Bushranger of the Skies Page 4

  What a gown! What slippers! What a room! What a house! What an investigation awaited him! He could not command his mind whilst encompassed by those alluring colours.

  On the floor he unrolled his swag and took from it clean underwear and shaving tools. Again he went to the bathroom, and afterwards dressed, putting on a neat dark-grey serge coat over the clean khaki shirt. Now he felt better, and the clamour in his mind insisted that he hide the dressing-gown beneath the bed pillows and the slippers beneath the bed. He sat down again on the chair to begin the manufacture of a cigarette. Began, for not then did he complete the task. In a flash he was on his hands and knees beside the unrolled swag.

  Sergeant Errey’s small attaché case he had so carefully rolled in the swag before leaving the camp of the cabbage-trees, had vanished.

  The shock succeeded, when past efforts had failed, in restoring his mind to calm normality. He recalled clearly that minute of time in which he had placed the attaché case on top of the unrolled blankets and then carefully had rolled and strapped the swag without possibility of case, or any other article, falling from it.

  Beyond this fine homestead, beyond the painted Land of Burning Water, lay a shadow as black as night, a shadow in which flickered the flame of human emotions and passions. Flame in the shadow! It was there, all right. He could feel the heat of the flame in the chill of the shadow.

  What had Chief Burning Water said? Why, he had said: “We have seen what we ought not to have seen.” Why did he say that, if he did not know that those Illprinka blacks were present to remove anything not destroyed by the fire: if he did not at least suspect they were acting on the orders of the pilot? That would more than hint he knew, or suspected, a particular man to be the pilot of the aeroplane.

  Then McPherson had said just before he had left that very room: “You will (fail) if the Wantella justice reaches him first. The crime was committed on Wantella land, and the Wantella blacks thought highly of Sergeant Errey.” What lay behind that? Was it not the betrayal of knowledge, or suspicion, coinciding with that contained in Chief Burning Water’s statement? If those two men did not know the pilot of the aeroplane, then both of them based on other facts a good guess.

  The house and its owner were not normal here on the edge of Central Australia. Chief Burning Water was abnormal, because of his long and close association with the McPhersons. McPherson was a travesty, a problem. He offered hospitality like a man not wanting to but unable to refuse. There was no warmth in him. Even his temper was not warm. He did not speak with the easy freedom of the bushman, and that seemed to be natural in him and not the evidence of fear. Only the girl was warm and human and open; but even she presented a problem.

  Without the slightest hesitation she had accepted him as her uncle’s guest, when he had appeared to her travel-stained, escorted by aborigines to the homestead instead of arriving on horseback or by car. She had evinced no hostility towards his mid-race; had accepted him without question.

  Bony’s subsequent actions might have led an observer to form the opinion that his mentality was not normal. His eyes became brilliant orbs of blue radiating light. On his dark face was a smile more of gloating than amusement.

  Snatching the dressing-gown from under the pillow he held it to his faintly quivering nostrils. Then he donned the garment, stood before the mirror, and turned himself to view the picture from every angle.

  “Let me tabulate my emotions,” he murmured to the reflection in the mirror. “My brain feels stimulated. My spirit seems to be something light within me, something I can feel. It is as though I were intoxicated, and I’m sure this particular reaction is not due to the glass of lager I drank in the dining-room. Nor is it due to the prospect of solving a profound mystery. No. No! It is due to the gown itself. It is the kind of gown I would buy for myself—if I were not university educated, if I were not an inspector of detectives.”

  Sighing, he removed the garment and again hid it beneath the pillow. Although certain the missing attaché case was not among the articles of his swag he removed them all, before rolling up the swag and pushing it under the bed.

  He was still on his knees when, through the open windows, came a human cry of distress. It was like a spring lifting him to his feet. Tensed, he listened. He heard now the sound like a man’s face being slapped, and this sound was instantly followed by another cry of distress. Out on the veranda, he again listened. For the third time the cry was uttered; and now he knew it came from the stockyards beyond the men’s quarters.

  His room faced west. He stepped off the veranda, followed a garden path made of termite nests, skirted the detached kitchen and wash-house, and passed through a gate, to cross the open sandy ground to the long building, in the door frame of which was standing a white man dressed as a cook.

  Beyond the men’s quarters, Bony saw over against the rails of the stockyard, a crowd of aborigines. Their backs were towards him. Among them was he whose cries answered the sound of face slapping. Then the group abruptly split asunder and Bony saw the duck-clad figure of the squatter. Then, like Jonah being spewed from the mouth of the whale, there shot from the centre a naked figure, who raced with astonishing speed along the northern fence of the garden, over the concrete wall of the dam, to disappear among the bloodwoods.

  Towards Bonaparte came Chief Burning Water and Mr Donald McPherson, coiling his stockwhip. He said:

  “There goes one of your late enemies, Inspector. I have been administering the McPherson justice. It is always better to flog than to hang. Hanging doesn’t hurt.”

  Chapter Five

  The Threat

  MR DONALD McPHERSON and his guest sat in cane chairs on the south veranda. The sunset colours had drained from the plain, lying two hundred feet below the house, and from the sky which now was a uniform pall relieved by the stars. Save for the croaking of bullfrogs by the dam it was very quiet.

  “The blacks have buried the body of that Illprinka man killed this afternoon,” the squatter said.

  “I know nothing about any body that required to be buried,” Bony lied, calmly. “Do you often flog an aborigine?”

  “Very, very seldom. Chief Burning Water takes care of minor delinquents. He can hit hard. I taught him to box.”

  “He’s an unusual man.”

  “He’s outstanding among an unusual race. We grew up together. My father would not send me to a city school. He brought out tutors, three of them. They were all Scotch. Every one of them could recite all the poems of Burns, and they knew everything there is to be known about the tartans. They brought me up on Sir Walter Scott and the tenets of the Kirk1, and having made me an expert with the three R’s, my father took me in hand with the rules of business and keeping books. In many ways my father was shrewd and long-sighted—if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have survived here—but on one point he was not just to his only son.

  “By keeping me back from school down in a city where I would have rubbed shoulders with other boys and have gained a balanced outlook on life, he didn’t serve me too well. I never went off the place till I was twenty-two, and then it was to accompany the overseer and half a dozen blacks with cattle to what used to be called Hergott Springs, and from there down to Port Augusta.

  “The only friend I had in my youth, in fact the only friend I’ve ever had is Burning Water. He’s three years my junior. My mother, who saw the want of a companion for her son, interested herself in Burning Water, and he proved worthy of her interest. What the tutors taught me I handed on to Burning Water. What I did, he had to do. My father took a great liking to him, and eventually he lived here as one of the family.”

  “And yet he went back to his own people,” Bony said.

  “He did, and he went back for a particular reason. When I became a man I was sealed into the tribe, and after Burning Water was made a man by his people we used to talk about the blacks a great deal. You see, I was, to all intents and purposes, brought up with them. I understood them, and through me Burning Water came
to recognize what was good in our civilization and what was bad.

  “Under the last head man, the tribe became loose and slovenly in obedience to its own laws and customs, and when he died, Burning Water decided to make himself head man and pull the tribe together. He and I both knew that the road to extinction was sign-posted by disregard for customs and contempt for laws. Burning Water felt he had a mission. Come to think of it, it is a damned fine mission.”

  Bony rolled a cigarette. “And he has succeeded?”

  “There’s no doubt about it. He pulled the tribe together in less than six months. He modelled himself on my father, for whom he had great affection and respect. He said to me one day: ‘What is the secret of life? The answer is, discipline. You white folk are strong because you know discipline. My people have become like a mob of steers because they have lost the discipline imposed by the laws and customs created for them in the Alchuringa. I must force them to respect the laws and follow the customs, so that they will become men and women and not just eating beasts.’ That he has done.”

  Bony said. “Do you think it possible he had foreknowledge of the attack on Errey’s car.”

  “Of course not.” McPherson spoke angrily. “Burning Water thought a lot of Errey, and Errey considered him a personal friend. Used to talk to Burning Water for hours about the aboriginal beliefs and customs. Burning Water often goes off alone. You see, it’s part of his job to visit the tribe’s sacred storehouses, and to keep an eye generally on the tribe’s land.”

  “And has he had much trouble with the Illprinka tribe?”

  “Not till recently. They became troublesome about six years ago. You know much about the blacks?”

  Bony laughed, saying, as he stared at the void masking the fragrant garden and the plain beyond it:

  “Enough to be convinced of how little I do know. Ah—there’s Price’s car!”

  “Yes. He’s about where those cabbage-trees are. It’ll be too dark for him to see the wreckage of Errey’s car.... Oh yes, the blacks are a damn sight wiser than we are. My father liked them, but he took a strong line with them. He had his troubles, you know. There were mother and my sister and me, the baby, and only two other white men and the wife of one of them. They were all here for years.

  “The old man had a triangle put up. He didn’t shoot the blacks when they got out of hand. He didn’t poison them or hang them. He flogged them. Always said flogging hurt more than hanging, and that a live black was more useful than a dead one. I’ve never had to flog one since Burning Water became chief. The fellow today doesn’t count. He was an Illprinka man.”

  “Do you use them as stockmen much?”

  “A great deal. I employ a white overseer who lives with his wife and family at the out-station, a white men’s cook, and the old fellow you probably saw tending to the sprinklers. Other than those three all the work is done by the blacks. My mother used to train the young lubras to housemaid and cook, and my niece carries on with breaking them into house service.” McPherson sighed. “But you know how it is. Without warning a girl will vanish leaving her clothes behind, to be seen next day with the tribe. You can’t manage these people.”

  “What about Burning Water?”

  “Yes, perhaps I was too sweeping. Nevertheless, there is a part of them you can’t change. It might be because they’re too human. Well, Price ought to be here in twenty minutes.”

  “How long has Price been stationed at Shaw’s Lagoon?”

  “Two years. He’s a good man, intelligent. How do you intend to work with him?”

  “With reserve—until I am sure of him. This is my investigation and I will not let up on it until I have put a rope round the neck of that pilot. I will not brook interference from Price, or from anyone else. I shall tell Price that the steering gear of Errey’s car failed when it was rounding a bend, that it crashed against the hillside, caught fire, and then rolled down into the gully. By the way, is there a tracker attached to the police station?”

  “No,” replied McPherson. “When the police want a tracker they ring me. Burning Water won’t permit any of his men to stay in Shaw’s Lagoon. I wish that blasted pilot would crash somewhere out in the open country.”

  “Oh, why?” mildly inquired Bony.

  “Because I don’t want publicity outside, you understand. It wouldn’t do me or the station or the blacks an iota of good. The annoyances to which they and I have been subjected are our affair, and we always have been capable of settling our own affairs without fuss.”

  There were grounds for the squatter’s objection to the publicity such a murder of a police officer would obtain, because Bony was confident that the pilot of the airplane was behind the theft of McPherson’s cattle, the murder of two Wantella blacks, and other crimes. He now understood, a little more clearly, the mind of this man sitting with him.

  That insistence on being able to look after “their” own affairs; that insistence that even the crime of killing was an annoyance, more than hinted that McPherson was jealous of the police and of police protection. Bony thought he could now understand the cause of McPherson’s hostility to any restrictions imposed from outside his own land save only those imposed by financial institutions. The man had been born of people still imbued with the idea of feudal rights and obligations, and all his life he had been cut off from advancing thought. He had stayed still, locked away out here; perhaps had never been to a city.

  “I suppose you go occasionally down to one of the cities for a holiday?” he asked the squatter.

  “Only once. I went to Sydney. Had a headache all the time I was there. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t even think properly. I came home again after a week. To me it was like being in a madhouse.”

  “But Miss McPherson——”

  “Flora goes to Melbourne for the first three months of every year. She’s different. She was brought up in a city, but she likes being here with us, all the same. Here’s Price.”

  Bony accompanied the squatter to welcome the constable, and the three proceeded at once to the office, where Price asked:

  “Sergeant Errey—how is he, sir?”

  This policeman was a man. He possessed McPherson’s jaw, but he was bigger, quicker in movement. His mind worked more swiftly as could be seen in his tanned clean-shaven face and keen hazel eyes. He was dynamic and efficient. His manner of addressing Bony obviously impressed the squatter.

  “First, here are my credentials.” Bony murmured.

  Price’s fleeting smile was a shade grim.

  “Following what you stated at the station four days ago, sir, I checked up through divisional headquarters. I shall be glad to render any assistance I can. But Sergeant Errey——”

  “I greatly regret, Price, to say that Sergeant Errey is dead,” Bony cut in. Swiftly he told the story of the “accident.” “He had with him a passenger, a Wantella black named Mit-ji, who also perished.”

  Price’s lean face revealed his horror.

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” he slowly said.

  “I know,” Bony almost whispered. “Still, that’s how it is. It appears that Errey was taking the black, Mit-ji, to Shaw’s Lagoon, for further questioning concerning the murder of two aboriginal stockmen. I will continue, not from where Errey left off but from where he began. You will have the sad duty of dealing with the wreckage and the bodies.”

  “Were you the only witness?” Price asked.

  “Yes. I will write my statement before you leave. I would like you to defer the inquest as long as you possibly can. I have several reasons for asking that. Er—I will be making my report to your Chief Commissioner, which you might post for me on your return to the township.”

  “Very well sir.”

  “I have a favour to ask of you, too. I don’t like to be addressed as ‘sir,’ ‘Inspector’—if you like, but I prefer merely the abbreviated name ‘Bony.’ You see, Price, I’m not a real policeman.

  “Tell me,” Bony proceeded, “is there a squatter inside your district,
or outside it, who flies an aeroplane?”

  “An aeroplane! No. We have a visit from the Flying Doctor sometimes. His headquarters are at Birdsville, three hundred miles away.”

  “Indeed! What kind of a machine is it?”

  “Monoplane. A new one. Had it only six months.”

  “What is its colour?”

  Price frowned. Then:

  “Light grey, I think. Yes, light grey.”

  “Not a silver-grey. Kindly be definite on the point of colour—if you are able.”

  The constable pondered, again frowned.

  “No, I don’t think it’s silver-grey. I saw the machine only once—two months ago. Why, Mr McPherson, probably you can answer the Inspector. Dr Whyte visited you that time.”

  Bony glanced at the squatter. McPherson had been standing in the door frame, his back to them. Now he turned to answer Price.

  “Dr Whyte’s machine is a light grey in colour,” he said. “Yes, he was here two months ago. Came to see my niece, not me. They met in Melbourne last year. If you’re ready we’d better go over for dinner. It’s getting late.”

  On the way across to the house, Bony said to Price:

  “Is this Doctor Whyte a good pilot?”

  “Yes, Inspector, and a good doctor, too.”

  Flora McPherson warmly welcomed the constable, and Bony instantly saw another facet of her character in this meeting of youth with youth. This evening she was wearing a semi-evening gown of French-grey ninon and her hair was done in a style less severe. She smiled at him; but it was to the policeman she offered her arm.

  Bonaparte was destined never to forget that meal, served by efficient aboriginal girls, smartly dressed even to silk stockings and shoes. There were two serving direct from the kitchen; and although in the morning they might be missing and found in the camp as the good Lord made them, they disproved the lie that these people cannot be trained.