Death of a Swagman b-9

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “It was not Longfellow who wrote that line, but Shakespeare,” he said.

  Bony bowed his head, saying:

  “Thank you for correcting me, Jason. No doubt that line was in your mind when you planned to murder George Kendall. Anyway, you found that by wrapping strips of hessian about your feet your footmarks were made infinitely more difficult to discern.

  “You may correct me again later on, but it appears that the time Kendall was killed was not quite of your own choosing. You knew that Kendall came to town on the evening of the social dance, and that he had booked in for the night at the hotel. Here was an opportunity for windmill gazing. Late that evening you rode from Merino on the horse presumably belonging to Mr James. You tethered the horse well back in the scrub and walked in your hessian-covered feet to the mill, and when your passion had been satiated you walked back to your horse.

  “You may correct me on this point, too, later. When you got back to your horse you found Kendall quietly waiting for the horse’s rider, quite probably thinking that the rider of that tethered horse was engaged in a spot of sheep stealing. You were discovered.

  “The wind was blowing strongly enough to wipe out the faint imprints made by your hessian-covered feet, and you knew that a windy night was essential. And so you killed Kendall with a billet of scrub wood, and you carried his body to the hut.

  “Then you discovered that the body had bled during its journey on your back, and, properly to stage the killing inside the hut, you killed one of the ration sheep in the near-by pen, drained its blood into a basin, and then spattered the sheep’s blood over the floor about the dead man’s head.”

  Mr Jason’s hands moved slightly.

  “In such a case as you present, Inspector, I would not impose a fine of five shillings,” he said. “It is based entirely on assumption prompted by imagination.”

  Bony’s brows rose a fraction, and he said, with no trace of triumph or exaltation in his voice:

  “Indeed, it is not so, Jason. You were seen to carry the body into the hut. You were seen to kill the ration sheep and drain its blood into a basin which you took into the hut. You were seen to skin and dress the sheep’s carcass and to hang it in the meat safe so that the police would assume the killing of the sheep had been done by Kendall before he left for Merino.”

  Mr Jason leaned forward over the desk and stared at Bony.

  “Who saw me?” he demanded, and over the face of Constable Gleeson spread a mirthless grin.

  “Why, the man you strangled with a strip of hessian,” Bony replied with feigned astonishment that such a question should be asked. “Unfortunately for you, that man was a genuinesundowner, not an ordinary stockman looking for work. Put yourself in his place. From some point of concealment, probably on the far side of the meat house, he saw you coming with Kendall slung over your shoulder. He watched you go to the pen and kill the sheep and bring back its blood in a basin. He saw you enter the hut with the basin of blood, saw you come out again, saw you go back to the pen, and then saw you come to the meat house carrying the skinned carcass of the sheep. He noted the hessian covering about your feet. It was quite simple for him to put two and two together.

  “After you had gone, did he walk to Merino and report the matter to the police? No. Did he travel to a station homestead and report there? Of course not. That class of men hate the police and would not be drawn into a murder case on any account. He argued thus, however. He argued that it might be many days before the body was discovered, and during that period one of his ownclass might happen along and blunder into the scene of the murder. And so, in loyalty to his own class, he drew on the door of the hut a warning to keep away.”

  Bony paused for Mr Jason to comment.

  “Thatsundowner didn’t hate the practice of blackmail like he hated the police. He wrote to you and arranged that you hand him money or place money for him to obtain, perhaps, underneath the hut. You forestalled him by reaching the hut before he did, carefully wiping out your own faint tracks with a flail, and when he entered the hut you-but you know all that happened, for it was related to you when you held the inquest. Matches? Certainly. The pistol which the constable has just removed from your person you obtained from the body of the man you strangled and then hanged.”

  “How do you know that?” Jason asked, and exhaled the last of the smoke.

  “Thesundowner was known to have an automatic pistol in his possession when he was at Ned’s Swamp Station homestead,” Bony lied. “Tell me, why did you visit old Bennett the night he died?”

  Jason smiled that cold and humourless smile.

  “As you seem possessed of such imagination, albeit uncontrolled, why not try to guess?”

  “Very well, I will,” Bony agreed. “Old Bennett had learned from his daughter or his son-in-law that you had an arrangement with them and Mr James to take the minister’s horse at night to visit Mrs Sutherland. Old Bennett chided you about it in the hotel, and you decided to-er-bump him off.”

  Jason placed the stem of his pipe between his white teeth and slowly nodded his head, saying:

  “You are even good at guessing, Inspector. Is there anything else?”

  “Having killed the swagman, why did you hang the body?” Bony asked.

  “I did it to make it appear that Way hanged himself in remorse for having murdered Kendall. That would have cleaned up the Kendall case and stopped men from living in that hut for a long time to come. Again, anything else?”

  Mr Jason might well have been terminating an interview.

  “Yes. You might tell me why you wanted to kill Rose Marie?”

  “I did not want to kill the child,” replied Mr Jason. “I didn’t want to kill old Bennett. But I saw clearly that I would have to. Old Bennett dropped dead when he saw me outside the door, and so saved me the trouble. I overheard Rose Marie tell you beyond my garden fence that she had promised my son not to tell of something she had found out about me watching windmills. I couldn’t trust to a child’s promise, and so I decided to kill her.”

  Mr Jason lit his pipe and gravely handed the matches back to Bony. No longer was his face expressionless. There was a faint colour in his cheeks, and his eyes became quick in movement.

  “As it has all turned out,” he said, “I am glad that I did not kill the child as I intended, and I hope she will recover. If I had had a daughter like her… but no matter. You see in me, Inspector, a man whom life has thwarted. My father thwarted my ambition to become a great Shakespearean actor. My wife was an ambitionless creature, and she thwarted my desire for a son who might have become what I wanted to be. And then when I came to see glorious visions in revolving fans my son attempted to thwart me there.”

  “What did you see in the windmill vanes?” interjected Bony.

  Jason’s face actually glowed. His eyes became glittering orbs. The cold pipe became clenched in his two hands.

  “It was like looking through a doorframe beyond which was a scene of wondrous delight. I used to step through the door-frame, and I would find myself being interviewed by newspapermen, or gazing at great and colourful signs announcing that the Great Jason was to play Hamlet or Othello. All the visions I had had in the past came to reality when I stepped into the windmill vanes. I lived as I had always dreamed of living. I didn’t really live at other times. And I shall never again enter the spinning, shimmering vanes… no, never again… for the graveawaits… for me… even for you.”

  “Where did you obtain the chloroform?” asked Bony.

  “From my brother in Sydney,” was the answer spoken under the stress of emotion which was swiftly mounting in intensity. Into the dark eyes swept remorse, and when Jason spoke again the rich intonation was absent. “I ought not to have said that. I got it when I was down in Melbourne some time back.”

  “And the strychnine with which you poisoned your son’s dog?”

  “Oh, that! One can buy pounds of it in any store, and cyanide, too. The sale of such poisons should have been stopped years
ago. I wrote to the Premier about it, but no notice was taken.” Once more the eyes of Mr Jason burned, and he went on: “I have done a little good in my life… not much. I could have done far more had not life thwarted me. And now… the end.”

  Mr Jason slowly rose to his feet, and Gleeson’s hands rose in readiness and Gleeson’s eyes bored into the back of the prisoner’s head. Mr Jason came to stand at his full height. The pipe was held in his two hands. He stared above the seated Bony and Marshall, stared out through the window. His voice was deep and clear when he cried:

  “ ‘Thoughdeath be poor, it ends a mortal woe.’… ‘He that dies pays all debts.’… ‘Death is a black camel which kneels at the gates for all.’ ”

  The fingers of the right hand, which had been placed upon the bowl of the pipe, flashed to his mouth. In them was the little cup which collected the nicotine at the bottom of the bowl.

  Gleeson was too late. His arms swept about Jason’s body, imprisoning the man’s right arm and the hand which had conveyed the cup to his mouth. Jason spat out the cup, which fell upon the desk.

  “ ‘Thetongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony,’ ” he quoted. “I am no gallows meat, nor will I rot among a community of lunatics. I…”

  His dark eyes blazed like black opals. His back became arched against Gleeson’s chest. And then, like a lamp going out, the warmth faded from his eyes, and Gleeson laid down the body.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Bony Concludes His Investigation

  BONY RANG for Dr Scott. He had not risen from his seat, and he toyed with the telephone whilst the doctor was being called. Sergeant Marshall was standing looking down at the two constables who were kneeling beside the late Mr Jason, J.P., Deputy District Coroner. When Bony heardScotts ’ voice he asked the doctor to come immediately, and when he had replaced the instrument he said:

  “How many are thwarted by life? All of us would be were we not strong enough to fight it.” He sighed, and then said: “Well, well!”

  Gleeson stood up. His face was impassive, but his eyes blazed.

  “I’m sorry, sir, for being too late to grab him.”

  “Seeing that you were standing behind him, Gleeson, I think you did very well,” Bony told him. “We had the pistol. We had the tobacco knife. No one of us could have known that he would secrete poison in the nicotine cup of his old pipe. If anyone is to blame it is I.”

  No one spoke till the doctor came tearing in. The little man’s gaze swept over them, then down to the body on the floor. As the constable had done, he fell upon his knees, was there for a few seconds, then rose to his feet.

  “Dead!” he snapped out.“Poisoned. What’s it all about?”

  “Jason is the man I have been after. I allowed him to smoke his pipe while I was interrogating him. Here you will see a tiny metal cup which is screwed to the bottom of the bowl to catch the nicotine drained from the bowl. It is evident that the dead man suspected that his time was short; for, you see, he stopped up the small hole in the bowl of the pipe and filled the cup with powdered cyanide.”

  The doctor accepted the little cup from Bony, looked into it. It had been cleaned and dried thoroughly, and, although it had been in Jason’s mouth, the interior was still dry and still contained a little of the poison.

  “Quite a natty idea,” Scott said.“Would hold more than sufficient cyanide to kill a dozen men. Jason had quite a collection of pipes. Saw it when I was attending him some time ago. This, and another he had, were small replicas of the big German affairs. And so he did all the murders, eh? And you had him nailed?”

  “Yes, we had got him all tied up,” Bony admitted.

  “There’s no ‘we’ about it, Doctor,” Marshall cut in. “Mr Bonaparte did the job well and truly.”

  Scott stood up.

  “Well, I can do nothing here,” he said. “Hope you’ll drop in before you go and tell me the story, Inspector. Your girl’s going along nicely, Marshall. Came to half an hour ago. She’s sleeping now, nice and cool and natural. No, no! I will permit no visitors till tomorrow.”

  The constable on duty at Dr Scott’s house was brought back to the station. Mrs Marshall gave him and the second constable dinner, and afterwards they brought the headquarters car to the back door. The body of Jason was carried through the house and placed in the car, which was driven out of Merino by the two constables. When Marshall and Bony sat down to dinner the day had passed.

  “I do wish the doctor would let me see Rose Marie,” Mrs Marshall said wistfully.

  “Well, he said you couldn’t,” growled her husband.

  “Perhaps he might if I asked him,” Bony added. “I would ask him if you promise not to stay long… both of you.”

  “There you go-always backing her up,” complained the sergeant.

  “Well, wouldn’t you like to see Rose Marie?”

  “Of course. But the doctor said no, and he meant it by the way he said it.”

  “When people say no, I always get the itch to make them say yes,” Bony told him, looking him straight in the eyes. “I exert myself especially when my wife says no, and most especially when my chief commissioner says no. And no man inall the world says no more emphatically than does Colonel Spendor.”

  It was nine o’clock when Bony rang Dr Scott.

  “How is Rose Marie?” he asked.

  “Still sleeping beautifully.”

  “Good! Marshall and his wife would like to take a peep at her before they retire for the night.”

  “No. Won’t have it.”

  “They promise just to creep in and look at her.”

  “Damn it, Inspector, didn’t I say no?”

  “Yes, something like that,” Bony agreed. “But what about cutting out the ‘Inspector’ and calling me Bony? All my pals do.”

  “Well, I’ve no objection. What about coming along and telling me the story? I’m all on fire to hear it.”

  “No. Won’t have it,” Bony shouted. “I’m leaving tomorrow too.”

  “Well, you said you would,” argued Scott.

  “No. Won’t have it,” repeated Bony.

  “Oh, all right! You win. Tell the Marshalls to come along within half an hour. You come with ’emand give the yarn about old Jason.”

  “That’s better,” Bony murmured. “I will see you tomorrow morning without fail. Got work still to do. Good night!”

  “Will he let us?” asked Mrs Marshall from the doorway.

  “Of course he will. You can both go right along.”

  Mrs Marshall’s eyes grew misty.

  “Thanks, Bony. You’re a good sort,” she told him.

  After they had left he wrote a note to Sergeant Marshall which he left on the blotter. A minute later he was knocking on the door of Jason’s house.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” snarled young Jason. “Whatd’youwant now?”

  “Just to talk to you. I’ve news of Rose Marie.”

  “Oh! Good news? Come in.”

  Bony was conducted along the passage to the living room. It was large and well windowed and cool. To the right of the fire-place dozens of pipes were suspended from nails driven into the wall.

  “Well! What’s the news?” young Jason demanded.

  “Can I sit down?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the first place, Tom, I have something to tell you about your father.”

  “I know all about that,” snarled the young man, his eyes directed fiercely to his visitor. “I got it all out of him, every bit of it. I-I wanted to kill him… but he’s my old man, after all. I’ve known he was going balmy… and he is balmy, too. I told him that the game was up. I knew from what you said, and from you telling me about my dog being poisoned, that he had done the murders and why. But they won’t hang him, will they? He’s as ratty as a stirred-up snake-looking at windmills and motor fans and things.”

  “Had he been like that long?”

  “It was over two years back when I tumbled. But what about Rose Marie?”
>
  “Just a minute. Your father admitted many things when he found that the case against him was fairly complete. At the end he took poison.”

  Bony gently related what had happened. Young Jason’s pathetic face lost its antagonism. He sniffed several times, and without looking at Bony he said:

  “I’m glad he beat you policemen. He was a decent old stick at heart. Cranky on acting, of course. Then he had me, and I’m nothing out of the box. Funny… I’ll be planting him with the old hearse he was so proud of.”

  Bony spoke softly:

  “I didn’t think you would like that, so I had him taken by the constables to divisional headquarters. He won’t be buried here at Merino. And now for Rose Marie. She has regained consciousness and the doctor gave her a sleeping draught. She will wake tomorrow in her right mind, and time only will be necessary to bring her back to health and strength.”

  The young man’s eyes gleamed.

  “Honest!” he said.

  Bony nodded.

  “I’d like to see her, but they won’t let me,” asserted the young man, the snarl coming back into his voice.

  “Not tonight they won’t,” Bony said decisively. “But tomorrow in the morning they will. If you like to, you may go with me, because I want to see the child before I leave Merino.”

  “You’ll take me, honest?”

  Bony nodded, then he rose to his feet and went round the table to sit upon its edge and to regard the misshapen face with his kindly eyes. He said:

  “I am going to ask you to do me a favour. It is growing late, and my swag and things are down at Sandy Flat. Would you put me up for the night? Anywhere would do, you know. And I’d like a feed too.”

  Young Jason actually smiled.

  “Too right, you can stay,” he told Bony. “I’m a bit fed up tonight, what with one thing and another. And the place will be sort of empty with the old man not hanging around. I could cook you some bacon and eggs, and make a pot of coffee.”

  There was eagerness in his voice. Bony rubbed his hands and smiled too.

  “That’ll do me,” he said. “Let’s get to it. I’m hungry… and very tired.”