Bony - 19 - Cake in a Hat Box

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “What d’you want to know, Inspector?” he asked, making an effort to soften the demand.

  “Actually, very little, Mr Breen,” Bony replied. “Everything of importance I know already. Shall we discuss these tragedies and try to save something from the wreck caused by an event which perhaps you did little to bring about?”

  Silas produced pipe and tobacco, and squatted on his heels. Kimberley was crying and Ezra was stroking her hair and urging her to accept Bony’s suggestion. Bony sat on the ground, Irwin beside him.

  “I’ll tell the story,” Bony began. “A few minor points can be confirmed by you, or by reports I shall receive from Perth. The story begins a few years back, when you Breens discovered opal against the foot of Black Range. It was black opal, the queen of opals, and when Ezra returned from the war, one of you journeyed to Perth and contacted a jeweller named Solly, who agreed to buy your opal and to pay for it in cash. You wanted it thus for two reasons: to keep your opal mine secret from prospectors and others who would crowd the field, and also that you might exclude the proceeds from your declaration of income for taxation.

  “The arrangement with Solly, the jeweller, was that you would post down to him the opal hidden in books, and the money was posted back to you in the same way.

  “In all this there was nothing wrong excepting the evasion of taxation. You began to spend money freely when you went to Agar’s Lagoon. Ezra received valuable books from Solly the bookseller, books that were sent by post, and Kimberley made many purchases through the post, including two ex­pensive hat boxes. I mention this because the obvious acquisi­tion of wealth was noticed by many at Agar’s Lagoon. To counter curiosity, you put it about that you had inherited money from a relative. That was not so.”

  Bony waited for protest, and its absence proved his con­tention.

  “Then a bag of registered mail was stolen when in transit from Agar’s to Broome, and among the contents was a regis­tered parcel from you to Solly, the bookseller. The theft of the mailbag does not enter the story I am relating excepting that as a result of the theft the knowledge came to Constable Sten­house of your mining of black opal. Am I not correct?”

  Silas moved his gaze from Bony to Ezra, and Ezra nodded. “Yes, we did lose a book containing opal in that robbery.”

  “Knowing you were mining opal, Stenhouse decided to find the location and help himself, and although I am not clear on this particular point, I put forward the theory of how he found it. He had with him as his official tracker an aborigine who was extremely loyal, and it was Jacky Musgrave who obtained the information from one of your own aborigines, either in personal contact or through others.”

  “He robbed us,” shouted Silas, who seemed unable to speak normally. “He visited the mine and helped himself, the swab. ’Twas last year. We didn’t know it was him, then. Didn’t know who ’twas till that day Jasper found him down the shaft.”

  “He chose what he thought was a good opportunity,” Bony proceeded. “He knew that you had planned to leave for Wyndham with the cattle on August 7th.”

  “We were delayed in the general muster,” Ezra interjected. “Didn’t leave the Nine Mile Yards till the morning of the 15th.”

  “We know that Stenhouse was on the Wyndham road very early on the morning of the 14th,” continued Bony. “Before day broke he had driven his jeep off the track to a clump of scrub hard against Black Range, approximately opposite your opal mine, and he and his tracker crossed the Range at night, and so did not see that the cattle were still held at the Yards. He and Jacky were working at the mine when Jasper Breen and Patrick O’Grady came on them. Jasper, perhaps, told you what happened?”

  “Yes,” replied Silas. “Stenhouse was down the shaft, Jacky haulin’ the mullock. Afore they could get to the shaft, Jacky pulled Stenhouse up on the bucket. Pat stayed with the horses, and Jasper went over to argue it out. Stenhouse shot him with his automatic, and Pat yanked Jasper’s rifle from the saddle holster and shot Stenhouse dead. The black tried to get away, and Pat shot him, too. Jasper was pretty crook. So Pat came and got me.”

  “And you decided that Ezra should leave without the full number of cattle required?”

  “That’s so,” agreed Silas, slowly nodding. “Rode home for the truck, sending Pat back to Jasper. I drove out for Jasper with three blacks we could trust.”

  “Frypan, Stugger and Stan?”

  “That’s right. You seem to know most of it.”

  “Jasper told you he would be all right, and you, assisted by your boss stockman, took the body of Jacky Musgrave and planted it inside the skeleton of a horse,” Bony went on. “Your blacks followed and brushed out your tracks going from and returning to the mine. Then you carried the body of Sten­house over the Range, following Stenhouse’s tracks back to his jeep. You had brought a black goat from the homestead, and you took that over the Range, too.

  “You killed the goat for its blood, and drove the dead policeman in the jeep to the Wyndham road, keeping to the tracks made by the jeep when Stenhouse drove it from the road. And your aborigines followed all the way and obliterated the tracks. At the road, you staged an act, making it appear that Jacky Musgrave had shot Stenhouse and then cleared out. You made so many mistakes, Mr Breen.”

  “How so?” shouted Silas, bristling at this threat to his pride.

  “Well, to begin with, you must have known that a soft-nosed bullet from a high-powered rifle would make a substantial exit hole in the body, and you fired a forty-four revolver bullet through the back of the seat, making a hole which certainly didn’t tally with the hole in the back of the dead man. You did think to clean his revolver, and be sure you left on it none of your prints when you put it in the attaché-case on the seat. You were careful to keep your hands wrapped in pieces of the goat’s skin while you drove the jeep, but you left hairs of the goat on the controls.

  “Your blacks did an excellent job in obliterating your tracks to and from the dead horse, and to and from where Stenhouse left his jeep, but instead of burying the carcass of the goat you should have taken it back over the Range, and you should have had your blacks obliterate your tracks all the way over. You forgot about the birds.”

  “The birds!”

  “Yes, the birds. The crows and the eagles. They see every­thing.”

  Silas swore.

  “You Breens could depend with certainty on the loyalty of your station aborigines in any matter involving a white man. In a matter as serious as killing one of their own race, how­ever, their loyalty to you Breens had to take second place. With your wide experience of the aborigines, I feel sure you will understand this and accept it without rancour. Your local medicine-man obtained the details of the double shooting, probably from Patrick O’Grady, and he sent a message to the western blacks knowing they would smoke-signal the news down to the Musgraves.

  “Old Bingil was actually as loyal to you as he was able to be. In his message to the western blacks he did not give details other than the facts concerning Jacky Musgrave. The facts totalled two. One, that Jacky Musgrave had been shot to death. Two, that his body had been pushed under a dead horse lying near Black Well. The smoke signals brought Pluto’s Mob up here, and thus Irwin and I had serious rivals.

  “The wild men staged the body of Jacky Musgrave, and the grease fell on two stones of many placed beneath it. The grease fell on the stone having O’Grady’s mark, and on the stone bearing the mark of Jasper Breen. They ambushed O’Grady. They headed north this morning to ambush Jasper Breen, and you, Silas Breen, were disguised as your brother. However, in order to prevent a second killing, I persuaded Bingil to send a smoke signal to the western blacks, informing them that Jasper Breen was dead.”

  Bony stood and pointed to the south-west. The others stood to see the disjointed columns of smoke rising high above the mountain ridges and the table-tops. He said gravely:

  “As you see, the western blacks are on the air. They are calling off the Musgrave crime investigators and the Musgrave
executioners. All of us must surely respect their sagacity.”

  From gazing at the smoke-signalling, the Breens turned to Bony. Silas glared with savage anger which strangely had nothing of malice. Ezra was subdued by the proof of Bony’s intelligence, while his sister … according to Irwin … was pushed right off centre.

  “How did you know Jasper was dead?” Ezra asked.

  “I ought not to have been deceived that night in the bar of the hotel,” Bony admitted. “I was, however, considering the possibility that something far more tragic than whisky was the cause of Jasper’s collapse when, in conversation with ’Un, he told me that on a previous occasion Jasper had succumbed to whisky and that Silas had tied a cord to his beard to make Jasper nod assent when it was his turn to call for drinks. This, added to the statement of others who had seen Jasper with the cattle, was confusing until I noted that not one of them had spoken to Jasper or had been near him. Then, what I suspected was confirmed by the new grave in the cemetery.”

  “I had to lie low about Jasper,” groaned Silas. “Had to keep it quiet for a long time after the shootin’ so there would be no connexion. That’s why I wore the false beard, to make people see him alive days and days after. ’Tis a bloody mess and all. Years ago I should’ve got to that dirty, wife-bashing police—”

  “Never look back, Mr Breen, only forward,” interposed Bony. “You must accompany us to Agar’s Lagoon. There, or at Broome, all the facts have to be placed before Inspector Walters, who will decide what charges to bring against you.”

  Silas drew himself up and roared:

  “Me go to Agar’s with you? You tellin’ me!”

  “I’m telling you,” Ezra said, and the big man’s jaw dropped. “You are going to Agar’s with the Inspector and Irwin. And I’m going with you. We’re both going to take it and like it.”

  “Take it!” shouted Silas. “Course we can take it. Us Breens can take anything. Blast that dirty policeman. He kills a fine woman, and he robs hard-workin’ cattlemen, and us gotta take the rap.”

  “Maybe it won’t be quite as bad as you anticipate,” Bony told him. “I shall not be against you. Neither will Irwin. As much as justice and the law will permit, we shall be with you.”

  Suddenly, he was confronted by Kimberley Breen. Her hair was dishevelled. Her eyes were bright within the reddened lids and her cheeks were traced with tears.

  “You meant that … true? That you’ll make it as easy as you can for Silas?”

  Slowly Napoleon Bonaparte smiled, and she caught her breath and cried passionately: “Thank you! Us Breens aren’t bad. We’ve never done anyone a bad turn. Mr Irwin’ll tell you that, and Father O’Rory, and everyone.”

  “Neither Irwin nor I need to be told, Miss Breen. When all this trouble is settled … soon, I hope … you are going to accept my wife’s invitation to stay with us, and allow us to show you the shops and the theatres. I am quite sure that neither Silas nor Ezra will object … will you?”

  The two men encountered the blue eyes, brilliant and calm. Ezra nodded assent, and Silas swept the long moustache from his mouth, spat, hitched his trousers and shouted that Kim­berley deserved a spell, anyway. And Bony said:

  “Then let us get along. Doubtless, we can have a meal at the homestead before proceeding to Agar’s Lagoon. And I would like to see, with time to admire, that wonderful ‘cake’ in the hat box.”