Death of a Swagman b-9

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “That’s so, Inspector. Rule of thumb, you know, and all that. Still, as a general rule, it’s better to be slow and sure.”

  “I agree there with you. Now… will you take over that telephone exchange yourself and do all possible to clear the lines to police headquarters, Sydney, as quickly as possible?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am going to ask headquarters to speak on matters which normally would be concealed in a sealed envelope, and, therefore, would you remain in that exchange until I am done?”

  “Of course.”

  “Fine. Thank you, Mr Lovell. Will you get going?”

  The postmaster stood up.

  “Anything else I can do?” he asked. “I’ve got a kid of Rose Marie’s age.”

  “Well, now,” said Bony slowly, placing the tips of his fingers together beneath the point of his chin. “You could take a faint interest in the conversations of other telephone users this morning, and make a mental note of anything which might have a bearing on the disappearance of Rose Marie. But haste in contacting Sydney is of first importance.”

  “I’ll bet I’ll get Sydney within an hour. So long. And when I do, I’ll lock the exchange door and shut fast the window.”

  It was a quarter to nine o’clock. Left alone, Bony sat still and stared at the police notices on the back of the door which Lovell had closed behind him. From outside came the voice of the wind which since sunup had risen to become half a gale. Bony’s mind became less taut, more fluid. He thought of young Jason and of Mr James. Then again of the postmaster. What had Lovell said just before he went? Something about shutting a door. Yes, that was it. Shutting a door. Who else said something about shutting a door?

  Into Bony’s mind appeared, as on a screen, the hut at Sandy Flat, the hut as he had last seen it in the moonlight. The door of the hut was shut, and he remembered that he had debated then whether he had closed it. Closed it! No, he hadn’t closed that door when he left the place for the cane-grass meat house, because his arms were loaded with his swag and things. And that door would not have been closed by the wind. It would not just catch shut because therewere no door lock or handles. There was merely a bent piece of wire to keep that door shut. Bony leapt from his chair. Within three seconds he was out in the street.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Mrs Sutherland Is Thrilled

  IT WAS NOT by chance that Mrs Sutherland arrived in town so early that morning. She was to meet a sister who was coming from Mildura by the mail which reached Merino at eleven o’clock, and she found that she had certain shopping to do, so decided to do the shopping before rather than after the arrival of the visitor.

  The track from her homestead joined the main road just below the church and, on arriving at the lower end of the macadamizedstreet, she was astonished to see the activity of the inhabitants. Her destination was the hotel yard, where she always parked her car, and halfway up the street she saw the Rev. Lawton-Stanley emerge from a shop followed by more than a dozen men and boys. They all trooped into a house next door to the shop. She saw another party of men swarming about a house which stood back from the street beyond an empty allotment, whilst others stood in groups here and there, engaged in excited conversation.

  Mr Watson, who was accompanied by two strangers, waved to her. The Rev. Llewellyn James, who was talking to Mr Fanning, the butcher, raised his felt hat to her, but on neither his face nor on Mr Watson’s face was there a welcoming smile. And then, as though he materialized out of space, the man she knew as Robert Burns was standing on the running board of her moving car.

  “I want you to take me at once out to Sandy Flat,” he told her.

  Instinctively she accelerated, then put the brake on, hard. The car stopped midway between the hotel and Mr Jason’s garage. Bony dashed round to the front of the car and climbed into the seat beside her. Mrs Sutherland giggled.

  “Whatis this, a getaway from the police or attempted elopement?” she demanded. “Get out of my car. I don’t budge till you do.”

  “Neither, Mrs Sutherland. Your car is the only one on the street at this moment, and I’ve got to get to Sandy Flat without loss of time. Come on now. Be a sport and take me there. I can tell you all about it on the way.”

  Mrs Sutherland was first and foremost a romantic. To back up her romanticism there was a strong vein of humour. And, in addition, there was a fine confidence that she could take care of herself. Besides, this Burns man was a good-looking fellow, and he had nice eyes even though they were somewhat small and fierce this bright morning.

  She pressed the self-starter, geared in, and drove the car in a small circle to begin the journey to Sandy Flat just as Sergeant Marshall and young Jason emerged from the garage.

  “Thanks, Mrs Sutherland. Drive like… hell,” Bony said.

  “You are not escaping from jail, are you? I thought you were out,” she remarked without visible concern. “What’s it all about?”

  People stared at the old car as it sped down the street, the hardest woman inall the district holding with sun-blackened hands to the driving wheel.

  Bony told her who and what he was, and gave in very broad outline the purpose of his visit to Merino. He spoke with unmasked truth in his voice. And then he told her how Rose Marie had been taken from her bed, and what he suspected was the reason, and whom he suspected of kidnapping her.

  “You don’t know who has done these murders?” she asked, the veneer of frivolousness stripped from her.

  “No… not yet… but I’m getting warm. Can’t you drive faster?”

  “Perhaps I could,” she agreed, and pressed the accelerator down to the floorboard. “You know, I always felt you were not an ordinary stockman. I was only saying so to Mr Jason the other evening. He comes out some evenings to listen to my playing.”

  “Strange man,” remarked Bony. “I understand that he’s been an actor. He can certainly quote Shakespeare. When was he out at your home last?”

  “Ah, that’s telling.” She cut off the giggle before it got fully under way. “Let me think. Oh yes. It was last Saturday week. You needn’t be jealous, Inspector. You will be welcome any evening. My sister is due today from Melbourne. She plays the violin rather well.”

  “I may accept your invitation. Thank you. Better stop before the gate. There is a lot of barbed wire about it.”

  When he did not trouble to shut the gate after the car had been driven beyond it, and had regained his seat beside her, she said:

  “What about shutting the gate?”

  “Drive on, Mrs Sutherland. Minutes may count vitally. The gate can wait.”

  “Oh, all right! What do you expect to find down here at Sandy Flat? The murderer?”

  “No, Rose Marie.”

  The wind was racing the car. The dust was being swept along with it. The woman’s hands were glued to the steering wheel and she risked sand-skidding. Ahead, the Walls of China were light brown and indistinct. She said:

  “D’youthinkhe will have killed her?”

  “I am hoping not. It’s why I asked you to bring me, and did not wait to suggest to Sergeant Marshall that he bring me. Better drive slower when we reach the white ground. A few seconds will make no difference.”

  They passed out from the tree line to the white sandy waste footing the Walls. Ahead, the dark blurs of the hut and the reservoir tank appeared very small. Mrs Sutherland was driving well over thirty miles an hour when twenty was the safety limit. The engine was labouring when she drove the car in a circling movement to stop outside the hut and facing the road back.

  “Stay here, please,” Bony commanded.

  The doorstep was covered with sand, like fine drift snow. The temporary wire catch was dropped down over the nail. He released it and pushed inward the door. Then he turned and beckoned to Mrs Sutherland.

  When she entered the hut he was raising the drop window in the far wall. He from the window and she from the door stood without movement regarding the little body on the bunk. Simultaneously they adva
nced to thebunkside. Then Bony was on his knees. And then she heard him cry, loudly, so loudly that the moaning hiss of the wind was subdued:

  “She’s alive!”

  Clad only in her pyjamas, Rose Marie was lying on her back. On her face the sand dust lay thickly, and Bony gently blew it off her brow and her closed eyelids.

  “Is she asleep?” asked Mrs Sutherland. “Move away so that I can take her up.”

  “Wait! I don’t think she’s asleep.” Bony softly patted the limp hand. “Rose Marie! Wake up! Mrs Sutherland and your friend Bony are here to take you home.” Gently he raised her head. Mrs Sutherland uttered a cry. There was blood on the back of the child’s head. It had dripped through the wire netting of the bare bunk to the floor beneath.

  “Bashed on the head with a blunt instrument, eh!”Bonysaid, his voice a snarl. He moved each of her legs, and then each of her arms.“Doesn’t seem to be any other injury. I’ll carry her to the car and take her back to town. Never mind the door. You get into the car first and take her from me. I’ll drive.”

  Mrs Sutherland climbed into the seat Bony had occupied, and he passed the limp little figure into her waiting arms. The wind tormented the canvas hood and carried the hissing sand past and under the machine. Presently they reached the gate, and without stopping to close it Bony drove on to the main road and up the long incline. They were well past the cemetery when the child said loudly:

  “Annabella! Annabella!”

  “Who is Annabella?” Bony asked of Mrs Sutherland.

  “I don’t know-unless it’s Annabella Watson, Mr Watson’s mother.”

  Bony made no further comment, and a moment later Rose Marie said in a singsong tone of voice:

  “Annabella Miller, what are you doing with that caterpillar?”

  “The child’s delirious,” Mrs Sutherland said. “Poor little mite. She’s repeating a rhyme learned at school.”

  “Annabella Miller,” now whispered Rose Marie, “what are you doing with that caterpillar?”

  Presently they reached the street, passed the church, and were between the skirting pepper-trees.

  “I am going to drive into Dr Scott’s yard,” Bony announced. “His drive gate is always open.”

  “Very well. If the doctor will care for her, I’ll stay and do the nursing. I was a nurse once.”

  They arrived at the doctor’s residence and Bony drove into the driveway and stopped the car outside the veranda steps leading to the front door. He got to the ground and took the child from Mrs Sutherland and carried her into the house through a side door which happened to be open. An elderly woman met them, and Bony called for the doctor.

  Bony followed her into a large room, a combination of surgery, library, and laboratory. She smoothed a mattress on a trestle bed and shook the pillow, and Bony laid the child down. The doctor came in, exclaimed sharply, bent over the still form. Bony sat down in a great easy chair. Quite suddenly he felt very tired.

  He heard the doctor call for hot water and the elderly woman hurried from the room. He saw Mrs Sutherland draw near to the trestle bed a trolley loaded with instruments. She selected a pair of scissors and placed them in the doctor’s outstretched hand. The elderly woman came back, carrying a can from which issued steam. The two women stood by the little doctor, who was bending over the child.

  Bony knew that should Rose Marie die the edifice of the philosophy responsible for his success in crime detection would fall, possibly without replacement by any other. The mood of self-condemnation was heavy upon him.

  Lawton-Stanley came in. He glanced at the three about the bed. On seeing Bony, he crossed to him and sat on the arm of the chair.

  “Someone saw you carry the child in,” he said. “Thank God she’s alive. Hurt much?”

  Bony nodded.

  “We found her at Sandy Flat,” he explained. “Will you go and tell the Marshalls? Tell everyone to keep out. If you see Gleeson, ask him to come here and keep everyone out.”

  Lawton-Stanley rose to his feet. “Can I give the Marshalls any hope, d’you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The evangelist departed. Bony continued to sit in the great chair, the thought in his brain that the death of the child would affect him as much and as vitally as it would the sergeant and his wife.

  Presently the doctor came to him and sat on the chair arm as the minister had done.

  “Bad,” he said. “Fracture at the base of the skull. May pull through. Be a long time, and she will require very close attention. I am going to keep her here. Mrs Sutherland will do the nursing. Where was she?”

  “In the hut at Sandy Flat.”

  “Ah! Any connexion with those other murders?”

  “Yes. The murderer may very well make another attempt to kill her. The house will be guarded day and night, never fear, until I get him. That won’t be long now. Lawton-Stanley was here. I asked him to fetch the parents.”

  The doctor pursed his lips. His grey eyes were hard and small.

  “There were jute fibres on that piece of carpet,” he said slowly. “They came from a sack of some kind. I put a quantity of them into this envelope.”

  Bony indicated thanks with a movement of his head. Mrs Marshall appeared in the doorway, her husband behind her. The doctor went to them, spoke rapidly and firmly, and conducted them to the trestle bed. After a little while the sergeant came over to Bony.

  “Not as bad as I thought, although bad enough,” he said.

  “Nothing is ever as bad as imagination can paint it,” Bony told him, rising.“Ready for duty?”

  “More than ready.”

  “Come on, then.”

  Gleeson was standing at the end of the front veranda, in which place he could stop people from reaching either the front or the side doors. To him Bony rapidly outlined the circumstances, and warned him that the person who had abducted the child and had attempted to kill her might very well try again. He was to remain there until relieved.

  Together Marshall and he strode up the street to the police station.

  “No talking just now, Marshall,” he said firmly. “You go and get your car out. We must get back to Sandy Flat. While you’re getting the car I’ll ring your headquarters and ask for assistance.”

  On reaching the station office, Bony rang the telephone exchange.

  “No, I haven’t raised Sydney yet,” Lovell told him.“Very sorry, but there seems to be trouble somewhere along the line. There is a heavy official envelope, registered, just in. Addressed to Sergeant Marshall. Posted at Sydney.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The Windmill at Work

  WHEN BONY and Sergeant Marshall left Merino in the latter’s car for Sandy Flat it was not possible to see the Walls of China, nor even to locate the cemetery halfway down the long slope. The wind was blowing strongly from a little north of west, sweeping over the world of scrub-tree and shrub in prolonged gusts reaching a velocity up to forty miles an hour. It raised the sandy dust high so that the sun’s orb was the colour of an unwashed dinner plate.

  “I contacted your district headquarters and spoke to your senior officer,” Bony told Marshall. “He’s sending twoconstable by car.”

  “Say anything about… Florence?”

  “Yes. And I asked him to be kind enough to let me finish the job. Said he would be only too pleased.”

  “Haven’t found him particularly nice. Always expects too much too soon.”

  “They all do, Marshall,” Bony stated emphatically.

  Neither spoke again for a minute, then Marshall urged pleadingly:

  “Break it out, Bony. Did you expect to find my girl at Sandy Flat?”

  “Yes, I did. You know last night when I was awakened by the mill inaction, I crawled on hands and knees to the door of the meat house and then faced the hut. For a little while I stopped still, staring at the place. I saw that the door was shut, and I wondered for a moment if I had closed that door or not. The importance of the question was submerged by the gre
ater question whether the mill had broken loose or had been deliberately released to draw me outside so that I could be shot.

  “Then, when the postmaster was with me in the office and he was about to leave, he mentioned that he would lock the door of the exchange room when I was speaking to Sydney. That remark stuck in my mind after he had left and produced the association of ideas, sending my mind back to the period when I wondered if I had or had not shut the hut door. Then I remembered quite clearly that I had not done so when I left it for the meat house.

  “That being so, the man who wore hessian on his feet and a hood over his head must have done so. He must have done so whilst I slept. And why had he gone into the hut… if not to leave Rose Marie inside? Acting on that supposition, I chose to requisition Mrs Sutherland and her car in preference to calling on you to take me down there.”

  “I still don’t understand why the swine took her there. Do you?” asked Marshall.

  “Not yet. I have a glimmering of an idea, though.”

  “Have you got any idea where windmills come into the picture?”

  “Only a glimmering of one.”

  “Well, what are the glimmerings?”

  Marshall spoke sharply, still suffering from strain.

  “There are several nebulous theories floating around inside my cranium, Marshall. They are all so silly that I am unable to voice them. How did you get on with young Jason?”

  “Oh! When I arrived at the garage young Jason was shutting up. On seeing me, he rushed to me and poured out a flood of questions concerning Florence’s disappearance. Whenwas she first missed? How long had she been out of the house? Did I think she walked out or did I think she was carried out? He was properly upset.