Death of a Swagman b-9

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “I asked him where the old man was, and he said he was still at the house. Hadn’t made an appearance. Expected he was washing up the breakfast things, as he always did. He himself was shutting up the place so that he could join in the search for my girl.”

  “Did you see him when we left the doctor’s house?”

  “No.”

  They came to the gate left open by Bony on the previous trip, and this time Bony alighted and closed it before they proceeded now on station property.

  “What did you do with young Jason after you saw me clear out with Mrs Sutherland?” he asked when again beside Marshall.

  “Well, I had told him that, having been friendly with Florence and all the other kids, he might be able to help us, and we were on the way to the office when we saw you getting off with Mrs Sutherland. That stonkered me somewhat, so I told him we’d both join in the search till you came back.”

  “You told him, then, that I am a police officer?”

  “Yes. You had yourself been broadcasting the fact, and so I told him that you were in charge of the investigation, and he had no need to be hostile to you because of Redman’s dealing with him. I wanted to keep him easy, you see.”

  “Ah, well! We can collect him when we get back. And after we’ve had a yarn with him we’ll invite the Rev. Llewellyn James to call on us.”

  “Can I be present?”

  “If you promise to behave yourself.”

  “Rats!”

  “Pardon my levity at such a time, Marshall,” Bony said quietly. “But we have to treat James with velvet gloves on our hands, as it were, with perhaps a horseshoe inside them. Pull up outside the hut door. We’ll have a look inside for a start.”

  On getting out of the car, Bony peered through the now white sand mist. He could see the dim shapes of the reservoir tank and the mill head but not the mill stand. The Walls of China were completely dissolved in the whirling flurry. The very ground seemed to be a moving white fog.

  Inside the hut the wind tore through the lifted drop window and out through the open door. Bony was thankful to observe that the mark of blood beneath the bunk was obliterated by the white sand brought inside by the wind. There was nothing to find, nothing to help. He closed the window, shutting out the wind, and said:

  “I’d like to know why the killer brought Rose Marie to this place. Why here, instead of dumping her anywhere in the scrub? He thought he had killed her when he dropped her on the bunk, otherwise he would have come back to the hut after climbing from the tank stand. And why climb up to that tank stand? I’ll go up there and try to work it out.”

  They left the hut, Marshall fastening the door. Bony walked across to the meat house, glanced inside to see his swag and tucker box as he had left them. The wind assisted them over to the tank stand.

  “Look out that you’re not blown off,” advised the sergeant.

  “The sand’s soft if I am. Phew! What a place to be on such a day!”

  Bony climbed the iron ladder and, when standing on the edge of the flooring, was just able to reach up and grasp the edge of the open tank, precisely as he had observed the hooded man do. Foot by foot he went around the tank, now and then glancing back to note the position of the hut and meat house. Eventually meat house and hut were blocked from his view by the curving bulge of the tank. He proceeded another two yards and then stopped.

  There was nothing amiss with the tank itself. There was here no easier access to the top of the tank, presuming that the hooded man had reached this side of it to put something into it. There was nothing out of place with the flooring of the stand. Why should he have come here? Why should he have stayed here for at least forty minutes-the period that Bony had watched from the shadow of the meat house?

  With both hands gripping the top edge of the tank, Bony hauled himself up so that he was able to peer over at its edge. There was nothing additional to what he expected to see-the wind-disturbed surface of clear water. Despite the wind’s action on the surface, he could see down to the bottom of the tank. There was nothing inside the tank save the water.

  Having lowered himself again to the flooring, he turned his body so that he came to stand with his back to the tank. All that he could see then was the mill, the head of it a little higher thanhimself. The three lines oftroughing extended outward into the white murk.

  Marshall came and stood looking up at him.

  “Release the mill!” Bony shouted down.

  The mill sprang into action immediately the draw pin was removed from the lever bar, and so vigorous was its action that Marshall had to adjust the bar to prevent the vanes from meeting the wind full-faced. Water began to pour into the tank at Bony’s back.

  The direction of the wind had not altered since the previous night, and although Marshall had partiallybraked the mill, the angle of the vane wheel to Bony was not markedly different from what it had been when the hooded man stood in that place. For several minutes Bony watched the working mill. He was oblivious to the wind and the discomfort of the flying sand mist. He could hear above the howl of the wind about the tank the “clang… clang… clang” of the labouring mill.

  Was that harsh, monotonous sound of pulling iron music in the ears of the hooded man? Were the swiftly moving vanes, even then gleaming dully in an almost solid disk, the reason why the hooded man had stood so long where he was standing? There was no sand mist last night to obscure the moon’s silvery light. Did that revolving wheel havean hypnotic influence? If so, what had that to do with the killing of Kendall, and what with the attempted murder of little Rose Marie?

  To Bony the light of day appeared to increase. He glanced up to the sun, only to observe that its pastiness was the same. He began the journey back to the ladder. He might easily have slipped and broken a leg, for his mind was not on the job of getting to the ground.

  “Well, whatd’youknow?” inquired Marshall.

  “I cannot find anything up there,” replied Bony. “Better shut off the mill, and then we’ll get back to town.”

  Before reaching the station gate on the main road they met a car. Both vehicles came to a standstill, as the passing was in a difficult place. The driver of the other car backed for several yards and again stopped. Marshall was now able to steer off the track to pass the other car, and when opposite, he and Bony saw that the driver was Mr Watson, and his passengers were the two pressmen.

  “Nice day for an outing,” shouted the sergeant.

  On again, then to the station gate and the main road. Marshall tried several times to start the conversation but Bony relapsed into a silence from which he could not be roused. All the way up the incline to the town he sat slumped into his seat, gazing with unseeing eyes through the windscreen.

  “You might like to stop at the doctor’s place and ask about Rose Marie,” he suggested when they had passed the church. “I’ll walk on from there. If your wife is with the child, tell her not to worry about us. We can make ourselves some tea and get our own lunch. Better arrange with Gleeson, too, to relieve him while he has his lunch.”

  “Thanks. I’d like to know how she is.”

  “Of course. Don’t hurry.”

  He entered the police station by the back door, which had been left unlocked, and in the kitchen noted that the time was twenty minutes to one. The fire was out, and he set it going to boil water. That done, he passed along to the office and lifted the telephone. The postmaster replied.

  “You still on duty?” asked Bony.

  “Yes. I thought I might be more useful here. Quite unofficial, you understand, and all that kind of thing, but a long press message was handed in about an hour ago. A lot concerns you. If you care to come over, you could see the original.”

  “Thanks! I will. Get me now Wattle Creek Station, please.”

  The book-keeper answered and Bony asked for Mr Leylan. A minute later he heard the squatter’s voice, and announced himself.

  “Between ourselves, I have quite a lot of work to do here in town,” he explai
ned. “I left Sandy Flat per boot, in a hurry, and I am wondering how the horse will get on for water in the night paddock.”

  “You will not be going back there tonight?”

  “I may. I have been thinking of asking you to send someone out there to give the animal water, and then put him back into the night paddock in case I should want him before tomorrow night.”

  “Oh yes. I can do that. How’s the investigation going?”

  “Slowly. A fresh development occurred last night,” replied Bony, and then described what had happened to Rose Marie. He heard Leylan exclaim whilst he related the story, out of which he left his own adventure with the hooded man.

  “That place seems to be cursed,” asserted the squatter. “What’s the attraction there for a man to commit his murders?”

  “I wish I knew,” answered Bony. “Tell me now, have you ever found on visiting the place that the water in the reservoir tank has been overflowing?”

  “Well, yes. It’s peculiar that you asked me that,” Leylan said. “Several times over the last couple of years, when I’ve gone there, I noticed a good deal of water soaked into the ground beneath the tank. Once I made a careful survey of the tank itself to see if it was leaking.”

  “You didn’t attach any significance to it?” pressed Bony.

  “No. You see, when there isn’t a man living there I send a rider out just to see that the tank is full, and to brake the mill to fill it slowly if it isn’t. The fact of the water overflowing I put down to bad judgment on the part of the man sent out.”

  “Hum! Thank you. Quite an interesting little point. Well, well. Miss Leylan home today?… She is! Say we’ll ring her a little later to tell her how the child is progressing. Yes, Scott has hopes. Good-bye.”

  Bony had made tea and set the table for lunch when Marshall came in.

  “No change,” he said.“Still unconscious. The wife’s watching her. Mrs Sutherland has gone home for some clothes and to take her sister.”

  “Did you see Scott?”

  “No. He had to go out.”

  Bony poured the tea, and the sergeant carved from a leg of mutton. They ate in silence for some time. Then:

  “I have glanced through the contents of that registered envelope you received this morning from Sydney,” Bony said. “The reports give an amount of information on theJasons, Gleeson, Dr Scott, and Way, dealing with their lives and reputations before they came to Merino. Nothing was known at date concerning the other people included in my list. I haven’t got much out of the information sent, for which I am truly thankful.”

  “Oh! Why?”

  “Because I want to finalize this case off my own bat, and if headquarters had supplied a missing link or two of my chain, you and I would receive less credit than is properly ours. Way did time in 1931 for sheep stealing… and that’s about all.”

  Having eaten, Marshall went off to relieve Gleeson for lunch, and Bony walked out to the post office, where in the little room devoted to the telephone exchange he read through the original press message from one of Mr Watson’s colleagues. Much had been made of the fact that Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte was in charge of the investigation into two murders and the attempted murder of the daughter of Merino’s senior police officer.

  “The sender knows quite a lot about me, doesn’t he?” Bony observed to Mr Lovell. “The padre gets a good notice too. Just too bad. Honestly, I hate publicity. Have you ever heard your children recite a rhyme running: ‘Annabella Miller, what are you doing with that caterpillar?’ ”

  “Yes, often.”

  “Little Rose Marie spoke it quite distinctly when we were bringing her to town, and when she was lying unconscious in Mrs Sutherland’s arms. I was merely wondering if there was any significance in it. How long have you been in Merino?”

  “Too damn long. Eight years,” replied Lovell.

  Bony smiled.

  “If you want a change, write a thousand-word letter to the postmaster-general and tell him what you think about his rotten politics and his rotten post offices, and his rotten radio voice. You’ll be shifted quickly enough. Sound advice… if you want a transfer to a better town. I must be going. Thanks ever so much for your co-operation. Receipt of that registered envelope saved a lot of bother.”

  On leaving the post office, Bony walked slowly back to the police station. He was about to turn in at the gate, when he saw young Jason standing outside the garage doorway. He beckoned to him, and when the young man arrived at the gate he found Bony waiting for him at the open front door.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Two Particular Fish

  “SIT DOWN, Mr. Jason,” Bony said, waving to the chair set opposite the official chair at the table desk. He pushed tobacco pouch and papers across the desk towards young Jason, who nodded and began the task of making a cigarette without removing his gaze from the man he had learned today was a detective inspector.

  “If you think I did it, have another think,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “I could have done in Kendall, but I could not have done in Rose Marie.”

  “Oh! Why?”

  Bony gazed into dark eyes now regarding him with a fixed stare. The greasy cap had been dropped on the floor beside him, and the almost black hair, parted low on the left side, was well brushed. But the eyes were not level and the mouth was not straight, and the left shoulder was lower than the right. The hands manufacturing the cigarette were large and strong. They were capable hands, very capable.

  “You wouldn’t understand if I told you, so I’m not telling you… why.”

  Bony lit a cigarette. Then he said briskly:

  “All right. Now listen to me. There is someone here in Merino who took Rose Marie from her bed last night, carried her away, then hit her on the back of her head with a blunt instrument, took her to Sandy Flat, and dropped her unconscious body on the bunk inside the hut. You say that you didn’t do it, and I have not even hinted that you did, and so may I presume that you will assist me to find out who did that foul deed?”

  “It depends,”came the surly answer.

  “Depends! Depends on what?”

  “Nothing.”

  There was no expression in Bony’s eyes as for a half a minute he regarded this unfortunate young man.

  “When Mrs Sutherland and I were bringing Rose Marie back to town she became semi-conscious and she said several times: ‘Annabella Miller, what are you doing with that caterpillar?’ Did you teach her that little line?”

  The surliness fled from the dark eyes and was replaced by an expression of wistfulness.

  “Did she really say that?” young Jason asked quickly.

  “She did. One of your own little rhymes?”

  “No. But she learnt it off me.”

  Bony nodded. The wistful expression was yielded again to the hard stare. The cigarette, now alight, was rolled from one corner of the crooked mouth to the other. It was obvious to Bony that the brain behind the high and broad forehead was exceedingly active.

  “What does Dr Scott think about her?”

  “It depends,” replied Bony.

  “Depends!” echoed young Jason. “Whatd’you mean?”

  “It depends on you whether I answer your question or not. I am willing to play ball if you are.”

  “Oh! So that’s it, is it?”

  “That’s how it is,” agreed Bony, adding quietly: “You’ve always liked little Rose Marie, haven’t you? As a matter of fact, although I am a detective, I also love little Rose Marie, so that if you and I do not agree on anything of value, we agree on that. I have reasons to think that you did not abduct the child and attempt to kill her, and also I have reasons to think that you may be able to assist me in locating who did.”

  “That talk’s all very fine,” young Jason sneered. “We get that in the newspapers almost any day. ‘Unknown man who witnessed the accident is asked to call at the detective office as it is thought he may be able to assist in identifying the body.’ I had quite enough of it
when that Sergeant Redman was here. Why, he said right out that I had a motive for killing Kendall.”

  “I know that… And had I been here, it is likely that he would have said the same about me.” Bony paused, then: “Now I am going to tell you something. It is one of my reasons why I don’t think you attempted to kill Rose Marie. You once had a brown and white dog. You were fond of that dog. More than once I have seen you whistle it to you and pat it. It was obvious that that dog loved you. And I know that you didn’t poison it. A man doesn’t poison his own dog… not with strychnine. If he wishes to destroy it he shoots it.”

  Whilst he spoke Bony watched the anger grow big in the dark eyes.

  “So the dog was poisoned, was he? How do you know that?”

  “I found him… on the Walls of China.”

  “On the Walls of China?” echoed young Jason. “Why, he wouldn’t have gone all the way out there. He never left town. He was never a hunter. That dog never hunted anything, not even a town cat.”

  “Yet I found him dead on the Walls of China,” Bony asserted. “Ibacktracked him and saw where he had had the fits from the place where he had picked up the bait. And the strange thing about it is that the station people all state quite definitely that no poison baits had been dropped anywhere on the Walls of China.”

  The middle-aged half-caste and the unfortunate white man stared at each other.

  “I don’t get it,” said young Jason.

  “Do you ever ride a horse?”

  “No… Why?”

  “Do you ever go for long walks in the surrounding bush?”

  “What the hell would I want to go and do that for?”

  “Because it has occurred to me that the dog might have been following someone… when it picked up the bait.”

  Young Jason nodded his head very slowly.

  “Yes… that… might… have been… how it happened. He was following someone.”

  “Who do you think he would follow?”

  “Who? How the devil do I know that? He might have followed-he might have followed anyone.”