The wind also played with the unruly brown hair of Rev. Llewellyn James, and with the skirt of his crepe gown. The light blue eyes had not failed to notice Mr Jason’s anger, the sergeant’s stiff military bearing, the unassuming figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the loose stance of thebushmen bearers.
He produced a book, coughed, began to read the burial service in his singsong nasal voice, and Bony wondered why a man should adopt such a voice when conducting a religious service. Mr James read rapidly. He made no pauses between sentences. It might have been he who had promised old Sinclair his truck by five o’clock.
Mr Jason placed his top hat on the ground, and upon it placed a stone to keep it there. He removed his frock coat, took up one of the shovels and assisted his son to fill in the grave. The minister joined the policeman and began to ask questions concerning the dead man, to which Marshall returned evasive answers.
“Give us the shovel, Mr Jason,” suggested Harry Hudson. “I’m used to hard yakka.” And the filling in proceeded apace, young Jason working with evident haste to get the job done Mr Jason came to stand with the sergeant and the minister, anger still smouldering in his eyes.
“Will you relieve my son, Ted?” he asked the yardman. “We have a pressing job to get out.”
“Righto, Mr Jason. Give us your shovel, Tom.”
Young Tom ungraciously flung down his tool. The yardman grinned without mirth. The young man ambled to the hearse, started its engine, and roared away out to the road and up the gradient towards the town.
“Your son needs a little tighter rein, Mr Jason,” remarked the minister undiplomatically.
“There are more than myson in this district, Mr James, who need to have faults corrected.”
“Meaning, Mr Jason?”
“That people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, Mr. James,” replied Mr Jason. “Pray, do not let us wrangle here among the dead.”
“But, Mr Jason-”
“Please!” cried Mr Jason commandingly.
On the homeward journey Mr Jason sat beside the sergeant, and Bony occupied the rear seat with the yardman and Harry Hudson. They left the cemetery without speaking, but when on the track the sergeant said conversationally:
“We all seem to have been kept pretty busy lately.”
“To be sure,” responded Mr Jason.“Three deaths and three burials all within five weeks, and that after several years with no deaths. The vagaries of life are often mystifying. As Longfellow wrote:
“There is a Reaper whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.”
“Death is certainly a reaper,” murmured Marshall, and Mr Jason stretched forth his right hand and quoted with rich articulation:“ ‘O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure?’ ”
“I think we could do with a drink,” announced the yardman, sotto voce. “The day’s getting warm. Give mea coupler deep-nosers, an’ I’ll recite ‘The Passing of DanMcTavish ’ in eighteen verses and a bit.”
They all went into the hotel-even Sergeant Marshall and Bony, the jailbird. And everyone at the bar delayed drinking until Mr Jason had loaded his pipe, lit it, and had inhaled with tremendous satisfaction. No longer was he angry, but to Mr Watson’s great disappointment he did not beat his previous record.
Chapter Twelve
The Battle of Pros and Cons
“WE SUFFER from a number of disadvantages not experienced by crime investigators in a city,” Bony said in that quiet, unassuming voice of his. He had completed the making of half a dozen cigarettes, and now he glanced up at Sergeant Marshall, who was seated on the far side of the office desk. The door was closed and the windows were closed, too, although the evening was warm.
“One of those disadvantages,” he went on, “is seldom recognized by the unthinking. The unthinking immediately rush to the conclusion that a killer is more easily discoverable in a small community than in a large one, whereas in fact the smaller the community in which a killer has operated the greater the difficulty in locating him-that is, if he has a brain. Fortunately you and I have opposed ourselves to a killer having a brain, and, also fortunately, we have to locate him in a small community. Those two facts give us cause for self-congratulation, eh?”
“Well, if you know where we are or what it’s all about, I don’t,” grumbled Marshall. “And I can foresee trouble in that letter of yours toD.H. Q. telling ’emin most uncivil-service-like manner to keep out.”
Bony leaned back in his chair and chuckled.
“My dear man, we don’t bother aboutD.H. Q. when we’ve got such a splendid job like this on our hands. Don’t worry so. We can’t help little Mr Watson telegraphing the account of the hanging to his papers, to be followed by the certainty of city reporters barging in and messing around when we want everything to go on quietly. And if Pro BonoPublico writes to the local press and demands to know why the killing is not being investigated by a Redman or two from Sydney, well, we must shut our ears to the clamour. It might force me out into the open through an announcement that the great Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is on the job, but that is a fence we will take when it is reached. This is my case and yours, and no one is going to be allowed to interfere with it or with us.”
“But my district inspector-”
Bony waved his hands.
“Copy my example,” he urged. “Never permit yourself to be concerned with inspectors and chief commissioners and people of that class. They are all right in their places.”
“So am I… so far. Anyway, it’s your funeral.”
“Not quite so morbid… after this afternoon,” Bony implored. “Now let’s get down to a battle of pros and cons, and when we have finished you will see that matters have not been allowed to slide as much as you think. To begin.
“You are not aware that I sent those door handles to Sydney from Mildura Post Office, are you? How do we know that the killer is not a member of the post office staff? Already I can see that you appreciate the significance of hunting for a killer in a small community like Merino. There are only a hundred and fifty people inall your district, and only eighty persons, including children, living here in Merino.”
“How did you get those handles away?”
“I addressed them, together with a long covering report, to a friend of mine in Sydney who will himself deliver the package and report to headquarters. I stuck up a commercial traveller and gave him five shillings to cover registered postage. I should get back the receipt tomorrow.”
Bony inhaled deeply. Then he placed the cigarette on the edge of the desk-the ash tray was a jam tin-and, interlocking the fingers of both hands, rubbed the palms together and beamed at Marshall.
“We’ve got a hold on a first-class murder investigation,” he said softly and with tremendous satisfaction in his voice. “The killing of Kendall and that swagman, together with the possible intended killing of old Bennett is not the work of a man who kills his nagging wife, or another who slays his sweetheart because she has been untrue to him. This feller you and I are after is in the same class as Jack the Ripper. He’s an aristocrat, not a sniffling lounge lizard.”
“Damned if I can see anything to be cheerful about,” snorted Marshall. “Still, tell me some more, and then I might.”
“Now I have been through Redman’s collection of statements and his long general report. What he knew when he left Merino is only a fraction of what I know, and you know but a fraction of what I know. From Redman’s material, I cannot see how Redman came to suspect young Jason above others. Because a man fights with another who is subsequently murdered, we cannot even assume that he killed him, even although he was licked in the fight. In actual fact a man who fights is less likely to kill than one who declines to fight. What is your opinion?”
“I never considered young Jason,” replied the sergeant.
“Did you ever employ your mind with the motive for Kendall’s murder?”
“Yes. Loss at cards. Kendall was a bad man. He might have cheated that night, but notso’s an accusation could be made against him. Remember the statements made to Redman by the men who played against him?”
“I do. They both stated that Kendall won over fifteen pounds in less than two hours, and that they thought he cheated but weren’t sure. I have given those two statements some consideration, but we have to offset them by police reports on the characters of those who signed them. Both are well known in this district; both are stated to be good citizens.
“I haven’t concentrated on the killing of Kendall as much as I would have done had it not been for subsequent developments. I began with the most remarkable feature of Kendall’s death; then got myself ten days in your lockup because that remarkable feature goes to prove that Kendall’s murder was out of the ordinary and was done by a resourceful man. I saw, before I left Sydney, that I would require absolute freedom to make inquiries among people who did not know me.”
“What is the remarkable feature?” asked Marshall, impatiently waiting for Bony to get to the meat. Bony grinned mirthlessly:
“The game of noughts and crosses on the door of the hut at Sandy Flat,” he said.
“Ah! I remember you mentioning that more than once.”
Bony abruptly leaned forward and began to shuffle the pile of documents on the desk between himself and the sergeant. “Here it is-this photograph of the front of the hut,” he said. “See the drawing of the game with chalk on the hut door. It is done with white chalk, and not the red or blueraddle with which sheep are marked, indicating that the chalk was carried about for just that purpose by the man who drew the game. Take a glance at it.”
Marshall studied the now familiar picture.
“Observe closely that game of noughts and crosses,” urged Bony. “The assumed players did not complete it, for there is neither a nought nor a cross in the centre of the left-hand section. See the position of the ticks and the little curved lines and the dot at the right extremity of the lower horizontal line. Those additions to the game itself are done but roughly as though carelessly by a player when pondering on his move to be. Consider the number of variations which could be made with the crosses and the noughts and the small additions. Why, one could concoct a cipher with such material. And that, my dear Marshall, is just what it is.”
“You can read this cipher?” he asked, less as a question than as a statement.
“I can read it,” claimed Bony. “I have seen that cipher on homestead gates, on telephone posts, and burned on chips of wood or bark and left in the vicinity of homesteads and near small townships. There is one on the gatepost just the other side of the town dams which states that you are not a hard policeman but are given to charging swagmen in order to get work done by them whilst in custody.
“The cipher is used by only the genuine swagmen. As you are aware, a goodly proportion of the men travelling these outback tracks are honest station hands looking for a job, or going back to a job from a bender at a wayside or town hotel. There is, however, a minority of swagmen, better known as sundowners, who never work and who must walk hundreds of miles in the year tramping from station homestead to homestead, where they obtain rations or a handout. It is this minority who have evolved the noughts-and-crosses cipher to leave information for others of their class.
“You see how it goes. Asundowner arrives at a gate in the fence enclosing the homestead area or the township area. He looks for the cipher on that part of the gate or telephone post which the road user would never see, telling him that the station cook is generous, or that the station owner should be avoided.
“Mind you, that cipher is not now universally used, and with the passage of time it has become more complex, so that it is almost as difficult to read by one familiar with the original cipher as it is to read fortunes from the cards. However, to revert. That particular example scrawled on the door at Sandy Flat hut comprises a statement both clear-cut and definite.”
“Go on,” urged Marshall. “How do you make it all out?”
“It would take a long time to explain, and the necessity doesn’t arise now. I will, however, point out a few simple things. The semicircle at the left extremity of the top horizontal line means meat. The quarter circle connected to the top horizontal line and the left-hand perpendicular line means dead or death. The short line drawn at an angle at the top of the right perpendicular line represents brought-brought to this place. And the V at the bottom of the same line represents police, or a policeman’s helmet. And so on and so forth, including the positions of the noughts and crosses.
“A most important meaning, or message, is conveyed in the central square, where the cross is overlaid by the nought, or the other way round. That is the clear danger sign: get out, clear out, don’t be seen hereabouts. In effect the cipher reads: ‘A dead body has been brought to this hut for the police to find. Danger. Clear out. Touch nothing.’ ”
When Marshall again looked up from studying the photograph, he said admiringly:
“Where did you learn it all?”
“Oh, from a swagman who thought I was another of his clan. To proceed. We may presume that the man who scrawled that game of noughts and crosses on that door had seen someone take the body of Kendall into the hut, and then had watched that somebody kill one of Kendall’s ration sheep, catch the blood and pour it on the floor about the head of the man, and hang the carcass in the meat house. The first part of the presumption I adopted when first I saw that photograph, the second was yesterday when I learnt that a fresh and uncut carcass of a sheep was hanging in the meat house the following morning. Scott supports the second part. He says that, in his opinion, the sample of blood he scraped from the floor of the hut where the body lay is animal blood, not human.
“Recall. The drawer of the game of noughts and crosses states clearly that a dead body was brought to that place. He doesn’t state that a dead body is in it. It was brought there. Therefore he must have seen it brought there, and most likely he saw the face or recognized the figure of the man who carried it into the hut. However, I am breaking away from fact to supposition when I say it is likely that the watcher recognized the man who brought the dead body and placed it in the hut.
“Given two facts, an investigator is entitled, protem., to assume a third with which to connect them,” Bony went on. “My assumed fact is based on this deduction. The man who saw him who brought the body to the hut knew him and subsequently began blackmail. He arranged that that same hut should be the place of meeting of himself and his victim, or that it be the place where the money was to be deposited by the victim.
“That swagman, remember, did not leave the station homestead until after ten o’clock at night. That was the night of December fourth, three nights before the full moon. When he walked into the hut to meet his blackmail victim, or to obtain the blackmail money, he walked into death. For he was strangled with a strip of hessian and his body was hanged with his own swag straps. But, Marshall, remember that the motive for the killing of that swagman, our assumed motive, is merely supposition, and we may yet be grievously wrong. Interested?”
Sergeant Marshall’s despondency had long since vanished. He said:
“What makes you think that the killer lives here in Merino?”
“I wasn’t sure about that until after I arrived here,” Bony replied. “I might be rash in saying that I am sure about it even now. You remember the marks made by hessian-covered feet about the hut at Sandy Flat. Those same hessian-covered feet made similar marks about the hut occupied by old Bennett that night he died. The same man walked off the eastern end of the macadamized road running through Merino, and he walked back to that end of that macadamized road after he paid a visit to old Bennett.”
“Ah! Ah!” breathed Marshall.
“I believe that we are also entitled to assume that the killer of Kendall knew that old Bennett knew of th
e murder, and that the murderer went to old Bennett’s hut to silence him. When the old man opened his door, the poor weak heart did the foul work for him. But why the killer waited a little more than a month before acting as he did would be absurd even to assume. You light the lamp. I’ll draw the blind.”
Bony made yet another of his cigarettes with the hump in the middle of it. He went on:
“Perhaps you can now appreciate this case of ours as being not one suitable for the attention of a city detective. And I hope that now you can appreciate the fact that the murderer of Kendall and that swagman can be any man living within the boundaries of your district, if not within the boundaries of Merino. He may turn out to be Dr Scott, either of theJasons, the schoolmaster, the minister, even Gleeson, even you, Marshall. Gleeson, by the way, was exceptionally intelligent in his questioning of Dr Scott yesterday, was he not? The murderer is hardly likely to be an obvious choice of our guessing. We can, however, think that he is fairly strong, one able easily to lift and carry a man of medium or light weight. He was able to carry Kendall, whose body weighed nine stone six, and he easily lifted the swagman’s body, weighing seven stone four pounds. He is not old or a weakling.
“We could reduce the number of possibilities by making a list of every able-bodied man in the district, but I hardly think it would be of immediate assistance. However, you might do that sometime.”
“I’ll do it. It won’t be difficult,” asserted the sergeant.
“Good! Now I want you to make an inquiry. The day before yesterday the swagman camped in the woolshed at Wattle Creek homestead, and that afternoon the mail car passed through that homestead on its way to Merino fromPooncaira. It stopped there to pick up the Wattle Creek mail, and doubtless there were letters in that station mailbag addressed to persons in Merino. The book-keeper, who would collect the letters from the station box to put into the mailbag with the office mail, would be familiar with the handwriting of the station hands. He might well remember seeing a strange handwriting, say that of the swagman, and he might remember to whom in Merino the letter was addressed. The addressee of a letter posted by the swagman to a person in Merino might be the victim of his blackmail. There is just a chance we may get a lead there.”
Death of a Swagman b-9 Page 11
