“Sorry, but I’ve got a deal of book work to do. Those returns for the Lands Department,” answered Young Lacy. “It’s funny about the ’phone. It’s working all right now. I rang up Phil Whiting just before I came over from the office.”
“Must have been a stick or something on the line that the wind has blown off,” commented Old Lacy. “I couldn’t raise a thing when I wanted to get through to Mount Lester last night.”
Diana herself saw to her father’s lunch basket, and saw, too, that it was packed on the old car used for the run work. She gave Bill the Better the usual instructions how to make tea weak enough to prevent the squatter from having indigestion for a week. The old man liked tea jet-black.
At nine o’clock she was on the road to Opal Town, driving her own smart single-seater. The day gave promise of being gusty and dusty and altogether unpleasant. Already the mirage water, gathered over claypan and depression, appeared not to have its usual “body,” to be attenuated, unreal. The sky was stained by a dull-white, high-level haze that, unable to defeat the sun, gave to its rays a peculiar yellow tint. Before half-past nine, she reached the boundary gate.
For miles she had steered her car in the wheel tracks last passed over by the car owned and driven by Sergeant Blake. Getting out to open the gate she saw, bush girl that she was, the small boot marks made by Bony when he had opened the gate to permit them to pass through from Karwir country. It was when beyond the gate that she saw the larger imprints made by the Sergeant, and on both sides of the fence there were many imprints of dogs, how many dogs she was unable to decide. These tracks mystified her, for Young Lacy had not thought it worth while to mention Bony’s acquisition of dogs. There was much else to interest Diana Lacy. She examined the temporary camp used by Bony and the Sergeant when they met every evening.
The pupils of her eyes were mere pin points when she drove on to Opal Town. The lines about her mouth tended to straighten out its delightful curves. Her mind was flooded with questions, and in her heart was a vast unease.
Where had that man obtained the dogs? Why did he have them with him? He had not got them from Karwir, and as far as she knew he had not gone to the township. Sergeant Blake must have brought them out. Why? Hardly for company.
If the wind failed to reach gale strength before it moved round to the south, that man would read her own tracks, read in them her interest in him and his dogs. What eyes he must have to have found that tiny fibre of cable silk and the hair attached to the bark of one tree out of countless numbers of trees! And now he knew that the hair he had found had not come from Anderson’s head. And he had let her understand that he suspected it had come from John Gordon’s head.
This extraordinary half-caste seemed to be growing bigger and bigger, or was it because he was occupying an increasingly large space in her mind? In all her twenty-odd years Diana Lacy had had her way with men. She looked upon men, the nice men, as having been especially born to amuse her, to grant her wishes, to make the wheels of her life go round. Only one man had she ever found a little difficult-her father, in whom she suspected volcanic depths. Only one man she feared, and she had come to fear him quite recently-this strange man from the Criminal Investigation Branch. She ought, she was sure, to despise him for his birth, to regard him as she had always regarded half-castes, as unfortunate people, but, well, not quite nice. And she was angry with herself, and angry with him that his personality made it impossible for her to despise him.
Her feminine instinct informed her that Mr Napoleon Bonaparte was “a nice man,” not unlike a white man a little too deeply tanned by the sun. She did not fear him, physically. Physically he attracted her. She liked his face. She liked the way he smiled. She liked his eyes that were so blue and candid and friendly. It was his mind that she feared. He was the first man she had ever met who had demanded from her and received, recognition of his mental superiority.
All men she had come to look upon as subject to her feminine charm and wit, even her own father. No man had ever rebelled against her rule until this Bonaparte man had arrived. He conceded her charm, and this she had been quick to see. He would have paid tribute to her wit had she not from the first withdrawn herself from him. But not for a moment had he admitted any inferiority on his part. Her world had been calm and safe and sure before his arrival at Karwir. He had come to find out certain things and, despite her, he had found out certain things, and he would go on finding out other things-if the Barcoo sickness did not force him to give up.
Stopping the car outside Pine Hut, Diana remained seated, lighting a cigarette and quietly smoking while she carefully examined the building for sign of a chance swagman in occupation. No smoke rose from the iron chimney. The door was latched. She had noted the tracks made by Blake’s car passing by along the road. There certainly were no tracks of dogs about this place.
The wind was carrying little dust eddies across the wide, clear, flat area of land stretching away from the front of the hut, and it sang in small high notes about the building, but she was confident, when stepping to ground, that it was not sufficiently strong to prevent ample warning of the approach of a car.
Oh, she knew the place well enough! Countless times had she stopped her car here to spend half an hour talking to John Gordon. To-day she was hoping desperately that she would hear his voice and not the voice of his mother saying that John was away out on the run and would not be home till late.
Before entering this one-room stockman’s house, she surveyed its interior from the open doorway. There was the usual dust on the long table and the form flanking it. The usual sheets of newspaper littered the floor and unburned, charred wood rested on top of the white ash in the wide hearth. There, affixed to the wall just inside the door, was the telephone instrument with its small shelf for the writing of notes. There was dust on this shelf and on top of the box, the dust in which she had been charged with drawing little crosses.
Diana’s face flamed. She knew she never had drawn crosses, and she knew that Bony knew she had never drawn crosses. Every time she thought of that luncheon she felt like shedding tears of vexation. To think that he could so successfully spring that on her, so take her by surprise that she was helpless to deny it-she a woman of the world and over twenty. His open suggestion of her secret meeting with John she had, of course, valiantly and resolutely defeated, but she had gone down like a simpleton before his crafty flank attack.
No, there was no defeating that mind behind the bright blue eyes. She believed what he had told her about his never failing in an investigation. A man with a mind like that could not fail. He wouldn’t fail here at Karwir-unless the Barcoo sickness conquered. All that could be done was to retreat, to delay revelation, to smother up still further the thing that time should have successfully buried for ever.
Diana twirled the handle protruding from the box affair and lifted the horn monstrosity to her ear. No voice interrupted the song of the wind. Replacing the horn she rang again, and again lifted the horn to her ear. Only the song of the wind reached her. It came humming along the wire. It came in through the door in shrill cadences.
It was now that she saw the discolouration on the earth floor immediately below the instrument, and with sudden suspicion she raised the little clasp and pulled the front back from the box. Within, the two glass cells lay wrecked.
Without haste, her mind governed by a strange fatalistic calm, she stepped from the hut, latched the door after her, and walked to her car, there to sit and put a match to another cigarette. As her father sometimes said: there was nothing for it but hard smoking.
So he had broken the cells to prevent her from ringing up Meena! He knew it was John she had met on the boundary fence. He knew she had talked to John that day her brother flew her to Opal Town. Now he guessed that the hair he had found on the tree trunk had come from John’s head. He had only talked about those hairs to lure her into another trap, knowing that she would try to communicate with John to tell him about the hairs. Well, she had fallen i
nto the trap, as he would well know, because she couldn’t wipe out the tracks like the blacks could. He knew she would try to tell John not to leave his hair on his comb and brushes or towels. Well, she wasn’t beaten yet. She would go to Meena to tell John in person.
Down went the toe of the fashionable shoe to stamp hard on the starter button. The engine purred into life, and she swung the machine round to take the track to Meena homestead. The road was like a snake’s track. She accelerated across theclaypans and the hard areas of grey ground. She was forced to brake hard before reaching the sandy areas, fearful of a skid much worse than any produced by a slippery road. Twice she was stopped by a gate.
Mary Gordon came hurrying to meet her from the direction of the cow shed. She was carrying a heavy bucket of milk, her spare figure encased in a print frock and her head protected from the sun by a blue scarf.
“I heard you coming,” she cried excitedly to Diana. “John’s out, and I’ve been out all the morning watching the blacks drive rabbits into a yard. The fire will be dead, but it won’t take long to boil the kettle. I’ve got a new tin one that comes to the boil in a few minutes. I suppose you rang from Pine Hut and couldn’t get us.”
Diana, shorter than the elder woman, her youth and supple grace making striking contrast, said simply:
“I’d like a cup of tea. I’m sorry John is out. I wanted to see him most importantly.”
“Well, come along in. The place will be upside down, but you mustn’t mind. I went out before John left.” Mary Gordon bustled on ahead through the wicket gate and along the cinder path to the veranda door, across the veranda and into the kitchen-living-room. There she turned to her visitor to say: “Well, I never! I told John not to bother with anything, and he’s washed up and tidied and actually re-set the table for me. Now you sit there on the couch while I make up the fire. And off with your hat. It’ll cool your head.”
With her hands raised to the task of removing her hat, Diana glanced about this pleasant, plainly furnished room that always gave the impression that it was thoroughly cleaned at least six times every day. It enshrined the family life of the Gordon clan. The modern sewing machine and the radio cabinet contrasted with the old muzzle-loading muskets left by John the First. The new tin kettle squatted beside the great iron ones brought here from outside in those years when utensils were made to last. The grandfather clock, the pride and affection of the first Mrs Gordon, gleamed not unlike the slender mulga shafts of the aborigines’ spears. Table and chairs, pictures and ornaments represented the fashions of a hundred years. There were no flowers, but the floor exuded the refreshing smell of carbolic.
“The rabbits here are terrible,” Mary rattled on. “I’ve never in all my life seen so many. What they’re living on I don’t know. I’ve got to stand over the hens while I feed them to stop them being robbed by the rabbits who don’t fear me any more than the hens do. The cats and the dogs won’t look at them, they’re so sick of the sight of them. Jimmy Partner says they mayn’t stay here much longer, and he and the blacks have been working at the skin getting. Yesterday he and the blacks built mile-long netted fence wings in the form of a great V, and at the point of the V they built a large trap-yard.
“Last night they lifted the netting off the ground and just hung it atop the temporary posts so that the rabbits from the warrens could run out on to the lake and feed on what’s left of the rubbish in the middle of it. Then, before dawn, they went along the wings and pegged the netting to the ground. I went out while they were doing it, and afterwards we all walked round the lake to the far side where we waited till daybreak.
“My, it was exciting! We stretched out like a lot of Old Country beaters, and marched across the lake towards the trap beating tins and things. Oh, Diana! You ought to have been there. It was marvellous. The rabbits streamed towards the trap before us like a huge flock of sheep, all making for the warrens beyond the wing-fences. The eagles came down low and flew so close that you could see their beady red eyes. When the rabbits reached the wing-fences they ran along them in to the V point just like two rivers of fur. There must have been thousands and thousands. Thousands of them escaped by running back past us. Thousands more wouldn’t go into the trap-yard, but in the yard, when we got to it, Jimmy Partner estimated there were five to six thousand. The blacks are all down there now skinning them. And skins are such a good price this year, too.”
“The Kalchut banking account ought to swell this month if the blacks can trap them like that,” Diana said, smiling at the other woman’s enthusiasm.
“It will, dear, but if they catch as many every morning for twelve months it won’t make any difference to the horde.” Mary abruptly sat down on the couch beside the girl. “I’m sorry John isn’t at home. He’ll be ever so disappointed when he knows you came.”
“I suppose he will be away all day?”
“Yes, he will so. He and Jimmy Partner have been cutting scrub for the ewes away over at the foot of the Painted Hills. Jimmy Partner ought to have been with him to-day, but Nero and the others didn’t quite know how to make the trap-yard.”
Diana nodded. Mary saw her disappointment.
“John has never told you about what happened to Jeffery Anderson, has he?” Diana softly questioned.
“What happened to him! No. What did happen to him?”
Mary’s expression of pleasure at the visit changed swiftly to one of alarm.
“Would you be a brave dear woman and not question me? You see, I can’t say anything because John made me promise not to. I have always thought he ought to tell you, but he says it would be better for him and everyone for you not to know. Things are better forgotten. I’ve come over chiefly to get him, or you, to collect every hair of his that may be on his comb and brushes and pillows and towels.”
“Mercy me, why?”
The girl made a slight despairing motion with her hands.
“I can’t tell you. I promised John I wouldn’t without his permission. You’ve just got to trust me and him, too. He’d be angry with me if he knew I had said anything to you at all, but I can’t help it as he is away and we must gather up any hairs he might have left.”
Mary glanced helplessly out through the window. When she encountered the violet eyes again there was horror in her own.
“I-I-have sometimes wondered,” she said slowly. “I can’t forget that night of rain when I waited here listening for them to come home, and then went down to the blacks’ camp to get them to go and search. They were very late. Jimmy Partner was talking to Nero, and the next morning all the blacks went off on walk-about. Then John came home, and he had a blue bruise across his throat, and he said it had been done when he rode under a tree branch in the dark. I-I-won’t ask questions. But please answer this one. Is there any danger to John-through Inspector Bonaparte?”
Diana nodded and sighed softly.
“Yes. The detective is finding out about things. Oh, I wish John had been home, and then I should not have had to upset you. I wish he had confided in you. But it’s too late to wish that. We’ve got to work to protect him. We’ve got to be very careful. I can see now that John was very wise not to tell you anything at all, because, should Inspector Bonaparte come again and question you, you can tell him nothing because you know nothing.”
“But I do. I know about-”
“You know nothing, dear. Just remember that you know nothing. You can help him by knowing nothing. Don’t you see that?”
Mary Gordon stood looking down into the troubled eyes, and slowly her mouth became grim and her own eyes determined.
“I shall give nothing away, Diana, and I shall never question John. He will tell me when he thinks it proper. I know how to fight. I’ve had to fight all my life. There now, the kettle’s boiling, and after we’ve had a cup of tea we’ll hunt for every blessed hair.”
Turning, she walked towards the stove, then stopped to stare at a striped linen mattress cover neatly folded and resting on the dresser.
“Tha
t’s funny!” she exclaimed, crossing to the dresser and taking up the mattress cover. Permitting one end to fall to the floor, she shook it out, and discovered that the end on the floor was cut right across. Reversing it, she held the striped cover like an open sack. Diana watched, a frown puckering her eyes. She saw one brown hand slip down and into the cover and then come out with a black feather held between forefinger and thumb.
“What is there peculiar about it?” asked the girl.
Mary uttered a little sharp laugh of bewilderment. Then she said, looking at Diana over the mattress cover:
“Years ago, when my husband was alive, the lake was crowded with birds, and one winter he and the blacks shot enough of them to fill two mattresses with their feathers. One mattress John has always slept on. The other was always on one of the spare beds. About four weeks ago I found the mattress on the spare bed missing. I asked John about it and he didn’t know anything. I asked Jimmy Partner and he didn’t know about it. The blacks have never once robbed us. And now here’s the mattress cover with all the feathers gone.”
“Someone must have taken it. Perhaps John found it in the bush somewhere.”
“But he would have said something about it last night when he came home. Unless he found it this morning, perhaps in the harness shed.”
Diana’s face had become strained and pale.
“What time was John to leave this morning,” she asked.
“What time? Oh, early. About six o’clock.”
“And you were away from before daybreak?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No one else was here? All the blacks were away at the rabbit drive?”
“All of them except Wandin. I saw him on my way back home. He was sitting before a little fire all by himself, and he looked like a praying mantis.”
The Bone is Pointed b-6 Page 18
