Bony - 09 - Death of a Swagman Page 14

  “I am feeling better than I did two minutes ago, Padre. Oh, good evening, Miss Leylan. You remember me, I hope. We met on the Walls of China.”

  “I remember you, of course,” she said gaily. “But just fancy you two knowing each other.”

  “The padre knows everyone, including all blackguards. Please pardon me. Mrs Marshall, allow me to present to you an old friend, the Rev. Lawton-Stanley.”

  Mrs Marshall was delighted. She found herself wanting to talk, and Bony had gently to interpose himself.

  “And this young lady is an especial and a very dear friend of mine. Rose Marie … permit me to present to you the Rev. Lawton-Stanley.”

  Lawton-Stanley did not stoop to conquer. He had done that even before he noticed the little girl. He stooped to take her hand and to smile into her face, and he said softly, as though she only was to hear:

  “Rose Marie! I am happy to meet you, Rose Marie, happy, indeed, to meet any of Bony’s friends. You remind me of someone I cannot now recall. Did I hear you singing during the service?”

  “I hope so. I tried to sing loud enough,” she replied.

  “I thought I heard you. Keep on singing, Rose Marie. Sing all the day through. Open your chest and sing hard. And then you will grow up to be a wonderful woman.”

  Rose Marie nodded, for she was unable to speak. She heard him chatting with her elders, heard her mother issue the invi­tation to supper, and heard the acceptance. And then she realized that she was walking alone with Miss Leylan’s Frank, walking up the street behind her mother and Miss Leylan and Bony, and Miss Leylan’s Frank was asking her all kinds of questions.

  When she retired to go to bed, she gravely wished each one a good night, gathered into her arms Edith and Thomas, walked out through the doorway happily tired. By that time Bony had made himself known to Edith Leylan, and they had discussed the country within the Wattle Creek boundary east of the Walls of China; water holes, shapes and areas of pad­docks, and the various classes of timber and feed. And then, when covert glances were being directed to the clock, Bony put a direct question to Lawton-Stanley:

  “What is your opinion of Mr James as a preacher?”

  “I am inclined to think there is room for improvement.”

  “He interests me,” Bony stated. “I find him quite a study. His heart is not in his work, and that would not be due entirely to a weak heart. Do you think it not impossible that he is an impostor?”

  “Why do you consider such a thing?” countered the bush evangelist.

  “From the time he entered the pulpit this evening to the time he vacated it,” Bony said slowly. “Mr James did not utter a single word from his own mind. Did you not observe how he read everything; everything from hymn announce­ments to the benediction?”

  “Yes, I did note that.”

  Lawton-Stanley’s face registered sadness.

  “Are you interested in James … professionally?”

  Bony chuckled.

  “I am interested in everybody, professionally,” he said. “Now, after all this shying away, let me have your opinion of Mr James.”

  Lawton-Stanley looked up and into the blue eyes of the half-caste, to see in them and on the dark face no trace of the chuckle. From that he understood that Bony had made no idle request.

  “My opinion of him hasn’t altered from what it was seven or eight years ago when he and his wife and I were students in the same theological college,” he said. “James just managed to scrape through and gain ordination. He probably wouldn’t have survived to be ordained had it not been for Lucy Mere­dith. She was studying to become a deaconess, and she was brilliant. How James was ever recommended by his church minister and elders for admission to the college always has beaten me. All he ever wanted was an easy and respectable job, a job requiring no effort, or very little, for a small return.

  “Anyway, Lucy Meredith married him, married a lazy dog wanting only ease, even ease with hunger. From the beginning of his call she always wrote all his sermons and prepared every part of his service.”

  “And chops the wood for the kitchen stove,” added Edith Leylan. “I’ve seen her.”

  “And cleans his boots too,” added Mrs Marshall. “Rose Marie saw her at it one day.”

  “Do you think he has a weak heart?” Bony asked.

  “I do not,” firmly replied Lawton-Stanley. “He has never suffered from anything worse than muscular inactivity.” They could see the pain on the evangelist’s fine face. He added: “Would you mind if we do not discuss him further? You see, I don’t like thinking ill of anyone.”

  “Very well, Padre,” Bony assented quickly. “You can safely leave me to do all the ill thinking. I revel in it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bony’s Philosophy of Crime

  ON THE LAST DAY of Bony’s incarceration he and Marshall were seated after lunch on the rear veranda of the station house. The sergeant had remarked on Bony’s apparent inactiv­ity as a detective whilst imprisoned, and he expressed the hope that after this day his superior might get down to solid work. He had spoken in the casual fashion of the bushman, and Bony would be the last to take umbrage at what the big man said.

  “It’s like this, Marshall,” he explained. “There is a much greater detective than I, one with whom I have allied myself to a very great degree. I refer to Providence.

  “It doesn’t matter two hoots whether the form of the evil is a murder or an unjustly harsh act. Evil is always countered by God, or Good, or Providence, or whatever name you might choose to give it. You and I know, as well as other sensible and experienced men, that Evil never blesses, and the evildoer never prospers. I recognized that eternal law years ago … which is why I am an investigator of crime and not a super-master of crime.

  “Why should I rush about and demand of every Tom, Dick and Harry the answer to this and that question? Why, when by merely keeping open my eyes and my ears and exercising ordinary common gumption the murderer of George Kendall and that swagman will surely reveal himself as the sting-ray in my netful of fishes?”

  “Your general idea may be all right, Bony, but while you are waiting for Providence to lend a hand another poor devil may be murdered.”

  “I grant you the contention,” agreed Bony, “but I doubt that still another murder would be prevented by rushing about and cross-questioning everyone in the district. Think now. Investigation of a common passion-and-bash murder is almost always elementary. But this Kendall affair is not a common passion-and-bash murder. I have never thought it, and do not now. Did I not tell you that this case on which we are engaged is in the Jack-the-Ripper class? The man we seek is cold and unimpassioned. He thinks and plans, and gives nothing away.

  “Now look at me. I am an emotional man. I have a soft heart. I am naturally a kindly man. If I permitted emotion and kindliness to control me I would never unearth a criminal. I never allow emotion or even humanitarian thoughts to sway me in the slightest whilst I am investigating a murder. I was not emotionally concerned because Kendall was murdered, and old Bennett probably frightened to death before he could be murdered, and that swagman strangled and hanged.

  “To me the three deaths here are pointers in a puzzle. I would be regretful if another person were murdered by the man we are after, but I would not be perturbed and would not accept it as a personal affront. I would not blame myself for not having caught the murderer before he committed the fresh crime. Not a bit of it. I proceed calmly and without undue haste, gathering clues and proofs with each successive murder, until I have enough.”

  “Sounds all right,” agreed the sergeant doubtfully.

  “It is all right,” Bony asserted. “I always win. People say what a jolly fine fellow Bony is, how sagacious. Actually all I do is to wait for Providence to toss the clues into my open hands. I do little but wait … and watch … and observe Providence doing the work for me.”

  Sergeant Marshall exploded.

  “I’m damned if I know when you are being serious and when
you are pulling my leg,” he snorted.

  Bony began to laugh, then checked himself.

  “A lot of sense if not all sense,” he admitted. “A case like this is not dissimilar to a sum in addition. We add something to something else, and that total we add to another something else. For instance we now know that Massey Leylan spent that night the swagman was killed at Ivanhoe and therefore could not have done the killing. To that is added the recently acquired information that the swagman’s name is John Way, no known relatives. We have gained a large number of facts with which to play and on which to base assumptions. As sure as the sun will set this evening, we shall one day be in posses­sion of a sufficient number of facts to justify an arrest.”

  “Will you tell me something?” Marshall asked.

  “I am at your service.”

  Marshall wanted to tell Bony that he was a liar.

  “I’d like to know why you want to know why the Rev. James keeps a horse?”

  “That’s an easy one,” replied Bony. “As I told Lawton-Stanley yesterday evening, I am interested professionally in the Rev. James. He rides a horse. In spite of his allegedly weak heart, he rides a horse so hard that the animal becomes winded, and then he wipes the animal down with a piece of hessian sacking. First question: why does he ride a horse so hard? Second question: where did he obtain the piece of hessian sacking? Third question: what was he doing out eastward of the Walls of China early the morning after the swagman was killed, and in country from which the man with hessian sacking about his feet went to the hut and returned from the hut? We may assume that the Rev. James could leave Merino at night much more quietly on a horse than in his car, and that he could return more quietly in the early morning on a horse than in his car.

  “When I visited the parsonage I saw no stable, and I am interested to hear from you that James does own a horse which he stables with another belonging to Fanning, the butcher. If inquiries produced the information that the reverend gentle­man’s horse was not in Fanning’s stables during the night that Kendall was killed and the night that the swagman was killed, we would have added yet another interesting fact to our col­lection.”

  “Crumbs!” exclaimed Marshall.

  “You will not give rein to your imagination, my dear Mar­shall,” Bony said quietly. “Did I exert myself to find out that James rode his horse so hard as to wind it, and that he wiped it down with a piece of hessian? I did not. Providence gave to me those little facts. Every detective who ever was will admit that Providence is kind to him. Describe to me the position of that stable.”

  “It is well back from Fanning’s shop and house,” Marshall began. “The stable is in a yard of about an acre in area. The animals are fed in the stable and have their freedom to run in the yard. Fanning is able to get to his stable through a door in his rear fence.”

  “Good! Most interesting! It is a fact, then, that Mr James, or anyone else for that matter, could take a horse from that yard at night and return it before morning without anyone being the wiser?”

  “That’s so,” agreed Marshall.

  “So that we were justified in not allowing rein to our imag­inations, rushing to the conclusion that the Rev. James takes out his horse at night to do a little murdering. You see how we gather bits and pieces to fit into or to discard as useless from the framework in our puzzle. Some of us sometimes have all the pieces in our possession, but only clever people, like me, can fit all of them together. Now I must return to my painting. On several counts I am not a little saddened by the thought that this is my last day as your prisoner. How­ever, I could raise myself on my toes sufficiently to punch your nose and get myself another ten days, couldn’t I?”

  “Better not try it,” retorted Marshall. “I can hit hard—when I’m in the mood. And I’m in that mood now.”

  “Have patience. Have I not served you for ten long days? See you later. Cheerio!”

  Sergeant Marshall’s prisoner would now not be able to complete the painting of the entire compound fence. That fronting the street had been done, the yellow colour outraging the colour sense of every inhabitant of Merino. The division fence between the police station and Mr Jason’s residence had been completed, and but a few yards remained to be done to complete the rear fence. On this remaining section Bony fell to work.

  The early afternoon was hot and dry, with a light wind coming down from the north. The sky was stained with a white opalescence beneath the blue which promised wind, and this fact was registered by the mind of the half-caste, whose very being was sensitive to weather changes.

  To Bony the day was a good one. He had done more pre­paratory work than Marshall knew. Marshall was depressed because H.Q. had reported that there were no fingerprints on the door handles removed from the hut at Sandy Flat. They had been wiped clean of all prints, for microscopic examination revealed traces of the rag or cloth over the surface. The report had the opposite effect on Bony. To him it enhanced the interest of the investigation, proving that the man he sought was leaving little to chance, and also providing additional proof, if proof was needed, that he was a killer in the top class.

  Marshall did not know that Bony had urged H.Q. to institute inquiries into the histories of the Jasons, Mr James, Constable Gleeson, and several other men. People are not murdered without motive, and if the motive for such a crime is not pas­sion, greed, jealousy, then it might well lie somewhere within the limits of insanity. And if that were so, the past might well provide the key piece to this puzzle of the present.

  Shortly after five o’clock Bony was summoned to the front fence by a shrill whistle given by little Mr Watson. Mr Watson was without hat, coat, or waistcoat. He appeared to be worn by the heat, for even his grey moustache was less stiff than was usual.

  “What about sinking a couple?” he suggested hopefully.

  Bony smiled, saying:

  “You are a man of ideas.”

  “It comes natural to me,” Mr Watson said modestly. “One idea will bring another, see? … Heat—a gargle. Cold—a blood warmer.”

  Bony vaulted the fence and joined the local newspaper correspondent.

  “Get your story of the inquest away all right?” he asked.

  “Oh yes. Great story. It’ll hit the top lines. The papers are sending out a couple of the boys.

  Mr Watson led the way into the hotel bar, where they found the licensee in conversation with Mr Jason and two other men who were strangers to Bony. With a soft voice Mr Watson said confidentially:

  “Young Tom’s been telling me that the old boy hasn’t done a stroke of work since he held the inquest on that swagman. He’s just living to get the papers reporting that inquest. They should be here tomorrow from Sydney.”

  “He’ll be disappointed if you didn’t give him a boost,” re­marked the licensee. “I wasn’t there, but they tell me he carried out his coroner’s job first-rate.”

  “He did so,” agreed Mr Watson. “Give the devil his due, I say. Old Jason done a good job, and he looks the part too, don’t he?”

  “Well, not just now, d’you think?” Bony argued.

  “No, not now, but when he’s on the bench,” persisted Mr Watson. “He knows his law, and he’s very fair, and he can handle a court. Hush! He’s coming along here.”

  The two men who were strangers to Bony left the bar, and Mr Jason stalked the few yards to join the latest arrivals. Mr Watson asked the funeral director and wheelwright to name his poison, and Mr Jason called for a shandygaff.

  “Good day, Burns!” he said to Bony. “Let me see now. This is your last day, isn’t it?”

  “That’s so, Mr Jason.”

  “No ill feeling, I hope?”

  “None at all, Mr Jason,” Bony assured him. “You had a job to do, and you did it quite well. As a matter of fact, I have enjoyed the period in jail.”

  “I am glad to hear that.”

  The rich voice seemed oddly at variance with the dungaree overalls being worn by Merino’s first citizen. Mr Jason’s whit
e face and black moustache appeared at variance with those overalls too.

  “What are your plans for the future?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m going to work for Mr Leylan. Reporting to him in the morning. Mr James got me a job with him.”

  “Hum! You will find him quite a good employer. His men speak well of him.” Mr Jason produced his pipe and tobacco plug and knife. For the first time he smiled. Then: “There is one place on Wattle Creek Station I would not like to work from.”

  “Sandy Flat!” breathed Mr Watson. “I wouldn’t camp at that place for a hundred pounds.”

  “Nor me, either,” interjected the licensee. “Not after what’s happened down there.”

  Bony called for drinks.

  “If Leylan wants me to go and live at Sandy Flat,” he said, “I’ll not be going. No, not after having seen all those blowflies that day.”

  Mr Jason, having loaded the bowl of his pipe, applied a match to the weed, and Mr Watson gently nudged Bony. The pipe seemed not to draw well, and Mr Jason unscrewed the little cup beneath the bowl, emptied the fluid nicotine onto the floor, replaced the cup, and applied another match. When the smoke appeared to rise slowly above his head like a lift­ing halo, he said:

  “I cannot at the moment recall a line written by Milton about the spirits of the departed. To me the spirits of the departed would be less uncomfortable than the dust down at Sandy Flat. I understand that even a gentle wind will raise the dust there to suffocating volume. Still, to a man having imagination dead quiet nights would be very trying.”

  “Any kind of nights at that place would be too trying for me,” Bony asserted.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sand and Wind

  IN THE LATE AFTERNOON of the following day Bony, now an employee of Massey Leylan, left Wattle Creek homestead for Sandy Flat. He rode a spirited grey gelding with whom he had still to make friends, whilst fresh in his mind were the well-wishes and the condolences of Sam the Blackmailer, and those employed about the homestead. He had been assured by everyone that “not for a million quid” would they camp at the hut at Sandy Flat for a single night.