Bony - 19 - Cake in a Hat Box Read online

  “Good! I wish you would.”

  Bob walked beyond a small gathering of aborigines waiting to watch the departure of the visitors. Bony again squatted and studied the ground map. The party about the utility was engaged with Constable Irwin, who was not unobservant. Ten minutes passed, and young Lang returned.

  “The mulga wire is still a mystery to me, Inspector. Could never find out how it’s worked. The magic man must be a hundred and he’s blind and can’t walk. He says that Jacky Musgrave was turned into a horse. Sounds like a fairy-tale, but it’s all I could get out of him.”

  There was no derision in Bob Lang’s steady eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  Progress Reports

  THE POLICE OFFICE at Agar’s Lagoon was a depressing place. The walls cried for paint, and the several maps, calendars and pictures of criminals wanted by the police of other States failed to relieve their drab monotony. The large deal table was almost covered with files and record books, and the safe in the corner looked like rusty junk.

  Bony had just come in from the hotel, where he had eaten a late dinner, and now, with a pile of his extraordinary cigarettes and matches on a sheaf of documents weighted with ribbon stone, he was prepared to outline his investigation to the man who had need to be a greater administrator than a detective. “It was as well that I went down to the Langs’,” he said.

  “Going to be difficult … this case?” asked Walters, who, as always, sat stiffly erect. Bony smiled and his eyes beamed, and Walters knew how his question was answered.

  “The facts from the evidence are these, Walters. We know that Stenhouse left here with his tracker on the afternoon of August 12th. That night he stayed with the Cumminses at Red Creek. So far, it accords with the diary. The next day, August 13th, according to the diary, he left Red Creek, called on the Langs, and stayed the night at Richard’s Well homestead … which is a false statement. On leaving the Cumminses, he cer­tainly headed for Leroy Downs, but when about ten miles from there, he left the road and returned over the ranges by an old donkey track used by Lang in the early days. We went in on that old track from this side, and found where he and the tracker had camped. I saw the imprints of Stenhouse’s boots, and having made imprints of the boots before I left, I cannot be mistaken.

  “It’s probable that Stenhouse waited until dark on August 13th before coming on to join the road just outside Agar’s Lagoon. We can be sure that on August 14th he was some­where on the Wyndham track.”

  “He didn’t return here that night,” growled Walters. “I’ve questioned everyone here, and no one saw him after he left on the 12th.”

  “It does seem that that false entry in the diary could mean one of two things,” Bony continued. “Stenhouse left Agar’s Lagoon with the intention of deceiving everyone concerning an investigation in the opposite direction. Or he could have done what he did to cover some skulduggery of his own. I think the latter. When he left Agar’s he made that report to you about the assault on the aborigine at Leroy Downs an excuse to serve his private ends.”

  “Looks like it,” agreed Walters. “No need to make false state­ments in his diary if he doubled back over that old track on official business. I’ve been through his records and I found nothing even hinting at an investigation north of Agar’s. His papers here contain a copy of the telegram stating his intention to make the patrol down to Leroy Downs to inquire into that assault case. You going north tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Can you spare Irwin?”

  “As long as you want him. Pick up anything on the tracker, Jacky Musgrave?”

  “Nothing of importance. He was pretty thick with Sten­house, and every report on him is adverse to the theory that he shot Stenhouse. Stenhouse bought him for two plugs of tobacco from the chief of his tribe, one called Pluto, and transformed him from a skinny, semi-starved desert rat to a fat, prosperous and important personage. Know anything about this Pluto?”

  “Only from Stenhouse’s reports,” replied Walters. “Pluto’s Mob is the name given to the Musgrave people. Cattlemen along the southern fringe of the Kimberley Ranges have suffered periodical attacks on their cattle, but since Stenhouse made a patrol to the Musgrave Ranges, the trouble ceased. I’ve had the idea for some time that Stenhouse adopted unorthodox methods to stop the trouble from that quarter. Effectively, but not to be officially countenanced. Anyway, he achieved results. Someone told me that the only white man other than Stenhouse ever to have seen Pluto is the yardman at the hotel here. What’s on your mind?”

  “Might be more trouble now that Stenhouse is dead, and his tracker turned into a horse.”

  Inspector Walters frowned. There are moments when facetiousness isn’t permissible.

  “I understand that Mrs Stenhouse was one of the Wallaces who live some fifteen miles eastward of the Wyndham track,” Bony said. “Stenhouse treated her badly.”

  “She died three years ago, not three weeks.”

  “Time sometimes increases the desire for revenge. Oppor­tunity accounts for more revenge killings than planned action. Anyway, I’ll look these Wallaces over. Is there anything in Stenhouse’s records concerning the movement of cattle to a market point?”

  “Yes. I’ll dig it up.”

  Bony studied the file. Walters fell silent.

  “The only stations having cattle on the hoof along the Wynd­ham road on or about August 12th were the Breens, the Mastertons, the Alverys and the Lockeys,” Bony said. “The Breens must have got away late, for they were supposed to have left with four hundred head on August 7th.”

  He rose and crossed to the wall map, which he studied for several minutes.

  “It is lawful for stockmen to carry arms, I assume?”

  “Up here, yes, but not in a settlement. Parts of these Kim­berleys have never yet been explored, and there’s plenty of places where runaway cattle can breed. Sometimes a cattle muster will net wild cattle, and the bulls are dangerous, and often of no use as beef. Carrying arms, however, is now more the result of custom than utility. Come down from the days when the blacks up here were savage.”

  Bony lit yet another cigarette from his dwindling pile. He was dissatisfied with progress and Walters guessed it.

  “All Stenhouse’s private effects are on the bench behind you,” Walters said casually. “Next of kin lives at Elmore, Queens­land, There’s a bank-book showing a credit of close to five hundred pounds. Straight enough. There is, however, a state­ment issued by another bank, terminating on June 30th of this year. The statement is under the name of George Marshall. There’s no cheque amounts debited, and there’s one credit only noted … an amount of seven hundred and fifty pounds, paid in cash. The date of the credit coincides with a leave period taken by Stenhouse down in Perth. That bank is bound to have George Marshall’s signature, and I’ll have the handwriting compared with Stenhouse’s first. If it’s his account, it would be interesting to know where that seven hundred and fifty cash came from.”

  “His wife’s estate?” probed Bony.

  “She left nothing but bits and pieces of jewellery. It’s all in that trunk. His gold wrist-watch; a pair of opal cuff-links and an opal tie-pin I’d like to own are there, too.”

  “Opal!” murmured Bony, with the merest shade of interest. “What colour?”

  “Black. First I’ve ever seen. Come from Lightning Ridge, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s the only place, I think, where black opal is mined.”

  Bony crossed to the bench and opened the old-fashioned tin trunk. He brought back a cigar-box and lifted out two gold watches.

  “Lady’s watch as well as his own, eh? Must have belonged to his wife. Her rings, too, and a pearl necklace. Strange that a man who treated his wife so badly should have retained her jewellery. Here’s a locket with a picture of him. Given her, perhaps, when they were sweethearts.”

  Bony put aside the watches and the locket and necklace, and for half a minute regarded them dreamily. Inspector Walters was silent. He was feeling a tri
fle sentimental. … From a small case Bony lifted the cuff-links, twin opals set in gold. It was doubtful that they had ever been worn. Audibly, Bony sighed with envy, put them back and snapped shut the box. He re­garded for a longer period the truly magnificent tie-pin. Deep in the dark cloud scintillated a sea of emerald, and when he moved the gem lying on the palm of his hand, crimson fire swept across that emerald sea.

  “Like you, Walters, I’d like to own a pin like that,” he said. “Any idea of its value?”

  “No. Might be worth fifty pounds.”

  “More. Twice that. Just look at it! Ah, Walters, what I could do with a million pounds … opals, jade, alabaster, pearls. You can keep all the diamonds.”

  “A million pounds!” soberly echoed Walters. “I don’t want a million pounds. Too much worry spending it, and more worry keeping it. Fifty quid a week for life would do me.”

  Reverently, Bony placed the tie-pin on its bed of black satin, noting that the jeweller’s name on the under lid had, on both boxes, been scratched off. The watches no longer interested him, although he did estimate their current value at about thirty pounds each. Walters watched him putting the items back into the cigar-box, said nothing, watched him replace the box in the tin trunk. On returning to the table, Bony asked was there a metropolitan telephone directory available.

  “Nothing like that here,” answered Walters. “What the devil use would it be?”

  “Might find Pluto’s name and address and number. Could ring him and ask for the name and occupation of the gent who turned Jacky Musgrave into a horse.”

  Walters exploded:

  “Damn Jacky Musgrave turned into a horse or a cow or a turtle. What’s chewing your shirt-tail? Come on … tell.”

  “Just my sense of humour. I’m going to have a drink and go to bed. Coming?”

  “Yes, too damn right I am. Going back to Broome by plane tomorrow, and then you can have this Stenhouse case all to your little self. You’re the most aggravating blighter I know, Bony. Telephone directories! Aborigines turned into horses! A million pounds to buy bits of coloured rock! I wouldn’t be your boss for a shipload of Scotch.”

  Bony smiled, and the smile became chuckling laughter. Walters stamped after him to the door, and while waiting for him to lock the building, Bony said:

  “My boss knows my methods, Watson!”

  Chapter Nine

  Wages of Affability

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK the next morning, when Irwin left Agar’s Lagoon to take Inspector Walters to the aerodrome, the inhabitants were engaged in routine chores. Having given Walters the assurance that the Stenhouse case would be duly completed, Bony lounged on the hotel veranda and smoked his third after-breakfast cigarette.

  The bar was open but no one was drinking. Ted Ramsay, the licensee, was in the back yard on routine business. ’Un had hitched four town donkeys to a cart and was loading the empties to be taken to the bottle ring. The storekeeper was sweeping the stones at the front of his shop, and children were milking goats wherever they could be caught.

  There was nothing unusual about the weather. The sun shone warmly from the cloud-free sky, and the dust continued to hang in golden veils above the track taken by Irwin’s utility. The hens scratched in the road dust, and down on the bed of the creek several aborigines were encamped beside a log from which rose blue smoke.

  All was normal and quiet excepting within the hotel kitchen, and when Bony entered he found Mrs Ramsay in a rage, and the girl who waited at table and ‘did’ the rooms on the verge of tears, and being ordered to ‘clear out’. With Mrs Ramsay all was wrong and nothing right, and on being blandly invited to disclose her trouble, she complained that her husband was racing to the grave, the cook was a dirty old soak, the maid was a lazy bitch, and the damned pub simply wouldn’t catch fire and burn them all out.

  “He’s a good cook, I’ll say that for ’im, Inspector,” vouch­safed Mrs Ramsay, who was washing the breakfast dishes. “But I gotta watch ’im else he smokes while he cooks and dribbles into things. It’s that husband of mine that’s the trouble. Not satisfied with getting ’imself drunk, he has to get the cook soaked with him. And now they’re both in the back yard doing their morning vomiting act together, and I had to cook the breakfast, and see that Inspector Walters gets off with a good impression of the place. An’ the only real help given is by old ’Un. If I had married ’im now …”

  “We often regret we did not do otherwise when that very otherwise would have done for us,” Bony quoted, and took up a drying-cloth.

  “ ’Un do me in? Not a hope. I can deal with ’im with one ’and,” declared Mrs Ramsay, and then permitted astonishment to sweep from her angry soul all that cluttered in this fine morning. “Why, Inspector! You can’t dry these things.”

  “Why not? I won’t drop them,” Bony said. “I have to wait for Constable Irwin to return from the ’drome, and how better could the time be employed? Besides, Mrs Ramsey, I have to butter you before asking a favour.”

  “Ho, is that it?” cried Mrs Ramsay, and wiped her button of a nose with the length of her enormous forearm. “Policemen, publicans, rich cattlemen and stiffs off the track, you men are all the same. Put ’em on the table and I’ll sort ’em out. The dishes, I mean. Bet you’re married, any’ow. I can tell. Well, go on, Inspector. What are you angling for? Not me, I’ll warrant.”

  “First a happy smile.” Sniff. Easy laughter. “That’s better. Irwin and I have to go out again, and we may be away for several days. If you could let us have bread and cooked meat …”

  “Is that all? Of course, Mr Bonaparte. What time will you be leaving?”

  “Shortly after nine, I hope. You might keep our rooms for us for the time being.”

  “I will. Keep ’em locked, too.” Mrs Ramsay having completed the washing of the utensils and sponged out the sink, wiped her hands on her apron. Bony proceeded with the drying, and she would have taken the cloth from him. “But I can finish up,” she objected.

  “I’ll manage while you get the bread and meat. … How long have you been living here?”

  “Too long. Eighteen years too long. Me and Ted have been in this pub five years. We was prospectin’ before then. Found the Shootin’ Star and made enough out of it to buy in here.”

  “You would know everyone in this country, then.”

  “Every man, woman, child and goat,” replied Mrs Ramsay, bringing cooked beef from the out-size refrigerator. “People’s all right. Work hard. Live hard. Not too many bad eggs. What about those fresh chops for grilling?”

  “They look good. Thank you.”

  “Better take a pound or so of butter, and I’ll get you a piece of bacon you can cut into when you want. Which way you going?”

  “North,” Bony replied, placing the cutlery into the sections of a large shallow tray. “How did you get along with Constable Stenhouse?”

  The face which was pleasant when happy became grim.

  “Right enough,” she said. “He had his meals here … after his wife died. Never talked much to no one. Never got over that … ’er dying like she did. I seen ’em married. Pair of sweet’earts they was then. Don’t know what got into ’im. Wasn’t the booze, ’cos he didn’t drink.” Mrs Ramsay was wrapping a huge slab of fruit cake within a newspaper, and Bony was confident that his dish-drying was paying handsome dividends. “Yes, just like sweet’earts they was once. And then one night he came for me to go over to the station, and Doctor Morley was there.

  “Mind you, I don’t think they would’ve saved her even if they could’ve flown her to Derby. It was December, and the floods. Worst ‘wet’ we’d had in years. Three planes bogged and not a hope of another coming. Me and Doc Morley bided by her for four days and nights, but she went out. I reckon if it hadn’t been for Doc Morley Constable Stenhouse would have found ’imself in serious trouble. Fine old bloke, Doc Morley, ain’t he?”

  Bony agreed.

  “Poor old Mr Wallace. … You be seeing him?”

  “Mos
t likely.”

  “The shock of it give ’im the stroke. Never been the same since. Broke ’im up completely. ’Er too. Poor soul. Well, we all ’as our troubles. Some more than others. If you are meanin’ to call on them, don’t forget to take their mail. I’ll leave the tucker on the bench and you can fetch it when Mr Irwin’s back.”

  “Thank you very much,” Bony beamed. “A little buttered, eh?”

  “Go along with you, Mr Bonaparte,” Mrs Ramsay giggled. “Let me ’ave me dreams.”

  Bony walked through the building to the front, the air cool and the light poor in this part which was first to be built when materials were confined to mud and stone and roofing-iron at astounding cost. On the way to the post office, he met ’Un and his donkeys returning from the bottle ring, and im­mediately he stopped to speak to the yardman, the donkeys stopped too.

  “Where was your Queen Vic Mine?” asked Bony.

  “Where? ’Way over east. Nine mile out,” replied ’Un, the memory of it seemingly causing the automatic action of twirl­ing the points of the upturned grey moustache. “She was a great show.”

  “Did you ever prospect the ranges to southward?”

  “Yes. Me and Paddy spent about eighteen months in them ranges. Never did no good. Picked up a floater or two but couldn’t locate the reefs. Plenty gold there waiting for someone to get on to it.”

  “Anyone have any luck?” asked Bony, leaning on the near­side leader of the team.

  “Yes. Coupler blokes found half-ounce stuff, but the cost of getting it out to a stamper killed it. Parties still doing a bit of dry-blowing, you know.”

  “H’m! They tell me that Mr Lang, of Leroy Downs, used to drive a donkey team across there. You know that track?”

  ’Un chuckled, and the donkey against which Bony was leaning nearly fell down in its sleep.

  “Every yard of it. Wouldn’t be no track now, of course. All you’d see would be flat marks rounding the slopes. Good bush-man, old man Lang. Had to be to get across them hills.”