Winds of Evil b-5

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Bony permitted himself to chuckle softly as, with great care not to discharge the weapon, he broke open the breech and extracted the two cartridges. He would take his turn in providing a first-class mystery and proving that the Strangler was as cunning as a whole flock of crows.

  While walking on to the homestead, he visualized the squatter’s face when he went to examine his trap. Afterwards, when the case was finalized, he would explain everything to Martin and his sister. Altogether, Bony was feeling very pleased with himself.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Vigil

  THE WEATHER PORTENTS did not disappoint several men who had been waiting for the calm, hot spell to break. Shortly after the dawn following the evening when Bony watched Martin Borradale set his gun-trap, the wind rapidly freshened from the north. It sent scudding over the ground the debris of bluebush and river tree; it sent the galahs and the cockatoos and the crows whirling in the air like pieces of paper, and when Bony set off for Carie to fetch the mail it was raising the sand high over the bluebush. And the bluebush now was painted a brilliant purple on the underside of every curiously shaped leaf, and the sun’s shadows were tinted ash-grey.

  When in Carie Bony spent half an hour with Constable Lee. The northerly wind swept down the main street and caused Mrs. Nelson to desert her balcony. It assisted the detective on his way back to the homestead, but its angle gave the flies shelter against his face and chest.

  Two among his several letters provided much interest. One was written by his wife, in which she carefully noted a hundred and one details concerning their children andherself. The second letter was typed and was signed by the New South Wales Commissioner of Police. It was, however, the enclosure which was of greater importance, for it dealt wholly with the career of Donald Dreyton prior to his arrival in Australia.

  When Captain Malcolm Dreyton, R. N., was accidentally killed on the China Station in 1912, his son, Donald, was at school atStubbington, Hampshire. An uncle, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Dreyton, became the boy’s guardian and supervisor of his career. In due course the boy went to the Naval College at Osborne and subsequently graduated into the Royal Navy. Promotion was normal, and the young man reached the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and became the commander of a destroyer.

  Then one afternoon when Dreyton was taking his ship into Portsmouth Harbour in the teeth of a fierce out-rushing tide-rip it had collided with one of the small ferry boats, with fatal results to three of its passengers.

  At the Court of Inquiry the evidence regarding an order issued by Dreyton at the crucial moment, before the collision, was conflicting, but yet hostile to the young commander. Dreyton was dismissed from his ship and placed in the retired list.

  The writer of the report, Bony noticed, was plainly sympathetic. According to him, subsequent evidence had come to light which cast grave doubt on the justice of the court’s verdict, but was not sufficiently strong to base a demand for a fresh inquiry.

  Broken and disgraced and disinherited by his uncle, Donald Dreyton had disappeared from England and had never drawn his retired pay.

  The writer of the report asked for Dreyton’s address for several reasons. Opinion in naval circles had veered strongly in his favour. The quartermaster on duty when the collision had occurred had admitted collusion with Dreyton’s junior officer in giving hostile evidence. The admiral uncle had reinstated his nephew in both his affections and his will, and was only then beginning a wide inquiry to locate him.

  “This certainly urges me to remove Dreyton’s name from my list.” Bony murmured. “It is highly improbable that a man having Dreyton’s heritage and training would lust to kill. If he had sunk beneath the injustice of fate, he would have taken to drink or committed suicide. Instead of which he continues to live a clean life, determined not to sink farther than the Court of Inquiry ordained even if unable to rise again to his former status. Anyway, this report confirms a little theory concerning Mr. Dreyton. He has behaved exactly as the nephew of Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Dreyton would behave. Yes, breeding does count-but only when allied with training.”

  At noon there was hell created on this fair earth. The people of Carie shut their shops and barred the doors and windows of their houses. White-faced and anxious on her lover’s account, knowing him to be working with Dogger Smith in a camp having no protection, Tilly crept silently about the hotel, while James sat in his closed bar trying to read.

  The wind was not of cyclonic strength, not of the destructive force of the cyclones which cut into north-western Australia from the Indian Ocean. It was not the wind so much as the sand which wasbecome a blinding, choking menace. To be sure it was the wind that stirred the sand off the ground, raised it hundreds of yards in the air, but it was the sun’s heat which was the major force lifting the sand-grains ever higher and ever in greater density, so that for ten minutes after noon there was complete darkness.

  “I’mgettin ’ fair sick of these wind-storms,” Hang-dog Jack shouted to make himself heard above the pandemonium of roof iron and shrieking wind. “It’s all right for you blokes. You don’t have to work-not that you work properly any time.”

  “I had to go to Carie for the mail this morning,” Bony ventured.

  “Thatain’t work,” snorted the cook. “Youorter be only too glad to call in on James. How did the beer taste?”

  “The bar was shut.”

  “I’d have made ’imopen up mighty quick,” Young-and-Jackson stated with extraordinary emphasis.

  “I’d have stopped there with theflamin ’ mail all day,” said Bill the Cobbler, his bald head streaked with sand-dust. “Hell, what a day! Old Dogger Smith and Harry West will be ’avinga lovely time of it-just lovely.”

  “Do young Harrygood,” growled Hang-dog. “The young nip is too cocky by a long way. Looks down on them as has to work for a living. Ithanks the boss forlowerin ’ his dignity a bit.”

  “Cripes! This is about the worse storm we’ve had for years,” complained Young-and-Jackson. “Meand Bill has been trying to concentrate on a game of draughts. How Joe, here, and the doctor can play chess all night beats me.”

  “It’s merely a matter of will-power,” asserted Bony. “The doctor and I have been engaged on one game for the last two nights, and we intend finishing it tonight if it occupies us till morning. Sand or no sand, I am going to Carie tonight.”

  Barred in their own quarters, it was impossible for the men to do anything but sit on their bunks and try to read. Even to talk for long was impossible. The substantial building rocked and creaked and rattled. From without, the roaring wind was now and then blanketed by the flying sand to a moaning whine. It was the worst sand-storm in Bony’s experience.

  Not until six o’clock, when the sun was westering and the temperature was slowly falling a few degrees, did the sand waves begin to subside. The wind, however, blew no less strongly. The sun’s heat waning, the wind’s power over the sand waned, too, and now there were passing rifts between the waves when the sky was revealed the colour of a shark’s belly.

  At seven-thirty Bony announced his intention of setting off for Carie and the game of chess with Dr. Mulray. No one saw him slip the pistol into a coat-pocket, and no remark was passed about him wearing a coat this hot and most unpleasant evening.

  When he reached the open bluebush plain he knew that the sun was setting. There was, of course, no sign of it, and the red light which would indicate fine weather to come was absent. Great waves of sand-filled air rolled over the plain to scream through the small and close-leafed bushes and to hiss over the tortured ground. Here, away from the station buildings, the wind’s triumphant roar was changed to a low, sinister, throbbing hum. Of a certainty it would be an evil night and the morrow would be worse.

  Arrived at the left of the two black gates in the Common fence when the early-come night was fast falling, Bony walked westward along the boundary for a quarter of a mile and there sat down. He was a little early for an appointment, and he filled in time by rol
ling and smoking cigarettes which always were thick in the middle and pointed at the ends. The town he could not see. When one of the sand waves was passing he could not see two yards.

  Ah! A tall figure loomed into his radius of vision, coming eastward along the fence. It was Constable Lee dressed disgracefully in old civilian clothes and wearing an old cloth cap.

  “You are on time, Lee,” Bony shouted. “Come and sit here with me. It is a trifle early yet. Did you take care that no one in the town saw you leave it?”

  “If anyone did, I was seen to leave it by the north end,” replied the burly policeman, cheerfully smiling. “What a day it has been-and what a night it is going to be!”

  “An interesting night, let us hope, Lee. Did you bring some blacking for your hands and face?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you can turn yourself into a black minstrel. Remember to keep your eyes semi-closed. The whites of a man’s eyes can be seen in the darkest of nights when the eyes are turned at a certain angle. Listen carefully while you are making up for your part in this coming play. I am going to leave you at a place about forty yards out from NoggaCreek, and about midway between the camp and the road. Between you and the camp will be Sergeant Smithson, while I will be stationed on the Broken Hill road where it begins to cross the creek. We three then will have Elson almost constantly under observation as he will walk to and fro from road to camp. Is that clear?”

  “Quite clear,” replied Lee, who, having blackened his face, was now attending to his hands.

  “Very well. Now, this is most important. Our first consideration is not the capture of the Strangler, but the safety of Barry Elson. Our objective is to permit the Strangler to brand himself and yet prevent him from injuring the young man who so bravely is offering himself as the bait of our trap. If we can capture the Strangler, all the better, but once he is branded we can take our time tracking him down. Therefore, be wary about using your pistol. If you hear Elson shouting for help, rush to his assistance. In such case, Smithson and I will be doing that, too. The point is that when Elson shouts for help we must render it as quickly as possible.”

  “All right! All that is simple enough. Does the collar fit Elson?”

  “Perfectly. The iron is covered with white satin which not only disguises the iron, but holds the acid preparation. The Strangler will find it impossible to throttle Elson, but he is strong enough to do him some other grave injury if not stopped in time.”

  “If thisbirds falls into the trap, it will be a brainy scheme,” Lee said with unusual enthusiasm.

  “Smithson called it neat,” Bony said, laughing.

  “If we catch the Strangler tonight, who do you think he will turn out to be?”

  “Up till last night I was almost positive who the Strangler is,” replied Bony without hesitation. “Now I am back again in a fog which is worse than this dust. When I took your name off the list there were left the names of ten men. There are now five. They are:

  Hang-dog Jack

  Bill the Cobbler

  Fred Storrie

  Tom Storrie

  James Spinks.”

  “It will be the cook, I’ll bet,” asserted Lee.

  “I believe not. Hang-dog Jack is too obvious, and while the obvious is sometimes right I shy off it. No, my first pick is Fred Storrie, and my second his son, Tom.”

  “Who did you think was the Strangler up till last night?”

  “That is an unfair question, Lee.”

  “Sorry, sir-er-Bony, but I’m all worked up about it.”

  “Then let us get going. As you said, it is a nice little trap, butI do not like it notwithstanding. It is a reflection on my ability to solve a mystery with my brains. Perhaps, Lee, it is human to seek excuses for failure, and I am but human. Never in my career have I been met with difficulties so great and clues so few and of such small importance. Never have I had less assistance from nature, with so little indication of common motive. It is because I believe it to be impossible to obtain proof of murder, even if we knew the identity of the Strangler, that I have conceived this trap.”

  “Well, it will be quite a sporting event,” Lee said.

  “I doubt it. I shall not feel in a sporting mood. Now, no more talking, and, of course, no more smoking.”

  When half-way to the creek, Bony led the policeman off the road, and Lee, who followed closely, was obliged to keep his gaze on the detective’s figure so as not to lose touch. It appeared to Lee that they walked for some considerable distance before Bony halted, turned to him, and whispered:

  “Can you see the Nogga Creek trees?”

  Lee stared into the velvety night.

  “No, but I can hear the wind in them,” he admitted.

  “I can see them,” Bony said. “They are only a little more than a hundred feet away. You are to remain here-seated, of course. In two hours the moon will rise. In half an hour Elson will begin his promenading. If an attack is not made on him before the moon gets up, the moon will assist us; and it will assist the Strangler, too. Don’t move from this place until you hear Elson shout for help.”

  Lee was about to give an assurance when Bony vanished.

  The detective walked direct to the road and then along the netted boundary-fence to the creek. Arrived at the top of the incline leading down to the creek-bed, Bony went on hands and knees and crawled along at the foot of the protective fence, under the branching trees beneath which Mabel Storrie was attacked, and so almost to the bottom of the incline.

  Now he sat with his back to a strainer-post which was a foot higher than the ordinary posts, and by looking to his left he had the top of the incline providing him with a dim and valuable skyline. He was now immediately beneath the trees, but for this he cared little.

  Having reached this position, he felt distinct relief from an acute attack of nerves, and it must stand to his credit that, after his experience of the Strangler along this same creek, he proceeded determinedly. The strainer-post gave him a feeling of great comfort. Its height would prevent any man attempting to strangle him from behind. In the distance a dim glow marked the position of the “prospector’s” camp, and the sense of complete isolation was less difficult to combat because of it.

  Tortured by inherited superstitions, lashed by the contempt of reason, Bony maintained an incessant watch, visually searching for a monstrous figure slinking through this shrouded world of wind and noise. It was like waiting to spy upon one of those legendary half-dead people who are supposed to crawl from their coffins at sunset to roam the earth as living entities until sunrise. It was like a defiance of the bushbunyip, that horrific thing, half-dog, half-human, which, during the daylight hours, lurks invisibly in the heart of a bush, behind a tree, at the foot of the mirage, and at night takes material form to stalk venturesome blacks and half-castes who roam away from their rightful camps. This Strangler come from the world of light and colour into this living darkness with the wind and the stinging sand, and to the accompaniment of the wind’s fantasia. Bony was opposed to something which had uncanny sight, which could progress swiftly from tree-branch to tree-branch, which could move without sound.

  The wind was hot, and yet Bony felt icy cold. Reason and inherited superstitions warred within him with nerve-racking ferocity. After all is said about reason, it flourishes best in the sunlight and drawing-rooms. A dark night with a prowling, foul murderer at hand is apt to wither this flower.

  Thus was the reasoning Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte assailed by fear and doubt. Neither reason nor instinct assisted him to maintain the will-power.

  A noise not of the wind banished even fear from his mind, subconsciously tensed his muscles for instant flight. Someone was on the road, humming a tune, and Bony tightened his ears and taxed his straining eyes. He saw, passing by on the road, distant but four yards, the figure of a woman dressed in white, and he knew “her” to be Barry Elson.

  The fellow had grit, to be sure. A wave of shame and self-reproach swept through the soul of the
half-caste. For a young and not too robust man to walk alone under the creek trees and in this darkness, hoping and yet dreading to hear at any moment a quick, pantherish step behind him, and then to feel iron-strong hands gripped about one’s throat, demanded courage of the highest degree. To do it night after night and never to know when the attack would come! To have no tree-trunk, no strainer-post comforting one’s back! To be able to control oneself like that for love’s sake and the honour of one’s name!

  Bony was strongly tempted to call out, to get up and assure the young man that he was guarded by a watcher at this end of his awful beat. Barry Elson was playing the major part in a dreadful drama, while he, the investigator, crouched like a rabbit at its burrow’s mouth. But when the white figure passed again back to the camp, Bony kept silent and still.

  After that, the minutes passed slowly, dragging out their allotted span. Above the dull glow of the tree-masked camp-fire was now growingan unearthly refulgence. Against this gradually came into being the ghostly outlines of the branches of the near trees, and Bony knew that the moon was about to rise.

  The wind continuedits blaring of fantastic music, now satanic, mocking, shrewish, then strident, roaring, triumphant. Of the little familiar bush sounds there were none. They long ago had fled, affrighted by this monstrous concert played on leaf, bough and fence wire.

  When the dirty-red disk of the moon was high above the invisible horizon, the white figure again appeared. Only the mind of a madman would find no incongruity in a woman walking in such a place and at such an hour, but it was a madman Bony sought. Elson went on down to the creek-bed, and then turned and came back to “float” away towards the camp.

  After the passing of another hour the moon’s enormous disk, lustreless brown in colour, strove bravely to rise above the dead-black sand waves endlessly leaping upward to snatch it down into their inky depths. These waves appeared like lava and as solid, before they passed beneath the moon, when they becameredly diaphanous and made the moon’s light more terrible than the featureless darkness had been.