Breakaway House

by Arthur W. Upfield

  And strangest of all was the peculiar fading into the background of her uncle. Immediately Colonel Lawton arrived, the personality of Morris Tonger waned, became as colourless and as uninfluential as that of one of his stockmen. He seemed to take on the characteristics of one who was merely a deputy to a far more important person than himself.

  It was a strange day; one of those days when a high-level haze neutralises the sunshine; but with distance rapidly lengthening between herself and Breakaway House, her mood continued to lighten until by the time she reached the boundary gate she was singing. She had opened the gate and was driving the machine slowly through, intending to close it after her, when Fred Ellis’s shout caught her attention.

  “Don’t trouble about the gate, miss. I’ll close it. Look at them smoke signals, they’re at it again,” he yelled from the doorway of his hut.

  Slowly she drove the car forward and finally stopped it in front of the stockman’s abode.

  Ellis hurried to the car and leant nonchalantly against the front door. “Gonna rain, Miss Tonger,” he said casually and yet not familiarly, his blue eyes beaming and draggled moustache quivering.

  “I hope it doesn’t until tomorrow. You’re Fred Ellis, aren’t you? Have you got over that nasty blow you received the night of the ball?”

  “Too right, miss. It was Matthews who downed me. I’ll be waiting, calm like, for him to come this way again – silly fools, ’im and Buck Ross, to think Mr Tremayne would be getting away with a black woman. Look at them signals, they’ve been going strong all day.”

  “What do they mean, do you know?”

  “No, they beats me. Them blacks are cunning chaps. Ask them anythink and they only laughs for an answer.”

  It was the first time Frances had spoken to Fred Ellis, although she had seen him on several occasions. Simple and open, she found that she liked him, and remained talking to him for several minutes. She noted how five large cats rubbed themselves against his legs and purred.

  “Do you read much?” she asked presently.

  “Yes miss, anythink I can get ’old of. Reading a book now by a bloke called Charles Lamb. Sooner read somethink with blood in it. That there Nora pinched all me books when Ned and ’er went south.”

  “I’ll send you over some books one day. Now I must be going along. Anything you want brought back from Bowgada tonight?”

  “No miss, thank you. If I hear you coming I’ll slip along and open the gate for you.”

  “Thank you. Goodbye.”

  Her last impression of him was of a tall figure crouched to gather into his arms several of the cats which might have got beneath the wheels.

  As she was driving up the steep grade to the summit of the eastern breakaway, she thought of the recent attempt made there to kill Harry Tremayne. She slowly passed and noted the place from which the rock slab had been blown out over the track. The newly exposed rock bed was easily discernible, and she shuddered when she saw how the horse had been knocked off the roadway to drop thirty feet to the steep slope below. She was still thinking of that, her heart smouldering with rage, when she brought the car to a stop outside the Bowgada homestead. Brett Filson hurried out to meet her and, standing in the door-frame, she could see a large matronly woman.

  “It’s very good of you to drive over, Miss Tonger. Especially when you have a guest,” Brett said, smiling cheerfully. “Miss Sayers and Miss Winters should be here at any moment.”

  “It was kind of you to ask me, Mr Filson,” she told him, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. “I do get bored at Breakaway House, and Colonel Lawton seems to have such a lot to say to Uncle. They are very old friends, you know.”

  “So I understand. Well, come on in. Here’s Millie waiting to receive you. She’s my housekeeper, and what I should do without her I don’t know.”

  Side by side they walked the short pathway to the house, she exclaiming over Jackson’s vegetables which in those parts are far more important than flowers, and he lifted out of himself by this unusual excitement of receiving guests at Bowgada. Before the coming of Harry Tremayne he had seldom had visitors.

  The smiling Millie, neatly dressed and a fitting mate for the honest boss stockman, took charge of her so completely that she experienced an unknown type of happiness, unknown because there was no one to welcome her to Breakaway House like this. The Bowgada homestead itself welcomed her. It was so solid-looking, so peaceful and clean and light. The room to which Millie conducted her was evidently a guest room, and yet there were bush flowers arranged tastefully in vases.

  She found Brett Filson waiting for her in the living room, a room which breathed masculinity. The writing desk, the pictures of horses and sheep, the rack of pipes, and the tin of tobacco and rice papers on the high mantel over the great open fireplace all portrayed this man’s character.

  “I do like your house, Mr Filson,” she told him with charming directness.

  “Do you? It’s not quite so ship-shape as it was when my mother was alive. Still, it’s kept comfortable and clean by Millie. Would you like tea now, or shall we wait for the others?”

  “Oh, we’ll wait if you don’t mind. They shouldn’t be long. Mr Tremayne will not linger on the road.”

  “Not like he did when he drove you back to Breakaway House the night of the ball?” Brett queried teasingly.

  “Did he…did he tell you that he didn’t go over five miles an hour?”

  Looking down into the bright eyes and observing the flushed face, Brett replied in the affirmative. “I warned him that people who began by being antagonistic towards each other end by falling in love,” he told her lightly. “I’m glad you two have fallen in love. I like Harry Tremayne. Life here has been much brighter since he came. And through him I’m getting to know and to like you.”

  “You’re very kind, Mr Filson. You cannot imagine how nice all this is. It seems such a different world to me. Listen, I can hear a car coming.”

  “That will be English with the Myme ladies. Shall we go out to meet them?”

  “By all means. But…but didn’t Harry go in for them?”

  Brett’s face gained a degree of gravity. “No,” he replied. “English went. Harry’s not yet back.”

  “Not back! Where did he go?”

  “That I don’t know. He went away early last evening, and said he would be back this afternoon. He should be here at any minute.” Again Brett smiled when he added: “He knew you would be coming over.”

  Feeling just a little perturbed, Frances accompanied her host to the front door and along the garden path to the gate before which the Bowgada car came to a stop. Brett welcomed the passengers and assisted them to alight, and Frances observed how Ann Sayers’ eyes shone when she looked at the squatter. Then she was regarding the ample figure of Violet Winters enshrouded in sea-green chiffon. When her gaze returned to Ann Sayers she was pleased to note that her impression gained in the artificial light of the ballroom was well sustained in brilliant sunshine. She was rather nice, this girl from Myme, and of course madly in love with Mr Filson. And equally, it would appear, he with her.

  All talking together, the ladies were taken away by Millie to the guest room, and later they found Brett Filson waiting in the living room beside the table on which Soddy Jackson was setting out afternoon tea.

  “How did you get that confectionery from Perth, Mr Filson?” Frances asked.

  “It didn’t come from Perth. It came from the Bowgada kitchen,” Brett explained. “Jackson here does all that.”

  “Did you make those cream puffs? And those lamingtons, Mr Jackson?”

  “Yes, miss,” the cook assented, his face reddening with pleasure, taken off his guard and forgetting that he was being addressed by one of the hated capitalists. “Old Mrs Filson showed me how to turn out do-dahs for afternoon tea. She was a cook, if you like.”

  “I shall come again,” Violet Winters announced decisively. “That is if you ask me, Mr Filson. Those lamingtons make me want to be greedy.”r />
  “There’s plenty more,” Jackson said with slight disapproval in his voice, then withdrawing to bring in the teapot.

  When he finally closed the door, Violet said: “I’d like to marry a man like that. I could put up with his undertaker’s face as long as he made me lamingtons like those. Lamingtons I never can resist.”

  “Good! Will you pour out the tea?”

  “I’d like Miss Sayers to. I’d like to be waited on for once.”

  “So you shall be. Miss Sayers, please serve us with tea.”

  Having voted Ann Sayers to the position of tea-pourer, the afternoon tea party proceeded with much gaiety, although Violet Winters, who wanted to know when Harry Tremayne was expected, appeared slightly put out by his absence.

  Jackson again entered, this time to remove the tea things, and still Harry Tremayne had not come.

  Ann and Frances gravitated to the gramophone, leaving Violet talking with Brett who was lounging on the window seat. The windows were open, and the thickening haze had at long last blotted out the sun.

  Presently Violet abruptly broke off relating local scandal to ask pertinently: “Where did Mr Tremayne go?”

  “I don’t really know,” replied Brett.

  “When did he go?”

  Her red face became suddenly stern and into her small eyes crept a hard glint.

  “When did he go?” she repeated.

  “Last evening. He said he would return at noon today.”

  For a space she glared at her host as though he had offended her.

  “I’ve found out things about him,” she said grimly. “He’s a policeman. He’s after those gold-stealers whom my brother was mixed up with. It was policemen shot Tom dead, but…” The sternness faded from the rugged face. Her features relaxed and appeared to fall into a different shape. “I hate policemen, but I can’t hate Mr Tremayne. He’s so different from other men. He’s just a rampageous boy. He says to me with his eyes all bright and his mouth widened into a grin, he says: ‘If I give you a nice cold bottle of beer, will you give me a nice hot cup of tea?’ What could I say, Mr Filson? I don’t care if he is a policeman. I can’t hate him, I can’t. But he’s got to look out. They’ll get him…” Beyond the windows came drifting the sound of quick drumming hoofs. “That’ll be him, likely enough,” she said with evident relief.

  The horseman was riding from the direction of the Bowgada out-station situated due east of the homestead, and not along the north-east Myme track. They saw him emerge from the mulga beyond the sheep yards and watched the dust rise from the pounding hoofs, a pregnant silence having fallen between them. Brett wondered just how much this big woman knew of the gold-stealers, and remembered what Tremayne had said about her based on the information gained from Mug Williams.

  A few seconds later, Violet Winters exclaimed: “Why that’s not him! That’s Mug Williams!”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  HURRIED ARRIVALS

  THE gramophone music stopped. In the ensuing silence those in the Bowgada living room heard the pounding hoofs rise in crescendo, reaching finality in rapid tattoo when the animal was pulled sharply back at the stockyards.

  “Is that Mr Tremayne?” asked Frances quickly.

  “No, Miss Tonger,” replied Brett without looking at her.

  She and Ann Sayers came to stand behind him, and they watched Mug Williams leap from his saddle, shut the horse in the yard, and come hurrying to the house. In the room no one spoke, for this haste on the part of Williams appeared to be pregnant with possibilities.

  From the door of their hut Ned and Nora called a greeting to the little butcher, but he neither slackened his gait nor answered them.

  “If you’ll excuse me!” Brett said, rising.

  “If he’s come about Mr Tremayne, you will let us know?” said Violet a little sharply.

  The squatter nodded: “Yes,” he assented. “Yes, I will let you know at once. I have an idea that you may be of assistance to Harry Tremayne, and, in a way, to me.”

  He met Mug Williams at the kitchen door, observing the little man’s dust-laden clothes, his unshaven chin, and his grey eyes lit by the current of excitement. Their sudden meeting relaxed the strain so clearly depicted on his weathered face.

  “Glad I found you at home, Mr Filson. I want to see Mr Tremayne at once.”

  “Mr Tremayne isn’t in, Williams.”

  “Not in! Then where is he? I must talk to him at once.”

  “Out on the run somewhere,” Brett informed him. “I’m expecting him back at any moment.”

  “Oh!” Clearly Mug Williams was nonplussed. Then he said desperately: “Well, I must talk to you. In private – in your office room.”

  “I have visitors. We’ll go over to the stockyards.”

  Together they reached the well-built yards where Brett turned to the little man to ask quietly: “Well, what’s the matter?”

  “They’re after me – that crowd who put Hamilton away, and, likely enough, a young feller named Robbins. That wasn’t his name. He’s Mr Tremayne’s brother. Do you know about that, Mr Filson?”

  Brett nodded. “I believe I know just as much as Mr Tremayne knows. Why are ‘they’ after you? Who are ‘they’? Better explain everything. You seem to be upset.”

  “Betcher life I’m upset. They must have learned what I told Mr Tremayne – and he swore he’d never say a word. It’s them gold-stealers. They’re after me. You see, it was like this: My brother, he’s a good and bad bloke by turns. For weeks he sings hymns and goes to church; then suddenly he breaks out on a bender. He’s been on a bender since last Thursday, and last night he camps on the doorstep of the pub waiting for old Sayers to open up this morning. About two o’clock two men meets at the kerb right opposite where he’s lying, and one of ’em is Buck Ross and the other is a feller called Jake Matthews. It’s so dark they don’t see him lying down in the doorway, but even though they talks quiet like, my brother hears what they said, and what they said sobered him up quicker than a week in the jug.

  “One says: ‘We got to fix Mug Williams. He knows a little and guesses more, and talks more than that.’ That was Buck Ross. Then he said: ‘We got to catch Mug in the bush when he’s out on his next night ride. He’s to be taken to the plant and kept there to work with the other bloke. It’s you and me for that job, Jake.’

  “‘Wot about that Tremayne feller?’ asks Jake Matthews.

  “‘I’m not worrying about him for the present,’ says Buck. ‘It’s Mug who’s our meat. We’ve got to put him in the safe; we’ve got to keep an eye on him from first thing in the morning. You come along to my place early and we’ll map out a plan of action.’”

  When Williams paused in his recital, Brett asked: “Where’s the plant they spoke about?”

  “I don’t rightly know.”

  “You’d better come clean if you want me to help you,” warned Brett.

  “I tell you I don’t know,” reiterated Williams seriously. “I reckon it’s somewhere about that balancing rock over on Tonger’s breakaway, but I ain’t sure.”

  “All right. Go on. What did you do – or rather, why are you here?”

  “Well, when they two cleared off, my brother gave up the idea of waiting on the doorstep until the pub opened, and he comes out to our slaughter yards where I was camped. And me – knowing what kind of push Buck Ross leads – I sees that I’d best clear out of Myme. If I don’t go on a night ride, they’ll think up some way of getting me in Myme.

  “So I wraps the moke’s hoofs in bags, and rode north and then east round Myme till I reached the Pinnacles, which, as you know, are humps along a five-mile bar of granite. I hid up among ’em until close on two o’clock today, and then, when I felt a bit sure I hadn’t been tracked there, I come on here via Tilcha. I got away all right, but I must lay up somewheres till I can think out a plan on me own. You see I never did nothink to them but now they’re going to put the hoots into me. I wants to join Mr Tremayne. I’ve got to join ’im, or fight ’em on
me own, ’cos if I don’t they’ll get me, and there’ll be no peace for me to carry on me legitimate business of butchering.”

  “And cattle duffing.”

  “Oh, that’s only a side line.”

  “It would be a most important line if you were ever caught, Williams. So you would join Mr Tremayne in hunting down these people?”

  “There ain’t nothink else for me to do, Mr Filson. I’m not gonna run away from the district – sacrifice my business.”

  “Hum! It’s possible that you’re over-estimating your danger,” Brett said slowly. “On the other hand, you may be under-estimating it. You’d better stay here until Mr Tremayne returns. It will be for him to decide. Look! Here comes someone else in a hurry. You loose your horse, and go along to Jackson for a feed. Do you know that Aborigine?”

  Mug Williams was too agitated to be anything but careless in his reply. “No,” he said. “Stranger to me.”

  “I think it’s Ned’s brother, Wombera,” was Brett’s opinion. “Not on a casual visit, either. Well, you go in for a cup of tea.”

  Leaving Williams to hasten to the kitchen, Brett Filson hobbled across to the hut where the Aborigine was eagerly talking to Ned and Nora. The visitor had rushed straight over to Ned and Nora without waiting for an invitation to approach, and that was unusual.

  “What’s the trouble, Ned?” the squatter asked, seeing that trouble certainly lay behind the visit.

  “N’gobi come back, Mr Filson. N’gobi coming here for Nora.”

  “I’m not going with N’gobi,” Nora exclaimed fiercely. “N’gobi’s no good. He beat me. He kill people. He’s bringing his relations with him to take me and beat Ned; perhaps point the bone at him.”

  “I’ll not have any fighting on Bowgada, do you understand?” Seeing the varnish of fear painted on the features of Ned and Nora, Brett’s severity waned. “Where’s N’gobi now? Are you Wombera?”

  The stranger nodded. “N’gobi, he get here tonight. He say he kill Ned, he take Nora. Nora belonga him. She right to go back with him. Much trouble if Nora not go alonga him.”