Bony and the Mouse Read online

  Bony’s even white teeth gleamed, and his blue eyes momentarily sparkled, as each summed up the other for a second impression. He was of medium height and build, and there were springs in his legs and ropes in his arms resting on the counter. They possessed one attribute in common. Despite her black dress and tightly dressed hair, and the wealth about her neck and on her hands, and despite his rough riding clothes and drill shirt open at the neck, and sleeves rolled above the elbows, both had that well-groomed appearance which emanates from the spirit rather than the person. As she waited for his answer, he said:

  “What d’you think?”

  “I’d bet on it. I’m only lucky at cards.”

  “That how you will own the pub one day?”

  “No. I’m old Sam’s granddaughter. And I’ll never own the pub. He’ll never die. He’s just the same now as he was when I was a little girl. My father looked twice as old as Sam when he died at sixty. Hark at him down there!”

  The voice was full yet sepulchral beneath the floorboards ... a pleasing baritone!

  “Oh, come to me arms, me darlin’.”

  Silence for a moment, then the accompaniment softly played on a violin:

  “Oh, come to me arms, me darlin’,

  Oh, come to me arms right now!

  Oh, tell me you love me, me darlin’,

  While I gurgle and guggle you down.”

  Nat and Kat gazed at each other over the bar counter whilst awaiting the next stanza, verse, or whatever. When there was but silence, relieved only by distant street noises, Bony said:

  “Isn’t there any more to it?”

  “Don’t think. He makes it up as he goes. You like a cup of tea?”

  “I certainly would,” assented Bony promptly, and fell to rolling yet another cigarette when the woman left the bar by the passage door. A strange situation, was his verdict. The town full of people, and the only hotel full of emptiness. Unreasonable. Unheard of. Beyond his experience. It is said that Australia rides on the sheep’s back. All tosh, of course, because it floats on beer. Yet he had entered this hotel and called for beer, and was offered tea! Someone at the open street doorway said:

  “Old Sam still down under?”

  Bony turned to see the little man Sister Jenks had named Ellis when arranging the stretcher.

  “Could be,” he replied. “Just heard the old boy singing.”

  “Well, you gotta nerve, anyhow,” asserted Ellis.

  “Why?”

  “Standin’ there as calm as you like. Don’t you know Melody Sam always locks himself down under with a case or two of gelly, caps, fuse and all?”

  “I have just been told so,” admitted Bony.

  “Well ... Blimey! Runnin’ a risk, ain’t you? Makes me sick in me stommick, just hanging around here. You can have it.”

  The little man vanished. Bony heard someone ask if the beer was still off, and Ellis’s reply was akin to a moan of anguish. When Kat Loader returned with a tea tray, he said:

  “You say your grandfather’s been on a bender for eight days. Isn’t it time he came up for air?”

  “He’s probably getting round to it. Milk and sugar in your tea?”

  “Thank you, Miss ... Missus...”

  “Miss. Kat for short, like I said. Don’t worry over Sam. He’ll come to light some day.”

  “What’s he living on?”

  “Nothing. The whisky’s living on him.”

  “But he can’t go on long, surely?”

  “Can’t he! His top record so far is fifteen days, two years ago.” The woman chuckled, genuinely mirthful, and Bony thought she must be dead from the ears up, or the most placid woman he had ever encountered.

  “Oh, come to me arms, me darlin’.”

  Bony stamped a foot hard, and the singer stopped in his tracks. The woman’s eyes opened wide, and her face paled. The vivacity in her stilled to marble.

  “Oh, come to me...”

  Again Bony stamped a foot, and this time shouted:

  “Quiet, down there. Quiet, I say!”

  A bow was scraped across taut strings. Silence filled with potential menace, then the singer’s voice dispelled it.

  “Hell’s delight! Who’s that up there telling me to be quiet?”

  “Giggle,” whispered Nat to Kat. “Make believe I’m an ardent lover. Go on.”

  Reaching over the counter he gripped her wrist.

  “Scuffle your feet on the floor,” he commanded.

  He scuffled his own boots, and smiled happily when the woman actually did giggle, and he said loudly:

  “Never mind about the old coot down below, love.”

  “You stop it, Nat,” and proof was given that the woman was a born actress ... as all women have been since Eve. “No, not here, Nat. Not here, please.”

  “Just one, Kat, darlin’,” pleaded Nat. More scuffling followed as they moved along the counter to the drop-flap, which already was open. Then a crash as the trapdoor above the steps leading down to the cellar was flung up, and there emerged, as though from the grave, Melody Sam.

  Standing clear of the trap, he glared at the two temporary lovers. He stood well over six feet. He stood straight and strong like a tree. He looked worse than terrible; he looked just plain horrible.

  As Melody Sam advanced to the counter, his granddaughter slid to one side, and eventually was behind him and ran to the trap, which she closed swiftly and silently. With both hands supporting himself against the counter, the unwashed, bewhiskered, flaring-eyed monstrosity glared at Bony, who was calmly rolling a cigarette.

  “What’s your name, stranger?” he demanded.

  “I’m Nat Bonnar.”

  “What you doin’ here, Mister Nat Bonnar?”

  “I’m the new yardman,” he answered, lighting the cigarette. “Didn’t you know?”

  “The new yardman!” roared the ancient immortal. “Hey, Kat! What’s this about a new yardman?”

  Kat was rolling empty barrels over the trap-door. She said, and now her voice was shrill:

  “I put him on just now. What about it?”

  “What about it!” shouted the old man. “Who’s the flaming licensee around here?” He lurched to the open cut in the counter and advanced upon Bony. “Out you go, whatever your name is. I do the hiring in this place, and I do the firin’ too. I’m the boss of this pub. I’m the boss of this town as well. You going peaceful?”

  “I’m not going at all,” whined Nat Bonnar. “I don’t know you. Never seen you before. The lady here put me on as yardman, and yardman I’m goin’ to be until she sacks me. Now you keep off me. You touch me, and I’ll have the Union sue you, see? I’m a workin’ man, and we have our rights.”

  Melody Sam exploded. A vast shout of laughter rocked him on his bare feet, and blew a hurricane through his forest of whiskers.

  “Bash me ribs! The feller tells me he has rights,” he roared. “Rights! Rights, he says! Now, Mister Working Man who has rights, I got the rights to heave you out of my pub, and when you stop going it will be against the garage on the other side of the track.”

  The granddaughter was adding an ice-chest to the barrels on the cellar trap, and her back was towards the couple in the middle of the bar-room. She heard a short, smart slap, and turned in time to see her ancestor swaying groggily on his feet and then collapse into the arms of Nat Bonnar.

  “You hit him!” she cried.

  “He fell asleep on his two feet,” indignantly countered Bony, and hauled the body over a shoulder. “A good yardman can do much about a place like this. Besides cleaning up the yard and tossing out the drunks, helping in the bar and carting away the empties, he can be a wonderful companion to the boss. Where shall I dump your grandfather?”

  “This way,” replied the granddaughter. “No, wait. Hold him.” She almost ran to the front door and slammed it shut and bolted it. Then she ran out through the door to the passage, and Bony heard her shut and lock the main house door. When she appeared at the passage door, she beckoned, call
ing: “This way. I’ll show you the Lion’s Den we always put him in.”

  The burdened Bony staggered after her. They passed through the kitchen, watched with amazement by the cook and a housemaid. Then out into the yard, and, turning right, came to an outbuilding which had bars to its small high window, and a door so thick a horse could not have kicked it open. Within was a bunk and blankets placed for a lodger.

  “Put him there,” ordered Kat Loader.

  Bony laid out the body, and the woman drew up the blankets. The body moaned, and the eyelids deep in the forest of whiskers trembled.

  “He’ll come to in a minute. Let’s leave him, quick.”

  She almost pushed Bony out of this strong-room, which even had a small opening in the massive door, protected by two iron bars. She shot a bolt, and turned the key in a padlock, and she was panting a little and trembling slightly. Her voice suddenly was a little frightened, and as suddenly was firm again.

  “They know already,” she said. “Listen!”

  Beyond the yard fence the street was alive. Men shouted. Others whistled. And more were pounding on the hotel doors.

  “Come on,” ordered the granddaughter of Melody Sam. “Into the bar before they break in the doors.”

  Taking hold of Bony’s hand, she literally dragged him into the kitchen, through it to the passage and along to the bar, calling to the cook to follow. The pounding at the front door was urgent. Men peering through the windows shouted and set up a cheer.

  “Shift all that stuff off the trap,” ordered the woman. “Quick about it, now. That’s right. Now, Nat, down you go and haul up the bottled beer for a start. And, Sue, you take it from Nat and open the cases and set out the bottles to serve.”

  “I’m to be the new yardman?” queried Nat Bonnar. “True?”

  “You are the new yardman, Nat,” she told him, holding open the trap-door, and revealing the flight of steps down to the floor of the cellar, where burned a kerosene lamp near a large case on which was a length of fuse and a box of detonators. “Be quick, Nat, before they break something. Of course you are the yardman. You’re going to be the loveliest yardman we ever had at Daybreak.”

  And Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte proceeded to re-float Australia on beer.

  Chapter Four

  The Magnifying Glass

  THERE WAS a period, seemingly very short, when Joy Elder floated from one place to another, and at each place paused only to choose the biggest garnet of those lying as thickly as the mica specks on the slopes away up from Dryblowers Flat. Then she was conscious that she was actually awake, that she felt drowsy, and that pain rhythmically thudded against her body. Now she remembered. She was lying with her back against a ghost gum, and Tony Carr and a strange man were crouched over her foot. She remembered how Tony had looked at her, an expression of sick horror in his eyes, and how the other man was looking at her foot and doing something with a tin pannikin filled with blood, or red stuff, anyway.

  That was a long time ago. The sun had gone and it was night, and the moon was in the sky, masked by dust haze, its light dim and brown. Tony Carr was no longer there. He must have gone for help. The other man was there, though. She felt rather than saw him crouched beside her. His eyes were strangely blue and filled with compassion, and there had never been anyone just like him. He was holding her hand and his fingers were gently stroking her wrist and making her think of her mother, who had died so long ago down in Kal.

  Somewhere a clock was ticking, and there couldn’t be a ticking clock here in the depression where the ghost gums lived. Funny! There were no stars up there; only a white roof, a ceiling. She was inside a house. She was in bed, between sheets. And the strange man was sitting beside her, and still caressing her wrist.

  “Where am I?” she asked plaintively, because the foot was aching like a burn.

  “In Sister Jenks’s little hospital,” replied Bony. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Please, a drink. I’m so thirsty. I could drink and drink. I’ve never been so thirsty before.”

  “Perhaps we could persuade Sister to make us a cup of tea. How would that do?”

  “Two cups, please. Three cups.”

  She watched him move towards the end of the room. There was light there and she could see three other beds that seemed to be vacant. She heard him call softly for Sister Jenks, and at once the sister replied: “What is it? Who is that?”

  “The patient is awake and asking for a drink. Perhaps a pot of tea ... perhaps two pots of tea, Sister.” Bony replied, and came back to sit again beside Joy’s bed. To Joy Elder he whispered: “Now I am going to be nagged at for being here. Don’t you say anything.”

  Arrayed in a floral gown, carrying an oil lamp, Sister Jenks appeared. She placed the lamp on a table near the door, and came forward to stand at the foot of the bed, to be halted by amazement.

  “What on earth are you doing here, Nat Bonnar?”

  “Just watching the patient, Sister. Couldn’t sleep, so thought I’d come along and sit with her. She’s awake.”

  “So I can see,” agreed Sister Jenks, and bent over Joy and asked how she felt.

  “My foot hurts, Sister, and I’m so thirsty.”

  “All right, dear, we’ll see to it. Nat Bonnar, first door to the right is the kitchen. Go make a pot of strong tea. And stay there till I come.”

  There was a pressure lamp on the kitchen bench, which Bony quickly had in action. There was also a pressure stove, on which he soon had water heating. He found a teapot and a caddy of tea, and located the ice-chest for the milk. The tea was brewing when Sister Jenks came in from her patient. Her small features were hardened by anger, and her eyes sparkled.

  “Now, Nat Bonnar, alias So-and-So, what’s the meaning of this?”

  “Hush! A nice cup of tea for the patient, and perhaps a bite to eat. Tea for ourselves, and then, Sister, the upbraiding.”

  “Well, your effrontery leaves me gasping,” she almost hissed. “How did you break your way into the ward?”

  “I didn’t break in,” countered Bony, pouring tea into the cups, and holding the pot so high that splashes fell on the clean white cloth he had found. “Breaking and entering is a serious offence in law. Just walking in is much less so. So I just walked in ... through the back doorway, the door being unbolted.”

  “You didn’t. I bolted that door last thing.”

  “Meanwhile the patient suffers thirst,” Bony mildly pointed out. “A cup of tea right now, with a couple of thin slices of bread and butter. Followed in an hour with a good hearty meal of tough steak and week-old bread. She’ll be so bucked she will be able to run all the way to Dryblowers Flat.”

  “What nonsense!” expostulated Sister Jenks, and took the small tray he held to her. She marched to the door and knew she looked a trifle ridiculous, and felt like dropping the tray and ... and...

  Nat Bonnar drew a chair to the table and thankfully enjoyed the tea and bread and butter. Five minutes, and Sister Jenks returned and sat with him, glared at him, then snapped:

  “At least you owe me an explanation.”

  “I do,” he agreed. “Now is the time for it. There is always a time for everything. First, what do you think of that girl?”

  “Her condition? Temperature is up. The wound is inflamed, and that’s your fault. The potash solution you used to wash out the wound was much too strong. You ought to have known better.”

  “But you didn’t operate with a butcher’s knife and see the wound as I saw it. You didn’t see the dirt and the blow-fly grubs, and you don’t take into account that mulga wood is poisonous and that the wound was more than twenty-four hours old when I had to deal with it. And, further, you don’t give credit for the fact that I am an itinerant bush worker, not a doctor, or hospital-trained as you are.”

  “How like you are to what I’ve been told!” she said with conviction. “We’ll leave it. What are you doing in here at four in the morning?”

  “Are we friends or enemies?”<
br />
  “What a man! Answer my question.”

  “What a woman! You answer mine.”

  Sister Jenks returned to the chair she had vacated.

  “Did my aunt or my uncle tell you about me?” she asked.

  “Your uncle did invite me to dinner five days ago,” he conceded. “We talked of many things, including you and your work at Daybreak.”

  “Then we must be friends.”

  “There is no compulsion,” he pointed out.

  Their eyes clashed across the table. She said:

  “No, there is no compulsion. Forgive me for being irritable. My mental pictures of you have proved blurred. Patient’s soup will be ready. You’ll stay?”

  Bony nodded and the slight figure in the flowered gown passed to the stove to serve the meal for the patient. She was absent for half an hour, saying, on returning:

  “Almost asleep. She’ll do for a few hours. I don’t like the foot, though. And I’m sure I bolted that door.”

  “It was not only unbolted. It was ajar.”

  “And you believe someone crept in here while I was asleep?”

  Bony shrugged, and lit another cigarette from the small pile he had made while she was with the patient.

  “I’ve got myself a job at the hotel as yardman,” he announced. “After the beer drought, the bar was kept open till midnight. I was prospecting Main Street, and thought I saw a man enter your side gate. A late hour for a visit when your house was in darkness. I came along to check. The front door was secure. The windows hadn’t been tampered with. The back door was ajar. I came in, closed the back door and bolted it, and sat with the patient until she woke. At what time did you lie down to sleep?”

  “Half past ten. The clock woke me at half past twelve to visit the patient. She was asleep then, as I thought she would be, with the tablet I’d given her. Then I went back to bed.”

  “You didn’t go outside via the back door?”

  “No. And I didn’t go to the back porch for anything, so didn’t notice the door being open. I’m certain I bolted the door before lying down at ten-thirty. We have a murderer in Daybreak, you know!”