The Bone is Pointed

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “The rain eventually filled all those claypans, but in due time the water was evaporated by the sun’s heat and the wind, and during the last stages of evaporation the cement-like clay of the pan beneath which Anderson was buried settled into its natural level and became so hard that the wheels of a ten-ton truck would have made no indentations. It remained only for me to see the infinitesimal abnormality in the surface of that particular claypan, and I would not have seen it had I not known for what to look. Is my reconstruction correct?”

  Gordon nodded. Diana continued to stare down into the little fire.

  “By the time Jimmy Partner came back from returning the tools to Green Swamp hut it was early evening,” Bony went on. “The Black Emperor was let loose, the end of his reins being permitted to trail upon the ground, and we know that several hours afterwards he reached the homestead gate.

  “On the way home, John Gordon instructed Jimmy Partner to inform Chief Nero of all that had happened. The tribe was to go on walkabout being the tale that a lubra at Deep Well was dying. Jimmy Partner was to accompany the tribe. The aboriginal attached to the police at Opal Town was to be recalled, the method of communication with him being the age-old one of telepathy. Abie at once obeyed the summons, and so when the police were called in to investigate the disappearance there was not one black tracker available for several days. When they were employed, they had been carefully instructed.

  “I am not going to weary you by detailing how I found where you two met that day I arrived, and how I found that traces of the meeting had been removed. That was a secret you wanted to keep from me, not knowing that Napoleon Bonaparte has a soft spot in his heart for lovers. I haven’t time to explain how I learned that I was being tracked and watched by men whose feet were covered with feathers, or how I came to suspect that you, Miss Lacy, knew something concerning Anderson’s disappearance and were opposed to me, fearing for your lover. In my inner heart I never believed that you, John, instigated the blacks’ boning of me, and I am delighted that you did not and that you stopped it when you learned of it.

  “However, your stopping of the bone-pointing resulted quickly in my completing this investigation, for immediately my mind was freed of the terror created in it by those other minds, I reasoned that only the claypans had not been examined, that one of them would provide a perfect grave, and that over at Green Swamp hut was the ideal tool ready for use. I regret that you will have to replace the battery jars in the instrument at Pine Hut, smashed by my order to interfere with Miss Lacy’s communication with you.”

  Bony now produced from his pocket-book six envelopes. That addressed to Old Lacy he put down on the ground beside him. The remaining five he held as though they were playing cards, saying:

  “Exhibit One, the strand of green cable silk found attached to the rough bark of the mulga-tree to which John Gordon was tied.

  “Exhibit Two, a cracker removed from one of the whips owned by Jeffery Anderson, and manufactured from green cable silk similar to that of Exhibit One.

  “Exhibit Three, a human hair found on the bark of the tree to which John Gordon was tied.

  “Exhibit Four, hair from Anderson’s brushes.

  “Exhibit Five, hair from John Gordon’s brushes all similar to that one named Exhibit Three.

  “These envelopes contain sufficient proof for the indictment of Jimmy Partner and John Gordon. It has not been a difficult case, and I should have solved it weeks ago had not the boning blurred my mind. The grave I have not disturbed, nor have I marked its position. As for these exhibits, well, what shall I do with them?”

  The question was asked directly of Diana Lacy. Looking up, she encountered his feverish blue eyes.

  “Do you really mean that you would do with all that proof just what I might ask?” she said.

  Slowly Bony nodded his affirmation, and when she spoke her voice was barely heard above the cries of the birds.

  “Burn them.”

  Now Bony smiled, saying:

  “That is why I made this little fire. Burn these envelopes and their contents we will. Then you will be free, both of you.”

  Silently, they watched the envelopes become black and grey ash. Then the girl’s eyes again sought the blue ones so deep-set in a softly smiling dark face.

  “I think you are a rather wonderful man,” she said earnestly.

  “A large number of people think that, Miss Lacy,” Bony told her gravely. Then: “I asked you once to be frank with me. You then found that you were unable to be frank. Would you be frank with me now?”

  “I couldn’t be anything else, Mr Bonaparte.”

  “Then, tell me, why are you afraid to announce your love for John?”

  “Because father doesn’t like John.”

  “Only for that reason?”

  “No. Were John and I to be married it would mean leaving Karwir, and father is growing old and has no woman to look after him.”

  “To announce your engagement would not mean having to marry immediately, even next year,” Bony said, as he took his letter to Old Lacy from its envelope. “I want you to read this letter. Afterwards, you may deliver it to your father, or you may burn it now.”

  While she was reading, Gordon watched her and Bony stared down into the now smouldering fire embers. Gordon saw her face flame, saw her teeth press hard upon her lower lip. Then she stared at Bony, and he said:

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know what to do. Perhaps John—”

  “Yes, perhaps John could assist you.”

  Gordon was given the sheet to read. He said, unhesitatingly:

  “Deliver it. Old Lacy will read as much between the lines as we read. Even if we can’t marry for a long time, dear, it would be good to shout to all the world that we are lovers!”

  “That is what I have been thinking,” Bony told them. “Do not let your father know that you know the contents of my letter to him, but hint that you suspect I know something concerning the parentage of Jeffery Anderson. You, Miss Lacy, and I are experienced lion tamers, and we know that sometimes we need assistance. Your father does not really dislike John. He only thinks that he does.” Diana was presented with the letter, sealed within the envelope, and then Bony struggled to his feet and they stood with him. “Tell your father all I have told you. Omit nothing. He will agree with my handling of the case, and with my disposal of it.”

  Involuntarily Diana held out her hands to accept his.

  “I—I wish you were not leaving to-day,” she said, her voice trembling. “I wish you were staying for a week or so, so that I could show you that I am not naturally hateful.”

  “I saw that when I first met you at the Karwir horse yards that afternoon I caught The Black Emperor. I shall not quickly forget your loyalty to a man needing it so badly as John did. Now let us go across to the others watching that extraordinary spectacle.”

  This time they each slipped an arm round his, and he was glad because the action not only bespoke full hearts, it assisted him to walk when he wanted to lie down. He was very tired.

  The sun was low when the Karwir truck arrived loaded with rolls of netting, coils of wire, swags, rations, and men among whom was Bill the Better. The sun was now a huge scarlet orb floating in a scarlet mist that stretched from the apex of the fence angle to its couch of leaping flame. The eyes of the birds were winking scarlet lights. The tips of the fur streaming along the fence footing were varnished scarlet, the glossy plumage of the crows flying in the mist was tinted mauve.

  From under the scarlet mist, the units of the mighty migration continued to come in endless procession, but there was a slackening in the tide of fur, indicating that the procession must have an end, and that the end might arrive before the scarlet sun rose again.

  Everywhere were eagles perched motionless on trees and on the fence itself, birds gorged and tired of slaughter. Countless others stood on the depression eastward of the fence, unable to fly. At most they could only hop over the ground. The crows on the wing
were like flakes of a black snowstorm. They chased eagles and each other for no reason except that it was their nature to want something others possessed.

  Jimmy Partner, assisted by Malluc, had used the remainder of the wire netting brought by John Gordon to raise the netted barrier for fifty feet outwards from the corner, and Bony estimated that the height of the fur mountain at the apex of the angle was almost twelve feet. The surface was still etched by living rodents frantically searching for ingress to Karwir.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Captain Love-acre said for the hundredth time.

  “Nor I,” stated Superintendent Browne. “I’m glad that Bony is a bit of a rebel, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen this show.”

  Gordon drove away on his truck to Bony’s camp to fetch the detective’s few personal belongings. Young Lacy and the men he had brought unloaded the Karwir truck and began the work of extending the fence topping and raising it still higher.

  Gordon returned with Bony’s effects from the camp, and these few articles were placed in Bony’s case and the case in the aeroplane. Captain Loveacre required all hands to turn the machine so that it might have a clear run along the depression towards Green Swamp. He was the first to say good-byes to the Lacys and to John Gordon. Bill the Better came to Bony and asked in a strained voice:

  “I understand you’re leavin’, Inspector. Have you found the body?”

  Bony shook his head. Bill the Better looked glum.

  “Well, I don’t win me two quid, but I don’t lose no two quid, either. So long!”

  John Gordon and his sweetheart came to Bony, for whom Browne and Sergeant Blake were waiting patiently. Gordon took Bony’s hand, and he said only one word:

  “Thanks.”

  Diana took both his hands and squeezed them as she looked up into his wasted face.

  “Thank you, Inspector,” she said softly.

  Bony smiled and bowed over her hands, saying:

  “My friends all call me Bony.”

  “Bony—our friend,” she cried.

  Bony waved a special farewell to Jimmy Partner, to Dr Malluc and to Bill the Better. To Young Lacy, he said:

  “Good-bye, Eric. Please remember me kindly to your father and convey to him my wishes for a speedy recovery.”

  “Good-bye, Bony. We’ll all be glad to see you should you ever come to this part of Queensland.”

  Bony smiled at them all.

  “You know, I really believe you would.”

  Browne and Blake had to lift him up into the ’plane, and they waved to the small crowd before they disappeared inside the machine. The crowd ran back towards the timber to escape the dust. The scarlet mist and the scarlet sun painted the machine with glowing colour, and made scarlet searchlights of its windows.

  She did not seem to know it, but Diana, clinging to her lover’s arm, was crying. They saw Bony waving to them from behind one of the windows as the engines broke into their thunderous song of power. They waved back to him as the machine glided away towards Green Swamp, to rise and turn in the direction of the town. They continued to wave while the machine dwindled in size to an eagle, a fly, a dust mote.