Bony - 02 - Sands of Windee Page 28

  “The interview took place in the Windee dining-room, and the conversation was partly overheard by the book-keeper in the office. Roberts did not deliberately eavesdrop. There happened to be a crack in the wooden wall and his desk was close to it. Young Jeff was with him, and when the nature of the visitor’s errand became plain to Roberts he invited young Jeff to—er—‘listen in’.

  “The price asked for the document was fifty thousand pounds, Father Ryan. An astonishing figure, and one which Stanton declined to pay. He offered ten thousand, but this was refused, and Marks left Windee threatening to make public the fact that Joseph North and Jeffrey Stanton were the same man, as well as to pub­lish the document.

  “By a coincidence the same morning that all this occurred Miss Stanton lost one of the sapphires from her ring. Young Jeff picked it up from the floor of the office immediately before his attention was attracted by Roberts at the wall crack. He placed it in a pocket of his drill shirt and forgot all about it. It was still in his shirt pocket when he hid himself in the tonneau of Marks’s car beneath a rug.

  “Unaware of his passenger, Marks drove off on his way to Broken Hill, and when the car reached the junction of that road with the Windee-Mount Lion track, young Jeff made himself known by demanding the document. Marks refused to give it up. He also refused to stop the car, and when he attempted to accelerate young Jeff threw his arms about the fellow’s neck, the car swerved into the bush, and finally was stopped by a low ridge of sand.

  “The fight in the car was witnessed by two men: Ludbi, the son of Moongalliti, and Dot, the American. It was observed by Ludbi that young Jeff was quickly getting the better of it. Marks at last realized this, and with a final effort forced young Jeff across the back of the front scat and produced a very efficient knife with which to commit murder.

  “At that precise moment Dot, unobserved by Ludbi, fired from a distance of approximately one hundred yards. The weapon he used was a .22 Savage owned by Dash. It was not a weapon with which he was familiar. With his own rifle, a .44 Winchester, he was an expert shot, and when he fired at Marks, intending to disable him, he did not allow for the heightened trajectory of a bullet fired by a much stronger explosive than the gun-powder used in his own rifle. The bullet smashed Marks’s head, killing him instantaneously.

  “Ludbi fled when he saw Dot run towards the car. Dot, who considered his action justifiable, naturally wanted to know what the struggle was all about, and when he saw young Jeff obtain the fatal document and burn it he was minded to concoct a story to fit the tragedy, a plan that young Jeff, still controlled by emotion, agreed to. But it was then that Dash arrived with Dot’s .44 Win­chester rifle.

  “The temporary exchange of these rifles was the result of friendly rivalry between these two men as to the number of skins each procured. On an average shoot Dash obtained the greater number. He claimed his success to be due to his rifle, and induced Dot several times—that day was one of them—to exchange rifles to prove his contention.

  “With the plan Dot devised to explain the shooting Dash would have nothing to do. Possessing a higher intelligence than Dot, he could see that there was far more behind the document than what it actually disclosed. He knew also that the Australian police could not be so easily hoodwinked as Dot seemed to think the police of his own country could. Another thing that counted with him, when he had learned all young Jeff knew about Marks, was that, no matter how cleverly the affair was arranged, Jeff Stanton, senior, would be dragged into it, and, most important of all, his daughter too.

  “Dash sent young Jeff to their camp to change clothes and put his own bloodstained garments into a sack, then to return to the homestead, keep his mouth shut, and behave normally. Dot and Dash then sat down and between them evolved a perfect method of destroying the body of Marks without leaving a trace. I compli­mented Dash on the result of the conference, but he told me that to his partner was due the chief point of the method.

  “Between them they carried the body some few hundred yards away, and there burned it very efficiently, as also the sack holding young Jeff’s stained suit. Afterwards they examined the car and, also with high efficiency, obliterated all traces of the struggle. Knowing that there was no stock in that particular paddock, they went back to their own camp, where Dot admitted that he had taken from the car the treasury notes and securities which Marks had in a brown leather bag, the bag that had held the document of contention as well as others having nothing to do with this case. He was commanded by Dash to burn the money, and Dot nodded agreement. Even so, Dot’s love of money overcame his scruples and his loyalty to his partner, and only at the point of their parting on the eve of Dash’s return to his former social status did he clear his conscience by confession.

  “The day after the killing of Marks they proceeded to the scene of the fire, near where Dot shot three kangaroos, and, after the ashes had been thoroughly sifted for bones and metal, over the spot were burned the carcasses of the kangaroos. Thus was hidden the spot where the body of Marks had been destroyed, for in the same locality these men had burned all the kangaroos they shot so as to leave no breeding-grounds for the blow-fly.

  “The metal salvage they dissolved in nitric acid, purloined by Dot from the station workshop. The burned bones were very care­fully pounded to dust in a gold-prospector’s dolly-pot and scattered to the winds.

  “Thus was accomplished what is almost the perfect murder,” Bony continued after a pause for rolling and lighting a fresh cigarette. “The body of Marks was destroyed beyond identification by human intelligence. These men were aware that, with no body or identifiable portions of it in existence, the likelihood of their being charged with murder was nil. For my part, as a criminologist, I doff my hat to them, Father Ryan. To them are due my sincerest thanks for the entertainment the problem they set up has afforded me. As a minister of God you may not believe in luck, yet in this case luck played a momentous part. Perhaps I should say more definitely bad luck, for it was very bad luck for everyone concerned that I, Bony, became interested in it.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Bony’s Choice

  THE FACE of the priest, absorbed in Bony’s narrative, was indica­tive of astonishment, but at the oral evidence of Bony’s stupendous vanity he was compelled to smile in his benignant way.

  “Wait one moment before you continue,” he said tersely, and set about producing a bottle of wine and two glasses. With these filled he selected another cigar, and, having lit it to his satisfaction, he again seated himself opposite to his visitor, saying: “Well, go on, man. You’ve made me impatient for the rest.”

  Bony then related how he had seen the official report of Marks’s disappearance and what he discovered in Sergeant Morris’s snap­shot of the abandoned car. He described his arrival at Windee, his finding the sapphire, the silver disk, and the boot-sprig.

  “It was only recently that I cleared up the mystery of the sapphire, which Miss Stanton lost from her ring at the homestead of Windee, and which I found being used by ants to keep their eggs warm,” the half-caste went on. “I found a letter from an Adelaide firm of jewellers, addressed to Jeffrey Stanton, junior, and in effect saying that they did not think the sapphire they had set in the ring would be in any way inferior to the accompanying stones, but if the stone which Mr Stanton had found and had lost should be found again they would be pleased to replace their own stone with it at a nominal charge, or to buy it at a fair market price.

  “I knew then, of course, that it was young Jeff whom Ludbi had seen fighting with Marks in the car. This fact had eluded me always, because Ludbi died before I could question him, and when, through a North Queensland aboriginal chief, I had Moongalliti—er, well, hypnotized, I found that Ludbi had not told his father the name of this man. I suspected Roberts on account of events that occurred, notably Roberts warning Miss Stanton, who warned Dot and Dash, that the police were there to arrest them, and after­wards prompting the men to put up a strike in order that no driver should
be found to man a pursuing car. I was mystified by Moon­galliti’s stupidity when asked to track about Marks’s car, and the reason why he threatened the pointing-bone to any of his tribe who talked about what Ludbi had seen. Whilst Ludbi had not seen Dot, Dot had seen him and saw the danger in that quarter. It was Roberts who bribed Moongalliti to silence with tobacco and food. This I discovered through Illawalli. When I found that someone had ridden a horse about the scene of the crime I thought it was Roberts, but it was young Jeff. And I thought Roberts was in love with Marion Stanton. As a matter of fact, he was merely loyal to the Stanton family.”

  “Maybe,” interjected Father Ryan, adding dryly: “Nevertheless, Roberts proposed to Marion a year ago.”

  “Ah, then love did prompt loyalty, Father. Anyway, that aspect was cleared up. The other mystery that held my attention was the little silver disk I found in the fork of a tree. I could not under­stand for what purpose it had been made until I received Marks’s dossier from Sydney, which informed me that when on active service he had received a head wound. Knowing—who does not?—the war services of the great Sir Alfred Worthington, who prob­ably was concerned in all the trepanning operations—not too many—required by the Australians in France, I sent him the disk, believing it possible to have come from the head of Marks. I gave Sir Alfred the date of Captain Green’s, alias Marks’s, head wound.

  “Sir Alfred Worthington replied in a letter that according to his war diary he inserted a plate like the one submitted in the skull of Captain Green the day after he received the wound. He stated further that, in his opinion, it was most unlikely it would fall accidentally from Captain Green’s head, and that without it fixed thereto he would at the least suffer from excruciating headaches.

  “The agreement of name and date settled that matter for me. In that small disk, Father, I had proof that Marks no longer lived. The otherwise perfect murder was marred by one flaw. One over­sight was committed by the killer, yet no one could blame either Dot or Dash for not knowing that Sir Alfred Worthington had carried out a trepanning operation on Green. The clue was given by Dot when he fired at Marks with Dash’s rifle, for the bullet from the high-powered cartridge smashed the man’s head and carried away the plate in it. It was just that little trick of Fate which ruined a perfect crime.”

  “Maybe the clue which actually spoiled it—may I be forgiven for saying so?—was not the silver disk, but Ludbi’s sign revealed to you by Morris’s photo,” objected the little man with twinkling eyes.

  Bony laughed at the gentle reproof of his vanity. Then he went on to explain how he had learned of the stolen bride case, and how he had despoiled Mrs Thomas of the potent paper she held—an incident over which the priest chuckled heartily. Bony had doubts of the validity of this document, obtained by intimidating a sick man, but it was in safe hands now, and Mrs Thomas could do nothing without it. He went on to describe his adventures when pur­suing Dash, and the final revelation of Dot’s death by snake-bite.

  “It seemed, by what Dash was persuaded to tell me,” he said, “that when Dot learned from Miss Stanton that Sergeant Morris was at Windee to arrest them, he wanted to take the whole thing on his own shoulders and face it out by flat denial. Dash would not consent, because I was suspect, as Ned Swallow remembered seeing me in Queensland, and, too, because of the danger of Jeff Stanton, junior, being brought in. Although of opposite temperaments, in spite of wide diversity of education and social upbringing, these two men were cemented by a bond of friendship exceedingly rare and, therefore, a beautiful thing.

  “Even now I am inclined to the belief that, had Dot prevailed on his companion to allow him to face it out alone, no judge or jury would have convicted him—especially in these days, when wholly circumstantial evidence is discredited. We could have charged Dot with theft of Marks’s money, which he would have explained by saying he picked it up while hunting kangaroos where, obviously, Marks had thrown it down or lost it during his search for the car. For that he might have received one year’s imprisonment, possibly three. Recent Australian criminal history records a case where a murderer has got off with eighteen months’ imprisonment. It is possible to commit a crime against humanity with impunity, but any crime against capital is invariably dealt with severely.”

  Bony suddenly ceased speaking. After waiting a few moments for him to go on, Father Ryan said gently:

  “Although you have interested me exceedingly, you have not explained why Dash is not arrested as an accomplice, and young Jeff with him. Behind this question, I fancy, lies your trouble. My son, have no fear of an ould priest wid the love of God in his heart.”

  For the first time that evening Father Ryan had fallen into the brogue of his country. He saw the effect his words had in the expression of Bony’s blue eyes, he saw the look of hurt perplexity, and at once his great heart went out in sympathy.

  So Bony slowly told of his meetings with Marion Stanton and of the conversation between them in Marion’s sitting-room. He explained his upbringing, and attempted to explain the duality of race constantly in turmoil within his soul.

  “I do not believe I suffer from an inferiority complex,” he said, with his head bent to the task of cigarette-making. “I am a proud man, and take pride in my accomplishments and my civilized state. I loathe the dirty, the bestial, the ugly things of human life, and adore the beautiful. In the art gallery in Sydney there is a painting of a dead knight who lies on a bier in full armour, and beside the bier is a great dog looking up at its dead master. Every time I am in Sydney I spend two hours looking at that picture and marvelling at the expression on the dog’s face and the calm majesty of the mask laid on the dead man.

  “In Miss Stanton I found beauty of a different order which affected me as does that picture. She represents my ideal of womanly beauty. Sex has nothing to do with my ideal. I do not love Miss Stanton as I love my wife. Not knowing that she and Dash were in love, I ordered the arrest of Dash, who I knew was implicated, in the hope of bringing the whole truth to light. Miss Stanton was surrounded by her relatives and her friends, yet it was to me she turned. Father, I am not a callow youth, I am not a fatuous man seeking a woman’s favours, but when she made her appeal I could not—simply, I could not refuse.

  “I suspected strongly that the killing of Marks was not done with forethought and malice. I knew he was that most loathsome of all creatures, a blackmailer. And I saw in the moment of her appeal that inevitably she would suffer by the revelation I was there to make and was being paid to make by the State. Even my sym­pathies were with Joseph North in the affair of the stolen bride, which was the precursor of Marks’s death and the tangle which I have unravelled.

  “There remain now two courses, one of which I must adopt. I can render my report wholly based on lies which will place the blame of Marks’s death on the shoulders of Dot, and attribute to him as motive the passion to gain money, thereby blackening his character as he would have done himself had he lived and had Dash permitted him. Or I can return to Sydney and admit failure to find evidence of murder. I have not told Morris everything, and what I have told him is consistent with Dot’s concealing Marks’s money, which is proved, and is all that can be proved. Dash need not be implicated, and Dot’s death would finalize the case.

  “One moment!” he said hastily, when Father Ryan was about to speak. “I have been a member of the Queensland Police for sixteen years, and I have not once failed to complete a case successfully. I am a man without a failure against him. They have given me cases on which other men have failed. They now send me out on a case believing without a shadow of doubt that I shall bring to justice the criminal.

  “My superiors believe me to be infallible. I know I am infallible. Arrived here, I found myself faced by a crime carried out by clever men, having at their disposal plenty of time. It was, I say, almost the perfect murder, and I did not start my investigations until two months had elapsed and all traces about the scene of it had been wiped out by wind and sand.

  “And
I won, Father—I won the greatest case that any detective ever had given him. Now I can only create a fabrication of lies, calumniate a dead man who was lovable and honourable, or else admit that I, the infallible Bony, have at last met my Waterloo.

  “You see, Father, do you not, the quandary I am in? You see the cup that is offered me? Can I set it aside and, now that a snake has placed Dot beyond reach of human justice, can I raise my structure of lies and save my reputation?”

  Father Ryan beheld Bony’s appealing expression with a sad heart. The look in the blue eyes of the man, torn between vanity and honour, weighed him down with the knowledge that here was no ordinary problem. Without a word he rose and brought a volume from one of his shelves, and in a moment had found a page and a paragraph he needed. Softly yet clearly he read:

  “ ‘Methuselah lived nine hundred, sixty and nine years and begat sons and daughters—and what then? And then he died.’ That is what Daniel Defoe wrote on the occasion of the death of the Duke of Marlborough. Again of him Defoe wrote this, Bony: ‘All his victories, all his glories, his great projected schemes of war, his un­interrupted series of conquests, which are called his, as if he alone had fought and conquered by his arm what so many men obtained for him with their blood—all is ended, where other men, and, indeed, where all men ended: he is dead!

  “It appears, Bony, that you are confronted with the choice of telling lies about another man or telling lies about yourself. With­out my advice I know precisely which choice you will make. Re­membering all the circumstances, knowing that the innocent will suffer more than will the guilty, knowing that the killing of Marks was legally justifiable to prevent his committing murder, I must concur in your choice.”

  “Father Ryan, it will be a hard path to tread,” pleaded Bony.

  “A lesser man than you, Bony, could not tread it.”