Battling Prophet b-20 Read online

“Who is the most talkative barber in this town?”

  “That one,” replied Mr. Luton, pointing. “Self-winding, like them new-fashioned clocks.”

  Bony nodded and found the barber without a customer. The man had a talker’s chin. Also a high-pitched voice. During the first fifteen seconds he had greeted Bony, discussed the weather, tried out the races of the previous Saturday, and was branching into fishing. By this time Bony was tied with a sheet and at his mercy. He managed to get in:

  “Ben Wickham wasn’t wrong in his drought forecast, was he?”

  “Luck, sir. Justflamin ’ luck. And the mugs take him for true. Greatest disaster that ever happened to Orstralia, that fortune-telling, star-gazing crook. The low-down on the weather! He says that next year the drought isgonna move up into Queensland again. And what’ll happen? All the fool cockies won’t fallow and sow, won’t take on hands, won’t buy nothing. Okay! Okay! Good luck to the cockies. But no matter what, there’s no guarantee there’ll be a drought. Therains’ll come as usual and the cockies won’t have no fallow, no sowing done, no crops. And millions of people starving over in Asia. Thousands starving here in Orstralia. Depression. That’s what it means. Why, even my business has gone downmore’n fifty per cent this year. Good job old Wickham did dieorf. We don’t want his sort in Orstralia. No good for business.”

  “Many people come down here for the fishing?” Bony edged in.

  “Usetabe a number of regulars. This year hardly any. No money. They say trade is terrible bad in Adelaide. People…”

  “The policeman ought to have a quiet time.”

  “Nothin’ much for him to do. Blokes haven’t got the dough to get blind and kick up rusty. Gibley! Time he got moved on. Nose is too long. Thank you, sir. That’ll be three and six.”

  Bony left the chair and surveyed his hair-cut which he found passable. He said, while searching for small money:

  “Many strangers in town?”

  “Strangers! Look, I don’t think there’smore’n three, thetown’s that dead. I can count ’emon one hand. One, a la-de-dawhat’s beenstayin ’ with the manager over at the Commonwealth. Two what’s living in a caravan and doing somefishin ’. Don’t like them. Foreigners of some sort. Don’t know what. Then there’s a feller what rented a holiday shack for a month as from last week. Cripes! We’relookin ’ up, sir. You make number five stranger. Where you staying, if I might ask?”

  “With Mr. Luton, out of town on the river.”

  “Oh, Luton! Fine old-timer, he is. Not many of hissort left. Good old battler. Sooner call a spade a bloody shovel than a trowel. See you again.”

  Bony crossed the street and joined Mr. Luton, and the old man said, importantly:

  “You’d been in the bank five minutes when Gibley arrived in a hurry and stopped outside like he’d suddenly remembered he had nothing to do and no place to go. A minute after you came out, the bank office-boy went over to the Post Office with two telegrams. Either that or one message took two pages to write on.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing except that Gibley’s been following you around. He’s eyeing us now from inside the paper shop.”

  Bony was delighted and looked it. He said:

  “How often have you baited for bream and caught a king-fish? Let us have a drink.”

  Chapter Ten

  Experience Points a Finger

  THEafternoon was cold and blustery, and Bony employed the first part of it at Mr. Luton’s wood-heap, splitting billets for the stove and axing logs for the lounge fire. Mr. Luton did not approve, but Bony wanted exercise, and the labour did produce an idea. Into a tin he dropped the witchetty grubs which the splitting disclosed, juicy fat grubs about the size of a man’s thumb.

  It was here that Knocker Harris found him, and, up-ending a log, he sat and relaxed preparatory to a gossip.

  “Youdoin ’ a bit ofyakker,” he remarked on the obvious. “Bit of work don’t do nobody any ’arm, like. Have a good time in town?”

  “Quite,” replied Bony, leaning on the axe.“Met the policeman. Seems all right.”

  “Yair. Seems,” snorted Knocker. “Good atpinchin ’ drunks, and hoeing into the Italians when they kick up a dust. Sooner fish than earn his wages, though.” Mr. Harris spat. “Gonnaput me and John into an Old Man’s Home! That’s what he thinks.”

  Bony chopped, watched shrewdly by Knocker, who presently said:

  “You walk both ways or get a lift?”

  “Walked. We tried to hire a boat, but none are available.”

  “Beentryin ’ to get John to buy one, but he don’t take to the idea, like. Anyway, I’ve caught kingfish on me night line, so the yarn ofhavin ’ to troll for ’emdon’t play poker with me. You find out what was give to Ben?”

  “Haven’t really tried. By the way, you saw him when he was dead?”

  “Yair. About ten minutes after John found himkonked out in the sitting-room.”

  “How did he look?”

  “Look? Calm like. Coulda been asleep, but he wasn’t.”

  “Have you ever seen a man dead of the horrors?” Bony asked, conversationally.

  “No. Seen a bloke once pretty crook ondrinkin ’ homebrewed spud juice andmetho. He was a beaut. Black hair and aziff what hid all his faceexceptin ’ his eyes. Did he perform! You oughtaseen him.” The quiet drawling voice held no trace of humour, and not much of interest, till he said: “You know, what John calls the horrorsain’t real horrors, like. They had sense enough, them two, to go on the cure, like, before they got the dinkum sort of horrors. All they had wasseein ’ things what they could flick off their ears or their hair, like. They didn’t do noprancin ’ around, you know, like climbing up the roof or up a tree. They never yelled and screamed like some I knew in the old days. Only time they got excited was when they flogged the trees for bullocks. You oughtaseen ’em. Characters!”

  “You never joined them?”

  “No, Inspector, I never could. I can’t take it, like. The booze plays hell with me ulcers. One rum is my limit when I goes to town, and only then ’cosI got to be sociable, like.”

  There seemed nothing of value to be gained from Knocker Harris, and Bony became bored. Relief was given by the noise of an approaching car, which aroused the dogs to frenzy.

  “Could be theflamin ’ quack,” surmised Knocker. “Don’t you take nolip from him.”

  A minute later there appeared round the side of the house a woman whose face resembled that of a horse, and whose stocky figure was made ridiculous by the tight brown trousers she was wearing. Her voice was harsh, and she was engaged in what is known as talking-down-in this instance, Mr. Luton.

  “The quack’s old bitch,” inelegantly announced Knocker.

  “Well, I certainly hope so, Luton,” the lady was saying. “As the doctor has so often told you, a man of your age ought not to take alcohol save medicinally, and then only sparingly.” Mr. Luton began to speak and was wiped off the slate. “We have been greatly worried about you, Luton. This isolation is tragic, tragic. It’s no use arguing. You’ll simply have to give up this place and live where you can be properly cared for. Oh!”

  “This is Mrs. Maltby, the doctor’s wife,” boomed Mr. Luton, the lid of his left eye half-masted. “Inspector Bonaparte, Mrs. Maltby.”

  “So you are Inspector Bonaparte, are you?” queried the lady. “Wonders will never cease. Before leaving town I called at the Post Office, and the postmaster asked me to bring a telegram for you.”

  “That is kind of you,” Bony said, unsmilingly.

  “No. I intended talking to Luton on my way back. Er… we have been thinking you might have called at the house. Mrs. Parsloe rather wants to speak to you. Some afternoon about four. Now I must be off. Good-bye, Inspector.”

  Bony lowered his head politely, and the woman strode back to the gate with Mr. Luton and the accompanying dogs as escort. Knocker said, as though hoping that Mrs. Maltby would hear:

  “Whatd’youknow?”

  Bony cho
pped wood, hoping there were no more Mrs. Maltbys to be encountered during his career. There was only one way of dealing with such women, the way an aborigine deals with his impertinent gin, but that was not for Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Knocker Harris’s suggested treatment shocked even Bony. He repeated the suggestion for the reclamation of Mrs. Maltby to the returning Mr. Luton, and was sternly ordered to ‘cut that out, and come in for tea.’ Unabashed, Knocker followed Mr. Luton to the kitchen, and Bony followed more slowly while reading the message:

  REGISTERED IN THE NAME OFKLAVICH. STOP. CHIEF CLERK TO HUNGARIAN

  CONSUL ADELAIDE. WHAT YOU DOING AT COWDRY? REGARDS. TILLET.

  After several cups of tea, Bony strolled along the river-bank as far as the bridge spanning the highway. For some time he leaned against the stone parapet watching the fish jumping for flies, and the larger fish chasing others. He noted with interest the peculiarity of this river, the banks of which were not of earth and shelving, but of precipitous limestone going straight down to the depths. Scrub and tall trees grew right to the edge of these faces of the great cleft which had admitted the sea.

  From the bridge he walked to the highway almost to the line of pine trees providing the wind-break for Mount Mario, and then turned off the road to bisect the grazing paddocks where there was no grazing and no stock. He came to a path barely discernible which appeared to come from opposite the gates to Mount Marlo, and which he followed to the back fence of Mr. Luton’s garden, and he wondered if that was the path made by the late Ben Wickham.

  After dinner, when they sat smoking over coffee, he said:

  “The telegram Mrs. Maltby brought was from the Traffic Branch in Adelaide. They say that the car used by those foreigners to call on Wickham is owned by a staff member of the Hungarian Consulate. Are you still sure that Wickham never mentioned them to you?”

  “I am,” replied Luton, calmly. “Nor did he say anything to me about why he called at the bank after hours. Mind you, that was like Ben, not to say anything to me. Exceptin ’ to moan now and then about his sister and theMaltbys, he never talked of his private business, and he had to be pretty full before he’d talk about his work. He did talk about the flaming stars, but not often about his weather-forecastin’.”

  “So that when you did meet, you discussed the river, the fishing, and the past?”

  “That’s so. You see, Ben was a gentleman. He never deliberately talked over my head, as the saying goes. He’d arrive here, unload his moans about what happened up at the house, and after a bit we’d both go back over the years and talk about old times.”

  “I suppose that when he became sufficiently sober to return to his house, he was feeling despondent?”

  “No. He used to tell me we’d had a hell of a fine time and that he felt he’d had a brain wash and was ready to get on with his job.”

  “Did he express an opinion of Dr. Linke?”

  “Seemed to like him. Said he was first-rate and keen. Never said anything against him, excepting…”

  “Excepting?”

  “Excepting that Linke sometimesjawed him for coming here for a bender.”

  “He was bitter about the Government persistently refusing to take his work seriously, wasn’t he?”

  “Too true he was.” Mr. Luton’s eyes widened and blazed. “While our people are jeering at him, and our weather men are calling him an outsider, the Russians step in. They did, didn’t they? The Hungarians are Russians, aren’t they?”

  As Mr. Luton demanded agreement, Bony conceded the thought. Other thoughts he did not express. He said, instead:

  “Have you ever seen a man die in delirium tremens?”

  “No. But I’ve seen a man who died of the hoo-jahs.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It was a terrible long time back. I mustof been about twenty or so, and I was working up in Queensland, droving cattle. Open country, you understand. The year was bad, and my job was to ride ahead and scout for water for the cattle.

  “The Government had just sunk a bore called Number Eight, and I met a couple of prospectors who told me it was gushinggood and that the water was drinkable. They said an old bloke was in charge of the plant which hadn’t been moved on, and they reckoned by this time he’d have gone bush as he’d been on the booze and was raging around when they left.

  “Anyway, I went on to take a look at this bore, and see what feed there was for the cattle. I found it all right. Anda bit of a shed near the dismantled gear. I knew what had happened before I went inside. The old feller was dead in a corner, and I’m game to bet there was fifty empty Pink-Eye brandy bottles. He hadn’t been dead long. The day before, I reckoned. Looked bloody awful.”

  “Describe him, please.”

  “Hell! What for? He was dead of the hoo-jahs. Lying on the floor, and the place stinking of Pink-Eye. Part of a bottle still in his hand. Had it by the neck and back a bit like he was fighting the demons off.”

  “Do you remember the expression on the dead man’s face?”persisted Bony.

  “I won’t ever forget it, Inspector. Never madeno difference to me, though. Still, I sort of knew when to stop. He didn’t.”

  “Describe the expression on the dead man’s face,” Bony continued to persist.

  “His mouth was open like he was yelling when he perished. Blood had poured from it. He’d been chased round and round the shed, for you could see his tracks what made a road all round. And he’d run inside towards the end, to escape the things that were chasing him, and they caught up with him in the corner. He was looking at them, seeing them when he died.”

  “When you found Ben Wickham dead, did he remind you of that man at the bore?”

  “He certainly did not. The feller at the bore died when he was awake. Ben died in his sleep.”

  “Died in his sleep!” echoed Bony.

  “Yes. He was lying peaceful, like he slept, when I found him.”

  “His eyes were closed?”

  “Partly so. I kept ’emclosed proper, with a florin apiece. That’s why I say he died of something given to him; not from the hoo-jahs.”

  “Were the coins on the eyes when the doctor came?”

  Mr. Luton was triumphant.

  “Course not. I took ’emoff when I heard the car.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Squire’s Chest

  WHENthey should have gone to bed, they went down into the cellar, Bony carrying the lamp, leaving the table and floor-covering in the living-room ready for quick replacement in the event of interruption.

  At this second visit, Bony could not resist the impulse to chuckle at the mental picture of two wily ‘hard doers’ determined to maintain freedom against the onslaught of relations and outsiders. Additional to the neat stacks of spirits, there were a dozen cases of beer, and on a special shelf he had not previously noticed, because it was in a corner opposite the bar counter, he espied six bottles ofDrambuie evenly spaced, obviously by reverent hands.

  “Quite a plant, eh?” remarked Mr. Luton.“Whisky there in that pile. Brandy over there. Rum right behind you, and the gin over here. We’d sense enough to be careful of the oil-lamp, and arranged the stock so we could find the right bottles in the dark. Once we camped down here all night, with the trap-door down. Air got a bit foul with the lamp lit, so we turned it out, and afterwards I ran a shaft to come up inside the wood-shed just behind the wash-copper. Could camp here a month with the lamp lit now.”

  “Who planned it?” asked Bony, more to keep Mr. Luton occupied while he examined the place.

  “It sort of grew from the years gone by. At the end of roaring hot days when we’d unyoke the bullocks and wasdrinkin ’ tea and too tired to eat, we’d tell each other what we’d do when we made our fortunes. We agreed we’d build a shack beside a nice cool river where the grass was always green, and where the sunlight was green, too, because it fell through bright-green tree leaves. And we agreed we’d build a private pub at the back of the shack, and stock her to the roof. We’d h
ave a bar counter, and ice-boxes and things, and we’d drink from the best crystal glasses when we felt likeit, and tin pint pannikins when we felt like that. The crystal’s under the counter there, and the tin pannikins. Only difference we made to our pub was to sink her underground. D’youthink… Would you like to wet her?”

  Bony refrained from looking at Mr. Luton. He knew what it was to be exhausted by a never-ending hot day on outback tracks, to the point of being unable to undertake the chore of cooking a meal. He knew what it was to crave with a poignant longing to feel iced liquor sliding down his gummed-up throat, and to feast his eyes on cool water lazing along under the moss-green branches of overhanging trees.

  The invitation sprang from pride in having a dream made reality, the humility of spirit that life had been kind to make the dream come true, when reality never came to thousands of others who dreamed the same dream.

  “It would be a pleasure to see you behind that bar, Mr. Luton.”

  Mr. Luton’s smile was reminiscent. Lifting the counter-flap, he passed inside and, with the rows of shelved bottles at his back, gravely asked Bony what he would have.

  “Whisky, with soda if you have it.”

  This was a place where you couldn’t miss. Mr. Luton produced aseltzergene bottle and filled it with water. He fitted a cartridge to the bottle and smiled at Bony without speaking. There was a case on the floor, and this he had to open with hammer and chisel, that the show bottles on the shelves would remain intact. He set up a bottle of Scotch, and from under the counter brought up two remarkably fine crystal goblets. They poured their own drinks.

  Bony made another complete survey of the dream come true. He raised his glass, and over it saw Mr. Luton’s raised glass, and his bright hazel eyes above it. He bowed, and drank.

  Presently, Bony turned back to thecedarwood chest he had not re-locked with his piece of wire. He returned to the bar with the parchment envelope marked ‘WILL’.

  “This, obviously, is your friend’s missing will,” he said. “As you see, the envelope isn’t sealed. I would like to read it for possible light it may throw on Ben Wickham’s life which he did not reveal even to you.”