The Mountains Have a Secret

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Abruptly the wanderlust was upon him. He wondered what lay beyond the mountain, and through him swept the urge to climb it and look. Without doubt, beyond the mountain would lie another valley, and beyond that another mountain range, poised, restrained from crashing forward; but up there upon the crest he would stand in colour, be bathed by it, gaze into the flaming sunset, and have nothing of desire save wings with which to fly into greater freedom.

  Down in the hotel clearing, standing on the bridge and listening to the water music and the whispering voice of the sleepy birds, he felt as a dungeoned prisoner must feel on gazing upward through the wall slit at the open sky. He was not happy, for the week had been filled with frustrations. Then he remembered the ruby-red brilliant and the tracks of the hotel dray which made a record for two miles through the scrub to a huge pile of rock rubble fallen from the mountain face.

  When the dusk was deep Jim Simpson issued from the side door of the hotel and slid backward into the driving seat of his car. He drove away past the building, past the paddock at its rear, along the track skirting the creek, and onward to Baden Park Station. The engine purr dwindled to become the song of a drowsy bee, and when the bee alighted Bony knew that the machine was halted before the locked gates on what Simpson had said was Baden Park boundary.

  With his ears he could trace the progress of the car up the incline beyond the gates. So quiet and soft was the falling night, despite all the aids to subdue its sound, the humming of the “bee” continued to pour inward from the outer silence. He heard Simpson change to second gear, and then he saw the car’s headlights, a golden sword pointing to the evening star, wavering, swerving to the left, and illuminating a cliff of granite. A moment later he watched a mountain gorge open to receive the sword into its heart and the car into its iron embrace.

  Someone switched on the veranda light, and Bony left the bridge and sauntered past the garage to see the yardman standing between it and the hotel, standing on the track taken by the Buick and listening as Bony had been doing. In its ill-fitting clothes, the figure appeared like a fire-blackened treestump, for Shannon did not move as Bony went on to the veranda, walking silently as only his progenitors knew how to move.

  “Been out for a walk?” asked Ferris Simpson, who was seated beside her father.

  “Oh, just over to the bridge,” Bony replied. “I’ve been watching the sunset colours on the mountain. I think I’ll do a little exploring tomorrow. You know, find a way to the top. I could go by the road, only the gates are kept locked.”

  “Don’t you go into Baden Park country,” ordered old Simpson. “They don’t like trespassers. Too many valuable sheep over there. You stay this side of them gates. And don’t you go climbing that mountain, either. Bits of it is liable to come away any time.”

  The girl vented a peculiarly nervous laugh. Her face was in shadow, and when she stood up it was still so.

  “Please don’t attempt to climb up, Mr. Parkes,” she said. “As Father says, it’s very dangerous. And—and we don’t want any more trouble.”

  “Trouble, Miss Simpson?”

  “Yes, trouble,” snorted the old man. “What with people getting bushed and others getting shot to death and others going away without saying a how d’y’do to anyone, we’ve had enough trouble without you breaking your neck climbing that ruddy mountain.”

  “Father! Don’t speak to Mr. Parkes like that!” exclaimed the girl.

  “I’ll speak to him how I like and when I like.”

  “You’ll go to bed, that’s what you’ll do. Just see what comes of letting you stay up too late. Don’t you take any notice of him, Mr. Parkes.”

  “Go climbing mountains!” shouted the old man. “So you’d push me off to bed, would you, me girl? Well, you just wait. You wait till I’m dead. Then you’ll see.” He was whirled away along the veranda and round the corner, shouting and threatening, and Bony sank into a chair and wanted to chuckle, for only he had observed the red eyelid close in a wink.

  Chapter Eight

  Questions in the Dark

  IT was midnight when Bony, wearing pyjamas and dressing-gown, slid over the sill of his bedroom window. The night was soft and silent. His feet bare, he stole along the veranda and round the house corner to the french windows of old Simpson’s room. This was situated on the side of the house opposite the bar and the garage beyond it, but Bony was confident that even there he would be able to hear the Buick returning. The french windows were wide and, when inside the room, he switched on his flashlight to make sure that the furniture had not been moved since that night he had given the old man his sleeping-tablet.

  There was a table beside the three-quarter bed, and Bony sat on the floor so that one leg of it should be a back-rest. Beyond the foot of the bed the windows presented an oblong of steel grey, the door being on the far side of the bed. Fingertips touched his head, and on the bed there was movement. Then old Simpson said:

  “Did you bring a drink along with you?”

  “I said I would,” Bony replied. “Don’t speak so loudly.”

  “It’s all right. Ferris and the old woman sleep back of the house. Never mind if I want anything. Give the old bloke a pill that’ll put him to sleep and keep him quiet. He—he! I wouldn’t have swallered that pill tonight for anything. Why, I might have been doped when you came. What you bring, eh?”

  “Whisky. Like a spot?”

  The fingers touched Bony’s hair, clenched, tugged. Bony removed the hand, shifted position, caught the hand again, and put into it the small glass. Simpson gulped, sighed, lowered the glass.

  “Fill ’er up,” he whispered imploringly.

  “Don’t be greedy,” Bony told him. “I’ve only the one glass. You’ll have your share, don’t worry. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “Well, you’re not the Prime Minister.”

  “No—I’m not the P.M.—yet.”

  “You never know. There’s been less likely-looking men than you. But you look out. There’s hard doers to be met with up in these mountains. There was a detective staying here some time back and he met some of ’em over by Hall’s Gap, and they done him in.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Who? How the hell do I know? Hall’s Gap is twenty-five miles from here. Did you come here for anything special?”

  “To find Ted O’Brien. I’m his nephew.”

  The old man did not speak for fully half a minute. Then he said:

  “Ted’s nephew, eh! From Hamilton! So Ted never went away to see his sister?”

  “Not so far. I thought I’d try and track him up, and so decided I would start at the beginning, start right here. You’re a little doubtful about him, aren’t you? When he was sacked, how much money would he have?”

  The question required time to answer.

  “Wouldn’t know for sure,” came the reply. “About a hundred and fifty quid, I suppose. Ted never spent much. He never went to Dunkeld. Told me he was tipped pretty good, too. He might of had more’n a hundred and fifty.”

  “Who would be likely to rob him?”

  “Rob him!” snorted the invalid. “No one here would rob him. Jim’s got plenty of money. He wouldn’t rob old Ted O’Brien.”

  “Then why was my uncle killed?” demanded Bony, and when the old man spoke there was a nervous tremor in his voice.

  “I think ’cos he got to know too much. I_____What are you giving me? You make me say things what’s not in my mind. You_____”

  “Cut the cackle,” Bony said roughly. “Ted O’Brien’s my uncle and your old cobber, remember. When he was put off, or just before he was put off, were there any hard doers staying here or drinking here?”

  “No.”

  “What time of day was it when you saw him for the last time?”

  “When he put me to bed that night.”

  “He put you to bed!”

  “Yes. The old woman and Ferris were having a bit of a spell down at Port Fairy, and Jim had gone over to Baden Park. Seems like th
at after having put me to bed, Ted went into the spirit store and got himself drunk. Jim found him on the floor the next morning and sobered him and then sacked him. Ted went away without coming in to say good-bye.”

  “And when did Mrs. Simpson and Ferris return home?”

  “Some time later. Two days. It might have been three. I don’t recall.”

  “There was no one else here, no one doing the cooking?”

  “No. Jim’s a good cook. There wasn’t no need of a cook.”

  “Then what makes you think that something happened to my uncle?”

  “’Cos he never came to say good-bye afore he left. What about a drink?”

  “What makes you think that something happened to my uncle?” repeated Bony.

  “I told you.” The voice broke. “Here’s me alying here for hours in the dark waiting for you, and now you won’t give me a taste. No one cares about me. I’m a lump of wood to be dragged up and pushed around and shoved into bed. But time’s a-coming. You wait. You wait till after I’m dead, and then you’ll see. They don’t know where me will is put. They don’t know that.”

  Bony let him run down and then passed him a couple of swallows.

  “D’you know what I think about that uncle of mine?” he suggested, and when asked what, he went on: “I have the idea that my uncle found out something concerning those two young women who were lost near here. Did he tell you anything?” “He said he didn’t believe they were bushed. That’s all.”

  “He never told you why he didn’t believe they were bushed?”

  “No, he never said. But he knew something about ’em.” The trembling hand in the dark came to touch Bony’s hair, clutch it. “Perhaps that’s why Ted went away and never come in to say good-bye. It might be that. I been thinking other things, but it might be that.”

  Bony gently removed the fingers from his hair and eased his position on the floor.

  “You remember the detective who stayed here? Did he talk to you much?”

  “No. They wouldn’t let him. You just wait till after I’m_____”

  “How did they prevent him talking to you?”

  “Kept me off the front veranda, like they always do when there’s a few guests,” replied the old man. “We had a chip a coupler times, that’s all. Price, his name was. He done a lot of ridin’ around, but he never found anything. Them women were taken all right. After they left here they altered their minds about going to Lake George, I reckon. There’s a turnoff about a mile this side of Lake George. Runs away to the west. Could have taken it and met some hard doers with a truck.”

  “Then how would Ted O’Brien find out about them—all that way from here?” countered Bony.

  “How? I don’t know. Ted, he found out something. Told me he had.”

  “Did you tell Price about Ted telling you that?”

  “Never had the chance. Wouldn’t of if I had. Don’t want no ruddy policemen messing about here. Been a respectable hotel ever since the present Benson’s father got me the licence.”

  “Did you mention the matter to your wife, or to Jim, that my uncle reckoned he’d found out something about those young women?”

  “No fear,” came the swift reply. “I never tell them anything. They don’t ever tell me anything. They think I’m a lump of wood, but you wait. How’s the bottle?”

  “That terrier doesn’t bark much at night, does he?”

  “No. Only if a fox is huntin’ near the hen-houses.”

  “Must be a fox about tonight. Jim often go to Baden Park?”

  “Now and then. Been friends with Carl Benson since they was boys.”

  “Why are those gates kept locked all the time?” Bony pressed, and when the old man asked what gates he referred to, he went on: “Those gates at the foot of the range—between the range and the creek.”

  “That’s Baden Park boundary,” answered the old man. “How’s the bottle?”

  “Might be the boundary-line, but the gates do not serve to keep anything in or keep anything out.”

  “Don’t they, though,” chuckled the old man. “They keep curious strangers out. They keep the hotel guests out. People staying here like to walk up beside the crick, and then they come to the gates that are kept locked and they don’t go any farther. Benson don’t like strangers wandering on his property. Don’t blame him at all. Not with thousand-pound rams to be thieved.”

  “I can well believe that. Did you talk much to those hiking girls who stayed here?”

  “Yes, I did so. They was a coupler nice young women. The Bensons liked ’em too. Jim took ’em over to Baden Park the night afore they left. I did hear that Cora Benson wanted ’em to stay. Anyway, they had a good time. Ferris went too. Jim played the piano and the young women sang. Ferris said they sang pretty good.”

  Something was clicking a warning in Bony’s mind. Was there any significance in the omission from the Official Summary and the statements of the visit to Baden Park Station of the two girls? Probably not. He poured a little whisky into the glass and placed it in the groping hand of the man on the bed. He heard the faint sound of swallowing and the gentle sigh of ecstasy and then he was on his knees and leaning over the old man and whispering with his mouth close to the whiskered cheek.

  “Don’t speak. Pretend to be asleep.”

  Sliding back to the floor, he pocketed the glass and the bottle. The silence was material, a substance filling the room from floor to ceiling. Came into the silence the whisper of moving bedclothes, and then the regular breathing of a man asleep. Cunning old bird. Likely enough, he had in the past been surreptitiously inspected in the small hours.

  It was outside the french windows, not beyond the closed door. Bony detected the small creak of the veranda board he had himself located. He went forward to lie prone on his chest, his body then being parallel with the bed, and able to see the oblong of the windows. Slowly he worked his feet under the bed, his legs, his body. Then his head was beneath it, and by lifting the valance he could again see the shape of the windows.

  The oblong became a frame encompassing a human figure. The size of the figure magically grew larger so that the frame vanished into it. Soft illumination broke the darkness, and Bony saw a man’s feet and trouser cuffs within inches of his face. Whoever he was, he was standing at the foot of the bed and directing the handkerchief-filtered beam of a flashlight at the old man. There was no sound. There had been no sound to break the silence other than the old man’s breathing, and Bony marvelled at the soundless entry into the bedroom. There was no sound now other than the breathing, regular, slightly stertorous.

  The light went out. The oblong frame appeared dimly again and showed the figure of the man for a fraction of time. The man had stepped beyond the french windows and had gone along the veranda, and so round the corner to the front—if he was not waiting just outside.

  Bony waited a full minute before edging out from beneath the bed. Stealing to the windows, he glanced cautiously round each and searched the blackness of the veranda and the lighter darkness beyond. Satisfied that the visitor to old Simpson’s bed was not near, he stole back to the old man.

  “Who was that?” he whispered.

  “Don’t know for sure. Didn’t open me eyes. Likely enough it was Jim. How’s the bottle?”

  “But the Buick hasn’t come back. We’d have heard it.”

  “He—he! Jim’s got brains, he has,” asserted the invalid. “Got ’em from his father. Jim’s a bit suspicious, so prob’ly he left the car at the Bensons’ gates and walked here. He done it before.”

  “When was that, d’you remember?”

  “Too right! It was about the time them gals disappeared. He was hopin’ to catch Ted O’Brien givin’ me a drink. Mistook the night, sort of. Ted and me was havin’ a nip or two the night before.”

  “Was that when my uncle told you he thought the girls hadn’t been bushed?”

  “Yes, it were. Me throat’s that dry and all. Yes, it was then. We was havin’ a nip or two, and J
im came in and catched Ted giving me a tot. Jim did perform. But it came out all right. He didn’t sack Ted till weeks after, and that was for getting drunk in the spirit store.”

  “What did you mean about a body being in the store—all stiff and cold, you said.”

  “Nuthin’. It was a sort of dream I had. How’s the bottle?”

  Bony told the old man to lie quiet, and himself went to the french windows, was assured, returned to the bed.

  “Tell me about that dream,” he urged.

  “You gimme a drink. I’m dry talkin’,” countered the old man. Bony pondered, standing in the dark, a part of his mind seeking to register the sound of the returning Buick, another part wondering what reliance could be placed in the cunning old rascal pleading for another drink. The old man asked quaveringly:

  “You still there?”

  “Yes. I’m waiting for you to tell me about the body in the spirit store.”

  “There wasn’t no body, I tell you. I dreamed it one night. The body I saw lying there cold and stiff was me.”

  “When did you dream it?”

  “When? How the hell can I remember when? Gimme a drink, quick.”

  Bony’s voice was like the tinkle of ice in a wineglass.

  “When—or no drink,” he said.

  “Blast you,” snarled the old man. “It was that night Ted O’Brien put me to bed. I was having me dream when a curlew or something screamed on the veranda or somewhere and woke me up. Why don’t you gimme a drink?”

  “It wouldn’t be my uncle who screamed, would it?”

  “What d’you want to frighten me for?” wailed the invalid, so loudly that Bony almost clapped a hand over his mouth. “All in the dark, too. And Jim sneakin’ in here and all. Course it wasn’t Ted. Ted was drunk in the spirit store. Jim found him there the next morning.”

  “Very well. Let that slide. One other thing, and you tell me true and I’ll give you another tot. The next day, the day after you had that dream, what did Jim do?”