Mr Thorn’s Plant
“I HAD a game with the dogs,” William told Bony on his return. “After I left you I kept the bike down to five miles an hour. Turning west at the old York Road, I saw a car pulling up at the gate the other side of the fence, so I went on for a quarter of a mile fairly quick and then stopped and got off. By that time the car was through the gate and coming up behind me, and in its headlights I saw Loftus’s three dogs nosing my trail like bloodhounds.
“As per instructions, I set sail for the pub end of Burra, trailing all round the town and ending up at the empty garage. In I went, trail and all, and once inside I picked up the trail and put it into the tool bag, opened the back door, pushed the bike outside, and left it leaning against the building. Then I slipped round to the front and was just in time to see two dogs, noses to the ground, going inside. Three more dogs followed them before the three from here, and nine more followed them eight.
“As I was leaving I seen Mrs Poole’s cow, leading Mrs Henry’s pack of goats, coming along the road right dead on the trail, and, between there and here, I counted two horses, another cow, four dogs, and about five million rabbits. By the morning there’ll be a menagerie outside that garage. When Burra wakes up tomorrow the people will wonder how that garage got turned into a Noah’s Ark.”
“Itwull be agraandsicht,” murmured Bony, affecting a Scotch accent. “You did excellent work. Well, we must move off to the hall.”
“How did you get on?”
“The time period was too short to secure satisfactory results, supposing there were results to be secured.”
“Do you still reckon Loftus isn’t at Leonora?”
“Between ourselves, I do, but ask no questions, because really I do hate to tell lies, even though I am an expert.”
After travelling a quarter of a mile William pulled up.
“Sorry, but I have got to tell you,” he said, much hindered by his chuckling, “what a fool I was not to let into that garage Mrs Poole’s cow and Mrs Henry’s goats.”
“There will be enough recriminations without adding to them,” said the delighted Bony.
Fifteen minutes later William stopped the machine about four hundred yards from the hall. Bony got out of the mechanic’s overalls, rolled up in them the bottle of decoy, and tied the parcel to the pillion seat.
“I shall not want you any more tonight,” he said, to add with a low laugh, “I will try to get out early in the morning to see the animals gathered round the garage. Thank you for your assistance tonight. I am going to rely on your discretion.”
“You be easy. The less in a joke the better the joke. Pleased to do any other jobs you want done. Hooroo!”
Bony waited till the cycle’s tail-light had vanished up the wide straight road before walking the remaining distance to the hall. Long before he reached it the music of the string band reached him, and a little later the rhythmic sound of the dancers’ feet slipping over the polished floor. The very first person he met was Mr Thorn.
“Where-in-’ell ’aveyou been?” demanded the worried Water Rat. “I’ve been looking for you all theevenin ’. I couldn’t wait. I’ve drunk up ’alfme beer. Did you bring any?”
The reflected light from the hall windows revealed Bony plainly to Mr Thorn. The detective’s shoes werespeckless. No handkerchief, black or white, now protected his collar. He was an illustration of the lie he spoke.
“The heat of the hall affected me,” he said blandly. “Sun heat never affects me as sometimes does the heat produced by massed human bodies. I have been for a quiet stroll.”
“Well, thank ’eaven, I found you. Did you bring any beer?”
“I did bring a few bottles. They are in Fred’s car.”
Mr Thornsighed his delight. His fat neck stretched up and down through his tight collar, reminding Bony of the needle’s eye in which at long last the proverbial camel had become jammed. There was a note of entreaty in his voice when he said:
“Let’s get ’emand take ’emover to my plant.”
When Bony returned with four of his six bottles of beer it was with difficulty that he discovered the Water Rat sitting on the running board of one of the many parked cars.
“Hush! Go quiet,” Mr Thorn implored. “Me old woman’s taking a bird’s-eye view out of the door. Don’t speak, or she’ll spoil the game.” And then, after a minute, with relief: “Come on! She’s gone. Follerme.”
Mr Thorn marched off to the rabbit fence with extraordinary caution, walked north along the government track beside the fence until they reached a dense wall of bush, into which he vanished with Bony close on his heels. The detective was conducted, with all the secrecy of an initiate to a lodge, to a small clearing in which was Mr Thorn’s plant. It was evident to the amazed Bony that that clearing was the site of many plants dating from the opening of the hall several years before. Empty bottles, dozens and dozens of them, littered the clearing, and if none had shared this plant with Mr Thorn, then that man’s capacity for beer must be inexhaustible. With wonderful sagacity he found his two remaining full bottles and glass among the welter of empties.
“I couldn’t wait,” he said complainingly. “I beenwanderin’ round like alorst dog all theevenin ’ ’cosIain’t got no real friends here. Open one of yours whiles I opens this one.”
He drank, and sighed with ecstasy. He sighed again with equal appreciation after his second glass. Each bottle contained three glasses, and when Bony had taken one glass from his bottle he filled his friend’s glass twice.
“I feel better,” Mr Thorn stated when he had carefully concealed Bony’s beer with his own. “I got to watch me chance now, and see that I don’tdarnce the nextcupplerdarnces with the old woman. A terrible nose for beer, ’as the old woman. She’s my cross, she is.”
“We had better go before Mrs Thorn begins to suspect,” Bony advised, observing that Mr Thorn was loath to leave his plant.
At the hall entrance the Water Rat hung back among the usual crowd of young men always to be found stationed at the door at a dance hall, but the detective wormed his way through the bashful youths to discover that a dance had just started and that Mr Jelly was sitting it out alone. There being room, Bony sat down beside the farmer.
“Where have you been?” demanded Mr Jelly with mock sternness.
“I went for a walk because I was feeling unwell, and when I came back I was met by Mr Thorn, who persuaded me to accompany him to his plant.”
“Plant! What plant?”
Bony smiled.
“Near here he has a secret reservoir of alcoholic refreshment which he terms his plant. One cannot help but like the man, for he is a truly companionable spirit. In the course of a year he must drink much beer.”
“In the course of one year he drinks one complete brew made by the biggest brewery in Western Australia. I should say about ten thousand gallons,” Mr Jelly estimated with twinkling eyes. “Look at him now, dancing with Mrs Poole. His eyes are oozing beer, and Mrs Poole is trying hard to escape his breath.”
“All of which is being noticed by Mrs Thorn,” Bony pointed out, slyly directing his companion’s attention to the grim lady watching her husband with gimlet eyes and a lipless mouth.
“She will jaw his poor head off going home, but likely enough he’ll fall asleep,” Mr Jelly murmured. “Do you think old Loftus cleared out for Leonora?”
Bony met the quick change of topic with trained facial control. “What do you think about it?” he parried.
“Why, that the feller at Leonora isn’t Loftus at all.”Mr Jelly was silent for a full minute. He spoke again only when he found his companion hesitant to give an opinion. “Why should Loftus clear out like that? There is no reason why he should, unless the reason was provided and waiting for him when he reached home from Perth at two o’clock in the morning a day or so before he was due.”
“Ah! Just what do you mean by that?”
“I’ll trust you not to pass it on,” replied Mr Jelly slowly. “You just keep your eyes open like you did when you worked for the Queensland police. Watch how Mrs Loftus looks at Landon when he dances with another woman, and if she isn’t jealous I’ll hop on one foot from here to my veranda.”
“You really think that she is in love with the hired man?”
“Sure ofit-and he with her. He is better able to control it than she is.” When Bony glanced round at Mr Jelly he saw that the farmer’s lips were compressed into a straight line. Mr Jelly went on: “Supposing-I say, supposing-that when old Loftus reached his house he found that Mick Landon wasn’t in his bed. Old Loftus might have turned back and got the first car driver he met to take him anywhere, from which place he could have took train to Leonora. Or-”
“Well? What would be the alternative?” Bony asked quietly, thinking how strange it was that Mr Jelly always referred to the missing farmer as “old Loftus”, when Loftus was at least ten years his junior. Mr Jelly spoke with conviction.
“It’s possible, if not probable, that old George Loftus, finding that Mick Landon was in the wrong bed, started to kick up a row about it, a row in which he got hurt. If so, the question is: What did they do with body?”
“Really, Mr Jelly, your imagination is boundless,” Bony said, laughing outright but thinking rapidly. Mr Jelly was serious when he said:
“Not a bit-not a bit. It’s more than likely that Landon was not in his right bed. It’s more than likely that old George Loftus did reach home that night. As I said, Loftus could have done one of two things, and, knowing old George as I do, I am sure he would have used his bare hands in preference to sneaking away to Leonora.”
“Yet you cannot be in earnest,” Bony still objected, but, remembering the short yellow hair he had found in the lace of Mrs Loftus’s pillow. “Surely you are not seriously suggesting that Landon and Mrs Loftus killed George Loftus because he came home earlier than was expected and found themendeshabille? ”
Mr Jelly remained obstinate.
“I am stating possibilities,” he said. “Look atLaffer, andSmythe , and Thorpe. You wouldn’t think them vicious enough to kill a fly. I tell you it only wants a particular set of circumstances to raise Satan in active blood fury in five men in every hundred. I’ve studied criminals. I’ve lived among ’emfor years as a warder, as you know. I learned to pick out the killers long before they killed anybody, and most of them had those slate-blue-coloured eyes Landon’s got.”
Mr Jelly paused to nod and smile at Sunflower when she passed with her partner, who happened to be the drooping Mr Poole. Then he said:
“I have less experience with women, but I am glad that I’m not a fallen fighter in a Roman arena looking to Mrs Loftus, sitting in the Emperor’s box, and hoping she will turn her thumbs up.”
“You do not like her?”
“I don’t. I never did. She always reminds me of a poorly baked cake covered with beautiful sugar decorations.” After another short silence he went on: “I may not be as good a judge as the chief warder of one prison I was in. He used to run his hands over the head of every new birdwho came inside, taking particular interest in first offenders. Used to feel their bumps and enter notes into a large book. More than once, when a feller was taken for murder, he would refer to his book and there find the murderer’s name. If at the time the chief warder felt the killer’s bumps it had been decided to keep the bird inside for good, the poor victim might have lived his or her allotted span. A couple of years back at a picnic I felt Landon’s bumps for a joke. I didn’t tell him just what they told me.”
“What did they tell you?” asked Bony, whose interest was now aroused.
“That he was likely to commit murder at any time. And I won’t be surprised to learn that he’s done it.”