The Mystery of Swordfish Reef b-7

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Well, Mr Bonaparte, what became of the brief-case?”persisted the fresh-complexioned, suave-voiced big man. “Come, we are unable to waste time.”

  “It is in Constable Telfer’s safe.”

  Mr Rockaway sighed. Then he said:

  “Knock him down, Malone.”

  There was no delay. Malone’s iron-hard fist crashed against the point of Bony’s jaw, producing a grating sound in his ears, lights before his eyes, and a vast pain in his brain. A second blow was given by the floor of the garage, producing nausea in his stomach. He experienced an intense longing to be supported by Mother Earth, but he was dragged to his feet. The lighting within the garage appeared dim, as though a shadow fell between its illuminated objects and Bony’s eyes. Beyond this shadow stood Rockaway and the others. Malone stood nearer than they. He had let go his hold on Bony. Rockaway’s voice seemed to issue from a great distance.

  “Now, Mr Bonaparte, whatdid you do with the brief-case?”

  Bony blinked his eyes to banish the unreal shadow. He fought to regain mental poise. A warmth of peculiar origin was passing up his neck to heat his brain, to burn his eyes, and even then his mind was divided so that he wondered at this until he understood that it was actually mounting anger. He was astonished by the fact of being in this instance unable to control this growing heat despite his effort to discipline himself. Almost all his life he had regarded anger as the blunted weapon of the weak man to be scorned by a cultured man such ashe.

  “The brief-case, Mr Bonaparte,” Rockaway said again.

  “I took it…” Bony began when the self-discipline imposed over many years vanished. The heat in his brain had become too fierce for longer control, and abruptly his mother’s blood took charge of him, made him one with her and her people. That sneering brute close to him had knocked him down, had called him a nigger boy, had treated him as though he, Napoleon Bonaparte, was a nomad of the bush.

  Bony actually screamed when he leaped at Malone, standing only three feet from him, wolfishly waiting the order to again knock him down. Bony’s transformed face astonished the Bluenose to the extent of delaying his defensive action for a split second, for Bony’s face had become jet-black in colour, his eyes glaring blue orbs set in seas of white, while his teeth reflected the light like the fangs of a young dog. Before Malone could act, Bony’s fingers were crunching into his throat witha strength extraordinary in a man so light of body. And like the grip of a bull-dog those hands were not to be prized away until it was too late to revive Captain Malone.

  Never before in his life had his aboriginal instincts so controlled Napoleon Bonaparte to the exclusion of that other complex part of him inherited from his father and on which was based so magnificent a pride. Reason had fled before the primitive lust to destroy. He had Malone sagging, was supporting the heavy body with his two hands, when he heard Rockaway say, still casual and cool:

  “Knock him out, someone. Don’t kill the fool. We must have that brief-case.”

  Bony began to scream with laughter at the sight of Malone’s awful face: blue-black, tongue protruding, glassy eyes rolling horribly in their sockets. Then abruptly his laughter was cut off. A flare of flame swept across his eyes, to be followed by a night in which thought and being had no entity.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Telfer Doesn’t Like It

  THROUGHOUT THE swordfishing season, Edward Blade invariably opened his office at seven o’clock each morning to attend to the requirements of launchmen preparing for the day’s angling, and usually he went home again at eight for breakfast to return at nine o’clock. By nine, when all the anglers had gone out, there was correspondence to be dealt with among other demands.

  On returning to his office after breakfast on the morning of 18th January, Blade was surprised by Jack Wilton, who was waiting for him when he and his launch and his angler should have been at sea.

  “Hullo! What’s your trouble, Jack?” he asked, unlocking the office door and leading the other inside.

  “I’ve been waiting for Mr Bonaparte since seven o’clock this morning,” Jack explained. “As he didn’t turn up at the jetty by half-past eight I went to the hotel to see what was wrong. It seems that he’s gone away. He left this letter in his room for Mrs Steele and me.”

  Blade accepted and read Malone’s dictated letter with a heavy frown between his widely spaced eyes. He re-read it several times, before looking up to stare at the puzzled launchman. Without commenting he passed to his table and there turned over filed papers until he displayed the hiring contract of fishing tackle signed by “Napoleon Bonaparte”. The letter addressed to Mrs Steele, the licensee, was signed “Nap Bonaparte”. From the examination of the two signatures. Blade glanced up at the waiting Wilton, to say:

  “It seems plain enough, Jack. Something had happened which has taken Mr Bonaparte away for a few days. Still…”

  “Joe says that Mr Bonaparte visited him at his shack last night, when Mr Bonaparte said nothing to him about going away. In fact, he promised Joe to decide about something when out fishing today.”

  “Oh! What time was that, when Mr Bonaparte left Joe’s place?”

  “About half-past ten.”

  “Yes, that would be about right. I heard him talking to Mr. Emery in the main bar parlour at eleven. They were comparing their plans for the fishing today. And now I come to recall it, I heard Mr Bonaparte say to Mr Emery that they had better be off to bed as there was another day’s angling in front of them.” Again the club secretary read the letter, and again he stared pensively at Jack Wilton. “I can’t make it out. He must have decided to go away after he left Emery to go to bed. Do you know if he took any luggage with him?”

  “Yes. Mrs Steele went to his room after I had been there and taken the letter to her. Mr Bonaparte’s two suit-cases are not there now, and the bed was just like he had slept in it.”

  “That makes it stranger still,” Blade murmured. “I’ve seen those cases. One was pretty heavy and a good size. He must have left in a car. Couldn’t leave Bermagui with those cases any other way. You wait here. I’ll go along and have a word with Telfer.”

  The constable was found engaged with his office work. He read the letter addressed to Mrs Steele, and then he listened to Blade’s vague misgivings. After that he pushed aside his papers and stood up, saying:

  “I don’t like it.”

  Again he read the letter, and again he said:

  “I don’t like it.”

  On their way to the hotel Blade mentioned Bony’s visit to Joe, and his subsequent chat with Emery in the parlour. He also insisted that Bony would have taken a car in which to leave Bermagui because of his heavy suit-case which, with the lighter one, had gone with him. They sought Mrs Steele, who conducted them to Bony’s room. She said:

  “The maid has just finished tidying.”

  Telfer glanced inquiringly about the room. He walked to the table and stared down at the pens and ink and the writing block.

  “You came here a while back with Jack Wilton, Mrs Steele. How was the room then?” he questioned.

  “Just as usual after a gentleman has left it. The bed was unmade and the ash-tray was almost filled with cigarette ash and stubs. Mr Bonaparte’s fishing clothes are in the wardrobe. He’s taken everything else with him.”

  “Oh! The place didn’t look as if he had left in a great hurry?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing was upset?”

  “No.”

  “When did you last see Mr Bonaparte?”

  “About ten to eleven. He came to ask me to put his brief-case in my safe in the office. Then he went into the main parlour and talked with Mr Emery.”

  Telfer’s brows shot upward, and Blade said softly:

  “Oh! Ah!”

  “I hope there’s nothing wrong, Mr Telfer?” Mrs Steele said, suddenly anxious.

  “Don’t know yet,” Telfer admitted. “Anyway, keep quiet about our interest in Mr Bonaparte. Did he say anything, or hint to anyone
that he might be leaving?”

  “Not a word. Not even a hint, Mr Telfer. In fact, he was telling Mr Emery that he was going to persuade Jack Wilton to troll today around Montague as he hasn’t been up there yet.”

  Telfer stared at her in his disconcerting manner.

  “We’ll go along to your office,” he said, decisively. “I’d like a look at that brief-case.”

  In procession they passed along the corridor, down the short flight of steps, into the original building, and so to the small office built beneath the staircase. Telfer motioned Mrs Steele and Blade to go in. He himself casually toured the parlours and the bar before joining the licensee and the club secretary. Mrs Steele had opened her safe, and she produced Bony’s brief-case. Telfer unlatched it and swiftly glanced over the papers whilst being watched by the others. When he replaced them and fastened the case, he said:

  “I’ll take charge of this, Mrs Steele.”

  “But,” objected Mrs Steele, “Mr Bonaparte told me to take great care of it and to give it to no one but himself.”

  “It’ll be all right,” Telfer told her. “He didn’t say how long he would want you to keep it?”

  “No.”

  “Did he seem worried?”

  “Oh no. He was just as nice and smiling as always.”

  “Did he use the telephone last night, do you know?”

  “I don’t think so. I can find out for sure from the barman.”

  “I’d like to know-for sure.”

  Mrs Steele was away for a few minutes, to inform them on her return that no one had used the telephone after five o’clock the previous afternoon.

  “I do hope nothing is wrong, Mr Telfer,” she said, earnestly. “What with theDo-me and poor Mr Ericson-”

  “You just say nothing about anything to anyone,” Telfer told her. “You’ll oblige me by doing just that.”

  “Oh, I’ll not gossip.”

  “Good woman! Come on, Blade.”

  Silently they walked to Blade’s office which was nearer than the Police Station, and there Telfer said slowly, ponderously:

  “I still don’t like it. Why the devil would Inspector Bonaparte say nothing about going away? He goes to bed as usual, and then he gets up and dresses and packs his two suit-cases and clears out when he’s expectin’ a C.I.B. man here today with important information. Why? Tell me that.”

  “I can’t, Telfer. The point is, how did he leave Bermagui? He must have hired a car to go away in, having those suit-cases. He couldn’t go away by any other means. Whose car did he hire?”

  “Yes, whose? We must find that out. I wonder why he visited Joe last night. We’ll find that out, too. Meanwhile I’ll take the brief-case along to my office, and hunt up the night telephone operator. You could, if you like, see Smale and Parkins about the hired car. There’s no others he could have taken.”

  They met again in the street an hour later, when Blade said that neither Smale nor Parkins had taken the detective away from Bermagui, and Telfer said that Bony had not asked for a telephone connection the previous day. Guarded inquiries had established the fact that no one within the hotel and no one living along the only street of the township had heard a car arriving at or leaving the hotel after ten o’clock the previous evening.

  “I was mooching about till midnight,” Telfer stated, “and I didn’t see or hear a car anywhere. I’m liking it now less than ever. I wonder if he went away in a launch.”

  “He might have done that, but if so wouldn’t he have chosen theMarlin?”

  “Well, there’s Wilton down outside your place. Let’s go along and see if he noticed any launch missing early this morning.” They had almost reached Blade’s office when the policeman halted, and said: “I can hear an aeroplane.”

  Blade listened.

  “Yes. I can hear it, too. Coming from the north, from Sydney. It might be bringing the C.I.B. man Bonaparte’s expecting.”

  “If it should be like that, remember that we promised Bonaparte to be dumb,” urged Telfer, who was becoming increasingly anxious that through Bony’s unaccountable absence all credit would be withdrawn from him. “It wouldn’t do to blab out everything we know, which isn’t much, just because the inspector went away for a day or two.”

  “Still…” and Blade hesitated. “It’s all too mysterious for my liking. And we know he strongly suspected the Rockaway people.”

  “We’ll wait, anyway, before we disobey Inspector Bonaparte’s orders,” Telfer countered stiffly. “Let’s go on and question Wilton about the launches.”

  Jack Wilton was invited to follow them into Blade’s office, and there he was asked if any launch was out when he first went down to the jetty that morning.

  “No, they were all at the jetty,” Wilton replied. “The only launches that have gone out took anglers with ’em. If Mr Bonaparte went away in a launch instead of a car, then that launch got back before I went down at six this morning.”

  “Humph! Where’s Joe?”

  “I think he’s in the garage soldering some hooks to traces.”

  “Well, slip in there and bring him here.”

  Joe appeared in less than a minute-as the aeroplane was roaring overhead on its way to the landing-ground. Telfer became brisk.

  “Now, Joe, I understand that Mr Bonaparte paid you a visit last evening. What for?”

  Joe’s face expanded in a mirthless grin.

  “ ’Ecome to see me cats.”

  “What else?”

  “To ask kindly after me ’ealth.”

  “Didn’t he make you a promise to decide about something when you were at sea today?”

  Joe considered his reply before giving it. Then:

  “Well, he was thinkin’ of me and ’im doing a bit of pros-pectin’ down around Wapengo Inlet.”

  “Oh! He was, was he! Why?”

  “Struth! Why does a bloke go prospectin’ if it ain’t for metal?”

  “Rot, Joe. Now look here. We think that something serious has happened to Mr Bonaparte,” Telfer said, confidingly. “It’s up to us to get together and find out just what has happened to him. What do you think, Jack?”

  “I think like you do, but Joe won’t talk.” Wilton answered.

  “I promised ’im I wouldn’t,” Joe cut in. “It was a little private matter between me and ’im, and it ain’t got nothin’ to do with ’im goin’ away.”

  “How do you know it hasn’t?”

  A car hummed by the office building, and Blade knew it was driven by Smale, who was under contract to meet all planes.

  “ ’Cosit ’asn’t, that’s all.”

  “You’ll excuse me saying so, Joe Peace, but you’re an obstinate old fool,” Telfer told him with slow deliberation. “After Mr Bonaparte left you last night he returned to the hotel, had a drink with Mr Emery, and then went to bed. This morning he has gone, with his suit-cases, leaving a note to say he’ll be back some time. Supposing-I say supposing-the people who murdered Ericson got wind they were being cornered and to save themselves took Mr Bonaparte away, intending to put him out safely? Come on, we’ve got to find him. Tell us everything he talked about last night.”

  “Well, ’e talked about cats and dogs and gold and caves and the Rockaway push.”

  Further to this Joe would not add, and the purple-faced constable could question no further because Smale was returning from the landing-ground. He emitted a long-drawn sigh of exasperation.

  “You two fellers quit for the time being,” he said, addressing Wilton. “And keep your mouths shut tight.”

  He followed the launchmen as far as the door from which position he gazed along the road to Wapengo at the oncoming car. Blade joined him, saying:

  “I think that what Joe said about the conversation with Mr Bonaparte is substantially correct. Joe wants to make a mystery of the entire visit.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Telfer conceded. “Ah-thought so! Here’s D-S Allen.”

  The man who stepped from the car halted opposite the of
fice was big and lean and efficient in action and appearance. He strode smartly towards Telfer, who had stepped down from the club office to meet him. And he said, as though words were time wasted:

  “Day, Telfer!”

  “Good day, Sergeant. You on the job again?”

  “Yes. Mr Bonaparte out today?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right! I’ll go on to the hotel and fix a room. See you later.”

  The two men watched him being driven to the hotel, and the constable said, gravely:

  “I’m likingit less and less. He’ll be expecting Bonaparte back on theMarlin this evening, and when he learns that Bonaparte didn’t go fishing today, and that he left some time during the night, I’m going to get it well and truly in the neck. Darned if I know what best to do. Anyway, I’m going home for dinner.”

  An hour later, when he returned, he found Blade studying a large scale map of the district.

  “I been thinking,” he told Blade. “Perhaps one of the fellers at Cobargo saw or heard a car pass through there from here. Mind me using your phone?”

  “Go ahead. Then we’ll test an idea of my own,” Blade said, using a pair of compasses with which to measure distances on the map.

  Telfer was engaged four minutes, and, looking up, Blade saw him staring at the ceiling.

  “Mounted Constable Earle lives near the Cobargobridge,” he said slowly. “Earle says he heard a car enter Cobargo from the Bermagui road, pass over the bridge, and take the road to Bega. Bonaparte might have been in that car. Time-two-twenty a.m.”

  “That’s quite likely, Telfer. Now listen to my idea. Bonaparte visited Joe last night and they talked about Wapengo Inlet. Supposing that after he went to bed he decided to prospect the Rockaways’ place, and so packed up and got himself driven, say, to Lacy’s or Milton’s at the back of the Inlet, and from there do his prospecting?”

  “Then why go all the way round through Cobargo and Bega, and then across Dr George Mountain? Why didn’t he take the direct coast road?”

  “Because the night being dead quiet, he knew someone here would hear the car departing.”