Wings Above the Diamantina

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “What! You are not leaving us, Sergeant?” exclaimed Nettlefold.

  “I did not know—”

  “Possibly I have been a little premature,” Bony cheerfully cut in, “but I’m afraid that Sergeant Cox will be leaving the district for a more important post as soon as I can arrange matters.” He rose, his blue eyes twinkling with good humour. “And now we must be off. I will leave Illawalli to your kind care, Miss Nettlefold. The captain tells me that he will be ready to fly him back to his own people at the end of next week. It was, my dear Captain, both generous and wise of Dr Knowles to make you a gift of his now repaired aeroplane. He will never fly again. He told me that when sober he is a perfect fool in the air, and that, as he has forsworn John Barleycorn, he always will be sober in future. As for your utility, Mr Nettlefold, I will see to it that the loss is made good. Where, I wonder, is my old friend, Illawalli?”

  “He is over there playing with a pup,” Loveacre replied, pointing out through the fly-gauze to the ancient chief sitting in the shade cast by the office and fondling an energetic cattle pup.

  “I will return in a moment. Pardon me,” Bony murmured. He left the group and walked along the veranda to the white bed screens. Outside them he coughed loudly, and then with a happy smile stepped round them to see Miss Kane sitting propped with pillows on the bed, with her medical attendant standing beside her. Her face was flushed either with returning health or some mental excitement. Bony had been a constant visitor since that dramatic night when Illawalli thawed the ice freezing all her muscles, the ice that had kept her prisoner in her own body...

  “I have come to say good-bye, Miss Kane,” the detective said softly.

  “Oh, not good-bye, Bony! Let it be only au revoir,” the girl cried, her eyes becoming abruptly misty. “You will come again some time to see us, won’t you?”

  “Thank you! I would like to return to stay with you and Dr Knowles, say late next year. You will not, I trust, fail to send me at least one crumb of the wedding cake?’

  “Oh, Bony! How did you guess?”

  He smiled. “To Bony all things are known.”

  Stepping forward, he gallantly kissed the warm hand held out to him. The doctor’s hand he clasped and shook vigorously, and then, wishing them all good luck, he left them.

  The others were waiting for him outside the veranda door. Bony noticed how Ted Sharp kept in the background, as had become his habit. He had observed, too, that Elizabeth’s attitude to the boss stockman was distinctly cold.

  “Give me another minute, Sergeant,” he pleaded. “Miss Nettlefold, I wish you to come with me. You, too, Ted.”

  Taking the girl’s arm he urged her across to the perplexed Ted Sharp, and then with his other hand gripping Ted’s arm he took them both across to the lounging Illawalli. On seeing them approach, the chief stood up to receive them with dignity.

  “I am about to leave you, Illawalli,” Bony told him regretfully. “Before I go I want you, as a favour, to read me this white feller’s mind.”

  “Give your hand,” requested the ancient, his expression stern.

  Ted Sharp hesitated.

  “Give him your hand, there’s a good fellow,” urged Bony genially. The boss stockman complied then, hostility yet in his mind against the detective. For thirty seconds his strong brown hand was gripped by the skinny black one before Illawalli said:

  “You come to Coolibah many years ago. You find here nice young white girl. Bimeby you tell her you love her, and she say no; she no un’erstand her own heart. Then your father’s brother he die and say you have two-three thousand quid. All them quids they very nice, but they no good you buy beeg station and plenty cattle! So you say nothin’. P’haps you tell white girl again you love her and again she no tell her own heart.

  “And then letter come and you told your father him die and him say you have orl his money. The law man him write you go Brisbane and sign papers and then you get orl beeg money. You say: ‘No. I stay here and your off-sider him brings papers to Gurner’s Hotel. I sign ’em there.’ So law man’s offsider him come to Gurner’s pub that night the fine feller captain’s plane him stolen. You go there and sign ’em papers and law feller’s offsider him say orl them quids belonga you in bank.

  “Now you say yourself, I buy Garth Station. You know old John Kane he own Garth. Way back long time, Mr Nettlefold and John Kane they have row, and bimeby Mr Nettlefold he tell Kane him buy Garth. And John Kane him laugh and him say: ‘No, never you buy Garth, I watch, that.’ You know if you go Kane and say you buy Garth, Kane him say: ‘You want Garth for Mr Nettlefold and I say plenty times I no sell Garth to Mr Nettlefold.’

  “You cunning feller, orl right! You send letter to station fellers down in Brisbane. You tell them ask Kane how much he want for Garth. You tell them go careful or Kane him find out you after buy Garth. They say so much. You say wait. Then d’rectly you sign papers belonga law man’s offsider, you send wire message to station fellers in Brisbane tell them they buy Garth quick you got plenty money. You reckon you have Garth and seven thousand cattle you say to white girl you love her, she marry you, you got plenty cash, plenty cattle. You cunning feller, too right! You nearly go jail ’cos you cunning feller, too.”

  The old man released the brown hand, and, looking into Sharp’s astonished face, chuckled grimly. Then, before the boss stockman could say a word, Illawalli took Elizabeth’s hand.

  “The white lubra is joyful,” he said. “She knows that the sick white lubra soon be better, that she soon go away with doctor feller. One time Miss Eliz’beth she lonely and sad. She not know what make her sad and lonely. Then she know, then she know when she take sick white lubra and nurse her. She think she know what she want, so that no more she will be lonely and sad. Then some whitefeller, he play the fool with my friend Bony. He no talk when he should. He think him cunning feller and he don’t say nothing when Bony put him questions. Now she know white feller him not crook and she joyful. She know she marry Ted Sharp when he ask her. She know she want to look after him and bimeby...”

  “Oh, Illawalli!” the blushing Elizabeth exclaimed reproachfully. Ted Sharp straightened his shoulders and looked from her to Bony, who was bidding Illawalli an affectionate farewell.

  Bony smiled at them in turn and hurried back to the house where the others were gathered about Cox’s car. The goodbyes were prolonged. Nettlefold was hearty. Loveacre was dashing despite the disfiguring bandages. Elizabeth came hurrying with Ted Sharp from the direction of the office. Her eyes were like stars. Cox climbed in behind the wheel, and Bony joined him in the front seat. Bony waved to Illawalli, and then, just when the car was about to move off, Ted Sharp sprang to Bony’s side to whisper:

  “I apologize, Mr Bonaparte, for being such a stupid cad.”

  “Not a cad, Ted; merely too cautious.”

  “You are generous. Tell me this: Did that old chap really read our minds? He guessed a lot of things about me ... and ... in the office, Elizabeth told me that he read her mind all right.”

  Bony chuckled and pinched the boss stockman’s arm.

  “No,” he confessed. “I am afraid I told Illawalli what to say.”

  Epilogue

  “So you see, sir, that I fell down on the job,” Bony pointed out to the white-haired, fierce-eyed gentleman sitting in a lounge chair within a comfortably-furnished study. “Had I used my brain properly I could have finalized the case weeks ago and have saved the State the expense of sending that aeroplane for Illawalli, and the expense of sending another back with him. To Sergeant Cox is due the entire credit for clearing up a nice little puzzle.”

  “H’rumph!” snorted Colonel Spendor. “Now tell me why you had the effrontery to telegraph me here at my private residence concerning an official matter? And why the devil do you come here to make your report? The office is the place, sir, for all official business.”

  “But are you not pleased to see me, sir?” asked Bony with innocent astonishment.

  “Of course, but w
hat’s that to...”

  “And, sir, have you not been entertained by my story of the stolen aeroplane?”

  “I do not deny it,” shouted the colonel. “Bring two of those glasses from the sideboard—and the damned whisky. Hi! We must have that Illawalli feller attached to us for duty.”

  “Would you kill an old man, sir?” Bony inquired, setting glasses and decanter on the small table beside the Chief of the Queensland Police Force.

  “Why, no! Of course not!”

  “Then permit him to return to his own people. He would die soon in a white man’s city. In return for his services, I told him that you would be pleased to present him with a gold watch and chain.”

  “A gold.... A gold watch and chain! Where the devil am I to get gold watches and chains to present to aboriginal chiefs? Tell me that.”

  “I thought, sir, that you might like to buy him one. The Chief Secretary ... a special grant, sir. Illawalli would be so proud to have a watch presented by you, sir.”

  The colonel glared. He was about to suggest a toast, remembered himself, and glared again at the well-dressed and debonair half-caste.

  “Well, remind me about it in the morning. What next?”

  “Er ... with reference to Sergeant Cox, sir. I hear that a sub-inspectorship will shortly become vacant. The Red Tape Worshippers are backing Miller. Now Sergeant Cox...”

  Colonel Spendor banged the table, his face growing deeply scarlet, and through the open french windows from the veranda came a cool, sweet voice which said:

  “Now, Father! Keep your temper.”

  “Er ... h’rumph. Yes, of course, my dear,” the colonel stuttered. “But this damned Bony feller...”

  “Please, Father, vary your expletives. The one becomes so monotonous,” pleaded the sweet voice.

  “Your pardon, my dear. I forgot you were there.”

  Colonel Spendor glared at Bony. He was very angry. And then slowly anger melted before the sun of a big and generous heart.

  “There is a vacancy here and now, of which you know nothing,” he said. “If your report, to reach me to-morrow, coincides with your verbal report this evening, Sergeant Cox shall receive the promotion and a transfer.”

  “I will keep the Colonel to his word, Bony,” promised the sweet voice.

  “Sir, I know a good policeman when I meet him,” added Bony, referring to Sergeant Cox.

  “And I know a damned bad one when I look at him, and I am looking at one this moment,” the colonel flashed.

  “Your opinion of me, sir, exactly coincides with my own,” Bony instantly agreed.

  The colonel chuckled, and rose to his feet to stand with military stiffness. Together they passed through the windows to the veranda where a little woman sat in the falling twilight.

  “Madam,” Bony murmured, bowing, “I thank you for your support this evening.”

  “You deserved it, Bony, in return for your most interesting story, well told,” replied Mrs Spendor. “And you need not remind the Colonel of his promise to send to that wonderful aboriginal chief the gold watch and chain. I will see to that, too.”

  And when the sound of Bony’s departing taxi died away, Colonel Spendor lit a cigar.

  “My worst policeman,” he said. “My best detective!”