Wings Above the Diamantina

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Well, it’s a rest and a ’oliday,” Joyce defined. “I ’as me three good meals a day, and a bottle of beer at eleven in the morning and seven at night. And no disturbances up to date by any blokes pinched by the sergeant. I ain’t complainin’. And now that the sergeant ’as clicked that job for me—well, I’m in no ’urry to get to work.”

  “Ah! I am glad that you do not complain,” said Bony.

  “I would be a dorg to complain after wot the sergeant’s wife done fer me last time I was ’ere.”

  “Would you consent to stay another week?”

  “Two, if you like.”

  “Who knows that Mr Joyce is staying at the lock-up, Sergeant?”

  “So far it’s not general knowledge.”

  “Very well, then. If you will stay another week, I think you should. Now tell me. On the night of 28 October you camped at the junction of the Coolibah road with the main St Albans track. You say that about ten minutes to three o’clock you heard the noise of an aeroplane flying overhead. I have examined your camp site that night, and I know that you slept within fifty feet of the track. Please cast your mind back to that night. What time did you make camp?”

  “Just after the sun went down.”

  “What time did you turn in, about?”

  “About eight o’clock. It might have been a few minutes after.”

  “Well. Before you heard the aeroplane did a car or truck pass along the road?”

  “Only a truck goin’ from St Albans towards Golden Dawn,” Joyce replied confidently. “It woke me up. I could make out the shape of the driver’s cab. That was twenty minutes to eleven.”

  “You appear to be sure of your times.”

  “Too right! It was a clear night, and I’ve took an interest in the stars since I went to sea. No one can’t fault me with the stars. There was two cars passed after the aeroplane went by. One passed towards Tintanoo about half-past three, and the other passed towards Golden Dawn about twenty minutes to five. Both of ’em was going all out.”

  “Much faster than usual at night time?”

  “I should say,” asserted Joyce. “They come on me like a roarin’ willy-willy. They was gone by like a flash, as it was.”

  For a little space, Bony drummed his fingers on the table. Then:

  “Since that night, Mr Joyce, you indulged in a beano of some importance. I hate doubting people, but, ask yourself, do you not appear to be remarkably sure of those times?”

  “Sure! Of course I’m sure!” Joyce declared with pardonable vehemence. “I got a good memory wot no occasional bust interferes with. That night I gets waked up four times: one be the truck, two be the aeroplane, three and four be the two cars. Each time I looks at the stars, smokes a pipeful, and does a think. I got a good memory, I tell you. I can go back years and tell you where I was on a partic’lar day and the kind of weather it was. It’d take me some time to go back three years, for instance, ’cos I would ’ave to go back in me nut day be day. But I’d get there.”

  “Good! Well, Mr Joyce, I can assure you that by consenting to be Sergeant Cox’s guest you have granted us a favour,” Bony gravely said. “Tell me, now. Either before you spoke to the sergeant about hearing the aeroplane, or afterwards, have you spoken to any one else about it?”

  “Now you’re askin’ me to recollect wot I did and said when I was under the influence,” Joyce said reproachfully. “When I’m blotto me memory is as wonky as it’s full of life when I’m sober. After I was sobered up ’ere, the sarge tells me to keep me mouth shut, and it ’as been kept shut.”

  “I am glad to hear that. Still, I think you had better remain here for another week. If there is anything you want—bar unlimited drink—you may ask for and get it. Listen to that thunder!”

  “I’m ’appy enough. Was there some crook goin’s on that night?” Joyce asked.

  “There were,” replied Bony, nodding. “I think it was just as well for you that you did not attempt to bail up either of those car drivers to ask for a lift, or a match, or something.”

  “Ho!” snorted Mr Joyce, and his moustache trembled. “I’ve always been ’andy with me dooks.”

  “I do not doubt that. That, I think, will be all for the present.”

  “Then I’ll get back to me cubby ’ole. Hooroo!” Joyce turned to the door, obviously pleased that his rest cure was to be extended for a full week. “Don’t trouble, Sergeant. I know the way to the lock-up.”

  When he had gone, Bony turned to the sergeant.

  “With reference to Ted Sharp. Have you found out anything about that man he visited at Gurner’s Hotel?”

  “Not a thing. He arrived at Yaraka by train, stayed there over-night, and the following day he hired a car to bring him across to Gurner’s Hotel. On his arrival back again at Yaraka, as there was no train, he got the driver of the car to take him in to Winton. I got Watts, however, to give me a copy of the telegram Sharp sent in by telephone from Gurner’s Hotel. Here is the copy.”

  Bony read slowly, and twice:

  Telford, Box 1991Z, G.P.O., Brisbane. Have the money. My identity must not be disclosed on any account. Be careful of Kane. Proceed. Edward Sharp.

  “Who is this Box 1991Z, Brisbane? Do you know?”

  “Yes,” Cox replied triumphantly. “The box is controlled by a firm of station agents. We have learned that the telegram was an instruction to them to purchase from John Kane a property he owns north of Tintanoo. On behalf of Ted Sharp they paid Kane forty-seven thousand pounds for it.”

  “Oh! That’s a very large sum, Sergeant, for a boss stockman to possess,” Bony murmured. “We know, of course, that he had a legacy amounting nearly to four thousand left him by an uncle. Now I wonder where he got the rest! And why all the secrecy about that man he met at Gurner’s Hotel. That’s the man we have to find. Ah! who is this?”

  There entered a slight, bald and mild-looking man wearing rimless spectacles. He was presented to the detective as the local postmaster.

  “I received your note, Sergeant, when I got home for lunch,” he explained. “I had this telegram for you, and I intended sending it along by my little girl.”

  “It is considerate of you to come, Mr Watts,” Bony said warmly. Cox opened the telegram, read it, and slid it across the table to Bony. “What I would like to know, Mr Watts, is this. Would it be possible to dispatch a letter in Adelaide addressed to Golden Dawn, take twenty-four hours to think of the terms of a reply, and to have the reply delivered in Adelaide within the space of ten days?”

  After thought the postmaster shook his head. “No,” he replied.

  “Well, in that time could a letter dispatched from Adelaide be replied to by telegram and the telegram received in! Adelaide within that time?”

  “Yes. That, I think, could be done.”

  “Thank you! By the sound of the elements, we are in for a bad storm.” Bony fell silent, again drumming with his fingers on the writing-table. Then he said deliberately: “Mr Watts, the urgency of a certain matter prohibits me from following the usual channels in gaining information from your department. Sergeant Cox here is a stickler for red tape. Red tape annoys me as a red cloth is said to annoy a bull. Could we not compromise? I will be frank. In strict confidence I want to know if a telegram of a private nature was dispatched from your office between 2 October and 20 October addressed to a person named Markham.”

  Mr Watts smiled before he said:

  “I have been so long in this accursed place, Mr Bonaparte, that I sometimes think were I to defy regulations I might be transferred to another office in a place less dry and hot and dusty. In the circumstances I will go through the files and produce for your examination all telegrams dispatched to Adelaide during the period you mentioned.”

  “That, Mr Watts, is generous of you,” Bony assured him. “You are a man after my own heart, but should you really wish for a transfer then dip into my wide experience of departmental heads and demand it with damns and blasts. Never proffer a request. Always make a de
mand.”

  When on his feet Mr Watts smiled happily at the detective. “Now that seems sound advice, Mr Bonaparte. I wonder I never thought of it in that light after Brisbane’s constant refusal. Well, I’ll be off. I’ll send those messages along some time this afternoon.”

  To this, Bony said hastily:

  “Please don’t, Mr Watts. I would like you to bring them yourself after the office is shut. Further, be sure that none of your staff, or the telephone exchange operator, sees what you are about. You know the advice about the right hand’s relation to the left hand, eh?”

  Mr Watts smiled again, and this time he winked. When he had passed out through the wicket-gate Bony picked up the opened telegram and read:

  Delayed by bad storm at Cloncurry—Illawalli cheerful—Loveacre.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Man Proposes But—”

  ANOTHER OF THE STORM season’s advance guard passed over Golden Dawn while Bony was lunching with the sergeant and Mrs Cox, the policeman estimating that from it forty points of rain fell. On returning to the office, Bony stepped out on to the veranda to see how the passing storm was painting the sky black to the north and east.

  “It looks bad for Loveacre’s chances of getting through today,” Bony said with troubled voice. “Never before have I experienced such impatience to finalize a case. That poor young woman is getting very low. Dr Knowles is in despair.”

  “He appears to take more than a professional interest in her,” was Cox’s observation.

  “Yes, he does. You see, he is in love with her. It must be terrible to be in love with a dying woman and have to watch her die.”

  The sergeant made no comment on this. For a moment the detective regarded again the temptuous sky. Now to the far west was growing a long ribbon of blue sky, and its promise of a fine afternoon lightened Bony’s depression.

  “Come! Let us take a walk to the post office,” he suggested.

  Together they sauntered along Golden Dawn’s main street, breathing air freed of its dust, but warm and clammy. The scent of refreshed earth rose to meet them.

  “I am glad to know that Captain Loveacre was commissioned to bring Illawalli,” remarked the detective. “He is a good man. I understand that he possesses a fine reputation for sale flying, and is well familiar with outback conditions.”

  “Yes, he knows the country and its conditions all right,” affirmed Cox.

  Together they entered the post office building, and Bony’s quick eyes noted the smartly-dressed, good-looking exchange girl seated before her switchboard, reading a novel while she waited for calls.

  Mr Watts was dispatching a telegram, the clacking of his instrument coming sharply against the background of threatening thunder. Having finished, he rose with a smile to accept the message Bony had written on an official form and which was addressed to Captain Loveacre. It ran:

  Do not incur unnecessary risks, but Illawalli urgently needed here. Notify me of your progress whenever possible. Bony.

  “Going to clear up for a little while, Mr Bonaparte?” Watts said pleasantly.

  “We are hoping so. How long will it take for that message to get through?”

  “About twenty minutes. Urgent?”

  “Yes. Mark it so, please.”

  “Very well. I will send it off at once.”

  Nodding affably, Bony led the way outside, and, there before the building, he said to Sergeant Cox:

  “What is your private opinion of that young woman in there?”

  “I’ve nothing against her, but.... She knows she’s goodlooking. Candidly, I don’t like her.”

  “Hum! She doesn’t produce in me that warm glow of pleasure I always feel when in the presence of a good woman. I wonder, now!”

  “What?” pressed Cox.

  “I wonder if she is able to read the Morse code.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard her say she could. What if she can?”

  Bony pinched his mouth with forefinger and thumb. He gazed skyward, and the sun being masked still by the clouds he looked at the clock above the entrance to the post office.

  “Let us return,” he decided.

  Silent now, they retraced their steps, Bony obviously worried, the sergeant shrewd enough to know that but unable to guess the reason. The light was becoming quickly stronger. Westward the ribbon of blue sky was enlarged to a great field. On gaining the veranda steps of the police-station, the detective sat down on the topmost one and gazed across at the wooden store.

  The minutes passed slowly, but presently a boy arrived on a bicycle and handed the detective a telegram. Bony tore open the envelope.

  “Ah! Good news!” he cried. “Loveacre says that as the weather appears to be breaking in the west, and as all reports state that the weather is fine west of the Diamantina, he is leaving Cloncurry at once.”

  Then he was on his feet and running into the office. When Cox joined him, he was standing before the wall map.

  “Look here, Cox. Look! The distance from Cloncurry is approximately three hundred miles. Loveacre handed in his message at two-twenty-four. He should be here in two hours and a half at most. Three hundred miles—two and a half hours! I wonder why he stated he would be flying direct? That implies that his originally-selected route was not straight.”

  “He probably intended to follow the air route to Winton, then on to Longreach before breaking away for Yaraka and Golden Dawn,” Cox suggested. “A direct route from Cloncurry gives him no landing grounds, and a forced landing would be a bad business.”

  “That might explain it,” Bony conceded. “Now listen carefully. When we sight his plane we will at once drive out to it and take over Illawalli. We will bring him here, where, perhaps, your wife would be kind enough to give him tea and sandwiches. While he is eating you fetch your car out. Then, when we are ready to leave for Coolibah, I will go first with Illawalli, and you will follow immediately after. When we are midway across the gibber plain I’ll stop and you will draw up alongside. By that time I will have instructed Illawalli what to do. He will transfer to your car and lie down along the rear seat and out of sight for the remainder of the journey. Is that quite clear?”

  “Perfectly. But why—?”

  “I won’t tell you, Sergeant, because I am a little uneasy. I have dark suspicions and fears that have no solid foundation. There is no other way of getting to Coolibah other than by following the road to St Albans and taking the side road?”

  Cox shook his head. “It’s a pity that storm the other day made the Coolibah landing ground unsafe,” he said.

  “It is a pity, too, that every one knows it, and that Captain Loveacre will land here when he comes. We shall have to run a possible gauntlet with the lightning. Ring up Coolibah, and ask for Dr Knowles, will you?”

  A minute later Bony heard the doctor’s voice.

  “This is Bony speaking, Doctor,” he said, “I wanted to tell you that I will be arriving with my friend, Illawalli, early this evening. How is the patient?”

  “Bad, bad, Bony! Respiration feeble. At times it is scarcely perceptible. Do you think he can do any good, your friend?”

  “I hope earnestly that he will. Was that spare tube sent to Faraway Bore?”

  “Yes. It was understood.” A pause, then: “One has to guard against accidents. You will be coming across by car, of course.”

  “Certainly. Will you kindly inform Miss Nettlefold of my projected arrival? Is there anything I can bring out other than the mail?”

  “No. Don’t waste time, man. I am exceedingly anxious.”

  “No time will be wasted. Captain Loveacre, who is bringing my friend, is expected to arrive here at about five o’clock. It is unfortunate that he cannot land at Coolibah. Good-bye!”

  When the detective replaced the receiver his eyes encountered those of Sergeant Cox.

  “What’s the little mystery about the spare tube?” questioned the big man.

  “I wished to convey to your brother-in-law a request to inc
rease his vigilance. Before I left Coolibah I made up with Mr Nettlefold a series of code messages. Is Constable Lovitt in town?”

  When Cox replied in the affirmative Bony went on:

  “Then have him ride his motor-cycle across the plain as far as the edge of the scrub, there to wait for us. Have him leave when the aeroplane is sighted. When he sees us he is then to ride on, like a pilot engine, ahead of us to Coolibah. Should he meet any motorist whose car is broken down, Lovitt will see to it that that motorist does not throw any—lightning.”

  “You expect opposition—a hold up?”

  “I greatly fear being overwhelmed by a bad electrical storm.”

  Cox sighed. His expression was severe.

  “I am afraid I don’t get you,” he said sharply.

  “There have been many cases”—Bony prefaced a somewhat lengthy explanation—“when the police have been unable to bring a charge because of insufficient proof with which to convince a jury. They, the police, know a certain person to be guilty of a crime, but knowing is not proving it to others. I know who flew Captain Loveacre’s red monoplane from Golden Dawn to Windy Creek Station, and then on to Emu Lake. I know who poisoned the brandy. I am practically certain who drugged Miss Double M, although, knowing these things, I have not sufficient proof to obtain warrants for two arrests. In this case I find much to annoy me. I am annoyed chiefly by the demand for haste dictated by the condition of Miss Double M. Nothing annoys me so much as having to hurry.

  “So you see, I am compelled to use the powers possessed by my friend, Illawalli, in order that that young woman’s life may be saved—if it is not already too late. Illawalli will finalize my case for me; he will cut in before I have reached the point where I can say: ‘Here is how it all happened!’ Being unable to prove who drugged the girl, I am unable to make him confess the name of the drug, and because the victim is dying I am unable to spend any further time drawing the net closer.

  “In an effort to force the hands of the men who drugged and tried so hard to kill Miss Double M several days ago I let it be known that Dr Knowles was confident of curing her. I then warned your brother-in-law and Knowles to take every precaution against a determined attack on her life by asking that a tyre tube be sent to Faraway Bore. Nothing happened. I think now that nothing happened at Coolibah because certain persons feared that the risk would be too great when a safer chance could be taken to stop Illawalli from reaching the patient.