“You were not particularly mean,” Dreyton said dryly. “I remember drawing up your cheque for a hundred.”
“They will want it. Mrs. Nelson gave them another hundred and let Storrie off paying the half-yearly interest on her mortgage, which was due this week. What with all that and the sixty-odd pounds raised by public subscription, Mabel should not lack the very best surgical and nursing service. Old Mulray says he thinks one operation at least will be necessary.”
“Simone done anything yet, do you know?”
Martin shook his head, saying, “I have heard nothing. It is time something was found out about this strangling swine. Even Stella is getting jumpy, and behind old Alec’s leaving, I think, is his wife, who is terrified to leave the doors unlocked after dark. Anyway, I dropped in to speak about a quite different matter.”
Borradale paused, and Dreyton noted the flush swiftly mounting into his face. When he again spoke the words came quickly.
“Look here, Donald. My sister and I have been discussing you.”
“Indeed!” Dreyton said politely.
“That’s right! Counter my—or rather our—damned rudeness with suavity,” Martin burst out. “You are the most even-tempered fellow I know. Anyway, we discussed you in no critical manner, I assure you. As a matter of fact, we would like to know your real reason for not wanting to remain permanently in the office. It may be none of our business. It probably isn’t. On the other hand we might be able to remove a bar to your undertaking the office work for good.”
There was but little physical resemblance in Martin to his sister, but a great deal in mannerisms. His eyes were clear and steady—so like his sister’s. Dreyton wanted to look away, for he was finding it difficult to meet Martin’s gaze. As the temporary book-keeper hesitated to speak the younger man proceeded rapidly and with evident embarrassment.
“I am going to be perfectly frank,” he said. “Allen was a good book-keeper, and quite a good fellow, but he was wholly unable to forget he was a book-keeper when out of the office, when over in the house or on the tennis court. We have missed your conversation, your dashed good society, and never before or since you were with us have we been able to accept anyone so entirely without reserve.”
Dreyton’s brows now were raised a fraction, and still he made no attempt to speak.
“Hang it, man! You’re a mystery,” Martin exclaimed. “You talk about everything but yourself. You leave a comfortable job and decent living conditions for the life of a fence-rider, which is tougher than that of any stockman. Surely you must be sick of it by now?”
Dreyton’s stony expression melted into a slight smile. He stood up and deliberately stretched.
“By no means,” he said. “Look at me! I am as tough as leather. I am as healthy, as fit as a Melbourne Cup winner. I see the sun rise every morning, and I can lie abed and look at the stars before going to sleep at night. I can read with profit, for I have the time and the peace to think of what I have read. I miss the tennis, of course, and the good food and the agreeable society, but, Mr. Borradale, I think I have gained more than I have lost.”
Dreyton looked all that he said he felt. Compared to him, Martin appeared dapper, and he was endowed generously with physical strength.
“Then, Donald, you won’t come back—permanently?”
The other fell to filling his pipe, and having lit it he sat down and said with slow impressiveness, “You know, Mr. Borradale you are being extremely decent to me. I was a-hungered and you gave me food—and all the rest of it. You make me feel an ungrateful dog, and so I would like to put you right on one point where you appear to be wrong. You seem to think that outside the office I forget I am the book-keeper. I don’t forget it. I don’t forget it for an instant. Neither do you or Miss Borradale, but you are both too splendid ever to let me see or feel it.
“You say I am a mystery. I cannot solve that mystery for you, but I will tell you this much. What you have I once had. Seeing what you have poignantly reminds me of the estate from which I have been cast out. To people of that estate book-keepers are considered small if worthy fry. The wounds on my soul given it by my fall are still capable of being scarified by the salt of your affluence—if you will permit the crude simile.”
“I have suspected that,” Martin said softly. “It’s hard luck, but I think you should not let it govern you.”
“I most certainly am not worrying about it, or whining about it, Mr. Borradale. I am explaining this now because I cannot be but constantly reminded of your exceptional kindness. It is something like this with me. Alone, with my camels for companions, I can feel a true man. On that fence, when renewing rotten ground-netting, when cutting posts, when tracking my camels, I can forget the past and live the present, be my own master and crave for nothing I haven’t got. When in close association with Miss Borradale and yourself I cannot forget or cease to be envious of you. And that doesn’t do, as you will agree. I am happy to be able to repay in small measure by undertaking this office work when you are in need of a book-keeper.”
The ghost of a scowl which had been growing on Martin’s face abruptly vanished.
“I am glad we have been candid,” he said, rising. “What must be cannot be helped. Stella and I both like you immensely, and you have only to hint you are tired of the fence life and the book-keeper’s billet is yours. Perhaps in time you might be able to change your mind. However, let’s pass to something else. Westall’s cousin has come up from Melbourne for a holiday, and we have invited him and Westall over for the week-end. We should have some really fast tennis.”
“Good! You will have to practise that backhand of yours. As for me—well, I have become a perfect dud.”
“Oh, rot, Donald. Hop into your things and come along for a singles. I’ll be waiting for you. By the way, I consented to let Joe Fisher borrow the weather records. He has some idea of being able to foretell droughts and good years by a study of them.”
Dreyton was locking the books away in the safe when, a few minutes later, Bony entered.
“Good evening, Mr. Dreyton,” he said, being careful to address the book-keeper, not the fence-rider.
“Hullo, Joe! What can I do for you?”
Blue-grey eyes encountered deep blue eyes across the book-keeper’s writing table.
“I have called for the weather records Mr. Borradale said I could have to study,” replied Bony.
“Here they are. I am, however, to point out their value and to ask you to be sure to return them intact.”
“Mr. Borradale can depend on me,” Bony said with assurance, although he was positive that Borradale had never thought to be so particular.
Dreyton was now openly looking at the clock, but the detective pretended to be dense.
“One is able to foretell with reasonable certainty a dry season or a big rain by observing the ants and the birds, especially the parrot genus,” he went on. “I have noted a singular thing about the galahs in this district. Although they have nested with unfailing regularity along Thunder Creek, from Catfish Hole down to the river, along Nogga Creek, they have not nested for at least four years.”
Not a muscle of Dreyton’s face betrayed his quick interest.
“Indeed!” he said carelessly, and Bony felt the national reserve of the Englishman fall like a cloak about the book-keeper. “What would account for that, do you think?”
“Ah … it is hard to be positive, Mr. Dreyton. It is so interesting that I would really like to be sure. Galahs, like many other birds, use the same nesting-holes every year, and one cause which may determine their abandonment of their nest-holes would be the systematic robbing of their nests of eggs and young birds.—Do you collect birds’ eggs?”
Dreyton laughed, genuinely amused.
“Of course not.”
“Or obtain young galahs to send to friends in the city?”
“Again, of course not.”
“That being so, I was wondering—pardon my unmannerly curiosity—w
hy you climbed one of the Nogga Creek trees that afternoon we met on the boundary-fence.”
“How do you know that I climbed that tree?” Dreyton asked, a degree too quickly.
“Your tracks shouted the fact as I was passing on my way back from work. They even told me that you exercised the greatest caution not to permit Mrs. Nelson observing you through her glasses from the hotel balcony.”
It was as though Dreyton held his breath whilst Bony spoke. It was the barely audible sigh and not his eyes which betrayed mental strain.
“You’re a strange fellow, Joe,” he said slowly, but with steel in his voice. “As a matter of fact, I thought I saw something unusual up in that tree. It was nothing, after all. A piece of newspaper.”
“Something which had attracted the crows,” Bony suggested.
“Er—yes. They were kicking up quite a din as I neared the tree, and they flew away when I came under it. Now be off, there’s a good fellow. I’m due at the tennis court, and I am late already.”
“A piece of newspaper!” Bony echoed, a note of disappointment in his voice. “I was hoping you would say that you found a piece of grey flannel cloth caught in the ends of a broken sapling.”
That brought the temporary book-keeper close to the half-caste, to glare down into the blue eyes from a superior height.
“Just what do you mean?” he asked, and for an instant he looked ugly.
“Mean? Why, what can I mean?”
“What the deuce have my actions to do with you? Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“No, most decidedly not,” Bony replied calmly. “I suffer one vice, a curious mind—or should I say a mind enslaved by curiosity? You know, your discovery in that tree is very interesting, Mr. Dreyton. I wonder how that piece of grey flannel—dark-grey, I think it was—came to be impaled by a broken sapling situated at least thirty feet above ground. From the trousers of a bird-nester, I suppose. Probably he accounted for the galahs not nesting about there.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” Dreyton said with forced carelessness. “Now do go away, Joe. I have to change for tennis.”
“Ah … of course. I am sorry I have detained you,” murmured Bony. “I suppose … I suppose you would not consent to show me that piece of flannel cloth?”
“You suppose right, Joe. Forget it. It is of no importance to you or to anyone else. If you think I go about collecting pieces of cloth attached to tree suckers, you must have an extraordinary opinion of me.”
“Very well, Mr. Dreyton. Thank you for the records. I will take great care of them. Perhaps if you should come across that piece of grey flannel—dark-grey, wasn’t it?”
“Yes … yes. Come on, now! Out you go. I want to lock up.”
Then the telephone-bell rang shrilly. Dreyton swore, and Bony sauntered out to the veranda. He was smiling. He had certainly discovered a wisp of grey fibre adhering to the broken ends of a tree sucker in that tree climbed by Dreyton, but he had not known until Dreyton informed him without the aid of words that what the crows had quarrelled about was a small portion of dark-grey flannel.
He had but reached the end of the office building when Dreyton called:
“Joe ahoy! Just a moment.”
Bony went back.
“Constable Lee is on the phone and wishes to speak to you,” Dreyton said with asperity. “Hurry up, please.”
At the telephone, Bony announced his presence. Lee said:
“Sergeant Simone went out to Westall’s station this afternoon. He has just returned, bringing Barry Elson with him. He has arrested Elson and charged him with the attack on Mabel Storrie.”
When Bony did not speak, Lee said anxiously, “Hi! Are you there?”
“Yes, Lee. I am astonished by Simone’s action. When does he propose to take his prisoner to Broken Hill, do you know?”
“Tonight. He’s at the store filling up with petrol. Elson is in the lock-up. My wife is preparing his tea now.”
“Will you take it in to him?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell the young man not to worry about the future. I shall probably see you early this evening. Au revoir.”
Having replaced the instrument on its hook, Bony turned to find Dreyton standing at his table, waiting.
“That was Constable Lee, Mr. Dreyton,” Bony explained. “He rang up to say Sergeant Simone has arrested Barry Elson for the attack on Mabel Storrie.”
“Then Simone is a confounded fool,” Dreyton said, his eyes beginning to blaze.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Now, he would have been a confounded fool had he arrested me.”
Chapter Twelve
The Night Rider
A TREELESS PLAIN has its wardrobe of dresses, a wardrobe much better stocked than that possessed by a forest. Unlike women, nature dons a dress to suit every mood, and not one to create a mood. Some of her moods call for ugliness, colour dissonance, even drabness.
On this particular evening in the second week of November the bluebush plain surrounding Carie wore a dress of orange and purple, for the setting sun had drawn before its face a mantle of smoky crimson bordered along its topmost edge with ribbons of gold and of pale green.
This celestial drapery was beyond Mrs. Nelson’s range of vision. She was sitting in an easy chair at the extreme south end of the balcony of her hotel, the knitting with which she had been employed now idle in her lap, her small, white, blue-veined hands resting upon it. Even so, she could command an excellent view of the one and only street.
It was an evening to calm anyone’s troubled mind, but the mind of Mrs. Nelson was by no means untroubled. In fact, it was greatly excited by recent events.
To the south, a bar of dark green was Nogga Creek, and after the sun had set it became a bar of darkling colour fading gradually into the dove-grey sky. From the wide eastern horizon, coming inward towards the town, the grey of distance merged into purple—a purple slashed by streaks of orange where the sun’s aftermath caught the lines of tobacco bush—a purple which flowed about the greater splashes of light red, beneath which lay the thousands of tons of fine-grained sand deposited by the winds since Mrs. Nelson was a girl.
Smith’s Bakery opposite, and all the town to the left of the hotel, was stained with dull reds and browns—stains which obliterated the harshness of iron roofs and weathered walls of wood, of iron, of petrol-tins, of chaff-bags. Along the street had been driven a flock of goats, and, as though their passage had been transmuted into an imperishable mark, minute sand particles raised by their cloven hoofs now hung steadily in mid-air, forming a nigger-brown varnish, which coloured old Grandfer Littlejohn, talking excitedly with Mr. Weaver, the many playing children, and the unusual number of gossiping women standing on the footpaths. Even the figures of Bony and Mounted-Constable Lee, talking outside the police station front gate, were tinted with this umber shade.
What an afternoon it had been! The little woman on the veranda was feeling almost exhausted by the strain of the excitement. She had, of course, watched the departure of Sergeant Simone on the track to Allambee, and for two hours she had found much enjoyment in speculating on his destination and the purport of his business. Then she had seen the sergeant’s car returning along the sole street, had watched it turn just before it reached the police station and so disappear in the direction of the lock-up. And in the car with the sergeant had been Barry Elson.
It was as well that, despite her years, her heart was robust, because the subsequent wait and the suspense were hard to bear. That old fool of a Littlejohn had hobbled to the police station corner and stood there to stare at the lock-up instead of coming to tell her if Elson really had been arrested. Mrs. Nelson was about to send for James and order him to go and ascertain what it was all about when Sergeant Simone drove out to the street and pulled up before the petrol pump outside the store.
After that, for an hour, the car was parked outside the police station whilst that annoying brute of a man was inside talking mysteriousl
y to Constable Lee. People began to animate the usually empty street, and they stood like statues staring across at the lock-up when the sergeant drove his car to it, and out of Mrs. Nelson’s view. Ah, and then he had suddenly reappeared with Barry Elson at his side, and had driven away, to vanish under the Nogga Creek trees on his way to Broken Hill.
Tilly came on to the veranda and told her in hushed voice all that she had guessed. One could see the look of amazed relief in Tilly’s homely face. One could tell by the movements of the people in the street that at long last the shadow of the Strangler had been lifted from Carie.
And then, about half-past seven, that stranger half-caste working on Wirragatta had appeared at the Common gate, to walk into Carie to the police station, where he had been for the last half-hour. Oh, what was he doing in the police station? What was he talking to Lee about? Mrs. Nelson sent for James. And James received certain orders.
Mrs. Nelson’s dislike of Sergeant Simone was due less to his profession than to his refusal to inform her of the progress of his investigation. She disliked Donald Dreyton because he avoided acquainting her with his past history. With Joe Fisher, she was positively angry, for not only was she unable to find out whence he had come and who he was, but he had not even called at the hotel for a drink and a yarn with James. Old Grandfer Littlejohn had been ordered to come up for an interview, but to hide his ignorance of what was going on the old fellow had cackled about nothing.
The plain was swiftly changing its gown for one of dark grey and indigo blue. From two dozen tin and debris-littered back yards hens were quarrelling for roosting-places. Mr. Smith sat down on his doorstep, and Grandfer Littlejohn arranged himself on his petrol-case set at the edge of the path outside his son’s house. And then Bony left Constable Lee, and, on his way towards the hotel, was stopped by Grandfer. … Five minutes later Bony entered the hotel, and the watching Mrs. Nelson sighed and settled herself to receive a visitor.
No longer could she see the division of land and sky. Far distant a bright light burned steadily as though through the uncurtained window of a stockman’s hut. Not being interested in the stars, Mrs. Nelson could not name this one. Nogga Creek was now a dark fold in a deep cloth of velvet.
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