Mr Jelly’s Business

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “That’s Mr Jelly’s place. You remember I mentioned him. He’s a mystery, if you want a mystery. With him mystery is added to mystery. Most of us when we go away come back poorer than when we leave. He comes back richer than when he goes.”

  “Mysteries!” Bony sighed as though greatly content. His eyes were almost shut when he said: “Always has my soul been thrilled by mystery.”

  Seated at the table in his room at the Rabbit Department Depot, Bony slowly read once again the collection of statements gathered by John Muir. The most important of these statements was that signed by Leonard Wallace, the licensee of the Burracoppin Hotel. It appeared to be a straightforward account of his movements and actions from the time he left Perth to the moment he entered the room in the hotel occupied by his wife and himself. There were three statements which in part corroborated this, in addition to that rendered by Mrs Wallace.

  One was signed by Mavis Loftus, giving the date of her husband’s departure for Perth, the nature of his business there, the date of his expected return, which was 4th November—two days after his actual return. Michael Landon stated over his signature the orders that Loftus had given him before he went away and the fact that he had not seen or heard Loftus during the night of 2nd November or at any subsequent time.

  The story, in full, of the finding of the wrecked car was given by Richard Thorn, employee of the Water Department.

  From the mass there was nothing to point to murder, nor was there anything in them to make Loftus suspect of wilful disappearance. As far as Bony could then cull from his collection of facts the missing man was remarkable for no one habit, vice, or virtue.

  Seated there in the quiet peace of late afternoon, idly examining each signature, noting the badly formed scrawl of Leonard Wallace at one extreme and at the other the neat calligraphy of Mick Landon, he experienced the sensation of elation he always felt when a baffling case, by great good fortune, came his way.

  Questions poured through his mind as water through a pipe. He declined to halt the flow with a mental tap to find an answer to any one of them until he had cast his net in the still water about this small wheat town. When the fish had been landed for his inspection, then would he search for the deadly stingray which, if found, would prove that George Loftus had been slain.

  Hearing the Depot gate being opened and a horse-drawn dray enter the yard, Bony rapidly collected the documents and placed them in his grip, which he locked. His bed was made, and from beneath clean clothes folded neatly for use as a pillow, he produced a book, then lay on the bed and pretended to read.

  He heard the horse and dray cross the yard, saw horse, vehicle, and driver pass before the open doorway. Came then the sound of a dog racing over loose gravel. The door of the chaff room next his rattled when a speeding animal passed through the small cut opening at the bottom. A dog scratched and sniffed loudly. A man whistled and shouted:

  “Ginger, come here!”

  Into the room swept the whirlwind. His clothes were covered with a greyish dust; his face and neck and arms were whitened by the same dust. Hazel eyes, reddened by dust, gleamed good-humouredly.

  “Ginger! Hi, Ginger! You callused-jawed pork sausage! You chase cats! You kill the boss’s cat and get me sacked! You—you—you—!”

  A dog, a red-haired cross between a whippet and an Irish terrier, came to heel, to stand with lowered head and uplooking soft black eyes which so plainly said:

  “You’re only kidding now.”

  “Lay down, you callused-jawed slaughterer.”

  Ginger lay down, head resting on forepaws, shortened tail thumping the floor.

  “What kind of a day have you had?” Bony asked.

  “Lovely ... lovely! I’ve been breathing chaff dust for eight and a half hours. It’s got under my clothes, and tomorrow I’ll be a red rash. See you later. I’m headed for a shower. Come on, Ginger!”

  Whirlwind and dog departed, to return with equal speed ten minutes later. Bony continued to read while his room-mate dressed in clean clothes, and when Hurley finished lacing his boots he happened to look at the cover of Bony’s book.

  “What’s that? What’s the name of that book?” he asked.

  Above the lowered book Bony’s blue eyes twinkled.

  “It is entitled,” he said, “A Contribution to the Natural History of the Australian Termite, written by a little-known but really clever man named Kurt von Hagen.”

  “What’s it all about?”

  “About the Australian termite.”

  “Who’s he, when his hat’s on?”

  “Do you refer to the author or the termite?”

  “The termite. What’s a termite?”

  “A termite is a white ant.”

  “Oh! Then why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place? You interested in white ants?”

  “I am interested in everything,” Bony replied grandly. “Art, philosophy, the sciences. At present my leisure is devoted to the study of the termite, which is the most wonderful of all living creatures. Its civilization is so simple, yet so complex, so strong as to defy every other creature save man, yet so vulnerable as to die in sunlight. We may be excused for thinking that what many regard as——”

  “Say, Bony, are you interested in murder?”

  It was seldom Bony was trapped into visible astonishment. On this occasion it must be said in his defence that his mind was not then employed by the subject of homicide. Hurley’s question actually brought him to a sitting position.

  “Why do you ask such a question?”

  “Because I am looking for a feller thoroughly in earnest on the subject of murder.”

  For a fraction of time Bony hesitated. His brain raced to supply answers to a dozen questions raised by Hurley’s abrupt inquiry. Did the man know him for a policeman? Was it desired that he, Bony, should become a confidant? Did Hurley know that Loftus had been murdered and who murdered him?

  “I believe,” he said blandly—“I believe I can truthfully say that I am interested in the subject of murder.”

  Sighing deeply, Hurley leaned back over his bunk. Bony thought that the mystery of Loftus’s disappearance was to be explained even before he had started his investigation. And the case had been so promising, too.

  “Can you recite the names of Australian murderers since nineteen twenty?” Hurley persisted. “You know, like we did at school with the kings—William the Conqueror, ten sixtysix; William the Second, ten ... but can you?”

  “Phelp, Trilby, Smith, and Low, nineteen twenty; Brown, Little, two Wills, Turner, and Love, nineteen twenty-one; Maynard, Ro——”

  “You’ll do! You’ll do!” Hurley was standing over the halfcaste, thumping him on the back. “You’ll do, Bony, old lad! You’re meat for old Jelly! Hooroo! Saved—I’m saved!”

  “Kindly explain the cause of your exuberance,” Bony urged.

  Eric Hurley snatched at the detective’s tobacco and papers, swiftly rolled a cigarette and lit it. His face was beaming; his eyes were bright. Somehow Bony’s liking for this impetuous man deepened.

  “I’ll tell you the tale,” Hurley consented. “As a matter of fact, I’m in love with a girl. Her name’s Lucy Jelly. She is the loveliest thing within a thousand miles of Burracoppin. Twenty years old, she is. Her father is a cocky four miles out. He doesn’t seem to mind me courting his daughter, but he doesn’t give me a chance to do any courting. That’s Irish, but it’s a fact.”

  Bony nodded sympathetically, his eyes veiled by the black lashes, the tablets of his mind wiped clean to receive new and startling impressions. Hurley went on:

  “Every time I go to her place I get a moment or two with Lucy, and then the old man opens up on murder. He can’t talk about nothing else. He knows the details of every murder case that has happened in Australia for the last ten years at least, how the blokes slipped and got caught, and how they behaved on the drop. Old Jelly sort of catches you by the ear and leads you off to his private little room. He pushes you into a chair,
from which there’s no getting out till it’s time to come home. There’s photographs of murderers all round the walls, and, as an extra treat, sometimes he’ll show you the rope Merrier, the Bendigo killer, was hanged with. You simply got to stay put, and look at the pictures on the walls, and read bits with him out of his albums. You’re his meat, Bony! You’re his meat!”

  “It sounds as though he were a cannibal,” Bony interjected, his interest thoroughly roused, pleasure that this mystery was not so soon to be solved making him happy. “How am I his meat?”

  “Why, it’s simple enough. You come along with me this evening. I introduce you to Lucy and old Jelly. Then you recite your table of murderers. Old Pop Jelly will fall on your neck and take you into his chamber of horrors—he might even show you the rope—and I can go courting Lucy as she should be courted. Gee, I’m glad you got a job with the Rabbits!”

  “Your description of Mr Jelly interests me,” Bony said. To which Hurley replied:

  “Jelly himself will interest you a thunderin’ sight more.”

  Chapter Four

  Mr Jelly

  ERIC HURLEY owned a motor-cycle, to which was fitted a pillion seat, and, being a native of Australia, Bony should have known better than to take a ride thereon over country roads. He afterwards estimated that the two miles to the rabbit fence was covered in less than two minutes.

  The rapidity of this locomotion certainly did not accord with the dignity of an inspector of police, yet he thoroughly enjoyed the rush through the air, warm yet from the sun which had seen set an hour. From the York Road gate they took the government track running east of the fence, roaring up the long sand slope, humming down the farther side. They passed the Loftus farm, tore onward another mile, swerved sickeningly to the left, and stopped with wickedly skidding tyres before a neat and comfortable farmhouse.

  Two dogs welcomed them with much barking. Three turkeys fell off a tree branch, to which, with numerous other domestic fowl, they had climbed via a roughly made bush ladder. A cat came round the house with tail erect. Following it came a little girl whose age appeared to be about fourteen years. She was followed by a young lady alluringly cool in a white muslin dress. And behind her came Mr Jelly.

  If you possess imagination sufficient to magnify a cigar to the size of a six-foot man you will obtain a pictorial impression of Mr Jelly. His head was small with a pointed crown, and his feet were small. From his head downwards and from his feet upwards Mr Jelly’s circumference gradually increased till the middle was reached. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, bald save for a ring of grey hair which rested upon his ears like a halo much too small for him. His complexion was brick red, not alcoholic red, but the red of sunrays and strong winds.

  “You will break your confounded neck one of these days,” he told Hurley in the peculiarly soothing voice of a doctor addressing a rich patient. There was remarkable gentleness and kindly concern in that voice, a surprising vocal inflexion to be heard on an Australian farm.

  “Not me, Mr Jelly. Hullo, Luce! Did you expect me?”

  The girl’s big brown eyes were clear and steady.

  “Yes, of course. Have you forgotten that you said you would come tonight when you left last night?”

  “Forgotten! Of course he’s not forgotten.”

  “Hullo, Sunflower!”

  “Hullo, Eric!”

  “I’ve brought a new friend along because you ought to know him,” Hurley announced easily. “Luce, this is Mr Bony. He has just started for the Rabbit Department.”

  Bony found himself being very thoroughly examined. Wearing no hat, he bowed as never man had bowed to Lucy Jelly. She looked upon his ruddy brown face illuminated by the keen, clean mind, watched the smile slowly break over it which swept aside her instinctive race prejudice, saw his teeth gleam whilst he said with polished grace:

  “Mr Hurley insisted on bringing me, Miss Jelly. I am very happy to meet you.”

  Her eyes widened a fraction at his accent. Without prethought she said:

  “I am glad you came.”

  “This is Miss Dulcie Jelly, known to her friends as Sunflower,” came the next introduction.

  Again Bony bowed, and this time he offered his hand.

  “I hope you will accept me as your friend, for Sunflower is a very pretty name.”

  “I will think about it, Mr Bony,” the young lady replied with unusual reserve.

  “And now it is the old fellow’s turn,” put in Mr Jelly.

  “Mr Bony—Mr Jelly.”

  Mr Jelly stared into the blue eyes of the Saxon, swiftly examined the features of the Nordic. He noted the rich, even colour of the face, in which he could see no vice. Returning the stare, Bony instantly knew that here was a man superior to his fellows, a man of great force, one who had plumbed the depths of knowledge if not the heights.

  The introductions accomplished, Mr Jelly invited them into his house, saying:

  “Well, come along in. We’ve just had dinner, but there’s tea in the pot. I haven’t seen you around Burracoppin before. From what part of Australia do you hail?”

  “Queensland, Mr Jelly. I knocked up a good cheque there breaking in horses, and saw in it an excellent chance to visit Western Australia. Unfortunately, I stayed a little too long, and now must make a cheque with which to get back again.”

  “Horsebreaker, eh? Humph!”

  While following his host through the kitchen door he glanced over his shoulder, to observe Hurley slowly following with one arm round the waist of Lucy Jelly and the other about the shoulders of little Sunflower.

  The kitchen, evidently, was the dining-room. It was spotlessly clean, and austere in its furnishing. Bony was made to seat himself at the table and was given a cup of tea and offered a plate of small cakes. Mr Jelly lit the lamp. The world without was hushed to an unthrobbing silence.

  “Bony is interested in ants, Mr Jelly,” Hurley remarked in his pleasant way. “I found him reading a book about them which has more Latin words in it than English.”

  “Ah!” murmured Mr Jelly noncommittally, studying Bony in the lamplight.

  “Ants always interest me,” Bony confessed. “The termite especially is a wonderful insect.”

  The critical expression in Mr Jelly’s eyes of light blue was replaced by one of pleasure.

  “You are correct, friend. I am delighted to find in you a man of intelligence. The termite was living, as doubtless you are aware, millions of years before man appeared, even millions of years before the Australian bulldog ant, which is the oldest ant. You will agree that the termite’s social laws are so far advanced beyond ours as to make ours merely the confusion of anarchy.”

  “I am glad I came tonight,” Bony said, smiling.

  “I am glad to meet a man who can discuss subjects other than horses, machinery, and wheat and the doings of our local society lights.”

  “You have followed Henry Smeathman?” Bony asked.

  “No, but I have read what Dr David Livingstone said about the termites of Africa. A great naturalist as well as a great missionary. But, come! Let us go to my little den and leave these younger people to entertain each other. Coffee at nine-thirty, Lucy, please.”

  Again following Mr Jelly, Bony once more glanced back. Lucy Jelly was smiling happily. Sunflower Jelly was watching Bony with her big solemn eyes, the eyes of a Maid of Orleans or of a judge in ermine. Mr Eric Hurley closed one of his eyes as his generous mouth widened into a grin.

  Carrying a lighted lamp, Mr Jelly led the way to a room at the farther side of the house. This room contained a plain oak bedstead with coverings, a desk, set against one wall angle, which was littered with papers and account books, a glassfronted bookcase rarely seen in Australian farmhouses, and a large table set before the one window. The table was covered with a black cloth, and on it were several folio-size scrap or press-cutting albums, a pot of glue, writing materials, and an empty picture frame. Hanging on the walls was a gallery of framed portraits.

  “Thi
s is Bluebeard’s chamber,” Mr Jelly was saying in his soft, soothing voice. “It is my private room. None of my household ever comes here. Well?”

  “Here, I see, is the likeness of Maurice, the Longreach murderer, and there is Victor Lord, who killed a woman at Bathurst, New South Wales,” came from Bony, who was examining the pictures. “Surely, Mr Jelly, you are not a criminologist as well as a naturalist?”

  “Indeed I am,” Mr Jelly admitted. “Of the two branches of science I am the more interested in criminology, but I do not neglect the science of agriculture. I do not permit my hobbies to interfere with the practice of my living. There are my children to be considered, and, my wife being dead, the responsibility is entirely on me. Yes, I have given much study to the lives of all those men whose pictures hang on those walls. All of them are murderers, and all of them have been executed. Study of the subject of homicide compels me to believe that it is the result of physical disorder. Sit down. If I can interest you, you will be an exception who will gladden my heart.”

  “I am sure you will interest me,” Bony stated gently. He was actually more interested in Mr Jelly than he had been in a man for many years. To observe the farmer seated at the table with the soft light falling on his benign face, the ruddy complexion, the grey fringe of hair, and the light blue eyes, was to place him at a vast distance from such a hobby or life interest as homicide.

  “Pardon my curiosity,” Bony continued, “but how did you secure all those pictures, for they are studio portraits?”

  “They are photographic copies of newspaper pictures,” the farmer explained, adding with a sweep of his hand over the table: “Here I have their dossiers, accounts of their final trial and death. These albums are full of them, full of the greatest dramas in human life; accounts of men fighting for their vile lives, of women nobly swearing away their souls to save a man from the gallows, of innocent children facing a future where lies their father’s sin ready to crush them at an unexpected moment. Here, let us look at them, these fools who kill.”