The Sands of Windee Page 14

  “The blackfellow thus is the world’s greatest statesman. Every race, every nation, has something to learn from him. True, he has none of the white man’s monuments to boast of or to point to as evidence of a supreme culture. Such monuments he would regard as millstones about his single ethereal monument of happiness.

  “Because the blackfellow is so lacking in that boastfulness which is the white man’s prerogative, the white man looks on him with contempt. Yet the blackfellow possessed culture when the white man ate raw flesh because he did not know how to make a fire. He did not inscribe his culture on tablets, nor did he force it on the general community. His secrets arc well kept, and his powers well restrained. Old Moongalliti can kill a man or woman by merely willing it. A love of ceremony demands the pointing of a bone at the doomed man. It is not the pointing-bone that kills, but will-power.

  “I have known instances where a white man has died because a contemptible Australian black has willed it. Old Illawalli can project his mind into the brain of another man and read that man’s thoughts throughout his whole life as easily as you or I would read a book by turning its pages. I am glad to see you are not laughing.”

  “I am a bushman,” Morris said simply.

  “Good! Now Moongalliti and I belong to the same cult or craft. He knows who killed Marks and how the killing was done. Wait—do not interrupt. In my own way I have questioned him, but without any result. I could obtain what I want to learn through the craft which unites us; but to pass on or make use of the knowledge would be to break my oaths and stain my honour. Illawalli will get the knowledge by a different method. He will hypnotize Moongalliti without Moongalliti’s knowledge.”

  “Ah, I see the drift now.”

  For a little while Bony fell silent. He was making yet another cigarette. Then: “Even when we know who killed Marks, I am afraid we shall only have disposed of the preliminaries of the case. We shall have to prove that Marks is dead and was murdered, for Illawalli’s testimony will not be admitted. Again, so far we have no glimmering of the motive for the crime. Have you those records for which I asked?”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Circumstantial Evidence

  THERE WERE now four questions that Bony badly wanted to answer but found he could not. What had become of the money it was believed Marks carried with him, amounting to about thirteen hundred pounds? The cashier at the bank had issued one-pound treasury notes to that amount, and the numbers of these notes were not ascertainable. Did Marks carry the money the day he was killed? If he did, how was it that the murderer had not left Windee to spend it, especially when the case seemed to be officially forgotten?

  Circumstances seemed to indicate that the man or men responsible for the removal of Marks was or were too clever or too cautious to permit even that moderate amount of money to remain in existence. In all probability it had been burned with the body, if the body had been burned.

  What had been the precise nature of the business on which Marks had visited Jeff Stanton? Stanton’s explanation of it to Sergeant Morris was exceedingly vague. It might—Bony considered it tentatively—be the real motive actuating the killing. Supposing Jeff Stanton to be the murderer? As a supposition it would account for the non-appearance of Marks’s money, or for the absence of any result of its being put into general circulation. Yet, if Stanton committed the crime, and supposing Marks’s body had been incinerated beneath where lay the charred remains of three kangaroos, how came it that those animals had been shot by Dot?

  Bony was constrained to believe that the secret lay hidden in the business discussed by Stanton and Marks in conference. The finger was inclined to point to Jeff Stanton, if it could be assumed that the money existed. Neither Ned Swallow not Jack Withers was a man who would continue at work when possessed of thirteen hundred pounds. Both men were normally intelligent. Withers was extremely excitable, as was shown when he witnessed the corroboree fight; whilst Ned Swallow was by no means a quick thinker, or able to act instantly with circumspection.

  These two men Bony crossed off the list of seven suspected fish, leaving five—one of which was the sting-ray. The two deletions were effected because Bony was justifiably sure that Marks’s killer was a man of strong will, a clear mind, and ruthlessly determined. This character fitted Jeff Stanton to perfection. In many respects it also fitted the bookkeeper, Mr Roberts; and what characteristics were lacked by Dot were supplied by Dash, so that together they also would fit.

  The third question was what lay behind the altered attitude towards him of Marion Stanton and the faint suspicion behind the eyes of her father? It was a clear question and demanded a clear answer. It did not raise nor could it be answered by other questions.

  The fourth question was what lay behind Moongalliti’s threat to point the bone at any of his tribe who breathed a word of what Ludbi had seen, be it little or much, and this question could only be answered by old Illawalli, then being hurried to Windee.

  They were the four principal questions among a larger number. Bony would have liked to obtain answers to the mystery of the sapphire in the ants’ nest, the mystery of Dash leaving the “Government House” to become a fur-getter, and the mystery of Jeff Stanton’s earlier life before he took up the land on the range.

  The reports furnished by Sergeant Morris were fairly informative. The dossiers of Dot and Dash started from their arrival in Australia. Their overseas history was not important to the case. The lives of both Marion and young Jeff were easily traced, and but little more difficulty was experienced in dealing with Ned Swallow, who came from Queensland, and Jack Withers, a Victorian. Mr Roberts was born in Adelaide, came of a well-known business family, and for years was employed by a stock and station agency. About all those everything was fairly clear. But nothing could be found regarding the birthplace or the first twenty-two years of Jeff Stanton’s life. It was quite a minor point, but it added to the collection of mysteries.

  Thinking about these several matters, Bony paid a visit on foot one Sunday afternoon to the tree in the fork of which were concealed his sheepskin sandals. With these on his feet he swung south by west for two miles, when he came in sight of a windmill and well, and the inevitable water-troughing. A hundred yards or so from the mill he came upon a camp-site, the one occupied by Dot and Dash when Marks disappeared.

  There remained still the poles with which the partners’ tent had been erected, whilst a dozen yards from these was the site of the campfire. A litter of empty tins revealed that the two men liked peach and melon and lemon jam, tinned fruit and tomatoes, and condensed milk. Bony found several cartridge-cases fitting Dash’s Savage, and two fitting Dot’s Winchester, besides a few fitting a twelve-bore gun.

  There were many things in that camp-site to indicate the tastes and characters of its one-time occupants, and Bony examined it with care. Of tracks there were none other than those of innumerable rabbits. The ashes on the fireplace spoke of a tenancy lasting several weeks. There was nothing peculiar about it. The wind had levelled the ash-heap and partly covered it with sand, and it was entirely on impulse, born of memory that a fireplace is a gold-miner’s favourite cache, that Bony began to excavate a hole in the centre of where the fire had been habitually built.

  The mixture of ash and sand was loose and fine. Bony worked with his hands, and he had scooped out a hole two feet deep when he felt the touch of metal. A little further trouble, and there lay exposed a neatly made box fashioned from a four-gallon petrol-tin.

  Slowly he lifted it up. The lid was fastened down by a wire catch, and with his lips compressed into a straight line he opened the box. Within was a parcel wrapped in black waterproof cloth, used at one time for protecting fracteur from damp. With firm unhurried fingers he undid this parcel, and suddenly smiled gently when he saw many neat packets of one-pound treasury notes.

  There were twenty-three of these packets. He counted the notes in one of them. There were fifty. The total was eleven hundred and thirty pounds; and as though to prove that
the money had belonged to Marks there was a bank draft for two hundred pounds made out in favour of Thomas Marks, and payable at Perth, Western Australia.

  For this “find” the cupidity of Dot was responsible, so Bony believed. His was a nature that could not bear to see good money destroyed. He knew it was good money, since the notes were untraceable. He knew that he could spend them any time he chose. Why had he not already done so? Was it natural cunning or natural covetousness, or just plain fear? Or was it because his partner was the dominant figure, and they waited for an agreed period of time to expire before they divided and left Windee?

  Bony had made an important step forward. He had obtained evidence—of a sort. It was not conclusive evidence that Marks was murdered, for the partners might have found the box and contents, and it could be suggested that Marks had cast it from him whilst he aimlessly searched for a path leading to a human habitation and life.

  He thought for a while, and then, suddenly smiling, wrapped up the notes again in the cloth and set the parcel aside. The tin box he securely fastened and replaced at the bottom of the hole. Lastly he filled in the hole and smoothed the surface carefully, leaving no trace of the spot having been disturbed.

  Taking up the parcel of treasury notes, he looked over the campsite before walking back to the junction of the roads, where he took off the sheepskin sandals and found a fresh hiding-place for them in a hollow tree. The result of his afternoon’s work was highly gratifying to him, for, although it was not conclusive, it was a further proof that Time was on his side.

  When he entered his bunk-room, shared with Jack Withers, the cross-eyed man put down a novel he was reading, and, with one eye looking out through the open door and the other fixed at a point several feet above Bony’s head, he drawled: “Ole Noonee bin along looking for you.’ Pears quite upset like. Says Moongalliti et summat wot made’ im feel like throwing a seven. Wants you to go along and look’ im over.”

  “Ah, perhaps someone has been pointing the bone at him,” Bony surmised with a smile.

  “’Taint likely, unless it’s the ole bloke wot’s just arrived.”

  “An old man? Stranger?”

  “Yaas. Embly says ’is name is Illawalli.”

  “Indeed!” Bony’s surprise was hidden by blandness. “Have you seen him?”

  “Yus—and smelled ’im. ’E’s about a ’undred and fifty years old, and as ’igh as any black wot ’as offended me nose. Must be old Moongalliti’s great-great-grandfather, come to life from Noah’s Ark.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Secrets of Ind

  AFTER DINNER that evening Bony wandered down the creek to the blacks’ camp, which he found partially deserted, many of the tribe having gone hunting. Several gins vanished inside their rude humpies (huts) at sight of him, and one of them was Runta, apparently fearful that Bony might be suffering from his “sometime now” malady. Gunda, however, came to meet him, and her not bad-looking face betokened curiosity.

  “Well, Gunda, ole Moongalliti bad, eh?” Bony said.

  “Him plurry crook,” was Gunda’s emphatic answer.

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Him all bad here,” Gunda explained, pressing her hands to that part of her body below her waist; then added naively: “But bimeby him all right. Blackfeller come long way. Ole feller Illawalli, him make Moongalliti good soon.”

  “Ah, take me to Moongalliti, Gunda.”

  The chief was lying on some old chaff-bags spread out beneath a boxtree; he was groaning deeply and writhing in quite an alarming fashion. Noonee, the mother of Ludbi, was seated at his feet, her body rocking from side to side, and from her lips proceeding long, high-pitched, doleful wails. At Moongalliti’s head was seated a tall, marvellously emaciated patriarch with snow-white hair and a white beard fully a yard long. This person was dressed in new cheap shop-made clothes, which Bony instantly guessed had been provided by the police before he was forwarded on his long journey south. Seeing Bony approach, Illawalli jumped to his feet with astonishing agility and ran to Bony with a joyful yell. His trouser-encased long legs, the light brown jacket, and the pink kerchief about his neck reminded Bony of the time, long gone, when he and several other boys had dressed an emu in an old suit of clothes and let it go.

  “Bony! Bony, my son and my father!” Illawalli shouted, and reaching out his skinny arms he clasped the half-caste in an affectionate hug. The warmth of his greeting recompensed the detective for the odour—not of sanctity—the old man emitted, and behind his keen black eyes he saw a hint of amusement which flashed now and then, as though some stupendous joke rivalled the affection. And while Illawalli hugged he said softly:

  “Ah, Bony, you want me, eh? You sent police, eh? You ’member ole Illawalli tell you him son and his father. I come! I come on the horse that goes on wheels and I rode on the emu that flies.”

  “Were you not afraid, Illawalli?”

  “Ya-as. Then I not ’member it. Oh, Bony, I laff and I laff, ’way up there. I look and see clouds from top.”

  “Well, well! You’re a lucky man. Now let us see what’s wrong with Moongalliti.”

  “Him all right. I gibbit him blackfeller’s dope make ’im crook; then I gibbit ’im whitefeller’s dope make ’im well. Me great man Nor’ Queensland; now me fine feller Noo South Wales.”

  “Why did you do that?” Bony asked curiously.

  “Well, you see, like this. Moongalliti not like poor ole Illawalli. Him think I’se be chief here. So I put stomach debil in ’im tucker; then ’e sing out loud and I fix ’im up. Him all right bimeby.”

  Now with gentle firmness Bony put his friend from him, and together they went to the recumbent Moongalliti, who had ceased his groaning and was regarding them with unfeigned interest. Bony seated himself beside him and, taking up one thin wrist, felt the pulse. It was almost normal.

  “Bad! Me bin plurry bad,” said the patient shakily.

  “You been eating too much,” Bony told him sternly.

  “Naw.”

  “Yes, you have. You eat nothing till to-morrow, or you get bad again. You nearly die.” The old gin began to wail louder than ever. “Illawalli, him fine doctor. He make you well. Good feller, Illawalli.”

  “My plurry oath,” agreed Moongalliti, sitting up. Then with startling suddenness he yelled to the gin: “You’m shut up! Wa’ for you make that row?”

  Almost as old as Moongalliti, the woman’s fat and ugly face brightened at the now normal tone of her husband. Her black eyes glistened, and about her mouth dawned a tender smile that fascinated Bony’s attention. Moongalliti also saw her expression of tender affection for him; but he was a man, and men must not be weak with women. There was a heavy waddy within his reach, and Bony caught his arm just in time to prevent its being hurled at the wife. Hastily she arose and fled.

  “Do you feel stomach-debil now?” Bony inquired seriously.

  “Naw. He bin almost dead.”

  “Just so. Almost dead, but he may come to life again,” the half-caste warned the chief. “You go slow now. Don’t you get up. Illawalli and I go hunting for tree-leaf which will kill your debil for ever. Now, hear! Don’t get up!”

  “Orl right, Bony,” Moongalliti promised, memory of the recent pains still vivid. Then he clasped Bony’s hand in his saying: “You good feller, Bony. You good feller, Illawalli.”

  Illawalli grunted. He and Bony got to their feet and strolled off down the creek whilst the box-tree leaves glittered as flakes of gold in the setting sun. They had walked nearly half a mile, and, arriving at the ironstone hillock crowned by the ancient and mysterious pavement of rock squares, they seated themselves at its base and made preparations to smoke. All round them rabbits fed on fallen leaves and scratched small holes in search of grass-roots, and from out its hole crawled a gigantic monarch goanna, six feet in length, moving slowly with deceptive sluggishness.

  In the vernacular Bony related to his companion the mystery of Marks’s disappearance, described the b
lackfellow’s sign, and told what he had learned from Runta.

  “Ole Moongalliti, him cunning feller,” Bony went on. “Ludbi, his son, told him he saw a car come through the bush with this whitefeller, Marks, fighting with another whitefeller. I believe Ludbi told Moongalliti who killed Marks and how, and Moongalliti threatens the pointing-bone to any one of his tribe who says a word about it.”

  “What-it whitefeller gotta do blackfeller?” the ancient asked, intelligently placing his finger on the crux of the affair.

  “That’s what I can’t understand,” Bony admitted. “Me good friends with Moongalliti.” He whispered three words, and Illawalli’s eyes gleamed with aroused interest. “No good to me he tell me on sign of the moon. Then I can no tell no one. He not see sign on your back same as me. You read his spirit-mind, Illawalli, and what you read you tell-it me, eh?”

  For a little while the old man made no reply. His seamed face was as that of some ugly heathen god, but, whereas the god expresses evil, there was in the face of Illawalli a look of placid benevolence. “Me grow old,” he said at last. “P’r’aps me can’t look into Moongalliti’s spirit. You one plurry fool, Bony.’ Member me wanted teach you how to look in men’s spirits? Mine father learned me, an’ my father’s father learned’ im, an’’ is father learned my father’s father. From the land of Ind, before the waters rose an’ made this land roun’ as is the sun, came the secrets my father learned me. No son have I to pass on the power. You are my son and my father, Bony, and you will have none of it.”

  The half-caste sighed. Illawalli’s hypnotic power was stupendous. Twice had Bony experienced it, and gladly would he have become possessed of the power had there been any other than the precise condition accompanying the offer. In his profession the secrets of the art, handed down through countless generations to Illawalli, would have been of inestimable value; but the condition on which the old man insisted in return for the knowledge was that Bony should forsake the white man’s civilization and become chief of Illawalli’s tribe when the latter died. And that was a condition Bony felt he could never accept. It would mean surrendering all the interests in life which the white man’s education had given.