Battling Prophet b-20 Page 15

  Mr. Luton snapped the breech shut and again nodded.

  “I want both of you to sit quietly in this room and do nothing until you hear my voice. Should anyone begin to break in, make no effort to dissuadehim. Let him gain entry, and then point your gun at him. You will be very nervous by then, and the gun will go off. Guns go off without triggers being pulled, in most criminal cases. Guns are always blameworthy; the criminal never. Your gun will go off; you will be blameless. But see to it that, at the precise moment your gun is discharged, it points in the true direction.”

  “You mean that, Bony?” exclaimed Jessica Lawrence.

  “Absolutely. Mr. Luton is still suffering from damage to his knees. Now listen, Mr. Luton.”

  The plan of exit being unfolded, Mr. Luton accompanied Bony to the living-room, closing the door to the sitting-room behind them. The living-room was then in total darkness. The inside bolt and the lock on the back door having been oiled, neither the bolt nor the key made noticeable noise and, inch by inch, Bony drew the door inward, slowly letting inside the comparatively bright moonlight.

  With the door half-opened, he stood listening. The wind was still strong. The clouds continued to race across the moon, so that one minute he could see the kennels at the bottom of thegarden, and at the next could barely distinguish the door of the meat-house.

  The two dogs were standing, and only slightly moving. As it was cold, they should have been inside their kennels. They were not at peace, and they were not alarmed. They were merely suspicious. There were no sounds from the day-loving birds, who were obviously asleep, and when a night-loving owl fluttered above the bordering trees, the picture was complete, andits meaning plain.

  There was no one in the vicinity of the house.

  Outside, Bony paused to hear the soft snip of the bolt being shot home. The key he didn’t hear being turned by Mr. Luton, who would then cross the dark living-room to enter the illumined sitting-room wherewaited the girl. Thus no silhouettes.

  When the moon was masked, Bony walked the garden path to the kennels. The dogs saw him coming, wagged tails, refrained from barking, and contented themselves withwingeing their pleasure. He made a fuss of them, gave each a sweet biscuit, and climbed the rear fence to gain the trees and scrub which, either side of the house, formed a wide border to the river.

  Here the moonlight was appreciably reduced. He turned up-river, and roughly followed a line parallel with the path to Knocker Harris’s camp. Progress was slow, for the bush was thick and spiny, and progress had to be silent.

  Eventually he saw the light, a mere pin-hole in the dark canvas. He paused to glance at his watch. Four minutes to ten. Finally he could see the edges of the aperture through which the light was coming, and even then he could not see the outlines of Knocker’s house. He did hear voices. Knocker entertained a visitor.

  There were so many holes and cracks in Knocker’s abode that to eavesdrop would be easy, were it not for the midget Australian terrier. Bony was not that anxious to over-hear what was being discussed, but he did want to see the visitor.

  Arriving at the edge of ‘the lawn’, he refrained from stepping on to it, in view of Knocker’s snares-not that he was fearful of tripping over one, but because he could not re-set it exactly as Knocker had done. Skirting the lawn, he noted that the wind was from him to the hut as he crossed the path. Six yards farther on was the river-bank, the rough landing-stage, and the contrivance of fish-line and bullock-bell.

  The midget dog was still passive inside the hut. No bird voiced an alarm outside it. Bony pulled in the line, removed the bait, tossed it back and vigorously rang the bell. He skipped into the bush. The birds woke and complained. The little dog in the hut frantically yapped. The door opened and out rushed the dog, followed by Knocker, carrying the pressure lamp, and another man wearing a belted overcoat.

  The visitor was tall, inclined to be stout, and was plainly excited. Though the moonlight fell strongly on him, Bony could not identify him. He hurried after Harris, who hurried after the dog, who raced to the belled fish-line.

  “No go! Fish got away.” There was a hint of anger in Knocker’s voice. The man said:

  “Pity. It might have been a beaut.”

  “Took me bait, anyhow,” grumbled the hermit.“Must have been onlyplayin ’ with it, like. I thought the bell didn’t ring like sheoughter.”

  “Tough luck,” sympathised the stranger.

  “Yair,” agreed Knocker, re-baiting the hook, and, standing, swung the lead well out into the stream. The dog yapped its disappointment, and, when Knocker began to move back to the hut, ran on ahead. The stranger said:

  “Oh, well, I’ll get along. I’ll do what I told you. Be here at eight for the bait. You’d rather the meat and things instead of money?”

  “Yair. I don’t wantno arguments with the blasted Council.”

  “Wise fellow. Well, see you to-morrow.”

  “So long. Left your car at the bridge, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Find your way back to the clearing?”

  “That’ll be right. Good-night!”

  The stranger was able to find his way, without doubt, and obviously this was not his first visit to Knocker Harris. Bony followed him without difficulty. He eventually reached the clearing in front of Mr. Luton’s house, having then received Bony’s ‘pass’ for bushcraft, although he still had much to learn.

  Casually the stranger crossed the clearing, unaware of the object behind him, which flitted in the deeper shadows cast by Mr. Luton’s ‘bullock team’. He skirted the track and had proceeded about a dozen yards when a man spoke to him and he halted to merge with the close-set scrub where Jessica Lawrence had seen a man standing.

  Bony moved, on hands and knees, until he was within four feet of the two men now seated on a fallen tree-trunk.

  “Damn cold waiting here. Do any good?”

  “I’m not clear yet,” replied the stranger.“Got a deal of background on old Wickham and Luton. They were certainly close buddies.”

  “Pretty thick, eh?”

  “Thick as thieves are supposed to be. We could be right about that missing data. Old Wickham could have planted it with Luton, and Luton could be lying doggo. That girl left yet?”

  “No, else I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Tellin’ the old boy how her sweetie was nabbed, I bet.”

  “Most likely.”

  “What do we do about her when she does come out?”

  “As I told you,” replied the stranger whose face Bony had seen.

  “I don’t much like it,” objected his companion.

  “I like it more since I pumped old Harris. That girl’s sweet on Linke. She and Linke have been visiting Luton before old Wickham jumped off, and since. Those two were closest to Wickham. We know that. So we do as planned. We bale her up if she’s alone, and we deal with old Luton if he’s with her. We tell her we know enough about Linke to have him put away. If she answers a few questions we forget what we know about Linke. No rough stuff-not much.”

  Silence between them until the stranger said it was after ten-thirty.

  “Wish she’d hurry up and come out.”

  “So do I,” agreed the other. “But we sit here if we wait till daybreak.”

  Bony moved away, finally to walk noiselessly by the track towards the bridge. He was both perturbed and gratified by these developments, even though this last pair of conspirators could not beso clearly labelled as the first. But there was the parked car, and much can be learned from a car.

  It was standing well off the highway, on the far side, under gums beyond a space cleared for material when the road was being re-surfaced. It occupied Bony three minutes to be assured no one was sitting in it, or exercising cold legs in its vicinity. It was registered in Victoria, a Buick sedan of 1952 vintage, dark grey and lovely in the moonlight. There was nothing about it to indicate anything but a private car.

  Bony automatically noted the registration, the size and make of
the tyres, the fine leather of the upholstery. As he sat behind the wheel, the distance of the pedals suggested that the man who had visited Knocker Harris was its driver. The open dash-box beside the wheel contained a notebook, a pencil, pressure gauge, and, luckily-for every successful policeman has to be lucky, an envelope containing a garage account. The bill had been posted to Mr. S. V. Marsh, 32 Myall Avenue, Toorak, a fashionable Melbourne suburb when on the right side of the tram-lines.

  The glove-box held a silver box of cigarettes, supporting the view that Mr. Marsh was a wealthy man. But wealth is deceptive. Many persons spring from wages to comparative affluence-a minor point.

  Bony hated even the thought, but he found the tool compartment and took from the roll of canvas an adjustable spanner. The roll he returned to the compartment. The door he carefully closed, and was careful, too, that the door of the glove-box was shut.

  The winter winds, even the recent imitation shower, had failed to dampen the treedebris, which Bony gathered with his feet and made a pile of, at the rear of the car. He pushed moredebris under the front end. Then he loosened the drainage plug of the petrol tank and kickeddebris under the rear end.

  Motionless, he listened, watching and waiting for the next cloud to weaken the moonlight. Save for the wind, nothing disturbed. The cloud came. He struck a match. There was not sufficient petrol spilled to make an explosion, but enough to cause him to run for cover.

  Bony flitted across the highway, under the trees, and through the light scrub bordering the track to Mr. Luton’s house. When midway, he stopped. As he looked back, the glarerose bright between the tree-trunks and enamelled deep orange the foliage of the trees about the bridge.

  There was nothing stealthy in the movements of the intending waylayers of a charming girl. Bony watched them, walking fast, so concerned as to be speechless.

  Bony’s flittering became a fast run. He knocked at the back door of the cottage, paused, then called:

  “All set, Mr. Luton. The dogs are asleep and well fed.”

  The door opened and Bony slipped into the lightless sitting-room.

  “Now, Jessica, we go. I will escort you home.”

  “Everything all SirGarno?” asked Mr. Luton.

  “A slight mishap near the bridge, that’s all,” replied Bony. “Lie low and don’t open up till I return. Ready, Jessica?”

  Outside the door, Bony apologised when he took her hand and hurried her along the path. The dogs were excited and he spoke to quieten them. They had cause to be excited. The girl saw the reason as she was being assisted through the wire fence at the bottom of the garden.

  When in the open paddock and following the faint path over the drought-smitten earth, she referred to it.

  “The fire?” exclaimed Bony innocently. “Ah, yes! A careless smoker dropped a lighted match. People will never learn. You can conduct ‘Safety First’ campaigns till you’re blue in the face, and they won’t learn. Heard a statesman once talking on the radio, urging listeners to ‘put out that match’. One moron talking to a million. Of course he was a moron. They all are. Every year they warn the people about dropping lighted matches, especially when near treedebris and petrol and that kind of combustible. If the statesmen had any intelligence, they would prohibit the manufacture and sale of matches, and make everyone buy a lighter. People don’t drop cigarette lighters. They’re too expensive.”

  “May I say something?” the girl asked, breathlessly.

  “By all means. I am all attention.”

  “You are hurrying too fast. And talking too much. And not telling the truth.”

  “My apologies, Jessica. Permit me to ease your mind. Dr. Linke will be all right; he will be allowed to return to his work here, and to you, even if I have to blackmail the Prime Minister.”

  At the fence skirting the highway, Bony bade no talking while he listened. Across the road stood the open gateway to Mount Mario. The only sound was the wind in the pine trees. No footsteps on the road. Only the ruddy glare of the fire down by the bridge.

  They sped across the road to the open gates and walked along the daffodil-bordered driveway.

  “Please tell me about the fire, Bony.”

  Believing that the girl would worry unduly, he said:

  “A secret. Between us. Those men you saw were waiting for you to leave Mr. Luton’s cottage. They intended to frighten you with threats to force you to give information. So while you were waiting with Mr. Luton, I fired their car to create a diversion while I was being honoured as your escort. Will you accept an order from me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I order you not to leave Mount Mario at any time alone, until I say so. In the morning, as early as possible, I want you to send a phonogram. You can use the office phone? Without being overheard?”

  “I’ll manage that.”

  “Here is the message, addressed to a young lady in Melbourne, to ask her to contact you at the earliest possible moment. When she does, be very guarded. Say that I am in urgent need of her assistance at Mr. Luton’s cottage, near Cowdry. Refer to me only as her Murray River friend. Clear?”

  “Quite,” replied Jessica, accepting the written message and slipping it into a coat pocket. Impulsively, she squeezed Bony’s arm. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am. You will do your best about Carl, won’t you?”

  “I have said so, Jessica. Now you run for the door. I’ll watch.”

  He waited until he saw the door close behind her, then raced back to Mr. Luton.

  Chapter Twenty

  Bony Listens to Radio Play

  “DIDthe dogs bark?” Bony asked when Mr. Luton had admitted him and they were again in the sitting-room.

  “No, exceptin ’ once when one of ’emyapped as if a flea bit him without knocking.”

  Bony related the incidents of the evening, believing Mr. Luton should be prepared for possible future developments, and the old man frowned at the story of Knocker Harris’s visitor, and chuckled when hearing of the ‘accident’ to the car.

  “First,” Bony went on, “nothing of our knowledge to Harris when he comes again. You must wait for what he gives or won’t give about that car driver. Ostensibly, the man went to Harris to arrange for the delivery of fishing bait tomorrow, but actually to obtain information about your relationship with Ben Wickham. Which indicates that the centre of interest in Wickham’s papers has moved to this house of yours. Those two foreigners were first to make that move: these last two fellows are coming round to it. We may assume that the last two are not associated with the first two.”

  “The two to-night? They foreigners?”Mr. Luton put forward.

  “Not from their accent. The driver of the car need not be the owner, but the owner’s name is Marsh. The garage account is for general servicing, not repairs. Now to see what is in the notebook.”

  Study of the notebook occupied five minutes.

  “The driver, if not the actual owner, could be a commercial traveller,” Bony said, slowly. “This is a record, almost in diary form, of expenditure on petrol and oil, hotel expenses, meals, roughly jotted down, possibly for transference to a swindle sheet at the end of the day. It begins in April, 1953, continues through to four days ago, when petrol was purchased in Cowdry. Between dates, the driver visited Adelaide, Melbourne, where he probably lives, then Canberra, back to Melbourne, Sydney, and so on. If he is a commercial traveller, then his territory covers three States and the Australian Capital Territory. The car being a Buick, his firm must be a wealthy one, or he could be the head of a small but prosperous firm. He could be a Government servant. Getting in deep, are we not?”

  “We’re left with some dark horses, eh?”

  “No show, Mr. Luton, if we adopt the racecourse for the sea. Time is my bet. I am ever an admirer of Time, for Time has been my greatest ally. Now, there is another matter. Those records and the green notebook in the chest could be located I am uneasy, and we should do something about it. Have you any suggestions for a better hiding-place?”

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sp; “Don’t know. Have to think. The pub’s secret enough, isn’t it?”

  “I fear not,” Bony said. “If the house was searched by experts, they would quickly find the trap-door. We must use imagination. Let us assume that you arean habitual drunk. That you were married to a very suspicious woman who does not approve of the cursed drink, and will, on sight of a bottle, empty it down the sink. Where would you plant your bottle?”

  “In a hole under the perches in the fowl-house,” promptly answered Mr. Luton.

  “I anticipated your selection,” Bony said smilingly. “Your hiding-place would not be a hundred per cent proof against a suspicious wife, but it ought to trick a change-daily boy. We’ll do the job right now.”

  Mr. Luton was ready and eager. It occupied them almost an hour, for work had to be done without light, without disturbing the hens and their lord roosting on the perches, and replacing the over-lay exactly as formerly. The hole was not large, because Bony finally decided to leave the annual records in the chest, burying only the notebook, the will, the smaller book taken from the car, inside a biscuit tin.

  Afterwards they ate a light supper, drank a hot toddy and retired, all doors locked and windows bolted, the loaded shotgun on Mr. Luton’s bedside table, and the furniture and floor-covering in the kitchen-living-room so arranged as to permit Bony easy egress if essential.

  Both slept in undisturbed peace.

  At nine o’clock Mr. Luton took a breakfast tray down to his guest, who planned to spend the day on further study of the records in the chest. He then proceeded with the chores of the day: freeing the dogs, tidying the house, doing a little digging and sowing peas and transplanting early cabbage.

  Shortly after ten, Senior Constable Gibley called, knocking on the front door, when Bony mounted the brandy steps.

  “What! You again!” Mr. Luton said sharply.

  “Me again, Luton,” agreed the policeman. “How’s the kettle? Boiling?”

  “Damnation!” roared the old man. “You think I can supply the whole ruddy police force with cups of tea, and tea the price it is?”