become composed of ceaselessly moving sand and the surface of the virgin earth which is exposed to the constant action of sun and wind.
The keen city detective goes to science for assistance as well as for establishing proof. The camera, the microscope, acids and reagents, all are allies of the city detective. Without these scientific allies, in addition to innumerable human contacts, the city-trained detective is lost when investigating a really well-planned crime in the wild bush. Actually, Sergeant Simone was judged harshly for his failures at Carie, for here in the bush he was without his customary allies.
Bony had allies of an entirely different kind, but many of whom were to him as valuable as scientific apparatus is to his city colleagues. For assistance, he called on the birds and the ants,
vegetable growths and natural processes. Phenomenal eyesight and the gift of calm patience contributed largely to his successes. Of all his many assistants, he regarded Time as the most important. It was his firm belief that the passage of Time never buried a crime. It was invariably the criminal who strove to bury his crime, and Time which removed the earth and exposed it.
The day following his meeting with Dr. Mulray, Stella Borradale and Sergeant Simone, Bony began an exhaustive examination of the trees along Nogga Creek, beginning with those meeting over the Broken Hill road and that climbed by Donald Dreyton. The wind, having that pressure designated by seamen as a breeze, constantly agitated the foliage. For this he was thankful, as he did not want sharp eyes glued to the business ends of binoculars to observe his movements through the unnatural movement of tree-branches. Even as it was, he was obliged to work carefully in order to conceal his activities from the curious Mrs. Nelson.
High in the tree climbed by the fence-rider, he found a living branch sucker snapped close to the parent branch and hanging by a strip of its smooth bark. The resilience of the sucker was of such strength as to defeat the strongest wind to break it. A mischievous galah or cockatoo had not done the damage, because the break was too broad, and Bony decided that it had been done by a man climbing into the tree.
Himself wedged between a branch and the tree-trunk, the detective closely examined the broken ends of the sucker and the strip of bark holding them together. The bark still retained its soft green colouring, but it was the degree of remaining sap which led Bony to the conviction that at least ten days had passed since this sucker was damaged. That meant it had been broken by a man’s body or boot days before Dreyton had climbed the tree and several days before the attack on Mabel Storrie.
Why the fence-rider had climbed the tree was a question now nagging for ananswer. Had Dreyton seen something among its branches, causing him to climb the tree? Had the party of quarrelling crows flown to the leopardwood-tree from this tree at Dreyton’s approach, and thus had led him to the object over which they quarrelled? Any strange object in a tree would ultimately be discovered by the crows, who would announce the discovery by theircawings. That the crows had not returned to the box-tree after Dreyton had left it might indicate that the object of their insatiable curiosity had been removed by him.
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