Sands of Windee b-2 Read online

  Sands of Windee

  ( Bony - 2 )

  Arthur W. Upfield

  Arthur W. Upfield

  Sands of Windee

  Mr Napoleon Bonaparte

  DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR Napoleon Bonaparte, of the Queensland police, was walking along a bush track on his way to Windee Station. On Windee Station, in the west of New South Wales, had happened something that had awakened his interest. Hence his presence in an Australian State not his own. Hence hisgarb as an ordinary bush tramp in search of work.

  The season was early October, and summer was well begun. From a stockman’s point of view it promised to be for the rest of the year as bounteous as the preceding nine months. Spear grass on the plain, knee-high and golden, rippled as a ripewheatfield. Blue-bush and mulga gleamed with the freshness and fullness of their sap. A flock of newly-shorn sheep which had rumbled away at Bony’s approach were in magnificent condition; galahs and cockatoos screamed and screeched, whilst over most of the land the fat and impish rabbit swarmed in astonishing numbers.

  It was the third successive good year in New South Wales, and the wonder of it was deeply felt by Mr Bonaparte, who for two years had worked on a succession of more or less sordid cases in drought-bleached Central Queensland. Whilst walking with a bushman’s rolled swag of personal necessities within his blankets slung from his right shoulder, and carrying a blackened billy-can half-filled with cold tea, the disguised bush detective hummed the immortal refrain of the “Soldiers’ Chorus” inFaust.

  He walked with the soft tread of the Australian aboriginal. Of medium height, free from impeding flesh, and hard as nails, there was yet in his carriage more of the white man than of the black. By birth he was a composite of the two. His mother had given him the spirit ofnomadism, the eyesight of her race, the passion for hunting; from his father he had inherited in overwhelming measure the white man’s calm and comprehensive reasoning: but whence came his consuming passion for study was a mystery.

  Bony, as he insisted on being called, was the citadel within which warred the native Australian and the pioneering, thrustingBritisher. He could not resist the compelling urge of thewanderlust any more than he could resist studying a philosophical treatise, a revealing autobiography, or a ponderous history. He was a modern product of the limitless bush, perhaps a little superior to the general run of men in that in him were combined most of the virtues of both races and extraordinarily few of the vices.

  He was seated on his swag fastidiously rolling a cigarette when Sergeant Morris, of the New South Wales police, came into view round a bend of the track. Hearing the hoof-thuds, Bony looked up, saw the sergeant’s approach, smiled gently, and then completed his task. When the match that lit the cigarette had been tossed aside, the sergeant was opposite the half-caste, and was examining him from his motionless horse.

  “Day!” he snapped.

  “Good afternoon, Sergeant!” replied Bony politely.

  “Where you heading?” the policeman demanded crisply.

  “Windee”-in a pleasant drawl.

  It must not be assumed from Sergeant Morris’s brusqueness that he was a martinet. He was a dog who growled much and bit seldom, and over his domain, which was half as large as England, he was respected and liked. He questioned Bony, not because he was suspicious of a stranger, but because he had ridden many miles and had fifteen more to ride to his home and office at Mount Lion. Bony presented an excuse for a smoke.

  “Name?” he almost snarled.

  “Bony,” suavely replied the half-caste.

  “Bony? Bony what?”

  “Baptized by the worthy missionary attached to a northern Queensland mission station with the names of Napoleon Bonaparte. You see, as a very small child, the matron found me eating Abbott’s life of that famous man, and she, alas, was a practical joker.”

  Bony now was not smiling. The sergeant’s abruptness vanished. For a second his grey eyes were veiled, and then he was off his horse and standing directly facing the half-caste, who had risen to his feet.

  “Am I to understand that you are the detective-inspector of that name?” he asked. Bony nodded. Morris regarded him keenly. He looked into a ruddy-brown face made up of the sharp features of the Saxon; he gazed into the wide-open, fearless blue eyes of the Nordic; and, whilst he looked, the many rumours, and the few authentic cases, which had come to his knowledge of this strange being flashed across his mind. Sergeant Morris shook hands but seldom. He shook with Bony. And Bony smiled. The sergeant knew then that he stood in the presence of a man not only superior in rank, but superior also in mentality.

  “I have one or two documents to present to you,” Bony explained, “and, if I may make a suggestion, why not fill my billy-can from your water-bag and make tea whilst I hunt for them in the depths of my swag?”

  “Agreed, Mr Bonaparte,” the sergeant said, turning to his horse, which had been standing with the bridle reins hanging to the ground.

  “If you please-Bony,” urged the softer voice.

  Sergeant Morris turned. Then he smiled quizzically.

  “Bony-if you prefer it.”

  “You see, everyone calls me Bony,” the detective explained. “My three children do. So does my chief. Even a State Governor and a British peer have called me Bony. Although I am the greatest detective Australia has ever known, I am unworthy to polish the top-boots of the greatest emperor the world has ever known. I oftenthink, when the humorous matron named me, that she slighted the Little Corporal.”

  “He was certainly a wonderful man,” agreed Morris, lighting the twigs placed around the billy. The sergeant’s back was turned towards the other, yet he did not smile, although Bony’s simple vanity tempted him. It was by no means empty vanity, if only a fraction of the half-caste’s activities which had drifted to him through official channels were true. Then: “Are you here, by any chance, to investigate the disappearance of the man Marks?”

  “Precisely. Here are my credentials.”

  The sergeant stood up, turned, and took from Bony a long blue envelope. It was addressed to him, and, opening it, the enclosure read:

  Sydney,

  10-10-24.

  Sergeant Morris,

  Mount Lion.

  After perusing your report on the Marks case Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is convinced that it is more serious than a simple bush disappearance. Please render him any assistance for which he may ask. In this matter he will take precedence in authority. Report superintendent.

  (Signed)J. T. TOMLINSON,

  Chief Commissioner, N.S. W.

  Placing the document in a pocket of his smart blue tunic, Sergeant Morris produced a tobacco-pouch and papers and made and lit a cigarette before voicing a comment. He was not free from a feeling of annoyance, for he had thought that the mysterious Marks case was satisfactorily disposed of. The whole affair had occasioned him much arduous labour, and if the result had been indefinite it had given satisfaction in that there could have been no other. The feeling of annoyance was engendered by thefact that his conclusion had a loophole called doubt, and that here was a man who had found the loophole and would probably disagree with all that had been done and require the case to be investigated over again. And then annoyance gave way to pleasant anticipation of seeing this noted sleuth at work; for not only was Sergeant Morris an administrator, he was also an enthusiast in the science of crime detection. The tea made, and poured into an enamelled pannikin and the billy-lid in lieu of a second cup, he seated himself opposite Bony, saying:

  “Marks disappeared two miles out from the homestead of Windee Station. Rain obliterated tracks, but the surrounding country was well searched. He had a motive for disappearing. What is your theory?”

  “I think it quite
probable that Marks was murdered,” Bony replied seriously. “If eventually I discover he is not murdered, I shall be bitterly disappointed.”

  Then he laughed at the expression on the sergeant’s face, and went on:

  “I have taken charge of perhaps two dozen murder cases during mycareer, and of that number only four were really worthy of my brains. As a general rule, murderers are the most stupid of criminals. Almost invariably they leave a corpse to damn them. A few murderers cut up their victims for the police to discover. Never yet was a perfect murder, but this affair of Marks I am hopeful will come near to it. Consequently I am interested. Nowadays, if there is a corpse in the roadway, or on the doorstep, or lying on the library floor, it fails to interest me. It is too simple-too banal.”

  Chapter Two

  Disappearance of Luke Marks

  “I HAPPENED to be at Police Headquarters in Sydney recently on the Cave versus Black cattle-duffing case,” Bony explained in his soft, musical, drawling voice. “There I was shown your report and photograph concerning this Marks affair. Although your report was comprehensive, it failed to answer one or two obviously important questions. Your chief was agreeable to my coming, but my chief ordered me to return to Brisbane.”

  “And you’re here?” Sergeant Morris said with faint interrogation.

  “I wired my chief saying that I had come across an interesting murder case, and again asked his permission to take it up. Again he ordered me to return. Sometimes, Sergeant, I am annoyed by people thinking that I am a policeman to be ordered about like a private soldier, whereas I am a crime investigator.”

  Bony chuckled. Morris was frankly perplexed.

  “Well?” he urged.

  “I wired my immediate resignation, adding that I would demand reinstatement when I had finalized the case to my satisfaction.”

  As a disciplinarian the sergeant was horrified. He wasacquainted, however, with the facts relating to Bony’s joining the detective force of Queensland, which he did with no less a rank than that of detective-sergeant. He was badly needed in Queensland, first for his supreme tracking powers, and quickly afterwards for his bush knowledge and reasoning ability. He demanded the high rank, and his terms were granted, and within a very few years he had justified his rank and on special occasions his services were eagerly sought by and loaned to the police chiefs of other States.

  One of the half-caste’s few vices was a prodigious vanity. Yet this vanity was based on concrete results. His record was something to be vain of. His particular vice, however, was sometimes a source of irritation to his chief, for unless a case possessed unusual features Bony refused to take it up. For this reason his resignation had been demanded and tendered a dozen or more times, invariably to be followed by a request to resume his position when the next baffling bush tragedy took place; whereupon his superiors were only too glad to condone his indifference to authority and red tape for the sake of his unique gifts in the clearing up of crime.

  “You think, then, your commissioner will reinstate you?” Sergeant Morris countered.

  “Decidedly.”Bony laughed gently. “Colonel Spender will turn blue in the face and swear worse than a bullock-driver, but I am what I am because I do not stultify my brains on ordinary police-man’s-beat cases. Now detail to me this Marks affair. I will question as you proceed, entirely forgetful of your report.”

  “Very well,” Morris assented. For a few moments he was silent, whilst he drew a rough plan on the red sandy ground with a small stick. Then:

  “On August seventeenth a fellow calling himself Luke Marks arrived at Mount Lion in a Chevrolet car, and put up at the only hotel in the place. He gave out that he was a Sydney business-man engaged on a motor holiday trip. He said he was an old friend of Mr Jeffrey Stanton, owner of Windee Station, and would visit Mr Stanton before he went on south to Broken Hill. I saw Marks only once-when I went through the hotel after hours to see that only genuine travellers were on the premises. He was thick-set, about five feet ten, brown hair andeyes, aged about fifty. He stayed at Mount Lion two days before driving off to Windee in the morning. It is only eighteen miles, and he arrived there at twelve-fifteen. He lunched with Mr Stanton, and left at half-past two to go to Broken Hill.”

  The uniformed man prodded his stick into the ground. “Here is Mount Lion. Here, eighteen miles south-west of thetownship, is Windee homestead. To go to Broken Hill from Windee it is unnecessary to turn back through Mount Lion. The Broken Hill track branches from the Mount Lion track two miles from the homestead, going direct south-east. The junction of the tracks is ten miles from the south boundary, and about the same distance from the east boundary, of Windee.

  “Six days after Marks left the homestead his car was found four chains off the road north of the junction. It was in perfect order. There was no sign of Marks. The country all about is a maze of low sand-ridges on which grow pine trees with a sprinkling of mulga.

  “I was notified by telephone and went out at once to the abandoned car. Of tracks there were none, for the ground was sandy and dry, and there’d been two windstorms since Marks was last seen. Nevertheless, I organized Mr Stanton’s men on a wide and thorough search, and took two native trackers from a small tribe camped near the homestead in an effort to pick up tracks near the car. The parties were out more than a week. The blacks could pick up no single tracks. In fact they knew, by the nature of the ground, plus the windstorms, that it was a waste of time looking for tracks.”

  “The trackers’ names, please,” requested Bony softly.

  “Moongalliti, the king, and Ludbi, one of his sons,” Morris answered.

  “Had you ever had occasion to use them before?”

  “Yes. Once a stockman’s child was bushed. They found her, but too late. The mite was dead.”

  “In comparing their activities on the two occasions, would you say that on the second the trackers were loath to work?”

  “Well, yes,” Sergeant Morris admitted. “You see, they knew when Marks left Windee, knew that six days had passed before his abandoned car was found, and remembered those two windstorms. They wouldn’t move and I can’t blame them.”

  “Well, well!” murmured the half-caste, rolling his fifth cigarette with slim, pink-nailed, black hands. “Go on.”

  “As I stated, the horse parties were out more than a week scouring the country, and they found absolutely no trace of Marks. Considering the nature of the country, ridges of sand a dozen miles all round, excepting in the direction of the homestead, ridges which a windstorm-and there were two of great velocity and of hours’ duration-will move several yards, it would really be improbable for them to have found any trace of Marks.

  “Although it was not hot weather, Marks would have circled and circled until he dropped, and if he died at the foot of a ridge on its eastward side, the wind would have blown the ridge on him and buried him beneath tons of sand. Circle he doubtless would do, being a city man.

  “To me the only mystery is why he drove his car off the track for ninety yards before he abandoned it. But it may be explained by the fact that he lookedan habitual drinker, and in fact got drunk one night in Mount Lion.”

  “What condition was he in when he left Windee?” Bony asked.

  “Well-slightly drunk,” the sergeant replied disapprovingly. “At lunch Mr Stanton produced a bottle of port, and Marks drank most of it. Drink, I believe, is the foundation of the whole affair. I think he went to sleep in the car, and it ran off the road, just missing two trees, and was eventually stopped by the heavy sand. He probably slept till dark, woke up wondering where he was, and looked about for the track. Forgetting to turn on the headlights in his muddled state, he lost touch with his car and wandered away in a fruitless search for it.”

  “Humph!” Bony smoked reflectively.

  “That was the only solution at which I could arrive,” Morris concluded, “and Headquarters were entirely in agreement with me.”

  “How far from the homestead was the car found?”


  “Two miles.”

  “Only two miles? Generally that distance from a homestead would be within a night- or horse-paddock, where one or more of the hands would be riding almost daily.”

  “There you are right. The car was abandoned in what is called the South Horse Paddock, which is only three miles square. But Mr Stanton had used it temporarily for sheep during shearing, and it had been eaten bare. So there was no stock of any sort in the paddock at that time.”

  “Could the car be seen from the track?”

  “No. When it left the road it took a wide curve, and stopped close to a large pine-tree. It was discovered by the station bullock-driver and his mate, when they went into that paddock to get pine posts.”

  “On the face of it, the case is one of simple death by exposure in the bush,” Bony said slowly. “That is, from your written report. My attention would not have been drawn to that report had it not recently been disclosed that Marks was a member of the New South Wales police attached to the Licensing Branch. His real name was Green. A week or so after he left Sydney several members of the Licensing Branch were examined by a Royal Commissioner on charges of accepting and demanding bribes. You will have heard of it. Green’s name was brought into the examination, and he was missing. The description of your Marks tallies exactly with that of the policeman Green, and the registration particulars of Green’s car are identical with those of Marks’s car.

  “Now the policeman Green had served several years at the station of Wilcannia as a mounted trooper. He was an experienced bushman. The day he left Sydney is known. It was the second day of his annual leave, and it was the day after he had drawn the sum of thirteen hundred and seven pounds from his bank. A week before that he had sold house property to the tune of several thousands. Knowing the crash was imminent, he realized all his assets and cleared off with the cash, and doubtless securities as well.