“Well enough, Miss Harmon,” replied Bony. “People are friendly. Job is good, and Melody Sam isn’t a hard boss.”
Harmon chuckled with very little mirth when he said:
“You got round him, Nat, like a good ‘un. Next you’ll be getting round Kat, I noticed the gleam in her eye yesterday.”
“Well, I never!” breathed his sister, lowering herself into a chair.
“No good to me,” Bony countered, with conviction. “I’m not settling down in Daybreak, or anywhere.”
“So you say,” growled Harmon. “Those Loader women always get what they go for. Fred Joyce reckoned he wasn’t going to settle down. Wasn’t going to give up the bright life for no woman on earth. A wild colonial boy, no woman was going to tame him. So he said a million times.”
“And you’re meaning to tell us that Kat Loader’s casting eyes at Nat, here?” pressed the interested Esther Harmon.
“I’m not meaning to tell anything,” growled her brother. “You women always will take a man too serious. Pity you don’t take me serious in the right places. I’ll be locking up young Jacks over lunch, and if you go letting him out you’ll be for it.”
“And what’s he been doing?” asked Esther Harmon sharply.
“Milking Mrs Eccers’s goats on the sly. She caught him at it late yesterday. Second time. First time his father gave him a hiding; this time his father asked me to deal with him before Mrs Eccers lays a complaint. As though I haven’t any office work to do, nothing at all but help parents train their children.” He lurched to his feet. “See you after, Nat.”
Grimly Esther Harmon waited until her brother left for his office.
“He’s all right under it all, Nat. You’ll let me call you Nat? I suppose you’ve heard what happened to us down in Kal?”
“Yes, Miss Harmon. That was too bad. How old is the current delinquent?”
“Jacky Jacks! Nine, I believe. A cherub to look at, something else under the skin, I’m afraid.”
“The makings of another Tony Carr?” pin-pointed Bony, and was interested by the flash born in the cripple’s dark eyes.
“Tony Carr never had a chance, Nat. Jacky Jacks is loved by good parents. There’s the difference. My brother George knows that, but he’ll never admit it. That was a terrible thing to have happened to him; it was worse than what happened to me.”
The dark eyes peered earnestly into the blue eyes of this man of two races, and the blue eyes detected the pain, and the courage which had been summoned to keep it at bay. Bony said gently:
“Tell me about it.”
“They’d been married four years, Nat. Such a lovely pair. George is ten years younger than I, and she was five years younger than he. They were expecting a baby, the first. We’d been visiting at Kalgoorlie, and I was driving the car home. We could see the other car coming towards us, and I felt something was wrong and steered our car nearly off the road. There were two young chaps in the oncoming car. I could see them laughing. They drove straight at us, playing chicken, so they said afterwards. I was in hospital when they let George tell me that his sweetheart-wife had been killed. And it wasn’t my brother George at all, Nat. That feller that just went out isn’t my brother George. He will be, for a little while, just while he is trying to drill a little sense into Jack Jacks.”
The acidity had vanished from her voice, and when she covertly dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, Bony asked:
“And how will he do that, Miss Harmon?”
“You’ll see, Nat. He’ll be waiting at the school when the children come out for the lunch break. I know what he’ll do. He has a pair of old handcuffs, and one of them he’s made smaller by binding light rope around it. He’ll grab little Jacky and put that little cuff on him, and he’ll have the other cuff on his own wrist.
“They’ll come walking up the street like that, and into the office. Then George will ask his questions and write down all the answers. Then he’ll read it out and make the child put his name to it, and glare at the mite with his grey eyes, and take him out and lock him in a cell for about two minutes. And then he’ll open the cell and bring the boy back to the office, and talk soft and kind to him, and get him to promise to be good. That’s what he’ll do. I know. I’ve watched him with other boys. During those few times is when he’s my brother as he was before the smash.
“He’s not like that with Tony Carr?”
“Oh no! Tony Carr is dyed in the wool, a chip of the foul block, a brand for the fire. You know, all those old clichés. He’s made up his mind that Tony Carr did those murders. The dreadful thing about Tony Carr is that he looks a little bit like the young chap who was driving the car that smashed into us. George and the other officers from Kalgoorlie would have arrested Tony if it hadn’t been for Fred Joyce and Melody Sam sticking up for him.”
“And you think that Tony Carr isn’t all bad?” prompted Bony, pouring himself a cold cup of tea. Surprisingly, she said:
“What d’you think?”
Now he smiled at her, hoping to dispel her mood.
“I asked you first, remember.”
“I don’t think he’s all bad, Nat. I don’t think any boy is all bad, and if he is, he was made bad, and what’s been made could be unmade. I don’t know how. This strange brother I’m living with has destroyed so much of me. Perhaps it’s because he’s so right so often. But we have to give everyone the benefit of doubt, haven’t we?”
“We should always do so, of course, Miss Harmon.”
Bony rose and moved towards the open door. Pausing, he looked back at the woman, a vast pity surging over him.
“Thank you for the morning tea. I’d like you to invite me again some time.”
She nodded, then said commandingly:
“Come back here.” He returned. “Sit down again.” He obeyed. Her dark eyes wandered over his face, feature by feature, and fractionally her head nodded as though approving of what she was seeing. “All right, Nat. You may go now.”
Again outside in the compound where the sunlight was strong and clear, and in which human pain and agony of mind would never exist ... and did ... Bony strolled across to the horse yards, where he bridled and saddled the grey gelding. The horse nickered and danced, and he talked to him, calling him names and whispering threats of what he’d do when they were away from Daybreak.
Several false mounts before the genuine one which found Bony in the saddle, and temper in the mind of the animal at having been tricked. A few rootings, and a smart slap of the rein-end to remind the grey that the end of foolery was now, and then out into the street, where a stately walk was ordered. The council staff leaned on his shovel and waved. Sister Jenks, who was crossing the road, politely waved good-day. And First Constable Harmon might have stopped to admire his equine property were he not on duty escorting a prisoner to the station office for questioning. He was looking straight ahead, and the prisoner was crying without restraint.
Chapter Twelve
The Dreaded Event
AS WITH many out-back hotels, here at Daybreak single male guests occupied rooms in a detached building fronting the main yard, a custom dictated by the necessity of excluding cheque-men and unattached males from the hotel proper; for in their own quarters they could drink, fight, and otherwise enjoy themselves without disturbing other guests and the staff. The yardman occupied one of these rooms.
For Bony the day began at dawn when he stepped from his room, carrying shaving kit and towel, and crossed the yard to the shower block. Like previous days, this one promised to be clear and warm, with a light south wind, and even thus early a gown was not needed. It was five-twenty and the kitchen range had not to be cleaned and re-lit until six o’clock.
He shaved and showered in leisurely manner, and it was fully light, although the sun had not risen, when he left the shower block for his room—and he was a third of the way across the yard, when he halted. There, quite plain, were the tracks of sandshoes size eight, the replica of the tracks he himself had made
with Harmon’s plaster casts.
The physical suppleness produced by vigorous towelling was replaced by freezing tensity. His eyes narrowed, then blazed wide. His lips pursed to emit a soft whistle, and the nostrils twitched and flared as though trying to smell the man who had left those tracks some time during the night.
The tracks were heading for the fence at the rear of the yard, and they certainly did not pass close to Bony’s bedroom door. Instead of following them he backtracked without difficulty, and thus arrived at the side door of the main building, on either side of which were the windows of the bedrooms. From the side door, backtracking led him to the second bedroom window to the right. His hands were twitching, for generations of aboriginal hunters now controlled him. Gone was the suavity, the mask of white superiority, leaving nothing but elemental man.
He had read the story on the page of the hotel yard.
The man wearing sandshoes, that same man who wore sandshoes when two persons were murdered, had climbed over the back fence, had crossed direct to this particular bedroom window, had wakened the sleeper and persuaded him or her to open the side door. There at the door had been a struggle, following which the man had retreated to the back fence and climbed over it.
And on the other side of that door would surely be the fourth victim.
Bony was half-way on those tracks leading to the fence, when he faltered, halted, brought up by memory of who he was. He was panting, and was ashamed. He was trembling, and was ashamed. Red anger required moments to cool. It was like fighting his way up from the depth of a red fog of ecstasy to the open purity of reason.
Tossing kit and towel in through the doorway of his room, not bothering to dress, he ran across the street and roused Harmon, for Constable Harmon was the representative of Law here and over an area of some half-million square miles. “Come on. Our man was in the hotel yard last night.”
Such was Bony’s command over himself that Harmon received shock from the words. Also in night attire, he ran with Bony to the hotel yard, and inside the now open gates Bony outlined the murderer’s movements, and voiced his conviction of what they would find inside that side door.
“Who occupies that particular bedroom?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” snapped Harmon. “Melody Sam sleeps in this end one.” Striding to the side door, he stood looking down at the maze of tracks, and could see none but those made by sandshoes. “Hell, if he murdered anyone out here, he must have kept their feet off the ground while he was doing it.”
With forefinger and thumb he was able to turn the door handle without touching the knob, and slowly pushed inward. Gently the door swung against the inside wall, disclosing a short passage, dim and just barely revealing a dark-clad object on the floor at the angle.
Bony followed the large man to stoop over the woman. She was wearing a blue gown. It was Kat Loader, and superficial examination proved she was dead, and had been dead for several hours.
“Get Sam,” snarled Harmon.
“A moment,” whispered Bony. “We can’t do anything here. We can follow those tracks while they’re fresh and before the wind gets up. I’ll get Sam, but we mustn’t delay here.”
“You’ve said it, Nat. Go on! Second door on the right.”
Melody Sam was sitting up in bed smoking his first pipe of black tobacco, and he was truly astonished to see Bony walk in on him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, and permitting his expression to give warning of tragedy, Bony began with:
“There’s been another killing, Sam. In the hotel. It’s your granddaughter. Kat ... lying out there in the passage. Take it easy. We have to follow the feller’s tracks. Came in and went out over the back fence.”
The bedroom blind was lowered, but the risen sun lightened the room. The old man’s eyes changed almost to black. Carefully he placed the hot pipe on the ashtray beside the bed. Slowly he nodded understanding, and Bony stood to permit him to lower his feet to the floor. Without a tremor in his voice, he said:
“This time, Nat, I’m goin’ to shoot the first detective that enters Daybreak. The useless bastards! You and me’ll get that killer, Nat, and we’ll hang him under a pepper tree, and then take him down and hang him feet up under all the other trees. Where is she?”
His feet now in slippers, Melody Sam stood swaying and glaring down at Bony, and Bony said icily:
“You are going to use your noggin, Sam. You will stand by your dead, and I shall track that feller if I have to follow him across an ocean. Now come along. Hold yourself.”
“I can do that, all right, Nat.” Following Bony, he stood for a moment gazing at the dead woman. “How was it done, Harmon? Strangled like Mavis Lorelli was. All right, you bastard. We’ll lift you up from the ground and let you hang slowly, and ask you how you like it.”
There was a stock inspector staying at the hotel, and he appeared with the cook. To them Harmon gave instructions to stand guard over the body, and, if possible, over the side-door handle, which might give prints. Then he and Bony went out into the warming sun, and followed the tracks to the back fence.
Beyond the fence was a goat yard, and beyond that open country. They pushed their way through the flock of goats to the far side of the yard, over the low railings, and again picked up the tracks.
“He went down the slope,” Harmon said, and there could be no mistake, for the tracks of the sandshoes were plain. “I’d better get a horse. He could be mounted.”
“Hope he is,” assented Bony. “Horse tracks give us more. You could do with a gun.”
“I’ll get both.”
Harmon ploughed his way back through the goats, and Bony renewed his tracking. The murderer had gone directly down the slope. For a thousand yards the tracking was no task whatever, and then the murderer had stepped on to surface rock, as it was known he had previously done. The surface rocks were small in area, and the man could step from one to another, or leap between others. Bony kept on till he reached the lower edge of the rock masses, and there failed to find the tracks of sandshoes. There were boot tracks, the tracks left by barefooted children, but not the murderer’s tracks, no tracks made by a man having a slight limp. It meant circling the entire rocky area to find where the sandshoe man had left it.
Time was precious. The sun was gaining height. The wind was shifting to the east. He swore, politely. He had been tricked even thus early.
The killer could not have crossed this large area of individual surface rocks in the dark of night, for, no matter how good his eyesight, there was no difference in colour between rock and ground, or difference in level of rock with the earth. He, Bony, had been tricked by not putting himself into the mind of the fugitive.
Returning to the tracks where they reached the rocky area, he had to scout both south and north to find what the killer had done to thwart his certain trackers. Feeling himself on rock, he had located a low shrub, and had leaped to it, and from it had managed to gain another, and then another. Bony could see the broken plants, which from casual sighting would give the picture of goats having fed on them. The shrubs the killer could see in the dark of the night.
The sandshoe tracks now led Bony to the north and parallel with the town, then slewed on down the slope, and away from the back yards of houses. It now appeared that the killer was making for the mulga forest, or perhaps to the scrub trees, to one of which he had neck-roped a horse.
Again the fellow came to surface rock, but this surface was a continuous mass covering three to four acres, and anyone reasonably familiar with the location could find it in the night. Bony didn’t bother to track across it. He proceeded to circle it to find where the man had stepped off it on to trackable earth again. He found the tracks of the man wearing old leather shoes. He had made the change, but he could not disguise the manner of his walk; viz., the distance between strides, the angle of placing the feet, and the limp.
Now he was going up the slope towards the north end of Main Street. Ha! Here he had tripped over an old mulga root, sprawling for
ward on his hands, and then, on regaining his feet, had rubbed out the handmarks. On again. Now there was something wrong with his walk. Hurt, perhaps? But no, here he was his normal self. Up towards Daybreak; back to Daybreak; back to his lair with the killing lust satisfied, to fall asleep and wake to remember the details as of a dream. So saith the psychiatrist.
Harmon came running down the slope, to gasp that he couldn’t wait to locate the butcher’s horse as he recalled seeing it loose on the town common.
“How you going, Nat?” he managed to get out.
“Good. Our gentleman changed his sandshoes for leather ones on that rock back there. Here’s his tracks now. He’s carrying the sandshoes. Promising, Harmon, very.”
“I hope,” snarled the policeman. “You sound like Sherlock Holmes already. Where’s he making for, back to town?”
“Surely. That’s where he lives.”
Now confident of Bony’s capabilities, more so because of his colouring than previous proof, Harmon maintained position to the tracker’s rear. He had changed into uniform trousers, and about his waist was a leather belt carrying a holster, complete with heavy service revolver. The tracks of the leather shoes or boots led them to the far end of Main Street, and then along that street to enter the side gate of the butcher’s premises.
“Thought so,” breathed Harmon.
The lane-way ended at the yard behind Fred Joyce’s house and shop. Outside the back door the butcher was emptying a teapot and, seeing them, he became a statue to be titled ‘Australian’s Daily Chore’. He witnessed Bony, followed by the policeman, advance direct to the hessian doorway of a hut at the yard’s far fence.
The hut was on a par with those at Dryblowers Flat, being constructed with wood slabs under a corrugated iron roof. There was glass to the window, but no door. There was a chimney made of sheet iron, which, like the roof, was badly rusted. Outside the entrance several salt-sacks had been sewn together to form a mat.
“It’s him, eh?” whispered Harmon, and, almost reluctantly, Bony nodded. Then he was swept aside and Harmon stood before the curtained entrance, feet wide apart, gun drawn.
Bony and the Mouse Page 9
