The Barrakee Mystery b-1

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “And who, my dear Ann, is going to pay for this party?” inquired the station-owner, with stern face but twinkling eyes.

  “You, of course, dear. The bills will come in about the end of June, and you can pay them the same day you pay your income tax. Are you young people agreeable to the party?”

  “Yes, Auntie,” came Kate’s eager response.

  “Rather!” confirmed Ralph.

  So the date of the party was fixed, and a few days later the elite of the Upper Darling received appropriately-worded invitations, invitations promptly accepted by all, whilst not a few implored information regarding the “surprise”.

  The day before the Saturday when the Great Land Lottery was to be held in Wilcannia was one of the two weekly mail days. Ralph received from a jeweller in Sydney, a diamond ring worth considerably more than his portion of the dog-scalp cheque. And, if he was pleased and not a little elated by the receipt of the ring, there was one other highly satisfied by the contents of his mail, and that was Bony.

  The size of his mail was limited to three letters, and the first that he opened was from his wife, Laura, inwhich she gave him news of their three children, and evidence of her undying devotion, in a firm round hand, and quite passable grammar.

  The second letter was contained in a plain foolscap envelope and was from Sydney. The message, however, was given in concise official prose:

  Detective-Inspector Bonaparte. The plaster casts received recently, and numbered1to4, have been examined. It has been established definitely that the print No. 3is identical with that of the original stated by you to have been removed from the ground at Barrakee. If you decide upon an arrest, first communicate with the Senior Police Officer at Wilcannia, who has orders to carry out your instructions.

  The letter was signed by the Chief Commissioner of Police at Sydney, and was read by Bony with a quiet smile.

  “If I decide to make an arrest!” he said softly to a curious kookaburra perched on a branch over the second boat he was painting. “You seem to think, MrCommissioner, that I am a policeman, whereas I am a crime investigator. And now for Mr Edward Sawyer’s letter.”

  From its cheap envelope Bony took the following, written on cheap ruled paper:

  AltungaCreek,

  Vie Camooweal,

  Queensland.

  Dear Old Bony,

  I quite thought you had been planted years ago. It was only the other day that me and TommyChing -Lung was talking about the little bit of tracking you done up here in nineteen-twenty. And now youresurrects and writes to a bloke.

  Dear old Bony, when are you coming up here again? You’ll find all the kids you used to talk to about the stars and things allgrowed up and thinking more of cattle, alligators and hard cash than of stars and all them elements you had in your head.

  And now, Bony, about the gent you wants traced. You asked me if I remember ever seeing a tall, gaunt, cadaverous gent name of William Clair. Tall and gaunt were words I appeared to get the hang of, but cadaverous bluffed me at the post. I rode over to Blake’splace and the next day went down to Moreno to try and dig up a dictionary, but we don’t seem to be strong on dictionaries in these parts.

  Anyway, two motor car explorers pulled up here last night, being afraid to sleep in the open on account of the alligators, and one of them told me the meaning of your foreign word.

  That helped me to fix Mister Will Clair, but I reckon you’ve made a mistake in the gent’s name. In nineteen-ten a tall, cadaverous, gaunt bloke with walrus whiskers hit the creek carryinga swag. I remember him because it’s darned few what carry swags up here. This gent’s name was Bill Sinclair, and for nine months he went black and lived with Wombra’spush out at Smokey Lagoon.

  I just got back from a trip to Wombra, who was looking younger than ever, though a bit worried on account of the police not liking the way he waddies his second best gin. Old Wombra remembers Sinclair. He says Sinclair was made second chief of the push because he happened to find Wombra up a tree, guarded by a particularly nasty bull buffalo.

  Sinclair, it appears, was after a bloke called King Henry, a New South Walesabo who rated as Super Grand Master of the blacks’masonic craft. Wombra didn’t tell me plain about the craft part of it, but putting two and two together that, I think, shows which way the steer bolted and explains, too, the reason of this King Henry gent being able to move about among Queensland blacks. By ordinary race rules a strange black gets a spear mighty quick.

  But getting back to Sinclair, Bony old lad. This Sinclair palled in thick with Wombra and learned a heap of black’stricks. I asked old Wombra particular about boomerang chucking, and the old pirate told me that when Sinclair pulled out he could heave a warkirras as good as any of the bucks. In fact he won a kind of tournament the day before he left, and Wombra gave him his best boomerang as a sort of prize.

  So that’s that. W. Sinclair hasn’t been up here since to my knowledge. What has he done? Run amuck or killed a money-wasting politician? If this last, let him go, Bony. He deserves a medal.

  Well, so long old chip. Hop along this way when you go for your next walkabout. The wife and kids will be glad to see you. I got one wife and seven kids andgets two tax papers every year. Hooroo.

  Yours till the alligators grow wings,

  Edward Sawyer

  Bony carefully re-read this boisterous letter from the far North-West of Queensland, and smiled with genuine pleasure; then, folding it, replaced it within the cheap envelope.

  The writer was one of the many friends Bony’spersonality attracted to him. In those far-distant places the half-caste had devoted hours to the teaching of white folk’s children-children who otherwise, on account of remoteness from a school, would have grown up unable to read or write.

  The parents of these children owed Bony a debt of gratitude, the children themselves a much greater debt. There were dozens of white men scattered over the north of Australia who would have provided Bony and his family with accommodation and tucker for the rest of their lives.

  And from several ofthese Bony’s mind gradually reverted to William Clair. In Clair’sbootprint No. 3, as well as the history of Clair’s or Sinclair’s sojourn with Wombra and his tribe, Bony had gathered sufficient evidence to justify the gaunt man’s arrest.

  He had not, of course, any direct proof that Clair killed the black at Barrakee. That Clair did kill King Henry he had no doubt, but what Clair’s motive was still remained baffling. And until he, Bony, had laid bare the reason for that deadly pursuit of King Henry, which had been carried on patiently and relentlessly for nearly two decades before opportunity came for its terrible culmination, the half-caste felt that his work at Barrakee would not be complete.

  That night he wrote a letter which he took to Thornton to address, and to dispatch by Frank Dugdale the following day. The letter set the law in motion against theunsuspecing Clair, then living in solitude at the Basin.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Great Land Lottery

  BREAKFAST AT Barrakee the following morning was taken very early, because the Land Board, sitting at half past ten at Wilcannia, seventy-five miles down the river, wasted little time. An excited group gathered outside the double garden gates, where three cars were waiting.

  Dugdale was driving the Barrakee car, and would have with him Kate and Ralph, who were going to Wilcannia for the trip and to shop, and Edwin Black, who with Dugdale was an applicant for land. Mr Watts was driving his own car and was accompanied by two boundary-riders and Blair, the bullock-driver, all applicants. The third car was owned by Mr Hemming, a station-manager, and with him were one of his jackeroos and two of his riders.

  Mrs Watts and her family had come to the homestead and would remain there the day, helping with the preparations for the surprise party. Everyone was talking atonce, all were keyed to a racecourse pitch of excitement. There is nothing that would more quickly damn any government of New South Wales than for it to take away the people’s Land Lottery.

  Fra
nk Dugdale had just given a final glance to oil-gauge and radiator when John Thornton drew him aside.

  “I wish you luck, Dug,” he said earnestly. “Here is a letter addressed to the Board, in which I have stated that if your application is considered favourably, I am prepared to stock your block onvery extended terms. Say nothing to the Board which is not absolutely to the point.”

  Dugdale accepted the proffered letter, and, looking straight into his employer’s eyes, thanked him with his usual sincerity. From Dugdale the squatter turned to Blair.

  Blair was dressed in a black suit that fitted him like a pair of tights, but with by no means the comfortable freedom of action that tights give. A black velour hat was set at a rakish angle on his greying head; new brown elastic-sided riding-boots adorned his feet. At a right-angle from his chin his beard, carefully trimmed, stuck out pugnaciously.

  “Look here, Blair,” Thornton said when he had drawn the little bullock-driver aside: “I want you to remember that it is most important that Tilly’s Tank be cleaned out before the rain comes. If you get drunk, don’t create a riot and get yourself locked up whatever else you do, for I’m relying on you to finish that tank-cleaning job.”

  “If Knowles and his demonswants their blasted jail whitewashed, then they are going to shoot me in, drunk or sober, if I come out of a church or out of a pub,” Blair said with conviction. “I might have just one snifter. But I am going to Wilcannia to gamble with the blooming Land Board, and not a publican.”

  “I am glad to hear that. The best of luck to you, Blair. You have now worked for me for more than fifteen years. Tell the Board that, and say also that if they grant you a block I’ll buy you a house. Now, don’t forget-only one snifter.”

  The little man, his short feet set at twenty minutes to four, looked up at the squatter with suddenly shining eyes.

  “I didn’t say I’d have only one snifter,” he said slowly. “I said I might have just one, meaning more than one or none at all. Thank you for the offer of that house, though.”

  A chorus of “goodbyes” and “good lucks” floated through the still morning air, when the three cars moved off from the homestead. Dugdale, in the leading car, asked Ralph, who, with Black, was sitting in the rear, the exact time.

  “Half past eight, Dug, old boy. Plenty of time, isn’t there?”

  “For us, yes. But Watts will have to push his light car. Hemming will have to step on it fairly constant. Keep a look out, will you? We must not get too far ahead.”

  “Why, Dug?” asked Kate. “They will be all right, won’t they?”

  “Other things being equal, they will,” the sub-overseer told her, in an even tone of voice which required effort to maintain. “But we have no time to spare, and, the occasion being all-important to most of us, the occupants of any car that breaks down will have to be distributed between the remaining two cars. We couldn’t leave one car-load behind to miss the Board.”

  “You’re right, Dug. That would be too bad.”

  They had been travelling about an hour when one of the tyres blew out. The following cars drew up behind and many hands whipped off the tyre and replaced it with the spare. The change was made in a little less than two minutes. And then, later, Mr Hemming had tyre trouble which took longer to remedy, since he had punctured the spare the day before and had omitted to repair it.

  Yet another delayoccurred when thirty miles above Wilcannia, at a small station homestead, the owner and his wife would not permit them to go on till everyone had had a cup of tea and a slice of brownie. So that it was a quarter to eleven before they braked up before the Court House of what once was known as theQueen City of the West.

  In the precincts of the commodious Court House were dozens of travel-stained cars, dozens of trucks, motor-cycles, and many buggies, buckboards and gigs.

  In common with every applicant arriving at the Court House, the party from Barrakee made their way through a knot of men about the entrance, near which was a board bearing a typewritten list of names in alphabetical order.

  The list comprised eighty names, those of the applicants to be interviewed by the Board during the third consecutive day of its sitting in Wilcannia. For weeks past the same gentlemen had travelled from township to township, and had examined hundreds of applicants: some further weeks would be occupied in travelling to many other townships to examine hundreds more. There were fourteen blocks of land thrown open for public selection, and probably there were eighteen to twenty hundred applicants hoping to obtain one of them.

  The Barrakee overseer withdrew from the waiting knot of men, together with several others of the party whose names would not be called until the afternoon. Almost immediately on their arrival Edwin Black was called.

  Dugdale gave him a reassuring nod and a bystander called “Good luck”, when the jackeroo entered the room where sat the Board. He was within perhaps ten minutes, and emerged with a facial expression giving no indication of even hope. Then Blair was called.

  Before starting for the door the little man re-set his black hat, and thrust out his chin as though to relieve the strain of the unfamiliar collar.

  “Good old Fred,” somebody sang out. There was a general laugh containing a hint of expectancy. “Don’t forget to lay down the law, Fred,” another voice said.

  At the portals of the room stood Sergeant Knowles. Before him Blair paused, the light of battle suddenly dying in his eyes.

  “Now, youain’t going to try to arrest me before I’ve had me say, are you, Sarge?” he said with genuine surprise.

  “No, Blair. I have no intention of doing that,” replied the policeman.

  Reassured, Blair again re-set his headgear and worked his Adam’s apple clear of the choking collar. Then, with a determined swagger, and his beard slightly raised in its angle, he entered the presence of the Land Board.

  Before him he saw three men seated at three sides of a table covered with official papers. He was invited to be seated at the vacant side, and, having settledhimself, sat with one leg negligently crossed over the knee of the other, the hat now pushed back low over his neck.

  “Frederick Blair?” said the gentleman facing him.

  “That’s me,” replied Blair.

  The Chairman of the Board looked up from a paper and smiled. He and his confreres knew Frederick Blair. He pushed across the table a soiled Bible, and took from the secretary-member Blair’s application form. The usual oath administered, he said:

  “You have applied for either of Blocks three-ten and three-twenty, Mr Blair. What do you know of them?”

  “I know more about ’emthan I do the back of me ’and.”

  “Humph! What amount of cash have you, Mr Blair?’ ”

  “I’ve got seven hundred and nineteen pounds, seventeen shillings, and ten pence in the Bank of United Australia,”came Blair’s somewhat surprising answer.

  “Have you, indeed? Why, you could almost buy a small place, Mr Blair.”

  “You know darned well that I couldn’t buy a small place for seven hundred, nor yet seven thousand,” Blair burst out. “Itain’t needful for me to tell you that nothingunder twenty thousand acres in this district is any good to a bloke, and that the auction price per acre is round about twelve bob. How am I going to buy twenty thousand acres with seven hundred quid, eh?”

  “It might-”

  “You know darned well it couldn’t,” Blair shouted venomously. “ ’Ere are you throwing open a measly fourteen blocks when there’s some twenty hundred men struggling to get homes, and that there Sirflamin ’ Walter Thorley owns half Australia, which belongs to no man but the Government, which is the people.

  “Two thousand blokes, mark you. Most of ’emmarried and with a family, and the rest wanting to get married and have children; and you allow Thorley to own hundreds of miles of the people’s land, employ a fewabos and breed dingo, and see hisbloomin ’ land once every two years.”

  “We must not discuss-” came from the chairman.

  “Of course
not,” cut in Blair. “We must not take the name of the great Sir Walter Thorley in vain, but when there’s a war we must fight for his land and his money-bags, eh? We mustn’t saynothing, we must offer up thanks to the worst employer in the State and breeder of sheep-killers, and bless him for allowing us to live at all.

  “I’ve been cheated out of my birthright, yes, me and hundreds of others. I got a right to have a wife, to have children by her, to make and have and hold a home. Can I ask any woman to marry me when I can’t give her a home? Can I get a home when you won’t give me the lease of any land? Can you open up the land as it should be opened when Thorley and all the rest of the absentee squatters have grabbed the lot? Whatflamin ’ use is it to the country to allow one man to own twenty millions of acres when that area would support one thousand families-that’s what I want to know?

  “Here am I,” went on Blair with greater rapidity, “now fifty-two years old. All my life I bin on the Darling River. Twenty-one years ago I fell in love with a woman down inPooncaira. For twenty-one years she’s beenwaitin ’ for me to make a home. But my girl, aye, andme, too, will kick the bucket afore we ever have a home. Yes, cheated out of our birthright, two humans out of hundreds. That’s all, gents.”

  Blair’s eyes were suspiciously moist when he rose to his feet, at the end of this tirade, shouted in a loud voice. He had had his say, and felt like a man in the dock proven innocent.

  “One moment, Mr Blair,” came the chairman’s tired voice. “As I tried to say, we cannot discuss the big leaseholders at these proceedings. We have to confine ourselves strictly to the present business, which is the allocation of land, and not the discussion of politics. The Board will give your application the usual consideration, and you will be notified of the Board’s decision. You said just now that there are many married men with families in want of a block of land. Like them, you could have married had you wished.”