“They got Sam’s car out of the bog, but you have to stay on here till tomorrow.” Emma offered one of the cups to Sadie and Sadie accepted, faintly smiling. “I’m bursting with curiosity, but I’ve promised not to ask a single question except to ask if you want anything.”
“But you can answer my questions. They didn’t tell you not to, did they?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Where’s Nat?”
“He’s gone down to talk to your mother and old Jeff. He will be bringing the things you need. Sam and the doctor, and Mr Lang, the magistrate, are over in the barn as far as I know, dear. Lew and Fred are sitting outside in the sun, and Tom Breckoff took off his coat and is giving Karl a hand with the milking.”
For Emma it was not unlike looking after an invalid, and secretly she loved it. Sadie had been told by Sasoon that she must not leave the room unless accompanied by Emma, and, if she gave her promise, the windows could be left open and the door to the living-room left ajar. Emma had once heard her crying, but much of the time Sadie spent in meditation.
It was the day following that terrible day of storm which wrecked beautiful Rhudder’s Inlet, and it was thought that the track to Timbertown would carry wheel traffic the next day. Matt had volunteered to use horses in a sled to fetch the body of Marvin Rhudder on which Coroner Lang had held a preliminary inquiry, and accepted the depositions from several persons, proving identity. Old Jeff wanted his son buried on the cliff behind Australia’s Front Door, but this the law would not permit.
Later, when Emma was cooking dinner for her large official party and her two men, Sadie heard Bony saying to Emma that he had brought the clothes, and perhaps Sadie might like to change into them at once. He said nothing of what had transpired at the homestead, and shortly left the living-room. It was some time after she had eaten dinner in her room that Bony asked to come in.
“I’ve come to ask questions to fill in the blanks so that your statement can be prepared,” he told her, and the door appeared to be closed by the draught from the windows. “Had a restful day?”
“Yes, Nat.”
“Good! Then we’ll rough out this statement, and in the morning I’ll read it over to you and have you sign it. You haven’t forgotten what I said about not signing another one?”
“Oh, Nat, I’ve forgotten nothing you’ve ever said.”
“Well, you forget about those swear-words. Now let’s to the job.”
In mid-morning the next day, Constable Breckoff asked her to come to the living-room, and there she found Bony seated at the table with Sasoon. They both stood. There was no welcoming smile. They were stiff in attitude, and Bony spoke crisply:
“Good morning, Sadie. Please take this chair. Thank you. Now I have here . . . you needn’t stand behind Miss Stark, Constable. Sit down. I have before me the many statements you have made to me, which I have incorporated into a concise document. I will read it to you, and should there be anything you wish deleted, or added, you must at once say so. Understood?”
Sadie inclined her head, and for a moment he thought she was going to fall into habit. However, she looked up again and continued to regard him as he prepared to read. He was so different from the Nat Bonnar she had known. He was dressed in a smart grey suit, and was wearing a grey-striped shirt and collar with a maroon tie. His voice was clipped, and his expression stern.
The statement began with finding Marvin in the shed, and his declaration that he was on the run for breaking his bond. It went on to tell of a conference between him and his mother and Sadie, and their refusal to let him stay at the house because of old Jeff’s constantly repeated threat. Late that night, Sadie took him across the Inlet in the boat to the old hut at the paperbark swamp, and the next day Mrs Rhudder wired for Luke. Luke came and told his brother to clear out. The police came asking for Marvin whom they thought had committed a murder, and this caused Luke to repudiate his brother and threaten to inform the police if he did not at once leave.
The statement went on to tell of Sadie’s night trips to the hut with food and necessities and of her pleading with him to go away for his sick father’s sake. She said how she had found Marvin one morning almost in collapse with fear of being caught and eventually tried and hanged, and of how she had in the end agreed to let him go to the cavern where she continued to succour him, yet continued to urge him to go away.
Such was his state of mind he did not realize he had left in the hut the suitcase he had brought with him, and when she took food and water to him it was after a stormy scene with Luke who agreed to delay informing the police for another twenty-four hours. He did not approve of her succouring Marvin any more, after the scene in the hut when Marvin began to go berserk and Luke knocked him down.
Returning to the suitcase, Sadie said it would be foolish to go for it in broad daylight, but Marvin insisted, and she was obstinate on the ground that she might be seen with it. He had then lost his temper altogether and sprang at her. She had eluded him and managed to get to the back of the chest. He was terrifying and she feared for her life, and on the chest was his pistol which she snatched up and fired at him. She didn’t remember how many times she shot him.
The next day she returned to the cavern which had been an old-time pirates’ cave when they were all children together. With an old shovel she dug the grave there and placed him in it. It was because of the long relationship, and of her strong affection for the Rhudders that she had put shells on the eyes and a larger one over the face, and had taken candles to burn there and pray for his soul as no one could call the minister. The dress in the chest she had worn to perform that last act. The suitcase she had hidden in the hollow tree. She had not examined the contents, knowing that Marvin would no longer need them. She had returned to bury the album with the beret and find Nat Bonnar there, who was now known to her as Detective Inspector Bonaparte.
Laying down the last sheet, Bony slowly shuffled them into sequence. Sasoon was staring grimly at his hands. Breckoff was frowning, and quite suddenly smiled at Sadie.
“That is your statement, Miss Stark,” Bony said, looking up at her. “Is there anything you wish to delete or add?”
Sadie shook her head.
“Then you will sign it?”
Sadie indicated that she would.
They watched her initial every page and write her signature on the last one. Each of them added his initials and signed as witnesses to her signature. Tom Breckoff wrote his as he might in a marriage register. Bony stood, and they stood with him. To Sasoon, Bony said gravely:
“That is my case, Senior. You will take over.”
“Passing the buck, sir. All right! Sadie Stark, I arrest you for the murder of one Marvin Rhudder.” Sadie swayed a little, looked appealingly at Bony. She seemed unaware that Breckoff was patting her shoulder. She watched Sasoon stride to the telephone and ring a number. Sasoon said:
“That you, Else? Line must be still crook. Hear me? Well, I’m bringing in a prisoner. Leaving at once. Have a room prepared for Sadie Stark. Yes, Sadie Stark. What’s that? A cell? Cell be damned, Else. She can have the second bedroom. If I had my way I’d have the ruddy town band out to meet her.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The Motive
FOR EMMA JUKES the morning had been heavy with emotion after two days of great excitement, and she felt the need for the peace and quiet of her room to recover the mundane way of life which normally ruled One Tree Farm. She had grieved for Sadie. She had wanted to kiss Sam Sasoon. And now she wanted to take this Nat Bonnar apart and put him into a special niche for future reference.
Bony was still engaged on his reports when Emma entered the living-room. She was dressed in her usual neat afternoon fashion, her dark hair parted in the middle and arranged in that mode of severity which enhanced her femininity. Seeing her, Bony pushed his papers from him and stood to offer her a chair at the table.
“Sit down, Emma, please. I have something to say to you before Matt and Karl come in
for dinner. My writing is nearly done, and afterwards I’ll help you with the dinner, if you like. It’s been nice of you to let me stay on for another day.”
“One cook is enough in this house, Nat,” she said, on being seated opposite him. “What will happen to Sadie?”
“It’s my opinion that the Crown Prosecutor might decline to move against her, and that she will be discharged after the magisterial hearing. She will have to carry her cross that far. It is about Sadie I wish to speak.” Bony regarded Emma steadily. “You and Matt know as much about this Marvin Rhudder affair as do Sam and Breckoff, but because you are a wise woman, there is something else I think you should know. For Sadie’s good, it is a secret which I feel you’ll readily lock in your heart and throw away the key. Will you listen?”
“Of course, Nat.”
“I’ve no doubt that when Sadie’s trouble is over she’ll find her home again at the Inlet, but she will need so much more than that. Although a grown woman she’ll need . . . what shall I say? Yes, she’ll need mothering. Am I expressing it correctly?”
Emma nodded slowly, saying:
“I’ve known for years that Sadie wanted just that, that she has never been close to her mother. She seemed always alone. Our Ted knew it, and I think that’s why he wanted to marry her. Trust me, Nat.”
“I spoke to Sadie in her room just before they left,” Bony explained. “I said: ‘There’s something on your mind, Sadie, which will always be a nuisance until you get rid of it by telling someone about it. I can guess what it is. In fact, I’m reasonably sure that I know. But to free your mind you must tell it to someone. Why not me?’
“She sobbed a little. She clung to me, and I knew then how much she had been starving for understanding affection.
“Sadie was deeply in love with Marvin. Marvin promised to marry her after he was ordained. He promised it the evening before leaving with your Rose for the train to Perth. Long before then she had created a suit of shining mail for him, and despite all the crimes he committed, she continued to regard him as her Knight in Shining Mail. When on her trips to collect shells, she would talk to him. When in the boys’ cavern, with the chest opened and the dreadful record being added to, she would discuss his failings. During thirteen years and a bit, Emma.
“We know what her reactions were to his return, and what she did to succour him. Sometimes he was as he used to be, gay, witty, teasing. At other times he was despondent, fearful, and sunk in a pit of self-pity. She was tortured by two loyalties: loyalty to old Jeff, and loyalty to her Knight, her splendid Knight.
“I’m coming to the climax, Emma, and with reluctance. There was Marvin refusing to leave the safety of the cavern. There was Sadie overwhelmed by the vision of love which had been her very existence for all the years since both were young. For Jeff’s sake she implored him to go away. She ached to comfort him. She placed her arms about him when he wept, and told him of her love which had so faithfully endured. She went to even greater efforts. She offered to go with him, to be his eyes and ears in the flight from justice. She went still farther. She lay before him when he was sitting on the chest, offering herself as, in her own words, an abandoned woman.
“He sat on the chest, leaning forward, looking at her, and the shining mail was dissolved in the acid bath of his sneering contempt. He said: ‘You’re no good to me, Sadie. My women have to be hard to get.’
“Marvin stood and turned casually about to go to the tin of water she had lugged all the way from the homestead in the middle of the night. Sadie rose and dressed. The pistol was on the chest. That she slipped her finger off the trigger after her third shot will always astound me.”
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