Two minutes after crossing the Channels, there appeared far along the road a white blob that magically resolved into a painted bar-gate. It was the gate that darted towards them, not they towards the gate. Beyond it stretched a thin, dark line, to cross, in the far distance, a blue-grey crescent rising above the rim of the world. It was the fence crossing the plain to Karwir, the fence separating Green Swamp Paddock from North Paddock. It was rule-straight, but the road skirting its east side continued to curve like the track left on sand by a snake.
What made Bony look to the westward when the machine passed over the boundary fence, instead of to the right to observe Green Swamp Paddock that seemed to be so important to his investigation, he could not recall. As the gate passed beneath the plane, he saw the netted and barb-topped barrier lying like a knife blade along the centre of a rule-straight brown sheath dwindling to a point some three miles away.
For only a half-second did he see this cut line and the fence, but, during that fraction of time, he saw, about three-quarters of a mile westward of the gate, a white horse standing in the shade of a tree on the Karwir side of the barrier. Opposite this horse, on the Meena side of the barrier, stood a brown horse, also in the shade cast by a tree. Both animals were saddled, and appeared to be neck-roped to their respective trees. Stockmen chance-met and enjoying a gossip, Bony surmised.
The machine now was flying along the seemingly endless fence towards the homestead beyond the plain already sliding to pass beneath them. It appeared like strands of black cotton knotted at regular intervals, the knots being the posts. The plain folded away mile after mile to the clean-cut horizon west and south and east. Behind them, the mulga forest was drawn over the swelling curve of the world.
The miles were being devoured at the rate of two a minute. Down there on that road loaded wagons drawn by bullocks once moved at two miles to the hour.
The horizon to the south grew dark, darker still, to become saw-edged with tops of tall trees, the blood-wood-trees bordering the creek against which stood the Karwir homestead. Tall and taller grew the trees like a row of Jack’s beanstalks, and at their feet straight-edged silver panels resolved into the iron roofs and walls of buildings. The fans of three windmills caught and sent to the oncoming plane the rays of the sun. Dust rose from toy yards constructed of match sticks, yards containing brown and black ants and two queer things that were men.
With interest Bony gazed down upon the big red roof of the homestead itself, noting the orange-trees almost surrounding the building, the trees themselves surrounded by what appeared to be a canegrass fence. They passed over a narrow sheet of water, another line of bloodwoods, and now a little to the left stood the corrugated iron hangar beyond which was the spacious landing ground. A few seconds later they were on the ground, once more earth-bound. The yawning front of the hangar opened wide and wider to receive its own as Young Lacy taxied the machine into it. Then came abruptly an astounding silence in which lived a very small voice.
“There you are, Bony. We have arrived,” announced Young Lacy.
“And to think that twenty years ago one would have had to travel that road on a horse or in a buckboard,” Bony said, smiling down at Young Lacy who first reached the ground. The cheerful young man accepted the proffered suitcase and waited for Bony to join him.
“I’ll come back to put the crate to bed,” he said. “Come on! The old man will be waiting to meet you. Be prepared to meet a lion. The dad’s got a lot of excellent points, but strangers find him a bit difficult. The best way to manage him is to refuse to be shouted down. To begin well with him is to continue well.”
Bony laughed softly, saying:
“Thank you for the advice. In the art of taming lions I have had long and constant practice. It seems that your father conforms to a type to which belongs my respected chief, Colonel Spendor.”
Young Lacy conducted the detective across a bridge spanning the creek, thence to a narrow gate in the cane-grass fence enclosing the big house. Within, he was met with the cool fragrance of gleaming orange-trees, and the scent of flowers in beds fronting the entire length of the fly-proofed veranda along the south side of the house. He followed Young Lacy up two steps, and stepped on to the veranda, linoleum covered and furnished plainly but with studied comfort. Standing before one of several leather-upholstered chairs was Old Lacy—a patriarch of the bush, with a pipe in one hand and a stock journal in the other. His feet were slippered. Gabardine trousers reached to a tweed waistcoat open all the way. His plain white shirt was of good quality, but he wore no collar and no coat. His hair was thin and as white as snow. His beard was thin and as white as his hair. There was power in the grey eyes, and character in the long Roman nose. No smile welcomed the detective.
“This is Detective-Inspector Bonaparte,” Young Lacy announced.
“Eh?” exclaimed Old Lacy, like a man who is deaf. Young Lacy did not repeat the introduction. Bony waited. To have spoken would have indicated weakness. “A detective-inspector, eh? You? ’Bout time, anyway, that that fool of a Police Commissioner sent someone to look into this murder business. Well, the lad will show you to your bunk.”
“Mr Bonaparte,” Young Lacy said with slight emphasis on the title, “can remain here with you, dad. No arrangements will have been made for Mr Bonaparte because Diana went out before I left for Opal Town, and I forgot to tell Mabel to prepare a room. I’ll get her to make a pot of tea, and then fix one of the rooms.”
“Humph! All right!” Old Lacy seated himself in the chair he had but recently vacated, and he pointed to another opposite. “Sit down there, Bonaparte. What are you, Indian or Australian?”
“Thank you.” Bony sat down, quite happily. “I am Australian, at least on my mother’s side. If is better to be half-Australian than not Australian at all.”
“How the devil did you rise to be a detective-inspector? Tell me that,” the old man demanded with raised voice.
With effort Bony restrained the laughter in his eyes, for he clearly understood that this baiting was a real man’s method of testing a stranger. Before him sat a man who, having conquered life by fighting all comers, detested weakness; one who, having fought all comers, continued to do so by habit. Calmly, Bony said:
“My career as a detective, following my graduation from the university at Brisbane, would take a long time to describe in detail. In this country colour is no bar to a keen man’s progress providing that he has twice the ability of his rivals. I have devoted my gifts to the detection of crime, believing that when justice is sure the community is less troubled by the criminal. That I stand midway between the black man, who makes fire with a stick, and the white man, who kills women and babes with bombs and machine guns, should not be accounted against me. I have been satisfied with the employment of my mental and inherited gifts. Others, of course, have employed their gifts in amassing money, inventing bombs and guns and gases, even in picking winners on a racecourse. Money, and the ownership of a huge leasehold property, does not make a man superior to another who happens to have been born a half-caste, and who has devoted his life to the detection of crime so that normal people should be safe from the abnormal and the subnormal individual.”
Into the grey eyes slowly had crept a gleam. When Old Lacy again spoke his voice was less, much less, loud.
“Damned if I don’t think you’re right,” he said. “I’ve known lots of fine blackfellers and more’n one extra good half-caste. I’ve known many white men who’ve made a pile and think themselves king-pins. And as for those swine dropping bombs on women and children, well, they’re less than animals, for even dingoes don’t kill their females and the little pups. Don’t mind me. I’m a rough old bushy in my ways and talk. I’m glad you came. I want to see justice done for what I think happened to Jeffery Anderson. You’ll be a welcome guest at Karwir, and you can expect all the help we can give. You’ll want that, after these months following Jeff’s disappearance.”
“Of that I am sure, Mr Lac
y,” Bony asserted, conscious of the warm glow within him created by yet one more victory over the accident of his birth. “The lapse of time since Anderson was last seen will, of course, make my investigation both difficult and prolonged. I may be quartered on you for a month, possibly six months. I shall not give up, or return to Brisbane, until I have established Anderson’s fate and those responsible for it.”
“Ah—I like to hear a man talk like that. It’s the way I talk myself, although not so well schooled. Ah—put it down here, Mabel.”
The uniformed maid placed the tea tray on a table between the two men, then vanished through one of the house doors. Bony rose to say:
“Milk and sugar, Mr Lacy?”
“No sugar, thanks. Can’t afford it at my time of life. In fact, I never could.”
“Sugar is expensive, I know,” murmured Bony, taking two spoonfuls. “Still, aeroplanes and things are expensive, too.”
The old man chuckled.
“I think I am going to like you, Inspector,” he said.
Chapter Five
Old Lacy’s Daughter
“Now, Mr Lacy, let us go back to the vital day, the eighteenth of April,” request Bony. “What was the weather like that morning?”
“Dull,” instantly replied Lacy, in whose life weather conditions were of the greatest interest. “A warm, moist wind was blowing from the north, and from the same quarter was drifting a high cloud belt with never a break in it. We did not expect rain; otherwise I wouldn’t have sent Anderson to ride the fences of Green Swamp Paddock.”
“Kindly describe the subsequent weather that day.”
“About eleven the sky to the north cleared, and the last of the cloud mass passed over us about twelve o’clock. At this hour another mass of cloud appeared, coming from the northwest, and the front edge of this mass passed over a little after one. It began to rain shortly after two o’clock, beginning light and gradually becoming steady. When I went out to the rain gauge at four o’clock, fifteen points had fallen. The rain kept on steadily for the remainder of the day, and stopped only some time early the next morning.”
“How often has rain fallen since, and how much?”
“No rain has fallen excepting a very light shower on the seventh of August. The water didn’t run in the sand-gutters.”
Not yet was Old Lacy able to make up his mind that Bony was master of his particular job. The questions that followed helped him to do so. “Did you give Anderson his orders that morning?”
“Yes. After I had dealt with the men, I spoke to him. Not only was he to ride the fences, he was to take a look at Green Swamp itself and report on the water remaining in it. When the water is low the swamp is boggy; then it has to be fenced off and the well out there brought into service.”
“Can you recall the time that he left the homestead that day?”
“We had breakfast here at eight,” replied the squatter. “Anderson occupied a room in the office building, but he ate his meals with us and sat with us in the evenings when he felt inclined. I didn’t see him actually leave that morning, but it would have been about twenty minutes to nine.”
“Thank you. Now this is important. Did you instruct him which way to ride the fences—clockwise or anti-clockwise?”
“He rode opposite the clock. That is, when he left here he turned east along the south fence.”
“How do you know that?” persisted Bony.
“Know it? The groom saw him ride that way.”
“Ah, yes, the groom. I’ll come to him in a minute. Now where, do you estimate, would Anderson have been at noon that day?”
“Well, he rode a flash horse called The Black Emperor. The mileage of the south fence is eight miles. Assuming that he had no work to do along that section, and I don’t think he would have had any, he should have reached the first corner of the paddock at about eleven o’clock. He’d then ride northward along the east fence for almost eight miles, when he’d reach the sand-dunes back of Green Swamp, arriving there, say, at one o’clock or a little before. From this point he’d leave the fence and strike across country westward for half a mile to reach the hut beside the Green Swamp well. At the hut he would boil his quart-pot for lunch.”
“But,” objected Bony, “the following day when the searchers examined the hut there was no sign that Anderson had boiled his quart-pot.”
“That’s so,” agreed Old Lacy. “I’m not saying that he did spend his lunch hour at the hut. He might have camped for lunch when he reached the edge of the sand-dunes. He could have filled his quart-pot from the horse’s neck-bag.”
“So the horse carried a water-bag? There was no mention of a water-bag in Blake’s report. Was the bag on the horse when it was found the next morning, by the groom, standing outside the gate?”
“Yes. It was there all right.”
Bony smiled at his host, saying:
“We are progressing, if slowly. Let us assume that Anderson did not eat his lunch at the hut, that he halted for lunch beside the fence where it meets the sand-dunes. According to your observations, when Anderson reached the sand-dunes that second cloud mass was approaching. Being a man like yourself, having had long experience of weather portents, would he think that that second cloud mass would bring rain?”
“By heck, he would!” agreed the old man.
“Very well. You say that it began to rain shortly after two o’clock. Supposing that Anderson found work to do that morning, and that he didn’t arrive at the sandhills till some time after one o’clock, and that it began to rain while he was eating his lunch, would he think it necessary to leave the fence to visit the swamp?”
Answering this question Old Lacy almost shouted.
“No, he wouldn’t. The purpose of visiting the swamp was to see how much water was left in it, and so to establish the degree of danger to stock. If it rained the danger would be non-existent. I see your drift, Inspector. Assuming that it rained before Anderson left his lunch camp, he’d most likely continue riding the fence northward to the next corner, there turn westward and leave the fence somewhere north of the swamp to examine it if by then the rain had stopped.”
Bony’s eyes were now shining. He said:
“We can now understand why he did not visit the swamp and the hut. The rain coming when it did, when Anderson was where he probably was, relieved him of the duty. I have, of course, to prove that he rode as far north as those sand-dunes. By the way, it has not yet been established by anyone that, on this day in question, Anderson’s horse carried its neck-rope as was usual. What is your opinion about it?”
“No one can speak of the neck-rope with certainty, but I’m sure the horse carried a rope. The man wouldn’t go without it.”
Bony rolled and lit a cigarette, and now leaned back in his comfortable chair and permitted his mind to relax. He was experiencing satisfaction that he had impressed this hard old man with his mental ability.
“You will, I know, recognize the difficulties confronting me,” he said. “This case interests me. It is one worthy of my attention. My investigation may occupy me for a considerable time, so I dare to hope that you will not become bored with me if I am quartered on you for several weeks, even months.”
“I don’t mind how long you are with us, Inspector,” Old Lacy said with emphasis. “Anderson was a good station man, but he had a bad temper. No doubt you’ve heard about him putting Bill the Better in hospital, and thrashing a black named Inky Boy. I made him square up over that, and one or two other matters, but when he had the damned cheek to ask me to persuade my gal to marry him, he reached the limit. You haven’t met my gal yet. She’s out riding this afternoon. You’ll see her later.”
“A good horsewoman?” inquired Bony.
“There’s no woman in these parts can beat her. When she’s riding Sally, a pure white mare, she looks a picture.”
“Indeed! Is she out on Sally this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
Bony was seeing now a different picture
, a picture seen in a flash of time—the white horse neck-roped to a tree a few yards back from the Karwir boundary fence, and the brown horse neck-roped to another tree on the Meena side of the barrier.
“Miss Lacy was not in love with Anderson?” Bony mildly prompted.
“In love with him! Of course not. She’s only twenty now, and he wanted to marry her a full year back. Hell! What he said to me after what I told him, wasn’t worth saying. Him my son-in-law!”
“You didn’t sack him—evidently.”
“Sack him!” again echoed Old Lacy, but now his eyes were twinkling. “Not me. Why, the place would have been dead without him. It’s been mighty quiet here since he disappeared. Anderson was never a good boss’s man, and he wasn’t any man’s boss. If I’d made him overseer that time my last one left, I’d have been always writing pay cheques and looking for new hands. Him my son-in-law! I’m getting old, but I’m not that old. Anyway, my gal had no time for him.”
Bony laughingly said:
“I suppose she is still heart-whole?”
“Yes, she is that. Never had a love affair yet, to my knowing, and she would have told me if she had.”
Still thinking of the meeting of the riders of a brown and a white horse that was undoubtedly Sally, Bony was not as certain as was his host on this point. A possibility occupied his mind for two seconds, and then he asked:
“A violent man like Anderson would almost surely have enemies. The blacks would not be friendly towards him. What about the groom whom Anderson beat up and sent to hospital?”
“A weed of a man. Like a rabbit. He was paid good compensation. You can leave him out. The blacks make a different matter of it, though. I have always thought they caught Anderson and fixed him in revenge for what he did to Inky Boy, as well as for a nasty business with a young gin employed here in my wife’s time.”
Bony - 06 - The Bone is Pointed Page 5