Blair suddenly leaned forward with twinkling blue eyes.
“As a matter of fact, Sergeant, I met the black fellow last night and asked him for a match. He cursed me for a police pimp. Me! Me, Sergeant, a police pimp! So I ran up to the house, grabbed the maids’ step-ladder, took it down to the black, made him stand still beside it, climbed to the top to get level with his head, and then hit him with a cucumber I pinched from the garden.” Then, turning to the squatter, he added: “You see, Mr Thornton, being a small bloke, I couldn’t reach thenig’s head without them steps. But I took ’emback and put ’emwhere I got ’em.”
Both men were obliged to laugh. Blair, however, remained perfectly serious.
“But, look here, Blair. Honestly, now, where were you about eight-thirty last night?” persisted the sergeant.
“I told you,” Blair returned. “I murdered the nig by ’itting’imon the ’eadwith a rotten cucumber. I own to it. You arrest me, Sergeant-and see ’owyou get on. Two ofyous! Why, I could crawl over you.”
“Not in the office, Blair. You’d smash the furniture,” Thornton murmured.
“All right, Blair. You had better go,” the policeman said resignedly.
Blair rose slowly to his feet, the goatee now at its normal right-angle with the bottom of his chin. Slowly he walked to the door, as though reluctant. At the door he turned, a man bursting with some hidden withheld information. The sergeant was at once hopeful; Blair slowly returned to the desk and, leaning forward, whispered:
“Say, are you quite sure you don’t want to arrest me, Sergeant?”
“Quite sure. When I do, I’ll arrest you.”
“My oath! You, with yourbloomin ’ speelers to lend a hand.”Blair almost cried with disappointment. Then, appealingly: “But ’avea’eart, Sergeant! Don’t bung me in next time to whitewash the jail. Igoes to Wilcannia and gets drunk like a respectablewowzer, not to whitewash jails. That’s a bit thick.”
With a regretful nod, Blair left them.
“What do you make of Blair?” asked the squatter, chuckling.
“Blair is a fighter, not a murderer,” replied Sergeant Knowles, grinning. “The two don’t mix outside a drunken brawl, and this murder was not the result of a drunken brawl. How many house servants have you got?”
“Three. Martha the cook, Alice the maid, and Mabel the laundry girl.”
“Humph!” the sergeant re-read his notes carefully. Then, looking up, he added: “I’ll have a look at the corpse. Then we’ll look at the scene of the killing. Then I’ll examine the blacks in that camp up-river. As far as your people are concerned, I am not satisfied with Clair. I’ll send Trooper Dowling with him to see if he did set traps last night. Also, Mr Thornton, Frank Dugdale did see someone in the lightning.”
Chapter Seven
The Only Clue
“Damn the rain!” rasped Sergeant Knowles, staring down at four wooden pegs set at the points of a cross to mark where the body had been found. “There is not a track left for a black tracker to see, let alone a white man.”
“What seems significant to me is that theabo stood six feet four inches in height, and yet, as you say, the blow at the crown of his head was delivered downwards,” murmured the squatter. “Such a combination rules out any man of medium height, unless he adopted Blair’s plan and used a pair of step-ladders.”
“Just so,” the sergeant agreed absently. He stood on the river side of the four wooden pegs and consequently faced the garden fence. “Is Dugdale in love with any of the maids, or with Miss Flinders, do you know?”
“I don’t know. I’ve no evidence of any love-affair. Why do you ask?”
“For no real reason,”came the absent response. “Let us go along to the camp. Hallo! Who is this?”
Along the bank of the river, walking towards them and thehomestead, came a young lubra. The two men watched her approach, the sergeant at least noting the springing gait and the beautiful contours of her limbs. Her age might have been twenty, but her figure was unusually lovely for a lubra, for somehow the angular awkwardness of the aboriginal girl changes with startling rapidity to the obesity of the gin.
She was dressed in a white muslin blouse, a neat navy-blue skirt, black stockings and shoes. She wore her cheap but well-fitting clothes with the unconscious grace of a white woman. When close, she looked at them fearlessly.
According to the white man’s standards it cannot be said that the Australian lubra is anything but ugly. This girl, however, was a rare exception. Her face was oval and flat. Her forehead neither receded nor bulged, but was high and broad. Her nose, for an aboriginal, was not spread, and the nostrils were finely chiselled; whilst her lips, thicker than those of the white woman, were by no means as thick and coarse as those of the average black. For an aboriginal she was remarkably good-looking.
“Good-day, Nellie! You goingup to the house?” Thornton asked kindly.
She smiled, and the sergeant noted that her smile was restrained and not the customary broad beam.
“Yeth, Mithter Thornton,” she said. “MithessThornton sent for me to give Mabel a hand. Shewashtomollow.”
“Ah, yes! Tomorrow is Monday, isn’t it?”
“What is your name, young lady?” Sergeant Knowles put in.
“I’m Nellie Wanting.” She regarded the blue tunic with awe, the man with native dignity.
“Who is your mother?”
“Sarah Wanting.”
“And your father?”
“I dunno,” she replied, with utter simplicity.
“Well, well! We won’t keep you.”
They watched her move across the billabong and climb the farther bank to the garden gate.
“A fine-looking lass, that,” essayed the sergeant thoughtfully. “I wonder who she’s married to, or who she’s living with. It’s all the same to them.”
“Heartwhole, I think. Anyway, she’s a good girl, and comes up to give the maids a hand two or three times a week. What now?”
“I think we’ll go along to the camp.”
The policeman rowed the boat upstream, and during the short trip did not speak. He was a man who, whilst making an excellent officer and an efficient administrator of a police-controlled bush town, would never make a good detective. Detectives are necessary in centres of population. In the Australian bush a good policeman must combine the qualifications of soldier, scout, and administrator.
Simple murder, with the murderer defined and at large, he could have dealt with. The apprehension of a known criminal would have been a matter of tracking, even across the continent. But, whilst his inquiries were not yet complete, the rain had obliterated all tracks made prior to nine-thirty the night before.
At the camp they were greeted by Pontius Pilate, engaged in the somnolent variety of fishing, which is to say, fishing in the mood of caring little if the fish bite or not. He moored the boat for them, and with deep seriousness escorted them up the bank to the fire near the humpies.
“Who is here, Pilate? Wake your people up and tell them I want to see them,” ordered the sergeant.
The buck growled a few unintelligible words, and, as spiritsraised by incantation, there appeared an enormously fat gin, another only a shade less fat, two thins laths of girls about sixteen, and five younger children. The young fellow, Ned, rose from the ground beneath a gum, yawned, and stretched himself. He still wore the moleskin trousers; Pontius Pilate was still barely half-covered by the simple blue shirt.
“Where are your trousers?” Sergeant Knowles demanded severely.
“Well, boss, you see Ned, he ride-it outlaw, and him pants all busted. So I loan him mine. Byim by, ole Sarah she fix Ned’s pants, and I git mine back.”
“Which is Sarah?”
“That Sarah. SheSarah Wanting,” answered Pontius Pilate, seating himself tailor-fashion with extraordinary dexterity; and pointing out the huger of the two huge gins.
“Well, you mend Ned’s trousers quick and lively, Sarah,” she was ordered. “We can’t have Pon
tius Pilate wandering about like an angel.”
Sarah said nothing. Her eyes widened and protruded.
“Now, Pilate, who is your friend that got himself murdered last night?”
The black fellow’s countenance assumed tremendous gravity.
“He got one hell of a bash, eh, boss?” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I wentalonga and seed ’imthis morning. Poor ole King Henry! Good feller, King Henry.”
“Was that his name? He’s not a river black, is he?”
“Yaas, boss. Hebelonga river long time ago. One time broke-in horses forMithter Thornton. He-” His eyes widened hungrily at the cigarette-case from which the squatter was abstracting a smoke. Slowly he said: “Anyway, boss, it’s a plurry dry argument.”
John Thornton smiled, and tossed him a cigarette. Instantly, the less fat gin was at Pilate’s side when he caught it. Breaking it neatly in halves, he gave her one, and then, stripping off the paper from the other half crammed the tobacco into his mouth and began chewing.
“Now, Pontius Pilate,” the sergeant said. “King Henry yousay, was once breaking-in horses on Barrakee. When was that?”
“Long time ago.”
“When? How many years?”
“Dunno. He went away when Ned was ali’l baby.”
Turning to the young man, Knowles said:
“How old are you, Ned?”
“Twenty last January,” he replied in excellent English.
“What did he go away for, and whywas he away for years?” the elder black was asked.
“Ah! You see, boss, King Henry he was a no-fear man, but he was feared of some white man,” Pontius explained. “This ’ere white feller he tell King Henry he get him quick, and so King Henry he go walkabout.”
“And who was the white fellow?”
“I dunno.”
“Sure?”
“Yaas, boss.”
“And where’s King Henry been all this time?”
“UpNor ’ Queensland.”
“Oh! And why did he come back?” pressed the sergeant.
“Well, you see, boss, it wasorl like this.” Pontius Pilate seized a short stick and drew fantastic figures on the soft damp earth. “Ole King Henry he married SarahWanting. That old Sarah. Telliblefat. Ned’s mother. Nellie’s mother, I don’t believe it, though. She mother to a lot of fellers and lot of gins. Well, you see, ole King Henry, he find out that white feller who was tracking him got busted, killed, or something, so he come back and took Sarah away from ole Mokie, and then he bring Sarah up here to my camp. Course, Sarah didn’t know he wasgona git murdered like that.”
“But why was the white man tracking him?”
“I dunno.”
For half an hour the sergeant fruitlessly questioned him and Sarah Wanting on that point. They did not know, and appeared to take no interest in the matter. Nor did they know or appear interested in the reason prompting King Henry’s visit to the station after dark.
That the dead man had held a certain power over these people was quite evident, and the sergeant surmised that he was a kind of king, as his name implied.
But any useful information he did not obtain. If these people knew anything about the crime, they kept the secret so well hidden that Sergeant Knowles was convinced that so far as the actual killing was concerned they were none of them implicated.
At the oars once more, with the squatter facing him from the stern seat, he growled:
“I’m hanged if I can see any light. Here is a man who left the district eighteen or nineteen years ago because his life was threatened by a white man. For years he wanders, pursued by the tracking white. The white gets killed, and King Henry at once comes back and takes his wife away from old Mokie. He leaves the camp here about dark, helps Dugdale with his fish, dives overboard again, and swims the river on the way to the station, where he is killed.
“Why does he go to the station after dark? And why is he killed at his first appearance at the station for nigh twenty years? The man who hunted him died, or was killed, and he had no one to fear. Yet someone-and a white man-killed him. Why? Did he kill him for the same reason that that other white had tracked him for years?
“I can make out only one clue, or coincidence. Pontius Pilate said that King Henry had come down from North Queensland, and William Clair admitted that the last job he had had was near Winton, in Central Queensland. When did you give Clair employment?”
“Last Friday week,” the squatter answered. “But Clair said he was away setting dog-traps.”
“He may, and he may not, have been.”
“Anyway, Trooper Dowling has gone to find out.”
“I’m betting that Clair will show him the traps all right. The moving finger points to Clair, and then to Dugdale, and then back again to Clair.”
“I cannot agree with you about Dugdale,” was Thornton’s emphatic response. “I’ve known Dug intimately for ten years. What he says he heard I’m sure he did hear. And, as he said he saw no one, I’m sure, too, that he saw no one.”
“Maybe,” Knowles conceded. “I am not quite so positive that he lied when he denied seeing anyone in the lightning. Still, when I pressed him on that point, he flushed under his skin. If he’s a liar, he’s a darned good liar.”
“Knowing him as I do, I can guarantee that he’s not a liar. I’ve never yet found him out in a lie.”
“Well, I don’t know.” The sergeant sighed. “Straight-out murder I don’t mind, when I know the killer. But these Mysteries of the Rue Morgue are beyond me. Anyway, Dowling and I will get on back. I must send in my report, and then try and work out the puzzle. We might be able to learn something of Clair from the Winton police. Time, too, is always on our side. I’ll keep in touch with you, night and morning, by phone. Oh, here’s Dowling waiting for us.”
The trooper was standing at the edge of the water at the mooring-place.
“Were the traps there, Dowling?”
“Yes, Sergeant. Clair set them some three miles down the river in a bend.”
“Humph!” The senior man got out of the boat and climbed up the steep bank, followed by the others. “We’ll examine the scenery,” he said. “Take a line from this tree to the garden gate. You quarter the right side and I’ll do the left.”
The squatter, taking yet another cigarette from his case, watched the two uniformed men examining the soft dark-grey soil from the high bank or natural ramp dividing the billabong from the river. He experienced not a little irritability at the whole wretched affair. That such a to-do should be made over the killing of an ordinaryabo was ridiculous. He heard the sergeant say:
“Don’t expect to discover anything. If the murderer remembers dropping anything, he had plenty of time to recover it before we arrived this morning. See any fresh tracks your side?”
“Several,” Dowling answered.“But all making from the boats to the homestead via the tennis-court. Hallo! Here are small shoe-prints going to the garden gate.”
“They’ll have been made by Nellie Wanting, the black girl who’s working at the homestead this afternoon,” stated the sergeant.
Thornton was absent-mindedly examining, on the trunk of the gum near which he stood, a deep incision some nine to ten inches in length. The tree-wound was fresh and still bleeding sap. He noticed two raised bumps in the centre of the gash, at equal distance from the ends. He took no further notice of it. He did not even mention it to the two policemen.
Had he known, this was the one and only clue to the murderer of King Henry.
Chapter Eight
A Round of Inspection
THE POLICE returned to Wilcannia without having secured a clue to the murder of King Henry. By the sergeant’s orders the body was interred in the tiny cemetery near the homestead, which already contained five graves.
There was one point that occurred to Sergeant Knowles two days later, and, ringing up the station, he said to the squatter:
“That girl, Nellie Wanting-does she
live in the blacks’ camp?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did she cross the river the afternoon she met us on her way to the homestead? I noticed no boat at the camp.”
“I’m afraid I have no information on that point,” the station-owner replied. “I’ll see her and find out. You’ll agree that she didn’t swim the river like her alleged father.”
“No. She didn’t swim.”
The explanation, when forthcoming, was simple enough. As has been said, the level of the river was very low, and at a point about half a mile above the blacks’ camp an outcrop of rock formed the bed of the river at the lower rim of a deep hole. Most of the rocks were now uncovered and provided easy and safe stepping stones.
Although Thornton was in daily communication with the police-sergeant at Wilcannia, nothing occurred to help forward a solution of the mystery. The week’s work went on, that of Barrakee with its usual orderliness and regularity. The squatter prayed for rain.
Blair, with McIntosh for his offsider, was sent out to the back of the run with the bullock team to clean out a dry surface tank with a scoop. Clair went about his odd jobs, gaunt and taciturn. The only person for whom the murder still had a painful interest was Frank Dugdale.
At the time he denied having seen anyone revealed by the lightning, he could almost have sworn that the white-clad figure hurrying through the garden was Kate Flinders. This was his reason for suppressing that fact.
Whilst scouting the possibility of Kate having killed the black fellow, he could not but conclude that she was implicated. The why and the wherefore of this worried him to distraction.
And then one evening he saw Alice, the maid, and Mabel, the laundress, leave the house to stroll up the river, and experienced an unaccountable sense of relief when he noted that both girls were dressed in white. Upon that came instant recollection of having seen the young lubra, Nellie Wanting, dressed all in white, on more than one occasion. Mrs Thornton, too, generally wore a white costume. So that, instead of the hurrying figure at the garden gate being definitely Kate Flinders, it might, with equal plausibility or otherwise, have been that of one of four other women.
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