Bony and the Black Virgin Read online

“What d’you make of that hair, Mr Long?”

  “What do you?” countered the manager.

  “Well, it wasn’t shorn off Carl Brandt, and it didn’t come off the head of the dead stranger. He was a redhead. It didn’t come from you, and I’m certain sure it didn’t come from Robin Pointer. Could have come from me, but I didn’t see any white in it. What I mean is that it could have been cut from me about twenty years ago.”

  “Then all that’s left are the aborigines,” deduced Midnight Long.

  “Just so. But how do they come into this murder that Brandt must have done? Mawby is saying nothing, but he’s thinking hard about that hair. I’m leaving the abos out of it. The funny thing is that it was cut off, not pulled off. I’ll tell you something. It was about the time me and Jane took over this country that she got the idea of cutting a lock of hair off young Eric. She sort of mounted it on a card, and then she snipped a lock from me, and mounted it on another card. I can see her now, her eyes bright, and holding the cards one in each hand; Eric’s light brown and mine jet black, and after she died I remember going through what she called her Treasure Chest, and seeing them cards of hair in it. I’ve kept that Chest for all these years, and an hour ago I looked for the cards, and they’re not there.”

  The grey eyes of Midnight Long were shrouded with introspection.

  “Does your memory of the hair on the card tally with the lock Mawby’s got?”

  “Pretty near.”

  “Then you should tell him about it.”

  “Suppose I should. All right, I will.”

  “Anything else missing from the Treasure Chest?”

  “Yes. A gold watch with a locket at the back. Picture in it of me when we were married, and a picture of baby Eric we had put in when he was about four months.”

  “Well, John, you’ll have to relate all that to Mawby. Better have him in here at once. By the way, I think there’s a few fresh onions on the ute you could slice into that curry. I’ll get ’em.”

  When Sergeant Mawby stepped into the house, John was seated at the table, smoking his pipe, and the preparation for the curry forgotten.

  “Mr Long says you want to tell me something, John,” the policeman said, sitting also at the table. He listened without comment until the story was done. “Let’s have a look at that Treasure Chest. D’you mind?”

  “No. But I don’t want my Jane’s things pulled about. They’re sort of sacred, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’ll be jake, John,” agreed Mawby.

  He was conducted to the main bedroom, and from beneath the old-fashioned double bed John drew a Chinese cedarwood box, exquisitely carved and perfectly kept. He shifted it to the bedspread, which was dulled by dust.

  “Nice box,” observed Mawby. “You cleaned it recently, I see.”

  “Yes, dusted it about an hour ago when I came here to look for the hair cards. Always done that every Sunday, you know. I keep a special camel-hair brush, and sometimes I give it a drop or two of oil.”

  Inwardly Mawby groaned, and another part of him rejoiced. He might not now have to requisition the box for fingerprints. John lifted the lid, and perfume rose to meet them, strong and sweet.

  “I put some scent in now and then,” explained John. “The sort my wife always liked. There’s her bits and pieces.” He unwrapped tissue paper. “Gold bangles and brooches and other bits of jewellery. A wristlet watch she give me, and the rest.”

  “You sure only her own watch and the locks of hair are missing?” pressed Mawby.

  “Yes, I been through it all.”

  Mawby frowned as the chest was closed and replaced under the bed. A very human man, he was saddened. They heard steps in the outer room, and John thought it was Midnight Long returning with the onions. It was Eric who appeared in the bedroom doorway.

  “Did I hear you say you had lost something?” he asked his father, his face concerned.

  “Yes, your mother’s watch, and two hanks of hair, yours and mine,” replied John, and Mawby added:

  “Could add up.”

  “How?” came sharply from the young man.

  “Feller came here when Brandt was away looking to the sheep,” lugubriously replied the sergeant. “Brandt seen his tracks, crept into the house, found the stranger going through your mother’s Treasure Chest, fought him in the kitchen, chased him to the machinery shed, hit him with a blunt instrument. Feller dies with a lock of hair in his fist. Brandt panics. Packs up and clears out. Forgets to replace the watch, but not to put the chest back under the bed. Has the watch in his pocket, or he could have put it somewhere where it’ll be found eventually. All tells of panic after killing a man.”

  “What did he do with the dead man’s blanket roll?” pressed Eric. “Feller wouldn’t travel without a swag. I’ve been down the well. The swag wasn’t dumped there. I’ve been through the entire homestead, and can’t locate that swag.”

  “Took it with him to plant somewhere on his way out, could be,” replied Mawby. “No time to burn it here. Objective? To destroy identification, or delay it. But we’ll identify that body, never fear. Photographs, fingerprints, because the hands are still dry, even the upper denture he had we’ve collected. Anyway, the robbery could have been the motive for the fight and resultant death. Good enough until we overhaul Brandt.”

  “Ah! Just thought of it, Sergeant. There’s one place where that missing swag could be. In the reservoir tank above the well. I’ll look.”

  Mawby mentioned the cards to which the locks of hair had been sewn.

  “Could of been stuffed into the stove,” John said. “They weren’t back in the Chest, and they weren’t anywhere on the floor. Eric lit the fire, remember. Wouldn’t think to pull out paper and stuff that might have been in the stove.”

  “Course not,” agreed Mawby. “Well, we’ll know more when we collar Brandt. Meanwhile, John, look around and let me have news of anything you find, such as that watch and the missing hank of hair and the cards, and the feller’s swag. We’re pretty well finished here, for the time being, that is. Have to get busy tracking forward to Brandt, and tracking back to identify the dead man and where he came from.”

  Shortly after midday John Downer called his guests for lunch, and, having served them, he took a dish of hot curry and rice and slabs of bread and jam to the three aborigines. At one o’clock Mawby departed with Sefton and his tracker, and the doctor with the photographer joined Midnight Long on the seat of the utility, while the two L’Albert station aborigines climbed into the tray-body.

  “Hope Mawby keeps his bus moving on the Crossing,” John said, standing beside Midnight Long’s truck.

  “Shouldn’t bother him, John. He’s strong enough to lift the car over the Crossing, and Sefton’s with him. We’ll wait and see.”

  The doctor wanted to lay five shillings that Mawby would bog, and everyone watched the sergeant’s car passing down the track and raising a cloud of red dust. The station aborigines, standing at the back, were equally interested, and Eric Downer watched from the rear of the vehicle—watched, not the departing car, but the aborigines.

  On one turning about to see if he, too, was wagering silent odds, Eric stepped to the side of the tray-body opposite his father, and, stooping swiftly, drew a figure on the sandy ground.

  Looking up, he saw that the aborigine was looking down and witnessed in the dark eyes understanding and the nod of the head. Then, with the edge of a palm, he erased the sand figure.

  The police car gained the far side of the Crossing, and took to the hard lake beach with accelerating speed, and Midnight Long and his companions bade farewell to the Downers and set off after it. From the veranda, father and son watched the departing vehicles following the circular edge of Lake Jane.

  “Well, lad, that’s that,” drawled old Downer. “A murder and a police investigation. You never know what’s waiting round the next bend.”

  “You’re right there. You never know.” Eric hesitated before saying: “I’m worn out by
the excitement. Any grog left in the bottle?”

  “Too right, lad. We’ll share it. Then we’ll wash up, and by then I’ll be ready for a nap.”

  “And I’ll run out to Rudder’s for the load.”

  “And skin those sheep I killed this morning. Thirteen there was. The rest are too far gone.” Again in the meal-disordered kitchen, he asked: “Where did you say they’d buried that feller?”

  “’Way back from the shearing shed. Why?”

  “Been wondering. I’m glad you told ’em not to bury him in our plot. Still, we’ll have to put a rail round him, be decent to the dead. I’ll see to it.”

  Eric stoked the range. He said:

  “I’ll get going for Rudder’s. You clean up.”

  Eric found him asleep in an easy chair on the veranda, a handkerchief over his face to defeat the flies.

  “Never heard you, lad. How did you get on?”

  “All right. Took off the skins, and brought the lot home. Did you get any idea how many are left?”

  “No. We got there too late last night, and they left too early for me to tally them.”

  “Brandt seems to have done his job to the time he bolted,” Eric said. “We could have eight hundred left living.” It’s the walking to the water and out to feed that’s killing them, Have to think about making camp where there’s a bit of feed left, and carting water to them. Ah, the mulga wire’s at work.”

  Beyond Lake Jane, beyond the far horizon of sand dune and patch scrub, was rising a disjointed column of dark smoke, lifting as though to support the westering sun.

  “The murder broadcast,” agreed John. “Them abos don’t need radios and telephones and things.”

  “No, but we do. A telephone at least is what we must have.”

  “Suppose we shall, if we’re to have any more murders,” temporized John, as both watched the rising smoke signal telling of the murder that had happened.

  Chapter Five

  Facets of a Diamond

  TO EVERY man his own problems to stir him to effort. Sergeant Mawby and his assistant, Constable Sefton, had their official problem to deal with in addition to any private ones, and, taken together, the Downers had their problem of surviving the drought. The policemen were one when tackling their problem of finding Carl Brandt, but unfortunately the Downers were not united in their approach to the problem of survival.

  The long rainless period had so reduced the areas of grazing, relative to the dwindling water supplies, that the last of the Downers’ sheep had to be based on Rudder’s Well. Already the grazing had been cleaned out for upward of three miles from the water, compelling the sheep to walk that distance there and back to feed.

  Thus before the Downers went off to Mindee on their Annual Bender normal routine had been changed. Every morning Eric ran out to the well in the truck, as there wasn’t a horse fit to ride, and he would find several of the weakest sheep unable to stand after filling with water and so become the victims of the vicious foxes and the devilish crows. These casualties he would kill in mercy and skin for the wool.

  It had been Carl Brandt’s chore to go to Rudder’s Well every morning, riding his bike, to follow this same routine. Now Eric was returned to it. And every morning he killed half a dozen lingering victims, and every morning therefore the Downers’ flock was further reduced. Meanwhile John did the cooking and the house chores, and pottered about the homestead.

  On the third morning following the return home, Eric drove at speed less than normal, sitting forward over the steering wheel to maintain careful scrutiny of the winding track just in front of the radiator. This track bore only the marks of his truck ... until he saw the trail of a snake crossing it.

  He was driving so slowly that he was able to stop the truck when athwart that cross track, and, switching off the ignition, he stepped to the ground and listened, hearing nothing but the noise of the wind, a low hissing noise as it passed through the compact branches of the belt of tea tree at this place.

  He followed the snake’s trail into the tea tree, a shrub-like bush, here eight or nine feet high, small of leaf and untouched by the drought. The snake’s trail led in among the tea tree, the ground being clear of vegetation and having a thin coating of salmon-pink sand.

  For an hour he was hidden among the tea tree, and when he emerged he was trailing behind him a branch of this robust bush, and thus swept clean his own tracks, and the track of the snake. In his free hand he carried a paper bag.

  He used the branch to erase the footprints to the very edge of the track when standing on the truck step, and, tossing the branch into the cabin, manoeuvred himself behind the steering-wheel, and drove on towards Rudder’s Well.

  His next step was beside a wide clear space about two magnificent sandalwood trees.

  Taking the branch and the paper bag with him he walked to the centre of the clear space, where he gathered a few completely dry sticks and twigs, and of them made a fire. Then, with care, he dropped from the paper bag a quantity of long black hair.

  The hair smoked but lightly. When it was consumed, he burned the paper bag, and stood awhile until the fire died down, when he scraped a hole with the heel of his boot, enlarged it with his hands, and finally with a twig teased all the fire embers into it, and covered the mass with sand.

  Sweeping the fire-site with the branch, he used this again on retreating to the truck, and there tossed the branch aside, and drove on to the well.

  2

  This morning he had eight sheep to kill and skin, and rack the skins to dry in the sun. From a gay young sheepman he was becoming a mere butcher, taciturn and introspective. The problem facing both him and his father was not being tackled with unity of direction, owing to lack of experience in himself and half a century of wisdom gathered by the old man. At rock bottom Eric Downer was too imaginative, too idealistic, too sensitive, to play the role of a pastoralist when the wolf of adversity had him by the throat.

  He had never found hard work an enemy. Erecting a fence or building a shed or repairing a mill or pump were tasks for eager hands to do, things to create. But now, when financial resources were strained and improvement work was out of the question, there was left only the normal working chores, such as going out for a load of firewood.

  Homing with such a load, he saw a strange utility near the empty hen yard and Robin Pointer emerge from the house to meet him.

  Robin Pointer was good to look at and merited any man’s approving smile. She was of medium height and small-boned, and there ended any hint of fragility. She could ride with the best, with or without a saddle, and her narrow long-fingered hands, which could hold a palette and paint brush, and paint rather well, could also check a bad-tempered horse. Today she was wearing a flecked tweed skirt and a lime-green overblouse. Her jet black hair was hatless.

  Eric stepped from the truck to greet her. From his higher level he looked down into large dark eyes flecked with gold, and the windows of a mind he had never fathomed.

  The contours of her oval face were soft, save about the small chin.

  “What brought you?” he asked, as their eyes held in meeting, and even now he found himself trying to read her mind.

  “You. I came to see you,” she replied. “And at the same time I brought a crate of chooks for you to restock with, and a mutual friend, Constable Sefton.”

  He was unable to prevent the flash of surprise in his eyes, although his voice was controlled, and he made no attempt to be casual.

  “What did he come for? Where is he?”

  “Inside, talking with your father. The utility is his, and the chooks are on the back. I’ll help you with the crate. And I want to talk to you.”

  “Why not? I’m easy.”

  They transferred the birds to the hen yard, admired the Orpington rooster, and returned the crate to the utility. He brought water from the well to fill the drinking trough, for the fowls would have to remain in the yard for a few days, rinsed his hands, dried them on an oily handkerchief, and said
earnestly:

  “That was very nice of you, and of your mum and dad, to think of us. How come Sefton brought you?”

  “Oh, he arrived this morning, and I just made use of him.” The girl regarded Eric seriously, noted the old but serviceable clothes, the cut on a forearm caused by a jagged log end, and also the clean-shaven face and the well-tended hair.

  “Sef came to get measurements, so he said. They’ve found out who the dead man was.”

  “Who?”

  “Name’s Dickson. Paul Dickson, plus a few aliases. He was arrested at Hungerford for sheep-stealing, and he broke out of jail a week before you found him in your shed.”

  “What about Brandt?” Eric asked.

  “Seems they haven’t caught up with him yet. Sef says it might take time, but they surely will. Make me a cigarette, please.”

  Eric produced a tin of tobacco and papers and thoughtfully rolled a cigarette and licked the paper for her before tamping the end with a match. Having struck a match, he teased:

  “You’re becoming pally with Constable Sefton.”

  “Pally! Don’t be silly. Oh, you mean by calling him Sef. Caught that from Dad. Nice enough man.” Her eyes grew large as they examined his, seeking the mind behind them. She said:

  “Where did you bury that Paul Dickson?”

  “Back of the shearing shed. Why?”

  “Show me.”

  “Show you where they buried him?” he echoed. She nodded, and he shrugged and obeyed.

  From inside the rear doorway old John watched them, and wondered, hopefully. From a corner of the machinery shed Constable Sefton smiled, winking at himself, believing that he knew much about both. They continued to the shearing shed, passed by it, disappeared. And when they were out of sight, Robin halted, causing Eric to confront her.

  “This will do. Kiss me, hard. Hold me in your arms and kiss me.

  Eric hesitated. Waiting, her face registered passivity, but in her eyes were expectancy and what might be calculation. Of the two, she was now the stronger, and with the fleeting seconds of his indecision, it became visibly obvious.