“He might have planned to leave his car on the old York Road, and wrecking it on the pipeline was an accident.”
“Certainly the wrecking of his car was an accident. He didn’t plan to smash his car, or he would not have agreed to accept Wallace as a passenger. The argument between them started only after they had passed the garage.”
“But Wallace might have been in the game,” persisted the sergeant.
“Your reasoning is logical,” admitted Bony. “Yet why was Loftus in such a towering rage?” Governed by anger most certainly he was. The distance to which he flung two empty beer bottles, two cigar ends, and the fact that he used five matches to light the second cigar by that gimlet-tree goes to prove it, for angry men are far more energetic than calm men. In actual fact he was so angry that when he lit his second cigar he failed to note that his notebook fell to the ground.
“Yes, undoubtedly he was angry. The question presented to us is: Why was he angry when partly intoxicated? We answer: Because he had accidentally wrecked his car and was faced by a two-mile walk in the middle of the night when it was raining, and to that was added the certain knowledge that he had been a fool in not turning at the garage corner and so have avoided all his troubles. If he had planned his disappearance he would have drawn all the money from his bank account, and his plans would not have included wrecking his car and walking two miles in the direction of his home.”
Sergeant Westbury was fascinated. Yet he further objected.
“But why did he draw that money when he did?” he asked.
“That remains to be discovered, Sergeant. We will proceed slowly. Never hurry Chief Detective Time. The first step, which we have accomplished, was to decide definitely whether Loftus deliberately disappeared or was either killed or abducted.”
“You mentioned a notebook; a notebook.”
“I did. I found it against the fence opposite that tree where Loftus stopped to light his second cigar and expended five matches in doing so. I found the used matches and the notebook buried in a mass of water-piled rubbish. See, here is the book almost eaten by the white ants, and here in these thin splinters of white wood we have all the ants left of five whole matches,”
“Anything important in the notebook?”
“Evidence that it belonged to Loftus and that he had possessed it when in Perth. As I just stated, the first step in this really interesting case is completed. Now, please, note a few instructions.”
“Right. All set.”
“I want all particulars regarding Mrs Loftus and the man Landon, who works on the Loftus farm. Their antecedents, their habits, and, if possible, their vices and their virtues. In fact, everything about them you can gather, and I am relying on you to be sure that your inquiries raise neither comment nor suspicion.”
“I’ll be careful. But youain’t going to accuse ’emof murder, are you?”
“Certainly not. And please find out from the Bank of New South Wales if the notes paid out to Loftus on November the first were old, or partly soiled, or new. That will be all.”
Bony smiled at the burly sergeant, and Sergeant Westbury grinned back at him with eyes which were mere pinheads of steel in the centre of screwed-in lids. Before turning away to the truck he said:
“Very good. Yes, very good. Good day; good day!”
Chapter Eight
The Dance
AT THE invitation of Mrs Gray, Bony decided to attend the dance held at the Burracoppin Hall on the evening of 20th November.
Accordingly he dressed with care, in clothes sent up from Perth, and about nine o’clock left the Depot in company with Mr and Mrs Gray.
Into this hall from the town and outlying farms had come good-looking women and strong, well-set-up men, an A-1 standard of physique rarely seen in the older countries and the Australian cities. From the farm districts and from the vast bushlands beyond had emerged in 1914 that Australian Army whose physical perfection had aroused the admiration of Europe.
Within the hall they discovered almost seventy people waiting for theM. C. to announce the first dance of the evening. The electric light was softened by strings of coloured paper festooned beneath the lamps. It fell on gaily attired women and well-scrubbed men in lounge suits. At the door people separated as though governed by established convention, women occupying the long forms set against one wall and the men taking their seats against the opposite wall. Near the door stood the contingent of unattached males.
Often Bony had observed this division of the sexes in the smaller towns of the Commonwealth, coming to regard it as a facet of the white man’s psychology for which there was no adequate explanation. To him, an observer on the fringe, this sex segregation, far more marked than in the cities, was an unsolvable puzzle.
There was an undercurrent of excitement vibrant to his keen senses. Pleasurable anticipation glowed on every face. The members of the string band, minus coats and waistcoats, began to tune their instruments. From behind stage came the sound of crockery ware, and when Mick Landon jumped from floor to stage the flutter of anticipation was general.
“Ladies and gents,” he said in a clear voice, “I have been asked by the committee to express their pleasure at the large number whohave turned up so early. As you know, this dance is being run to benefit Mrs Loftus, who is financially embarrassed by the strange disappearance of Mr Loftus. The fact of the matter is that until it is known whathas become of Mr Loftus his financial affairs cannot be settled. So let us hope his disappearance may be soon cleared up. When Mrs Loftus arrives, let us give her a rousing welcome, considering how popular she is.”
“ ’Ear, ’ear!” someone applauded, whilst the gathering expressed approval with much hand clapping.
Conscious of his position, Landon raised his hands to secure attention.
“We will start the night, then, with a foxtrot,” he shouted.
The band struck up a rollicking tune. Men and women gravitated to each other on the floor, the women not waiting for an invitation or an escort. Evidently partnerships had been arranged before ever they entered the hall.
Without coat or waistcoat, with blue braces vivid against white shirt, Mick Landon looked like a clerk in a heated warehouse or a stockbroker digging up his garden. He was perfectly proportioned. The light gleaming on his fair curly hair showed his face to be really handsome. Once he had got the dance started he swept into his arms a young lady who made no effort to disguise her pleasure and conducted her round the floor, whilst his strangely fixed blue eyes looked down on her in a masterful way. Fifty pairs of feminine eyes watched his every movement; even those women dancing looked at him when he was in their line of vision, regarded him with narrowed eyes, their hearts moved by envy of his partner.
Bony decided that the women and girls could not be blamed. Sight of such a man could excusably arouse emotion in the heart of any woman. He was dominant, the master there. Mick Landon might rise high-directly the sex influence of women waned and gave place to worthy ambition.
Watching the crowd with absorbed interest, Bony caught sight of Lucy Jelly, calm-eyed, composed, and refreshingly cool in a becoming gown of white muslin. She was dancing with a young fellow about her own age whose eyes sparkled with pride and whose well-brushed hair gleamed with oil. Mr Thorn hopped around with a woman as fat as himself. She, Bony decided, must be his wife, because he studiously refrained from breathing beer into her red face. An active middle-aged man, whom Bony knew to be a Snake Charmer, was proving a worthy partner to spritely Sunflower Jelly, and the Spirit of Australia was dancing with youthful grace with a little woman about forty years old who actually appeared to be no older than nineteen.
“You working for the Rabbit Department?” asked a rugged six-foot Scotchman. It was more a statement of fact than a question. Bony admitted it. “Glad to see you here. Good crowd. Know many?”
“A few, yes. Mr Thorn, there. And that big man I have heard called the Spirit of Australia. Is it a fact that he is over eighty years of age?”
When next Bony spoke he said:
“I see Miss Jelly and Miss Sunflower, but not Mr Jelly. Does he not dance?”
“No, heain’t around,” the Scotchman replied without accent. Had Bony been a fellow countryman no Englishman would have understood him. “He’s a queer card, Jelly. Every time I think of him I am reminded of Dr Jekyll in the book. His going away without ever telling folk where he goes, or why, is very strange. ’Course, it might be a woman. He’s a widower, you know. Some men are like that.”
“Yet Mr Jelly did not strike me as being that sort of man.”
“He don’t really strike me that way either. But why does he go? Sometimes he’s away for three of four weeks, and at other times he only goes for a few days, It wouldn’t be so bad if he said he was going and when he would be back. But no one ever sees him go or knows that he is going, not even his daughter, who worries herself to death about it. It’s a bit thick in a way.”
“Who does the farm work during these periods of absence?”
“Old Middleton carries on, He works for Jelly. Well, I’m in on the next dance. See you after.”
When the dance was in full swing Bony saw Mrs Gray trying to attract his attention, and after much adroit manoeuvring he gained her side. Mrs Gray was one of those women whose souls kept unblemished by the rouge of social ambition and the lipstick of snobbishness.
“Don’t you dance?” she asked when Bony sat down between her and her husband.
“Yes, madam, but it is not often I have the chance,” he told her gravely, refraining to add that the average white woman was shy of accepting him. “May I have the pleasure of your partnership?”
“I would consent if I could dance,” she said, regarding him frankly. “If you would like to meet them, I am sure there are one or two women here who would be pleased for you to ask them.”
“Thank you! That is a suggestion I will gladly accept. Yet before you so kindly make the introductions, I am going to take my courage in both hands and ask Miss Lucy Jelly to favour me. I have already been presented to her. Permit me to go to her now before my courage trickles away between my fingers.”
When he had risen, bowed, and departed towards Lucy Jelly, then sitting with Sunflower farther along the wall, Mrs Gray said to her husband:
“He’s not working for you because he has to. What is behind your putting him on?”
Inspector Gray smiled at her and winked an eye. Slowly, distinctly, and emphatically he said to her:
“Find out.”
“All right. I will find out. You never tell me anything.”
Standing before Lucy Jelly, Bony was saying:
“I do hope you remember me. Might I have the next dance-a waltz, I believe?”
He saw doubt cloud her clear brown eyes, knew she would refuse before she uttered the excuse so difficult to evolve. He even detected her displeasure about the necessity to make the excuse.
“I’m sorry, but I’m engaged for the next dance.”
Bony smiled his disappointment, saying:
“I, too, am sorry.”
He was turning away when Sunflower’s voice arrested him.
“You might at least ask me, Mr Bony. I won’t tell a fib,” she said softly.
“Dulcie, how dare you!” the elder sister exclaimed with scarlet face.
“I shall be charmed,” Bony announced, offering his arm as the band started to play “The Blue Danube”.
Sunflower’s head came to Bony’s shoulder. Permitting him to hold her in the approved style, they glided away among the crowded couples, and he, looking down on her golden hair, was thrilled by the pure glory of it. She was a born dancer. Music and poetry lived in her soul. Looking up at him with no sophistry in her dove-grey, limped eyes, she said to him, almost in a whisper:
“You dance wonderfully. Did you learn at the corroborees?”
“No. I learned to dance in Brisbane when I went to high school.”
“And did they teach you elocution, and good manners, and all that?”
“No. I took much trouble to teach myself. Who taught you to dance so nicely?”
“Sis did,” the maid said gravely before falling into a silence of very ecstasy that was in part a compliment to him. Minutes passed before she spoke again.
“You must forgive Lucy telling that fib, because she is so worried about Father,” Sunflower said softly. “You see, the other morning we found that he had gone away, and he never tells us that he is going or when he expects to come home. It is not so bad his going, but when he comes back he brings strong drink with him and he shuts himself up in his room for days.”
“You really do not know where he goes to or why?” Bony asked.
Sunflower shook her head with emphasis. The strange behaviour of her father was a heavy cloud masking the sun of her life. The music stopped. They stood almost in the centre of the floor waiting for a possible encore. People began to clap their hands. Little Sunflower said at last:
“No, we don’t know about Father. If we did, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Perhaps you could find out. You are a policeman, aren’t you?”
Astonished that his identity was known to this unsophisticated young lady, Bony was hardly aware that the band had started playing and that the dancers were swinging off in rhythmic step. Sunflower, unabashed because unconscious of the shock she had given him, caught his hand before he responded to the music.
“So you know I am a detective?” he said softly, in his eyesan expression of quizzical interest.
“Yes, we have known about you ever since you came to our farm. You are not angry, are you?”
“I could not be angry with you, Miss Sunflower; but how did you find out?”
“Eric told us when you were with Father in his room that night. He said we must keep it a secret.”
“Ah! And how did he find out?”
Sunflower laughed gaily, her mood lightened when at last she saw the gleam of laughter behind his blue eyes, from which she knew she could keep nothing back.
“Guess,” she commanded teasingly.
“Did Eric hear me talking in my sleep?”
“No; guess again.”
“I give up,” Bony announced. “Tell me, quick, before I faint with curiosity.”
“All right. Eric said he picked up a letter in the Depot yard which was written to Inspector Gray. He showed it to us the evening you came with him. Of course we were thrilled, but Lucy said it was wrong of us to read a letter that did not belong to us. She made Eric put it into the kitchen fire and made him and me promise to tell no one. We haven’t, either.”
“Not even your father?”
“No. Not even Father.”
They circled the polished floor before she spoke again, saying:
“You know, you do not look like a detective. You look much too kind. Not like two of them I saw here before I met you. They were big, stern men with fierce eyes which make you shiver. Even when you are angry you don’t look like they look at people.”
“I am not stern. And I’m not angry. I am surprised at your knowing I am adetective, that is all. I thought that only Mr Gray knew. As you and Eric promised Miss Lucy not to tell, will you promise me not to tell?”
“Of course,” Sunflower said, as though she were a past master in the art of keeping secrets. And then: “Do you think poor Mr Loftus ran away from Mrs Loftus?”
“Why should he? Why do you ask that question?”
“Well, you’re here to find out, aren’t you? And because if I was Mr Loftus I’d run away from her. I hate that woman.”
“Dear, dear! Surely you cannot hate?”
“I hate her, anyway. I couldn’t tell you why exactly. Do you think he ran away from her?”
There was no evading her question the second time. Bony was frank.
“I cannot find out,
” he said.
“Will you stay until you do?”
“Very likely.”
Presently she said: “Will you come to our farm some day and tell me all about the blackfellows’ corroborees? I would like to hear tales about them, and, perhaps, you could find out about Father. Would you try?”
“Yes, if your sister would like me to do so,” Bony replied, studying the swiftly changing expression on her face. “We must defer to her, you know. She is the elder. Possibly she might not like my trying to find out.”
“Oh I think she would. Father makes her so worried.”
“Very well. I will put it to her later on.”
The music came to an end. The dancers stopped. There was much laughter whilst people thanked each other, followed by a general movement to the seats.
“Will you ask me to dance again presently, Mr Bony?” Sunflower asked, not attempting to conceal her anxiety lest he should forget.
“It will give me great pleasure to ask, not once, but several times. Let me take you back to your sister, now talking to-”
There was sudden commotion beyond the main entrance. The knot of men who appeared as though glued to that part of the hall, seemingly content merely to watch-and criticize-raised a cheer which was taken up by the dancers. They parted into a lane, and into this lane flashed a sparkle of pink which resolved into a woman’s dress. The wearer came along the lane, to pause at its innermost end while the crowd cheered and clapped.
Bony saw a strikingly pretty woman whom he guessed correctly to be Mrs Loftus. Her age, he knew, was twenty-nine. She was dressed in a frock of pink crepe de chine, which seemed oddly to contrast with her supposed financial difficulties, which this dance was being held partially to relieve. In height slightly above the average, her frock showed to perfection a well-moulded, supple figure. Her face was flushed, and her eyes-he thought they were dark hazel-reflected the lights. Her expression was one of strained anxiety, the whole giving a total effect of pleasure at being there and doubt of the proprietary of it when her husband was so strangely missing.
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