He saw the light gleam in Bony’s eyes, witnessed the momentary hesitation before succumbing to the invitation. Bony removed his shoes and climbed into the casket and laid himself within. He felt the curving wood caressing his spine and shoulders. He felt the rest against his neck. There was no discomfort, lying there, and he looked up into the bright blue eyes expectantly regarding him.
“I couldn’t be more comfortable in bed,” he said, and with effort made haste slowly to sit up and climb out.
“You wouldn’t like to try her with the lid down?” was the hopeful suggestion.
“Well, er...”
The old man chuckled, and combed back his white hair with calloused fingers.
“With the lid down you wouldn’t see a blink o’ light ... not like some of the boxes I’ve seen made of pine and such like. Same with the houses they build these days.”
“Mrs Owen not had her second fitting yet?”
Old Penwarden chortled and his blue eyes were full of laughter.
“She be a frightened one that,” he said. “About your size and shape exceptin’ across the hips.” He patted the casket with his left hand, and with the cloth in his right polished out the hand-marks they had left on the cover. “Getting you to try her will have to do. You found her comfortable enough, you said. Said she fitted into the small of the back and across the shoulders. Reckon I’ll tell Owen she’ll do without the second fitting.”
“Owen has his casket, I think you mentioned,” Bony remarked and refrained from laughing.
“Too right, he has. I made his’n back in ’29. Made one for Eli Wessex and another for Eli’s old woman afore the 1914 war. Them’s of teak and they ain’t so colourful as this red-gum.”
“There’s a daughter, isn’t there? Made one for her?”
“Mary Wessex! Naw. Too young she be, for one thing, and for another ... Well, you see, Mr Rawlings, sir, people have to be grow’d steady and settled, a sort of part of their surroundings. A young gal wants a glory box, not a coffin. I made Mary a glory box outa silky oak from Queensland. She was goin’ to marry a lad up Geelong way, but he went away to the war and was killed.”
“That was sad for her,” Bony interposed.
“’Twas so. Took it to heart too much and for too long. Her brother went to the war, too. Eldred Wessex didn’t come home, either. Wasn’t killed, or anything like that, mind you. Just didn’t come home after the war, but went off to Amerikee.”
The woodworker took a sight along the edge of a board. In the white-gum outside a kookaburra cackled and raised a laugh from its mate farther away. A motor on the highway laboured up the rise towards the post office. Carrying the board under an arm, the old man led the way back to the planing bench.
“You’ve heard about our murder, I suppose,” he asked, and the abrupt switch of subject caused Bony mentally to blink.
“Yes, of course.”
“Very mysterious, that was. No one about here never before set eyes on the man in the Lighthouse. Seems to have put the police well ashore, don’t it?”
“That’s so. Did you see the dead man?”
“I did. The Superintendent came along and asked me to look at him, saying as how I’ve been here so long I might know him. But I didn’t. Never seen him. No one here had ever seen him, either. Musta been brought from a distance, or might have been just a summer visitor. Pity that happened. Gives the place a bad name. Couldn’t have happened if the keepers had been there.”
“The Light was changed to automatic some thirty-odd years ago, I understand. You’ve been up to the Light, I suppose?”
“Been up it? Several times when I was younger than I am now. Mighty peculiar no one come forward to say who the dead man was. Picture in the papers an’ all. Someone must know him.”
“I suppose it’s possible he could have been killed in one of the many summer cottages in this district,” surmised Bony.
“That’s likely what happened,” agreed the old man. “But then a lot of things could have happened which for us don’t make sense.”
“What seems so extraordinary is how the victim or the murderer was able to get into the Lighthouse,” Bony murmured. “The keys are always kept in Melbourne, so the engineer said.”
Penwarden settled the board on the bench to his satisfaction and took up a plane.
“Them Lighthouse locks could be turned with skeleton keys. The padlock key to this shop door is a skeleton. I made her three years back when I lost the proper one. The Lighthouse locks ain’t nothing from the ordinary.” The plane went to work and the shavings rolled and twisted away from it to fall to the littered floor. Bony went back to the subject of rented houses.
Yes, it was quite likely that the owner of such a house could let it to a person he would never see, the arrangement being conducted through the post. This line of inquiry added to rather than subtracted from the difficulties confronting him, and in any case it had been thoroughly explored by Bolt’s team as well as the local men.
“The Lighthouse has never provided much work for people in this district, I suppose,” he said, idly regarding the grain in the wood shavings falling from the plane.
“Not since she was built,” replied the old man. They put on casual labour sometimes when the Repair Gang comes down from Melbourne. Young Dick Lake got a job there last year. Lasted a few weeks.”
“That was when the Gang made a locker from the old red lamp bay, wasn’t it?”
“That’s so.”
“So you know about that?”
“About making that locker? Yes. ’Tain’t much we don’t get to hear about. The feller that put the body in there musta known about that new locker, too.”
“It would seem certain. And was also in possession of skeleton keys.”
The worker stopped to stare at his visitor.
“That’s so,” he agreed. “Or they musta took impressions of the Lighthouse keys to have got in.”
“They! D’you think there were more than one in the killing?”
Blue eyes clashed with blue eyes. Bony’s gaze held the longer. The old man bent over his plane and thrust and thrust.
“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. Could have been more’n one in it. ’Tain’t much use us talking about it. We only goes round in circles. Putting the dead man in that locker don’t make no sense to me, and I allus say that what don’t make sense ain’t worth worrying about. Let them worry what’s paid to. Murder always will out some time or another. And then there’s a load of sorrow slid into innocent hearts, and the sun don’t shine no more.”
The white wood shavings continued to spill over to the floor and lay atop shavings of red wood, and Bony picked up a red shaving to compare the grain with that of the white wood. Into the peaceful silence, which seemed more of the mind than of this quiet corner of the world, crept the noise of a motor. The noise outraged the silence, and was swiftly slain. They heard men’s voices and there appeared the wood carters.
“Good day-ee, Ed!” exclaimed Moss Way.
“How do!” supplemented the younger, Dick Lake, nodding perkily to Bony. “You gonna buy a box for yourself?”
“You produce an idea,” replied Bony, smilingly, and the younger man nodded towards the adjacent room, saying:
“The one in there’s a beaut. Seen ’er?”
“Mr Rawlings has seen the casket,” interrupted old Penwarden, faintly stern. “What d’you two want?”
“Nuthin’,” answered Lake, his face widened by his smile. “Thought maybe you might want sum’t. Mrs Penwarden said she wanted firewood, an’ we’re going out tomorrer for a load of the best.”
The old man set down his plane and produced a clay pipe. Dick Lake picked up a shaving and chewed it. The impression Bony received was that those present were to debate in solemn conclave the subject of firewood.
“Don’t want ironbark,” said Penwarden. “Too hot. Burns out the stove and the fireplaces. Where you going?”
“Over t’other side of Sweet Fairy Ann,
” replied Moss. “Fred Ayling’s camped down by Watson’s Creek. Sent in word that he’s cut a hundred tons of mixed ... chiefly box.”
“Oh! And how much of a load you aim to get back with over Sweet Fairy Ann?” demanded the carpenter.
“We always take our full issue,” interposed Dick Lake. “Ten ton.”
“You won’t be bringing no ten tons over Sweet Fair Ann.”
“Who says so?” asked Moss.
“I do,” replied Penwarden. “The track won’t take it. Your truck’ll slide down off it and end up in the river.”
“D’you think?” Dick Lake grinned at Bony. “I c’n drive that there truck to hell and back without scorchin’ her.”
“Twenty-two bullocks, a table-top wagon, and two men slid off that track in ’15,” said the old man. “And afore they all reached the river the slope of Sweet Fairy Ann broke loose and went down after ’em. You ain’t been over that track.”
“Twice,” asserted Dick Lake. “Since the last time, Fred Ayling’s shored her up a bit. She’ll take our loading all right.”
“What’ll you have ... pine or Oregon?” offered Penwarden.
“How much?” Moss drawled.
“Do the oregon for twelve pound apiece,” answered the old man.
“Watertight and all?”
The blue eyes flashed.
“All my coffins is watertight. Better order now for one apiece ... if you will go for to try to bring a ten-ton load out over Sweet Fairy Ann.”
“We’ll bring ’er. How many tons you want?”
“The ten ... if you get ’em out.”
Lake got up from squatting on his heels.
“Okey doke,” he said, and then turned to Bony, adding: “Like a trip? See the country ... and some.”
“Be leaving at seven sharp in the morning, and get home about five,” supplemented Way.
The good cheer accompanying the invitation captured Bony. Old Penwarden stood with a match burning to the pipe halted before his mouth. Bony nodded acceptance. The two men moved towards the door, and the shorter said:
“Pick you up at the pub sharp at seven. Bring your lunch, but no beer.”
“Why no beer?” Bony queried.
“You’ll see ... tomorrer.”
To Bony, Penwarden said between puffs at his pipe:
“Do you one in Victorian blackwood, Mr Rawlings, sir. Twenty-five pounds, and guaranteed to fit you like a feather mattress.”
Chapter Seven
Rebounding Influences
A FULL WEEK, and the little gained wasn’t worth writing to Superintendent Bolt.
Bony had explored the locality both on foot and in Bolt’s car. Regularly before each meal he had appeared in the bar and had drunk too much beer. Forced by his pay and responsibilities to keep a tight rein on his generosity, he met with no necessity to squander money, as these people were too sturdily independent. There were some, like Lake and Moss Way, who accepted him: others were more reserved chiefly, he guessed, because they wouldn’t risk being drawn to the spending level of the pastoralist.
The Washfolds he found reticent about themselves and unhesitant to talk of others, but as they had been here only three years, they were in the same category as himself.
Behind this life at the hotel was another which was an influence on the general community rather than of it. Strangely enough old Edward Penwarden appeared to be the representative of the inner life, this ever-present influence behind the community at Split Point.
By inference rather than reference did Bony learn from the old man of this section of the community. It would seem that it had withdrawn itself before the march of intruders who had bought land and built holiday homes, had withdrawn itself into its own country behind the Inlet.
There were the Wessexes, Eli and his wife, their son who had gone to America after the war, and their daughter who had suffered mental illness following the death of her lover. There were Tom Owen and his wife, a childless pair, and Fred Lake and his wife who had borne fourteen children. There were two other families who, also, had been here for generations. And as far as Bony knew these people seldom called at the hotel for a chat and a drink.
Excepting Dick Lake.
He was an ordinary, easy-going Australian to whom life is a game to be played always with a smile no matter what the jolts. You meet this type in the Interior, and it is these men who have brought all the honour to the country’s arms in war. Nothing daunts them, nothing makes them wince, and within them are forces which only extraordinary circumstances ever bring into action.
The incident of what appeared to be an attempt at suicide seemed to have no bearing on the murder at the Lighthouse. Bony was still not certain that the girl had intended suicide. He had memorized her footprints made with low-heeled shoes, and although he had not again come across them, he had seen again the prints made by the man who had knocked her out and dragged her from the cliff. That man was Dick Lake.
At that scene, or shortly after, was the man Tom Owen, who had denied seeing either the girl or Lake, and later had joined Bony on the dark road and pressed for information, at the same time urging the attractions of Lorne as against those of Split Point.
From conversations with Penwarden, there was no doubt that the girl was Mary Wessex, and that that afternoon was not the first time she had evaded her watchful mother. It was understandable that Lake would hurry her home, and that Owen would deny having seen her, for Bony, the witness, was an intruder from whom must be kept family skeletons.
That Dick Lake had been employed as a casual labourer with the Repair Gang was a fact not contained in the Official Summary. Fisher had been asked when he had inspected the Lighthouse. He had been asked what men comprised the Repair Gang, and he had given the names of those men employed permanently by his department. To Fisher, a casual hand was not an employee of the department, and consequently he hadn’t bothered to enlarge his replies to take in what to him was of no importance.
During those weeks as a casual hand, Lake could have made impressions of the Lighthouse keys. He certainly knew of the work of constructing the locker in the wall. He knew as much as the foreman of that gang, but could be suspected of murder no more than any permanent member of it. All Bony had so far achieved was possibilities.
As was his custom after dinner, he donned an overcoat and set out for a tramp. The evening was quiet and the sea was lazy, and one couldn’t foretell from what point one would next hear the surf. Above the distant lights of Lorne a new moon lay on her back like a wanton, and down by the creek of the Inlet the frogs voiced the same idea.
Bony took to the Inlet road, passing first several summer houses, then an opaque square from which issued the noise of an accordion, and which she knew was a tent occupied by the builders. He passed the home of old Penwarden and his wife, and outside this house stood a utility. The front door was open and voices drifted out to him. He passed the closed building where caskets plain and jewelled were created by an artist. Onwards from this point the world was dark and vaguely vast beneath the brilliant stars.
It wasn’t much of a road ... just a narrow track surfaced with gravel reflecting the starlight sufficiently for one to keep to it. For a mile it skirted the edge of the Inlet bowl, on which were grazing sheep. At a gate to a paddock, he halted to lean against it, and now that the sound of his footsteps had ceased, he could hear many undertones of life and the muttering of the distant surf.
He was reasonably sure at the end of this first week that the murderer he sought was a member of this local community. The killer was familiar with the interior of the Lighthouse and kept himself up to date with its inspections and renovations. With all these local people the Lighthouse was a dominant influence. Every boy and girl on entering the age of adventure would want, and would succeed, in climbing those steps to see the Light, to marvel at the sun-valve, to watch the play of the jets within the encircling prisms. They would come to know as much about the Light as the engineers.
L
eaving the gate he proceeded along the country road, which soon afterwards divided at a junction, the road to the left leading to the farm occupied by the Owens, and that straight ahead leading to the farm at which lived Eli Wessex and his wife and daughter. Bony kept straight on, walking smartly and enjoying the warmth of the exercise.
Crime is like the impact of a stone on placid waters. The stone had been dropped in this locality ten weeks before this night, and Bony was confident that the waves it produced were still expanding and contracting as influences in human minds. Mental influences produce physical action, and Bony was waiting to note an action that he might follow the influence causing it to its source ... the dropped stone.
On seeing a light among the trees ahead, he experienced astonishment that he had walked four miles from the hotel, for the light was within the house occupied by the Wessex family. From day time exploration, he knew he was within a few yards of the road gate beyond which stood the house within its fenced garden.
A dog was barking, and he was sure the animal was not alarmed by his approach but wanted freedom from the chain.
On arriving at the gate, he decided to go no farther. It was then that he heard the approach of a vehicle far back along the road, and the noise emerged slowly from the nearer throbbing of a small-powered petrol engine running the electric lighting plant. It was several minutes before he decided that the motor vehicle was coming his way, and another passed before he saw its headlights weaving among the trees.
To avoid being recognized and thereby raising suspicion, he moved to stand against the trunk of an ironbark.
The engine was left running when the driver got down to open the gate. He had to pass into the beam of the lights, and then Bony saw Tom Owen. The man drove the vehicle to the garden gate, leaving the road gate open, and Bony recognized the utility which had been standing outside old Penwarden’s house.
A second chained dog added its barking to the first. A veranda light was switched on, and the truck’s lights were turned off. Bony could plainly see Owen walk through the garden gateway to the house veranda steps, where he was welcomed by a woman. She was tall, and her hair was light-grey and drawn to a “bun” at the nape of her neck.
The New Shoe Page 5