Bony and the Mouse Read online

  “You there, Tony Carr?” he called. “Come outside a moment.”

  They heard Tony mumble something which could have been “All right, Boss.” Then the hessian curtain was moved aside and the lad appeared, wearing old pyjama trousers only. Bony was conscious of Fred Joyce and another man standing with him behind the policeman.

  “Come on out, Tony,” commanded Harmon, his voice cold with menace, the gun aimed at the lad’s stomach.

  “I ... I didn’t kill anybody,” Tony said, amazed.

  He moved forward, letting the curtain drop behind him, and Harmon advanced upon him, and with a swift flick of his wrist reversed the revolver and hit him between the brows with the butt. Tony sank down on his knees and covered his face with his hands, and Harmon raised the gun to deal another blow.

  “Here, hold it, Harmon!” shouted Joyce, and Harmon found his right arm in a lock, and Bony’s breath hot against his neck.

  “Drop it, you fool,” snarled Bony. “Cut that out. “We’ve to find those shoes before you can charge him.’

  “I’ll kill the murderin’ bas...”

  “I’ll break your arm if you don’t calm down. Drop it, I say.”

  Gradually the frenzy waned in the big man, and the revolver slipped from his hand. Bony kicked it towards Bert Ellis, who was with Joyce. Tony Carr was slumped forward on the ground, his face still cupped in his hands. Bony continued to hold command.

  “You take care of Tony, Fred, while Constable Harmon and I search this place for evidence concerned with the murder of Kat Loader.”

  “Cor, blimey!” bleated Ellis, and Joyce swore and came to stand beside Tony Carr. “All right,” he shouted. “We’ll ’tend to Tony.”

  The leather boots were on the earth floor at the foot of the bed. They could not locate the sandshoes.

  “Them the boots?” asked Harmon harshly of Bony, who was examining their heels and soles.

  “Yes,” replied Bony. “But go easy. It’s the sandshoes we want more than these. We must find them. You can only hold Carr on suspicion so far. Better get him over to your office before the crowd gathers. Could be trouble.”

  “Smart feller, eh! When I want advice I’ll ask for it. I’m wanting those sandshoes at the moment.”

  Their search left no possibility of the sandshoes being in the hut. Harmon went outside, followed by Bony. He stood away and stared about. He shouted:

  “I want a pair of sandshoes, size eight, the toe of the right one scuffed a bit. They’ll be hereabouts. Hunt for ’em. You, Fred, I’m holding you responsible for young Carr.”

  He and Ellis and Bony ‘scouted’ about the hut, and the yard. It was Ellis who found the sandshoes on the flat roof and tossed them down to Bony, and Harmon came and stood close and waited for Bony’s opinion. Then he was staring down into those blue eyes which now grew in size and captured him so that he was never to forget them. Beyond the blue eyes he heard the voice.

  “These are the shoes which made the prints of which plaster casts were taken, Constable. These could be the shoes which made the prints last night in the hotel yard. Remember you’re not the lad’s trial jury and judge.”

  “To hell with you,” snarled Harmon. He almost knocked Bony aside and went forward to grab Carr by an arm and haul him to his feet. Semi-conscious, Carr was partially carried from the yard and across the street to the police station, followed by Ellis and Fred Joyce.

  Bony went back to the hotel and checked the murderer’s footprints from the side door to Tony Carr’s hut.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Stirring Day

  FIVE O’CLOCK, and for Daybreak the day had been the fourth of such tremendous days. At five o’clock the population of Daybreak was still divided, one group lingering outside the police station, the other group clinging hard to the hotel. It was expected that within the next hour police and a doctor would arrive from Kalgoorlie.

  In the bar Detective-Inspector Bonaparte raked in the money for Melody Sam, and Melody Sam served, with never a word to indicate what was passing through his mind, if anything, for it seemed he was a stunned man. And on the bed in the room she had occupied was the body of Katherine Loader.

  Never in this bar had the crowd been so silent. Nothing was said above a whisper, and the sound of comment and discussion was like the ocean heard from a great distance, with that undertone of threat of storm before morning.

  It appeared that Harmon had secured his prisoner barely in time to prevent an ugly incident, for Melody Sam had attempted to rouse the people to remove the prisoner from Harmon’s custody and exact unimpeded justice. This proposed crime could be excused in view of what the people of Daybreak had been subjected to, plus their isolation in this State of Western Australia.

  A beneficial result of the threatened lawlessness had been a severe brake on Constable Harmon, following the unwarranted attack on Tony Carr. That had almost caused Bony to declare himself and exert his authority, and this he would have done, were he fully convinced that Carr was the long-sought murderer.

  He found, on his return to the town from the second tracking, that Carr had two friends, one quite unexpected, the other a possibility. The unexpected friend was Bert Ellis, the other the policeman’s sister. According to Ellis, when the three of them with the prisoner arrived outside the cell-block, they were met by Esther Harmon. Young Carr was still in bad shape, and she wanted to know what had happened. Ellis had blurted out the truth that without provocation the policeman had dealt a cruel blow with the butt of his revolver. Harmon, having thrust the prisoner inside the cell, was then upbraided by his sister, and he was still in such mental condition that he threatened to lock her up, too, if she didn’t return to the quarters.

  When she had gone, in her ungainly crippled manner, Harmon had gone to his office for an old and large padlock and with this he double-locked the door bar, and then had ordered Joyce and Ellis to accompany him to the office, to take their statements.

  “What happened to Nat?” he asked, his face white and marbled, his eyes unwinking grey-green discs.

  “Don’t know, George,” replied Joyce. “I thought he was following us.”

  “Gimme that gun,” Harmon said to Ellis, and Ellis was unaware that he was still carrying it. Harmon took the gun, broke it open, blew down the barrel and the chambers, and cleaned it with a rag. Both witnesses were astonished to see that it had not been loaded when used as a club, and now Harmon took a box of cartridges from a desk drawer, and proceeded to load each chamber.

  “That young swine was goin’ to go for me. You know that,” he said. “I will expect your co-operation.”

  Ellis opened his mouth to refuse, when the butcher cut in with:

  “Circumstances a bit unusual, George. Anyway, me and Bert will support you in return for you letting Tony be. Treat him right from now on, OK. Treat him rough, and you’ll be out of the Department mighty quick.”

  “So you’re on his side? Sort of made him your son, eh?”

  “Kid’s all right, or could have been,” argued Joyce. “Well, that’s how it is with us. You better let Sister Jenks see him. Be your age, George. You got a lot ahead of you.”

  Constable Harmon sponged his face with the palms of his hands, and when he looked at them again, his eyes were normal and the strain was leaving his face and shoulders. Ellis was sent for Sister Jenks.

  She came, energetic as usual, her voice authoritative.

  “Well, Constable Harmon, what is all this about your prisoner?”

  “He was hurt in the process of being arrested, Sister. Would you have a look at him?”

  Nodding coolly, carrying her medical bag, she followed Harmon to the cell. He flung open the door and stood ready to receive a charge. Nothing like that happened. Tony Carr was sitting on the bunk, his face buried in his hands, the blood from the head wound staining them. She ordered a basin of water.

  On bringing the basin, obtained from Esther Harmon, Ellis found the policeman still on guard outside the cell, and Siste
r Jenks kneeling beside the bunk, on which she had persuaded the prisoner to lie. Ellis held the basin whilst the wound was being cleansed. Nothing was said by anyone until, having dressed the wound and given the patient a couple of tablets, Sister Jenks briskly told the prisoner she would return in an hour. With that, she strode from the cell and the police station, without another word.

  Harmon was taking statements from Joyce and Ellis when Melody Sam appeared with the postmaster, and Melody Sam demanded that he, being a Justice of the Peace, immediately try the prisoner for murder, and ‘to hell with a jury’. The postmaster objected. Harmon and Joyce eventually pacified Melody Sam and were about to take him back to the hotel, when several men and a number of women appeared, and Sam appealed to them to see that justice was done swift and sure.

  “Harmon’s got the Daybreak murderer,” he bellowed. “Daybreak’s ours. We got a Justice, we can form a jury if it’s necessary, which it isn’t.”

  Voices supported him, and during the hubbub, according to Ellis, Harmon changed into a man Ellis didn’t recognise, not having known him before tragedy soured him.

  “And I’ve got two vacant cells that I’ll fill to the brim if you people don’t get out of this compound and stay out,” he shouted, with no anger but granite determination in his voice. “Go on, now. I gotta job, and you’re not doing it for me.

  He moved forward as though walking a beat, and flanking him and a little to his rear walked Joyce and Ellis and the postmaster. The crowd turned and walked ahead to the street gate, and out to talk under the nearest pepper tree.

  It was then that they missed Melody Sam, and they found him slumped in the policeman’s chair at the station office. Sitting on the corner of the desk, Harmon said:

  “Sam, you and me have been good cobbers ever since I came to Daybreak. You own Daybreak. I am the Law. You get along back to Daybreak. Both Daybreak and the Law are in West Australia, and the year’s nineteen fifty-eight, not eighteen fifty-eight.”

  The old man stood and glared at Harmon. Passing round the end of the desk, he patted the policeman on the shoulder, strode to the door, and accompanied by Ellis, went back to his hotel, where he proceeded to serve drinks to the customers who ‘flowed’ in after them. It was then five to nine.

  Under the circumstances, it wasn’t possible for Harmon to leave the police station. Soon after he had subdued Melody Sam and sent him back to the hotel, Bony arrived at his office with plaster casts he had made of the sandshoe tracks at the side door, and of those boot tracks close to the entrance to Carr’s hut. With these Harmon was happy, went on with his preparations, and twenty minutes later was made happier when Bony arrived with the hotel side door.

  “No one touched it, and, as you may not have printing aids, better to have the entire door locked up,” he explained, and only at a later date did Harmon recall this exhibition of efficiency.

  Much had happened before five o’clock. Harmon had contacted his Divisional Headquarters and gained agreement on moving his prisoner to Laverton. He had the Justice of the Peace swear in, as special constables, Fred Joyce and a man named Morton. He had permitted Sister Jenks to visit Carr when she came again at ten o’clock. When she left, he asked his sister to provide a meal for the prisoner, saying he would be taking him in his car to Laverton at eleven.

  Esther had the prisoner’s lunch prepared when her brother entered the kitchen for it. It consisted of cold meat sandwiches and a jug of tea, the sandwiches being in a compact block, and the tea sugared and containing milk. No knife and no spoon, and the food set on white paper on the narrow wood tray.

  People knew when escort and prisoner were due to leave, and there was a crowd outside the closed compound gates. Harmon, supported by his specials, entered the cell and handcuffed the prisoner, who was taken to the car, ordered into the seat beside the driver, and a third cuff tethered the cuff on his left wrist to the window bar. Thus he could make the journey in comparative comfort, and be quite unable to attack the driver.

  They left exactly at eleven o’clock, the watching crowd being both silent and inactive, and unimpressed by the special constables. And then almost the entire town entered the hotel to celebrate the lifting at long last of a heavy cloud of fear and suspicion; to celebrate, subdued and genuinely sorrowful for old Melody Sam.

  Bony had not been out of the hotel since making his plaster casts that morning, and had relied on Bert Ellis to keep him au fait with events. This had necessitated many free beers at Sam’s expense, and so was a glorious day for the council staff. Between drinks, Ellis imparted his scraps of information in hoarse confidential remarks across the bar counter, and thus Bony knew that after the departure of Harmon with the prisoner, Fred Joyce had driven to the aborigines’ camp, and brought Iriti and two other men to check and report on the murderer’s tracks from hotel door to Tony’s hut.

  “Why did Joyce do that, d’you know?” asked Bony.

  “Wasn’t Fred’s idea, Nat. Me and Joyce went with ’em. Foller the tracks easy: Tony’s sandshoes, even your seven boots and Harmon’s nine’s. Those rocks would have bluffed me, though. Tony was cunnin’ all right. Picked up his boots when he’d changed ’em. Follow them clearly to Main Street, and into the yard to his hut.”

  “None of you could have missed, Bert,” Bony said, adding: “Did the abos say anything of what they saw?”

  “Nothing till we got back to the hut. Then Fred asked ’em if they was Tony’s tracks, and Iriti grunted a ‘Yes’ and the others backed him up. Fred took them to the police office to get ’em to thumb-print a statement. Got me to sign one, too.”

  At a quarter to six the customers were watching the clock behind the bar counter.

  Everyone knew Harmon’s official itinerary arranged with his headquarters. He was to conduct the prisoner to Laverton, where would be waiting police officers and a doctor. Other officers would take over the prisoner and convey him to Kalgoorlie, and Harmon would return to Daybreak with the doctor and detectives.

  The state of the road being known, distances assessed, it was voted that Harmon would arrive back at Daybreak at five o’clock, and not later than half past six if he stayed for a meal at Laverton.

  A few minutes before six, Melody Sam, without notice of intention, stopped filling glasses, and turned back to the cupboard, where he kept his violin. The crowd ceased speaking and watched. Sam tuned the instrument, tucked it under his chin, and began to play. He moved to the drop-flap in the counter and someone raised it for him to pass through. The crowd parted to give him passage to the front entrance, and remained mute whilst listening to the dwindling music, as Melody Sam moved down Main Street. The tune was ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’, and without doubt Sam could play it.

  Someone said: “Poor old bastard. Fill ’em up, Nat.”

  Following long restraint, comparative uproar arose, and Australia really rocked on beer. Without invitation, Fred Joyce moved behind the counter to assist Bony, and it became obvious that he was as good a barman as he was a butcher. No one heard the clock strike six, and no one noticed the postmaster until he clambered on the counter and demanded to be heard.

  “Got some news, gents, got some news,” he shouted, and waited for silence. “You know the road gate three miles this side of Laverton. Well, Harmon gets out of his car to open the gate. Gets it open, and then is almost run down by his own car. The murderer is out of the handcuffs and driving it. Harmon gets left to walk three miles. And no one’s seen the murderer or the car since.”

  The announcement was followed by the ticking of the clock, so astonished was the crowd. When the postmaster, perhaps wishing to rush back to his telephone, jumped from the counter and pushed his way to the door, half the crowd followed him into the street. It was an opportunity Bony accepted to close the hotel, promising to open again at eight.

  “Keep you going all night as well as all day,” observed Joyce. “Now what d’you know! That young feller gettin’ out of them handcuffs. Don’t get it. Must be a proper Houdini or so
mething.”

  “They’ll grab him soon enough, Fred. Not much of a bushman.”

  “Good enough, if he uses his block, to get a long way,” asserted Joyce, now gathering glasses, which Bony proceeded to wash and polish. “Gosh! To think I was backing him, believing he’d make good! Harmon was right after all. As they start, so they end. And Harmon will be fit for chains after this.”

  Joyce stayed to assist Bony to clean up, and then, locking the bar, Bony stood outside the building rolling the first cigarette for several hours. It did seem that every evening at Daybreak was quiet and crowned with peace. There were now very few people on Main Street. Under the trees coming towards the hotel was Melody Sam, accompanied by the minister.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An Opponent for Bony

  MELODY SAM was the minister’s most important parishioner, apart from the fact that Melody Sam was the greatest financial supporter of the Daybreak Church. Melody Sam was apt to rant and roar, and go on a bender in the cellar, but there is always the time when the toughest man is weak and turns to strength, and fortunate is he when there is a Reverend MacBride to whom to turn. The minister brought him back to the hotel, persuaded him to eat, assisted him into bed, gave him a sedative, and consoled him until he fell asleep.

  The Reverend MacBride suggested, where another might have commanded, that the hotel be kept closed for that evening at least, and with this Bony, the yardman, agreed and tacked a notice to the bar door reading: ‘Shut. By order.’ By whose order wasn’t of the slightest importance.

  At ten o’clock Daybreak waited in retirement. No policeman arrived. Residents sat on the seats around the pepper trees, still discussing the day’s events, and the postmaster waited impatiently for news from his opposite number in Laverton, or from homesteads along the road. At nine Bony strolled down the street, crossed to skirt the church, circled wide, and so came to the back fence of the police compound. Finally he was gazing through the unmasked window of the policeman’s living-room.