Wings Above the Diamantina

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Certainly, if you wish it, Bony,” she managed to say.

  “Thank you! And thank you for the tea. I am sure I shall appreciate it.”

  The sergeant’s wife fled, and the sergeant fell to manipulating the tea service.

  “Have you any children?” asked Bony.

  “One. A boy of fifteen. Illness in his early years put him back a lot, but the new school teacher has done wonders with him.”

  “What are you going to make of him?”

  “Not a policeman.”

  “Why not? The police force offers a fine career.”

  “I beg to differ,” Cox growled, in his voice a hint of anger. “Look at me, shoved out here as a young man to keep order among a peaceful, law-abiding people. Pushed here out of the way. No chance of further promotion—no chance to use what little intelligence I may possess. My wife sacrificed city life for me, and now my son will sacrifice a decent career for me, too. What chance has a lad out here, bar life as a stockman? What chance have I, for that matter? I have asked for a transfer until I’m sick of asking.”

  Bony’s eyelids drooped. He sensed the almost extinguished ambition in the other, and, gauging it by his own illimitable ambitions, he read the book of life plainly in this police office.

  “Perhaps you will gain promotion out of this aeroplane case,” he suggested softly.

  “Oh, yeah?” Cox returned with a wry smile. “Pardon the Americanism, but I’ll get nothing out of this case. Why, I had to call on the C.I.B. for assistance, or rather to ask them to take it over from me.”

  “Without doubt, in that you acted wisely,” Bony said, again softly. “Remember, from the carcass of the lion came forth sweetness. We will collaborate, and I will see that you get all the credit possible. I will get none, because my superiors have become used to my successes. Have you previously had an important case?”

  “No, worse luck.”

  “Then we must make this one a stepping-stone for your promotion out of Golden Dawn. Tell me all about it—from the beginning.”

  While Sergeant Cox related the facts in proper sequence, now and then assisted by the report he was writing when Bony arrived, the detective smoked cigarettes he took from the pile he had made and sipped several cups of tea, munching buttered scones between the cigarettes.

  “Analysis showed that the brandy beside the girl’s bed was doctored with approximately one quarter of an ounce of strychnine reduced to liquid form by boiling in vinegar,” Cox wound up.

  “You have a map of the district?”

  “Yes. It is there on the wall.”

  They rose to stand before the large-scale map, and the sergeant pointed out the places he had mentioned.

  “Thank you,” Bony said, turning back to the table. “You have put the case in a manner both concise and clear. I understand that to date the people who have seen that girl are: yourself, this Dr Knowles, the Coolibah housekeeper, and Nettlefold and his daughter. And not one of you recognized her?”

  Cox shook his head. “She is a complete stranger to us.”

  “At the time of the theft of the monoplane was there any one else in this district able to fly an aeroplane other than Loveacre and his companions and Dr Knowles?”

  “Yes. There is Mr John Kane, the owner of a station north of Coolibah, called Tintanoo. He was in the Royal Air Force during the war, but as far as I know he hasn’t piloted a machine since his return from France.”

  “Where was he the night that the machine was stolen?”

  “Here in Golden Dawn.”

  “And the next night, when the machine was burned?”

  “At his home at Tintanoo. You may be sure, Bony, I convinced myself that he could have had no hand in it. Besides, although he is a fast liver, he is otherwise well respected. Tons of money.”

  “Hum! It is obvious that there is more than one person concerned in this matter, unless, of course, it was possible for one person to burn the aeroplane—if it was destroyed by human action—and then travel nearly seventy miles to poison the brandy at about four o’clock. The latter fact gives us every excuse to assume that the machine was wilfully destroyed. Now this Dr Knowles! Tell me about him.”

  “He came here in 1920 from Brisbane where he had lived without practising from early in 1919. He, too, was in the Flying Corps. In fact, he and John Kane were for some time attached to the same squadron. They met again in Brisbane, and it was due to Kane that Knowles came to practise at Golden Dawn.

  “Naturally we all welcomed the doctor. He has proved himself a good man. He doesn’t get overmuch work, and yet his fees are reasonable. Private income, I think. Five years ago he bought his first aeroplane. We expected him to break his neck, but he soon showed that he can fly as well as he can doctor. He is, of course, known to us as the flying doctor, but he has no connexion with the Australian Aerial Medical Service, which is responsible for other flying doctors.”

  Sergeant Cox regarded Bony steadily when he paused.

  “We can forgive a man much when he will fly anywhere in all weather to attend a case. We can overlook his heavy drinking, because I have never seen the man drunk in the ordinary sense. To use a common phrase, he drinks like a fish, and he sticks to spirits, too. The effect of alcohol on him is peculiar. It weakens him from the belt down while having no visible effect from the belt up. And the more he takes the better he flies. He has never given me any trouble. He has always behaved like the gentleman and the man he is.”

  “Dear me!” Bony exclaimed. “And how long has this drinking been going on?”

  “Ever since he came here, to my knowledge,” Cox affirmed.

  “Where is he now—to-day?”

  “In town. He came in this morning from Coolibah.”

  “Then I think we will go along and see him. By the way, would Mr Nettlefold be kind enough to put me up?”

  “Yes, I am sure he would be only too pleased,” Cox said warmly. “He’s worried, of course, about that poisoner. He wanted to have the patient moved to Winton hospital, but Miss Nettlefold would not hear of it.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Yes. Jolly fine girl that. About twenty-six years old. Came home from school to look after the old man when, I hear, she wanted to go in for science. Told me the other day—or at least didn’t tell me, but let me guess—that she had been bored stiff with the dull life at Coolibah, and welcomed the job of nursing. She does the night shift, and the boss stockman out there roams around all night. You see, we half expect another attempt to be made on that girl’s life.”

  Bony rose and took up his hat. Once again he stood before the wall map. Then, when he turned to Cox, he said: “I believe, Sergeant, that this case will interest me. I am particularly pleased that the weather has continued fine. Now for Dr Knowles. On our way I will call at the post office to dispatch a telegram to Colonel Spendor.”

  Together they walked to the post office, the only brick building in Golden Dawn. Outside, Sergeant Cox stopped to talk with Constable Lovitt, and Bony entered.

  The postmaster was writing at a table beyond the counter. Through a glass-built partition could be seen the telephone exchange. The glass door was wide open, and through the doorway Bony noted the young woman who turned to observe him. Cold, appraising eyes of blue regarded him with what in a less attractive person would be a rude stare.

  Bony’s message, addressed to Police Commissioner, Brisbane, ran:

  Delighted with prospects. Weather has been splendid. Have met exceptionally keen colleague in Sergeant Cox.

  Chapter Eight

  Stingrays Among Fishes

  ON THE MAJORITY OF Australian sheep and cattle stations people are divided into three grades or classes; for, even among Australia’s most democratic portion of her alleged democratic population, class distinctions are rigidly maintained. Heading this class trilogy on the average station is the owner, or the manager, and his family. They reside in what is termed “government house,” the main residence on the property and the centre from
which it is directed. On a great number of stations there is another and less pretentious building housing the apprentices or jackeroos, and the overseer or boss stockman. They are provided with a sitting-room and a dining-room. The “lower orders,” comprising the station men and the tradesmen, inhabit a hut, and their dining-room adjoins the kitchen ruled by their own cook.

  At Coolibah there was no separate establishment for jackeroos and the boss stockman. Normally Ted Sharp would have been a member of this middle class, and when Nettlefold asked him if he would live at “government house” for a few days, and carry out night guard while the aeroplane girl was a patient within it, he gladly agreed to the guard duty, but expressed a desire to live with the men.

  “I work with them, and when on the run I eat with them, and, as there are no jackeroos’ quarters, I prefer to live with the men here,” he said.

  To this, however, Elizabeth would not listen, not that she was more democratic than others of her class, but because Ted Sharp was no ordinary bushman, and ... well ... just because...

  “If you are good enough to keep guard over the house all night and every night,” she told him firmly, “you are good enough to live with us. Don’t argue, Ted, please.”

  “All right!” he agreed, sighing, but secretly pleased.

  Thus he fell into a routine. All day he slept in a cool room at “government house”; he ate his meals with the manager and his daughter, and at night he roamed about the house or sat on the veranda outside the patient’s room. Elizabeth never saw him after she went on duty, but she knew he was never far away, and consequently felt no anxiety.

  But to accept a half-caste detective as an equal was quite another matter. When Hetty had awakened her to tell of the arrival of Dr Knowles and a detective, who was an Australian half-caste, and that this detective even then was with the doctor and her father in the latter’s study, and, above all, that Mr Nettlefold had given orders that a room be prepared for this half-caste detective, Elizabeth felt that it was really too much.

  In their turn both the station manager and the doctor had accepted Bony with cold reserve, but few men could withstand the appeal of this extraordinary personality. The slightly grandiloquent manner of speaking was countered by the twinkling blue eyes that always seemed to mock at their owner’s love of grandiloquence. On his arrival he had requested time to bath and change before beginning with the business which had brought him, and, during that interval, Knowles had passed to the manager all that Cox had managed to tell him regarding Mr Napoleon Bonaparte, M.A.

  Bony had re-appeared freshly shaved and wearing a dark blue suit, and now Dr Knowles lounged in one of the easy chairs with a tumbler held by one white hand. When the door opened to admit Elizabeth, the doctor rose with alacrity, and when Bony stood up and walked a few steps forward he presented the half-caste to the young mistress of Coolibah.

  “Miss Nettlefold, this is Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. He insists on being addressed merely as Bony. Bony, permit me to present you to Miss Nettlefold, the lady who has undertaken to nurse my patient.”

  “How do you do?” Elizabeth said coldly, across a space of twelve feet.

  “I am charmed to meet a woman who so nobly gives herself to the nursing of a complete stranger,” Bony said, bowing as she had never seen a man bow before. “Knowing that a policeman in the house is always upsetting, I will try to give as little trouble as possible.”

  The light shone directly on his face, and she was held by his blue eyes, by the force of intelligence gazing from them. She noted the delicate mould of his features, pure Nordic and with no trace of his aboriginal ancestry. That lay only in the colour of his skin. She meant to say that, as she was night nursing, his presence would in no way disturb her. What she did say was:

  “How do you know that a policeman in the house is a disturbing influence?”

  “Because my wife always says so when I have been home five minutes,” he replied quickly. Then, perhaps, because she stood her ground, he advanced to her. “I would like to see your patient as early as possible while the daylight lasts. If you will introduce me as an acquaintance.... Then, when I am about to leave, I will stand before the little bedside table, and I would like you to go into the dressing-room and stand just where you were when you saw in the mirror the man with his back to you. As I move from the table to leave the room will you then kindly act precisely as you did that night and at the same speed?”

  “If you wish it. Will you see the patient now?”

  Bony nodded assent. “Thank you,” he said. “Excuse me, Mr Nettlefold and Dr Knowles.” Holding open the door for her to pass out, he followed her into the hall.

  “A moment, Miss Nettlefold, before we go to the sickroom,” he requested, and she turned calmly to look at him, her hostility towards his colour not yet vanquished. “I have one or two questions to ask you concerning this poor young woman. I understand you have closely examined her clothing and have found on several articles the initials M.M. Once we have identified your patient our task of unmasking the person who is conspiring against her life will be partly accomplished. Now tell me please, of what quality is the young woman’s underwear?”

  He saw the quickly-gathered frown, and he knew that in Elizabeth Nettlefold he was facing the same battle he had during his career so often faced and won.

  “Well, really...” she began haughtily.

  “I am forty-three years old, Miss Nettlefold, and I have been married twenty years,” he cut in. “Believe me, the information I seek is for the purpose of establishing the patient’s identity. Do her clothes lead you to assume that she is—well, high in social circles? Are they expensive, or are they cheap and of poor quality?”

  “I should say that her clothes have been purchased at middle-class shops,” she replied steadily.

  “Thank you! You see how no man could answer my question, unless he happened to be a draper. A person’s outside clothes are not always a true index to his or her social station. Now, if you please.”

  Conducting him along the corridor, Elizabeth was puzzled by his address, and hostile yet to the fact of his admittance to her home as an equal. Hetty rose from her chair beside the bed when they entered the room. She, too, appeared hostile because of her mistress’s avowed attitude earlier in the evening. The sun was not yet set, and, added to the chugging petrol engine, was the incessant noise of the chattering galahs and parrots. Within the room it was cool and bright, and, now that the heat of the day was over, the curtains had been drawn aside to admit the breeze.

  “You have a visitor, dear,” Elizabeth said, bending over the bed. “He is trying to find out all about you, and he promises not to say long enough to bore you.”

  Then, straightening up, she turned to Bony with an expression on her vivid face which there was no mistaking. He understood that this visit was considered wholly unnecessary, but, bland and unperturbed, he stood at the foot of the bed, and from there smiled at the patient whose eyes he could see beneath the partly lowered lids. They moved slightly when he encountered their almost fixed stare.

  To him her tragically helpless condition made its instant appeal. The immobility of her frame and features were not themselves terrible to him who had seen death all too often. Those aspects were not terrible to Dr Knowles for the same reason. They were made terrible by the living, intelligent eyes which so clearly revealed a soul anguished by the prison bars of the body. Her aspect appalled him, struck at his gentle nature and aroused all his sympathy for the weak and the defenceless.

  Yet he kept all this from his eyes, smiling at her across the length of the bed. Not a doctor, he yet was sure that her condition could not possibly be due to natural causes. Mental shock, no! Bodily injury, no! Hypnotism, perhaps! Perhaps a drug, but what drug? His ready tongue now almost failed him.

  “I am grieved to see you like this, Miss M.M.,” he told her, obviously fighting for words. “I am sure now that you are the victim of a conspiracy, and perhaps you may find solace in the
fact that not only are your nurses and the doctor concerned for your welfare. Men in all the Australian States are working night and day on your behalf to find out who you are and where you come from, and to hurry to your bed-side those whom you love. I wonder, now!”

  Moving round to the side of the bed opposite the two nurses, he took up the limp hands and carefully examined them. Elizabeth and Hetty watched him, the former ready to intervene. Then gently he laid them down on the white coverlet.

  “You have beautiful hair,” he said softly. “It reminds me of one whom I knew when I was a boy. Now I must leave you. Retain your courage and never let go the rock of hope.” Bending still lower, he gazed directly into her eyes, to say: “You will get well again, believe me. You need not be doubtful that I shall find out all about you, and then you will be able again to work at a typewriter in an office.” Seeing the flash of interest leap into the blue eyes, his own began to twinkle, and he said more cheerily: “You see, I am beginning to find out things about you already. I am an expert at finding answers to riddles. Au revoir!”

  Standing up he regarded Elizabeth with a faint trace of triumph. Her eyes were wide, and involuntarily they directed their gaze at the white hands on the coverlet. Then he made a sign, and, recognizing her cue, she stepped to the dressing-room. Passing round the bed, the detective paused in front of the little table on which was a half-bottle of brandy, medicine bottles and a tumbler. Then with hastened action he moved to the door, silently opened it and passed out, then as silently closed it and backed swiftly down the corridor to the hall separating the study from the dining-room. He had reached the hall, and was waiting for Elizabeth to appear when a cold voice behind him drawled:

  “Stand quite still, you!”

  Bony stood still.

  “If you move a fraction of an inch I’ll shoot!”

  At that instant Elizabeth emerged from the bedroom to stand for a space looking along the corridor at Bony and the man behind him. Then her eyes widened, and she called out: