Wings Above the Diamantina

by Arthur W. Upfield

  And now, second by second, the light was changing in colour from crimson to yellow, from yellow to natural daylight. Bony waved to someone who waved from the plane, and then stood watching it flying to the south towards Emu Lake. It finally disappeared beyond the southern scrub.

  “Cripes, Bony!” laughed the fat Shuteye. “You look like you bin sleep in a dog’s kennel.”

  “You look as bad,” chuckled Bony. “And so do you, Bill Sikes. Well, our tracking is at an end, and there is nothing more to do here. You can both go home. I will return after I have visited Emu Lake to see who was in that aeroplane. And not a word, mind, about finding those fibres of wool. Not even to Ned Hamlin. You understand?”

  “Too right!” assented Bill Sikes, and was echoed by his mate.

  Bony stood and watched them riding away, their horses hoofs kicking up the superfine dust laid by the storm. He wetted a handkerchief from the water-bag and sponged his own horse’s dust-rimmed eyes and nostrils, and then, having taken a long drink, he mounted and rode at a jog-trot to Emu Lake.

  The bush presented an extraordinary picture. On every projection provided by tree and shrub and grass and debris the red-brown sand lay like coloured snow. It thickened tree boughs and twigs, while the finer particles of sand dust clung to the leaves and grass stems. The few general colours of the bush were now overlaid by the uniform reddish-brown of sand. The air was motionless, and when, ahead of him, two crows settled in a leopard-wood tree, the slight vibrations set up by the birds so dislodged the settled sand that the tree seemed to shed some kind of vapour.

  Bony experienced a pleasurable sense of elation when riding briskly southward to Emu Lake. The sun announced the time as being about three o’clock. His mind was busy creating theories and even fantasies based on the established fact that some person had taken every care not to leave his tracks when he had visited the red monoplane for the purpose of setting fire to it—he could have had no other object in mind.

  To begin with, the theft of the aeroplane at Golden Dawn had not been actuated by the motive of gain—possession of the machine or its value in money. The drugging of the woman passenger implied that it had been stolen for the purpose of taking her somewhere from some place. The pilot had schemed either to land her in some selected spot, or to leave her to crash with the machine over country he knew was not being used for stock. There was a third supposition that might hold the water of plausibility. While journeying to some previously noted destination the engine might have ceased to function, and knowing that in the dark a forced landing was certain to be accompanied by grave danger, the pilot might have deserted the plane by parachute to save himself.

  With Sergeant Cox, Bony keenly regretted the omission of John Nettlefold to search the machine before he and his daughter left with the drugged young woman. They might have found her handbag, or an article of clothing giving a clue to her identity. There certainly was something in or on the machine to have made its destruction so important. What was it the incendiarist had feared? If it was the discovery of something that could easily have been moved the destruction was senseless. He destroyed the plane because on it and its controls were his fingerprints.

  Whose fingerprints? Those of the pilot, the person who had stolen the machine from Golden Dawn. Then the pilot was either a local resident or one well known to the police in a general way. More than likely a local resident, because, having heard that the machine was resting quite undamaged on Emu Lake, he had walked to it in the dark. That certainly indicated that he was a local resident and one, moreover, who new the country very well. Yes, if the girl herself was unknown to Cox and the Coolibah people, the pilot of the stolen aeroplane certainly was not. There must be living in the Golden Dawn district a man other than the doctor and Kane who possessed the requisite knowledge and experience expertly to handle an aeroplane.

  It was a pretty problem, one that satisfied even Bony, who was seldom satisfied. In this case there was only one disturbing element—the grave physical condition of the girl at Coolibah. Bony liked to spend plenty of time on an investigation but here the situation called for haste, because Knowles had said that if the cause of her singular condition were not cleared up, it might be impossible to find a cure in time to save her life.

  It might be that only the clearing up of the matter of the stolen aeroplane would give the medico the information he needed. After all, it is difficult for any doctor to cure a complaint of that kind, when he has no idea of its cause.

  So engrossed was Bony by these thoughts that the fourmile ride passed without the usual interest being taken in it He failed to note that his horse left a trail of fine dust hanging in the air, and tracks of exceeding clarity on the ground. He failed to notice the rabbit that sped across the ground before him and flung up a trail of dust in miniature, much like that raised by a car speeding along a dry track. He had ridden down the low bank edging the lake before he realized that he had reached it.

  Having secured the horse to a tree, he hurried with eager steps to the aeroplane, and the two men engaged among the debris of the burnt machine. So absorbed were they that his approach went unnoticed, until he said: “Good afternoon!”

  Mr Cartwright and the airman straightened up and faced round to see a poorly-dressed, slightly-built man on whose arms and face clung particles of red sand, and whose worn shirt and trousers were stained red.

  “Hullo!” returned Loveacre. “Where did you come from?”

  Bony smiled. “I am just out for an afternoon ride. Who, may I ask, are you?”

  The captain’s brows rose a fraction. The voice and style of speech were singularly at variance with the appearance of this blackfellow—or half-caste, or whatever he was. The insurance assessor offered a shrewd guess.

  “Are you, by any chance, Mr Napoleon Bonaparte?”

  Bony bowed gravely. “I am. You gentlemen have the advantage, it seems.”

  “My name is Cartwright, and this is Captain Loveacre.” announced the interested fire assessor. “I was hoping to meet you, as I believe you are in charge of this extraordinary matter. I have been sent by the Air Accidents Investigation Committee to ascertain if this fire was caused by incendiarism or by an act of God.”

  “Then, naturally, Captain Loveacre is even more interested in the wreckage.”

  “I am extremely interested, Inspector,” Loveacre assured Bony with emphasis. “If ever you find out who did it, I would be eternally grateful if you just mention his name and give me a few minutes with him in private.”

  “Have you discovered any leads yet?” asked Cartwright.

  “Tell me, first, what you have discovered,” said Bony cautiously.

  “Well—er, my report has, of course, to be submitted confidentially to the Air Accidents Committee. Doubtless, in due time—”

  “You are, I presume, a civil servant?” suavely inquired Bony.

  “No,” replied Cartwright. “I am a fire insurance assessor employed by an insurance company.”

  “Pardon! My mistake is natural. I had no idea that red tape was so prominent a feature of the insurance world.”

  Cartwright chuckled. The dusty face and clothes, which seemed to indicate that Bony had been sleeping in a dog kennel, were so much at variance with the detective’s keen, twinkling eyes and cultured accent that it was hard to imagine that they all belonged to the same man. Leaving the strewn wreckage, he stepped to Bony with extended hand.

  “I am delighted to meet you, Inspector,” he said. “Sergeant Cox told me I was to call you Bony.”

  “I am indebted to Sergeant Cox. I dislike being addressed either as Inspector or Mister, and I hate red tape, the god of the civil service, with all my soul. There is only one other man who hates that god more passionately than I, and that is my revered chief, Colonel Spendor. You were about to tell me how Captain Loveacre’s machine was destroyed?”

  “Actually, I was about to do nothing of the sort,” Cartwright corrected, laughing frankly. “However, I will tell you that Cap
tain Loveacre’s aeroplane carried a high explosive when it was destroyed by fire. The explosion of petrol in the tanks could not have been of sufficient force so completely to disintegrate the structure. It could not have flung the heavy engine so far forward, the wings so far from the fuselage, and the fragments of both wings and fuselage so far outward from the central point.”

  “That is what occurred to me when I reviewed the wreck earlier to-day,” Bony said in agreement. “Do you think that the machine was burned and wrecked by the explosive, or was the explosive detonated by the fire consuming the machine? Possibly I am abstruse.”

  “I understand your point. Yes, I think that the explosive was detonated by the heat of the fire consuming the aeroplane.”

  “Thank you.” Bony pinched his nether lip with fore-finger and thumb. Then: “Perhaps you could give the explosive a name?”

  “Well—er—”

  “Please answer me,” Bony urged sharply. “Could you?”

  Cartwright nodded.

  “But,” he said, “I would like you to understand that I have been instructed not to divulge the result of my examination outside my report to the Air Accidents Committee.”

  “I understand that quite well, Mr Cartwright,” Bony responded earnestly. “In due time I shall have the gist of your report through my department—probably a fortnight hence. In two weeks’ time your report will be quite valueless to me, because I shall know what I now want to know. At Coolibah homestead lies a young woman who is so helpless that she is unable even to raise or lower her eyelids. Dr Knowles says that if she cannot be cured of that strange paralysis she will shortly die from starved tissues. To me—and I think you, too, Mr Cartwright—the life of that young woman is of greater importance than the dignity of all the thousands of civil servants in this country. Until we know by clearing up the mystery of this burned aeroplane what has been done to that young woman she will be slowly dying. Again I ask you for the name of the explosive which shattered Captain Loveacre’s monoplane.”

  The stubborn expression on the assessor’s face slowly faded.

  “Under the circumstances, I will tell you. The explosive was nitro-glycerine.”

  “Thank you, Mr Cartwright!” Bony said warmly. “You may be sure that I shall treat your confidence with great respect. In return, I will tell you what I know. Have you discovered how the aeroplane was fired?”

  “No. I can obtain no definite proof. Have you that proof?”

  “Yes, I have proof that a man walked through the bush, set fire to the machine here, and then walked back through the bush to the main Golden Dawn-St Albans road. Have you found anything that may be called a clue among the debris? Clothes buttons, for instance, or fragments of a woman’s handbag?”

  “Nothing. I cannot understand, or even imagine, the motive for destroying the aeroplane.”

  “I can.”

  “What?”

  “Fingerprints. Either the man who stole the machine did not think he would have to abandon it, or he did not believe it possible to escape destruction when he did abandon it. The presence of nitro-glycerine in the machine points to the fact that he deliberately abandoned it so that it would crash with the passenger and be wiped out by the explosive. You cannot account for nitro-glycerine being in your red monoplane, Captain Loveacre?”

  The captain shook his head.

  “If he did what you say, then why? ... Why should any man take that girl up in my machine and dump her with a wad of nitro-glycerine? Can you answer that question?”

  “I feel cramped,” Bony said provokingly.

  Loveacre stared at him in blank surprise.

  “Cramped? Well, what about a bottle of beer?” he suggested.

  “Beer won’t remove the cause,” declared the detective. “Like Mr Cartwright, I am cramped with red tape.”

  Captain Loveacre looked startled. Then he grinned boyishly.

  “I get you,” he said. “Go on.”

  “Tell me,” Bony urged persuasively. “How far, in your opinion, would your machine have flown after the pilot left it?”

  “Now you’re asking me. In still air it might have flown miles, or it might immediately have stalled.”

  “Well, being familiar with the machine, could you have fixed the controls with wire or something to make it self-flying until the petrol was used up?”

  “I think that I might do that in still air, but when I jumped the sudden redistribution of weight would not be automatically countered without a human brain at the controls. On the other hand, the machine might not be disturbed by the pilot leaving it. It was an easy bus to fly, and it was possible for me to fly it at times ‘hands off’—that is, without touching the controls.”

  “My last question. Assuming the thief fixed the controls, hoping that after he left the machine it would fly some considerable distance before crashing, and that he shut off the engine before he jumped, what most likely would have happened?”

  “Anything—even what did happen. The bus at once, began to lose height, but strangely enough did not lose flying speed. By a remarkable fluke it made a perfect landing on this lake when for miles around lies scrub and broken sand-plain country.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bony Declares Himself

  CAPTAIN LOVEACRE had been flying for many years. The experience gained from several forced landings miles from any human habitation had fostered the habit of never going in the air outback without a small hamper, a billy-can, and a drum of water. When he announced that these things were in the grey biplane, the detective at once offered to fetch enough wood from the lake’s shore with which to brew tea.

  “Strange bird that,” remarked Loveacre, when Bony had gone off for the firewood.

  “Strange indeed!” agreed Cartwright. “The police sergeant was right about him, I wonder!”

  “What?”

  “I wonder, if given the same opportunities, how many Australian half-castes could reach the level of Bony’s attainments.”

  The pilot frowned. “I have had dealings with a lot of them,” he said thoughtfully. “In answer to your question, I’d say that quite a number could. Among the many I have met there are a lot of really smart fellows. Environment is against them, and so...”

  “Well?” Cartwright pressed.

  “The bush often gets ’em in the end. You take a black or a half-caste, and you put him to college or teach him a trade, but the time may come when he’ll leave it all to bolt back to the bush. Some of them can’t long resist the urge to go on walkabout.”

  “Perhaps they are happier on walkabout?”

  “Of course,” Loveacre instantly concurred. “They haven’t got the curse of Adam laid on ’em like the white man. You can’t tell me that it’s natural for a man to slave in a factory, or on a road, or in an office. It is not natural for a man to work. That the white man does so is just because he’s always been greedy for power over his fellows. Many blacks never have worked. They have never had to work and they can’t see the sense of working. Blessed if I can see the sense of it, either. I know well enough that were I a half-caste I wouldn’t work when I could go on walkabout and dig up a yam or catch a fish when I wanted to eat.”

  Ten minutes later they sat down with Bony on the ground and ate tinned sardines and biscuits and drank milkless tea.

  After they had rested for some time, Loveacre jumped to his feet, and feeling for his watch, said: “Well, this won’t do. We shall have to push off, for the sun is getting low,”

  “It is ten minutes after five o’clock,” announced Bony.

  The airman had seen the detective glance at the sun, and when his watch proved that Bony was correct, he asked: “Did you guess the time?”

  “I did not,” replied Bony. “I have never found it necessary to carry a watch. When the sun is hidden by clouds I ask a policeman.”

  “Supposing you cannot find one?” inquired Cartwright.

  “When that is so I do not worry about time. In fact, I seldom do worry about it.�
�� While they strolled over to the biplane, Bony said to Loveacre: “I am lamentably ignorant concerning aircraft. Assuming you were flying with your greatest enemy as a passenger, and assuming that you decided to murder him by jumping per parachute, leaving him to crash with the machine, would you switch off the engine or not?”

  Loveacre regarded Bony with narrowed eyelids.

  “Assuming that,” he said slowly, “I think I would fix the stick and the rudder controls, and leave the engine running. To do that would give me a better chance of getting clear of the plane, although by first switching off the engine I would not be necessarily hindered from leaving the machine, nor would the parachute necessarily be fouled by the machine even if at once it went into a spin or stalled.”

  “Thank you! Might I ask both you gentlemen, as a personal favour, to accept in confidence what I have said about this matter?”

  “Decidedly,” the assessor promptly replied. When Loveacre added his assent, Bony smiled, saying:

  “Until a few days ago I thought that I knew everything. It is a conceit due, I think, to my wife, to whom I am really a hero. I should have studied flying and all appertaining to it, for it was inevitable that an air crime would come my way. Where are you staying to-night?”

  “Golden Dawn? You coming?”

  “No, Captain, thank you. Well, kindly convey my regards to Sergeant Cox. And do, please, remember to be red-tapish. There are time when it is so convenient.”

  “So long, Bony. I’m damned glad to have met you, and I will look forward to meeting you again,” Loveacre said warmly.

  “Thank you, Captain. The pleasure, then, has been mutual.”

  “That goes for me, too,” seconded Mr Cartwright. “We will remember the god of the civil service when this aeroplane leaves the ground. Good-bye, and good luck!”

  The two men climbed into the machine.

  A quiet smile hovered about the finely-moulded mouth of Napoleon Bonaparte when, with his hands clasped behind him, he walked slowly to the timber, where his nervous horse was impatiently waiting.