The Mountains Have a Secret Read online

  He spent the day on the hotel veranda dreaming of these things and how he might wangle four months’ leave to make the dreams come true. Late in the afternoon he strolled along the track on which had come that magnificent Rolls-Royce. The sun was striking full upon the face of granite towering towards the zenith, and up that face most experienced mountaineers might have climbed. The granite was warmly coloured from dark grey to brilliant rouge.

  The track he followed in meditative mood took him past the hotel and its rear buildings, past a ten-acre grass paddock, on the far side of which were stables and hen-houses and a piggery, and then past an extensive vineyard which had been permitted to return to a wilderness. Beyond the vineyard the track turned right to skirt the foot of the tree-and-scrubmassed slope of the range rising to the sheer granite face. The skirting creek also turned right, and shortly afterwards the track began gently to rise diagonally up the slope, proceeding to a white-painted set of gates barring the way.

  The gates were netted and of tubular steel. They were locked by a heavy padlock and chain, and beyond them the track went on up the slope and could be seen continuing along the foot of the rock face. Standing at the gates, Bony could see that the netted and barb-topped five-foot fence extended to the left as far as the granite cliff. To the right it dipped downward in the direction of the creek, and because a line had been cleared through the scrub to build and maintain it, he followed it downward and with no little astonishment saw that it ended at the creek. It was merely a wing and could serve no purpose excepting that the creek itself was a barrier.

  Instead of returning along the fence to the track, he made his way down the creek bank, at first having considerable difficulty in progressing. Now and then he could see the vineyard fence beyond the track he had followed, and when almost opposite the divisional fence between vineyard and open grass paddock he came to a path which skirted the creek and gave easy walking.

  As always, the ground interested him. On this narrow, winding path beside the creek he observed the imprints of birds’ feet, wallabies, a fox, at least two dogs, and, presently, the footmarks of a large man. They were the imprints of Glen Shannon’s boots.

  He had come more than once along the path from the hotel and then had left the path where grew several smooth-barrelled white gums between the creek and the track.

  A mark on the trunk of one of these trees attracted Bony, and on reaching it he found that the mark was actually a number of small wounds from which the tree had bled. There were at least thirty such wounds to be encompassed by a circle having a diameter of twelve inches.

  The tree had been used as a target. The weapons making the wounds had not been spears, neither had they been arrows. That left knives. Glen Shannon had come here to practise knife-throwing, and that he was expert was all too obvious. He had thrown from a distance of twenty paces, and not one knife had sunk into the bark outside the imaginary circle, and not one knife had made impact against the tree save with its point.

  Chapter Five

  A Terminological Inexactitude

  AT dinner that evening the Simpson family and the American yardman occupied the other table, old Simpson in place at the head and being accorded reasonably sympathetic treatment by his family. Afterwards Bony joined the invalid on the veranda.

  “You don’t smoke?” he said.

  “They wouldn’t let me after I caught the bed afire.” The old man was beginning to cry, when they heard the sound of an approaching car. “It’ll be the Bensons,” he announced. “No time for ’em. The present man ain’t like his father. His sister’s stuck-up too.”

  The car glided to a halt and Simpson emerged from the hall and hurried down the steps. Bony, seated parallel with the creeper festooning the front of the veranda, gently parted the vines that he might see without having to stand. He was in time to observe the male passenger open the door and invite the licensee to enter the vehicle and occupy a drop seat with his back to the driver. The door was left open.

  Mr. Carl Benson occupied the corner nearer to Bony and thus presented his face in profile. He was a well-conditioned man of perhaps forty-five, his hair grey and close-cut. His face was strong and, although at ease, he did not smile.

  “More brass than the King,” whispered old Simpson. “Don’t know what he does with it. Ain’t spent much these last two years. Uster entertain a lot. Uster have big parties over at Baden Park. Down at Portland he has a large boat, but they haven’t used it much these last two years.”

  The licensee was doing the listening, occasionally nodding in agreement with what was being said. The woman beyond Benson stifled a yawn with a gloved hand. She would be, Bony thought, several years younger than her brother.

  “Can’t be broke,” muttered the old man. “Sold twenty rams for an average of nine hundred quid only the other day. Not like his father, who was a good friend to me. The father uster come in for a drink. Never passed by without coming in to see me and the old woman. You goin’ to slip me a drink tonight?”

  “What did you promise—last night?” countered Bony. Simpson was leaving the car. He closed the door and said something Bony could not overhear. Benson’s face was turned now to Bony. It was a cold, quiet, strong face. For the first time he smiled frostily, and the licensee stood back and watched the machine until it vanished round the end of the building.

  “What are the guest-house people like at Lake George?” Bony asked.

  “Don’t know much about ’em,” replied the invalid, as Simpson came up the veranda and entered the hotel. “Lund and his wife’s staying there longer than I thought they’d hang out. Pretty desolate over there. I give ’em six months, but they been there three years. Place was shut up for nigh on five years afore they went there.”

  “They didn’t build the place then?” Bony pressed, although he knew the details of the guest-house occupiers.

  “No fear, they didn’t,” replied the old man. “The present Benson’s father built the house as a sort of fishing camp. Lund’s only renting the place. Any chance of you sneaking me out half a bottle of whisky?”

  Bony leaned forward and touched a palsied leg.

  “Can your son fight?” he asked.

  “He! He!” tittered old Simpson. “Can he fight! Can he hell and galoots. Uster be the champ of the Western District.”

  “Then I’m not sneaking you out half a bottle of whisky,” Bony said with exaggerated solemnity. “I’ll bet that Ted O’Brien didn’t risk having his head knocked off.”

  The rheumy eyes opened wide and the voice was stronger.

  “I’ll lay you a bottle of whisky to nothing that Ted O’Brien risked it more’n once. Now! What about half a bottle to nothin’?”

  “Then he deserved getting the sack.”

  “He didn’t get the sack for that. He got it for finding the door of the spirit store open and getting drunk inside. Leastways, that’s what Jim told me.”

  “Where’s his home, d’you know?” asked Bony.

  “He! He! He’s at home when he’s got his hat on. Never had no home. Got a sister living at Hamilton, but he never writ to her, never went to see her for years. Sound man, Ted was. Nothin’ flash about him. Always done his work. He_____” The tears rolled down into the whiskers. “He never come to say good-bye to me. They musta told him a lot of lies about me. Or they wouldn’t let him come and say good-bye, knowing I’d kick up hell’s delight.”

  “Did they tell you how he left, who took him to Dunkeld?”

  “He went away like he come here three years afore,” answered the invalid. “On his two feet, that’s how he went away. Rolled up his swag and got—like I would if only I could get meself outa this ruddy chair.”

  “Tell me_____” Bony began, when music swelled swiftly into ponderous volume, died away, came in again strong and clear. Bony at first thought it was the radio. Someone within was playing an organ, and not a cheap instrument, but one having an extraordinary range. The old man became still, appeared to shrink lower into his chai
r. The music continued. The organist was a master.

  “Who is playing?” Bony asked.

  The old man raised a snaking hand and with the back of it brushed away tears from eyes which appeared to be ever ready to shed them.

  “Jim,” he said. “That organ cost a thousand pounds. Benson give it to him years ago. He got it all the way from Germany. He got two. It was afore the war.”

  They lapsed into an appreciative silence, and presently Bony said:

  “Your son can certainly play.”

  The old man brightened and tittered.

  “Jim could always play something or other. His mother bought him a mouth-organ when he was a nipper, and one day when the present Benson’s father was here he heard Jim playing it. So what did he do? I’ll tell you. The next time his own son went off to college in Melbourne, he sent Jim with him. They was at college for years. When Jim left college he could play a piano. His mother got me to buy one. Jim could play wonnerful, and sing, too. Sing proper. Then this Benson got him the organ, and they imported a man from the city to show him how to play it. Oh, drat ’em!”

  Ferris Simpson appeared.

  “Don’t forget to sneak me in a drink,” whispered the old man.

  “They’d hear me,” Bony countered.

  “No fear. They all camp at the back. Only me and you is in front. Well, what d’you want, Ferris? Can’t you leave me be when Mr. Parkes is talking to me friendly-like?”

  She came and looked down upon the invalid, and from him to Bony.

  “It’s seven o’clock, Father,” she said with peculiar woodenness. “You know that Jim insists that you go to bed at seven. Now don’t be difficult. Go along quietly.”

  She passed to the back of the wheel-chair and so failed to see her father wink at Bony and slide the tip of his tongue to and fro across his mouth. He began to voice objections as he was taken round the angle of the veranda to his room. His voice drifted into the organ notes, was defeated, leaving Bony to resume his chair and give himself to Jim Simpson’s playing.

  It was dark when Simpson stopped, and a moment later he joined Bony, slipping into a chair and lighting a cigarette. Bony said:

  “You play remarkably well.”

  “Only thing I really like doing. Do you play anything?”

  “I can get a tune out of a gum leaf,” admitted Bony. “You’ve a fine organ.”

  “Yes. A modern German instrument. They can’t be beaten in that line.” The glow of the cigarette being smoked overrapidly now and then illuminated the man’s face. “I’d take a cinema job in the city were it not for the old people. Can’t leave them, and they won’t stand uprooting. Have you dependants?”

  “A wife and three boys,” replied Bony truthfully.

  “I was born here, but I’m hoping I won’t die here. How long have you lived on your property?”

  “Took it over in NVPM.”

  “Never been up into New South Wales. Have promised myself a good round trip when petrol’s easier. You must do all right for juice.”

  “I have had to do a lot of wangling,” Bony explained, adding with a soft laugh: “One has to wangle all the time these days. I’ve made a bit of money these last three seasons, but what’s the use? I want to build myself a new homestead but can’t get the materials. I want a new car, and I’ve got cash to splash on one, but I have to wait my turn. You were lucky to get your Buick.”

  “Matter of fact, I was,” Simpson agreed. “Benson—he’s the near-by Station owner—put in for a Buick two years ago, and then when he got it he decided to wait for a new Rolls, and so he sold the Buick to me—on good terms, of course. What kind of sheep do you run?”

  “Corriedale origin,” Bony replied without hesitation. “I introduced the McDonald strain to give extra wool length. Know anything about sheep?”

  “Next to nothing. We get a few ration sheep from the Bensons now and then.”

  “How many do they run?”

  “Very few compared with your flocks. The yardman was talking about your place. The sheep and the acreage seemed to astonish him. The Bensons, of course, own the Grampians strain.”

  “They breed the Grampians, do they!” Bony chuckled. “A fellow would have to be a millionaire to buy their rams. How big is their place?”

  “Thirty thousand acres, and only half of that any good. Still, what country is good, is good.” Simpson paused to light another cigarette. “The Bensons don’t encourage visitors. Can’t blame them, of course. They have to keep their breeding secrets. How far out of Balranald is your place?”

  “From Balranald Post Office to my homestead it’s eighteen miles. As I was telling the yardman, it’s billiard-table flat compared with this place. Pardon me for gossiping about you to myself. Are you the Simpson who figured in searching for two lost girls?”

  “That’s so.” Simpson eased himself in his chair and tossed the cigarette end over the rail. “They stayed here, and after they left to walk on to Lake George no one ever saw them again.”

  “Terrible country to be lost in,” Bony asserted.

  “You’re saying the truth, John. Terrible country to find anything in too. Trick anyone not used to getting around in it. There’s a gully west of here by a mile that’s at least a mile deep. Goes down straight. Could never understand why they left the road.

  “Looks like bad tracking country too.”

  “’Tis so. Large patches of it covered with shingle, and larger patches that spongy they wouldn’t retain an elephant’s tracks beyond a couple of hours. Care about a drink?”

  As Bony followed his host along the passage to the small lounge he decided that the information he had gained had little if any importance. He was, however, receiving the impression that Simpson was slightly on guard and more than a little interested in his guest. Simpson unlocked the “cupboard”, a small room off the lounge permitted to stock liquors for bona-fide guests when the public bar had to be closed. A narrow ledge dropped into place across the doorway, and the men stood on either side and drank.

  “My sister and I, and the men from Baden Park, rode all over the scenery,” Simpson continued. “Never found a track or a sign of them. We think one of them must have slipped over into that gully I mentioned, and the other fell over when trying to locate her. No getting down there. Now don’t you go getting lost.”

  “I don’t think I would,” Bony said casually. “And I don’t think I’ll risk it. Fill them up, and I’ll go to bed.”

  In the Official Summary and in the statements signed by Simpson and others there had been no mention of that gully “more than a mile deep”.

  Chapter Six

  The Watchers

  A WEEK at Baden Park Hotel produced little of concrete evidence concerning the fate of the two girl hikers, but much of psychological interest for a man adept in withdrawing himself to watch people on the stage of life.

  Superficially the Simpsons comprised an ordinary hardworking family of not unusual beginnings. The old people had adventured, built a home, established themselves in a secure living, reared their children. The passing years had weakened them and strengthened the remaining son until they had become mere ghosts of the past.

  The ghosts might whimper and whisper with, however, as much effect on James Simpson as the rain upon the granite face of the mountains. It availed old Simpson nothing to rebel against physical incapacity. His wife glanced over her shoulder at the guests who had come to paint the mountains and to study the botanical marvels and she looked with disfavour at the moderns who arrived in fast cars with fast women to drink as fast as possible.

  Ferris was also a rebel, but she had nothing of the old man’s fire and the old woman’s patience. She hated the mountains and the people who came to carouse, but she was a prisoner of loyalty to her parents, who would have suffocated in a city’s suburbs. That her brother was also a prisoner, Bony suspected, but failed to understand what captivated him. In consequence, James Simpson provided most of the interest.

  Doubtles
s, he drank far too much when the hotel was full of his “flash guests”, as described by the old man, but throughout the period of Bony’s visit he drank with moderation. He was informed on current subjects, was passionately fond of music, was seldom careless in speech, and was self-controlled. What caused Bony to speculate was why such an isolated place as Baden Park Hotel could hold such a man?

  There were moments when Bony had seen Simpson regarding him with cold calculation. There were moments when an icy barrier had been raised to thwart questions possibly thought to be too probing. The man was completely confident in himself. Proof of his vanity was forthcoming during the visit of a man and his wife lasting from late one afternoon until the following morning. The presence of a young and good-looking woman produced in Simpson unsuspected fires which went unnoticed by the husband. The observant Bony saw the threat to the woman and knew that was the reason for her desire to leave. She felt the sex menace in Simpson and feared it.

  Like almost every vain man, Simpson was a liar. He had said that his theory of the vanishment of the two hikers was that they had fallen into a gully at least a mile deep and located a mile westward of the hotel. According to his father, there was no such gully, and Bony had checked that by exploring the country.

  In his unobtrusive manner he had done much exploring, the objective being the re-creating of an event which took place five months previously. And by observation as well as the spoken word, he was sure that both Simpson and Glen Shannon were extremely interested in his activities.

  It was now the fifteenth day of March, and on October twenty-second last two young women had left the hotel to walk the track to the Lake George guest-house. It was not likely that they had not left the hotel that morning, because Ferris Simpson had stated they had done so. Together with her brother, she had watched them until the bend in the track had taken them to itself. Simpson’s statement, unsupported by his sister, could have been regarded with doubt.