Death of a Lake b-18

by Arthur W. Upfield

  It was distinctly warm, and the bottom was hard beneath an inch of sludge. They had toproceed fifty-odd yards before the water reached their knees, and another fifty yards before it rose to their hips. The water was loaded with algae, faintly green in colour, and it was impossible to see far below the surface.

  Witlowgave his humorous chuckle and splashed Bony, and Detective-Inspector Bonaparte shed thirty years. Gasping, yelling like small boys, they showered each other, and the nearer birds indignantly skidded away.

  They continued wading towards the centre of the Lake, the depth not increasing. Before them the water was almost constantly disturbed by fish, the surface being ribbed, being sliced by dorsal fins, often for a moment broken by the broad back of a large codfish.

  Like flotsam pushed aside by the bow of a ship, the ducks and moorhens swam to either side of the two men, and closed in again behind them. The great fleets of pelicans appeared to be motionless and yet kept their distance, and so with the swans and the cormorants. Some fifty-odd gulls accompanied the men as though expecting to be fed with crusts.

  The water came no higher, and its temperature remained cloyingly warm. The air above it was hot to the skin, and the westering sun was the blinding centre of a vast flame. When Bony looked back and estimated they had waded a mile from shore, the distant homestead wasaureoled in conformity with the crimson face of the bluff.

  “A fortnight of this weather will finish the Lake for another twenty years,” predictedWitlow, and knelt on the bottom so that his head looked like the head on Salome’s platter. “A hundred and four again today in the pepper-tree shade. It’ll go twenty degrees higher before this summer busts.”

  Bony knelt and managed to sit back on his heels, when the water tickled his chin. He could not forbear smiling atWitlow, who said:

  “Weshoulda brought a couple of chairs out here. Funny, ain’t it, being so far from land. Crook if the tide came in quick like it does up Broome way. Hey, stop your tickling, Jock. Oh, you will, will you? All right, brother.”

  He appeared to lunge forward, his face going under. He came up, crouching, and lifted from Lake Otway a codfish weighing in the vicinity of twelve pounds, the fingers of one hand up under the gills. Then he lowered the fish into the water, played with it for a moment, and let it go.

  “D’youknowwhat, Bony, that feller just came and leaned against me. I put me hand on him, and he still leaned. Just like alovin ’ cat.”

  “There’s one leaning against me right now,” Bony said. “I’ll try to grab him.”

  He failed, and then, being abruptly serious, he said:

  “Don’tmuch like the idea of groping after fish. Might catch hold of Gillen’s skeleton.”

  “Yair, could do,”Witlow agreed, also sobered by the thought. “He must be around somewhere, all the meat eaten off him by the yabbies.”

  “Were you here when it happened?”

  “No.”

  “Good swimmer, too, wasn’t he?” Bony nonchalantly asked.

  “So they say,” answeredWitlow. “Still, fresh waterain’t like the sea, and although it was a clear night the wind had been blowing all day and the currents out heremusta been still running. Some say that after a windy day the currents run round and round like a whirlpool, and having swum out about this far Gillenwoulda been in the centre andcouldn ’ swim out again to the land. Anyway, he must be around somewhere. Crook if you orme happened to kick him up.”

  Bony stood, feeling a chill down his back which had nothing to do with the prevailing temperature. He recalled a man much older thanWitlow who had kicked up a corpse in a lake surrounding a place known as Venom House, and it was not an experience he wished to share. Witlow chuckled.

  “Ain’tlikely,” he said. “No more likely than winning Tatts. Big lakethis, and a body’s mighty small. Look at those birds.” A vast fleet of pelicans had drawn closer.“An idea! Let’s shift ’em. Both of us yell and splash at the same time.”

  The effect of their efforts was explosive. The entire surface of the great Lake was thrashed with spurts of spray as the fleets of pelicans, the swans and wild geese, the countless ducks and the cormorants all skidded over the water to take to the air, the alarm passing from bird to bird with the speed of light.

  “Look at ’em! Look at ’em!” shoutedWitlow.

  A chain of swans swung by, low above them, and the swans were bright red. The gulls fluttered as though nervous of being rammed; they were crimson and reminded Bony of Dampier Bay and Broome where the widows were murdered. Crimson fire flashed from the plumage of whirring ducks, and the white markings of the pelicans grandly wheeling in great wedges looked to the men like splashes of blood.

  “Whatd’youknow about that?” yelledWitlow. “Thebleedin ’ Battle of Britain. Whatd’you…”

  Abruptly he sat down, floundered, came up again spitting water.

  “Strike me pink if aflamin ’ fish didn’t charge through me legs,” he complained.

  The birds gained height. The pelicans and the swans and the geese became armadas of heavy bombers, pounced upon, attacked by the meteor-swift ducks. The cormorants weaved as though completely bewildered, and the moorhens dived to the surface and huddled together as though in conference. And higher than the mighty bombers and the streaking fighters, the eagles spun their invisible webs beneath the scarlet sky.

  Sudden and powerful pressure was applied to Bony’s left leg, and he could feel the slimy body of the fish cannoning off him. It seemed, too, that all the fish had gone berserk, for his legs registered continued collisions, and the limpid surface of the lake was like a huge pot on the boil.

  “That’s worth wading out here for,” he said, andWitlow nodded agreement.

  The sun went down behind distant trees whose ghostly shadows raced to them, passed them by, yet held them with threat of inevitable night. The water slowly became placid, and the fish quietened. The smaller ducks came tumbling down the airways to shoot long arrows of lilac spray as the waterbraked them. But the big birds remained aloft.

  The two men began the journey to the shore, without haste, a little awed, for both were close to this spirit of Australia so impervious to Time and such finite matters as the birth and death of a lake. The distant bluff and the buildings upon its summit now were purpling, the shadows between the buildings like jet. The gulls flew on ahead, their colour now of gentian blue.

  “What do you reckon about the blokes around here, Bony?” askedWitlow a trifle too casually.

  “They aren’t verypally,” Bony replied, easily.

  “Can’t nail ’emdown. Must be the womenwhat’s upset ’em.”

  “One would think most of them were old enough not to be upset by women.”

  They plodded onward for a space in silence beforeWitlow said:

  “You could be right, but the conditionsain’t usual. I hitched to adrovin ’ outfit one time bringing cattle out of the Territory. Two men run the outfit, both of ’emolder than either of us. Hard doers, too. Fight and booze artists. Been cobbers for twenty years. They thought only about cattle and grog and racehorses. And then anabo joined up, and he brought his gin with him. Young gal she was, and ugly as hell. Inside a week them two old bastards were in holts, and if I hadn’t given theabo the wink to get going and take his gin with him, them two blokes would have murdered each other and the cattle would have scattered all over Australia. Day after the gin departed, they was back to usual. Beats me.”

  “They say a man is apt to slip when he’s seventy, or is it sixty?” Bony said, laughingly. “There’s certainly something eating the lads here at Lake Otway.”

  “Sure thing, Bony. Remember the night you got asked to play cards with the women, andme and the Swede went with you to see there was no cheating. And then what? Ten minutes after we started playing, in comes Bob Lester, all friendly and interested, sniffle and all. After him comes Mac… you know, just dropped in to borrow the flat-iron or the fry-pan or something. Next comes Harry Carney, joking about being scared of being in
the quarters all byhimself. Me and the Swede wastalkin ’ about ’emyestiddy. We never got close to them three, and somehow they stick together and yet snarl at the drop of a hat. Remember that brooch Ma Fowler was wearing that night?”

  “Yes. An opal set in gold. Good stone, too.”

  “Lestergive her that,”Witlow went on. “A hundred and twenty quid he paid for it.”

  “What!” ejaculatedBony.

  “A hundred and twenty. He told me. The emerald ring she’s wearing she got fromMacLennon, and Lestergive Joan the wristlet watch she had on that night. He paid forty-five guineas for it. Then the ear-rings and the thing she had in her hair Carney give her. Cost him twenty pounds for that lot.”

  “How thedevil do you know who gave what and what was paid?” asked Bony.

  “That’s the screwy part of the set-up,” repliedWitlow. “You see, those mutts simply got to tell someone about it. Lester tells me about the brooch, and skites that when he’s saved a few more hundred quid Ma Fowler will be taking a trip with him to Sydney, and he gives Joan the watch to back him up with Ma. Mac tells me about the ring he gave to Ma, but he don’t know that Ma promised Lester the Sydney trip; he tells me Ma promised to go on a bender with him to Adelaide soon as he’s got plenty of money to pay for the trip. Then Carney tells me about the present he gives to Joan, and says he’s keeping sweet with the mother till he pays up for Joan on the lay-by. See? All just between ’emand me or the Swede, if you know what I mean. J’uknow what?”

  Bony asked.

  “There’s going to be crackers and volcanoes before long. You can see it hotting up. Them two women are schemers all right. Proper trollops. Take a mug’s advice and go easy, Bony. Better spit at ’emthan smile. Me and the Swede could see what they was up to, that night we played cards. Smiling all over you. Cooing at you, and giving me a glad eye now and then, just to work up those mutts to send in to the office for a big cheque for more jewellery or something. And Iain’t so sure that Martyrain’t a mutt, too.”

  “Martyr!”

  “Yair. Joan has a sort of bracelet all made with opals. Could be worth anything.”

  “But whyd’youthink Martyr gave it to her?”

  “ ’Cosnone of the others told me or the Swede about that, and that bracelet is something to boast about, believe me.”

  “Did they ever put it on you for a present?” Bony asked.

  “No. But Joan put the hard word on the Swede for the loan of fifty quid, and Kurt told her he had to support six kids in Norway, pay alimony to a wife in Sydney and keep a woman up in Cairns. Them big birds is coming down. Let’s watch.”

  The pelicans came down in wide curves and spirals. The swans dropped in steeper descent. A pelican fleet turned to lineahead, followed the leader like black-and-white links of an everlasting chain. The leader skimmed water less than thirty feet from the two heads, and every succeeding bird touched water at the same spot, followed the same braking line, moved to the right or left of the leader to form a vast crescent, each ship with its yellow ‘bowsprit’ dipped in salute to the Lake. The ducks continued to dive and skate in foam to a cheeky halt at the men, then swam lazily about them as they proceeded to wade to the shore.

  “Be interested in a little bet?” drawledWitlow.

  “You name the odds,” suggested Bony.

  “All right! Betcherthere’ll be a murder within five miles of this out-station before Easter. Four to one in favour.”

  “Sporting enough,” agreed Bony.“In for a pound.”

  Chapter Seven

  ItPays to be Dumb

  HAVINGGAINEDFREEDOMof movement without arousing speculation, Bony rode one of the youngsters along the sandy track leading to Johnson’s Well. From the Well the track flowed over uplands ofbelar, pine and mulga, for thirty miles to the eastern border ofPorchester Station, on and on to pass by the homesteads of two settlers and so to the railway at the town of Ivanhoe. It was by this track that Gillen had come to the out-station of Lake Otway.

  It could be conceded that there are better places for meditation than the back of a young horse on a very hot afternoon, but the heat gave the horse something to think about and, being entirely devoid of humidity, was not unpleasant for the rider.

  So far Bony could make nothing square in this mystery of Ray Gillen and his vanished treasury.

  All that had emerged for the intuitive Bony was that those men and women who were at the out-station when Gillen announced his intention of going for a swim now waited with anxiety for Lake Otway to die. What did they expect, or dread, or hope from the death of the Lake? Did they foresee that, when the sun had sucked up all the water, the skeleton of Ray Gillen would prove he had not died from accidental drowning and thus start a murder investigation? Were that so, then five men and two women were associated in the murder, and this would seem exceedingly unlikely. Did they hope that, when Lake Otway dried out, the missing money would be exposed, and was it for this reason that every man and both women had continued in their employment here?

  They were united by two bonds: their anxiety concerning the coming death of the Lake, and their front to everyone not present when Gillen went swimming for the last time. In all else, each of them was opposed to all the others.

  Having reached this stage of his investigation, he was not dissatisfied with his progress, and again decided all he need do was to wait, when the people concerned would inevitably reveal exactly what did happen to Ray Gillen and his twelve thousand pounds.

  At Johnson’s Well he dismounted and neck-roped the horse to a shady cabbage tree. The well was situated on the bank of a creek some two hundred yards from the sandbar which prevented water running from the Lake when the level there was nineteen feet.

  The hut was built with pine logs and had an iron roof. There was no glass in the one window, and the door required new hinges. Near the hut was the well, spanned by the windmill, and flanked by large iron tanks from which water could be discharged into lines oftroughing for the stock. There was an engine shed and a supply of oil to work the auxiliary pump when the wind failed. Beyond the well were the horse yards, and an apparently abandoned reservoir tank stood in isolation between these yards and the engine shed.

  A familiar scene for Bony: composed of sand and drowsing box trees, grey creek banks and flats, summer heat and flies, and, in winter, icy winds sweeping over the low dunes to keep the air heavy with gritty particles. A mere living place for men willing to put up with utter absence of comfort in order to earn a cheque.

  Evidence of the work done byMacLennon and Lester was plain. The mill had been greased and the reservoir tanks were full, but the ball-cocks had been chocked with wood to prevent water running into the troughs. The oil engine had been serviced and run. There was, too, evidence that George Barby had been here with his utility.

  The interior of the hut hadn’t been touched. The floor was of packed rubble from termite nests. The long table was flanked by the usual forms. There was a bench under the glass-less window, and white ash still lay heaped on the open hearth. When Bony entered he disturbed a dozen rabbits, and they crowded into a corner and wished they had wings.

  He had boiled water in his quart-pot and brewed tea, and was sipping the scalding liquid when he heard the rising hum of a motor engine, and was not at all surprised whenBarby’s brown utility heaved over the hard sandbar and came along the creek bank, empty water tins rattling, and three dogs barking at the tethered horse.

  Barby stopped at the tanks, waved to Bony and proceeded to fill his tins. The dogs came across to make friends and then lie in the hut shadow with Bony. One of the rabbits charged out through the doorway, and the dogs simply were not interested. They accepted rabbits with the boredom with which they tolerated their stick-fast fleas.

  Barby eventually came over to squat and load a pipe.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Layin’off?”

  “Toughening a youngster,” replied Bony. “Where are you camped?”

  “Couple of mile
s round the Lake. There’s millions of rabbits coming to water, and I’mgonna fence a strip of coast and trap ’em.”

  The cook was no longer a cook. He wore a grubby grey flannel vest, old and patched tweed trousers and rubber-soled sand-shoes which once could have been white. The sun already had sizzled his face and bare arms, had puckered his hazel eyes and stiffened his brown hair.

  “If I had a farthing for every rabbit around this Lake,” he said with slow emphasis, “I’d claim to own half Australia. Heard over the air once thatthere’s five million rabbits in Australia. Well, all but ten of ’emisdrinkin’ at Lake Otway.”

  “All but ten million?”

  “All but ten. Eight, nine, ten. Those ten is down at Canberra laughing at the scientists. You think thatmysotis any good to bump off all the rabbits in Australia?”

  “Myxomatosis!” corrected Bony. “No. It’s partially effective, I think, on small farms and along rivers where the mosquitoes are busy.”

  “Therabbit’ll beat the scientists, don’t you reckon?” Barby persisted.

  “The rabbits will beat any germ, any man, any thing,” Bony said with conviction. “What the people in the cities and towns cannot grasp is the immensity of this land mass called Australia, and another thing they cannot grasp is that the Australian rabbit has been fighting droughts, sun, eagles and foxes, poison baits and GeorgeBarbys for a hundred years, and is still winning.”

  “Too right they have,” Barby agreed, earnestly. “Nothing’s going to stop ’em. Why, the young does when they’re six weeks old begin to litter fives and sevens every six weeks after. They’re the greatest breedingmachines that ever was. Let ’emmultiply, I says.”

  “They do eat feed and drink water needful for stock,” Bony mildly countered.

  “So what?”Barby asked. “Theyain’tdoin ’ no real harm to Australia. The rabbit is the poor man’s food and always has been. If the scientists do knock them out, which they won’t, and if the squatters do rear twice as many sheep, will the price of mutton be any lower? Will the cost of blankets and clothes be any cheaper? Or the price of tobacco and booze come down any? No hope. But the squatters and the farmers will be able to buy more motorcars and machinery to rust away in the paddocks, ’costhey’re too damn lazy to put ’emunder cover, and they’ll pay a bit more in taxes to let the blasted politicians have more world tours and get higher pensions when the people heaves ’emout into the cold, cold snow. And that’s all the scientists are being paid to bump off the rabbits for.”