Bony and the White Savage Page 2

  The huge karri trees have killed many men, and continue to do so, but the elder Sasoon was killed by a piece of orange peel on the main street at Timbertown. Young Samuel was then fifteen and showing the promise of his sire’s body and feet. Also he was showing his mother’s fear of heights and his mother’s love of books of which she possessed two: the Bible and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  There being an elder brother to carry on the Sasoon tradition, young Samuel pitted himself against human giants in preference to the lords of the forests. He was given his first chance when, among the attractions of a visiting carnival, there was the usual boxing booth, with the usual gorillas issuing invitations to step inside and try one’s science. Having no science to try out, young Sasoon stepped inside and flattened the lot one after another, and was at once promoted to headman by the proprietor.

  For two years he remained with the show, travelling all over the State, and then on impulse he joined the Western Australia Police Department. Meanwhile, the timber mills operating in the vicinity of Timbertown had increased, and the population of tough nuts had multiplied to such an extent that the force there had to be doubled. Eventually, instead of re-doubling, the Brass decided to send young Samuel Sasoon to help out.

  Constable Sasoon had a way with him, and the reach to put it into effect. A brawl outside the hotel or the dance hall was ever a magnet drawing Constable Sasoon. He would advance upon the brawlers. Then on impact he would seize a man with one hand and another with the other and crash their heads together. Dropping them like wet sacks, he would seize another couple and repeat the process, and so on, until he was on the far side of the crowd. He would then pause to admire the stars or something before returning and, should there be any adventurous spirit lingering on the scene ... but after the trial run there never was.

  He married Emma Jukes’s best friend, and despite the fact that he never charged a man with being d. and d., he was promoted to Senior Constable. The years tamed him, but not much, and experience broadened his mind as the boxing tent had broadened his shoulders.

  There was nothing beyond the ordinary about Timbertown. There was Main Street fronted by stores and shops, the Post Office, the Court House, the Council Chamber, with the Hospital and the Police Station down a side street. The nearest mill was half a mile out of town, and hard against the terminus of the railway. Flowering gum-trees shadowed the streets, and the gardens around the houses were always bright.

  He was working on a case to prosecute at court when he heard Matt Jukes in the outer office giving details about a car registration to the constable on duty, and, without leaving his chair, called to Matt to come in when he’d concluded his business. A minute or two later, Matt entered the inner office to be greeted with a cheerful grin and the invitation to take a pew.

  “Got an item of news, Matt,” Sasoon said, reaching for tobacco and papers. “Came down this morning. How’s things?”

  He was relaxed, in his shirt-sleeves. His sandy hair was now scant, but his grey eyes had lost nothing of their youth and joy of living. Matt Jukes was older, shorter, as tough, and his dark eyes had lost nothing of youth either.

  “All right, Sam. Been a bit undecided what foot to stand on, though, since Karl came home from Albany,” replied Matt, now looking troubled. “Can’t make anything of it. Can’t make up my mind yet if Karl was having a nightmare or not.”

  “Never knew he had nightmares, Matt. The horrors, yes.”

  Jukes sighed, hesitated, then burst forth.

  “Don’t like thinking about bad times. Don’t want ’em brought back to mind. But there’s Karl camped a few miles east of the old Stoney Creek mill. The moon’s high and him in shadow, and he thinks he saw Marvin Rhudder walk past, coming back home.”

  “Thinks!” stressed Sasoon, stubbing his cigarette. His eyes had lost their customary benignity.

  “Still thinks he did and he didn’t. Me and Emma thinks he did because Karl says, as Marvin was passing him, he was humming ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. Ever since, I’ve been on Ocean Ridge watching the Rhudders’ place through glasses, and I’ve not seen Marvin about, and the others haven’t done anything out of routine.”

  “How long’s this been going on?” Sasoon asked, and hearing someone enter the outer office, left his chair to close the inner door.

  “Well, Karl got back yesterday week.”

  “You been watching for a week?”

  Matt nodded, and returned to the chore of filling his pipe. There was slight wonderment in Sasoon’s eyes when he asked:

  “Why the hell didn’t you ring me up about it?”

  “Well, what for? If it was Marvin, then he must be out of gaol, he must be off licence and able to come home. No crime in coming home, is there?”

  Sasoon selected a document from a tray and again read it. For a period he pondered, before looking across the desk at Matt. He said, as though carefully choosing his words:

  “What do you really think, Matt? Did Karl see the feller, or was sight of him due to the booze?”

  “I put the odds in favour of his having seen Marvin.”

  “You mean in reality?”

  “Yes. I reminded Karl that Marvin had been away thirteen years, and that he’d be much older. It was the old habit of humming hymns that threw Karl off balance.”

  “Karl describe him to you?”

  “Yes. Marvin was wearing a good suit. It was black or dark-grey. He was carrying a suitcase and nothing else. And he wore a beret with a brooch or ornament at the front.”

  “Ah.” Sasoon almost breathed. “What was that like?”

  “Looked like silver. A cross inside a circle.”

  “Feller must be mad,” Sasoon said, stressing the adjective, and before Matt could query who must be mad, Sasoon picked up the telephone, and called for Bunbury 10. Matt heard him say:

  “Senior Constable Sasoon asking if Inspector Hudson’s available. All right. Please. Sasoon here, sir. Reference your memo 1761–143. I have grounds to believe that the person has entered this district. He was seen with the bookmaker’s lucky charm pinned to his beret. Yes. That’s correct, sir. Yes, he must have doubled back. Very well, sir, I’ll be here.”

  Sasoon replaced the receiver and stared at Matt, and Matt stared back and waited, silently.

  “Did you bring Emma to town?” asked the policeman, and Matt shook his head.

  Sasoon again lifted the receiver and this time asked for Timbertown 189. Now Matt frowned because this was his own house number. Then he was hearing:

  “’Day, Emma! Nice day, eh! Good to hear your voice. Too right, it’s your old friend. Now listen and no gossip. Of course, Else is O.K. Yes, I know that. Look, is Karl handy? Good! Bring him to the phone, will you?”

  No sound other than the constable in the outer office using the typewriter, until Sasoon spoke again.

  “Yeh, it’s me, Karl. Been having a few words with Matt here. Now listen and name no names. That night you camped the other side of the mill, remember? Where d’you reckon he’d turn off from your course? Oh, then he’d cross Rhudder’s Creek. How’s she running? Pretty low, eh? Muddy both sides? Well now, there could be a lot in what you dreamed that night, see? You stick around with Emma till Matt gets home. Yes, just stick around. Matt won’t be long.”

  Sasoon replaced the instrument. Again he meditated, then he said with grit in his voice:

  “Wait! Breckoff!”

  The constable entered, a robust rather good-looking young man.

  “Tom, run out to Lew’s camp, and see if he can hunt up a couple of trackers. Don’t bring ’em in. Have them standing by at short call. Lew’ll understand we have a job for them. Tell him we want the best.”

  “All right, Senior.”

  “And, Breckoff, the boss will be down here this afternoon. You know what he’s like about tunics, and dress in general.”

  “I haven’t forgotten what he said last time, Senior,” and with a faint grin Breckoff departed. Sasoon waited until the door was shu
t.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said to Matt Jukes. “Eight days that swine’s been home and you tell me now. All the police in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales are looking for him, and he’s right under our noses. You didn’t go down to the house asking for him, did you?”

  “No. I watched for him from the Ridge, as I said.”

  “You didn’t see him through the glasses?”

  “Not a glimpse. I told you we couldn’t be sure about him coming back. If I had been sure, I’d have gunned for him.”

  “I can believe that, Matt.” Sasoon stood, towering over the seated grazier. “Matt, you’ve been tried pretty sorely, but what’s past has got to be kept past. Now you know me and I know you. I know that once you promise anything you’ll abide by it. You promise me you won’t go gunning for him.”

  The policeman stared down into the wide dark eyes now aflame with hot rage and, because he himself could seldom retain anger for longer than a quarter-hour, he marvelled that Matt could continue to hate for thirteen years. Matt Jukes had in him the stuff of long and vicious feuds.

  “Well,” Sasoon insisted. “You promise to keep the peace, or I’ll lock you up.”

  Matt Jukes bounced to his feet and, because he was a foot shorter, glared upward at the policeman.

  “You’d lock me up?” he yelled. “You?”

  “Yair, me. And if I couldn’t do it all by myself I’d call on Emma and Else to help me. They’d help me quick and lively.” Sasoon sat again, and motioned Matt to do likewise. “Now look, Matt, this business is bigger than you got any idea of. The Law is goin’ to give you and me and Emma all the satisfaction we’ve ever wanted from Marvin Rhudder. Yes, the Law is going to do the gunning. You seen Luke Rhudder?”

  “He came home five days ago. Didn’t call in, but I seen him from the Ridge.”

  “Calling the Legions to Rome, Matt. Now what I’m going to tell you, you keep under the hat. Marvin has made a fatal mistake. He raped a woman and murdered a bookmaker. Now we know that in New South Wales, where’s he’s been operating for thirteen years, rape is thought to be the naughty ebullience of the teenager, and murder is considered the impulsive act of a sick man. But, Matt, Marvin committed his last criminal assault on a woman and his first murder in the State of South Australia, where murderers are hanged.”

  “So what?” queried Matt Jukes.

  “No matter where he’s picked up. Marvin gets extradited to South Australia.”

  “If he’s picked up,” argued Matt. “If you think all you got to do is run down to the homestead and arrest Marvin with no more trouble than serving a summons, you’ll think nothing. He’s not lying on the couch in the lounge or sleeping in the best bedroom. He’s holed up in a cave, and you know there’s more holes and caves to every mile of coast than there’s stars in the sky. The only chance to pick him up, as you call it, is to pick him off with a rifle fitted with telescopic sights. A ruddy army of police couldn’t pick him up.”

  “You talk sense, Matt,” admitted Sasoon. “It’s going to be a problem, but it is a police problem. Eight days he’s been home, that is if he stayed at home eight days. Might have stayed home only one night, and now where could he be? As you point out, we don’t raid the Rhudder homestead like a two-up school in a city.”

  “You sent for the abos,” Matt said, adding, with regained calm: “That’s something.”

  “Routine, Matt. By now every station in W.A. will be given the good oil about Marvin. Now you go home and stay close. No more going off to the Ridge and watching. You watch out for Emma.”

  “Emma’s all right. She’s afraid of no man.”

  “Man,” echoed Sasoon. “Marvin Rhudder isn’t a man. He’s a throw-back to a prehistoric monster.”

  Chapter Three

  Bony Takes Charge

  IT WAS Monday evening and a quiet night in Timbertown, and having inspected the few passengers who had left the train from Perth, Sam Sasoon was taking his ease in the front room of the Police Quarters, reading a novel whilst his wife sewed and the large black cat purred. The window was wide open, and there entered the normal sounds of a quiet town until footsteps sounded on the concrete path from the front gate.

  “Could be him,” Sasoon said, and put aside his book.

  “Funny time to arrive,” observed Elsie Sasoon, glancing at the mantel clock. She was stout, blonde, age difficult to assess. “Now, don’t worry, Sam. You did everything possible; you know you did.”

  Sam rose to answer the knocking on the door, and in the passage he could see, beyond the fly-screen, the man revealed by the outside light. He was slim, and he was wearing a cool-looking grey suit.

  “Senior Constable Sasoon?” he asked, his voice softly distinct and without accent. “The name is Bonnar, Nathaniel Bonnar.”

  “Been expecting you,” Sasoon said. “Please come in.”

  He led the way to the sitting-room and his wife rose to meet the visitor. Her first impression was of a man from a tropical film. Her second improved the first. Then she felt pleasure when he bowed to her, and wonderment when she found herself caught in the net of his startling blue eyes.

  “I am Nat Bonnar, pro tem.,” she was informed. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting both of you.”

  “We thought you would arrive early this afternoon,” Sasoon said, and his wife added her contribution with the usual and normal question: “Have you had dinner?”

  “Yes, I put up at the hotel. What delayed me was the karri trees beside the road. They are tremendous. I feel I have left Australia on the far side of the world.”

  “You love trees, I can see, Mr Bonnar. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “When my wife asks me for a little extra money, I can resist,” Bonnar said. “Not for long, of course. But when she asks if I would like a cup of tea I do not resist for a fraction of a second.”

  “One of our mob,” Sasoon said cheerfully. Elsie Sasoon smiled her appreciation and left for her kitchen; Bonnar was invited to be comfortable and smoke. Sasoon was not at ease, for he knew who this Bonnar was and the assignment given him.

  “I’ve been told that not far from Timbertown an old-time settler found the hollow trunk of a karri tree which must have fallen a century or so ago, and that inside the trunk he built a floor and made of it a two-storied house. Was I taken for a sucker?”

  “No,” replied the policeman, now discovering that the depression of the last weeks was lifting. “A feller was out looking for his cows, seven of them. It was wet weather and he found ’em inside the trunk of a standing tree. It was big enough for him to have his milking and dairy equipment in there too. You’ve come to the right place to see real trees.”

  “True enough, and I haven’t lived in a sand desert all my life. By the way, here are my identity papers. Inspector Hudson told you by telephone of my coming, I take it.”

  “That’s right, sir. He didn’t mention your real name, though. Not on the phone.”

  “It was decided I should assume an alias. It has also been worked out with a verifiable background that I am the manager of a pastoral property in the Murchison District. I am now on a holiday tour and hope to see something of the country and do a little fishing. It has been suggested that a Mr Matthew Jukes might put me up as a paying guest.”

  “That could be arranged I’m sure, sir.”

  “Did you know Jukes’s son, Ted, who was drowned, and his daughter, Rose, who married a store executive and now lives in Geraldton?”

  Mrs Sasoon who came in with a supper-tray answered for her husband.

  “Oh, yes, we know all of them. Sam and I belong to this south-west. The Brass wanted Sam to take promotion to another station more than once, but this is our country.”

  “Then you would be aware of the crime committed against Rose, née Jukes, many years ago?”

  “That’s so,” replied Sasoon. “No charge was laid, and there was no official action, and no publicity.”

  “So I understand. Well, in support
of my spurious background, I have a letter of introduction to Matthew Jukes from his daughter. How far can I take them into my confidence to secure complete co-operation?”

  “All the way, sir.”

  “Good! Now from this moment I am Nathaniel Bonnar, from up-country on a holiday. You may call me Nat. And relax. I have read a summary of what took place at the conference in Manjimup, at which you were present. I am familiar, therefore, with the proposition you put up and which was overruled, and I can say that I feel sure you were right and the Brass were wrong.” Inspector Bonaparte accepted a second cup of tea.

  “The broad plan of operations I insisted upon before consenting to accept this assignment is this. But first let me summarize the position as it is. Following a series of sex crimes in Sydney over a period of thirteen years, Marvin Rhudder seems to have wanted to tour in stolen cars. He came to a place called Elton in South Australia, and there represented himself to a church minister as a theological student on holiday. The minister invited him to be his guest. He actually preached on two occasions, and borrowed money from the minister’s wife.

  “At the end of two weeks, he was popular in Elton, and it was at the beginning of the third week that he waylaid and ravished a woman one dark night. On the Wednesday night following this crime, he waited outside the garage of a bookmaker returning from the races at Gawler. He bashed the bookmaker, got away with somewhere about fifteen hundred pounds, and bolted in the minister’s car. The car was subsequently found near Mildura, over the border in Victoria.

  “Marvin Rhudder’s prints were found on three parts of the car body, but not, of course, on the steering-wheel. It was taken for granted that he had abandoned the car on his rush journey back to Sydney, and that at that point he did not know he had killed the bookmaker. The day following the abandonment of the car, he must have learned of the murder from the press and the radio, and would also know later on that the police were seeking a man in connexion with it. At no time has the murderer’s name been published.