Bony - 19 - Cake in a Hat Box Read online

  These little stories interested Bony … automatically and without actual reference to the investigation on hand. The untouched grass about the well and the troughs told him that cattle had not watered there for at least twelve months, and the fire-site near the shelter told him that someone had camped under its grass roof within recent weeks, certainly since the last rain had fallen.

  Having always felt the urge to see what lay beyond the mirage, beyond the sand-dune, what invited from beyond the mountain, Bony wanted to see what lay at the extremity of the great rock wall. A crow defied him, and looking upward, he saw, the five eagles still circling and so low that he could dis­tinguish their golden eyes.

  Arriving at the end of the rock wall, he found a gully rising steeply into the heart of the range, a gully having a wide mouth leading into a defile between slopes massed with trees and shrubs and spinifex, and floored by the narrow dry bed of a storm-water creek. The creek bed was of coarse grey sand, and should one wish to climb the gully it offered the best pathway.

  Bony turned away, not wanting to explore it, yet with interest observing how storm water had rushed out from the gully’s mouth to cut a channel yards wide and feet deep in the soft soil of the little plain.

  Then he saw the fox. It was coming along the channel to­wards him, and the reflected colour from the rock wall deepened its golden coat and darkened its white chest and tail tip with a tint of red. The fox came on, not seeing the statue which was a living man. The eagles came lower, and when one swooped, the fox crouched against the bank of the channel. Bony clapped his hands and the fox executed an almost perfect somersault, and fled into the tall grass.

  The laughing Bony prospected the water channel to see how many foxes used it to pass from the waving grass belt across the open space to the shelter of the gully, and having pro­ceeded less than a hundred yards he found a dead horse.

  Here, then, was the reason for the gathered eagles, here the reason for the visit of the fox. Bony looked down at it and wondered, because the animal had been dead a long time, so long, in fact, that nothing remained but the hide stretched over the top side of the skeleton. The birds and wild dogs had eaten into the belly, like termites working from within, and Bony managed to lift the skeleton, then dropped it and walked back to the temporary camp.

  “Every successful investigator owes much to Lady Luck,” he told Irwin. “No investigator ever begins to be successful unless driven by curiosity. Luck, curiosity, plus a little inductive reasoning into the behaviour of foxes and eagles, will raise any police recruit to the top of his department. Come with me.”

  “Found something important?” asked Irwin.

  “I think so. First I noted those five eagles, when at the cattle yard. Then I saw this old track had been recently used by a motor vehicle. Then I discovered that although this well hadn’t been used for many months, someone had been here and made a fire beside that old shed. There was a fox that ought not to have been abroad so early. And then I found the horse.”

  “The horse!” echoed Irwin and chuckled. “Not the horse that was once Jacky Musgrave?”

  “If an old man, blind and decrepit, tells you that Jacky Musgrave was turned into a horse, you could laugh at him and prove yourself a fool. Only fools laugh at what their puny brains cannot accept, Irwin, and even wise men are too apt to sneer at things they cannot see and touch and measure and weigh.

  “How was it that an old and blind aborigine creeping about the blacks’ camp down at Leroy Downs, a hundred and fifty miles away, was able to tell Bob Lang that Jacky Musgrave had been turned into a horse? You may answer that, having been informed by smoke signals that something of grave im­port had occurred, that old and blind semi-savage … semi-savage, mind you … learned by telepathy that Jacky Mus­grave had been turned into a horse. I would accept your answer with neither hilarity nor contempt. Look! Look at Jacky Musgrave turned into a horse.”

  Swiftly Bony stopped and lifted the foreleg of the dead horse, and beneath the skeleton frame covered with hide lay the body of an aboriginal dressed in army greatcoat and heavy military boots.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Possibles

  THE METEORS were making the inanimate stars look silly when Bony and Constable Irwin were seated in the truck, smoking and talking.

  “We have now the bodies of two men to occupy our atten­tion,” Bony was saying. “We know that when alive both men were in the jeep, and that when murdered the jeep wasn’t where we examined it. One body is found on the east side of this Black Range, and the other on the west side, and you estimate the shorter distance between the bodies is approxi­mately four miles.

  “Although we didn’t examine the body of Jacky Musgrave, we saw enough to assume that he was also killed by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. We looked for ground clues about the jeep and along the road, and failed to discover one. Before I found the dead horse, and when you and I went to it, I saw no human tracks, I’ve seen none about the well. There­fore, there is a lack of ground clues about both bodies.”

  “What of the truck that came here recently from the cattle yards?” asked Irwin.

  “That truck … it could have been a car … came here prior to the deaths of Stenhouse and his tracker. It stopped at the well and subsequently was driven round it to follow its own tracks back to the yard. It seems certain that one of the Breens came here to inspect the well, or the mill, but that was before the cattle began the trip to Wyndham.

  “I’m sure that Jacky Musgrave wasn’t shot anywhere in the vicinity of that dead horse. He was brought there from the scene of the double murder, just as Stenhouse and the jeep were brought from that same place.”

  “That was a neat idea, pushing the body into a dead animal,” Irwin said. “Anyone passing would take no notice of the stink, believing it came from the horse.”

  “I agree … a neat idea. It might have fooled even me had not Bob Lang’s father-by-initiation presented the idea. I wish I knew the extent of the knowledge of these murders in pos­session of those Musgrave aborigines.”

  “Well, they know Jacky was shoved into the carcass of that horse.”

  “Yes, they know that,” agreed Bony. “Someone witnessed that act, but as we can be sure the murder was not committed near the carcass, we may assume that the witness did not actually see the murder committed. He could have watched a man bring the body here. He could have been so far away as not to be able to identify the man.”

  Bony tossed his cigarette end through the lowered window and reached for his tobacco tin and papers.

  “I think we can be confident that he who witnessed Jacky Musgrave being put into the horse, or found him, was one of those Western blacks. He, with others, could have been over this side on walkabout. He would know what tribe Jacky belonged to, and would know Jacky was a police tracker by his boots and clothes. And so he made his way back to his own people to report the matter, and they sent up those smokes which they knew would be relayed to Pluto’s Mob, as those Musgraves are called.”

  “So what?” Irwin said, tersely, when Bony fell silent.

  “Although we don’t know the extent of the knowledge im­parted to Pluto’s Mob, we do know the result of the news of this murder,” Bony further conceded. “If they know who murdered Jacky, they will hunt him out and even the score, and I shall be annoyed. If they don’t know, then they will have to start their investigation with the body of Jacky, as we had to start with the body of Stenhouse.”

  “Then the game will be afoot.”

  “Yes, we shall have rivals. We are interested particularly in who murdered Stenhouse. They will be interested only in who killed Jacky Musgrave.”

  The picture of uncivilized aborigines engaged in a homicide investigation was new to Constable Irwin, but he was not slow to recognize the seriousness of rivalry from this quite unex­pected quarter; for his knowledge of the aborigines, especially those not in contact with white folk, was wide enough to in­clude their rigid enforcement of black law
.

  As did Bony, he did not relish the thought of natives getting ahead in a hunt for the murderer, and for the first time on this tour with Inspector Bonaparte, he became impatient of pro­gress.

  “We’ll have to pull up our socks,” he said, and chuckled, and the placid Bony countered with:

  “We can’t do anything in the dark. We had to rely on your two trackers, and they are not wholly reliable in view of Jacky Musgrave’s murder. Our investigation is not of a murder com­mitted in a city area of a paltry square mile or so. We haven’t been called to a house where the walls are bespattered with blood and brains, and the blood-drained corpse lies upon the hearth-rug, the murder weapon near by.”

  Irwin gazed moodily beyond the windscreen, watched a meteor blaze across the sky and appear to skim over the top of Black Range, and reluctantly agreed that the circumstances were not akin to the picture painted by Bony.

  “We’ll scout in the morning, Irwin, and try to find how Jacky Musgrave turned into a horse. We must be as patient as Jacky’s tribe, and must exercise our minds as they will. If they come here to look around for Jacky, we must hope they won’t make the gross mistake of hunting us for murderers.”

  “Why us?”

  “Our boot tracks are well in evidence.”

  “But,” swiftly objected Irwin, “they will know by the age of our tracks that we didn’t commit the murder.”

  It was Bony’s turn to chuckle.

  “Good for you,” he said. “In that little bout, you won. Now I’m for the blankets.”

  Bony was up and had the billy on the fire when Irwin awoke at daybreak, and these two bushmen said not a word until they had sipped a pint of hot tea and smoked their first cigarette. Hard in the lee of this Black Range, the daylight was slow to come, and it would be three hours before the sun shone on Black Well. It was shining on the windmill when they returned from investigating the country all about the dead horse. Neither had crossed any human tracks. As the murderer must have used the magic carpet to transport the jeep to the place where it was found, so must the magic carpet have been used to transport the body of Jacky Musgrave.

  Irwin was disappointed by the absence of results from their walking and searching for evidence to show, at least, from which direction the dead man had been brought to the carcass, and said their search would extend for weeks. He was also puzzled by the expression in Bony’s eyes and about his mouth.

  “Who are the best trackers in this country?” Bony asked him, and without hesitation he voted for the aborigines.

  “Precisely. And no white man can beat the aborigines in obliterating tracks. One: Jacky Musgrave was pushed into the skeleton of a horse by a white man accompanied by blacks who wiped out his tracks. Two: By blacks alone who left no trace of their activity. We have proceeded a step. We know that a white man set the murder stage with Stenhouse’s jeep, and we know that he was assisted by aborigines … black fellows he knew he could trust with his life. We know now why we have been thwarted so much.”

  Irwin began to wash the utensils and pack them into the tucker-box. Looking up he said:

  “We don’t seem able to get our hooks into this case.”

  “We have begun to do so.”

  “We have? Damned if I can see it. I can’t see why Sten­house made those false entries in his diary, and I can’t even guess at the motive for murdering him … excepting hatred by the Wallaces for what he did to his wife. What were you doing with that bush at the horse carcass?”

  “Brushing out our tracks. I don’t want Jacky’s relations to know we discovered the body.”

  “You’re sure, then, they will come here?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “And you are going to leave the corpse in that horse?”

  “Yes … despite your very natural official objection to side­stepping a properly conducted post-mortem and a formal in­quest. The one post-mortem and the one inquest on the body of Stenhouse will be sufficient. Now we’ll get along. Back to the yards and another call on Kimberley Breen.”

  Irwin’s light-blue eyes were almost colourless in the dark tan of his face, the smile mechanical as he lifted the tucker-box into the truck, swung the tins of water up and was ready.

  “If we could read the truth in the biographies of great and successful men, Irwin,” Bony said, when they were on the move, “we would find one common denominator. Every great figure in history, from Genghis Khan to the Emperor Napoleon and down to the captains of modern industry, habitually used everyone with whom they came in contact. Friend and foe, intellectual and clod, the trusting and the suspicious … they used them all. We are not great. We are of those who are used, so let us now and then, in order to maintain our families, use up other people. We will begin with Jacky Musgrave’s relations.”

  Irwin fell into introspective mood and tried to determine when Bony had used him. He was confident he had not been entirely used up by this man whose mind he could not follow, and decided that should he be used up he wouldn’t have any violent objection to the experience. This case seemed almost open and shut when he left Wyndham, and he was still easy about it when he had arrived at the dead policeman in the jeep. After that the cogs had slipped, and this damned half-caste had taken him through an ever-deepening fog. The fog was worse after Bony said:

  “Don’t be downcast. I am decidedly elated.”

  Irwin drove almost a mile before moodily protesting against the fog, and Bony relented.

  “Our investigation has revealed that the man who killed Stenhouse was white. The man who murdered Jacky Musgrave was that same white man. Lack of clues indicate that the aborigines were associated with these two murders. In view of the respective positions of the two bodies, the white murderer, having loyal black associates, can be included in three pos­sibles: Jack Wallace on the far side of this range; one of the Breens on this side; and Alverston who lives north of Mc­Donald’s Stand. We will accept the three Breens as one … leaving out the girl … so that we do have three possibles … three men who could have loyal assistance from their stock­men. Have we not progressed?”

  “We certainly have,” Irwin agreed, and because he was a little sore with himself, he laughed. “I think we could reduce the three possibles by one. Alverston hasn’t been managing his place long enough to receive that amount of co-operation from his blacks.”

  “Conceded, but keep in mind that Alverston, with two aborigines, was travelling home from Agar’s Lagoon and met the party of photographers near McDonald’s Stand on that day when, in medical opinion, Stenhouse was killed. He could have met Stenhouse, killed both him and his tracker, driven the bodies in the jeep into the scrub, gone on and so met the party from Wyndham. And that night he could have returned with his blacks to arrange the body of Stenhouse in the jeep as we found it. What type of man is Alverston?”

  “Decent feller,” replied Irwin. “Came from the Territory three years ago. Was managing stations over there for his company. Well read, I should say. Kind of bloke I’d expect to make a better job of rigging a murder scene.”

  “I agree. I met Alverston at Agar’s pub. We’ll delete his name, and leave two possibles … Wallace and the Breens.”

  “If Stenhouse was murdered up this way,” argued Irwin, “we know his jeep was driven over old man Lang’s donkey track, but we don’t know who was driving. Old Lang or one of his sons could have made the prints of Stenhouse’s boots in that temporary camp.”

  “That could be so, but the idea is cancelled by the fact that the Langs told us about that track and gave us willing assist­ance to prove that Stenhouse’s jeep had been driven over it. No, Stenhouse wasn’t killed down south of Agar’s. He was killed within an easy day’s travel of where he was found. We’ll concentrate on the possibles … Jack Wallace and one or more of the Breens.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Not at Home

  ON ARRIVING at the Breen homestead Bony crossed to the veranda, which was being swept by a middle-aged lubra. She was large and shap
eless, and she should have given him a wide smile, instead of a cool “Good day!” while going on with her sweeping.

  “Miss Breen in the house?” Bony asked.

  “No fear. Miss Kimberley, she went off after breakfast.”

  “H’m! When will she be home?”

  “Come back! Oh, late. Perhaps sundown. You know Mike’s Hollow?”

  “No,” replied Bony. “How far away is it?”

  “Oh, long way.” The lubra continued to sweep, and after that one examination of him she had not again looked at him. “Good way. Twenty mile … I don’t know. Long ride, any­how.”

  “All right! You tell Miss Kimberley we called and were sorry she wasn’t home. Good day!”

  “Good day, Mister!”

  Bony returned to the truck.

  “Make a dash for the blacks’ camp, Irwin. Catch them before they can sneak away.”

  “Kim Breen not home?”

  “I’m not sure. The lubra said she wasn’t. We’ll try to nail one of the stockmen who can speak reasonable English.”

  About a dozen men were standing among the creek trees sheltering the iron and bag humpies. There were no women in view, and no children. The men were clothed in all degrees of dress. Some wore shirt and trousers and riding boots; others wore only a shirt and yet others were wearing only trousers. Irwin and Bony approached them, Irwin chuckling and greet­ing them easily.

  “Good day-ee, you fellers! You all have a spell, eh?”

  Two attempted a smile and edged behind the others. One well-built young man, who, in addition to shirt and trousers and felt hat, wore goose-necked spurs to his boots and a neckerchief of bright blue draped à la cinema, was obviously ill at ease. He tried to turn in order to hide the heavy revolver in its holster attached to his flashily-adorned belt.