Madman’s Bend

by Arthur Upfield

  “Very well, I’ll send the assistance, probably this afternoon.”

  “Make it as soon as possible, Superintendent. The situation I find myself in must be controlled by accurate timing.”

  “That will be kept in mind. What do you suggest?”

  Bony outlined his plan, and Macey accepted it.

  At three o’clock the men’s cook smote his iron triangle, and at three-five all the men were at table. At three-fifteen Ray Cosgrove drove a utility to the airstrip. Ten minutes later a light aircraft landed, and two hard-faced men alighted and were driven to meet Mick the Warder and his pathetic mate.

  “Michael Carmody, I have a warrant to arrest you on suspicion of having murdered William Lush on July 19 this year,” one said. “You may want to collect your dunnage. We have no authority over a man called Dead March Harry, but have been instructed to tell you he may accompany us to Bourke where he will receive medical attention. You going to co-operate or—?”

  “You can keep your handcuffs,” answered Mick the Warder. “Come on, Harry.”

  He strode on in the direction of the shearers’ quarters, leaving Dead March Harry to walk between the policemen, but he dropped back on seeing Bony and MacCurdle standing outside the door.

  “Sir,” said one of the strangers from Bourke, “we have made the arrest. The prisoner wishes to collect his belongings.”

  Bony unlocked the door. On either side of the central passage of the long building were the two-man cubicles, and Bony asked which was occupied by Mick the Warder and his mate. The room was pointed out, and the six men became a crowd within it.

  “Which is your bed, Mick?” asked Bony, and the man indicated it.

  Only the straw mattress and bedstead belonged to the station. Bony went through the coverings, raised the mattress, disclosed the revolver, and sighed. With it was a small hide bag containing cartridges. It was handed to one of the visiting policemen, who noted the serial number in his book, broke it open, found it unloaded, and sighted down the barrel against a thumb-nail. The manager, too, was asked to note the number.

  “Have you anything to say, Mick?” Bony asked.

  “You planted the gun, Inspector.”

  “I didn’t know which room you have been occupying. I have never been inside this building. There is every reason to suspect that this weapon was fired at William Lush. You will know that proof or otherwise will be easily obtained. Would you care to tell us why you shot Lush?”

  “You outline your case, first.”

  “Very well, I’ll do that because you have to make up your mind what is to become of Harry. Even I am concerned on that point. To begin, I asked you where you were on the night of July 18–19, and you said you were camped with Harry at the old wool-scour up-river from Murrimundi homestead. You were not. Champion and Miner Smith were, and they did not see either of you. Also, two Murrimundi men visited the place and found no evidence of your being there.

  “On July 17 you called at Madden’s Selection for a handout. Then you went down-river and camped with The Brothers. Early on the morning of the nineteenth you left The Brothers and went up-river, with what purpose I don’t know, and it isn’t important. You saw Lush’s utility stalled at the mail-boxes, and either found Lush there or were found there by him. An argument developed, and Lush threatened to have Harry put away. You realized he was in the squatter class, while you were swagmen, and that he could make good his threat. So you shot him and heaved his body over and into the water-hole.

  “Then you portioned between you the bottles of liquor in the carton, and retreated into Madman’s Bend, where you camped awhile to plan what you would do, and also to open one of the bottles of whisky. From there I haven’t been able to trace you, but you kept out of sight until the morning you were seen by the mail driver. That was several miles south of the Mira–Madden boxes, and you were walking northward. You staged that meeting because everyone here knows that swagmen travel great distances up and then down, and vice versa, and it would be natural for him and others to believe you had been many miles south of the boxes when Lush vanished.”

  “Not bad, Inspector,” Mick conceded. “Give us some more.”

  “I’ll oblige, Mick. There is a man named Petersen. On the morning of the nineteenth he was boiling his billy at the shed fireplace when he saw a man descend from The Brothers’ camp to the hole below it and there fill a bucket. His eyesight isn’t good, but he was sure it was a man known as Bullocky Alec. He was wrong, for Bullocky Alec was in the Wilcannia lock-up that day. It was you who drew water from the hole, and you strongly resemble Bullocky Alec. An easy mistake to make for a man with poor sight, and in view of the distance between the shed and the hole below The Brothers’ Camp. It’s quite a minor point.”

  “You’re telling me,” agreed Mick. “Old Petersen carries a revolver. He must have passed Lush’s ute on his way to Vospers’ that morning. Dig into him.”

  “We have,” Bony said. “Now if only you had rid yourself of the revolver just found under your mattress.”

  Mick the Warder sat on the bed beside Dead March Harry, who was staring at the floor. He gripped his mate’s arm, and said, softly pleading, “Harry, did you tell about Lush’s threat to have you sent away? You must have done. There was no one else there bar you and me.”

  Dead March Harry raised his face to look at Mick the Warder.

  “I don’t remember, Mick,” he said, and Bony could see the struggle in his eyes. “Must have done. I remember Lush rushing us and shouting we were stealin’ his booze. Mad as a snake. Tore off a box leg and aimed at me. Hurt my shoulder he did. Yelled he’d have me put away, and swiped again and missed and hit his ute. The gun went off. The gun went off. The gun...”

  It was Harry who terminated the ensuing silence. He stood and lifted a foot, and from him issued the familiar “Bomb!”

  “That’s torn it,” Mick said, and sighed. “Yes, if only I’d ditched the gun. Give him a tablet. Here, in this bottle.” Mechanically, Harry accepted the tablet from Bony. “It was as he says. We went there to fish and saw the ute and was eyeing it over when Lush come from nowhere. He rushed Harry with the box leg, and hit him, and Harry stood still and would have got it again. I couldn’t get round the ute in time to stop it. I don’t think Lush even saw me, he was that mad. I had to drop him with a bullet. And there wasn’t any grog to pinch. Lush musta hid it. I wouldn’t have taken a bottle, anyway, because grog’s no good for Harry. Inspector, will you see he gets a fair go?”

  “You can be very sure about that, Mick. Very, very sure.”

  “I’m dead,” declared Dead March Harry.

  “Dead be damned!” Mick told him and shook him. “Come on now, and pack up. We’re going to town for a spell. Just a little spell, and then we’ll come back to the Gutter. Bet cher!”