When Mrs. Nelson, who was standing at the south end of her topmost veranda, held out her hands for inspection she saw them to be as though recently dipped in blood. There was no escaping this colour out of doors. It even transmuted the diamonds and sapphires in her rings into rubies.
Only now had she been able to leave her rooms in which she had been imprisoned for two days by the sun-lifted and wind-driven sand. She stood straight and sturdy, thankfully breathing the cool air, wonderingly watching the amazing sky above her coloured world. The soul of this woman was stirred, and she suffered vexation when a light step behind her broke a train of thought.
The man she knew as Joe Fisher stood before her when she turned. His blue eyes were soft, almost appealing.
“Madam, I am the bearer of sad news,” he said gently. “It is of your son about whom I have come to speak.”
Instantly the dark eyes widened and the fragile lips were compressed. For three seconds she stared up at him before saying sharply, “My son!”
“Your son, Mrs. Nelson!”
For the first time Bony sawthis woman shrink.
“My son! What do you know? Who are you?”
“I am an investigating police officer. Will you not sit down and invite me to bring a chair from the sitting-room?”
Mrs. Nelsonnodded, her face white, her eyes anguished. When Bony became seated a little to her front she said softly, “My son! Tell me, please.”
“When I was told that old man Borradale wept when he read the service over the body registered as your child I knew that he wept over the body of his own son, Mrs. Nelson. You must prepare yourself for a great shock. Your son, known as Martin Borradale, is dead.”
“Dead!”
Bony averted his gaze from her stricken face.
“Dead,” he repeated. “He died this morning a brave and an honourable man-by his own hand.”
Swiftly Bony related everything he had that morning been told by the young man in the Wirragatta bedroom, and of the trap prepared to ensnare the Strangler.
“I did not enlighten your son regarding his parentage,” Bony continued. “The only people who know that are Miss Borradale, Dreyton, Doctor Mulray, and our two selves.”
“Tell me all you know,” the woman commanded.
“Your son was born on the third of January, 1910. Doctor Tigue attended you and Mrs. Littlejohn nursed you. The following day Mrs. Borradale’s baby was born, and it died. Mrs. Borradale and her husband had been eagerly looking forward to the coming of their first born, and so ill was the lady that Dr. Tigue feared to tell her it was dead. Mr. Borradale and old Grandfer Littlejohn-”
“Yes, yes!” Mrs. Nelson interrupted. “Mr. Borradale thought of me and my baby and of John, whom he had caused to be locked up for safety’s sake. Mrs. Borradale was crying for her child… and it was dead. Mr. Borradale and old Littlejohn brought the dead baby to my little home. He pointed out to me that my child would be badly handicapped by his drunken father, and he offered me five thousand pounds to make the exchange.
“You and the others who know, and the world who will know, must not be too hard on me. It wasn’t all on account of the money. My husband was fast being ruined by something other than drink. His father was mad before him, and my John was mad, too. We were very poor, but up to the time my son was born I didn’t mind that so very much. Underneath everything, despite his goings on, my John was a wonderful man. But… there was the creeping madness and the drink. Mr. Borradale offered my baby a life filled with opportunities if I consented to the exchange. He paid me five thousand pounds and Mrs. Littlejohn another thousand pounds. And I am glad I allowed the exchange. I am glad, glad, glad that I sold my baby for five thousand pounds. I have watched him grow up a fine man, a wealthy squatter, a Justice of the Peace.
“When Dr. Tigue died without kith or kin, he willed me all his few possessions. I already owned the house and furniture. From his books I tore out the page relating to the babies, and I tore out the page concerning the neck injuries I got when poor John nearly strangled me in one of his frenzies. His father was put away because he almost strangled a woman.”
“That injury left scars, did it not?” Bony said. “When Mabel Storrie accidentally saw them you closed her mouth with the gift of an expensive ring.”
Mrs. Nelson nodded.
“You seem to know everything,” she said. “Yes, my poor John was always queer. Before Martin was born he nearly strangled me one night when he returned home. He was perfectly sober, I know. He very nearly killed me after we had taken over the hotel, and it was then that I got these scars. Ah, me! What chance did Martin ever have, what with his father and his father’s father back of him? What chance did he have for all his wonderful upbringing? Somnambulism! It was something much deeper than that-an inherited evil which came with the wind.
“Yes, I knew who killed Alice Tindall and Frank Marsh, and who almost killed Mabel Storrie. It could have been none other than John Nelson’s son, my baby, whom I sold for five thousand pounds.”
The small, blue-veined hands were being twisted over and over each other. The little china-white face was kept turned to Bony, and the small, dark eyes, anguished and tear-filled, began suddenly to search his.
“What could I have done?” she asked plaintively. “Could I denounce my own son? Could I give up to the police my own child? I didn’t, anyway, and I’m glad, glad, glad that I didn’t. As for poor John! No woman ever loved a man as I loved him. Even when he was the cause of selling my baby I didn’t cease to love him. But I bought this hotel in order that he would die before he was taken away to an asylum, if he didn’t murder me. I have made money, my friend, but I have done a little good with it. I have worked and suffered, but I have been repaid with years of peace and happiness watching my songrow to splendid manhood. I… I…”
The small voice trailed into silence.
“He is to be buried tomorrow, and Miss Borradale thought you might like to see him,” Bony said gently. “Perhaps we could arrange a secret visit to Wirragatta tonight.”
“That is kind of Miss Borradale. She takes after her sainted mother. But… but I will not see Martin. I want to remember him as he was-the Squatter of Wirragatta.”
Bony noted her pride in the fact that her son had become a squatter. In her young years squatters had been like powerful princes of the bush.
Then Mrs. Nelson said, “So you are a policeman. What are you going to do with me?”
“Do with you? Why, nothing,” he replied, astonished. “For Barry Elson’s sake, as well as for the peace of mind of the people here, it must become public that Martin was responsible for these tragedies. Nothing, however, will be made public concerning Martin’s parentage, for no good to anyone could be derived from such a disclosure. You will accept my very sincere sympathies, will you not?”
The white-haired head nodded and sank forward, to be supported by theberinged hands. Bony stood up.
“I must leave you now,” he said. “Is there anything I could do?”
“No, thank you, excepting to ask Tilly to come to me.”
And so Bony left her. In the dining-room he found Tilly.
“Tilly, your mistress wishes you to go to her. She has had bad news, but she will want you not to question her.”
Tilly’s plain face bore an expression of anxiety.
“All right, Joe. Did they-have they had any news of Harry out there at Westall’s? That sand-”
Bony said firmly, “Harry will be coming back in the near future to become boss stockman at Wirragatta, and to marry a certain young lady. Good-bye, Tilly, and life-long happiness.”
On his return to Wirragatta Bony asked to see Stella Borradale, and was shown into the morning-room, which already had been cleaned. Stella greeted him bravely enough, but the signs of tears were still evident.
“Will you sit down?”
“Thank you, Miss Borradale,” he said. “I have been talking to Mrs. Nelson and she confirms my history of Martin’s birth. S
he does not wish to see him, wishing to remember him as he was. That part of this very sad and terrible case will never be made public. She was very brave about it. Now that we know everything we must admit her sterling qualities.”
Stella compressed her lips to stop their trembling.
“I will go to her… after… tomorrow evening. I shall always remember him as my dear and splendid brother. Oh Bony! He was so fine and generous. It wasn’t… it wasn’t really Martin who did-”
“No, Miss Borradale. The man who left his bed to climb among trees was not Martin Borradale, but Martin Nelson. The man we knew was Martin Borradale. The other was born during a raging sand-storm. He inherited his father’s mental disease and was controlled by the peculiar conditions of these wind-storms, which affect his mother and many others as well. The man we knew took the brave and the honourable course by slaying that evil born in a sand-storm.”
“My brother Martin! I can’t help it, Bony.”
Bony continued to talk to her for some little while, telling her of Martin’s wish concerning the advancement of Harry West, and of Hang-dog Jack, whose injuries were not as serious as had at first been thought, and which would permit him to return to work in a few days.
“I have a long report to write,” he said, presently, rising to stand at her side. “Donald Dreyton wishes to see you. May I ask him to come here?”
It was strange, he thought, that Stella Borradale should be seated just as Mrs. Nelson was seated when he left her.
Stella nodded, saying with forced calmness, “Yes, I will see him here.”
The brilliance of the stars was remarkable. Without being conscious of it, Bony filled his lungs with the cool fragrant air several times during the crossing to the office building where, at his table in the office, Dreyton was found, his pipe forgotten, his eyes expressive of anxiety.
“I thought you would not object to me writing a long report here, Mr. Dreyton,” Bony exclaimed. “There is, too, a matter I wish to discuss with you.”
Dreyton nodded.
“Very well, Mr. Bonaparte.”
Bony drew a chair to the opposite side of the table at which Dreyton sat, and at once began the manufacture of cigarettes.
“You have not been very helpful, Mr. Dreyton,” he began, “but then you did not know I was supposed to be a police officer. Had you confided in me as you did in Mr. Borradale-for we will always refer to Martin as Mr. Borradale-about that piece of cloth you found in the tree and one or two other discoveries you made, I would have been saved a portion of mental labour. However, I think none the less well of you.
“I have just left Miss Borradale in the morning-room. Naturally she is still profoundly shocked, but she is thinking of Saint George and the Dragon. Er -in the course of my investigation I found it necessary to know all about you. I want you to read this document. It concerns you.”
The other’s blue-grey eyes stared from the detective to the pinned pages of typescript slipped across the table. Without speaking, Dreyton accepted it and began to read. Bony, with a cigarette between his lips, lay back in his chair and found much of apparent interest in the lamp suspended above them. He heard Dreyton exclaim. He heard the papers rustling. Then he heard Dreyton sigh. When again he encountered the blue-grey eyes he saw in them a great hope.
Bony said, “Before Martin Borradale shot himself he informed me about a matter I have not mentioned to anyone. He said that he had long desired to have you in this office, and for several reasons. He wanted you here because he felt he was losing his grip on affairs generally, and because he liked you very much, and his sister liked you, too. He had a particular idea concerning his sister and you, and in his will he has bequeathed you his half-share of Wirragatta.
“Wait, please. Your preference for the fence-work over this office work, with its accompanying privileges, mystified me not a little. Even now I am not absolutely sure of that reason. However, I rather think that the reason was worthy of the nephew of Admiral Sir Reginald Dreyton, and the son of Captain Dreyton. Pardon my seeming impertinence-I may be excused, for I am serving the dead-but I believe now that the reason no longer exists. When I left Miss Borradale I told her you wanted to see her at once. She is waiting to receive you in the morning-room. My dear man, if ever a woman needs comforting-”
With a clatter, Dreyton’s chair was pushed back, and he was on his feet. He looked like a man gazing on a glorious vision.
“You are a strange fellow,” he said, and almost ran to the door.
“And you,” loudly asserted Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, “are another!”
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Winds of Evil b-5 Page 24
