The Widows of broome b-13 Read online

  “I still don’t get it,” Sawtell said.

  “It’s quite simple, Sergeant. I made a cast of the left foot of the murderer of Mrs. Overton. Your cast is of the left shoe worn by Mr. Dickenson. You say that Abie drew a line with his finger round the print of the man’s tracks he saw on the paths and inside Mrs. Overton’s house?”

  “So he did,” asserted Sawtell. “I was particular about that. Here, along this side of the cast, is the mark he made in the dirt.”

  “Come, Sawtell, I’m not doubting you,” Bony hastily assured the now angry man. “And I’m sure you will not doubt my tracking ability. Abie deliberately pointed out to you false tracks, because old Dickenson was not inside the garden nor was he inside the house. Now, then, let us compare the casts of the naked feet.”

  The comparison was made. The two sets of casts were the same.

  “When you told Abie to point out to you the naked footprints he could not trick you for there was only the one set. If you take these casts to the moist earth about Abie’s wash-basin, you will discover that they fit exactly.”

  Walters butted in:

  “Two added to two make four,” he said. “Abie, you said, had been walking around at night. Was he following the murderer that night, or was the murderer following him?”

  “He was following the murderer,” replied Bony. “If he knew then that the man he was following had murdered Mrs. Overton he may tell us who the murderer is.”

  “ ’Coursehe will,” snapped Sawtell. “I’ll locate him pronto.”

  “If you do locate him, he won’t tell you,” Bony quietly stated.

  “Won’t tell! Coo! He’ll tell, all right.”

  “Have you ever been able to make a black-fellow talk when he will not? No, Sawtell, you won’t make him talk. I made the mistake of not keeping my eye on him, but we were all too busy last night. Locate him if you can, but don’t let him suspect that we know of his trickery.”

  “Why not? What’s his little game?” asked Walters.

  “If he knows who murdered Mrs. Overton, his little game is blackmail. To blackmail, he must contact the murderer. He, therefore, could lead us to the murderer, provided we were sufficiently expert in shadowing him. It will be a task for me. However, I fear much for Abie.”

  “You’re right, Bony. Abie would be a mouse trying to blackmail a cat.” Walters chewed his upper lip. “Well, what next?”

  “Relax till the reinforcements arrive. You two get on with your routine jobs. I’ll look around for Abie.” Bony smiled, and they wondered at his calm demeanour. “When you go out, be sure you haven’t a drawing pin stuck to one of your shoes.”

  Bony left. Walters scratched his chin. Sawtell said:

  “What’s he mean by that crack?”

  “That I am the murderer,” replied Walters “Told me I wore down my shoes same way as the murderer does, that I make the same stride as the murderer does, that I am the murderer’s weight. Nice chap, isn’t he?”

  “Are you the murderer?” asked the sergeant.

  “Are you?” shouted the inspector.

  Sawtell burst into laughter. Walters grinned. The tension vanished.

  Bony visited the stores, at which he purchased drawing pins and gained the information that the government offices, the council office, the State school and the college did not purchase their drawing pins at the stores. The drawing pin attached to the murderer’s shoe was useless as a lead, but as one of many pieces with which to identify the murderer it did have value.

  Any man in Broome being sufficiently astute to wear rubber gloves, and to clean door handles so that the imprint of the rubber would not be recorded, would be wide awake to the ability of the native trackers and would almost certainly use a pair of discarded shoes in which to commit his crimes. It was most improbable that he would wear the shoes save when on murder bent. As this expert on tracks was aware, no two men walk exactly alike, and the tracks of the murderer, seen in Mrs. Overton’s house and on her garden paths, rendered to Bony distinguishing peculiarities which would be registered by the ground from any other shoes he wore.

  But like the drawing pin, footprints could not be regarded as conclusive evidence, but as supporting evidence of the contiguity of the murderer with his victim. Bony had not told Inspector Walters that the murderer placed the same pressure on his toes as upon his heels, whilst the inspector dug his heels into cement, such being the emphasis with which he placed his heels.

  Bony was “hoorayed” by Keith Walters racing home on his bicycle for lunch, and the boy was asked to stop. Keith circled and drew alongside.

  “Have you seen Abie today?” Bony asked.

  “No. What’s he done, Mr. Knapp?”

  “Absent from duty. D’you know of any blacks camped near the town?”

  Keith shook his head, and said the nearest camp was on the Cuvier Creek half a mile down from Dampier’s Hotel.

  “Have you ever visited the blacks’ camp out there?”

  “Rather. They put on a corroboree a couple of months ago. We watched ’emthrowing spears and boomerangs and things.”

  “Did you, indeed. That must have been interesting. How did you go?”

  “In cars. All the school couldn’t go, you know, so we cast lots. I was lucky. The masters cast lots, too.”

  “And who were the lucky masters, d’you remember?”

  “Mr. Percival, and old Stinks, and Tubby Wilson. The head arrived after we did. Mrs. Sayers brought him, old Briggs driving. She shouted tea for all of us. Her car was loaded with eats.” The boy’s face became awfully serious. “I forgot about Mrs. Overton. Mrs. Sayers brought her, too.”

  “Did you like Mrs. Overton?”

  “Oh, yes. All the fellows liked her. She was arattlin ’ good sort. One of prefects was caught out crying about her being killed like that, but no one chiacked him for it. We all felt like it, you see.”

  “Yes, I suppose you did. Well, you had better get along home for lunch. I’ll not be long after you.”

  At the police station office the Derby constable was presented to Bony. He was dapper in physique but a hundred per cent in mental alertness. Sawtell was taking him home for lunch, and Mrs. Sawtell was putting him up. He would report to Bony at seven.

  The children having left the luncheon table, Bony asked if there had arrived any communication from Darwin concerning Arthur Flinn. Walters said that Darwin knew nothing to Flinn’s discredit and that for several years he had been the buying agent for a large jewellery firm in New York.

  “Don’t get us anywhere with Flinn,” concluded the inspector.

  Following lunch, Bony borrowed Mrs. Walters’ alarm clock and permitted himself one hour of sleep. Meanwhile, Walters had telephoned Dampier’s Hotel to ascertain if Abie had been seen out there. No one at the hotel had seen Abie, and the lubras working there had not seen him at the camp. Keith received orders to prospect for the tracker on his bike when he left school for the day.

  Awakened by the clock at two, Bony spent an hour doing nothing bar meditate and chain-smoke. He had afternoon tea with Mrs. Walters at three o’clock, and at three-thirty was sauntering into Chinatown. And shortly afterwards he was met by Johnno.

  “Oh, Mr. Knapp! I look for you. I try see you arrive. You arrive, eh?”

  “I have arrived,” agreed Bony, unable to withstand the smiling face of the sunny Javanese.

  “You like go fish, eh?” Johnno went on, shoulders and arms expressing recognition of a wish which must be granted. “I take you see my friend. He has motor-boat. Sometimes motor-boat he go ahead when myfriend say go astern, and he go astern when my friend he says go ahead. No matter. We arrive, we put out the lines.” Johnno’s hand and arms illustrated putting out the lines as though they were employed heaving a drunk out of a music-hall. “No fish, no matter. We sleep, we eat, we drink. You come now see my friend?”

  “Yes, Johnno, why not?”

  They walked together along the ill-kept sidewalk fronting the inhabited iron shacks wi
th their leaning veranda posts and rotted floor-boards.

  “You live always in Broome?” Johnno asked.

  “No, Johnno. I must soon leave and go back to work. But I shall always remember you and our drive with Mr. Dickenson to Dampier’s Hotel.”

  “Ah! We go one night before you leave. We have night out, eh?”

  “I will think that over, Johnno,” Bony said, the twinkle in his eyes. “We might make a party of it.”

  Johnno was immensely pleased. He conducted Bony past the store and towards a large shed where the street ended above the slope of the beach. They passed between the shed and a huge stack of empty oil drums, and in this narrow sandy laneway Bony saw the tracks of a man who wore a size-eight shoe and who pressed his feet evenly on the ground. The tracks stopped at the bottom of four steps leading to a loading stage at the wide doors of the shed.

  As they mounted the steps, Bony heard from within the shed a sound like flakes of slate falling upon a marble slab. The smell of ozone was strong, and of tar, and when he entered the shed he saw against the far side a small mountain of pearl shell. At the foot of the mountain squatted two of Johnno’s countrymen. They were sorting the pearl shells into large and shallow floor bins and the light from the opened doors formed bars of pearl as the shell was tossed through the air into one or other of the several bins.

  A man was packing shell into a crate. There was another man, his back to Bony, who was kneeling beside the bin containing the largest-size shell, and Bony watched him select a shell, hold it to catch the light, and then press its cool, silken surface to his cheek.

  Johnno spoke in his own language to the shell packer, and the kneeling man turned, the shell still pressed to his cheek. His dark eyes flared with resentment on seeing Bony and, tossing the shell back upon the heap, he hastily rose to his feet, spoke sharply to the packer and strode from the shed.

  Mr. Arthur Flinn surely loved the touch of pearl… and silk?

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Dingo Must Drink

  THE man packing the shell was a Chinese in middle age. His fingers were long and tapering, and as each piece was placed in the stout wooden crate the fingers seemed to croon their farewell. To one side was a stack of crates stencilled with initials and the words NEW YORK, and in a corner were long sacks of shell as brought ashore from the luggers.

  “Here my friend,” proudly announced Johnno. “Hetake us fishing. He has nice motor-boat.”

  “May go out on Saturday,” the packer said without accent. “You’ll be welcome.”

  “I shall be glad to go out if I can manage it. Thank you. What’s your name?”

  “Bill Lung. What’s yours?”

  “Alfred Knapp,” replied Bony. “Merely visiting, you know. Interesting place, Broome. Lot of shell here?”

  “Little to what it was before the war. Only a few luggers working these days.”

  The fingers had not ceased their employment, lifting the shell from the near-by floor bin and expertly placing it in the crate. Now and then a shell would be discarded, being tossed into one or other of the remaining bins.

  Johnno explained that Bill Lung was a real Australian, having been born in Broome, and having all his life worked in a packing shed. Bill Lung’s expression remained bland throughout until Johnno mentioned an Australian wife and eight children. Then the large face expanded roundly into a happy smile.

  The Javanese was a born exhibitor. Having exhibited Bill Lung, and doing his best with Bony, he exhibited the contents of the shed, explaining the various grades into which the men at the heap of shell sorted it. The bin marked Extra Heavy was Johnno’s show piece. Before this bin had knelt Arthur Flinn, and now Bony knelt and picked up specimen shells measuring from six to seven inches across and gleaming withan opalescent lustre shading to pale gold along the edges. As Flinn had done, Bony pressed a plate of pearl to his cheek and, feeling its cool silky caress, fancied he could hear the sighing wind making love to the tropic seas. Bill Lung’s fingers momentarily stopped work, and into the narrow eyescrept a furtive smile of sympathetic understanding.

  Johnno sprang up and regarded his wristlet watch with dramatic dismay.

  “I go,” he exclaimed. “I have to arrive and take lady totoptown store. I see you sometime, eh? P’hapsSaturday. You tell Bill anytime you go fishing. We have good time. Now I go to arrive.”

  He hurried away, and the Chinese selected a shell and presented it to Bony.

  “Take it home, and when trouble comes to you, look at it and touch it and let it tell you its secrets.”

  “What do these shells tell you, Bill Lung?”

  “Of things which are beyond dreams.”

  “Things which send some men mad.”

  “There’s always the weaklings, Mr. Knapp… men who smoke too much, or eat too much, or dream too much. My illustrious father used to say that to play with a snake is foolishness, and to run from it is cowardice. It is wisdom to kill the snake and wear its skin as your girdle.”

  “Your father was a wise man,” Bony said. “Well, I’ll get along. If you have room for me in your boat, I’ll try to make the trip. And thank you. Tell me, before I go, which would you choose, a pearl or a diamond?”

  “I’d choose the pearl.”

  “Why?”

  “For what it tells me through my fingers. A pearl is alive: a diamond is dead and can’t speak. My father used to say: ‘Select for a bride the woman who prefers pearls to diamonds. The woman who loves pearls will bear you many children.’ ”

  Bony smiled down at the packer:

  “I bet your bride preferred pearls,” he said. “Mine did.”

  Leaving the shed, he sauntered along the coast road, passing the Seahorse Hotel, and, when a hundred yards beyond it, he left the road and climbed the coast sand-dunes. On the summit he sat gazing out over Roebuc Bay with its fringe of green mangroves. The tide was high, and the near Indian Ocean was placid and delphinium-blue. The long white jetty seemed to be straining to reach the pavement of gold laid down by the westering sun.

  A lugger was anchored at the mouth of the creek and the high voices of the men aboard her reached Bony, bringinga nostalgia for the open sea and the great game-fish inhabiting it. Far out another lugger was headed for the bay, a stubby black pencil on a silver-grey slate.

  That Chinese shell packer was not an oddity in Australia. Bony had met many like him, men born in Australia of Chinese parents and educated in Australian schools. They spoke English fluently and the language of their parents indifferently, and they invariably appended with great success the old civilisation to the new. Bill Lung was an epicure of the senses rather than a sensualist.

  That he loved the feel of pearl shell was unashamedly revealed by those crooning fingers. Bony wondered what had been in the mind of the Chinese as he watched Flinn handle and caress the shells of pearl. Mr. Arthur Flinn was certainly a large piece of the material being gathered by Bony. With but little more in his possession, Bony would see his picture of the murderer.

  Without standing, he turned himself about and was presented with a picture of the town. The first impression was an extensive jumble of iron roofs laid flat on a floor of tree foliage. Then the eye discerned the wide roadways criss-crossing the area within the curve of Dampier Creek. Beyond the creek to the southward the land was grey-green and featureless as far as the distant fringe of paper-bark scrub. Beyond the town to the north-east lay the open spaces of the airport with its buildings and radio mast, and toward the ocean the white-painted mission buildings and the college, occupying the highest point of Broome.

  Like the placid ocean, Broome appeared languorous. Down in the road, or street, skirting the protective sand-dune, were but two men and three children. There were several people on the veranda of the Seahorse Hotel, and two cars were parked without. In the yard of the hotel, clothes hung motionless on a line. Bony’s gaze passed over the town, noting clothes drying at four places, and he was reminded of the coming night and the responsibilities i
t would bring.

  Slithering down the slope of the dune, Bony emptied his shoes of sand and walked briskly that he would not delay the evening meal. When approaching the police station, Keith came to meet him.

  “Can’t find Abie,” the boy said. “I’ve been scouting around for him, too.”

  “He might have gone bush,” surmised Bony. “Black trackers often do, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if he turned up in time to draw his dinner at the kitchen.”

  “That’s likely, Mr. Knapp. The blacks always seem to be hanging around at meal times. I asked Sister King if she had seen Abie, and she said perhaps he’s cleared off to a quiet camp to have a good go at the petrol.”

  “Oh! Who is Sister King?”

  “Sister King’s up at the Mission. The blacks go there, you know, for clothes and things. A lot of the black kids live there. The Sisters make ’emgo to their school.”

  “That’s very good of the Sisters, Keith. Without education no one goes very far in this world. Did Sister King say when she last saw Abie?”

  “Yes, she did, Mr. Knapp. She said he was there yesterday just before dark. He wanted a pair of socks. He couldn’t have wanted ’emforhimself, because I know he never wears any socks. D’youknow what I think?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think,” the boy ran on with assurance in his voice, “I think Abie wanted the socks to trade for some petrol. Anyway, he’ll turn up again, and he’ll be sick enough when he does. He did it a long time ago. Was away for a week, and Constable Pedersen trounced him in the stables.

  “Thoroughly?”Bony asked, and Keith grinned and said that the “trouncing” had “fixed” Abie till that day he had been found behind the gum tree in the compound.

  After dinner, Bony and Inspector Walters retired to the office, where the former opened his mail, comprising several official communications from Perth and one from Brisbane.

  “The only finger-prints raised on those torn garments I sent down to Perth were those of Mrs. Overton,” Bony commented.

  “I didn’t hope for much, did you?”