“I’ll have to go back a long way to the time I came here as a lad with nothing but the strength in me arms and back. In them days, Eli Wessex was a mere boy, and Tom Owen wasn’t born. No one hereabout had much money, and to journey to Melbourne was a big thing to do.
“In course of time, we all took wives and sired children, and we never had no quarrels like most neighbours have. When the present Lake’s father and mother came to take up land, we helped ’em to their feet. When the fires came and burned the Owens out, we set ’em up again. When the present Lake broke his leg, Tom Owen bossed the lads and seen to it they did their work. All of us did our best to be upright and God-fearing.
“It were Eli Wessex’s father who set me up as wheelwright and undertaker. He advanced me a hundred pounds, and when I was able to repay the debt he was dead, and Eli wouldn’t take the money ... wiped out the debt, saying I’d already paid it in service.
“My sons grew up before Eldred and Dick Lake and Fred Ayling, and it was Eli who had ’em over to his place and read and talked to ’em and set their feet firmly on the road. To this day, my sons haven’t forgot Eli, and what Eli did for ’em.
“Then came up Eldred, with Dick and Fred, and Eli did for them what he did for my boys. Boys are boys, and the generations don’t change ’em. There’s no difference between boys and young horses. They like to show off. They wants to be men before their whiskers sprout, and when their whiskers do grow long enough to shave off, most of ’em quiet down and get a bit of sense. My sons did. So did Dick Lake, in his own way, and Fred Ayling in his.
“But Eldred, he never got sense, never got past the showing off stage, never took in anything from his father. Several times before the war, a policeman came to find where Eldred was, and to tell Eli and his wife that, if they didn’t put a brake on him, he’d find himself in gaol. All of us thought that the Army would tame him.
“He never went to America after the war. He never came home neither. Said he was trying to make good before he came home. I know he didn’t make good, ’cos he wrote asking me for money, and saying I was not to tell his parents about it.
“I sent him the money to Sydney. It was a fairish bit, too. A couple of months after that he wrote for more, and more I sent him, thinking about that hundred pounds I never repaid his grandfather. When he wrote for the third time asking for money, I refused him. It was only the other day that I learned that his mother used to send him money, and even Dick Lake did.
“And then one morning Dick Lake popped in here to tell me that Eldred was coming home. He’d had a telegram from Eldred saying he’d be arriving at Geelong that very day, and Dick planned to meet him and take him home to give Eli and his wife the surprise of their lives. Dick borrowed Eli’s car and went up to Geelong, but he didn’t come back that day, or the next day till ten that night.
“He knocked on my front door, and I answered as the old woman had gone to bed. Dick tells me he wants to talk private like, and would I go with him to the workshop. We came here, me carrying a hurricane lamp. I set the lamp down here on this here bench, and Dick’s beside me. Then I hears a noise behind me, and I turns round to see Eldred.
“He’s the same Eldred, yet different. Older of course. There’s no colour to his face. His mouth is sort of sagging and both cheeks are twitching like he’s got the palsy. I looks at him, and he looks at me, and we don’t say a word. Dick says:
“‘Me and Eldred is up against it, Ed. Want to talk it over, sort of, like when we were kids. Pretty serious this time, though. Eldred’s all played out, and I can’t think straight. It’s terrible crook, Ed!’
“Dick wasn’t cocky, like usual. He looked like he did when he was a little feller and come to me to get him out of scrapes. He made me fear, and Eldred stood there slobberin’ and saying something over and over what I couldn’t understand. Him I didn’t care tuppence for. I went over to the door and locked it. Then I came back to the bench and put the light out, so’s no one would know we were here, and I told Dick to ‘fess up’.”
Penwarden lit his pipe with hands which trembled as much as when he assisted Bony from the coffin. The pipe gave no ease to the memory of that night, and again he discarded it.
“Eldred got off that train at Geelong in the late afternoon after Dick’s been waiting outside the station since the day before. Dick seen him leaving the station and went to meet him. Eldred’s a bit nervous of something, and he wants to know this and that, and Dick tells him he had Eli’s car parked opposite. They get into the car, and then, just before they can get away, a stranger to Dick comes up and says ‘I’m going with Eldred! Little spot of business to settle.’
“Dick looks at Eldred and Eldred nods all right, and the Stranger gets into the back seat with Eldred. They don’t talk, and Dick drives through the town and when he comes to the Belmont Hotel, he stops there for a drink. The others won’t leave the car, and Eldred don’t want Dick to go into the pub, but Dick is a bit sore by this time and he has his way. After a bit, he bought a bottle of brandy and went out to the car. Dick gets in and drives on for Split Point.
“All the way to Anglesea, Eldred and the stranger in the back don’t speak a word, and when they get to the top of the hill by the Memorial Dick pulls off the road and parks, and he says he don’t go no further until he hears what’s what.
“It’s getting dark by this time, and ’cos Dick hasn’t had nothin’ to eat since breakfast, he oughtn’t to have opened that brandy bottle. The bottle goes the round, and then Eldred says that the stranger thinks he’s got a holt on him. The stranger says he’s certainly got a good holt on Eldred, and that if he don’t part up with something over four hundred pounds owing to him, he’ll see Eldred’s father about it. Then he tells Dick how Eldred’s been in business with him, selling drugs and smuggled pearls and suchlike, and had cleared off from Sydney thinking he’d escape paying the stranger his share.
“There’s quite an argument up there by the Memorial. Eldred don’t deny anything, and the stranger tells of other things about Eldred worse’n peddling cocaine. Dick says ’tis best to take ’em both back to Geelong, for he don’t want either of ’em, let alone both, walking in on Eli and his wife. But the stranger won’t hear of that. Says nothing will stop him talking to Eldred’s father, exceptin’ four hundred and some pounds.
“The argument gets hot and hotter, and presently Eldred tells the stranger that if he don’t get out of the car, he’ll bash him. So the stranger leaves, and Eldred gets out, too. Then Eldred punches the stranger and knocks him down. Dick can see him lying in the faint light from the rear lamp, and he can see most of Eldred, too. And as the stranger’s lying on his back, Eldred shoots him.
“Dick’s out like a flash. In time to stop Eldred firing again. He wrestles for the gun and takes it off Eldred, and when he bends down over the stranger, he knows murder has been done. They sit on the running board, with the dead man at their feet. Eldred is crying and Dick don’t know what to do. He’s thinkin’ of Eli, and Eldred’s mother. And he’s still thinkin’ of them when he ’fesses up to me.
“In the dark we sit here for a long time,” continued old Penwarden. “Mostly it’s silent, sometimes Dick askin’ me what to do, sometimes Eldred whining it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t mean to shoot. And me just thinkin’ what’s best to do.
“Even now you’ve got me to rights, Mr Rawlings, sir, I’m not fretful over what I advised Dick to do. There’s Eldred, a no-good waster, a be-devilled human who’s never given anything but sorrow. There’s the stranger, another waster, a defier of the law, a despoiler of souls with his evil drugs. There’s Eli, well-nigh helpless, sittin’ and lyin’ and just thinkin’ and being troubled like Job. And there’s his wife who never spared herself, who poured out a mighty love upon her only man child. They mustn’t know about murder. And there’s only Dick Lake and me to stop ’em knowing.
“What use to tell Eldred he oughtn’t to have done it? What use to say anything to Eldred? Eldred’s finished. He
finished himself. If he hadn’t killed that drug smuggler, he’d end up by killing someone else. So this is what I told him and Dick Lake.
“‘It’s no good thinking you can get rid of the body. If you took it to Fred Ayling’s camp, he’d find a burial place so’s it would never be found. But in the first place, you wouldn’t get it past Dick’s home, for one of the children would hear the car, and you couldn’t pass without stopping; and in the second place, we won’t have Fred Ayling brought into it.
“‘In the buccaneers’ cave you have skeleton keys of the Lighthouse, so you told me a long, long time ago. One of you will fetch them keys. You’ll drive the body to the picnic ground, and carry it up to the Lighthouse. It must be midnight now, and no one will be abroad this wet night. You’ll strip the body naked ... strip it of everything. You’ll take the body into the Lighthouse. It’ll be two months before the next inspection’s done, and if you plant it in the locker it mightn’t be found even then. You take everything belonging to the dead man to your old cave. No one has ever found that cave beside you boys, and no one is likely to now.’
“Dick, he says it’s a good plan, and they’ll carry it out. Eldred chips up like me and him is great friends, but I stops him quick. I tells him that when the body and the dead man’s things are safely stowed, Dick drives him back to Geelong. Eldred is to keep travellin’, to get as far away as he can, and keep away.
“Eldred wants to see his father and mother before leavin’ Split Point. I tells him no. I tells him if he went home, or if he ever comes back, I’ll tell the police about him. He tries to argue that if they plant the body like I said, and the clothes like I said, he could go home to see his parents. I tells Eldred that he take it or leaves it, and Dick he tells Eldred that, too. We don’t argue with him, and Eldred says he’ll do what we say.
“I runs over the plan again, and Dick says he’s got it all clear. Dick’s more himself, now, more confident, but Eldred’s snivelling, and I’m thinkin’ Dick will have it all to do. In the dark, I hunted out some light rope, for no one could get down to the cave without havin’ to use both hands. Without lightin’ the lamp, I let ’em out, bided there five minutes and went home. It was ten minutes after one.”
The old man ceased speaking, and Bony significantly waited. Yet again, Penwarden lit his pipe, and this time was calm enough to smoke. Bony completed the rolling of another cigarette before the old man proceeded.
“After that night, I didn’t see Dick for a week. In that week, of course, the inspector, coming down by chance, found the body. Murder will out, Mr Rawlings, sir. I ought to have remembered that saying. Anyway, Dick came to tell me he’d driven Eldred to Ballarat, and Eldred had tipped a transport driver to take him across to Adelaide. And that’s all.”
“But how does Fred Ayling come into it?” Bony asked, and the old man sighed.
“Dick had to tell Fred. He’d never keep anything from him. Fred came here with Dick, to talk over what had been done with the dead man’s clothes and luggage. Fred wanted Dick to fetch the things, and he’d take ’em back to his camp and destroy ’em properly. Not then, though. Not till after the detectives had given up and gone away. Dick backed me when I said they’d be safe enough where they were.
“But that wasn’t so, Mr Rawlings, sir. You found the cave. Mary Wessex seen you go down to it, and she told Fred about you, and how she hit you with a rock. Fred told Dick, and said he must bring up them clothes, if you’d of left them there. Didn’t mean Dick to go to the cave when it was raining like it did that night. I didn’t know anything about that till, day afore yesterday, Fred came here to tell me, and saying that as you didn’t look like a policeman you was an accomplice of the dead man come to ferrit out what happened to him.”
“Did Mary Wessex know about the killing?”
“No. But she knew about the clothes and the case being in the cave. Unbeknownst to Dick, she went there sometimes. He happened to see her about to go down. You were on the beach that day, and he knew if she went down you would see her and guess there must be a cave. So he stopped her. Owen had come lookin’ for Mary, and he was a bit too late to lend a hand.”
Bony gazed hard into the now not so bright blue eyes, and slowly he asked:
“You are convinced that Eldred did not visit his parents ... as you ordained?”
“Yes. Dick spoke true, and Eldred never came back after being taken to Ballarat.”
“How do you account for the fact that the dead man’s fingerprints were found on the hand rail inside the Lighthouse?”
“Dick said ... Dick said when he was telling me just what they done with the body that, as he was carrying the body on his back up the steps, Eldred took the dead man’s hand and made his prints on the rail to sort of confuse things for when the body was found.”
“To that extent Eldred still had his wits.”
“Seems like it were so,” Penwarden agreed.
“It’s certain that you had your wits about you that night. Tell me, what did you intend doing with my dead body inside the coffin?”
Penwarden slowly stood, the picture of bewilderment.
“Well, now ... I don’t rightly know, Mr Rawlings, sir. I never got that far. You see, I didn’t think what to do about you until you was being fitted.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Trail’s End
WAITED UPON BY the cheerful and tireless Mrs Washfold, Bony lunched in solitary state. As Mrs Washfold was inclined to linger beside his table, he asked her if Fred Ayling had returned to his camp, and was informed that the wood cutter was staying with the Wessexes.
“I never cottoned to him, Mr Rawlings,” she added. “Too moody for my liking. Up in the air one day and down in the dumps the next. Same with his ideas about you. One time praising you to the sky, and then crying you down. Don’t mean anything, of course. Way he’s made.”
“I have sensed that peculiarity in him,” Bony admitted. “What did he cry me down about?”
“Oh, you know how these country people can be, suspicious and all that. If they don’t know just what you do and how much money you have in the bank, they imagine things. Never give credit to people for being natural. Fred can’t understand why you have such an old car when you’re a pastoralist and wool’s over a hundred pounds a bale. Can’t understand a man wanting to have a holiday in winter time. Can’t understand this and that, so has to imagine you’re a detective, or a Russian spy, even a city gangster in smoke. Take no notice, Mr Rawlings.”
“Of course not, Mrs Washfold. I must tell my wife about that. She’ll say she wished I were a spy or a policeman and then I’d talk romantically instead of about wool and taxes.”
After lunch he sat on the veranda and pondered on his next move. Penwarden had given him much that morning, and no man could be less unsophisticated and less prone to dissimulation. That Penwarden had spoken the truth, as he knew it. Bony believed, but doubted that the truth as known to Penwarden was all the truth.
The doubt was that Dick Lake had driven Eldred Wessex to Ballarat. Had he done so, had Eldred Wessex travelled as far distant as possible, why had Lake taken such risk to retrieve the clothes and suitcase, and why had Ayling told Penwarden that cock and bull yarn that he, Bony, was an accomplice of the dead man? Were Eldred Wessex a thousand or ten thousand miles away, would it actually have mattered greatly that a detective had discovered the dead man’s effects? The clothes and the contents of the suitcase had given little by comparison with that given by the death of Dick Lake.
Ayling had warned Penwarden not to gossip to the stranger Mr Rawlings, and Ayling, who had served in the war-time Navy, would not be so simple as to think Bony was a criminal’s accomplice. He had tried to influence the Washfolds against him, and had tried with less success to warn Moss Way. This action was more in keeping with the probability that Eldred Wessex was living somewhere on his father’s farm, or beyond Sweet Fairy Ann with or near Fred Ayling.
Assuming this, it was unlikely that the fact would be conv
eyed to a friend and neighbour like Edward Penwarden, who already had done so much in cupboarding the skeleton of family dishonour.
Ayling was the next move.
As Ayling could be difficult, Bony sought Bert Washfold and told him he intended visiting Eli Wessex and would most certainly be back for dinner that night. He adopted a further unusual precaution of transferring from his suitcase to his pocket a small automatic.
Choosing to walk, Stug accompanied him.
Passing Penwarden’s workshop he observed that the door was shut, an interesting item as it was then ten minutes after two. One hour after passing the workshop, he rounded a bend in the track and came in sight of the road gate to the Wessex farm.
Outside the gate stood Ayling’s old car. It was facing towards the hills and Sweet Fairy Ann. At the gate appeared Mary Wessex and Fred Ayling. Ayling carried a suitcase and, like a raincoat on his shoulder, several grey blankets.
Concealed by a tree, Bony watched Ayling pass the blankets and suitcase into the back of the car, go to the front and crank the engine. It was then obvious that the girl was disinclined to enter the car, resulting in a protracted discussion which terminated when Ayling nodded assent. Whereupon the girl walked off the road and entered the forest opposite the farm, Ayling sitting on the running board and lighting a cigarette, clearly prepared to wait.
Bony waited too, keeping Stug with him. The suitcase was normal luggage for a man to bring from camp, but in view of the fact that Ayling habitually stayed with the Wessexes, he would not bring his own blankets.
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