The Bone is Pointed b-6

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Let us draw an imaginary line from his lunch camp to that corner post on the depression. We see then that north of the line lies Green Swamp, the sand-dunes east and north of it, and the Channels. At the lunch camp, remember, I discovered proof that Anderson had boiled his quart-pot there. And, south of the line and south of the corner post on the depression, I found tracks made by The Black Emperor not before it rained or after it had stopped raining, but while it was raining, when it had rained about half an inch.

  “Now, Mr Lacy, you said that at four o’clock that afternoon you went out to the rain gauge and found in it fifteen points of rainwater. At what time that evening, do you think, had about half an inch fallen?”

  “Ah-um!” The old man pondered. “What do you think, lad?”

  “Well, it took almost two hours for fifteen points to register,” slowly answered Young Lacy. “I was working in the office late that day, I remember, and when I knocked off about half-past five I stood at the window looking at the rain and thought by sight of it, and by the noise it was making on the roof, that it was coming down harder. My guess is that fifty points registered about seven or half-past seven that evening.”

  “Yes, lad, I think you’re about right,” Old Lacy agreed.

  “Then,” began Bony, “if half an inch had fallen by seven o’clock, at seven o’clock The Black Emperor was just south of our imaginary line when he and his rider should have been home. To-morrow, or some other time, you might make inquiries to ascertain if someone in the district happened to register the rain at that hour. The important point I have to stress is this-when The Black Emperor left his tracks at the place just south of our imaginary line he did not have a rider on his back.”

  The effect of this assertion on his hearers was peculiar.

  Young Lacy stiffened in his chair and his eyes became big. Diana’s eyes became small, the pupils tiny circles of violet almost as dark as her eyebrows. Her lips straightened just sufficiently to make her mouth hard and to alter the cast of her face. Old Lacy, with emphatic deliberation, set his cup and saucer down on the arm of his chair and shouted:

  “How did you find that out?”

  Secretly delighted at the effect of his verbal bomb, Bony smiled at them in turn, and noted how the girl’s strained expression gave way to one of cool, impersonal interest.

  “When people read of a blackfellow being employed by the police to track a criminal, they think that the black-fellow’s extraordinary ability is due to his naturally keen eyesight,” he said, delighting in keeping his audience in suspense. “Any normally good tracker has served an apprenticeship as long and as thorough as any white craftsman. He begins when a small child, when the lubras take him with them to hunt for food, and when success in the hunt depends on ability to track. Without that apprenticeship the blackfellow would be no superior to the white man who has lived his life in the bush.

  “I began my apprenticeship after I left the university, when I went bush instead of continuing my studies, and my aboriginal mentors found me a good student because I had inherited the white man’s ability to reason more clearly and quickly than they. Theclaypans preserved the imprints made by The Black Emperor. Memory of that horse’s tracks seen that day I rode him, told me that the tracks on the claypan had been made by him. The outline of the tracks and their spacing satisfied me on that point. Depth, the sludge left in them, the angles of certain facets in conjunction with certain others, informed me what approximate amount of rain had fallen on theclaypans when they were made. And the manner in which the animal had made them showed that he carried no burden. It takes many years to make a university professor. How many years would it take to make the professor a tracker like me?”

  “Loveacre was right when he told me you were a wizard at the game,” asserted Young Lacy. “It seems to me that the more you know about the blacks the less superior to them you feel. Gordon, over at Meena Lake, could write books about them.”

  “Yes! I understand that he and his mother have been in close contact with them for years,” Bony said. “By the way, to-morrow being Sunday, would you be able to fly me over to Meena? I should like to discuss certain matters with Mr Gordon.”

  “Certainly. No trouble at all,” agreed Young Lacy.

  “Might be as well to ring Gordon,” suggested the old man.

  “Yes. Suggest the middle of the afternoon,” Bony urged in support. “There is another matter. What became of Anderson’s effects after he disappeared?”

  “They are still in his room,” answered the old man. “His room hasn’t been touched after it was tidied and the bed made the morning he rode away,” added Diana.

  Bony’s expression indicated keen pleasure. He said:

  “I should like to examine that room presently. He was, I am given to understand, remarkably facile in the use of the stockwhip. The stockwhip he carried with him that fatal day was never found. Was it the only whip he possessed?”

  “Oh, no,” replied Young Lacy. “He owned several.”

  “Where would they be now? In his room?”

  “Sure to be-with all his other things.”

  “Would you bring them here to me?”

  Young Lacy at once left his chair. Diana began the movement to rise to her feet when Bony waved her back, saying:

  “Eric can bring them, Miss Lacy. I suppose you have some embroidery silk in the house?”

  “Yes. Why?” she asked.

  Bony smiled at her, and Old Lacy, more often observing his guest than his daughter, failed to note her coldness in opposition to Bony’s sunny warmth.

  “If you would be so kind as to bring me some-would you?”

  “Yes. I have several hanks in my work-basket.”

  “A matter of interest to me, Mr Lacy,” Bony began when the girl had left the veranda, “is that everyone thinks his or her walk of life is superior to others. For instance, I think that the detection of crime is the most important work of any. You, probably, think that raising cattle and growing wool is of the greatest importance. We all appear to fail in giving the other fellow credit for his success which, when all is said, is based only on the keen application to the job in hand. It puzzles me why the getting of coal should be considered so much less important than speaking in Parliament, that the position of secretary to a business man should be thought to be of little account compared with that of, say, the Governor-General. The secretary can be mentally superior to the Governor-General, and the coalminer can be of greater concern to the community than the statesman. That, of course, is by the way. Here are the stockwhips. Thank you, Eric.”

  Bony accepted four whips varying in length, weight and age. The old man and Young Lacy silently watched the detective whilst he examined each in turn from the handle to the silk cracker neatly affixed to the end of the tapering leather thongs. He was thus engaged when the girl came out with her work-basket. From this examination, Bony’s gaze rose to the young man.

  “I am sorry to give so much trouble this afternoon,” he said. “Is there such a thing to hand as a magnifying glass?”

  “Yes, there is. And we have a microscope, too, if you would like that.”

  “Well-no, not the microscope. The glass will be of use.” To Diana, when Young Lacy had left, Bony said: “Ah! The work-basket, Miss Lacy. Now what embroidery silk have you there?”

  Without speaking, Diana brought from the basket several hanks of silk-white and black and several shades of blue and of red. These Bony examined for a full minute before looking up and smiling.

  “If only the human brain could encompass all knowledge,” he complained with mock sadness. “Have you no green silk?”

  “No. I never use green or yellow silk for my fancywork.”

  “Hum! I asked that because I find on each of these four whips crackers made with green silk. Anderson, then, did not obtain his cracker-silk from you.”

  “No.”

  “I see that on the slip-over label on one of these unused hanks are the words ‘cable silk.’ I
t seems much coarser than that of the other hanks.”

  “Yes, it is not used for embroidery work but for fancy knitting.”

  “The word ‘cable’ reminds me,” said Young Lacy, who had returned with the magnifying glass. “I remember ordering green cable silk from Phil Whiting for Jeff Anderson. As a matter of fact Anderson always used green silk for his crackers.”

  “I wonder, now,” Bony said, slowly. “Did Anderson have a special liking for green as a colour?”

  “Two of his suits are dark green,” replied the young man.

  “He must have had a strain of Irish in him.”

  “What’s that!” exclaimed Old Lacy, his body jerking upward.

  Bony repeated the remark, and then, accepting the magnifying glass, he studied one of the whip crackers. Several minutes were spent on the study of the four whips.

  “Undoubtedly Anderson made his whip crackers with cable silk,” he said, breaking a long silence. “Now let us observe with the glass a wisp from the frayed end of this cracker with a wisp of silk I have found.”

  Bony produced from a long slender pocket-book an envelope, and from the envelope a spill of cigarette paper. Immobile, as though each of them held breathing suspended, the others saw Bony take from the paper a wisp of silk and lay it upon the envelope. No one offered comment when he set beside it a wisp of frayed silk from one of the crackers, and with the glass examined both with studious care. When he looked up at them they saw satisfaction depicted on his face.

  “I should like you all to examine these two wisps of silk with the glass,” he said, the satisfaction now in his voice. “Both specimens are much faded in colour, but they are sufficiently alike for us to assume that both came from the same material-cable silk.”

  One by one they accepted the glass and agreed that both wisps of silk were alike in colouring, though both faded.

  “What’s it all mean, Bony?” demanded the old man.

  “One moment, Mr Lacy,” said Bony. He returned the wisp of silk to its cigarette paper and the paper to the envelope which he marked Exhibit One. Then he removed one of the crackers and placed this in a used envelope which he marked Exhibit Two.

  “I am unable to satisfy your natural curiosity,” he told them smilingly. “My own curiosity is not yet satisfied concerning the scrap of cable silk I discovered in a somewhat remarkable position some five months after it was detached from the cracker of Anderson’s whip. While I am not sure, I can hazard a guess in which particular square mile Jeffery Anderson played a part in the drama which closed his life.”

  “Do you really think he was killed by someone?” asked Diana, that hard expressionless mask again on her face.

  “Of course he was,” interjected Old Lacy. “The blacks killed him for what he did to Inky Boy. I told Jeff to be careful and always to keep his eyes well open.”

  Bony nodded his head in the affirmative, and neither the girl nor Young Lacy could decide if the affirmation referred to the old man’s statement or to Diana’s question.

  Chapter Ten

  The Shadow of Civilization

  WHEN the maid brought him a cup of early morning tea, Bony was smoking his second cigarette and making notes on a sheet of note-paper, his puckered eyes indicating his displeasure with the progress of this case at Karwir.

  After breakfast with theLacys, during which the case was not mentioned, he rang Sergeant Blake who told of his interview with the Opal Town shopkeeper on the subject of green cable silk, an interview giving no definite results since the storekeeper reported selling green cable silk fairly often. With regard to the time when half an inch of rain had fallen on the eighteenth of April, Blake’s news was more encouraging, for one of theMackays, of Mount Lester Station, agreed that the half-inch had fallen by seven o’clock.

  Bony was on his way to join Young Lacy, who was working this Sunday morning on his aeroplane in preparation for the flight to Meena Lake in the afternoon, when he met Bill the Better coming from the cow yard with two buckets of milk.

  “Good day!” Bony greeted the little man with the watery blue eyes and the gingery moustache.

  “Good day-ee, Inspector! Keepin ’ dry, ain’t it?”

  A smile flitted across Bony’s dark face, and he said:

  “I do not approve of gambling on Sunday, but I’ll bet you five shillings even money that it rains before Christmas Day.”

  The groom set down his milk buckets.

  “Lemmesee,” he said. “To-day’s the eighth of October. Yes, I’ll take you. Rain to register not less than one point.”

  Bony produced his long, narrow pocket-book, and on the back of the envelope marked Exhibit One he noted the transaction. As he watched the detective doing this, Bill the Better asked:

  “Any chance of you finding the body?”

  “Body! What body?”

  “Handerson’s body, of course. I don’t know of any other likely ones.”

  “Why are you so interested in the discovery of Anderson’s body?”

  “Well, you see, Igotta coupler quid on Handerson’s carcass. That night ’e didn’t come ’omeI bet Charlie a coupler quid he’d be found a corpse. That’smore’n five months ago, and the bet’s still ’angingfire. Trouble is that Charlie might be left when the carcass is found, and then I can whistle for me money.”

  “Yes, I can understand how awkward the position is,” Bony agreed. “However, I am doing my best. Meanwhile, if you’re game, what about another little bet?”

  “Too right, Inspector. Anything will do me.”

  “Good! I’ll bet you a level pound you cannot tell me, without hesitation, just what you did on the eighteenth of April, the day that Anderson disappeared.”

  The watery eyes blinked.

  “Done!” cried Bill the Better. “I’ll recite it like apome. I gets the ’orsesin by half-past seven. I ’as me break and then walks over to the wood ’eap. I seen Handerson coming outer the yards with The Black Emperor. ’E walks ’imacrostto the Green Swamp gate, and when ’e gets on inside the paddock the ’orseplays up and Handerson belts ’imwith ’is stockwhip. After that he rides east along the south fence.”

  “Anderson had his stockwhip with him?”

  “Too right ’e did. ’E never moved without ’is blinding whip.”

  “Did you happen to notice what kind of cracker was on the whip that morning?”

  “I did. It was a brand new one on ’is newest whip. Thick green-coloured silk ’e always used on ’is whips. I reckon Inky Boy won’t ever forget the colour. The nig wasn’t awake when the green was changed to scarlet. Well, after I chopped the wood I went out after the ration sheep wot always runs in the night paddock.”

  “That is the paddock that lies eastward from here and south of Green Swamp Paddock, isn’t it?”

  “That’s it. By the time I’d-”

  “You didn’t see Anderson when you were out after the ration sheep, I suppose?”

  “Gripes, no! ’E’dbeengorn a coupler ’ours by then.”

  When Bill the Better had completed the list of his tasks that day, Bony presented him with a pound note in settlement of the debt.

  “You didn’t like Anderson, did you?”

  The watery eyes peered upward, and in them Bony saw hate.

  “No, I didn’t,” came the assertion. “I’ll lay you a whole fiver to a shilling you can’t produce anyone who loved the swine. And if you finds ’is carcass, which I’m ’oping you will, I gives the coupler quid I wins from Charlie to St Albans ’orspital.”

  “You may have to do that, and I will remind you of the hospital,” Bony said. “You don’t think, then, that Anderson cleared out of the district for some reason?”

  “Cleared out! Not ’im. Why, ’e wanted to marry Miss Lacy to get theflamin ’ stationso’s ’e could sack me.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Too right ’e did. But ’e couldn’t put thatacrost Old Lacy. Well, I must get along with the milk, Inspector. See you after.”

  A forthrigh
t little man, but hardly a man killer, thought Bony as he crossed the dry bed of the creek above the long waterhole supplying the homestead. Anderson must have been an evil man, a violent man who perished through violence, one who might well have lived to perish at the end of a rope.

  A few minutes after three o’clock Young Lacy’s plane alighted, with Bony in the passenger’s seat, on the wide ribbon of white claypan encircling the lake bed, just below the plateau on which Meena homestead was built. Together pilot and passenger followed the faint path up through the sand-dunes to the plateau where John Gordon and his mother had come to meet them.

  Bony took an instant liking to this man and this woman. Young Lacy effected the introduction, and Bony’s first impression was confirmed when both accepted him without the slightest hesitation.

  “Welcome to Meena, Mr Bonaparte,” Mary cried with faint excitement. “We have so few visitors that those we do have are very welcome indeed.”

  “We expected you before,” Gordon said, frankly extending his hand. “It’s a pity our lake is dry.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Mrs Gordon agreed. “The sound of the waves is just like the surf, and the air is always cool even during the summer.”

  “I’ve had no opportunity to come over before to-day,” Bony told them. “After what I have heard about your great interest in the aborigines-they occupy a warm place in my heart, you know-this visit gives me very great pleasure.”

  “We can talk about them for hours, John and I,” Mary said, still controlled by that faint excitement. “But let’s go along to the house. It will be so much cooler on the veranda.”

  Chatting to him all the way, she conducted the detective into the house, and through it to reach the veranda overlooking the great basin of the empty lake. There she made both him and Young Lacy comfortable, before bustling away to prepare the afternoon tea.

  “I understand, Mr Gordon, that you represent the third generation ofGordons occupying this country,” Bony remarked.