Death of a Swagman Page 10

“How often did they take Kendall out his rations?” Bony asked without apparent interest.

  “Every month. Why?”

  “Just thinking I might ask the boss here for a job. A man out at Sandy Flat would kill his own meat?”

  “Of course. There was ration sheep in the yards when Kendall was murdered. Everyone was so excited at Kendall being flattened that them sheep was forgotten for nigh a week. Three of them there was. They reckoned that Kendall musta got ’em yarded just before he went to town that evening, ’cos there was a full carcass in the safe. Having killed one, he ought to have let the others go. Musta forgot.”

  “Well ... well ... and now he’s dead. And now that swagman is dead in the same hut. Don’t you think it funny that swagman left here in the middle of the night to tramp to Sandy Flat?”

  “Come to think of it, I do,” agreed Sam the Blackmailer.

  “How long was he here? Any idea?” persisted Bony.

  “Yes, I know that one. He arrived the afternoon before and camped in the woolshed. He called in here when we was having dinner. I give ’im a handout.”

  “If it was roaring hot weather, he could be expected to travel at night. But why go to Sandy Flat? There’s no public road past that well and hut, is there?”

  “There’s no public road, but there is a track what begins again t’other side of the Walls, a track that goes on over to Ned’s Swamp homestead.”

  “So actually that swagman spent a full day here?”

  “Yes. That’s so, mate.”

  “What road’s this place on?”

  “On the road to Pooncaira. Dry track, too. There’s another road what branches off just north of the woolshed what goes to Ivanhoe. You worrying about getting a job?”

  “Not exactly,” Bony said carelessly. “Went down to Melbourne and went broke. You know, pawned a watch for me fare up to Mildura, and I’d like a couple of months’ work somewhere.”

  “Ask the boss. He’ll put you on.”

  “I will. Want to write a letter, too, when I get back. When does the mail go out?”

  “Went through here yesterday. Left Merino yesterday. Won’t be another till Sat’day.” Sam uncoiled himself and clawed at the table to get himself to his feet. He stood then, looking down at Bony, and he said paternally:

  “Don’t you go taking a job out at Sandy Flat. That’s no ruddy place for no ’uman being, what with a murder and a suicide being done there.”

  “I wouldn’t lose no sleep over it if I did go there,” Bony stated, getting to his feet. “Suppose I’d better get back to the car. Thanks for the lunch. See you sometime.”

  “Yep. In the ruddy pub, prob’ly. Hoo-roo!”

  On leaving Sam the Blackmailer, Bony walked back to the car, and then strolled along the creek bank to the woolshed and shearing shed, a quarter of a mile distant. He came first to the woolshed, now empty of wool, its great doors wide open, and before them a makeshift fireplace.

  There was no one within. He stood for a moment in the doorway, surveying the dim interior. It was cool within and smelled of wool in the raw. On one side were two hydraulic presses; along the other was a stack of wool tables.

  Before going in he walked over to the fireplace, knelt, and felt the white wood ashes with the back of his hand and found them cold. He saw Sergeant Marshall and the squatter crossing from the house gate to the men’s quarters, and he guessed the sergeant would be making his inquiries concerning the dead swagman. Sam the Blackmailer was a certainty for the inquest the next day.

  Knowing that he still had time at his disposal, Bony entered the woolshed, glanced at the inside of the heavy door posts, and eventually reached a far corner where three sheepskins lay side by side, obviously placed there to form a mattress. He lifted up each one. Nothing lay beneath them. Nothing had been left by the dead man ... if there was to be excluded a half-completed game of noughts and crosses drawn in chalk on the nearer of the two woolpresses.

  Chapter Eleven

  A Great Day for Mr Jason

  AT TEN O’CLOCK the following morning Main Street, Merino, was unusually animated, for in addition to the business people and those engaged in shopping there were men from Wattle Creek Station to give evidence at the inquest. These now were seated on the hotel bench and at the edge of the sidewalk, all of them a bodyguard over Sam the Blackmailer, who had to be kept sober against his will.

  At ten-thirty the courthouse was packed.

  On a form against the rear wall of the building were seated the Crown witnesses: Johnny, Sam the Blackmailer, the thickset man, whose name was Harry Hudson, and Bony. These were kept in order under the stern and officially cold eye of Mounted Constable Gleeson, who guarded the public entrance, or appeared to be so doing. When he shouted something like “Hip!” everyone stood up, and up to the bench mounted Mr Jason.

  He was dressed in a navy-blue double-breasted lounge suit, a white handkerchief flowing from the pocket, his trousers neatly pressed, and black shoes upon his feet. His hair was parted down the centre, and his black moustache gleamed with a smear of oil. He looked an efficient public servant; the opening preliminaries proved him to be what he looked. When he sat down he wiped his glasses with the clean handkerchief, neatly restored it to its pocket, arranged the pile of foolscap upon his left, placed a sheet of it on the blotter before him, tested a pen, set it down, and leaned back in his chair to survey all the people as though it were the first time he had seen any one of them.

  Sergeant Marshall conducted the case for the Crown. The first witness to be called was Sam the Blackmailer, and Sam the Blackmailer was given a hearty send-off by his fellow witnesses, and the promise of one little drink by Johnny if he gave his evidence without stuttering. The suggestion of such a promise that young man would not have dared to make in Sam’s own kitchen.

  As Mr Jason was compelled to take down in longhand all evidence and questioning, the proceedings were slow and tiresome. The cook at Wattle Creek Station deposed having given the dead man bread and cooked meat on the evening of December third, and having given him rations on the evening of December fourth. This was not strictly accurate in accordance with what Bony had been told: viz., that on the evening of December fourth the swagman had been invited in to dinner by Sam the Blackmailer. It was probable that the cook did not want his employer to know of that invitation.

  “Did the deceased appear to you to be depressed?” asked Mr Jason, regarding the cook severely over his spectacles.

  “No, he was cheerful enough.”

  Marshall waved Sam the Blackmailer off the witness stand and then called for John Ball. Johnny related the conversation in general which took place at the men’s hut between the deceased and himself and Harry Hudson.

  “What time did he leave the men’s hut that night?” asked Marshall.

  “’Bout ten as near as anythink,” replied the witness.

  “Did the deceased appear to you to be depressed at that time?” asked Mr Jason.

  Johnny replied in the negative.

  “Did you observe which way the deceased went after he left your hut?” asked Marshall.

  “Yes. He walked towards the woolshed.”

  Harry Hudson, the next witness, corroborated Johnny’s evidence and he was asked the same question by Mr Jason about the dead man’s state of mind. There was elicited from this witness nearly everything that Bony had heard at the men’s dining-table the previous day. It all amounted to very little.

  Bony was called, an unusual experience for him, to detail the discovery of the body, and it was noticed by many, especially by Watson, the press representative, that he was the first witness who was not frequently requested by the coroner to pause that the evidence be recorded in writing.

  “What was the reason that you went to the hut at Sandy Flat?”

  “I was ordered by Sergeant Marshall to accompany him.”

  “Indeed! That does not answer my question.” Mr Jason set down his pen and leaned back in his chair of justice with obvious physical re
lief. In his full and rich voice he said: “I will repeat the question.”

  “I had no particular reason, sir,” Bony stated. “I am at present in custody, and I was ordered by Sergeant Marshall to accompany him.”

  “Very well.”

  “Stand down, please,” ordered Marshall.

  When Bony reached the witnesses’ form he found there only Harry Hudson, who announced in a loud whisper that Johnny could no longer “hold” Sam from the hotel.

  Having been sworn, Constable Gleeson recited the list of the articles comprising the dead man’s swag, and in detail described how the hanging had been accomplished. He submitted the photographs he had taken. Mr Jason accepted the prints and gazed at them with great interest, much to the curious envy of the public. At the solicitors’ table sat Mr Watson, the local press correspondent. He continued to write furiously, and it was evident that he could easily outpace Mr Jason. He stopped, for about the second time since the proceedings had begun, when Dr Scott was called to the witness stand.

  The first part of the doctor’s evidence corroborated that of previous witness. Then:

  “The body having been taken down,” he continued, “I examined it externally and estimated that life had been extinct for from twelve to twenty hours; in other words, that death had occurred sometime the previous night. There were no marks of violence, other than that made by the ligature round the neck, and a recent injury on the back of the right hand.

  “The ligature was fashioned with the deceased’s swag straps, comparatively new and one inch in width. The depression round the neck made by the ligature was hard and brown in colour, the upper and lower borders having a faint line of redness or lividity. Where the buckle came hard against the neck beneath the left ear the skin was rasped and ecchymosed, and where each buckle hole in that part of the strap had rested against the skin there was a distinct circular mark indicating absence of pressure.”

  The little doctor ceased speaking, and the silence in the court was broken only by the busy pen in Mr Jason’s hand and the rustling of paper when Mr Watson flung a filled sheet away from himself to the floor in dramatic manner.

  “The body having been brought to the morgue here in Merino,” Dr Scott proceeded, “I made a second external and an internal post-mortem examination. I found that the lungs were much engorged with blood, and that there were no injuries to the spinal column and cord. That would indicate that the body did not drop far when deceased stepped off the table. Actually the drop was not more than five inches. However, I found serious fracture of the larynx, the os hyoides, which is of especial importance because these injuries are very rare in hanging and quite common in strangling cases.”

  Mr Jason put down his pen before he could have caught up with the doctor’s evidence and stared blankly at witness. Bony cast a swift glance at Mr Watson, and Mr Watson was standing up on his island of paper sheets, his mouth open, his pencil held on high. The silence was so profound that the cackling of a kookaburra in a near-by tree seemed to thunder on the ear-drums. Down went Mr Watson like a poleaxed bullock, to sprawl over the table and continue to write with even greater rapidity. It seemed that Mr Jason waited for the kookaburra to cease its cackling laughter before he sent his rich and full voice over the head of the public.

  “What, Doctor, does that infer ... exactly?” he asked.

  “It infers that the deceased died of asphyxiation produced by strangling, and not asphyxiation produced by hanging. The mark by the strap was in accordance with death from hanging, and in front of the neck the mark was higher than the larynx. It was, therefore, not the strap which injured the larynx so much that it was fractured.

  “With the aid of a glass I found a second mark with very little ecchymosis, save at the back of the neck. It was this second mark indicated clearly how the larynx was fractured, and here and there along this mark round the neck were small areas of ecchymosis in a kind of crisscross pattern, indicating that this ligature was not a strap or a rope but a strip of some material.

  “I examined deceased’s mouth and his hands. Under his fingernails and also in the congealed blood on his injured hand I found fibres which microscopic examination prove to be jute fibres. It would appear that deceased was strangled to death with a strip of hessian.”

  “Hessian!” repeated Mr Jason loudly.

  “Yes, sir, hessian. It would seem that deceased was first strangled with a ligature of hessian sacking, and then his body was hanged from the crossbeam of the hut.”

  “You infer that the deceased was killed and did not kill himself?”

  “That is what I infer, sir.”

  Mr Jason’s voice was almost a screech.

  “That deceased was murdered by being strangled and that then his body was hanged to simulate murder? Is that your opinion?”

  “Those are the facts, sir,” Dr Scott said slowly.

  The cackling of the kookaburra without would have made a welcome entry into the dead silence within the court. Even Mr Jason’s angry pen seemed to make no more sound than a hissing snake at the bottom of a well. Presently he laid down his pen and looked up.

  “Have you anything more to add?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any more witnesses, Sergeant?”

  Marshall replied in the negative.

  “You cannot establish the identity of the deceased person?”

  “Not yet, your honour. Inquiries are being made in Broken Hill, where, it is thought, the man was recently in hospital.”

  Mr Jason pondered. Mr Watson hurried outside, Bony guessed to go to the post office. His telegrams to his papers were going to cause irritating commotion. Mr Jason’s voice broke in upon his thoughts:

  “I adjourn this inquiry for one week ... to ten o’clock on December thirteenth.”

  No one in the courtroom moved, other than Mr Jason, who, with grave deliberation, gathered his papers together and placed them in an attaché case. Then he glared at the gathering over his spectacles for an appreciable period of time before rising abruptly to his feet.

  Only when he disappeared through a door at the end of the Bench did the people present get noisily to their feet and stream outside, everyone talking as though to relieve overtaut nerves.

  “What d’you know about that?” Hudson asked Bony. “Getting interesting, ain’t it? Coming over for a drink?”

  “Not just now. Mrs Marshall will have the lunch ready, and I’m not missing that part of my wages,” Bony told him. “See you later, perhaps.”

  He began his afternoon work on the police station fence promptly at two o’clock, and five minutes later he observed Dr Scott and Marshall accompany the coroner to the morgue behind the station residence. They were there a bare ten minutes, and then returned to the office, where, Bony guessed, the doctor would sign his certificate and Mr Jason would give his authority for the burial of the body.

  At three o’clock he learned from Marshall that his guess had been correct and that the unnamed swagman was to be buried at four that afternoon.

  “I’ll have to go,” Marshall said. “Care about coming, too? I could conscript you as a bearer.”

  “Yes, I think I’ll go. Any reply to our telegrams?”

  “No. Bit early.”

  At one minute to four o’clock the ancient hearse was driven out of the garage and stopped at the police station gate. Young Jason was at the driving wheel. He wore his cloth cap right side foremost. He was arrayed in his working overalls. In the corner of his mouth was the unlighted cigarette end. Mr Jason was in his funeral regalia, the metamorphism of his outward garments being almost as remarkable as that from his character of deputy district coroner.

  Having alighted, Mr Jason shot his cuffs, set his top hat more firmly on his dark head, which advancing years seemed slow to whiten, and stared at Bony. Young Jason rolled the cigarette end to the opposite side of his mouth, got to the ground, and stood glaring at his father.

  Two men crossed the street from the hotel. Harry Hudson and the hotel yard
man, engaged for the afternoon by the Merino mortician. Bony became a third, with young Jason the fourth. They carried the coffin to the morgue, where Mr Jason with his usual solemn decorum supervised the encoffining of the remains. The main street of the township was thronged by waiting spectators. Those in the street opposite the police station saw Mr Jason coming ahead of the four bearers carrying the coffin to the hearse. He looked something like a major-domo leading a distinguished guest into the presence of his master or a drum major at the head of his band.

  “The coffin must weigh more than the body,” remarked Harry Hudson, his voice a little thick. “How much will the old man get for this planting, Tom?”

  “About as much as when we plant you,” came the surly reply from young Jason. He was ahead of Bony, who saw that despite his ungainliness and the shortness of one leg, he did his work with ease.

  “You ain’t looking forward to planting me, are you?” Harry mildly inquired, liquor mellowing him and not rousing his temper.

  “Can’t say that I look forward to planting anyone, especially on a hot day,” stated young Jason sourly. “I leaves the anticipation act to the old man.”

  “He seems to enjoy a good and hearty plantin’,” observed the yardman. “I ’ad an uncle once who went to every funeral about the place, grew flowers specially to take to ’em, and it was a fair-sized town, too. ’E just loved funerals, but your old man, ’e just loves ’imself at one. Properly enjoys ’em.”

  Mr Jason, having arrived at the rear of the hearse, threw wide the doors and stepped back. The bearers slid the coffin into the interior. Thereupon Mr Jason reverently closed the doors, his white face and dark moustache, his top hat and frock coat perfectly in tune with the vehicle in which he took such evident pride.

  Young Jason crawled into his driving seat. His father stood up beside him ... as if to enjoy his great moment. He surveyed the people gathered under the pepper-trees, the bearers, and Gleeson, who was standing at the police station gate. Mr Jason waited, a frown settling about his eyes.

  “Do we stay put all day?” asked his son loudly. “I promised old Sinclair his truck at five.”