Bony - 07 - The Mystery of Swordfish Reef

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “But there’s plenty of fish to be caught for the market, isn’t there?”

  “They could all catch enough fish to sink their launches any week of the year. But there’s no way of selling them. People in the cities don’t like king-fish and tunny, it seems. They like sharks and flathead and other fish what feeds off offal.”

  Mrs Spinks’s eyes were flashing, and seeing that he was tread­ing on soft ground, Bony switched back to Ericson and his plans.

  “And you think that Mr Ericson really intended building a home here and getting your son to run his own launch?”

  “So he told Bill. Why, he was telling me, too, that evening before they last went out. I was down on the jetty waiting to tell Bill about a telegram that had come from an angler who wanted the Do-me for a fortnight. When the Do-me come in, I give Bill the telegram, and Mr Ericson and me was talking on the jetty when the Dolfin came in to get a fish weighed. Mr Ericson asked me then if I would cook and housekeep for him, and he was talking about Marion doing the housemaiding when the Dolfin was being moored.

  “All of us looked at the tunny what Mr Rockaway had cap­tured. Mr Ericson was extra interested. He seemed to get sud­denly very jealous of Mr Rockaway, for off he goes along the jetty leaving me a bit surprised like and Mr Rockaway with his mouth open like he was a fish out of water.”

  “That,” Bony said slowly, “is most interesting. Was that the first time Mr Ericson ever met Mr Rockaway?”

  “I don’t know. Oh, I wish the Do-me would come in. I never liked Bill being out late and having to navigate the bar after dark. Especially when the tide’s out as it will be tonight.”

  “Was Mr Blade on the jetty waiting to weigh Mr Rockaway’s big tunny?” pressed Bony.

  “Mr Blade? Oh—Mr Blade. No. He met Mr Ericson on the shore. They spoke for a second or two. I remember that because that Dan Malone shouted to Mr Blade to hurry along and weigh Mr Rockaway’s fish.”

  “Who else was standing on the jetty with you?” persisted Bony.

  “I don’t remember, mister. … Yes, I do. There was Alf Rem­mings, of the Gladious. He was there, because Bill give him the angler’s telegram, and asked him if he would take the angler. Remmings said he would.”

  Bony was smiling faintly as he regarded the panoramic view of sea and land: he saw the highlands darkly gleaming beneath the sinking sun, saw the summit of Montague Island and the lighthouse swimming on the horizon like a fabled land waiting to be visited by Ulysses; he watched the nearing Gladious and Snowy, and saw the sunlight reflected on the silver-grey hull and the brasswork of the Dolfin, now about to swing past the blunt tip of the headland. Mrs Spinks stood up to scan the steel-blue horizon.

  “That’s the Canberra,” she said, indicating a ship hull down but whose decks and upper-works showed vividly against the sky. “The Orcades will pass late tomorrow afternoon. I al­ways follow up the big ships in the papers. Mr Blade gets in wireless touch with them to ask if they’ve seen the Do-me, and if so to tell my son to come home. He’ll be wantin’ clean under­clothes, and I’ve got ’em all ready laid out for him.”

  “He’ll come home when Mr Ericson is ready,” Bony said softly. “You don’t want to worry so much about those under­clothes. And you don’t want to worry about Bill. He’ll be all right. I must be getting along to the hotel for dinner. It’s get­ting late. Come along. We’ll keep company.”

  “No.”

  The negative was spoken sharply. In the woman’s brown eyes again was rebellion.

  “Very well, but I rather wanted you to tell me more about Bill and Mr Ericson and young Garroway.”

  “I’m not going. I want to stay here and watch for the Do-me coming home.”

  Bony paused when some six or seven yards away from the afflicted woman.

  “You said, Mrs Spinks, that everyone else was cold, that they wouldn’t listen to you speaking about Bill,” he reminded her. “I’m not cold. I like to hear about Bill and Mr Ericson, and there you stand and say you are going to let me go back to the hotel alone. Come along and talk about Bill and Mr Ericson and the Do-me.”

  For the first time he saw Mrs Spinks smile. She said, walking to him:

  “It’s nice to have someone to talk to, someone who will not say that Bill was taken by the sharks. He’s a fine lad, my Bill.”

  She chatted about “her boy” whilst accompanying Bony down past the Zane Grey shelter-shed to the road where they were met by Marion, who was hurrying to fetch her mother from her vigil.

  “We have been gossiping about your brother and Mr Ericson and the Do-me,” Bony said cheerfully. “And we have decided that most likely Mr Ericson persuaded your brother to go across to try the fishing in New Zealand waters. That is why they have been away so long. And, of course, over there they found the fishing so good that they forgot to send word.”

  “That’s how it is, Marion,” Mrs Spinks cried, again smiling. Marion regarded her mother, a smile stillborn on her vivid face. She turned and walked with them to the hotel; and for the first time since the fourth of October, Mrs. Spinks went home without resisting.

  While Bony was preparing himself for dinner, he thought it strange that those two women refused to believe that William Spinks was dead, were so emphatic in their belief that he still lived. And when he thought of that little scene on the jetty when Mr Ericson walked away in a huff because Mr Rockaway had captured a large tuna, he smiled at his mirror-reflected face and murmured:

  “You are a very clever man, my dear Napoleon Bonaparte. Mrs Spinks gave you this afternoon the authority for thinking along a certain line. Ah yes—this case is moving. But I can’t think that those Spinks women are right in believing William Spinks to be still alive.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Marine Surprises

  THE SIXTEENTH of January produced pictures that were, with ease, to be brought to the screen of Bony’s mind for many years.

  It was a cool and brilliant day and, having caught a supply of bait-fish, Wilton directed Joe to take the Marlin away to the south-east and then follow Swordfish Reef to the north and Montague Island. And then, having attended to his engine, he came aft to sit in the spare angler’s chair and roll a cigarette.

  “I was talking to Mrs Spinks yesterday afternoon,” Bony said. “I was up on the headland working out a problem when she found me. It’s more than a little strange that she and her daughter so firmly believe that Bill Spinks is still alive, don’t you think?”

  Wilton’s brown face was newly shaved. His brown eyes directed their gaze over the sea, for long practice had given him the ability to occupy one part of his mind with talk and the other with the search for a fin.

  “Not so strange as a man might think,” he countered.

  “Explain,” lightly besought Bony.

  “Well, you see, old man Spinks was no good, and before he slipped his anchor the family life was just plain hell. Fights, arguments, not much money, worry, and sheer damnation.

  “When he died Mrs Spinks was a bit of a wreck. Bill and Marion were then just over eighteen, and at once a big change came over Bill. It seemed to many of us that we’d been looking at him in a kind of fog, and that, after the old man drank him­self to death, he stepped right out of the fog and became sort of real. Him and Marion and me had kept together at school. Always good pals. When we left school Bill went into the fog I was telling about. When he came out of it, he put it on me to be my mate, as I was fishing on my own, having got my old man’s launch when he died a year before.

  “Young Bill turned out a tiger for work, and I was able to lend him a hand, too. In less than a year Bill had paid off the debts and got the home on its feet, and Ma Spinks and Marion were living in peace and security. No more did Marion have to work out. Bill insisted on her staying home and helping to look after the mother. I never knew a feller who thought more of his mother than Bill did. He never left her in the morning with­out kissing her, and he never got home at night without kissing her. I suppose that after the he
ll they’d lived in for years they wanted the new life to be a kind of heaven.”

  Wilton left the chair and walked forward to take a long look at the sea. When he returned, Bony said, pleadingly:

  “Well, go on with the real life story, Jack.”

  “Oh yes, Bill Spinks. Well, after he had been my mate for a couple of years he had money in the bank and the women were just happy and content. I’ve always loved Marion. Loved her when we was kids. And I wanted her to marry me. I knew she liked me; always had. I knew, too, there wasn’t anybody else. But …”

  “Just couldn’t make up her mind about marrying, eh?”

  “That’s about how it was, right up to the time the Do-me vanished. Anyway, Bill saved money. Wouldn’t drink or smoke or even go to the pictures. He began to talk about buying a launch that was likely to come on the market; then he shifted off that idea and began to build the Do-me in his spare time. Joe came back from deep-sea sailoring and I took him on, and when we could we gave Bill a hand with his building. Mrs Spinks and Marion would come along sometimes and watch us working. And then Joe and me were out of it. It was just them three, you see. They was a kind of triangle nothing could bust—nothing but what must have happened that day the Do-me never came back. I used to get sore sometimes: jealous, I suppose. Yes … I reckon if Bill was dead them two women would know about it.”

  “Tragedy that touches the dead blights the living, Jack,” Bony murmured, and then became silent for a space. Presently: “Still, if Bill Spinks is not dead, why doesn’t he come forward and tell us who shot Ericson and what became of the Do-me?”

  “Because he’s not allowed to that’s why.”

  “Not allowed to! Do you mean you think he is being held prisoner somewhere?”

  Wilton’s gaze was seldom directed at Bony; even when he answered this last question he continued the search for a fin.

  “I don’t know rightly what to think. He’s not dead, according to the women. If he is alive and was able he’d have come for­ward. Not having come forward, and still being alive, he must be kept somewhere against his will.”

  “Made prisoner by those who murdered Ericson?”

  “Yes.”

  Bony sighed.

  “I’m afraid, Jack, I can’t agree with that theory,” he said, slowly. “It’s now more than three months since the Do-me dis­appeared, and those who would attack the Do-me at sea and murder her angler are hardly likely to spare her crew. To do otherwise would mean keeping Spinks and Garroway prisoners for years—all their lives.”

  “It all sounds stupid, I know,” Wilton admitted. Then, as though after all there was possible basis for argument: “But the women still don’t believe he’s dead.”

  Bony persisted:

  “During the Great War thousands of women wouldn’t be­lieve that their dear ones were dead; believed that one day they would come home from a prisoners’ camp, or after a long period of mental aberration due to war.”

  “The same thing doesn’t apply. Them three Spinks were extra close together. Besides, Bill and Marion are twins.”

  “And you believe Spinks to be alive because they believe it?”

  “Yes. One day the mystery of the Do-me is going to be cleared up, and then Bill Spinks will come back to his home.”

  “That being so, Jack, Spinks might return to his home in the near future.”

  This made Wilton direct his gaze towards the half-caste who was faintly smiling.

  “You know,” Bony went on, “between the Spinks women and you I am beginning to think that Bill Spinks might be still alive. I shall have to take certain precautions when I wind up this investigation. I must think very seriously about it.”

  Wilton’s brown eyes opened wide and he said, as though breathless:

  “D’you think you’re getting near the end of the investigation?”

  Bony nodded.

  “Will you let Joe and me be in at the finish? Dan Malone is a tough customer, and that Dave Marshall’s no mug in a scrap.”

  “Surely you are not accusing them and Mr Rockaway …”

  “What about that gun? What about them paint brushes? What about Rockaway saying his house was being done up when it wasn’t? What about Rockaway and Mr Ericson be­having as though they recognized each other that afternoon when the Dolfin brought in that big tunny? Remmings reckoned they recognized each other, anyhow?”

  “Now, now, Jack,” Bony said, reprovingly, “you must leave the speculating to me. When the time comes for the roundup, as they say in the moving pictures, I shall certainly ask you and Joe to be in it with me. But nothing to Joe yet, please.”

  “Right-oh. I’ll go for’ard for a spell. There’s lots of things I’d like to ask you. There’s—”

  “Don’t, Jack. I hate telling lies,” Bony cut in, laughingly.

  “Hey, Jack! ’Way for’ard!” shouted Joe.

  Wilton bounded to Joe’s side, to stand with him for a second or two looking through the glass protecting helmsman and cabin. Then he was agilely scrambling forward to the mast, to stand there for a space. Bony raised himself above the cabin roof by standing on the gunwale, to see two miles directly ahead a rusty-hulled, black-funnelled ship wallowing along at slow speed. Wilton came aft.

  “It looks to me like a shoal of tunny following that trawler,” he shouted to permit Joe to hear.

  “How do you make that out—about the shoal of tunny?” asked Bony.

  “Compare the sea behind the trawler to the sea ahead of her.”

  “Ah! It looks darker behind the ship. The sea looks as though a fierce squall is tormenting it.”

  “ ’Tain’t wind. It’s surface fish. I can see the white water being splashed by ’em.”

  “So can I now. Why, there’s miles of jumping fish. Tuna you think?”

  “Maybe not. If they’re tunny at this distance they’re big ’uns for sure. Hey, Joe! Speed her up.” To Bony, Wilton said: “If they should be tunny will you give ’em a go? I’ve a light rod and tackle down below.”

  Bony nodded, his blue eyes gleaming, his pulses racing.

  “Keep your eye on your fish-bait.” Wilton advised. “Likely enough outside that shoal will be swordies and sharks.”

  Bony dropped back to the cockpit to divide his attention between his bait-fish and the ship ahead. The quickened engine thrust the Marlin forward at increased speed, which added to the excitement coursing through his veins. Then Wilton beckoned him. He scrambled forward beside the mast, holding to it and to the port mast stay. Wilton was laughing, his eyes bright.

  “Porpoises,” he said. “There’s thousands of ’em following the trawler. The trawl could only have been sunk again an hour back, and the crew have been cleaning up after the last catch, throwing overboard the small fish and remains of octopuses and sting-rays and that kind of gentry. Look! The sea’s full of porpoises.”

  “Pity they weren’t swordies,” Joe yelled, now standing on the gunwale with his right foot to bring his head above the shelter structure, and steering with his left foot pressing hard on a spoke of the wheel. He continued to shout: “Who wants por­poises, any’ow? I don’t. I want swordies and five ’undred-pounders at that.”

  Bony waved a hand in agreement with Joe, and then gave his attention to the extraordinary marine manifestation. Founts of white water spewed upward from the deep slate of the sea; a minute later countless “humps” of fish appeared and disappeared every split second, the graceful backs of the mammals hurtling the chop upon the greater rollers. Quite unconcerned by the furious energy unloosed astern of her the trawler wallowed onward, her decks deserted of men, the lobster pot hoisted half up to her masthead signalling that her trawl was down and warning craft to keep wide of her stern.

  Suddenly the Marlin was moving across a sea stiffened thick with fish. The porpoises swam in fours and fives and sixes, swam in all directions, amazingly escaping collision. They appeared beside the Marlin, dived under her, speeded alongside her to roll under her bow. Their humped backs
could be seen southward and eastward, their total not to be estimated. They could be seen under the slopes of the rollers, superb masters of their environment.

  “If I had to fall overboard I’d choose this place,” Wilton said.

  “Oh! Why?”

  “Because it’s a dead certainty there’s no sharks here. These porpoises would smash a shark to pulp in less than a minute. Come up under him and slash at his belly as though each por­poise was a bullet out of a machine-gun. They ain’t real fish, of course. They’re mammals really, and that’s why they’ve got to heave up out of the water now and then. You wouldn’t think the sea could hold so many, would you?”

  “I would not have thought that all the porpoises in all the oceans gathered together would number as many as these,” Bony said. “Do they often gather together like this?”

  Wilton shook his head.

  “I’ve only seen ’em like this once before—years ago. We might as well get out from among ’em. There’ll be no swordies hereabouts, either. Almost thick enough to walk on, ain’t they?”

  Back again in the cockpit Bony took position behind his rod, his mind awed by the mightiness of life all round the tiny craft. The strangely agitated sea appeared unable to reflect the sunlight and seemed heavy as though unseen oil flattened it. As Wilton had suggested, the mammals were so numerous as to give the idea that one could walk on them across the sea.

  Wilton came aft and said to Joe:

  “Bring her round. We’ll range alongside that trawler and have a pitch.”