Breakaway House

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Wombera spoke with less facility than Ned and much less than Nora. He was dressed in tattered dungaree trousers and a brown shirt, and he was without hat and boots. He was emphatically in favour of Nora going back to her rightful husband so as to avert a quarrel between the two tribes, a quarrel which would otherwise be certain to result from this domestic irregularity.

  Brett considered ringing the police station at Myme; for, after all, N’gobi was a gaol breaker and should be arrested and returned to gaol. In fact he had been asked to report any information concerning N’gobi’s whereabouts. Brett wished with increased fervour that Tremayne was home or that he would quickly put in an appearance, for he was unsure what Tremayne would want him to do.

  “Ned, you and Nora will stay here,” he commanded. “I’ll decide what to do with Nora later on. I might arrange for her and Millie to sleep inside the homestead, and for you, Ned, to camp with English. If you believe in the pointing bone you’re a fool.

  You just stay quiet and do what I tell you. Get some tucker from Soddy for Wombera.”

  “I’ll not go away with N’gobi,” Nora burst out passionately. “He beat me. He’s a bad man. I’ll not go. Ned’s my man.”

  Brett smiled into her stricken eyes, and his smile appeared to allay her terror. Frances was calling to him from the open window, and he crossed to see what she wanted.

  “It’s the telephone,” she explained when he reached the French windows. “I hardly liked to answer it.”

  She saw the cloudiness in his eyes when she stepped back to admit him.

  “I’m glad you didn’t answer it,” he said. “Please put on the gramophone again.”

  The bell rang once more, insistently. The Merry Widow waltz broke into its lilting melody. Brett lifted off the receiver. “Filson speaking,” he said loudly.

  “Oh, day, Filson,” he heard Tonger say. “Frances arrive all right?”

  “Yes. She’s here now. Did you want to speak to her?”

  “Not particularly. Just wanted to know if she got over. Think it’s going to rain?”

  “Yes, I do rather. Wind in the right quarter. We could do with an inch.”

  “We could that. Hope it keeps off for another twenty-four hours, though. Colonel Lawton is here as doubtless Frances has told you. Wants to return north tomorrow. An inch would make the take-off ground a bit boggy. Well, goodbye Filson. Pack Frances back if it should rain, and rain or no rain, set her off before midnight. That is, if she’s not staying over until tomorrow.”

  “Very well. Just heard that N’gobi is on his way here to claim Nora. I’ll have to ring the police, I suppose, and have him arrested.”

  “Shoot the swine, Filson. Save trouble. Oh! By the way, I’d like to have a word with Tremayne if he’s there.”

  Now smiling grimly, Filson turned to the company who were watching him with not a little intentness. He held the receiver about a foot from his head and said loudly: “Harry, Mr Tonger wants a word or two with you.”

  The women regarded him with astonishment. The waltz played on. After a distinct pause, Brett again placed the receiver against ear and lips to say in a remarkable imitation of Tremayne’s voice: “Hello, Mr Tonger! Tremayne speaking.”

  “Ah, that you, Tremayne?” said the Breakaway House squatter. “What about those stitches I put into your scalp? Better come over tomorrow or the next day and have them pulled out.”

  “Righto, thanks, I will,” assented the overseer’s voice. “All right. Bye-bye!”

  Replacing the receiver, Brett turned thoughtfully to his guests.

  Violet Winters cut off the gramophone. “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Mr Tonger.”

  “What did he want?” It did not occur to him that she was rude, so evident was her anxiety.

  “Mr Tonger first wished to know if Miss Frances had arrived,” he said slowly. “Then he wanted to speak to Harry Tremayne.”

  “In that case Mr Tremayne can’t be at Breakaway House, and that’s something to be thankful for.” Violet Winters was standing squarely on her feet, hands on hips, her attitude that of a fighting Amazon.

  Ann and Frances remained silent, waiting for her leadership.

  “Why did you answer in Mr Tremayne’s voice?” was her next question.

  “Because he wanted me to do so should Mr Tonger ring up and ask for him,” Brett replied. “He made me practise mimicking his voice. He said that it would be important for Mr Tonger to believe he was here and that…”

  “So he is at Breakaway House,” Violet cut in swiftly. “He was expecting them to do something, before which they would make certain he wasn’t there to see them do it. He’s over there all right.” Abruptly she swung round to face Frances, to stare at her with such concentration that Frances flushed.

  “Why do you look at me like that?” Frances asked with sudden coldness.

  The big woman’s voice was equally cold when she said: “I’m wondering how far you’re to be trusted.”

  “In so far as Mr Tremayne is concerned, I think I’m to be totally trusted,” Frances said, coldness replaced by heat. “You see, we’re going to be married some day.”

  “Be married!” echoed Violet. With surprising swiftness Violet reached the girl’s side and stared hard at her. “Is he in love with you?”

  Frances nodded. Into her eyes had leapt the truth.

  Silently Violet turned away and walked heavily to the window.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  COLONEL LAWTON EXPLAINS

  THE interior of the great corrugated iron shed was commanded by quietness akin to that reigning in a church. Within, peace; without, the mundane noises of life; in this instance the bellow of a far-distant steer and the regular chug-chug-chug of a petrol engine.

  Anyone standing just inside the closed double doors would face several rows of sagging wool bales; sagging because half the contents of each were piled on tarpaulins laid before each row. On the far side of this part of the building a stack of wool bales rose in tiers halfway to the roof. Should the observer turn half right, he would look along a shuttered wall surmounted by the shearing machinery. The wall abutted a straight aisle of wool-polished flooring skirted by heavily built wooden pens which in turn were skirted by larger pens or yards constructed with lighter material. It was possible to keep under one roof twelve hundred sheep to await barbering the next day.

  This particular Sunday afternoon the shed interior was less brilliantly illuminated than usual by the daylight filtering through the far open end, for the sky was overcast by a thickening haze which had slowly blotted out the sun.

  Above the beat of the petrol engine rose the murmur of men’s voices, and a moment later the side door opened to admit Morris Tonger, Colonel Lawton, Whitbread the boss stockman, and three hands.

  “Ah…everything ready, I see,” remarked the Colonel in peculiarly silken tones. It was a voice general to youths and sounded incongruous with his stature. His left eye was drawn up into its habitual half-closed position, presenting a further incongruity beside the right eye which remained fixedly open. He was dressed in immaculate flannels.

  “I prepared the bales directly I knew you were coming,” Tonger said quickly. “We’ll have a clear run, and I’ll be damned glad when this consignment’s shipped.”

  “I shall be pleased, too, but it’s a pity it will have to be the last consignment for some considerable time,” Lawton said coldly. “There would have been no necessity for it to be so had you not mixed with that other organisation. Why you should have desired to pick up pennies when you were picking up pounds with greater security is very difficult for me to understand.”

  To this Morris Tonger offered no further explanation, if he had made any former explanation. Flushing slightly with impatience, he asked: “Shall we get on with the work?”

  “Of course, have the stuff brought from the plane.”

  Languidly, Colonel Lawton stooped to pick up a sample of the Breakaway House wool and closely examined the snowy fi
bres. The squatter gave orders to Whitbread and the boss stockman, a powerful, swarthy man growing a jet black moustache, motioned the hands to follow him. They began to bring into the shed small boxes made of heavy iron, each box about a foot square and some six inches in depth. After making several trips forty of these boxes were piled on the floor between two wool presses.

  Lawton made no attempt to assist in the operations. He sat on a filled wool bale, one of those forming the bottom tier of the stack and idly fingered the wisp of wool, gazing abstractedly at it, as if he were trying to work out a solution to a vexing problem.

  Whitbread and his assistants worked the two wool presses, dragging the half emptied bales to them. When the open ends of the bales were fixed to the top of the presses, Tonger placed an iron box inside each one. The wool formerly removed from the bales was then rammed down on top, the plunger of the press forcing it compactly into each bale, and the bales were then clipped shut. As they were brought out of the presses, Morris Tonger stencilled letters and numerals on the outside which to the uninitiated would be puzzling, but which to wool brokers and shipping agents were quite plain in meaning.

  Thus were the iron boxes, brought by Colonel Lawton in his plane, disposed of. Whitbread was then ordered to bring in another lot of boxes, and then he and his assistants departed in a truck which roared up the grade rising westward from the house.

  “There are sixty to come from the store, aren’t there?” inquired the Colonel.

  Tonger nodded but did not look up from his task of branding the refilled bales. The Colonel carelessly slipped off his seat and began casually to pat and punch those bales which were stacked. Just why they interested him was not clear. He then climbed up to the first tier, and sauntered along it a little distance before climbing up to the next tier. When he reached the fourth and topmost tier, his expression was one of slight interest, and without haste he produced an automatic pistol. Still maintaining his habitual softness of voice, he said: “Should you emerge head first, I’ll riddle it with a point forty-five bore nickel-plated, soft-nose bullet. Come up with your hands held high above your head. I want to see your hands first.”

  Tonger, who was regarding the Colonel with amazement, called up from the floor of the wool room: “What the devil are you about?”

  “Patience, my dear Morris, patience,” Lawton urged. “We have here, I feel sure, someone who should not be here. Now, Mr Spy, like Lazarus, come forth, but hands if…”

  The astonished Morris Tonger heard from the depths of the stacked wool a dry chuckle. That was followed by faint scratchings, and a moment later he saw two human hands rise above the topmost tier, between it and the shed wall.

  Following the hands rose the grinning countenance of Harry Tremayne. “Good afternoon, Colonel. Is it going to rain?” he inquired blandly.

  “It appears to be quite probable,” replied Lawton.

  “Tremayne!” Tonger burst out. “By heck! Shoot him and end his cursed business.”

  Lawton’s right brow rose level with the permanently raised left brow.

  “So you are Police Constable Harry Tremayne,” he said wonderingly. “Ah! Now I recognise you. You once called on me with census papers, or a summons or something.”

  “Those golden days are gone never to return, I’m afraid,” Harry said mockingly.

  “I’m compelled to agree with you,” murmured the Colonel.

  “There are moments when I regret having resigned from the police force. How long do you require me to stand like this?”

  “Pardon. Just a moment longer. Morris, come on up and…er…fan Mr Tremayne.”

  “Hurry, Tonger! My arms begin to tire,” Tremayne cheerfully urged. “By the way, Colonel, how did you discover me?”

  “It was your cheap watch that betrayed you. It ticks a little louder than a good one does. We quite thought you to be at Bowgada, or rather, Mr Tonger did.”

  “I could have sworn it was he who spoke over the telephone,” the squatter said vehemently, clambering up to them. “I’ll get even with Filson for that trick.”

  Lawton was now smiling with his lips.

  Tonger reached them and was coolly informed by Tremayne that he would find a pistol in his right-hand pocket. Tonger was smiling too, a wolfish, triumphant smile. His red blotched face was thrust close to the overseer and his hand was groping for the pistol when Tremayne’s left fist smote him against the jaw.

  It sent the big man staggering sideways and he slipped over the edge of the wool tier to fall down the stacks like a piece of jetsam sliding down a waterfall. At the bottom, on the floor, he lay still for an instant and groaned, but long before that, Tremayne had swung round upon the Colonel with panther-like agility.

  “Of course – if you really wish to die,” Lawton said, and Tremayne knew that he would die if he sprang. Destruction was looking at him out of hard, ice-blue eyes. The quiet voice said gently: “You can go for your gun if you think you have a chance.”

  “I don’t think I have a ghost of a chance,” was Tremayne’s opinion.

  The smile on Lawton’s mouth became pronounced. His mouth was the only feature, the only part of him which moved. His eyelids were frozen, and the muzzle of the squat pistol and the hand which held it remained as steady as though carved in bronze.

  “You may produce your pistol and lay it down on the bale at your side,” suggested the Colonel. “Let me entreat you not to hurry. Haste on your part would give me a wrong impression of your intentions.”

  “Had much practice with a pistol?” Tremayne asked conversationally whilst transferring his pistol from pocket to bale.

  “Well, yes, I must admit I’ve had a good deal of practice one way and another,” Lawton admitted. “I was in South America for four years, in those parts where pistols, knives and poison are considered necessary adjuncts to life. Now if you will kindly step backward six paces – good. If you wish, you may smoke, but remember my request not to hasten when your hands are in your pockets. You see, I’m not quite sure that you don’t have a second weapon.”

  Morris Tonger came clambering up the wool bales. “What are we going to do with him,” he demanded, twisting a crowbar in his hands. “He knows too much. He’s got to be put out. We can’t…”

  “Try to be calm, Morris. Believe me, I feel for you. A smack against the jaw, I know, upsets one, but nevertheless, try to be calm.”

  “Shall I make you a cigarette, Tonger?” Tremayne inquired, having lit the one he just rolled. He spoke casually enough, but inwardly he was angry at being thus trapped. He was stung by the ease of Lawton’s victory, and before he had even found out what those iron boxes contained! Gold. Surely not! The amount of gold that could be contained in those boxes would not be enough to tempt a man of Colonel Lawton’s calibre.

  When he spoke his voice was impersonal. “I’m wondering just what is inside those boxes you packed away amidst the wool,” he drawled. “Do you mind enlightening me?”

  “Not at all, Mr Tremayne. Only too pleased,” came the soft voice. “Kindly refrain from interrupting, Morris. Each of those boxes contains seven pounds weight of cocaine – pure cocaine. We are about to consign to England seven hundred pounds weight of the finest grade cocaine.”

  “Quite a nice little parcel,” Tremayne said admiringly. “Dispatched like that the Customs people wouldn’t worry too much.”

  “Exactly, Mr Tremayne,” Lawton agreed calmly. “As you doubtless know, Java produces quite a lot of cocaine which isn’t controlled by the League of Nations, the shrub having in the first instant been imported from Peru and Bolivia, to which countries it’s indigenous.

  “Just after the war, when the demand for cocaine was at its peak, a lot of people were concerned in supplying the demand. One man I knew used to receive one hundred pounds a trip for taking a few ounces into England, thereby earning a comfortable income. In a general way, everyone was earning a comfortable income, bar we fools who thought we were putting an end to war forever.

  “Tha
t, of course, is a digression for which I ask pardon.” The Colonel shrugged. “I will not weary you with an explanation of the whys and wherefores I went into the drug trade. My reasons were personal. I’ve never been concerned with the morals of others, or interested in human weaknesses, save to exploit them. I’m convinced that men and women have a free right to do with their bodies what they will. If they wish to destroy themselves, what is it to me if they use cocaine in preference to strychnine, excepting, of course, the monetary angle. Weak people should always be assisted to leave this world they so encumber.

  “You see, my dear Mr Tremayne, the save-my-brother philosophy is not for me. When I returned to look after my station which borders the Ninety Mile Beach on the northwest coast of this State, I saw the possibility of importing cocaine from Java and re-exporting it to England. The official mind, which invariably runs in a groove, always looks for drugs entering from the Continent or from Asiatic ports. I saw that hidden within such a commodity as wool, and coming from Australia, cocaine could be got into England with comparative ease. A ship…”

  “Say no more!” interrupted Tonger, his face livid. “Tremayne knows too much as it is.”

  “Please be quiet, Morris,” he was blandly reproved, and to the interested Harry, the Colonel continued: “A fast ship brings the contraband to a point off the Ninety Mile Beach, and my own fishing launch brings it ashore. It’s very simple; just routine, for as you well know, the Ninety Mile Beach isn’t devoted to tourist resorts and it isn’t patrolled by coastguards. Even the Navy never steams near it. I believe that a foreign nation could occupy the country for a fortnight before anyone knew about it. The contraband is transferred from the launch to motor trucks which bring it to my homestead, and, because I own cattle stations which do not produce fabrics exportable in bales, I bring the contraband to Breakaway House per aeroplane.”

  “Have you taken leave of your senses?” Tonger broke in.

  “You’ll presently observe the method in my madness, Morris,” Lawton said carelessly. “Having brought the cocaine to Breakaway House we pack it, as you have observed, into the middle of each wool bale. Stout iron boxes are necessary to withstand the tremendous strain exerted on them by the dumping presses at the wool stores, each bale being compressed into less than half its length to permit more of them occupying a ship’s available space. Our wool is consigned direct to a Bradford firm which takes over the business over there.”