Death of a Swagman Read online

  “What makes you think that the killer lives here in Merino?”

  “I wasn’t sure about that until after I arrived here,” Bony replied. “I might be rash in saying that I am sure about it even now. You remember the marks made by hessian-covered feet about the hut at Sandy Flat. Those same hessian-covered feet made similar marks about the hut occupied by old Bennett that night he died. The same man walked off the eastern end of the macadamized road running through Merino, and he walked back to that end of that macadamized road after he paid a visit to old Bennett.”

  “Ah! Ah!” breathed Marshall.

  “I believe that we are also entitled to assume that the killer of Kendall knew that old Bennett knew of the murder, and that the murderer went to old Bennett’s hut to silence him. When the old man opened his door, the poor weak heart did the foul work for him. But why the killer waited a little more than a month before acting as he did would be absurd even to assume. You light the lamp. I’ll draw the blind.”

  Bony made yet another of his cigarettes with the hump in the middle of it. He went on:

  “Perhaps you can now appreciate this case of ours as being not one suitable for the attention of a city detective. And I hope that now you can appreciate the fact that the murderer of Kendall and that swagman can be any man living within the boundaries of your district, if not within the boundaries of Merino. He may turn out to be Dr Scott, either of the Jasons, the schoolmaster, the minister, even Gleeson, even you, Marshall. Gleeson, by the way, was exceptionally intelligent in his questioning of Dr Scott yesterday, was he not? The murderer is hardly likely to be an obvious choice of our guessing. We can, however, think that he is fairly strong, one able easily to lift and carry a man of medium or light weight. He was able to carry Kendall, whose body weighed nine stone six, and he easily lifted the swagman’s body, weighing seven stone four pounds. He is not old or a weakling.

  “We could reduce the number of possibilities by making a list of every able-bodied man in the district, but I hardly think it would be of immediate assistance. However, you might do that sometime.”

  “I’ll do it. It won’t be difficult,” asserted the sergeant.

  “Good! Now I want you to make an inquiry. The day before yesterday the swagman camped in the woolshed at Wattle Creek homestead, and that afternoon the mail car passed through that homestead on its way to Merino from Pooncaira. It stopped there to pick up the Wattle Creek mail, and doubtless there were letters in that station mailbag addressed to persons in Merino. The book-keeper, who would collect the letters from the station box to put into the mailbag with the office mail, would be familiar with the handwriting of the station hands. He might well remember seeing a strange handwriting, say that of the swagman, and he might remember to whom in Merino the letter was addressed. The addressee of a letter posted by the swagman to a person in Merino might be the victim of his blackmail. There is just a chance we may get a lead there.”

  “Shall I ring up or go out to see that book-keeper?”

  “Better go out. Should you see Mr Leylan, you might mention to him that your jailbird is a good worker and civil, and that he would like a job at stock work. Mr James has already spoken to him about me. I would much like to get a job riding from the Sandy Flat hut.”

  Marshall’s eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t know that I’d like to live in that place,” he said.

  “Perhaps you would not. I know that I will not. But since when is a detective thought to have nerves like other men? I will live there if it can be arranged, because I want to examine the country east of the Walls of China.

  “There is something else, too. If we could prove where Leylan spent the night that the swagman was killed, we could remove him from our imagined list of probabilities, take him into our confidence, and so arrange for me to go to Sandy Flat without any botheration.

  “By the way, when you were having an interview with Sam the Blackmailer, I was inspecting the Wattle Creek woolshed. On one of the woolpresses I discovered another noughts and crosses sign. It contained the information that the men’s cook was generous to swagmen, and that the boss could be touched for a plug of tobacco. That was all.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Windmills and a Woodcutter

  BONY HAD COMPLETED the painting of the paling fence fronting the police station compound and had begun work on the division fence separating the compound from the residential property owned by Mr Jason. This division fence was constructed of corrugated iron sheets nailed to a wooden framework which was now receiving Bony’s attention.

  At half past nine on the morning of December seventh it was already hot. From the street came the noise of cars and a truck, and from within the garage came the sound of iron being hammered. Merino was engaged with its morning business; it was as though everyone wanted to get it done before the promised hot afternoon began.

  It was Saturday morning, and from the kitchen door there issued Rose Marie, dressed in a blue and white cotton frock, with a large floppy-brimmed sun hat shading her face. She pushed a small pram in which were installed two large dolls. Sedately, and conversing in motherly fashion with her charges, she pushed the pram across the compound to where Bony was working.

  “Good morning, Bony!” she greeted him gravely, her grey eyes seeming very big within the shadow cast by her hat. “Mother said that you might like to see my babies, Thomas and Edith.”

  “That was very thoughtful of her and very nice of you, Rose Marie. How are you this morning? I wondered where you were, when at breakfast. Did you sleep in?”

  “No. I had to take a hot breakfast over to Mrs Wallace,” replied the child in her precise phraseology. “Mrs Wallace has been very sick, and it’s Mother’s turn to send her meals over.”

  “Indeed!” Bony murmured encouragingly.

  “Yes. Mrs Wallace lives alone. Everyone likes Mrs Wallace, and when she fell sick heaps of people looked after her. She told me that she never knew there were so many angels in Merino.”

  Bony slapped the last of the paint on his brush against the wood and turned to look at her before again dipping the brush into the pot.

  “I am glad to hear about your errand,” he said. “You know, I thought that your absence at breakfast was due to that box of chocolates.”

  “Oh no! I only ate four. Won’t you say good morning to my babies?”

  “Of course. But which is whom?”

  The presentation having been made, and Bony having duly admired Thomas’s hair and Edith’s blue eyes, he proffered to Rose Marie a bright two-shilling piece, saying:

  “By this time your money box should be getting quite heavy.”

  “It is so,” agreed Rose Marie. “There’s seven silver coins now in my box, and what with all the pennies it will soon be full. Thank you, Bony. I’ll have a lot of money when I take it all out, won’t I?”

  “Yes, you will. But there are still two more two-shilling pieces to go in yet. I hope there will be room.”

  “Mother says you are spoiling me,” she told him, sitting Thomas more uprightly in the pram. “She caught me putting in the silver coin you gave me on Thursday. I had to tell her who give it me.”

  “Gave it me.”

  “Gave it me. She said that I ought never to spend them because they are all the wages you are getting. But I’ll never spend them just because...”

  “Because what, Rose Marie?”

  She smiled at him, a beautiful, shy smile, and said:

  “Because you gave them to me, Bony.”

  “Oh!”

  He went on with his work and did not observe her rearranging the coverlet over Edith. Presently she said:

  “What will you do when Father lets you out?”

  “Do! Why, I hope to get a job somewhere near Merino. In fact, I am going to see Mr James this afternoon about one.”

  He glanced swiftly at her, in time to see the child make a face, and then become busy with Thomas, informing that baby that he was a naughty boy and would be depri
ved of a chocolate if he persisted in trying to get out of the pram. Then she said a little hesitatingly:

  “After Father lets you out and you get a job, will you come to Merino one Sunday and take me to church?”

  Without consideration Bony assented.

  “Remember you promised to—a long time ago—with your fingers crossed.”

  “I did?” Bony exclaimed, turning round to look at her with well-feigned astonishment.

  “You know you did. Don’t you remember?”

  “Hum! I do seem to remember something about it.”

  Bony turned again back to his work, and neither spoke for nearly a minute, when the little girl asked:

  “If I ask Father to let you go tomorrow evening, will you take me?”

  The thought flashed through Bony’s mind that this child was going to become an intelligent woman. She was actually conducting an attack. He raised his defences ... like a man, thinking that he would successfully resist.

  “I don’t know. You see, I am supposed to be in prison. Anyway, it would be a matter of you taking me ... if your father did let me out.”

  “I would like you to, if you would.” The attack was being pressed with resoluteness, and, already becoming faint, he asked:

  “Do you want me to go especially, tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” came the answer distinctly. “Tomorrow night. Mother won’t let me go at night. But she might ... if you wanted to take me.”

  “Why do you want especially to go tomorrow night?”

  “Because Miss Leylan’s sweetheart is taking her. You see, he’s a bush evangelist.”

  “Oh!” murmured Bony, now deflated.

  “Yes. His name’s Frank. He goes everywhere in a big covered truck teaching from the Bible. Miss Leylan says he’s coming to Wattle Creek today. I’ve never seen him, but Miss Leylan says he’s very nice and brave and kind. He’s got an organ on the truck, and big ’lectric lights he puts on at night to preach by. He’s bringing his truck to Merino next week.”

  On the flying carpet of memory, Bony was away on the roof of the Walls of China, looking up at the winsome face of a young woman on a horse. Then he was back again, here with Rose Marie, a silly little disappointment in his heart that this child did not after all want him to take her to church for his own sake.

  Idly he asked:

  “What is the bush evangelist’s other name?”

  “Oh! All his names go Frank Lawton-Stanley.”

  “Eh!” Bony jerked round to face Rose Marie, to repeat: “Frank Lawton-Stanley! Is that so? Well ... well! Yes, I’ll take you to church tomorrow evening. I’ll take you even if I have to break jail. Happy?”

  Rose Marie was smiling, and within the shadow cast by her hat her grey eyes were very bright.

  “Thank you, Bony. I knew you would,” she said, to add shrewdly: “Do you know Miss Leylan’s Frank?”

  “Promise not to tell.”

  She promised ... with her fingers crossed.

  “Yes, I know the Rev. Lawton-Stanley,” he told her. “You’ll like him, Rose Marie. If you would like me to, I’ll present him to you after service.”

  “Oh, Bony, will you? Is he old?”

  “Not as old as I am. He’s got brown wavy hair and hazel eyes that look at you very kindly most times ... You are going to like him.”

  “Most times,” she echoed. “Not all times?”

  He laughed outright. Then:

  “Rose Marie, I’ll tell you a secret. I had a job once away out in Queensland, and the Rev. Lawton-Stanley came along and in the morning he asked me to put on the boxing gloves with him so he could get exercise. I put them on. You won’t know what they are like. He was a better boxer than me. He’s a proper man.”

  “Is his father a minister too?”

  “No. His father lives in Brisbane and makes hundreds and hundreds of windmills every year.”

  “Does he?”

  There was plain dismay in her voice, which caused him to look sharply at her, to see her staring hard at Edith.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Will Miss Leylan’s sweetheart want to sell his father’s windmills when he comes to Merino?”

  The subject of windmills was quite obviously a disturbing one to Rose Marie, and Bony was further astonished by this precocious child putting her question while pretending to be happy again with Thomas. He told her that it was unlikely that the bush evangelist would want to sell his father’s windmills, adding:

  “But what if he should?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she replied hastily.

  “Don’t you want me for a friend any longer, Rose Marie?”

  From beyond the pram she looked at him to dismay him with tears in her eyes. He knew then that he had lost the battle to her, that she had won all along the line, and with concern in his voice he said:

  “Now, now, Rose Marie! This won’t do. Come and sit beside me whilst I make a cigarette.”

  He almost threw the paintbrush into the pot and then sat down on the clean reddish sand with his back resting against an upright, and she sat down at his side.

  “Tell me the trouble about the windmills,” he urged her softly. “You know, there can be no secrets between good friends like we are.”

  “Are you sure Miss Leylan’s sweetheart won’t want to sell windmills when he comes to Merino?” she pressed him.

  “Yes, of course. A minister doesn’t sell windmills or anything else. Why?”

  “I can’t tell you, Bony.”

  “Oh! Why not?”

  “’Cos I promised young Mr Jason with my fingers crossed I wouldn’t.”

  “Did you? Then, in that case, you mustn’t tell.”

  “And you won’t make me?”

  “Make you? Certainly not. If you promise anything you must keep to it. We must never break a promise.”

  “And you’ll still take me to church tomorrow night?”

  “I promise ... with my fingers crossed ... see. And if Miss Leylan’s sweetheart is there, I will certainly present him to you as the—er—second lady in Merino.”

  “The second. Is my mother the first?”

  “I heard Mr Watson say that Mrs Sutherland was the first lady in Merino.”

  “O-oh! Mrs Sutherland’s making up to old Mr Jason,” stated Rose Marie. “I heard Mrs Felton tell Miss Smith so. May I tell Mother you will take me to church so’s she can iron my very best dress?”

  “Yes, you may do that. Then, sometime this afternoon, I’ll want you to go along to one of the stores and buy me a nice new shirt and a collar and tie. Do you think your mother would lend me an iron? I hope that young Mr Jason won’t be jealous of me.”

  Rose Marie became firm.

  “If he is he needn’t take me to church ever again. Can I go and tell him now that I am going with you?”

  “Perhaps it might be as well,” replied Bony gravely.

  He watched her leave the compound, watched her as she passed along the outside of the front paling fence. When she returned at the expiration of fifteen minutes, she came across the compound at a skip and a jump, to tell him brightly that young Mr Jason would not be jealous, and that now she must go and tell her mother about the ironing of the “very best” dress.

  Bony was not expected to work on Saturday afternoon, and so, having written out his sartorial requirements, he gave Rose Marie money and dispatched her to do his shopping. Ten minutes after she had gone he also left the compound and strolled down along the street.

  There were but few people in the shops and on the street. A sleepy Major Mitchell, tethered to one of the pepper-trees by a length of fine chain, said sleepily, “Good day”, to him.

  Arriving outside the parsonage, his blue eyes became restless and searching. He ignored the small gate giving access to a cinder path leading directly to the front of the house set well back from the street. He saw the Rev. Llewellyn James reclining on a cane chair on the house veranda. He was reading a book whilst lying full length in his ch
air. Bony proceeded a little farther and entered the parsonage by the driveway gate, which was open. At its far end was a garage, through the open doors of which he could see the minister’s dusty car.

  As he walked up the driveway the garden was to his right. On his left was the large weatherboard church. Between himself and the garden was a border of shrubs, starved and growing on ground needing cultivation. Beyond that, the garden cried for loving hands to tend it.

  It was Bony’s intention, when nearing the house to take the path leading through the shrubbery border to the steps of the front veranda. Because he walked silently, Mr James did not hear him and was too engrossed in his book to see him. From this place Bony could observe the minister much better. He was lying with a cushion beneath his head, a large, leather-covered tome lying opened on his stomach, and in his hands a paper-covered book which he was reading.

  The interested Bony was about to leave the drive when he heard the sound of an axe being used somewhere at the rear of the house, and upon impulse he continued towards the garage and so skirted the north wall of the house till finally he entered a rear yard. There he saw a woman chopping wood at the wood heap.

  She was a little woman, slight of figure, dressed neatly in a dark blue linen house frock. Her back was towards him. The sunlight fell fiercely upon her light brown hair, which was drawn back tightly into a bun. It also was reflected by the blade of the axe, which rose and fell, rose and fell upon a log of hard red box. When Bony coughed she turned her head, her hands still clasping the handle.

  “Good afternoon! Are you wanting to see Mr James?” she asked, her breath coming quickly.

  “I have called to see him,” Bony replied, smiling at her.

  “You will find him lying on the front veranda. Poor man, he is not very strong, you know.”

  Soft grey eyes examined him. Once she had been fresh and pretty; now her complexion was ruined by the hot suns and the hotter kitchen stove. Perspiration dewed her forehead.

  “That is unfortunate, and we should be glad that we are strong,” Bony said. The smile continued to light his eyes, and before she realized it his hat had dropped from his hand and he had taken the axe from her hands and wrenched it from the log. “I am considered the best axeman in my family,” he told her. “Charles, my eldest son, is much too cunning to take any interest in woodcutting, and James, my next boy, makes blind swipes and often splinters the handle. The word ‘swipes,’ by the way, is his, not mine. Now observe the champion axeman of the Robert Burns family.”