Bony - 12 - The Mountains have a Secret Page 9

  “Also ask him to check up on the yardman here, Glen Shannon. I think Shannon has been in the country only a few months. Better make a written note of that and other matters.”

  “Righto, sir. And——”

  “Simpson, the licensee, went down to Portland this after­noon. It’s most important to know why. I think that the date March twenty-eighth has something to do with the journey. Then at the time the young women vanished in this country, there was a yardman here by the name of Edward O’Brien. He left under somewhat peculiar circumstances. He has a sister living at Hamilton. I want to know where he is now. Got that?”

  “Er—yes, sir, that’s clear.”

  “Constable Groves might give a lead on O’Brien. You could call on Groves when you pass through Dunkeld.”

  The sergeant nodded, snapped shut his notebook, and then as he slipped it into an inside pocket regarded Bony thought­fully.

  “The Superintendent said he would feel much easier in his mind if you could arrange to communicate with the Station at Dunkeld at least once in every twenty-four hours.”

  “I don’t think that would be possible,” Bony said, frowning. “Anyway, I’ll be talking to him most likely tomorrow after­noon. Where is the nearest District Headquarters?”

  “At Ballarat, sir.”

  “Then tell Superintendent Bolt that if I have not reported at Ballarat by midnight tomorrow—you can make another raid.”

  “All right, sir. Is that all?”

  “That’s all, Sergeant. Thanks for calling. Er—I’m sorry you ordered the cupboard to be shut.”

  The big man grinned with an abruptness which was startling.

  “I could order it to be opened, sir.”

  “Then do so. I am going to bed. You fellows have a long drive back to the city. I’ll say good night.”

  “Good night, sir, and all the doings.”

  Bony passed along the passage, to his room and switched on the light. As he undressed, with intent he passed his shadow across the drawn blind that the three men in custody waiting in the cars, and probably Glen Shannon, might know his decision to retire for the night. Then, having slipped on a dressing-gown, he pocketed the whisky bottle and soda-water, added a glass, put out the light, and noiselessly raised the blind and climbed over the sill to the veranda.

  The veranda was dark, and in case someone switched on a light, he moved to the far comer, where he waited in the black shadow of a roof support massed with wisteria. He stood there for some time before witnessing the departure of the police car and the gamblers’ sedan for Dunkeld and the city. It was then ten minutes to twelve.

  He continued to lounge there, his eyes constantly on the alert and probing into the lighter shades of the night-masked scene for sign of human movement. For many minutes he could hear the noise of the departing cars, and it was not until the night was empty of all sound that the tension seeped from his mind and his body.

  As silently as James Simpson had visited his father, Bony reached the old man’s bed and leaned low over him.

  “Awake?” he murmured.

  “Well, I ain’t climbing up the chimbley,” softly snarled the invalid.

  “I’ve been having an exciting evening. That’s why I’m late.”

  “All right! You needn’t give it to me in writin’. Did you bring me a taste?”

  “I said I would,” Bony expostulated, and sat down upon the bed. “I promised you a double drink—otherwise two little drinks. Here’s the first.”

  He could hear the gulp and the flinch of the whisky drinker, and then felt the touch of the empty glass. Without comment he gave the invalid the second of the promised drinks and heard again the gulp and the flinching only after the old man had asked what the uproar had been about and “men tramping all over the ruddy place.”

  “The Licensing Police paid a call,” Bony explained. “They arrested the three new guests.”

  “Oh! Did they so! Whaffor?”

  “Giving wrong names. Being known criminals. At least two of them are criminals. The third was taken for consorting with criminals. He’s a wrestler by the name of Toby Lucas. Know him?”

  “Only in the papers. The other two—did you hear their right names?”

  “Frank Edson and Antonio Zeno. Know them?”

  “Never heard of ’em.” The old man broke into soft chuck­ling. “They play up?” he asked.

  “They went quiet enough. Sure you never heard those names before?”

  “I ain’t no liar—unless I want to be. You describe ’em again. Names don’t mean anything.”

  Bony gave a detailed description of both men and still Simpson failed to identify them.

  “Never been here before,” asserted the old man. “You said Ferris didn’t know them either.”

  “I’m not quite so sure about that.”

  “Ah! Not so sure, eh? Gimme a drink.”

  Bony complied with what was a command.

  “How they get along with you, young Parkes?”

  Bony related the details of the evening in the lounge, and when he concluded the old man remained silent save for his low, slightly rasping breathing. It was a full minute before he spoke. On no previous occasion had he appeared to be so normal.

  “I don’t know. It makes me think things, John Parkes,” he said. “I been worryin’ a lot lately, and I oughtn’t to be worried at my age. I still got the old woman to think on, and the hotel and everything. Ferris wouldn’t be too bad without Jim. If I knew a bit more I could order him out of the place for keeps. You better go. You better leave tomorrer.”

  “I was thinking of doing so.”

  “You get away and look for old Ted O’Brien. Tell him I sent you along. Find out if he’s all right and why he left with­out saying a good-bye to me. He knows something, does Ted. Told me he did. You tell him I been worried a lot over how things are going on here.”

  “And you really don’t know why your son went down to Portland today?”

  The old man became petulant. “I told you about that,” he said.

  “So you did. Did you ever hear of a man named A. B. Bertram?”

  “Gimme another little drink. It’s good for the memory.”

  Bony retrieved the glass in the dark. He said nothing, guessed the measure, and passed the drink to the invalid.

  “A. B. Bertram,” repeated the old man. “Yes, I know him. He’s stayed here more’n once. Bit of a German, I’ve always thought. Plays the fiddle. Uster play it with Jim playing on the organ. What’s he done?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jim Simpson’s Decision

  BONY heard the Buick returning a few minutes before four o’clock, the silent night admitting the sound in time to enable him to see, through the open window of his bedroom, the clearing illumined by its headlights a moment before it passed to the garages.

  Simpson did not appear before or during breakfast and, feeling well satisfied with the world, Bony greeted the cocka­too, seated himself in an easy chair on the veranda, and rolled a cigarette.

  The sky was cloudless and the sunshine even this early was hot. The March flies were an annoyance, for they make no sound in flight and alight on the skin without betrayal, to suck more blood than a leech if given the time. They had not been so bad for a dozen years.

  Recent developments had added a swift increase of interest in the disappearance of the two young women, and this, in­stead of making Bony desirous of prolonging his stay at Baden Park Hotel, firmed his intention of leaving that morning.

  The chief objective was to establish the fate of the two young women, and he was not going to be side-tracked by the fate of Detective Price and that of O’Brien, excepting that through the fate of either or both of the men he could proceed to learn the fate of the women. Price was dead, but it was far from certain that the old yardman was dead, and equally as far from certain that the girls were dead, despite all the cir­cumstances which had to be accepted.

  He had, as it were, attacked the investigation
into the dis­appearance of the two women by the front door. He was held in suspicion by Jim Simpson, who, with the assistance of Glen Shannon, kept him constantly under observation. There was but the one way to evade the attention of both the licensee and the yardman, and that was to attack the investigation through the back door.

  Simpson suspected him of being other than he had announced himself to be. He knew the man A. B. Bertram, and it appeared obvious that he had communicated with Bertram, who, in turn, had communicated with Frank Edson. It was possible that Simpson had not gone to Portland at all, that he had merely got out of the way whilst the men sent by Bertram dealt with his mysterious guest.

  The mysterious guest was to be got rid of from the hotel, and there had to be no tragedy to achieve this desire. A slight accident during a drunken quarrel, perhaps, but no more. A point of interest was if the desire to be rid of him was on account of what he might discover or on account of having him away from the hotel on March twenty-eighth. Another death in these Grampians would most certainly be followed by tremendous police activity.

  Assuming that the two girl hikers had been murdered, assuming that O’Brien had been murdered because he had learned something of the fate of the two girls, assuming that Detective Price had been murdered because he knew some­thing concerning the fate of the girls or of Yardman O’Brien, then the motive for killing the girls must be exceedingly powerful.

  The picture of Baden Park Hotel was out of focus and un­balanced. Jim Simpson had no place in the hotel itself, a dead-end place, a dead-end career for a man who was nothing if not ambitious. Simpson’s present yardman also had no place in the picture. Beneath the pleasant exterior of the man there was ruthlessness, and an unbalance of the man when set against the work he was doing, an unbalance equally sharp, as if a hotel chef should undertake to clean the boots.

  Bony was lazing in his chair and thinking of Ferris Simp­son, who, if she did not know any of the three men who had arrived the evening before, might well have known why they came, when abruptly the licensee appeared.

  “I’d like you to move on,” he said, without preamble. Bony expressed surprise. “I’m not saying your name isn’t what you say it is or that you’re not what you’ve given out to be, but what happened last night makes it clear that those crooks came here to do you over. They have something against you, and I’m not going to stand for any gang warfare in my house.”

  “But were I a crook, or connected with those fellows, the police would have arrested me too,” objected Bony. “As far as I understand it, the wrestler became cranky with drink. He might have done me an injury but for the timely intervention of your yardman, but that they came here for that purpose I have distinct doubts. Had I been sure on the point, I would have complained to the police.”

  “That you didn’t complain to the police clinches my opinion,” snapped the licensee. “I don’t want any argument about it. I want you to leave.”

  Bony pretended hurt astonishment, and Simpson departed. On the face of it, the man was justified, but Bony was sure that his reaction was assumed to achieve the result not achieved by the three visitors the previous evening.

  The reaction of Ferris Simpson was equally interesting. She was stripping his bed when he entered the room to pack his cases, in her eyes anger and about her mouth the stubbornness of the weak. She looked at Bony with a steadiness he liked.

  “I’m sorry you have to go,” she said, so loudly it was evi­dent she wanted Simpson to hear. “My brother isn’t acting reasonably, but he’s the boss, and there it is.”

  Bony gave the merest hint of the bow which so illumined his charm to women.

  “Thank you,” he said gravely. “However, I appreciate your brother’s position and in his place might reason as he does. After all, you know, it isn’t nice to have people on the premises who are arrested on sight by the Licensing Police, when they chance to come. I’ve enjoyed my stay here very much.”

  The girl’s mouth melted into a wistful smile and, without speaking, she snatched up the used bed linen and left. Bony packed his suitcases and carried them to the hall where Simp­son stood behind the office counter and silently presented his account. Bony paid, thanked the man for the change, and pro­ceeded through the front door to the veranda.

  Old Simpson in his chair was there.

  “Cheerio, Mr. Simpson!” Bony called to him. “I’m leaving this morning. All the best.”

  “Nuts!” murmured the cockatoo. “What abouta drink?”

  “Good-bye to you,” replied the invalid. “Hope you had a good time.”

  Bony was passing down the steps when the bird napped its wings and raged:

  “Get to hell outa here!”

  The staid, the correct, the polite Inspector Bonaparte turned, gazed up at the bird, and actually vented a raspberry. It was not until he was in his car and driving across the clear­ing that he permitted the scowl to leave his face, the scowl assumed in case the licensee was watching him from within the building. A moment later the humour created by the cockatoo vanished before the thought that old Simpson’s appearance on the veranda might have been timed to provide a witness of his departure.

  Assuming that Detective Price had been murdered for what he had discovered in or near this Baden Park Hotel and had then been allowed to travel as far as a mile or two this side of Hall’s Gap before being shot to death, the same person or per­sons might have decided to let him get away before they attempted to deal with him in like fashion. It was, however, unlikely that further violence would be attempted, as the licensee’s objective to be rid of him appeared obvious.

  Notwithstanding, Bony took no avoidable chances. He drove along the narrow track to its junction with the Dunkeld Road, his eyes alert for danger and the Superintendent’s automatic on the seat at his side; and, having reached the better road, he drove at high speed all the way to Dunkeld. On four occasions after leaving Dunkeld he halted the car at places of conceal­ment to ascertain whether he was being followed.

  It was after three o’clock when he garaged the car and a few minutes to four when, having enjoyed a meal more substantial than afternoon tea, he entered the police station at Ballarat.

  “The name is John Parkes,” he told the policeman on duty at the public counter. The man’s eyes narrowed and at once he raised the drop-flat, inviting the caller to pass through.

  “Come this way, sir,” he said, and conducted Bony to a room, occupied by the divisional chief.

  “So you are Inspector Bonaparte. Very pleased to meet you from the personal angle. Headquarters seem a little anxious about you. Sit down. My name’s Mulligan.” They shook hands.

  He looked like a Mulligan, too—large and square of face and cropped hair as black as that of his visitor. Beady black eyes were now twinkling. He called the policeman back and told him to contact Superintendent Bolt at Headquarters. When the door had been closed he went on:

  “I’m guessing you’re down in the Gramps on business. Had orders to look you up if you didn’t call in here before mid­night. How’s shop?”

  Bony looked up from his cigarette-making and smiled.

  “Slightly attractive,” he said. “Nice holiday. Beautiful locality. Plenty of local interest. Beer quite good and the cook­ing excellent.

  “The Super said—well, I’ll not repeat it. By shop I meant your official assignment.”

  Bony blew out the match and with some deliberation placed it on the ash-tray.

  “I know that, Mulligan,” he said lightly. “Your question I’ve answered truthfully. Nothing of apparent consequence has broken so far. Were you down there on the investigation into the Price murder?”

  “Yes. And before that on the disappearance of two female hikers.”

  “Do you think there is any connection?”

  “I’ve never made up my mind about it. Have you?”

  Bony was saved having to answer by the telephone. Mulli­gan took the call.

  “Yes, sir. Mulligan here. Mr. Parkes has just
called in. Very well, sir.”

  Bony accepted the instrument and heard the voice which had spoken so gravely in Melbourne, which had come floating after him on the road to Dunkeld.

  “Good afternoon, Super.”

  “ ’Day, Bony. How’s things?”

  “Going along nicely. Are you taking care of the three gentlemen who were escorted back to the city last night?”

  “Great care, Bony. Great care. Two of ’em are stinking eggs, but we haven’t anything very serious on ’em at the moment. Still, we have enough to hold ’em for a few days. The wrestler was merely a stooge. The tale was put over that you had run away with Edson’s wife and he was persuaded to take it out on you. He’ll keep quiet from now on.”

  “The tale is untrue, Super.”

  “Of course it is,” shouted Bolt. “I would never believe that of you. You never struck me as being a wolf.”

  Bony winced, glared at Mulligan, spoke with deliberate clarity:

  “I mean, sir, that the wrestler’s tale of the tale he was told is wrong. From what slipped out, the wrestler acted on a quite different motive. Have you released him?”

  “Had to. Nothing on him.”

  “All right. What of the man A. B. Bertram?”

  “Be easy, old pal,” said the now soothing voice in Bony’s ear. “We’ve been waiting to see if the wrestler contacts Bert­ram. Nothing against Bertram, either. Been in the country over forty years. Sound in business and a man of substance. You any idea who asked him to make enquiries about you?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “Not a shred. We got a line on the yardman, Glen Shannon. Home address is in Texas. Was in a paratroops company when discharged from the U.S. Army. Came to Australia last December. Purpose was to meet friends and see the country. Was in Australia for period during military service.”

  “Oh! That doesn’t tell me much,” Bony complained. “Learned anything yet of the former yardman, Edward O’Brien?”

  “First report by the man on that job received about an hour ago. O’Brien’s sister at Hamilton didn’t know he had left the Baden Park Hotel. She hadn’t heard from him since last June. He seldom wrote. That’s all so far. The senior officer at Port­land went into the visit there made by Simpson. He knows Simpson, who has been down there several times during the last two years to go fishing with Mr. Carl Benson and friends. He didn’t see Simpson yesterday afternoon or last night, and he offers the suggestion that Simpson’s visit was in connection with Benson’s launch, which he knows is to be made ready for sea towards the end of the month.”