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“This other bloke, Ayling?”

  “The Captain of the Bold Buccaneers! Leave him to me, Super.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Black Rabbit

  ON PASSING THROUGH Geelong, Bony deviated to Point Lonsdale where he called on Mr Letchfield who, in 1942, had decided to spend the rest of his life watching the ships passing through Port Phillip Heads.

  “I am informed that Mr Cummins bought your business in Colac, and it was he who suggested you may be able to assist me with a line of inquiry I am conducting,” Bony said, having announced his name and position.

  “Certainly, Inspector,” agreed the rotund jeweller. “I am all attention.”

  “It appears that when Mr Cummins was your assistant he made a mistake due to inexperience as a goldsmith. When altering an 18-carat gold ring for a customer, he used 9-carat solder. Can you recall that incident?”

  “Quite well. I remember it clearly, Inspector. Poor Cummins was most remorseful. As you said, he was then an indifferent goldsmith, although, mind you, he was an artist with watches and settings.”

  “It is not, then, a common mistake?”

  “Only a very young apprentice would make such an error. My word, it all comes back to me. I was very busy, and having removed the necessary segment, I asked Cummins to solder it. I should have pointed out that the solder must be, like the ring, NU-carat”

  “Can you recall the date, approximately?” pressed Bony. “Mr Cummins is unable to unearth the record of the transaction.”

  The jeweller pondered so long that Bony was anticipating disappointment.

  “Y ... es, Inspector. It was in August or early September ’38. There was a festival or something at the time, which was why I was busy.”

  “Not a football match?”

  “Ah, yes, that was it. It was the final of the Western District Football League. Colac played Split Point, and won. Of course, that was it. The customer ... Actually there were three of them, three young men from the Split Point team. They wanted to look at signet rings, and insisted that the rings must be all alike. I was able to show them rings of a standard make and design which they finally chose. And then what d’you think they wanted?”

  “To have them engraved alike?”

  Mr Letchfield’s bushy eyebrows shot upwards.

  “Remarkable, Inspector. Yes, they wanted each ring to be engraved with the letters B B. I remember asking them what the letters stood for as they had no relationship with the team to which the young men belonged. They wouldn’t tell me. Fidgeted, looked sheepish, as young men sometimes will. Then came the difficulty. I was able to suit two of the customers, but did not to have a ring to fit the finger of the third young man. And, so, as they were remaining in Colac overnight, I told them I would have the third ring ready by the next morning.

  “I cut out the segment and gave it over to Cummins, and he completed the work before we shut the shop. The next morning, when the three young men came, I took the ring from my drawer, gave it a final polish before presenting it to the customer ... and saw Cummins’s mistake.

  “I confess, Inspector, that I was horrified not so much by the mistake itself but at the discovery being made so late. I pointed out the mistake to the customer, and said I would have another ring ready for him by twelve. To that, he said they were leaving Colac under the hour, and he insisted that the slight and narrow variation of colour didn’t matter. So I allowed him to take it.”

  “Do you remember their names, Mr Letchfield?” Bony asked.

  “No. No. I can’t remember their names, that is to say, the name of each individual. But I do remember that, a week or so later, I received an order from Split Point for another ring of the same design to be engraved with the same letters. On a piece of paper accompanying the order was drawn in pencil the size of the required ring, evidently done by running a pencil point round a ring pressed to the paper.

  “There was an oddity about that order which fixed it in my memory. The customer signed himself Eldred Wessex, and wrote from Split Point. The ring he required was far too small for the finger of a man, so this one was evidently meant for a lady’s hand. I fulfilled the order.”

  “You did not receive any subsequent orders?”

  “No.”

  “Or engrave the letters B B on any piece of jewellery for a customer?”

  Bony was pleased that Letchfield hesitated to answer before being sure. He stated that never subsequently had he engraved those letters on any article of jewellery, and, having warmly thanked him, Bony left.

  He lunched at the hotel at the pretty little hamlet of Varwon Heads, and it was after four when the old single-seater chugged up the rise to the post office store at Split Point. The now familiar scene was dulled by rain, and, beyond the great Inlet, the coast headlands were but a degree darker than the slate-grey sea.

  For a second or two he felt like the prodigal returning home, and then he became a stoat confronted by a rabbit burrow, a fastidious stoat having a predilection for a black rabbit. This stoat knew every passage, every circus, every cul-de-sac of this warren. He knew every brown rabbit inhabiting this warren ... but the black one he had never seen.

  When Bony left Melbourne that morning, the police in every capital city had been requested to bring in a man known as Waghorn, and recognized by Detective Sergeant Eulo when presented with the picture of Eldred Wessex. Waghorn was known to the Sydney CIB Consorting Squad as a man moving on the edge of gangland, a man long suspected of unlawful practices but not to date enmeshed in the law’s net.

  Nothing was known against the woman who hoped to marry him, and inquiries conducted after Bony had questioned her produced the telegraphed report that Jean Stebbings was of good repute to several responsible people who had known her for years. The report confirmed Bony’s opinion that Wessex had withheld from her his activities as Waghorn, and confided his background as Eldred Wessex.

  Why had this man not returned home after war service? Had he been forbidden to return by a father who had learned of the goal sentence he had served as a soldier? Was the story of his going to America a fabrication issued by his parents to account for the son’s absence?

  On February 26th Eldred Wessex had left his Sydney flat ostensibly to purchase a string of pearls to be a birthday present for the woman he had known for a year. A few hours after he had left, Thomas Baker, the ship’s steward, had called at the flat asking for him. Less than seventy hours after that call, Baker’s nude body was discovered in the Split Point Lighthouse, on the far southern coast of Victoria, only four miles from the homestead where Wessex was born.

  What brought Baker to Split Point? If Eldred Wessex, alias Waghorn, had come to the district of his parental home, what had brought him after an absence of ten years? It was reasonable to assume, until Waghorn had been apprehended for questioning, that Eldred Wessex and Thomas Baker had come to Split Point either separately or together. In view of the discovery of the murdered man’s effects in the cave, the discovery of the murder weapon in the trunk of Dick Lake, the death of Lake in the effort to retrieve the dead man’s effects, it could be assumed that Eldred Wessex had called on his old friend either to assist him in the murder or assist in a plan to defeat justice. For without Eldred Wessex there was no connexion between the dead man in the Lighthouse and the dead man found at the foot of the cliff.

  Wessex, the black rabbit, had probably been in this burrow on or about February 28th when Thomas Baker had been shot. Which of these brown rabbits had seen the black one? Which of these brown rabbits had assisted the black rabbit to vanish from the burrow? Or was the black rabbit still within the burrow, lying low like Brer Rabbit of old?

  The stoat entered the burrow entrance at the Inlet Hotel.

  The contortive Stug followed him in, and was ordered out by the licensee. There were a couple from a car parked in the driveway, the driver of a delivery van, and Moss Way. Moss nodded a welcome and called for a drink for Bony, who joined him.

  “How’s things, Mr Rawli
ngs?” asked the carrier.

  “Very well, Moss. How are you coming along? Found another mate?”

  “Not yet,” replied Way. “Don’t think I will. Manage somehow on me own for a bit. Didn’t see you at the funeral.”

  “No. Had to rush up to Melbourne about my wool. Go off all right?”

  “Biggest planting I ever seen. People come for miles. Poor old Dick: never knew how important he was.”

  “You will certainly miss him,” murmured Bony, avoiding a general discussion with people he’d never met.

  “Already started,” corrected Way. “Loading and unloading on your own’s no cop. And living alone ain’t no cop, either. Great coffin old Penwarden turned out for Dick. You oughta seen it.”

  “Oh! Extra special?”

  “Yair. Didn’t know he had it on hand. Like the one he made for Mrs Owen, but not with the same polish.”

  “Red-gum?”

  “Same colour.”

  “Probably the one he was making for me,” surmised Bony, and Moss was decidedly interested.

  “Yair, that’ll be it,” he agreed. “Anyhow, the old bloke done her up well. Dick’s pals carried the coffin from the truck ... our truck ... to the graveside, and other pals were the pall bearers. I was one of ’em. Fred Ayling oughta been with us, but the Slide fell down and stopped Alfie reaching him with the news. Alfie had to come back and try another track.”

  “He and Lake were very firm friends, weren’t they?” Bony prompted.

  “They were so. The two and Eldred Wessex were kids together, so Dick told me one time. Dick worried a bit over Eldred Wessex not coming home, and I remember that a few weeks back he was on top of the world, telling me Eldred might be coming home. Nutted out a grand surprise for the old people. Borrowed their car on some excuse and drove to Geelong to pick Eldred up at the train. But Eldred never arrived, and Dick came back without him. Worried him no end for a week or so. Musta worried more’n I thought. Did he seem worried to you?”

  “He did not,” replied Bony, thoughtfully. “Still, he was the kind of man who wouldn’t let strangers know what he was thinking. You knew him better than I. Are you sure he was worried?”

  “Musta been. I don’t reckon he just got up in the middle of a rainy night and went for a walk ... not even in his sleep. His old man told Staley Dick useta sleepwalk when he was a kid, and Ma Wessex found him sitting one night on the veranda rail of their house. That was when Dick boarded with her. Useta stop there when he went to school, going home only for weekends and holidays. Fred Ayling useta board there, too. Dick never sleepwalked when he was camping with me.”

  “When was it that Dick expected Eldred to come home?”

  “When! Lemme think.” Moss drank deep to aid memory, and Bony asked Washfold to set the drinks up again. “Few weeks back, anyhow.” Way stared at Bony, the frown almost connecting his eyebrows. “I wonder, now. Dick went to meet Eldred a day or so before they found the body in the Lighthouse. Think there’s...”

  “Think nothing,” Bony said quickly. “You saw the body in the Lighthouse. Everyone did. It wasn’t Eldred Wessex.”

  “I know that, although I’ve never seen Eldred Wessex. It’s funny, though. I...”

  “Forget it,” Bony snapped. “Dick wasn’t the kind of fellow to be mixed up with anything like that.”

  Slowly, Moss Way nodded agreement.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Abnormal Reactions

  “AH GOOD DAY-EE, Mr Rawlings, sir! exclaimed Mr Penwarden when, on the following day, Bony entered the workshop. “Manner of speaking, though, manner of speaking. Not so good a day to some poor folk. Glad ’e called, though. Telegram came about them bloodwoods.”

  “So! My friend evidently lost no time.”

  The coffin maker sat on a case and began to load his pipe. Bony lifted himself to sit on the end of the bench.

  “Come from Mildura, that telegram. Just said: ‘Logs despatched today to Geelong. Give regards to Bony. Sil Bennet’. That your moniker, Bony?”

  Bony winced beneath the failure to notify his friend of his temporary name, and instantly explained that it was a schoolboy nickname. The old man chuckled.

  “When I were a young feller the world was remembering another Bony. You don’t look like the Frenchy, not by the picture I seen of him.”

  “No, I was never handsome,” calmly Bony claimed. “When a boy, I was exceptionally thin, and my bones stood out. Hence the appellation. I suppose the railway people will inform you when the logs have reached Geelong?”

  “They will so, and I’ll send young Moss Way for them. Thank ’e kindly, Mr Rawlings. That young feller’s at a loose end just now. He were talkin’ to me yesterday, saying how he missed Dick Lake. Neither thought nothing of that trip over Sweet Fairy Ann. You could all have stopped over there a long time ... with a mountain of mullock atop of you and the truck. You been away again?”

  “For a couple of days. To Melbourne, you know, to see about my wool. Prices still going up.”

  “So I read in the paper. Pity you missed the funeral.”

  “I would rather not have gone.” Bony lit a cigarette and carefully bestowed the spent match in the box. “Quite a large number of people attended, I’m told.”

  “Everyone was there, Mr Rawlings. Everyone but Fred Ayling and young Alfie Lake who’s gone to tell him about Dick. It was a sad day, I assure’e. Know’d him since he were a baby. I put him in the coffin I was makin’ for you, being sure you wouldn’t mind. I’ll make you another right away. In fact, this board on the bench is to begin her with. Yes, I put him to bunk in the best wood the country has. Glad I were that he wasn’t injured about the face. When I’d shaved him and set him to rights, he looked good and comfortable, and could of been sleeping ... which, of course, he were.”

  “His parents were able to attend, of course?”

  “Yes. They’re blessed with a large family to help ’em take the shock. Little Dick going that way has made me remember more’n usual when him and the other two would race past here and shout out to me, and I’d wave and tell ’em to learn all they could at school. Eli and his old woman were very good to them young rips. Looked after ’em, seen ’em off to school, seen they was fed right to make good bones. She were telling me you went along to have a pitch with Eli. He’d like that.”

  “It was a pleasant afternoon,” Bony said. “Mr Wessex claimed my sympathy. To suffer his ailment must be a great trial. Never said outright, you know, but gave me the impression he was bitter about his son not returning home before going off to America. Do you think that young Eldred Wessex really did go to America?”

  “Course,” came the reply, sharply. “Wouldn’t have stayed away all this time, if he hadn’t gone to Amerikee. You seem to doubt it, Mr Rawlings.”

  Bony was stubbing his cigarette, and he looked up to meet the clear eyes beneath the mop of white hair.

  “Perhaps the thought is father to the wish,” he said. “It’s a little odd for a young man not to have returned home after those years on active service, but then the younger generation hasn’t the consideration for their elders that our generation had. My sympathy has been aroused for both Eli Wessex and his wife, and I find myself a little resentful towards their inconsiderate son.”

  Penwarden placed his hot pipe on a wall shelf and took up his plane, and, with some show of sighting the red-gum board, grumbled agreement with his visitor.

  “Eldred was always like that. Wilful, obstinate, selfish. Not the right trainin’, Mr Rawlings, sir. Eldred was the only son. Old Eli was always soft with boys. Not that that is against him, mind you. But he didn’t treat his son with balance, and a balanced trainin’ is what any boy must have to make a real man of him. Softness should come from the mother: understanding and justice from the father. I often felt soft with my boys, but I never let ’em know it. Eldred would have been worse than he was if it hadn’t been for young Ayling.”

  “Is that so?” encouraged Bony.

  “’Tis s
o, indeed,” said the old man, employing the plane. “Fred was a year or two older than Eldred, and Eldred was older than Dick. Always took little Dick’s part, always saw to it that Dick had his rightful share of what was going.”

  “He was, then, the leader?”

  “Aye, that he was. Eldred took more notice of him than he did of his father.” A deep chuckle came from the full and pink-complexioned face above the halted plane. “Useta fight sometimes, the three of ’em among theirselves, and all together if another lot interfered with ’em.”

  “I’ll warrant this workshop was a magnet for them, Mr Penwarden.”

  “You say right, Mr Rawlings, sir. I mind one day they came in here, and Eldred, he took up my best finishing plane and tried her on a board with a nail in it. I wouldn’t have ’em in for a long time after that. And then, what d’you think? Why, after Eldred left school, he came here to learn my trade. But no good.”

  “Wouldn’t stick at it?”

  “Wouldn’t stick at nothing. Be here getting in my way one day, home helping his father the next day, up in Geelong and workin’ at Ford’s next week. Got drinkin’ too much, and gambling his money away. Went from Ford’s to some other place, then back home, then away to Melbourne. And when we tried to talk him into being sensible, he’d only laugh.”

  “Hopeless, eh?”

  “No, not hopeless,” asserted the old man. “No young feller’s hopeless, rightly handled. Young Eldred was just silly ... and artful at the same time. He learned too early and too easy how to put it across his mother. Old Eli saw the way he was going, and he tried to put on the brake, but his wife wouldn’t see the way Eldred was takin’. Say anything against Eldred! Eldred could do no wrong. Eldred was the sun of her life, the sun that shone so bright she was blinded. She was harder on Mary. Eldred was always in the right. When he came back that dark night, and...”

  The plane thudded upon the board, and Bony, who was making a cigarette, glanced up to observe the old man turned from him and visually measuring a sheet of three-ply leaning against the wall. On Penwarden beginning to turn back to the bench, Bony’s gaze was directed downwards to his fingers.