“Any people there named Baker?”
“Not that I know of,” replied Staley. There’s a retired storekeeper of that name living here at Lorne. Family mostly married and in Melbourne and Geelong. Superintendent Bolt said something about sending a man down to look into them.”
“H’m! What d’you know of a man named Owen, at Split Point?”
The red brows drew low to the small grey eyes.
“Nothing to his disadvantage, sir. Good citizen, by all accounts.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
Staley’s information added little to that already gathered. Mrs Owen was a sister to Mrs Wessex, and it appeared that all the families behind the Inlet were related. The Wessexes were the most well-to-do: the Lakes the least well off, but by no means poorly circumstanced.
“There are two young fellows over there named Lake and Way,” Bony said, and again Staley’s brows dropped.
“They’re in partnership,” Staley said. “Been together since young Dick came home from the Army. Way comes from Port Campbell and, of the two, I think he’s the steadier. Hardworking, both of them. Dick Lake ... he’s the eldest son of that family ... I understand he was a bit wild since he came back. Nothing vicious, mind you. Just careless about renewing his driver’s licence, and forgetting to vote at elections, and very casual about cutting wood from the forest without paying the royalty. Merely the kind of thing which makes life hard for us country policemen. Nothing bad, sir.”
“There’s an Alfred Lake, isn’t there?”
“Yes. Alfred Lake is Dick’s next brother. Alfred works for Mrs Wessex. I say for Mrs Wessex because her husband is a chronic invalid. She runs the mixed farm with the help of Alfred Lake and her daughter. The daughter’s a bit of a trial sometimes, I understand. But they’re all sound people.”
“There was, or is, a son, isn’t there?”
“Yes, sir, I forgot to mention him because he’s not on the scene. My predecessor ... happens to be a pal of mine ... we joined the Force at the same time ... told me that Eldred Wessex was troublesome before he joined the Army in ’39. No convictions, though. They say that after the war he went to America, and leaving Australia without coming home to see his folk made the old man bitter. Anyway, again according to gossip, Eldred Wessex is doing very well over in the States.”
“And the girl?”
“Mary Wessex! She’d be about twenty-five or six, lost her man at the war. It upset her mind. Still, she’s capable of looking after herself and is a help to her mother.”
Bony fell to studying the wall calendar.
“Dense fog, isn’t there?” he said. “I’ve been talking to old Edward Penwarden. Quite a character. What of him? His family?”
“As you say, sir, quite a character,” agreed Staley, who was baffled by Bony’s apparent lack of background, the absence of the undeniable stamp of the long-service policeman. “The Penwardens are highly respected. They’ve a married daughter in Sydney, and there’s two sons. One is in the Customs, and the other in the Postal Department. Both about my age.”
“You visited Penwarden at the time of the murder, so he says. Can you recall the date?”
Staley permitted himself to smile, saying:
“Yes, sir, I can. I was bowled out in court once, and ever since then I’ve kept notes on any case likely to put me in court.” From a desk drawer he brought out a book and flipped over the leaves. “It was March 3rd, at four-ten in the afternoon. Us uniformed men were working sort of independently of the plainclothes team, and I called on old Penwarden on the off chance he could give me a lead. Told me he’d seen the dead man and didn’t know him. Couldn’t remember having seen any suspicious character hanging around. Nothing else.”
“Were you wearing uniform?”
The question astonished Staley, for it was a personal one. Stiffly he answered:
“As a matter of fact, sir, I was.”
“Trousers, or breeches and leggings?”
“Breeches and leggings.”
“Now tell me this, Staley, and I’ll tell you the reason for these questions. Do you think it possible that when talking to Penwarden in his workshop a wood shaving could have become lodged between the bottom of a legging and the boot?”
“Possible, yes, sir, but unlikely. My leggings fit pretty well about my boots.”
“Then tell me, after visiting Penwarden that afternoon, did you enter the Lighthouse?”
Staley shook his head and referred to his diary.
“On leaving Penwarden, I came straight back to Lorne,” he said.
Bony smiled, and having lit a cigarette said:
“I am pleased to have that information, Senior, as I’ve been thinking that a little clue I have might be of no value. On the floor of Penwarden’s workshop there lies a thick mass of wood shavings. A shaving from one of his red-gum boards I found in the Lighthouse. That shaving of red-gum went into the Lighthouse attached to someone’s clothes. Try to contact Superintendent Bolt.”
Staley reached for the telephone, spoke to Exchange, replaced the instrument. Bony said:
“Some time tomorrow, if you’ll be cooperative, I want you to call on old Penwarden and find out if and when any plainclothes man interviewed him in his workshop, and the name of the detective if Penwarden knows it. On February 3rd and 4th the Lighthouse inspector, name of Fisher, was working at Split Point. Ask Penwarden if Fisher called on him at that time. Shortly before Christmas last year the Repair Gang were working at the Lighthouse for five or six weeks. Find out if any of those men visited Penwarden at his workshop. Clear?”
Staley looked up from the rough notes he had made.
“Yes, sir. Where will you receive my report?”
“Probably come over here for it. Take long to get through to Head...?”
The telephone smashed the quiet of the office. Then Bony heard Bolt’s voice.
“I am interested in a heap of rubbish at the bottom of the steps,” Bony said. “Composed chiefly of wood shavings. I want to know if the Repair Gang left those shavings, or if Fisher left them, and the report, if any, of that rubbish made by your men. Clear?”
“Like soup, Bony,” grumbled Bolt. “All right. Let you have it ... where?”
“Care of Staley. Anything fresh your end?”
“Not yet. It’s yours when anything fresh does come in. I give.”
Bony chuckled. “So do I ... when I’m ready. Cheerio, Super.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Three Boys
BONY WAS WRITING letters before the lounge fire when Dick Lake snaked in, still smiling. He was scrubbed and brushed and wearing his town suit protected by a navy-blue overcoat too long and unbuttoned.
“What about a shot of amber?” he asked.
Resignedly, Bony collected his writing materials, and Lake came forward to stand with his back to the fire.
“You seem determined to make me a soak, Dick. Are you going to a party?”
“Yair. To the pictures in Geelong. The mob’s going. Fred Ayling came in this afternoon from his wood heap. Bit of a lad, Fred. You oughta meet him. Come on! Don’t waste precious time. Gettin’ on for six.”
The small bar was filled to the door, and Washfold was working flat out. It wanted ten minutes to the fatal hour of six, and the enforced National Swill was in full flood. Above the general noise, rising like the blast from an atom bomb, was a particular voice.
“Fill ’em up, Bert. You’re the slowest cow I ever struck. Hey! Who’s driving that bloody truck? I’m not. I’m a gent for tonight. What! Another fine! What for? I never said nothing.”
“Pay up! Pay up!” the company chorused.
“No more beer till you do,” threatened Washfold, thrusting the Swear Box under the offender’s nose. “A shillin’ it is.”
The offender was young. He was so square that the seams of his overcoat were dangerously taxed. His weathered complexion was as dark as Bony’s, and in that walnut face the grey eyes held extraordinary vitalit
y. He shouted on paying the fine, and he continued to shout because for weeks he had heard nothing but the wind in the tree tops, the cries of the birds and the clop-clop of his axe.
On Bony being presented, he offered an enormous hand, which Bony wisely evaded. “You the bloke what was coming out to see me with Dick and Moss? Well, take it on. Sweet Fairy Ann will knock you. Won’t she. Moss? Hey, Moss! Won’t Sweet Fairy knock anybuddy?”
“You came over Sweet Fairy all right, anyway,” someone pointed out.
“Me! Cripes, I’ll drive a bl ... Ha! Ha! Not this time. I’ll drive a car or truck over any bl ... any mountain in Australia. Shove that box outer sight, Bert.”
Ayling badly needed a haircut. His face was chipped by the recent application of a razor. He slapped a man on the back and almost broke his neck. Lake urged him to “go slow”, and he pounded the counter with both fists and demanded a cigar.
“What is he like when properly inked?” Bony inquired of Moss Way, and Moss grinned and regarded Ayling with admiration.
“Quiet as Mary’s lamb,” was the surprising answer. “Ten beers and he goes to sleep.”
Fred Ayling was standing squarely to the bar counter, and for a moment his hands rested on the bar, palms down. There was a splash of gold on the right hand, and the ring caught and held Bony’s attention. It was a common signet ring. The engraved letters and the ring were identical with that found with the watch in the murder victim’s raincoat.
Dick Lake urged his attention, but he was sure he had made no mistake when he turned to the smiling face so freshly scrubbed for the night out.
“Told you he was a character, didn’t I?” Lake said, accent blurred. “Champeen axeman of the Western District last year. You oughter...”
“Time, gents!” yelled Washfold.
Someone outside sounded a truck horn, and kept it going. The din was shattering, and men poured from the small bar like the Keystone cops leaving a tiny van. Bony was swept with the tide, was vociferously urged to accompany the party, watched men swarm into and on a large truck, and waved them good cheer as they departed with Ayling’s voice still dominant.
Nowhere in the Official Summary was Ayling’s name mentioned, probably because the man was not at Split Point at the time of the murder. Later that evening, Bony sat with the Washfolds before the blazing fire, and he mentioned Ayling.
“His Pa took away his teethin’ ring and give him an axe to bite on,” Washfold asserted. “Clever feller, too, in his way. Get him on the quiet, and what he doesn’t know about the birds and spiders and things would only fill an eggcup. Not much education, but a lot of knowledge.”
“Been working about here long?” prompted Bony.
“All his life ... exceptin’ the war years. People had a farm back of the Inlet, and they retired and went to live in Geelong. Fred joined up with the Navy when war broke out. Was on the Perth when she was sunk up about Java. Now he likes working on his own.”
“Lonely existence, it would seem.”
Washfold chuckled, and looked slyly at his knitting wife.
“Peaceful, anyhow,” he insinuated.
“Not natural, living alone like he does,” objected Mrs Washfold. “Speakin’ to no one for months on end.”
“He has the birds and the spiders and the ants to talk to. Could have a wife worse than the spiders,” her husband murmured lazily.
Mrs Washfold disdainfully snorted.
“It seems that he works in a very inaccessible place,” Bony said. “Isn’t there good firewood to be got much nearer to Split Point?”
“Yes and no, but that doesn’t count with Fred Ayling.”
“Mrs Walsh said that he never was like other boys,” interjected Mrs Washfold. “Never took an interest in girls, but I did hear he was once very much in love with Mary Wessex.”
“Might have done all right for himself if he’d had the education,” supplemented her husband, and Bony adventured upon a question:
“Did you notice the ring he was wearing?”
“No. Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Nothing whatever. Merely that it looked odd for a man engaged in wood cutting, so far and for so long from civilization, to be wearing a ring. He seems to be quite a hero to Dick Lake.”
“Everyone speaks well of him.”
Bony permitted the conversation to drift, and eventually told a little of himself and much of his sheep station. Washfold, whose knowledge of sheep and wool was extensive, was given no chance to fault him, and when the fire was permitted to die down, they retired well satisfied with the evening.
After lunch the following day, Bony and Stug set out to visit Mr Wessex, hoping to delve a little deeper into the background of the permanent residents, and confident that the invalid would be eager to talk.
The gulls were afloat upon the strip of creek within the Inlet, and slowly approaching the zenith was a line of soft cloud, very high and almost rule-straight. Despite the fact that the barometer at the hotel was high and steady, these signs denoted a rapid weather change likely to be violent. The sun was warming, and the air was still and redolent of marsh and sea.
Bony found Eli Wessex seated in a large invalid chair on the north veranda of the house. The dog who had been lying at his master’s feet bounded to challenge Stug, but the invalid called and thus preserved the peace.
“Good afternoon, Mr Wessex!”
“Good day!”
Pain had shrivelled the face, but the sunken eyes were keen. Pain had made ugly and useless the distorted hands lying on the invalid’s lap. Eli Wessex was a shadow, but his mind was strong and virile. Nearing seventy, he looked ninety.
“Come along up and sit awhile,” he said. “The wife told me you might call.”
Bony mounted the four steps to the veranda and introduced himself.
“Fetch yourself a chair from the house,” Wessex said. “The wife and daughter are out with the sheep. Me, I’m of no use. Just a hulk.”
Bony brought a chair. “But you are of use,” he objected. “You cause me to be humble. As Joubert said: ‘Think of the ills from which you are exempt. And thinking, be thankful’.”
The eyes lighted, and the mouth firmed.
“There’s wisdom in that, sir,” Wessex said and smiled. The smile altered his face as sunlight alters the face of the sea. “Was it not Bishop Berkeley who said that a ray of wisdom may enlighten the universe and glow into remotest centuries? I hope you are enjoying your stay at Split Point.”
“Very much so. The Washfolds are good hosts, and the people I’ve met are very friendly. You have a nice farm. Much better land than mine.”
“All timber, big timber, when my father took up this land. He cleared most of it, and when I grew up I had to help him tackle the stumps. No wire tree-fallers those days. They had to be burned and dug out and dragged away with horses. And once a year my father drove a wagon to Geelong to sell our bacon and cheese, and with the money buy necessities and cloth which my mother made into clothes.”
“You were the only son?” suggested Bony.
“Two brothers and three sisters. The sisters are still living and one brother. All did well.”
“You have a daughter, Mrs Washfold said.”
“Mary, yes. A great help to her mother. We’ve a son, too. Doing very well in the States.” The invalid gazed reflectively towards the tree-flanked slope of a distant hill. “Yes, Eldred’s doing very well. We hope to see him again some day. Are you a family man?”
Bony spoke of his sons. Wessex listened with the intentness of one with whom exploration of another’s mind was a rare pleasure, and later Bony sensed rather than observed bitterness behind the grey eyes. Whilst speaking of his youngest boy, little Ed, who was no longer little, he wondered if the bitterness was occasioned by Eldred Wessex going to America after his discharge from the Army. Abruptly, he changed the subject.
“I was invited to take a truck trip over Sweet Fairy Ann,” he said. “Mr Penwarden warned me against it, even warn
ed Dick Lake and his mate that the track was too dangerous. What is your opinion?”
“Same as Penwarden’s. Is Dick aiming to go over for wood?”
“Yes. Ten tons he intends to bring out.”
“If I drove over that track, taking reasonable care, I’d end up in the river like the bullock team and wagon and driver did many years ago. Youth can get away with almost everything, and Dick is a youth who never had fear in him.” The grey eyes gazed at the pure white cloud above the hill slope, and the tired voice went on: “Dick’s father feared nothing ... until a tree fell on him and smashed a leg. Dick’s brother is another. He works for me. But he hasn’t Dick’s propensity for getting into trouble ... and out of it. If you go with them over Sweet Fairy Ann, be sure to walk across the Slide. They won’t be driving the truck faster than you can walk. Was Fred Ayling at the hotel last afternoon?”
Bony chuckled and described the reaction of human society on the lonely backwoodsman.
“Sound lad,” Wessex said. “Always was. There were the three of them: my son and Dick Lake and Fred Ayling. Went to school together, the school right beside the hotel. It was closed a few years back and the local children are taken by bus to Anglesea these days. Those boys rode ponies to school. They were good boys ... real boys, you know ... and a bit wild because we old folk who were brought up strictly tended to be slack in rearing our own children. It’s the way of it ... a kind of see-saw with the generations.
“My son, Eldred, learned too easily, had the gift of remembering. Dick Lake was a proper dunce, and he’ll never do any good for himself. As for Fred Ayling, well, he was always a mixture. What he wanted to learn he learned without trouble, and what he wasn’t interested in no amount of caning achieved results. When very small he began to study the birds and clouds and insects, and I used to tell him that if he would study such subjects as writing and reading, he would be able to put his outdoor studies to good use.
“But, no. He can hardly put a letter together, and he can’t spell the proper names of the birds and insects he knows so much about. Had it in him to make his mark in the world, but he’s working alone in the mountains with axe and saw.”
The New Shoe Page 10