Winds of Evil b-5 Page 7

  “So you see, Lee, that no reasonable man could expect Sergeant Simone to succeed. But reasonable men will expect success of me. Who is the oldest resident in this district?”

  “Old Grandfer Littlejohn, I think,” Lee replied, starting.

  “What is the condition of his memory?”

  “Poor-when he wants it to be. He’s a gossip. Anything you say to him will be retailed to Mrs. Nelson. He is her secret service.”

  “Oh! Who is the next longest resident here?”

  “Dogger Smith, now working on Wirragatta. He has the body of a giant and the vigour of a man of fifty, but the majority of the guessers put his age at ninety. Been here for more years than I’ve lived. He is never going to die. He’d interest even you with his yarns of the old times. You interested in the old days?”

  “The old days of Carie, yes. Very much so. This Dr. Mulray-what type of man is he?”

  “He is a pendulum.”

  “A what?” asked the astonished Bony, and Lee grinned.

  “He’s a pendulum. I was looking into a dictionary some time ago to find out what ‘pensile’ meant, when I came across the word ‘pendulum’, which describes Dr. Mulray. He has pendulous eyelids, pendulous cheeks, a pendulous lower lip and a pendulous stomach. Age, about sixty. Height, about five feet nine inches. Circumference at greatest part about four feet. If you can play chess, he’ll do anything for you, give you anything. I don’t play chess.”

  Bony broke into low laughter, saying:

  “You know, Lee, I think I like you. Do you remember what the word ‘pensile’ means?”

  “Yes. When a man’s suspended at the end of a rope he’s pensile.”

  Bony stood up.

  “I thought so,” he murmured, “but I was not sure. Now I’m off.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Broken Hill Road

  TO BE APPRECIATED, beauty must be felt as well as seen.

  To those having the eyes to see and the soul to feel, the great plains of inland Australia present countless facets of beauty: these same plains offer to the man with good eyesight, but a shrivelled soul, nothing other than arid desert.

  This early November morning the bush presented to one man at least all its vivid colours, all its allure, to stir his imagination as well as his pulses, to delight his mind as well as to subjugate consciousness of his body. Doing all this, the bush was, indeed, beautiful, for beauty only has the power thus to raise man out of himself.

  It was ten minutes to eight when Bony reached the Broken Hill road and the scene of his labours. To the south of him ranged the trees bordering Nogga Creek, the soft breeze tipping each slender leaf with gold, the mass of them supporting the softly azure sky beyond. To the west and east the bluebush merged into a dove-grey carpet, a carpet which stretched away to the foot of the town in the north and rolled by and beyond those significant sand-dunes, which were not there when Mrs. Nelson was a girl.

  Bright against the skylay the red-painted roof of Nelson’s Hotel, and, so clear was this crystal air, Bony could actually see the corrugations of that roof. In contrast to its colour the unpainted roof of Smith’s Bakery shimmered like faint blue water. Men and cows and goats of Lilliputian size moved about Carie’s one street, for the sun was not yet hot enough to create the mirage. There appeared to be a void, not atmosphere, between all those distant objects and the retina of Bony’s eyes. It seemed to him, this brilliant morning, as though he had returned from a long sojourn in a dim cavern. This bright world was painted lavishly with blue, green, soft grey, red, yellow and black, colours mixed andlaid on in the grand, the majestic manner as only the Master Hand can do it. Eden could not possibly have been more beautiful.

  Beyond Nogga Creek came the growing hum of a powerful car. Bony’s ears informed him when it was negotiating the far bank of the creek, when it was crossing the wide bed of the creek, when it was mounting the sharp incline before bursting into the sunlight to send to him-and to Mrs. Nelson on her veranda-reflected bars of brightness from its chromium fittings.

  It was a big car having especially wide rear seats, driven by a cigarette-smoking youth who wore his cloth cap back to front. Beside him were three passengers. The youth waved a lordly hand, and one of the passengers shouted something as the machine sped by the watching detective like the iron point of a spear fashioned with the red dust raised by it. And in the dust laboured the ghost of a Cobb and Co.’s coach drawn by five straining horses and driven by a wide-brimmed felt-hattedman who wielded a long, snaking whip.

  An hour later there emerged from the Nogga Creek trees the figure of a man astride a piebald horse. Tiny spurts of dust rose from the animal’s hoofs to blur the legs from the knees down. The rider sat his saddle bolt upright. Methodically his switch rose from and fell upon the horse’s right rump, but the horse took no notice of either it or the full voice continually commanding it to:

  “Come on, Jenny!”

  It was evident to the observant Bony that Jenny long since had decided upon the speed at which she should “come on”. Or perhaps it might be that the rider long since had resigned himself to the speed at which Jenny was capable of coming on. Whatever the fact, the horse approached Bony at a steady three miles an hour, and then, without command, when it was opposite the detective, she abruptly stopped and fell asleep.

  From beneath pendulous brows a pair of steady grey eyes regarded Bony. Pendulous cheeks were extended as though their owner was winded. The pendulous stomach almost rested on the saddle pommel.

  As though the distance separating him from the man at the fence was a full half-mile, the horseman said, “Good day there! Who the devil are you? I’ve never seenyou before.”

  It seemed that for this horseman not to have seen any one before was to be affronted. The switch rose and fell, and the horse again was commanded to “come on”. She therefore awoke and staggered off the road to bring her master beside the fence, and then again fall asleep.

  “Good morning, doctor!” Bony said politely. “You are out early today.”

  “Early! Early be cursed! Why, it’s after nine.” The pendulous cheeks became fully distended as though the accusation had the effect of physical exertion. “Early! Why, I’ve been abroad these three hours. Who areyou?”

  There spoke the man long used to being obeyed and never become used to the expectation of being obeyed.

  “My name is Fisher, doctor. Joe Fisher,” replied Bony gravely. “I am a stranger here. That is possibly why you have not seen me before.”

  “Then how the devil do you know who I am?”

  “I have heard your description, doctor.”

  “Ah… my description, eh?”

  “Yes. You were described to me as a fine figure of a man who rode a piebald mare.”

  Now were the pendulous cheeks distendedtwice. The voice became a roar.

  “I’ll have no word said against my Jenny. She has carried me in foul weather and finethis fourteen years, and she’s not going to lie down and die until I do. No, sir! She is the best horse in western New South Wales, and I’ll lay this switch across the shoulders of the man who argues the point. So you’re Joseph Fisher, eh? You were camped at Catfish Hole the night Mabel Storrie was nigh strangled to death. Did you do it?”

  “Doctor…please!”

  “Well, someone did, and it could have been you as well as another. However, youlook honest enough.”

  “How is Miss Storrie this morning?”

  “She’s recovering, poor child. She received a cruel blow to her forehead, and she’ll want time, and lots of it, to mend.”

  “Has she regained consciousness?”

  “She has lucid periods. I fear the effects of the blow, as well as the effects of the strangulation, much less than the effects of the shock given her mind.”

  “The shock to her mind must have been indeed terrible. Has she been able to describe her assailant?”

  “No. She didn’t see the blackguard. He came up behind her. He joined his fingers across her
throat and pressed the balls of his thumbs into the back of her neck. I tell you it’s damnable. Here am I paying taxes-here we all are paying taxes on everything we eat and drink and put on our weary backs in order to support a lot of useless world-touring politicians who won’t give us real detectives to bring a common garrotter to book. We bush folk are no one’s concern, and when we want policemen with brains they send us Sergeant Simone. Oh, a great man is Sergeant Simone. He’ll look at you and swear you are the murderer just because he doesn’t like the way you part your hair. Tish ! He can rant and rave and threaten and look wise, but he’s got a brain no bigger than a rabbit’s. He tells me he can play chess, and when I invite him to my board he-The man’s an ass.”

  “So you play chess, doctor?”

  “Of course I play it. If I had my way I’d make every policemanplay chess for six solid months, with time off only to eat and sleep. Then we would have real detectives sent us when we need ’em. I suppose you don’t play?”

  “Yes, I play a medium game.”

  “Ah! So you play, eh?”

  Again the cheeks were fully distended. Then the irate manner slowly waned, vanished, was replaced by one of hail-fellow-well-met.

  “If that is so, I hope to have the pleasure of your visit to my house. You will find me at home nearly any night. And, sir, at your service. Might I expect you tonight?”

  “You are exceedingly kind, doctor. I will be delighted,” Bony assented.

  “No more delighted than I, but heaven help you if you cannot play better than that wretched Sergeant Simone, for then, should I ever get my hands on you professionally, I’ll make you wish you were never born. And don’t laugh. Men meet doctors as unexpectedly as they meet death. Good day to you, Joe. Come on, Jenny!”

  Jenny opened her eyes and “came on”, leaving the smiling Bony gazing after her and her master and in his ears the dwindling command to “Come on, Jenny!”

  From the hip-pocket of his drill trousers, Bony extracted the list of names provided by Constable Lee. He felt he was doing a rash thing, but he deliberately crossed off the name of Dr. Mulray.

  Towards eleven o’clock he saw, glittering in the sunlight, a smart single-seater car speeding from Wirragatta along the creek to the boundary gate. He was too far distant to reach the gate in time to open it for the woman driver who was obliged to descend, open the gate, run the car through to the Broken Hill road, and then descend again to close it. The car was turned south, and after it had disappeared among the creek trees Bony decided that its driver was Stella Borradale. And then, when a few minutes later the hum of its engine ceased, he guessed that Stella was visiting theStorries.

  He had taken his lunch and billy to the trees, there to obtain wood with which to boil the water he used from the canvas bag, when he heard the car returning. Thus it was that, again reaching the gate, Stella found Bony waiting and holding it open for her passage. Having driven the car through the gateway, Stellabraked it to a stop and waited for the detective, who presently appeared hatless beside her.

  Waiting for her to speak first, he watched her eyes lose their expression of haughty good humour. Absolutely without snobbery as she was, Stella naturally was conscious of inherited superiority over this coloured man, but as her swift gaze moved about his well-chiselled features, finally to become levelled at his blue eyes which were regarding her respectfully she received a queer little shock.

  Not till long afterwards did she recognize just what she was now seeing in the depths of his blue eyes. In that first moment of meeting Napoleon Bonaparte, she recognized a mind superior to that of any half-caste she ever had known. She was pleased to think that the new hand did not see the effect, and therefore did not know the cause of the shock. After all, was she not the part-owner of a principality, and was he not a half-caste station-hand?

  “Are you Joseph Fisher?”

  “Yes, madam, I am he. I regret that I was too distant to open the gate when you came from the homestead.”

  Without looking away from him, Stella groped about the seat of the car, found her vanity bag and took from it her cigarette-case.

  “Where do you come from?” she asked while her fingers blindly removed a cigarette from the case. The question was one she felt she had a right to ask, but immediately she had put it she felt it to bean impertinence, and no longer could she encounter Bony’s eyes. She was becoming angry with herself, not at having asked the question of a half-caste, but for asking it of this man whose clear blue eyes regarded her so gravely. With a quick movement, she thrust the cigarette between her lips-and then found a burning match held in service.

  “I am a native of Queensland,” stated Bony, now smiling. “At the beginning of things for me I was found beside my dead mother in the shade cast by a sandalwood-tree. I was taken to a mission station where I was reared by the matron-the finest woman who ever lived.”

  Stella now was looking at Bony with a singular expression, an expression which at once troubled him because he could not define its cause.

  “You speak well,” she told him. “You must have received a fair education.”

  “Yes. I worked my way up through-Yes, I had quite a good education.”

  “Indeed! And your name is Joseph Fisher?”

  Bony bowed the lie. And then Stella Borradale laughed.

  “But why have you come all this way to work? This is a long way from, say Banyo, which I am told is on the railway between Brisbane and Sandgate?”

  She saw now the blue eyes blink, and at once was assured of his identity.

  “Banyo!” he repeated. “Did you say Banyo, Miss Borradale?”

  “I did. You know, Joe, I don’t like your alias at all. It is not nearlyso nice as your real name, Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte.”

  Defeated, found out, Bony chuckled.

  “The victory is to you, Miss Borradale,” he said quickly. “Now please tell me how you guessed.”

  “By putting two under two and adding them. My brother has long been expecting a mysterious visitor. Then you arrived. Then he and Constable Lee and you held long conference in the study. Those two points make number two. When you said you came from Brisbane and mentioned the sandalwood-tree and the matron of the mission, you gave me the second number two. When I added them up to make four I at once recalled what my dear friend, Mrs Trench, of Windee, told me about Detective-Inspector Bonaparte.* I should have known you were no ordinary bush worker three seconds after I saw you just now. Being so facile at inductive reasoning, I’m sure I must be right in saying that you are here to investigate two horrible murders and a very near-murder.” * The story is told inThe Sands of Windee.

  “Now that you know, may I depend on your co-operation?”

  “Most certainly. Anything I can do I will do gladly.”

  “The only people who know my real name and vocation are your brother and Lee. I chose to adopt an alias and work as a station-hand through no urge to be melodramatic. My task is to find a monster hidden among a community of normal people, and as a station-hand success will be less difficult to attain. It is really essential that no one other than your brother and the constable, and now you, should know me for a detective.”

  “I will not so much as breathe it,” Stella affirmed earnestly.

  “To no one?”

  “To no one. You may depend on me. Having heard such wonderful stories of you from Mrs. Trench and Dash Trench, the gloom cast by this strangling beast seems already lighter. Do you think you will find him?”

  “Naturally. I never fail.”

  “And may I-in private, of course-call you Bony, as Mrs. Trench does?”

  “Assuredly. I shall insist on it.”

  To them the hum of a car came from Carie way. Turning, Bony saw it at the Common gate.

  “This,” he said, “may be Sergeant Simone. He arrived last night.”

  “Oh!” the grey eyes narrowed and the keen blue eyes did not fail to notice it. “Then I will get along, Bony. Sergeant Simone disapproves of women smoking
cigarettes, and I am not going to throw away a half-smoked one. I think it such a pity that Sergeant Simone always arrives here after one of these terrible crimes and never before one is committed.”

  “Might I ask why?” inquired Bony.

  “Because then Sergeant Simone might be the victim. Aurevoir. I’ll keep my mouth shut about it, never fear, And please, please tell me from time to time how you are getting on.”

  For a moment the detective thrilled at her laughing face, and as he looked after the car and its rising dust he remembered the list of names in his possession. Stella Borradale’s name was down on that list. It was absurd to have it there, but then the name of Mrs. Nelson was there, too. He crossed to rebuild the fire for the tea making, and he was busy with it when the car from Carie pulled up with screaming brakes.

  A harsh voice shouted, “Hey, you! Come here!”

  Chapter Nine

  Detective-Sergeant Simone

  JUST BEYOND THE closed gate stood three men. Bony instantly recognized Constable Lee and the slight young man whom he had met the previous evening, but the hugely fat man dressed in light grey flannels was a stranger. It was this fat man who shouted:

  “Hey, you! Come here!”

  He was like an old-time sergeant shouting at a private when men in the ranks were less important than the regimental mascot, and the singular thing about this man’s voice was the clarity of his articulation when his teeth were clenched on a cigar. It says much for Bony’s sense of humour that he instantly obeyed the summons with a distinct twinkle in his eyes. He was careful to close the gate after having passed through it. He now saw with interest agate-hard strong white teeth biting viciously on a large cigar and green agate-hard eyes glaring down at him from a superior height.

  “What’s your name?” rasped Sergeant Simone.

  “I am Joseph Fisher-as Constable Lee has doubtless told you,” Bony replied lightly. On observing that his tone and careless indifference at once aroused the unreasoning animus of a beast, he added, “And who are you?”