Stella expelled her breath in a slow sigh.
“Very well,” she assented.
“Thank you. Within a week or two I shall have removed the danger for all time.”
“Then you suspect someone?”
“Alas! I suspect ten people,” he replied. “One of the ten is my man. Have no uneasiness. I shall get him in the end. I have never yet failed to finalize a case.”
“Never failed?”
“No, never. As Colonel Spendor says, and says truly: I am a damned poor policeman but a damned good detective. Permit me to leave you. I must roll my swag and assist Harry West to load the truck.”
When she bowed her head slightly in assent, he bowed to her and wished heraurevoir. Watching him walk to the gate, she felt like crying after him mockingly. Then she remembered the expression in his blue eyes and turned to enter the house for breakfast. Had he been dressed in evening clothes and with a jewelled turban on his head he would have been the living likeness of her idea of an Indian prince-polite, assured, dignified.
By the time the truck was loaded with rolls of wire, shovels and crowbars, rations and a tent and swags and a round iron tank, it was nearing noonday. Hence it was after one o’clock when Bony and Harry West and Harry’s five sheepdogs left Wirragatta for the scene of their coming labours.
Two miles below the homestead the outback track crossed the now empty river over a roughly built but stout bridge, and thereafter the road ran southward for several miles before bearing again to the west. During the first half-hour Harry maintained a grim silence. There was no cabin to the truck and one of the dogs stood with its jaws resting on Harry’s shoulder, another crouched against Bony, while the remaining three rode the load. All enjoyed the speed.
“Make us a smoke,” requested Harry dismally. He handled the truck as though it were his greatest enemy.
“Certainly, my dear Harry,” consented Bony, rolling him a cigarette.“Why are you so depressed this calm and warm afternoon?”
“Depressed!” snorted the youthful outlaw-rider. “Stiffen the crows! What bloke wouldn’t be depressed at coming down to a fence lizard? Which ends of them shovels do you use to dig with, any’ow? Fencin ’! Come down tofencin ’ and you want to know why a bloke’s depressed.”
With one hand working the steering-wheel, Harry struck a match and lit the rolled cigarette. The track wound sharply across a wild range of sand-drifts, and the detective regarded the slim, brown hand clutching the wheel with some misgiving as the speedometer was registering forty miles an hour. The cigarette alight, Harry reinforced his right hand with his left and savagely pressed down on the accelerator.
“I reckon I done me dash for that married cottage,” he moaned. “Last year a bloke done some crook work, and the boss set him scrubbing the house verandas. You see, the boss don’t ever sack a man. If he wants to get rid of him, he sets him to work such as scrubbing floors, knowing that no bloke will stand that for long before he asks for his cheque. I got a good reason to ask for mine, too, ’costhis fencing to a horseman is just as crook as scrubbing floors is to a fencer.”
“You must swallow your pride, Harry,” Bony said softly. “You listen to one who is possessed of much worldly wisdom. We should always mould our conduct on the examples set by the great men in history. Er -Nelson, Napoleon, Marlborough and others learnt in their youth how to obey. Having learnt how to obey, they were fitted to demand obedience. There arrived a point in the lives of all great men when they could and did put telescopes to their blind eyes and otherwise intimate to their superiors that they could-er-retire to the equator. The secret of success, Harry, is to know just when you can tell a superior to retire to the equator without resultant disadvantage to oneself.”
“I didn’t exactly tell the boss to go to hell, Joe. Some fool went and let theridin ’ hacks outer the yard when I wanted one to ride to Carie. Black Diamond was in a yard by himself and they hadn’t the guts to let him out. Any’ow, I can ride that cow on me nose.”
“I don’t doubt that, Harry. The circumstances, I admit, were annoying, and the business urgent. The boss said not to ride Black Diamond. You said ‘Iwill ride Black Diamond.’ Inexperience permitted you to disobey the boss when you expect advancement. Impulse blinded you to the obvious way of disobeying without subsequent unpleasant result. Now, Black Diamond is black all over. If you had thought at all, you would have stolen some white paint and given him a forehead blaze and white hocks. Then no one in Carie would have recognized him.”
“Gosh, Joe! You’re a corker,” Harry said with great earnestness.
Bony laughed.
“I have the idea that the boss is merely testing you by putting you to real work, Harry. You see, if he thought of making you boss stockman, he would want to be sure of your character, that you would have strength of character to lead the men under you. In any case, why worry; why be depressed? As I pointed out, it is a beautiful day and you find yourself in good company.”
The young man’s expression of gloom persisted for another half-minute, when it swiftly changed to normal cheerfulness. He slapped Bony on the shoulder with his left hand and put on additional speed.
“You know, Harry, I think you are eager to get going on the business end of a crowbar and a shovel,” Bony murmured, or rather his voice sounded but a murmur above the roar of the engine. Harry turned to face his companion, and the truck shied violently.
“Me eager-! Cripes! What you mean?”
“To me it appears obvious. You seem to be so eager that you are endangering both our necks in order to reach the work as quickly as you can.”
The engine ceased its roar and the speed dropped to five miles an hour.
The grinning youth said, “I never thought of that.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dogger Smith
DOGGER SMITH HAD for many years lived in a worldall his own -a world in which human beings had a quite secondary part. Thesupreme being in this particular world was Dogger Smith himself, and the lesser beings were the wild dogs against whom he pitted his cunning and the wiles of his trade. Beings of much less importance were the other human inhabitants, but, notwithstanding, Dogger Smith knew every one of them intimately. He appeared to draw their secrets and the details of their lives out of the air, for he was seldom in touch with any human beings, black or white.
He was of immense stature, the most remarkable thing about him being the snowy whiteness of his full beard and hair. He might have been seventy years of age, and then again he might have been over a hundred. He was one of the “immortals” created in the 1860’s, hardened by a diet of meat, damper and tea, and an annual “drunk” at a bush pub. The remnants of these “immortals” are still to be found camped in the pensioners’ communities along the Darling, ancients blessed with agility and mental alertness to be envied by modern men of half their age.
Early this day he had arrived with a flourish at a narrow belt of mulga crossing a section of the fence which had to be repaired. The flourish was given by the roar of an ancient Ford engine lashed with fencing-wire to a truck chassis, clouds of following dust, and a really terrible stench. The grinding of iron and the dust having subsided, Dogger Smith made a fire and boiled a billy for tea.
He was oblivious, or impervious, to the stench, and drank black tea and smoked black tobacco in a short-stemmed wood pipe with evident appreciation. Being refreshed, he set to work cutting forked poles and straight poles and tree-branches, the whole of which he fashioned into an efficient wind-break. Having accomplished so much, he drank more tea and once more filled his pipe with the jet-black plug tobacco.
Harry West unwisely stopped the station truck to leeward of the decrepit Ford, and, as one animal, his five dogs jumped to ground with noses twitching with delight and raced up-wind to thedogger’s truck, where they pawed the ground and whimpered.
“Good day-ee!” roared Dogger Smith. “Come and ’avea drinker tea.”
“Gosh!” gasped Harry. “Yougotta dead horse on t
hat hearse of yours? Cripes, she stinks something awful!”
“Haw! Haw!”came the bellowed roar. “That’s only my secret dog attractor.”
“Secret? There’s nothing secret aboutthat! She’sworse’n a loud-speaker at full blast. What’s it made of?”
“Coo! Like to know, wouldn’t you? Why, I bin offereda ’undredquid for that secret attractor. She’s caught more dogs than you got hairs on your head, young feller. Who’s your lady friend?”
“This here’s Joe Fisher,” replied Harry, to add with pride, “Friend of mine.”
“That is a wonderful dog-lure you have,” Bony said, looking again at the five dogswho were standing on their hind legs and pleasurably sniffing at Dogger Smith’s gear on the truck.
From above a height of six feet a pair of keen hazel eyes looked down into Bony’s smiling face. There was nothing rheumy about those eyes, and there was no mark of spectacles on the bridge of the big Roman nose.
“Glad-ter-meet-cher,” was the non-committal greeting. “You’re a stranger to this district.”
“Yes. I’ve come over from the Gutter for a change,” Bony admitted. “Er-that secret attractor has a very powerful influence over Harry’s dogs. I suppose you get used to it in time?”
“Well, she takes a bit of getting used to, I allow, but sheain’t socrook as the lure what Boozer Harris worked with back in ninety-two. I generallyparks the truck well to leeward, and I’ll shift her now you’ve come. Yougonna get water today, Harry?”
Harry decided that he would, and Bony, who decided he could not endure the stench a moment longer, elected to go with him. They unloaded the truck without discussing the weather, and then took the tank four miles away to fill it at a dam. During their absence Dogger Smith removed the offence and cooked the dinner-boiled salt mutton and potatoes.
The first night in camp Bony and Harry West were entertained by vivid descriptions of a dozen most gruesome murders, and Dogger Smith averred that never before or since his time had there been a cement-worker surpassing Deeming. Throughout the following day the dog-trapper proved that his interest in labour was equal to his interest in murders, and when the second evening of this association arrived Bony was indeed thankful that the sun did not permanently remain above the horizon.
The weather was clear and hot and calm, and constantly the detective looked for signs of the next wind-storm. As none appeared, he delayed his questioning of Dogger Smith in order not to arouse the old man’s suspicions and thus shut off a valuable fount of knowledge. It was the unfortunate Harry who unconsciously gave the lead when, a few evenings later, he complained of Martin Borradale’s decree of banishment to fence work.
“Iain’tgonna hear nothing against young Martin Borradale,” sternly said old Dogger Smith, his great white head thrown back and his hazel eyes hard with sudden wrath. “He’s the best boss you ever worked for, me lad, and he’s just the man to keep you young fellers in your places, like his father before him.”
“Oh, all right,” snarled Harry, really too weary to argue about it.
“Has the boss owned Wirragatta long?” Bony slipped in conciliatorily.
Anger subsided like a spent wave.
“Since his father died. He was born on Wirragatta. I mind the time he was born. It was on the third of January, 1910. The day he was christened I’ll never forget. Old man Borradale and Mrs. Borradale-she were a fine woman, to be sure-was that proud of having a son and heir that they give a grand party in the shearing-shed. Every man on the run was called in to the homestead the day before. Most of the townspeople were invited, too. The day of the christening there were barrels of beer and a special dinner, in the shearing-shed, and the barrels were tapped quick and early. Old Grandfer Littlejohn then was old man Borradale’shorseboy, old Grandfer even in them days being considered past real work. He always was one of them tiredsorta blokes. Any’ow, ’imand the woman wot was cooking at ‘Government House’ got that drunk that they hungonter each other on the dance floor and cried. And then Mrs. Littlejohn was told, and she came on the scene and started to screech at the cook, telling her in about ten thousand words that she was no lady. Then the cook, she hauled off and clouted Ma Littlejohn, and Ma Littlejohn, she clouted the cook. Then all hands fell down together and wentorf to sleep for two days and two nights.”
“It must have been a great day,” encouraged Bony.
“Too right she was. Old man Borradale was never as generous before or after as he was when young Martin was christened. He was a hard old bloke, but he was just. He married the best woman ever the back country saw. She near died giving life to young Martin.”
“The boss appears to be well liked,” Bony craftily pursued. “He’s worried, though, about the Strangler, he being a Justice of the Peace and all that.”
“But,” objected the old man, “they got Barry Elson for it, didn’t they?”
“He never done it,” Harry interjected warmly. “And there’s a lot of people think like me, too.”
“And a lot think he done it,” dryly persisted the old man. “Still, I don’t think it’s him. I reckon it’s that therebunyip old Snowdrop has been yelling about for years. Wot-in-’ll’sthe reason for doing of it if itain’t abunyip. There’s more in them blacks’ ideas than you’d think. What wewants is a real detective to prove the Strangler is a real bloke or abunyip.”
“Sergeant Simone-” began Bony, but the old man cut him short.
“Him!” he exclaimed with withering contempt. “Imeans a real detective, not a drunk-pincher. Wewants a proper bush detective.”
“I agree there,” Bony said dryly. “Whoever the Strangler may be, I think he is a little mad-someone who goes mad now and then. Do you know a man just man enough to arrange his killings without being caught?”
Dogger Smith chuckled. He was blessed, like many lonely men, with a sense of the ridiculous.
“Only old Stumpy Tattem,” he said, and now his eyes were alight. “Now and then poor old Stumpy rams his hat on a fence-post and says just what he thinks of it. Me and him was putting up a division fence in Yonkers’ paddock when Mabel Storrie was nigh killed. It blew like the devil, you remember, and that evening I baked a damper, the best damper I ever baked. Old Stumpy went crook because it wasn’t perfectly round. Then he went for me and nearly bit me ’and in two. I had to clout him hard with me other, and when he comes round he gets up and clears off into the scrub, and I don’t see him again until next midday.”
“And the night he was away from your camp Mabel Storrie was attacked. Where were you camped that night?”
“Eh!” exclaimed the ancient, staring hard at Bony. “Crummy, I never thought of that! Why, me and Stumpy Tattem was camped only three miles south-west of Nogga Creek! Now, I wonder- No, of course not. Old Stumpy wouldn’t go and do a thing like that. Not poor old Stumpy, with his wooden leg and all. He goes off his rocker now and then, but he’s as ’armless as a dove.”
“Where is Stumpy Tattem now?” asked the half-caste.
“Stumpy! Why, he’s working away across onWestalls ’. He’s a decent kind of bloke, is Stumpy, even if he gets a bit rampageous now and then.”
Bony recalled having removed the name of William Tattem from his list, and now he considered putting it back again. Stumpy would certainly have to be followed up. He must work Dogger Smith right out now this opportunity had come to find the old man in the proper frame of mind.
“How long have you lived in the Carie district?” he asked.
“Close to fifty years.”
“What was Carie like back in those early years?”
“She was good-oh! When I hit Carie the first time there was three pubs in her!”
“Indeed! More people, too, I suppose?”
“Too right there was. Real people, too. Hard doers, all of ’em,” Dogger Smithpridefully replied. “In them days the bush was thriving. Wool was worth only round about sixpence a pound, and sheep could be bought for a shilling a time, but the money them days went a thousand mi
les farther than it does these. They can have their high wages an’ all that, but give me them times and low wages, when the wages we did get went farther. The squatters had plenty of money, and they spent it, too. When the companies took over and put on managers and talked about their flamingshareholders, that was the finish of the bush as it was in them days. The runs carried more sheep to the acre, and places what now employs a dozen ’andsuster employ fifty or sixty. Nowblokes has to go to the cities to find work. The know-alls blame the sand-drifts, or the over-stocking, or the rabbits, but old man Borradale knewmore’n all theperfessors when he said that the root of all evil in the bush was the stupid leasehold system of the land.”
“How’s that?” asked Bony, his interestswitched off from his investigation.
“It’s simple enough. People who lease land are no different to people who rent a farm or a house. They don’t know what isgonna happen to them in the future, and they naturally gets all they can outer the land before they gets chucked off be the government. They overstocks and don’t do more improvements than they must. Why, they would be fools to rest paddocks and clean up the rabbits and do real improvements for some other bloke to step in and collar the benefits, wouldn’t they?”
“I heartily concur,” Bony said vigorously, although it was a national problem which had not and did not interest him. Had Dogger Smith said that the Prime Minister ought to be hanged he would have agreed without reservation. Having got the old man “warmed up”, he did not hesitate to put this question:
“How far back did Mrs. Nelson go into the hotel at Carie?”
“Away back in 1910. Shecome into some money from an aunt, so she said, but her mother was a Rawlings and she didn’t have no sisters, and her father only had one and she died in 1902.”
“She is a character, isn’t she?” Bony pressed, giving the old man no time to reflect.
Winds of Evil b-5 Page 17
