“You would really like to accompany me?”
“I know now that I would. Tell me, do you suspect Mrs Loftus of anything? I shall not repeat what you tell me, Mr Bony.”
“I think she has le mot d’énigma.”
“Meaning that she holds the key to the mystery,” Lucy said, laughing. “You see, I haven’t forgotten all my French.”
“Nor have you forgotten anything about cotton,” he added, laughing with her.
Bony was coming to respect Lucy Jelly for her mental qualities. She was so feminine, yet so sure of herself. She was entirely without the frivolity and shallowness of many young girls, so very worthy to receive his confidences. So he said:
“I think I know where Loftus is, and I believe that Mrs Loftus, too, knows where her husband is.”
“Do you?” She was staring at him when she added: “And do you think Father knows?”
“Frankly, I cannot say ‘yes’ to that. Precisely what is the mainspring of his interest in the disappearance of George Loftus I have no idea, unless he is engaged in a little private detective work, thinking that the police have given up the case. Of course there may be something inside the Loftus house which he badly wants, which would explain his visit there the other night. Much concerning him will be made clear when he receives the next telegram, because I shall then know who sent it, and, knowing, can trace the reason of it all.
“I’ll have a quiet talk to Eric about our going to the place on Saturday. We shall want his assistance. Yes, that is a very lovely centre. Hullo, Sunflower! Have you and Eric finished already?”
“It doesn’t take him and me long to wash up. We can talk and work. Lucy and Mrs Saunders can’t talk and work, Mr Bony,” the maid explained, adding when she saw that her sister was about to offer objection: “Look! What did I say? Lucy has put in only five threads since you have been out here together. I said that she couldn’t talk and work at the same time.”
“You have sharp eyes,” Bony said with admiration.
“Have I? I wish they were as sharp as yours.”
“They are, every bit, Sunflower. Eyes become sharp with practice. It is a great asset to be able to use one’s eyes, and that is done only by making observation a habit. What were you both doing down at the dam this afternoon?”
With a pretty blush Sunflower said:
“How did you know?”
“Well, as both you and Miss Lucy went to the dam this afternoon, I assume that you went in for a bathe. There are faint smears of clay on your shoes. The clay is identical with that surrounding the dam.”
When the laughter had subsided, in which Mrs Saunders and Eric were able to join. Sunflower suggested with wonderful tact that Bony might like to play a game of euchre. Quick to see what lay behind this suggestion, he instantly agreed and followed the maid and Mrs Saunders into the living-room-kitchen, leaving Lucy and her lover to stroll away through the fast-falling dusk.
The three played euchre with much concentration for over an hour, when the dogs barked, and a moment later steps sounded on the veranda boards. From the open doorway Mick Landon said pleasantly:
“Good evening, everyone! May I come in?”
“Certainly, Mr Landon. Will you take a hand at euchre?” Sunflower asked politely but not warmly.
When Landon stepped into the lamplight they saw that he was dressed in a well-pressed pair of gabardine trousers, a white shirt with collar laid back and sleeves rolled to the elbows, and white tennis shoes. As usual, he was shaved. Seating himself at the table, he said:
“Really I came over for a word with Eric. Is he out?”
“Yes, but they’ll be back for supper shortly,” Mrs Saunders told him, holding the pack of cards ready to deal.
“If I may, I’ll wait. Please deal me a hand too.”
Coolly sure of himself, Landon picked up the cards dealt him, smiled at Sunflower, and nodded genially at Bony. He asked Mrs Saunders how she was weathering the heat, and of Sunflower how she enjoyed the dance at the Jilbadgie Hall.
“We shall not be having another dance till March,” he said regretfully. “It’s too hot during the summer to have dances, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it is” Mrs Saunders agreed. “And besides, people are too tired to go off to dances after a long harvesting day. There’s the dogs barking again. That’ll be Lucy and her boy coming back.”
The lovers entered a few moments later.
“Here is Mr Landon waiting to see you, Eric,” announced Sunflower, when the two halted just inside the door.
“Evening, Miss Jelly. Hullo, Eric!”
“What do you want to see me about?” Hurley asked, unfortunately, so Bony thought, glancing quickly at him.
Laying down his cards, Landon swung round to face the fence-rider.
“Mrs Loftus was saying that you called yesterday to make an offer for her haystack. We saw you pass with Bony this evening, and she asked me to come over to find out if you have found a seller yet.”
“Well, no, I haven’t.”
“You offered two pounds, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Hurley replied stiffly.
“Do you think that your man would go a bit higher?”
Bony’s eyes were engaged with the task of making a cigarette, yet he sensed that once again Hurley glanced at him sharply. All his nerves felt as though tautened by one string, as a violin string is tightened by a musician.
“He might go a little higher,” Hurley admitted after that revealing glance. “What would Mrs Loftus take?”
When Landon next spoke Bony knew that he was bluffing.
“Well, really it is not for her to say what she would take, but rather what your man is prepared to give. She is not at all anxious to sell, but, being a businesswoman, she would feel bound to accept a good offer.” The man paused, then added: “Say three pounds a ton.”
Hurley did not now need silently to refer to Bony. Three pounds per tone for hay in the stack was absurdly high. He did not see, as did Bony, that the sum was set high purposefully.
“A man would be a fool to pay three pounds, Mick.”
“Of course he would,” Landon agreed instantly. “As I said, Mrs Loftus doesn’t want to sell, but she will sell for a really good price. Who’s the man who wants to buy?”
“I was asked not to say.”
“Perhaps I could guess?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was it George Loftus?”
The detective noted how Landon’s peculiar slate-blue eyes were blazing at Hurley. Instead of prevaricating, as Bony would have done by asking a cross question, Hurley answered Landon’s question in the negative.
“Was it Mr Jelly?”
Bony learned afterwards that at this point Hurley feared that Landon would find out what he wanted to know by a process of elimination. The fence-rider suddenly retrieved his former mistakes by saying in a hesitating manner:
“Er—oh no! It wasn’t Mr Jelly. It’s no use keeping on, Mick. I shall not tell you who asked me to buy hay. Anyway, if Mrs Loftus won’t sell at two pounds, I’m sure I’ll find someone else who will.”
Landon capitulated with a smile. Getting to his feet, he said:
“Very well, if you won’t say.”
Bony could have patted Hurley’s back with approbation, for his hesitant reply removed Landon’s suspicions that the buyer was Bony and centred them on the absent Mr Jelly.
“Your father away again just now?” he said to Lucy Jelly with the calculating eyes of a sensualist. It made Hurley fidget. Bony felt a surge of blood at the temples.
“Yes. He went on Sunday,” Lucy replied coldly.
“What time Sunday?”
“I think Mrs Loftus will be waiting to know about the hay, Mr Landon.”
Once again came Landon’s easy laughter. It was as though he knew his power over women, knew that he had but to exert himself to conquer Lucy Jelly.
“I seem crammed full of questions, don’t I?” he said. “Mr Jelly is
a strange man. One of these times when he goes away he will never come back. If you rear a parrot in parrot country, directly the young bird can fly it will go away with the wild ones for ever-lengthening periods until the time comes when it will stay with the wild ones for good. I’ll be going. Good night, everyone!”
Still smiling, he walked out of the house, followed by Bony, who really wanted to make sure that the fellow actually did return at least as far as the rabbit fence. Outside in the silent night he said:
“Seen any more prowlers?”
“No. I think old Loftus is satisfied with what he got.”
“You still think it was Loftus?”
“I am more sure it was since we heard that it wasn’t Loftus at Leonora. By the way, do you know who it is who wants to buy hay?”
“I do not.” Bony replied distinctly.
“Would you like to earn a tenner?”
“I’d do a lot of trying,” Bony admitted. “I’m sick of Western Australia. I want to get back to Queensland.”
Landon caught at Bony’s arm.
“I’ll give you a tenner,” he said, “if you find out who it is who wants to buy Mrs Loftus’s hay. Will you have a go?”
“I certainly will,” the detective agreed fervently. “That will be an easy ten pounds for me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lucy Jelly’s Adventure
THE FARMERS’ meeting at the Burracoppin Hall was advertised to start at eight-thirty. At eight o’clock Bony had made his dispositions for his second attack on the secrets of the Loftus homestead.
Behind his offer to purchase Mrs Loftus’s hay was his conviction that buried in the haystack was the body of the missing farmer, and if this were actual fact he considered it likely that immediately Mrs Loftus heard of some person’s interest in it she would have it fired.
If the body of Loftus was buried in the stack, its position most assuredly would be somewhere along its line of centre, as far as possible from either wall, so that the smell it cast off would not penetrate to the outside to be noticeable to the chance passer-by. And, too, it would lie near the ground, because when Loftus disappeared the haystack was only beginning to be built. To remove it would necessitate pulling away from the stack tons of hay in sheaves, sheaves to be piled in great heaps to arouse the curiosity and suspicions of more than one visitor to the homestead. The only practical method of removal was to fire the stack, and, when the ashes were cool, to remove the remains and dispose of them finally elsewhere. It was this procedure, Bony was confident, Mrs Loftus and Landon would carry out when satisfied that the search for Loftus was long given up, and he had hoped that his offer for the hay would expedite the date.
Yet Landon and his mistress had made no such move after Hurley had made the offer for the stack. Nor had they done so when the fence-rider had brilliantly insinuated that Mr Jelly was the prospective buyer. This, in consequence, had made Bony one degree less sure that the body was in the haystack.
What he wanted, and hoped to obtain, was further evidence against the suspects. Previously dissatisfied with his examination of the kitchen, he counted on the possibility of there finding the box to the lock of which fitted the key he had found in the table leg. If not in the kitchen, it might be found beneath the earth floor of Mick Landon’s tent.
At eight o’clock all that was left of the day was the shaded purple ribbon lying along the western horizon. Far to the north-west and north lightning flickered about massed clouds, lighting up their snowy virgin hearts coyly hid by the falling veils of rain. The muttering thunder held no menace, so distant was it.
Hurley and the detective sat at the edge of the main south road, ready to take cover among the close-growing bushes massed on either side and covering the summit of that long sweep of sand rise between the Loftus farm and the old York Road. They could see light shining from the window of the Loftus farmhouse and could judge with fair accuracy the position of the farm gate down the long, straight road fading into the ever-mysterious gloom of early night.
Beyond the rabbit fence, beyond the government’s private road, hidden among the scrub, was Hurley’s motor-cycle.
To avoid the probability of anyone on the Loftus farm hearing the machine stop at this place at this time, the two men had brought the machine from the town that morning in the fence-rider’s cart. The canvas drop sides of the hooded vehicle adequately masked the operation of withdrawing the machine from the cart and carrying it into the dense bush. Most carefully Bony had obliterated their own tracks, and they then had renewed three posts in the fence to account for their halt there. Everything possible had been done to prevent suspicion, which, once aroused, might decide Mrs Loftus not to attend the meeting with Landon, whose secretaryship commanded his attendance.
They now waited the passing of the Loftus car, and at twenty minutes past eight first observed its headlights flash out near the house and later watched them whilst the car was being driven slowly over the bumpy track to the gate. Bony walked across the road and took concealment amongst the bush, leaving Hurley on the fence side, so that their observations of the passengers in the oncoming car might be checked.
“It was Landon driving, all right,” Hurley said after the car had passed and they were watching its red tail-light dwindling to the glow of a cigar end. “The two women were on the front seat with him. There was no one in the back seat.”
“Your report coincides with my own, save that from my position I could not identify the driver,” Bony said. “We will give them a quarter of an hour.”
Actually the detective allowed twenty-five minutes to pass before he and Hurley brought out of the bush the latter’s machine to the government track.
“You carry on, Eric. I’ll await you at the farm gate.”
When Hurley had set off to pick up Lucy Jelly, waiting opposite her father’s house, Bony picked up two sugar sacks, shouldered them, and walked down the rise to the meeting place. Three cars passed, travelling with speed towards Burracoppin and, presumably, the farmers’ meeting. By his watch it was five minutes to nine when Lucy and her cavalier reached him.
“You are still willing to help me, Miss Jelly?” Bony asked her when he had assisted her to alight from the pillion seat.
“Yes. I’ve brought cottons and needles and a pair of scissors.”
“It should not take us long. Now, please, permit Eric to lift you over the fence. I will go first, because the barbed wires are dangerous.”
Now on the west side of the rabbit fence, he led them to the Loftus farm gate, wide open, and halted them several yards from it, where low bushes gave adequate concealment. Here he emptied the contents of one of the sugar bags, which proved to be three balls of binder twine. From one of the balls he secured the running end, made a loop, and gave it to Hurley with instructions to fasten it to his wrist, for it was his intention to lay a line signal to the homestead. He said:
“When I am ready I will pull on the twine till it is fairly taut. I will then tug three times as a signal, and you will tug three times, signalling all clear. Whereupon you, Miss Lucy, will at once come to me, keeping to the stubble and wearing those elegant sheepskin shoes I made for you. Should anyone pass through the gate towards the homestead, you will warn me by pulling in all the twine, replacing it in the bag, and then stand by for a possible quick retreat. Now is that all thoroughly understood?”
Having their assurance that it was, he set off with the remaining sugar sack and the two balls of twine, allowing the twine of the third ball to run out after him until, reaching its length, he paused to secure its end to the new end of the second ball. In this way half of the third ball was laid down when he came to the edge of the stubble paddock facing the front of the homestead.
The three dogs were barking viciously, chained to their kennels. They presented to him the greatest problem, as he had expected they would be after the laying of the aniseed trail, and, short of poisoning them, the only method left him to silence them was the tempting offer of many b
eef bones within the second sugar sack.
Leaving the half-used ball of twine near the only door of the house, he strode swiftly and unfurtively towards the dogs, crying in a loud, stern voice for them to cease. Two obeyed, but the third was loath to stop, crouching and alternately barking and snarling. This was the one ferocious animal among them. He could see it dimly, crouched. When the others seized upon the bones this dog spurned his share, and without waste of time the detective found a stick and masterfully proceeded to thrash it till it slunk into its kennel. After that they all remained quiet.
He spent five valuable minutes closely examining the haystack, becoming satisfied that no attempt had been made to remove anything from its interior. His next move was to the house. He discovered that a Yale lock had been fitted to the door. A close scrutiny of the two windows revealed that someone, probably Landon, had increased the efficiency of the clasps by the addition of two extra to each window, but these catches being far more simple than the Yale lock, it was but a matter of half a minute before he was in the house, searching the two rooms with his electric torch. The house, as he had expected, was empty of human beings.
Able to open the door from the inside, he passed out, picked up the binder twine, pulled it taut, and tugged three times. The answering three tugs immediately came back. He cut the twine, made a loop of the line end, and dropped this over the handle of a tin washing dish he balanced against a leg of the washing bench on the narrow east veranda. When Hurley pulled the twine the dish would be upset with a clatter and the loop end freed for Hurley to pull back, hand over hand, to the farm fence.
With much satisfaction, Bony waited for Lucy Jelly to join him.
“Are you quite steady?” he asked when she did join him.
“Yes, Mr Bony,” she whispered, which made him say:
“You may talk normally. There is no one here. There is not the slightest need to be nervous, and Eric will warn us in ample time if they do return early from the meeting. Come along.”
Conducting her into the house, he closed the door but left open the kitchen window through which he had gained access. They could not fail to hear the wash-basin fall over should Hurley pull on the binder twine. When in the bedroom the detective lowered the blind, and then, to save time, he gave the torch to the girl and began searching for the repaired slit at the foot of the mattress.
Mr Jelly’s Business Page 20
