Note Series K/11
DURING THE return journey to Burracoppin in the guard’s van of the goods train which leaves Merredin at five o’clock, Bony mentally reviewed the two cases now absorbing his interest. The guard was busy checking his sheets and bills, and there were no other passengers to disturb the peace with their caustic observation about the wheat market and the Government.
The dark mystery of Mr Jelly was in no way lightened by Bony’s trip to Merredin. The telegram produced by the postmaster was both baffling and astonishing, astonishing because the sender of it certainly was notDulcie Jelly. Bony had walked the streets of Merredin for an hour, had then returned to the post office to secure if possible a description of the person who had sent the telegram in Sunflower’s name.
The clerk who had accepted the message could not recall the person who had passed it in for dispatch. He was not positively sure, but had a faint recollection of seeing the name “Sunflower” before. Much questioning, however, could not dig from the depths of his mind the purpose for which the name had been used, and Bony felt sure it was used in sending similar telegrams calling Mr Jelly to the various cities of Australia.
He was sure, too, thatDulcie Jelly had not dispatched the telegram, neither had her sister nor Mr Jelly himself. The farmer must have known, though, what the summons to Perth implied, and he must have known who sent the summons in his daughter’s name.
Of course it would have been a woman, for had a man signed a girl’s name the fact would have been remembered by the clerk. Undoubtedly a woman had sent the command to Mr Jelly. She had handed it to the clerk at 2.20 P.M., 16th November.
Bony’s progress in the affair of George Loftus appeared to have been stopped by a wall as unscaleable as that which so effectually hid the strange absences of Robert Jelly. He began to doubt the efficacy of that sense of intuition upon which, as he told Sergeant Westbury, he so much relied.
The scales had been slightly tilted towards the fact of Loftus’s murder and now seemed tilted the other way to the man’s planned disappearance. Sergeant Westbury obstinately clung to this latter theory, and, despite the sergeant’s placid and contented outlook on life in general, he was, nevertheless, a shrewd and clever policeman. Against Westbury were opposed both Inspector Gray and Mr Jelly, who had expressed belief that GeorgeLoftus had been killed, but they were not in the position occupied by the trained Westbury, who had been first on the case. Even beyond this circle were people like Mr Thorn and Mrs Poole, equally divergent in their opinions.
So far Bony had no more than they on which to base a definite opinion. Yet despite this he was far from hopeless. This philosophy taught him, and experience had shown him, that of all classes of crime murder investigation is assisted the most by time. It would be a matter of time only when the thoughts of two people would clash and produce a result commonly known as coincidence, to become another link of an incomplete chain. Bury a stone how deep youwill, and Time will bring it to the surface. So it is with secret crime. Time will reveal it, no matter how deeply it is pushed into the black pit of mystery.
While the train was slowly losing speed in its climb to the summit of the highest ridge of the railway system, Bony produced his notebook and turned up those entries under the date 16th November.
That day he had thoroughly examined the wrecked car and the surrounding ground. It was the day Ginger, the dog, caught two rabbits, one of which Bony had buried. During the evening of this day he had met Mr Thorn and the Spirit of Australia and, later, had watched Mr Jelly and another man change a tyre and proceed towards Merredin. It was now reasonable to assume:
That at 2.20 P.M. on 16th November a woman had handed in at the Merredin post office a telegram directed to Jelly, South Burracoppin, after having complied with the regulations by writing a name and address on the back of the form. One minute later the telegram was dispatched to Burracoppin by telephone, since at Burracoppin there was no telegraph instrument. The person to whom the message was directed lived four miles south of the town, yet he must have received it shortly after its transmission, for he had obeyed the summons that night. Either Mr Jelly, expecting the message, had waited for it at Burracoppin or had arranged with a truck driver to bring it out, an act which proved that he expected it the day it was sent. The point made clear was that the farmer knew the summons would probably arrive that day and had made his arrangements to obey it. Had he been positively sure it would arrive when it did, there would have been no necessity for its having been sent at all.
The car in which the farmer had departed doubtless was the car in which he had returned. Bony had noted that it was a four-door sedan, probably of English make, because its outlines were not American. The fact that no number plates were attached was not singular. A good many car owners in the bush and country are like the wheat-truck drivers, who leave open the gates in the rabbit fence in a gamble against being caught.
Actually cheerful, for the greater the mystery the more he enjoyedit, Bony left the train at Burracoppin when the sun was setting. The wheat traffic had stopped, and thelumpers were gathered in a group near the weighbridge smoking a hard-earned cigarette before dispersing for a shower bath and dinner. The hotel bar was crowded with drivers and farmers when he passed. Inside the Depot yard Mrs Gray waited with a letter.
“This came for you this afternoon,” she explained. “A truck driver brought it in from Lucy Jelly. Are you cutting Eric Hurley out?”
“Madam, I am a married man,” Bony told her with smiling reproof. “I am expecting an invitation to play bridge, and this must be it.”
“If you are going out this evening you might be able to secure a lift with Mrs Loftus as far as her gate. She’s come to town to take Mr Loftus’s damaged car home from the garage.”
“It has been moved from the pipeline and repaired?”
“Yes. The police gave permission last week.”
Knowing this, Bony continued to feign ignorance.
“The damage could not have beenso great as it looked,” he ventured.
“Oh no! The garage-men have had it only two days. Go along and find Mrs Loftus now, if you are going.”
“Please excuse me. I will accept your advice,” Bony said, raising his hat and smiling. Again on the road, he opened the envelope and read the note. It was signed with Lucy Jelly’s initials.
Please come out this evening. Father is very strange, and we are all frightened.
With pursed lips he rounded the hotel, declined Mr Thorn’s invitation to enter the bar with him, and, walking on, came to the once wrecked car, now staunch, but still dilapidated, standing outside one of the stores. Here he waited five minutes till Mrs Loftus came out of the store, followed by the storeman, carrying a heavy parcel of goods. Bony said:
“I have been invited to spend the evening at Mr Jelly’s house. I wonder if you could find it convenient to give me a lift as far as your gate.”
The greenish-blue eyes of this pretty woman stared into his beaming blue ones. She saw a mild, guileless personality behind the sharp-featured brown face.
“Very well,” she said, consenting with a smile. “I shall be leaving about six o’clock. I cannot wait a minute later than that. I have seen you before, haven’t I?”
The question was asked in the superior manner of one who looks down from a social height. There was that inflexion of voice which proved that the woman often had spoken to aborigines from the plane of a squatter’s homestead veranda. Still beaming, Bony replied:
“Yes. You kindly gave me a pannikin of water when I called one afternoon.”
“Ah yes! You were on your way to theJellys ’ that afternoon, were you not?”
“Yes, I spent the evening there.”
“A very nice girl, Lucy Jelly, isn’t she?”
“Very,” he agreed seriously, adding: “MissDulcie is equally charming.”
Mrs Loftus turned away, but not in time to prevent Bony seeing the sneer disfiguring her mouth. The expression was so different from the impish smile Mrs Gray had given when she surmised Bony was cutting out Hurley.
Passing through the railway enclosure, he reached the garage when the two owner mechanics were washing the grease from their hands preparatory to closing the building for the night.
“Hullo, Bony! You’ve got a good job. A Sunday today?” asked the elder.
“No. I took the day off because the weather fatigues me,” Bony answered with a chuckle. “I’ve been to Merredin, and there I meant to send my wife five pounds. I quite forgot about it. Can you change a ten-pound note? I must retain a few shillings for myself, you know.”
“A ten-pound note! Hi, Fred, he’s flashing ten-pound notes!”
“It’s about time we saw Gray and got a government job. Private enterprise is dead,” complained Fred, a shock-haired pale-faced man of forty.
“Well, you’re always lucky,” announced the other. “Some of these cockies do pay up sometimes. We had a bill paid this afternoon, so we can fix your little difficulty. Wait a tick.”
“I saw Mrs Loftus standing by a car just now,” Bony said to Fred. “That’s not the car Loftus smashed, is it?”
“The same, Bony. It cost her fifteen quid, and, knowing how she’s placed financially, wewasn’t going to let her have it till she paid up. But up she comes with the wad, fifteen of the best, and six pounds off the old bill.”
Fred’s partner returned with a sheaf of pound notes. He counted into Bony’suntrembling hand ten of them and accepted the ten-pound note in exchange.
“Thank you very much,” Bony said calmly. “See you at dinner, I suppose. I must go now, as I have an appointment with a lady at six o’clock.”
Fred grinned. Bony actually chuckled and winked. All three laughed.
On his way to Mrs Poole’s boarding-house he examined the notes with which Mrs Loftus had paid her garage account. They were quite new notes, and all were of one series-K/11. It was from this serial number that the cashier of the Bank of New South Wales had paid George Loftus one hundred pounds.