Bony - 09 - Death of a Swagman Read online

  “Of course he will. You can both go right along.”

  Mrs Marshall’s eyes grew misty.

  “Thanks, Bony. You’re a good sort,” she told him.

  After they had left he wrote a note to Sergeant Marshall which he left on the blotter. A minute later he was knocking on the door of Jason’s house.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” snarled young Jason. “What d’you want now?”

  “Just to talk to you. I’ve news of Rose Marie.”

  “Oh! Good news? Come in.”

  Bony was conducted along the passage to the living room. It was large and well windowed and cool. To the right of the fire-place dozens of pipes were suspended from nails driven into the wall.

  “Well! What’s the news?” young Jason demanded.

  “Can I sit down?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the first place, Tom, I have something to tell you about your father.”

  “I know all about that,” snarled the young man, his eyes directed fiercely to his visitor. “I got it all out of him, every bit of it. I—I wanted to kill him … but he’s my old man, after all. I’ve known he was going balmy … and he is balmy, too. I told him that the game was up. I knew from what you said, and from you telling me about my dog being poisoned, that he had done the murders and why. But they won’t hang him, will they? He’s as ratty as a stirred-up snake—looking at windmills and motor fans and things.”

  “Had he been like that long?”

  “It was over two years back when I tumbled. But what about Rose Marie?”

  “Just a minute. Your father admitted many things when he found that the case against him was fairly complete. At the end he took poison.”

  Bony gently related what had happened. Young Jason’s pathetic face lost its antagonism. He sniffed several times, and without looking at Bony he said:

  “I’m glad he beat you policemen. He was a decent old stick at heart. Cranky on acting, of course. Then he had me, and I’m nothing out of the box. Funny … I’ll be planting him with the old hearse he was so proud of.”

  Bony spoke softly:

  “I didn’t think you would like that, so I had him taken by the constables to divisional headquarters. He won’t be buried here at Merino. And now for Rose Marie. She has regained consciousness and the doctor gave her a sleeping draught. She will wake tomorrow in her right mind, and time only will be necessary to bring her back to health and strength.”

  The young man’s eyes gleamed.

  “Honest!” he said.

  Bony nodded.

  “I’d like to see her, but they won’t let me,” asserted the young man, the snarl coming back into his voice.

  “Not tonight they won’t,” Bony said decisively. “But to­morrow in the morning they will. If you like to, you may go with me, because I want to see the child before I leave Merino.”

  “You’ll take me, honest?”

  Bony nodded, then he rose to his feet and went round the table to sit upon its edge and to regard the misshapen face with his kindly eyes. He said:

  “I am going to ask you to do me a favour. It is growing late, and my swag and things are down at Sandy Flat. Would you put me up for the night? Anywhere would do, you know. And I’d like a feed too.”

  Young Jason actually smiled.

  “Too right, you can stay,” he told Bony. “I’m a bit fed up tonight, what with one thing and another. And the place will be sort of empty with the old man not hanging around. I could cook you some bacon and eggs, and make a pot of coffee.”

  There was eagerness in his voice. Bony rubbed his hands and smiled too.

  “That’ll do me,” he said. “Let’s get to it. I’m hungry … and very tired.”

  In answer to a telephone call the following morning at noon young Jason closed the garage, scrubbed his hands, arms, and face, brushed his hair, ignored his grease-covered cap, and hurried to meet Bony, waiting for him at the police station gate. Five minutes later Dr Scott was leaning over a bed and saying to Rose Marie:

  “There are two visitors to see you. Do you think we might let them in?”

  The voice was so tired and the eyes were not the eyes of the Rose Marie who had peeped through the door grating into Bony’s cell. The doctor persisted.

  “Well, I am going to tell you. One of them is Bony. And the other—why, the other is young Mr Jason.”

  “Oh! Yes, I remember Bony.”

  “Of course you do,” Dr Scott assured her. “Now you can only see them one at a time. Who will you see first? Bony?”

  “Yes.”

  The doctor’s face withdrew into a wall, and the dark, smiling face of the man she had first seen in the lockup cell emerged from the vague background and became distinct. She essayed a weak smile.

  “Well now, Rose Marie, you seem to be getting better already,” the remembered voice was saying. “I am glad that you are well enough to see me because I have to go back to Sydney, and I wanted to tell you that I will be writing a letter to you soon.”

  “Will you be away for long, Bony?”

  “Yes, perhaps for a long time. And you—why, you are going to get well quickly and go back to school. Will you promise always to remember me?”

  Rose Marie nodded.

  “Promise with your fingers crossed,” he urged gently. And when she had crossed her fingers in the proper manner, and he had done the same, they both promised they would remember each other always.

  “Never break a promise, Rose Marie,” he whispered. “Always keep a promise no matter what happens, won’t you?”

  Again she nodded, and he saw that she was struggling to remember something.

  “Don’t worry your head about anything now,” he urged her. “Later on will do, when you write to me after you receive my letter.”

  She persisted. Then she smiled, saying:

  “I know. I heard young Mr Jason tell the garage cat that you were a funny kind of man, like him, looked down on by everyone. But I don’t look down on you, Bony. I love you … like young Mr Jason.”

  “Oh, I forgot, Rose Marie. Young Mr Jason is waiting to see you. Shall I tell him? Yes? Very well! Good-bye, and thank you for giving me afternoon tea in the lockup with your beautiful tea set with the blue stripes round the edge.”

  She smiled at him, wonderfully, when he drew back and motioned young Jason forward. At the door he turned to see the young man on his knees beside the bed, on which he had laid the very large dolls, Thomas and Edith, brought from the station by Bony.

  Out in the hall Bony shook hands with Mrs Sutherland and Dr Scott. On the veranda he shook hands with the Rev. Lawton-Stanley and Edith Leylan. On the sidewalk he shook hands with Mrs James and asked after her husband. Mrs James told him that the Rev. Llewellyn James was not at all well, that he had a violent headache following all the excitement of the preceding day. She herself was quite well, and she thanked him again for cutting the wood for her.

  Straight as a ramrod, Constable Gleeson stood beside Mar­shall’s car, in which the sergeant sat waiting at the wheel.

  “Good-bye, Gleeson,” Bony said, offering his hand. “I shall not forget you in my report. All the best.”

  “All the best to you too, sir,” replied Gleeson.

  “Thank you. And don’t you ever forget that I am Bony to my friends.”

  Bony got in beside Marshall, who was to drive him to the railway at Ivanhoe. He had made his adieu to Mrs Marshall, and now saw her hurrying toward them from the police station. Arriving a little breathlessly, she passed into his hands a box, saying in a whisper:

  “Just a little snack for the road.”

  Like his namesake, he smiled at her and pinched her cheek. And then the car was moving down the street. Many of the people on the sidewalks waved to him. The car slid off the macadamized roadway on to the natural earth. Ahead of them lay the mighty Walls of China, grandly impervious to the schemes and the hopes, the hates and the loves of little human beings.

  “There are some women who are
utterly hopeless,” re­marked Bony.

  “Referring to …?” inquired Marshall.

  “Mrs Llewellyn James.”