Mr Thorn smirked also. When she turned her attention to the parlour customers he said to Bony, sotto voce:
“Poor ole Wallace! But don’t you run away with the idea that Wallace is all mouse. He stands a lot over a long time and then suddenly bucks. When he does there’s ructions; my bloomin’ oath, there is. I was workin’ late larst night, and when I got back to town about eleven the pub was shut. Any’ow, I sneaked over to see if I could rouse Wallace on the quiet and could ’ear her going off like a packet of crackers. She was telling ’im ’ow she knew he had murdered George Loftus, and he was tellin’ ’er that if she didn’t shut up he would murder ’er. No, by no manner of means is Leonard a nice little gentleman orl the time.”
“Mrs Wallace must know something, surely?”
“She might, but I don’t think so. That’s just ’er nasty ’abit of mind. Now, if ’e murdered ’er it would be more like it. She’s the sort of woman who gets surprised when ’er throat is cut slowly.”
“It is very strange George Loftus disappearing like that, isn’t it?” Bony remarked thoughtfully.
Mr Thorn became confidential. He breathed beer affectionately into Bony’s face.
“There’s nothing strange about it,” he whispered. “He done just wot I’d ’ave done in ’is place. If you just thinks, it all comes plain. Orl these detectives and things makes a hash of jobs like this becos they ’aven’t got no imagination. Now, I ’ave got imagination. I could write books about this township and the people in it. There’s some bloomin’ characters ’ere orl right. No, ole George Loftus disappeared becos ’e wanted to disappear. He was unfinancial. No, ole Loftus wanted the chance to get out, and ’e took it. ’E disappeared becos ’e was broke and saw the chance to get out with some cash. He went down to Perth to argue with ’is creditors, and then, likely enough, wangled a cuppler ’undred quid from them or the bank to carry on over the harvest.
“Two ’undred pounds sounds a lot to a man wot’s broke, but it don’t sound so much to a man wot’s married and ’as a hungry farm waiting to swallow most of it. Says Loftus to ’isself: ‘Well, ’ere’s the boodle, and I’m orf. If I fades away, the bank’—or whoever lent him the money—‘will sool the Ds on to me, and me dinah will sool ’em when the bank gets tired. I gotta use me brains. I’ll stage a nice mysterious disappearance, an’ whiles they’re all ’untin’ for me corpse I’ll do a get-over to the eastern States.’”
“In a case like this, all you gotta do is to put yourself into the other bloke’s ’ead. It’s simple, ain’t it?” finalized Mr Thorn.
“It certainly is,” agreed Bony delightedly. “Have a drink with me?”
“I don’t mind if I do. I always——”
“Hi, Dick!” boomed a bass voice. “Just seen your boss and he says there’s a burst at the two-o-five.”
“Then let ’er keep busted. I ain’t movin’ outter this pub till I gets chucked out,” announced the Water Rat emphatically. To Bony, Mr Thorn whispered: “See ’im? Look at ’im. Just look at ’im.”
Near the main-door end of the bar there stood with military straightness one who towered above the others. Seldom had Bony seen a finer human head. It was massive, crowned with a mop of snow-white hair, regally poised above massive shoulders. The keenest of steel-blue eyes were spoiled by the underlids, which drooped in half circles of vivid red, eyes which had suffered the agony of sandy blight, eyes that had glared at the dancing mirage in dreadful places. A snowwhite beard fell down before the great chest clothed only with a flannel singlet, armless, revealing the arms of a giant.
“Look at ’im,” implored Mr Thorn. “’E can swing an axe orl day. ’E can put up a mile of fence whiles any ordinary main is putting up a cuppler strains. ’E can drink more’n me. Do you know ’ow old ’e is?”
“No,” Bony admitted.
“No more do I. No more does anybody. But we know for positive sure ’e’s over eighty. You wouldn’t believe it, but ’e is. ’E ain’t never gonna die. When we’re stiff ’e’ll be goin’ strong. We calls ’im the ‘Spirit of Orstralia’.”
Chapter Six
“The Spirit of Orstralia”
THE SPIRIT of Australia! What a name! How truly appropriate! Courage, strength, dependability; purpose, power, and unbreakable flexibility; dauntless and deathless. The Spirit of Australia! If any man was rightly nicknamed, this man was. Age rested on him as a crown of jewels, not as fetters of lead. More than eighty years old! It was incredible—till one peered deeply and saw that tremendous experiences had been the battlements which defied the onslaughts of Time.
“Who is he? What is he?” Bony at last inquired.
“’Im? ’E’s a cocky ten miles out,” Mr Thorn replied, wiping his lips with the back of his hairy hand. “’E drives sixteen ’orses in the old-fashioned way of two abreast, carting in ten tons of wheat every other day, when ’is sons get goin’ proper with the harvester machines. ’Ullo! There’s Mick Landon!”
“Where?”
“There,” Mr Thorn said, pointing to a new arrival within the parlour. “See ’im?”
There was no need for Mr Thorn to point. Beyond the sliding counter the knot of men were welcoming a young and handsome man with fair hair and blue agate eyes. To Bony the classical features were marred by the eyes, for the pupils were of the one colour and had that strange deadness of expression to be associated with fish’s eyes. Watching him, Bony was able to see them move rapidly from man to man, and from that group to Mrs Wallace, and beyond her to him and those who stood near him. A keen, alert, mentally vigorous man in the prime of life.
“’E works for Loftus,” Mr Thorn carefully informed Bony, as a showman may describe his exhibits. “Terrible good farmer, too, is Mick Landon. Would ’ave ’ad ’is own farm by now, if it ’adn’t bin for the wimen. They are orl mad on ’im. ’E can do wot ’e likes with ’em. Even the married ones get dopey when ’e looks at ’em. But for orl that, ’e’s a good bloke and a good sport. No one can run a darnce like ’im. If ole Loftus ’as bin murdered, which I ain’t sayin’ ’e is, he might marry the ole woman. Mick could do worse. She ain’t a bad looker, and she ain’t a bad worker. Hey! Come on, Leonard. You’re slippin’.”
“Think I’m a scalded cat?” demanded Mr Wallace vehemently. Mr Thorn chuckled like a devil.
“Watch me rile ’im and ’er up,” he whispered.
“Hi, Mrs Wallace!” he shouted. “Wot erbout a drink? Two pots, please, Leonard—’e wants ter go to bed.”
As a mantle might fall, so wrath fell upon Mrs Wallace. She swept aside her husband as though he were a fowl. She snatched up their tankards and with mighty arm worked the pump. The amber liquid fell into one pot and filled it to the brim. It half filled the second pot, when from the pump there came only white froth and a sound of hissing air. It was with an obvious effort that Mrs Wallace controlled herself sufficiently to say to her husband without stuttering:
“Go down and put on another barrel.”
“Fill ’em up, missus,” boomed the Spirit of Australia.
“Just a minute, Mr Garth.”
“Slowest pub I ever bin in,” muttered Mr Garth loudly.
“Get a wriggle on, Leonard, or you’ll turn into a real creepy toad,” urged Mrs Wallace with icicles behind her false teeth.
“The slowest pub I ever bin in,” reiterated the Spirit of Australia.
The company laughed, and to Bony there was a hint of expectancy in the rolling sound.
Mr Wallace had now opened the trapdoor leading to the cellar. With an angry face but with a dignified air he descended the flight of six steps and, still maintaining the quickness of the expert, proceeded to tap a full barrel. Mrs Wallace was standing between the open trap and the parlour counter eagerly listening to one of “the upper class” retailing a questionable story. Someone near Bony asked for cigarettes, but the woman’s attention was held fast.
Once again the Spirit of Australia vented his opinion of the Burracoppin Hotel in the matter of servic
e. The cigarette smoker became insistent. Unable not to hear the end of the story, yet her full appreciation of it marred by the impatience of her customers and the apparent slowness of Mr Wallace, she at last swung round as a liner at anchor moved by the tide. Mr Wallace then was ascending, important work having been importantly done. His wife saw him emerge from the darkness of the cellar, and when he stood on the middle step, when his head was between floor and counter top, she cried in a loud voice:
“Lazarus, come forth!”
The hush of a moment fell upon the crowd. Slowly above the counter rose the pale, deathly face of Mr Wallace, his black eyes gleaming with an unholy light, his grey hairs entangling a ribbon of cobweb.
Roaring laughter bellowed out through the open doors and drifted far beyond the railway. It drowned the fall of the trapdoor. Laughing men beheld husband and wife standing face to face, the mighty woman with her hands on her bovine hips, the insignificant husband with his hands clenched behind his back.
“Murderer!” sneered Mrs Wallace.
“She-bull!” hissed her husband.
At this point either the little man’s courage evaporated or experience had revealed to him the precise moment when to retreat successfully, because, with astonishing agility, he vaulted the counter, slipped between the customers, and disappeared through the main door.
Mrs Wallace threw the contents of a beer pot after her husband with exceeding poor aim considering the long practice she must have had. The beer descended in a shower over the Spirit of Australia, whose interest was captured by the darting Mr Wallace.
Now, an ordinary man would have wiped away the liquor from his whiskers, perhaps with an oath or two. But Mr Garth’s experience of life would have been incomplete without a long course of bar-room education over all the Western Australian goldfields. To many present that evening it was unfortunate that Mr Garth did not know who was responsible for that deluge of beer. The Spirit of Australia, impatient as is the youth of the country, deemed the easiest way of finding the offender was to manhandle everyone within doors. Man after man was gripped with vicelike hands, lifted off his feet, and rushed to one of the doors, from which point he was propelled ten or twelve feet to the gritty roadway. Bony had his turn with the rest: but whereas the rest were content, being personally acquainted with Mr Garth, to arise in good humour, for really Mr Garth was not in one of his rough moods, Bony’s black ancestry flashed to the surface of his dual nature, his white father’s more civilized restraint submerged entirely.
Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte returned to the bar, his blue eyes like twin blue flames.
Standing on the step of the hotel door, Bony was confronted by a spectacle which so much surprised him that he went in no farther. In the very centre of the bar the Spirit of Australia faced Mrs Wallace, and the Spirit of Australia was most subdued. He was asking in pleading tones for “just one more”.
“No!” thundered the lady, slowly advancing.
“Just one, marm.”
“Get out!”
“Gimme a drink, and I’ll go quiet.”
“I don’t care how you go, but get out.”
Mrs Wallace was now like a liner steaming slowly out of harbour. Mr Garth was, indeed, a big man, but Mrs Wallace, if not quite so tall, was wider and deeper. Bony could see her face, and never before had he dreamed there could be such fury revealed in the human countenance. Mr Garth was unwise. He should have retreated gracefully. As he had rushed Bony out of the hotel, so was he rushed out by Mrs Wallace, his instincts inhibiting his exerting his strength against her.
The door was slammed. The other bar door was slammed with equal viciousness. Footsteps thundered along a passage, and yet other doors were slammed and bolted. Mrs Wallace was the triumphant victor holding the fort.
“She’s a trimmer,” announced the Spirit of Australia, chuckling dryly, in his voice no trace of his recent violence and anger. “Who heaved that pot at me?”
“She did,” Mr Thorn said, as one who is bereaved.
“Then why didn’t someone tell me?” Mr Garth asked with pained astonishment.
“We had a lot of spare time, didn’t we?” a voice in the darkness pointed out succinctly.
Silence, broken presently by Mr Garth’s dry chuckle.
“Well—well! We all enjoyed ourselves, so what’s the odds? I’m off to feed me horses. Good night!”
With wonderful good humour, considering their rough handling, the small crowd dispersed to their homes, Bony walking towards the Rabbit Department Depot. Arriving at the gate, however, he changed his mind about going to bed and sauntered south along the straight road hemmed in by the silent, brooding scrub.
He was feeling ashamed at his failure to control the flash of temper engendered by Mr Garth’s assault, but when this wore away he began to enjoy retrospectively the human characters he had met that night. The circumstances of the evening he neither liked nor approved in general. He was not a drinker, not because he disliked alcoholic liquor, but because he hated to feel his senses dulled even for a short space of time.
It was not the want of human company or the craving for stimulants which had urged him to the hotel. His visit there was made for a quite different reason. He was aware—who is not?—that the masculine life of an Australian bush community centres about the hotel and the feminine life about the hall. Men accustomed to semi-solitary lives and performing open-air work are not naturally loquacious, but will become so when in the company of their fellows and mellowed by alcohol; while women from the lonely farms, when gathered inside a brightly lit hall at a dance or other social function, place no restraint upon their tongues.
Therefore, at the hotel and in the hall the real life of the community is to be seen in its nakedness for observant eyes to study with profit. As Bony knew, the essence of human aspirations, the virtues and the vices, are found in the humblest of the people. To Bony, thinker and student, the Spirit of Australia was of profounder interest than possibly could have been a member of royalty, for no king in history, who lived beyond eighty years, possessed Mr Garth’s strength, freedom from diseases, and cleanness of mind which had guaranteed both. And surely the man clothed, nay, burdened with in the incrustations of pomposity, propriety, and power is of less interest than Mr Thorn with his vivid imagination, shrewdness, humour, and affability.
As for Mr Wallace and his wife, here was a study of the opposites revealing one of the greatest of human mysteries: the attraction for each other of people diametrically opposed physically and mentally. Bony asked the silent trees what it was in Mrs Wallace which once had been honey to the little bee, and what quality in him had aroused admiration, possibly passion, in the bosom of that majestic woman.
The still, warm air perceptibly cooled the fever produced by heat and artificial mental stimulation, and, while he walked oblivious of the time and place, the detective examined the fish brought to him by the first cast of his net. Separately he picked them up to find among them one which might resemble the stingray, putting each one down dissatisfied that the examination was inconclusive.
Leonard Wallace might have killed Loftus, for he was of that type whose nature is mild with the placidity of the supposedly extinct volcano. There was much in common in the characters of Dr Crippen and Mr Wallace.
Of his wife’s melodramatic accusation Bony took little heed. Such an accusation as that her husband murdered Loftus seemed the visible expression of mere feminine unreasoning spite, feminine desire to hurt that which in other circumstances it would strive to protect.
On the other hand, there was reason behind Mr Thorn’s bibulously inflamed imagination. While so far there was no apparent motive for anyone killing the farmer—other than a chance passing tramp—there could be many sound reasons or motives for Loftus to carry out his own disappearance. Having been a popular man, doubtless during the recent years of prosperity he had had money with which to support his popularity. Such a man would suffer distress from lack of money, and had he been able to
secure a loan in Perth the temptation to disappear with it and start a new life in a different State might well have surmounted a love of home. Men have done worse things than deserting a wife, with less reason.
Yet, after all had been weighed in the balance of fact, the scales were even. The puzzle of Loftus’s absence remained, and as hour succeeded hour the half-caste became more absorbed by it. He turned back when from far to the south came the low, murmuring roar of wind among the scrub, heralding the strong breeze which swept from the coast inland with the regularity of a clock at this time of night at this time of year. The “Albany Doctor” people called it, because the strong, cool wind from Albany way swept clear the bodily and mental languours brought on by the heat of the long day.
Bony was about a quarter of a mile from the Depot, the sound of the coming wind being then like the roar of surf, when the trunk of a white gum tree reflected the glare of approaching headlights behind him.
The machine was travelling at a high speed, the noise of the engine swamped by that of the wind which suddenly rushed through the scrub about him and raised a cloud of dust above the road.
Why Bony stepped behind a tree long before the driver of the car could have seen him was inexplicable even to himself, save that his maternal ancestry prompted the act, the impulse of the hunted, subjugated woman shy of the approaching stranger. Sheltered from observation, he now heard the racing engine and heard, too, the loud report which he quickly learned was caused by a tyre burst.
The car lurched dangerously and finally was stopped directly opposite the watcher. A man got down and examined the tyres with the aid of a flash lamp.
“A blowout,” he said to someone still within the closed car.
The first man proceeded to obtain jack and tools. The second man alighted, a tall and big man dressed in dust coat and soft hat. Together they removed the deflated wheel and put on the spare, the first man grumbling all the time, the big man silent. There was no doubt in Bony’s mind that the big man was Mr Jelly.
Mr Jelly’s Business Page 5