“Joe! Where is Riddell?”
“Gone looking for grub, I think. Couldn’t wait.”
“Call him.”
Brennan went to the door and shouted. Riddell came in. He was chewing on a leg of mutton. Bony sighed.
“Joe, sit there and eat, and watch these two men. Mark, hunt for something to tie Jenks up with, and make it snappy. I’ll have to look-see Clifford. He seems to be all in.”
With thankfulness he was careful not to betray, Bony sat at ease eating sandwiches and sipping hot coffee. He was feeling that at last he was indeed master of the situation, and that he had strategically placed all these people to await the hour help arrived.
Maddoch slept in utter exhaustion on the settee. Riddell was still gnawing into his leg of mutton. Brennan was the life of the party. He was feeding sandwiches to Jenks who sat on the floor, his arms lashed to his sides and his feet tied, and with his back to the wall. The head stockman was just tied hands and feet. He continued to dwell in another place. The two women and their husbands sat and glowered. Only Myra Thomas was absent. Presently the younger Mrs. Weatherby rose and dragged her chair, to sit almost knee to knee before Bony. Her husband attempted to rise, waved his hands in resignation, and absently loaded a pipe.
Mrs. Weatherby’s dark eyes searched Bony’s face.
“Did I hear you say that Igor Mitski is dead, Inspector?”
“Yes. He was killed by a falling rock, Mrs. Weatherby.”
“I’m very glad, Inspector. You know, of course, that he murdered my little girl?” Bony nodded. “He hit her with his fist. Then he picked her up by the feet and swung her round and dashed her head against the door-post. Do you approve of that kind of thing?”
“I do not, Mrs. Weatherby. But I think you are wrong on the details. Isn’t that so, Mark?”
“Not much, Inspector. The lady’s always right an’ all that.”
“Not then quite as you related it, Brennan.”
“That is what he did to my little Mayflower, Inspector,” the woman continued, her voice soft, but her eyes hardening, and her slim nostrils beginning to flare. Her sister pleaded:
“Jean! You had better come away from the Inspector. He’ll let us go and lie down till this is all over. Please, Inspector.”
“Yes, do,” Bony agreed. Abruptly, Mrs. Edgar Weatherby stood, and words built into shrilled sentences as the emotional dam broke.
“No!” she shouted. “No, I stay. It was my idea in the beginning and I take all the responsibility. I am the mother of the murdered. I persuaded my husband to join me in executing justice. I organised all those others who sought justice for their murdered. Now listen, all of you, because after tonight I shall never open my mouth again about this matter; my husband won’t, and my sister and her husband won’t.”
Bony witnessed the effort to regain control, the facial muscles working, the mouth firming above the square chin of this now dominant woman.
“It’s like carrying coals to Newcastle, Inspector, to tell you what has been going on in this country, and especially in those States long controlled by the lower orders. We all know that in Australia there is a growing section of the people who are indifferent to crime, and a certain section who are definitely sympathetic towards murderers. Proof! When that Thomas woman was acquitted, she was greeted outside the court by a huge crowd of cheering people.
“Our aim is for justice on behalf of the murdered. We have to accept the verdict pronounced by a judge in court, but justice is stamped in the mud when a gang of politicians flout the sentence of the judge and release the murderer years before he has served his sentence; flouting justice to make themselves popular.
“They pander to men and women who have the lust to murder in their hearts, but lack the courage to strike. They pander to people who resent laws, hate the police, hate any restraint placed on their vile emotions.
“Hanging was too drastic for the murderer of my little girl; too cruel for the murderer of that young bridal couple; too heathenish for the killer of the farmer who objected to his animals being ill-treated; unthinkable for the wife slayer; too unkind for the abortionist! Twelve years they gave the murderer of my child. Then the vote catchers stepped in and freed him after eleven years. Mark Brennan—never to be released, but he was. Maddoch and the others, released years before they served the sentence imposed by a competent judge. Yesterday—death. Today—a few years in prison. Tomorrow—a few months’ detention.”
“Today—a Fellowship,” drawled Mark Brennan.
Mrs. Weatherby turned to stare at Brennan. She frowned, wiped him off like a gnat.
“The world has fallen into decay, its standards are rotten because it’s ruled by men crazed by power,” she went on. “My man, my men relatives, sit back and moan and do nothing. So I had to, Inspector. I simply had to obey the voices and give peace to the murdered. I’m not naming my assistants; you will never find proof. We found helpers even in the Departments of Justice who told us when a murderer was to be released. So we were able to waylay him and take him to those caverns. That is all I have to say. It is all I shall ever say.”
The room became silent. The woman with the square chin and haunted eyes continued to face Bony, who looked at this moment like Ned Kelly himself. Bony said:
“How long did you intend keeping the men in those caverns?”
“Till they died.”
As she rose and was about to turn to her sister, there stepped into the room a young lady superbly arrayed in white linen.
“Now I am ready to eat,” Myra Thomas announced.
The Weatherby women passed her on their way to the door. To them Myra Thomas was something unmentionable.
Chapter Twenty-six
Really Merited
JENKS exclaimed:
“Caw! Look at Lady Myra Muckhead!”
“Seems I’ve missed something,” the girl said, speaking to Bony. “Ask someone to bring me something to eat and drink. I’m starving.”
“Plenty of eats in the kitchen,” rumbled Riddell. “Ruddy well go and stuff out there, Myra. Gents only in here.”
“Is that transceiver open to Kalgoorlie?” she asked Bony, and he nodded. “Has the Press come through?”
“No. Go and find yourself supper. I’d like more coffee, too.”
“What a nerve, Inspector! I’m not a servant.” The almost purple eyes glowed with anger, but the carefully creamed and powdered face was restrained from showing emotion.
“Bring more coffee all round, Myra,” he said. “We have a long wait before us. You might make sure that those two ladies have retired to their rooms. Try to be helpful for once.”
“And bring a snifter for this nig,” Jenks ordered. “He’s coming out of dreamland. Lazy old coot.” The aborigine groaned, and Jenks said: “Hey, Inspector! What about takin’ these ropes off me? I’ll be quiet. Give you me word.”
The girl brought the coffee. Bony assisted the head stockman to sit up and take notice of it. He made a cigarette for Jenks, saying that if he dropped it from his mouth he could retrieve it from the floor with his mouth. From thence onward, he and they sat and waited.
Riddell and Brennan were asleep, the elder Weatherby appeared to be asleep, the girl was engrossed by magazines when the speaker said:
“Superintendent Wyeth is leaving now, Inspector Bonaparte, and will land at daybreak. I am to say that you can expect Constable Easter at around four o’clock, and Sergeant Lush from Rawlinna an hour later. Over.”
“Thank you, Kalgoorlie. All quiet here.”
It was twenty minutes to four when they heard the jeep, and a few moments later Constable Easter entered by the french windows. Bony rose to meet him, and Easter took five seconds to recognise him.
“Constable Easter!” exclaimed Myra Thomas. “How nice to meet you. I’m Myra Thomas. Could I bring you some coffee and a sandwich?”
Easter was rocked, but he took it like a real man.
“I’d be glad if you would, Mrs. Thomas.” He
surveyed the others, pondered on the recumbent forms of the aborigine and Jenks, looked into Bony’s eyes for a full second, and sat down. “I know only that you had arrived here, Inspector, and needed assistance.”
Bony related his adventures following their parting outside the wicket fence. He introduced with grave politeness those he had brought from the caverns, and sketched the story Mrs. Edgar Weatherby had given them. Easter was further rocked, and took it like a real policeman. Bony could have been telling a fairy tale.
“Before we took over here, Easter,” he went on, “we found with no difficulty an open cave where the helicopter is kept, then we intruded on the head stockman and brought him in with us. How Mr. Weatherby obtained the machine, and how he brought it here unobserved, can be cleared up later. Possibly he was a pilot during the war. Two other matters we can clear up now, or when you have eaten something. As Sergeant Lush will arrive soon, perhaps you would like to eat whilst we clear these up.”
“An idea, Inspector. I’m ready.”
“Riddell! Brennan! Get the aborigine to his feet.” The stockman was hauled up. He needed repairs and was badly frightened. “You are a medicine man,” Bony stated, and the whites of the black eyes expanded. “When I left with the camels, you were told to track me? Tell me the truth. You need not be afraid ... afterwards. How far did you track me?”
“Out to bore. Sammy Pickup, he was riding after steers and he saw the camels out on the Plain. He tell Boss.”
“The Boss told you sit-down and make talk with medicine man up north?”
“Yair. That’s right. Boss said for me to make talk with Luritja man. I sit down. I make talk, and make talk, and bimeby I know Luritja man he hear and make talk to me.”
“What did the Boss tell you to make talk about?”
The medicine man glanced at the Weatherbys, but the elder could still be asleep and the younger brother stared at his shoes.
“So you gather little sticks and rub magic into them with your churinga stone,” Bony pressed, and the aborigine’s face brightened, and he nodded. “You make fire with little sticks, and you sit-down before the fire, and presently your spirit leaves you to fly through the air to meet the spirit of the Luritja man. What did you tell to him?”
“I tell him Boss says to tell him you are making for desert, looking for Patsy Lonergan’s traps. Boss say for me to tell Luritja man to hang round, and if you find where white men are hid he’s to put you with ’em, and everything you have, but not rifle and pack ropes. Luritja says, ‘all right.’ He says next time fly-machine goes, for to leave plenty bacco and rations at same place. So I tell Boss, and Boss says, ‘good-oh’.”
“All right,” Bony told him. “You can go. Untie him.”
Myra Thomas gripped his arm, saying:
“Is that dinkum? It is all true, that way of talking?”
“Dinkum for me, Myra,” he said.
“But what a story! What a script that will make!” Turning, she almost ran to the elder Weatherby, shaking him saying:
“Paper. Writing paper, quick. And a pencil.”
“Was I right?” asked Easter, and Bony smiled affirmatively.
“Now we come to Edward Jenks,” Bony said. “Stand him up, please.” Brennan and Riddell supported him. Maddoch came, and the girl with a pad and pencil. “Constable Easter will arrest you, Edward Jenks, on the charge of having murdered Igor Mitski. I shall do my duty by doing all possible to make that charge stick.
“Riddell has said that he thought he saw Maddoch strike Mitski, but the situation of the wound was such that Maddoch’s height relative to that of the victim absolves him. Although not as tall as Mitski you are not much taller than Maddoch, hence Riddell’s mistake. Unlike Maddoch, you are athletic. You are capable of jumping high, as all of us have so often observed. It was when at the apex of a jump that you smashed the rock against Mitski’s head, for that jump placed you at the same height as your victim.”
“You won’t make that stick, Inspector,” sneered the grinning Jenks.”
“Before you killed Mitski, Jenks, in your mind was the picture of the hen in a yard with many roosters, and you planned to eliminate all your rivals. That plan became less attractive on recognising me.”
“You got no witnesses, for a start,” Jenks claimed. Into the sweep of his eyes he took the three released murderers, and Bony saw them nod assent.
“You could be mistaken, Jenks,” he said, coldly. “Such is my reputation, when you discovered me with you you felt you must do something about the rock. Your opportunity came only when I asked for additional lamps, and you went to the kitchen for those lamps. You tossed the rock on to Myra’s bed to implicate her. Why? Because she baited you.”
“You mongrel!” spat Myra Thomas. “I’ll witness against you. And you others will, too ... or else.”
Jenks was formally arrested and cautioned by Easter, and a little later, Riddell drew Bony aside to say:
“We’re out of it now, Inspector. What happened in them caverns don’t count no longer. I’m sort of sorry...”
“I believe I understand, Riddell. Loyalty among thieves, no. Loyalty among killers could be firm. I could break that down, but I am now telling you something you don’t know. Jenks tried to implicate Myra by tossing on to her bed the rock with which he killed Mitski, and that doesn’t call for loyalty. I could have all of you held on suspicion of complicity.”
Riddell shrugged, and Maddoch said:
“You could, Inspector, but you won’t. We played the game, and you will. You wouldn’t take it out on us.”
“What wouldn’t he take out on us?” interrupted Brennan, and Maddoch explained. “Not you, Inspector. Only an hour back, when Jenks was threatening to break out, I told you you’re too much of a gent. You’ll do your job. You’ll go your hardest. But you won’t go that hard to shove us all in back again. D’you know what?”
“What, Mark?” asked the smiling Bonaparte.
“We were all right before that bitch was dumped down among us. We never made her a member, you know. Had to draw the line somewhere.” Without, was born a sound as of a top, and the sound swiftly became a low roar. “More flatfoots arriving. The place will be chocker with ’em in a minute. Will you keep in touch, Inspector, afterwards?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Cheers! When we get old Doc Havant back, the Institute will have to have an annual get-together. Will you come?”
“Well, I suppose that will be a duty, being a Fellow,” agreed Bony.
He took from a pocket the small rock slab on which Brennan had engraved the Fellowship, and Easter came and looked over his shoulder and wanted to know what the letters meant. Slowly, Bony recited:
“Fellow of the Released Murderers’ Institute. I really earned that, Easter.”
Man of Two Tribes Page 19
