Cane-Grass Splinters
FLORA met Bony on the veranda after his visit to the blacks’ camp, and she was quick to note the frown of perplexity furrowing his brow.
“Hullo!” she cried, cheerfully. “I’ve been waiting for you. Dinner will be ready almost at once, and I do like a tiny cocktail before dinner. Where have you been with your magnifying glass and litmus papers?”
“I have been looking at smoke signals sent up by the Illprinka people. They are going to hold a corroboree at a place called Duck Lake. Your uncle has not yet returned?”
“No. He’ll be home some time, though. Now please come along and join me at the bar.”
“Indeed! But what of all these ancestors? Are they not sufficiently convivial forbar company?”
It was his pretendednaivete that delighted her most in him.
“Uncle says they look terribly jealous and spoil the drink,” she explained. “I agree with him. Just imagine the situation they are in, frozen there on the canvas and unable to step down and taste good ‘wuskey’. The poor dears can’t even smell it. Now please make me a corpse reviver.”
“Ah-alas!” murmured Bony. “How constantly am I reminded of the deficiencies in myeducation! How does one make a corpse reviver?”
“Don’t you know? I’ll show you. Will you have one, too?”
“I beg to be excused. You see, I suffer from an awkward social disability. Spirits-and spirits appear to be the ingredients of a corpse reviver-have on me an effect of deep depression. Perhaps, in the circumstances, you will not mind if I choose a small glass of lager. Shall I do the shaking for you? Yes, I fear I’m a common man having common tastes.”
“Now you are being sarcastic,” she told him, brightly.
“I deny it. Has any one called up from Shaw’s Lagoon?”
“No. Were you expecting a call?”
“From Doctor Whyte.”
“Oh!”
“Is your uncle often detained out on the run? He said this morning he would be home for lunch.”
“Yes, quite often,” she replied. “You see, uncle never goes away without food and camp gear in case he is forced to stay out. Generally, however, if he’s staying on at the out-station he rings and tells me so. You’re not worrying about him?”
“No-oh no, Miss McPherson. An hour or so ago I tried to get through to the out-station on the telephone, but the line was dead. I wanted to get in touch with your uncle.”
“Did you try again before you came in?”
“No.”
“It’s annoying, isn’t it? Something often happens to the line, even to the line to Shaw’s Lagoon. A tree branch will break and fall on it, or a mob of galahs will perch on it and break it-why, there’s the telephone bell ringing now!”
“It is probably the reply telegram from Doctor Whyte,” Bony surmised. “Excuse me.”
“Certainly. I must see about dinner. Come and tell me at once if it is about Doctor Whyte.”
“I will-with all speed.”
A minute later Bony was hearing a strange voice.
“Hullo! That you, Mr McPherson?”
“Mr McPherson has not yet returned home,” Bony said. “I am a guest staying here. Who are you?”
“I’m Nevin, the overseer at the out-station. I’ve been trying to raise the homestead for the last couple of hours. D’youknow when the boss is expected home?”
“Haven’t you seen him today?”
“No. I’ve been away. But he’s been here. He had lunch with the wife and he left about one o’clock for Watson’s Bore. Are you the detective the boss was telling me about?”
“I am. Why?”
“Blast! I don’t know what to say or do,” said the gruff voice. “The telephone going bung and then coming right again makes me think things.”
“When did you last ring up?” asked Bony.
“Half an hour ago.”
“Then Mr McPherson must have discovered and mended the break during the last thirty minutes. Why are you so uneasy about him?”
Nevin did not reply and Bony waited before saying:
“If you are doubtful about anything, if you think anything is wrong, please tell me. Mr McPherson left this morning with the intention of returning at lunch time. He didn’t say he was going as far as the out-station.”
Still Nevin did not speak and Bony was beginning to believe he had broken the connection when he said:
“I’d rather not say anything. If the boss mended the wire he must have found the break between you and the hut at Watson’s Bore. You ought to see him in less than an hour at longest.”
“How is that?”
“The telephone line runs nowhere near the road this side of Watson’s Bore. I’ll ring up later. When the boss gets in ask him to call me at once, will you?”
“Hold on!” Bony urged. “Remember, an hour is quite a long time-period. Much may happen during such a period.”
When Nevin again spoke his voicewas sharp and his words hurriedly spoken, indicative of anxiety not to continue the conversation.
“Things will be all right, I expect. I’ll ring later. So long!”
Thoughtfully, Bony walked back to the house. A glance at the sun told him the time was half past six. That Nevin was anxious was evidenced by his voice and determination not to say too much. For the second time Bony was met by Flora at the open door.
“Who was it?” she wanted to know.
“It was Nevin,” he replied with a cheerfulness he did not feel. “Nevin says that your uncle had lunch with his wife, and that, as the broken telephone wire has been repaired during the last half-hour, we can expect him home within an hour.”
“Nevin is right,” she said, steadily regarding her guest. “Uncle would follow the line for only two or three miles on the whole journey. He mightn’t have seen the break on his way out, or it could have happened when he was beyond that part of the line. Is there anything you haven’t told me?”
“There are hundreds and thousands of things I haven’t told you,” he countered. “Why, if I told you everything I would be out of character. I wouldn’t even be a detective.”
“I suggest that we wait for uncle to have dinner with us,” she said.
During the meal they fought a duel with the weapons Bonaparte could so expertly use. Thrice whilst they smoked a cigarette with the coffee she tried to trap him into confessing what was giving him concern, her defeat adding to her growing admiration of him. He could raise a wall, defying even her feminine wit, when her uncle would have failed to lay the foundation.
The glow of the sunset colours streamed into the room from thefrench windows, faintly tinting the silverware remaining on the table, seeming to pour colour into the roses comprising the table decorations.
“We’ll have wind, I think, soon,” predicted Bony.
“Yes, the sky promises wind,” Flora agreed. “I hate windstorms. One gets so sticky when they blow.”
Bony pressed the stub of his cigarette into the ash-tray and said, cheerfully:
“The weather signs urge me to offer a suggestion. In the motor shed I saw a smart single-seater. If your uncle doesn’t turn up in ten minutes, what about taking a run out to meet him?”
“Excellent!” Flora cried, standing up. “I haven’t been away from the house for days. It’s my car you saw. May I drive?”
“Were it my car you could drive,” Bony said, adding after a distinct pause: “I can drive but I much prefer to be a passenger so that I can admire the scenery. Shall we invite Burning Water and one other aborigine to come with us?”
“I’ll run across to the camp and tell Burning Water,” said Bony. “Shall we meet at the motor shed in ten minutes?”
The girl nodded her assent, and her eyes narrowed speculatively whilst watching him till he disappeared beyond the veranda. She was still standing thus when she heard him ringing the telephone in the office.
“Mr McPherson is not home yet, Nevin,” Bony was saying while Flora was preparing for the drive. “I am going out to see what has delayed him. What is on your mind?”
He distinctly heard the overseer sigh.
“The boss came here for a couple of saddles and bridles,” Nevin began. “He wanted two of the nigs, but one was out with me and he took only one, a buck named Jack Johnson. Iasks myself why he wanted two nigs and two saddles and bridles when there’s twelve nigs and twelve saddles and bridles at Watson’s Bore, where there’s not enough work for three nigs and saddles and bridles. D’youget me?
“Then the boss leaves a letter for me which says a lot and yet doesn’t give much away. If I give much away to you he’s going to give me hell later on. So you see where I stand. On the other hand, the Illprinka crowd have been sending up smokesignals which means one thing and might mean something quite different.”
“Hum! I appreciate your position,” Bony said, sympathetically. “What did Mr McPherson say in his letter to you?”
“It’s the letter that’s baling me up. Oh blast! I’ll read it to you.” Then, when he had read the letter, he asked: “Whatd’youthink of it?”
“I think that, adding fact to fact, Mr McPherson left here this morning with the purpose of leading those blacks camped at Watson’s Bore on an expedition into the Illprinka country,” Bony answered. “When he arrived at Watson’s Bore something happened causing him to decide to fetch two additional men from the out-station.”
“Just so,” Nevin cut in. “I reckon he intended starting off from Watson’s Bore with the mob of blacks and horses. Then we come to the break in the telephone line your side of Watson’s Bore by about thirty miles. That’s what’s upsetting me. I don’t like things I can’t understand.”
“Nor I,” swiftly added Bony. “I’m going straight away to find where the telephone line was interfered with, and I want to see it before it becomes too dark. I’ll ring you immediately I get back. Yes. Not now. Time’s valuable.”
Bony hung up and ran to the blacks’ camp, unmindful of his middle-aged dignity. He shouted to Burning Water and Itcheroo to come to him, and explained to them whilst they all returned to the homestead that he wanted their company. Arrived at the shed, Flora was found filling the tank of the single-seater. She asked for water for the radiator, and Itcheroo was told to fetch a bucket of water. Whispering, Bony said to the chief:
“I don’t like the matter of that broken telephone line. More than an hour ago someone repaired the break. The McPherson was at the out-station for lunch. He went there for two aborigines and horse gear, and he left a letter saying he was going after Rex. I want you to come with me this evening to help protect Miss McPherson, if necessary. I am taking her because she’ll be safer with us than over in the house, and I’m taking Itcheroo because I want to keep my eyes on him. You’ll both ride in the dicky seat, and at the first sign of betrayal you smash him. Understand?”
Chief Burning Water smiled.
The car purred up the long gradient to the higher land beyond the yards, Flora driving, Bony seated beside her, the two aborigines sitting behind them. After the space of a few minutes, Bony said:
“The evening is quite warm, isn’t it, Miss McPherson? Perhaps a little more speed would provide us with a cooler draught of air.”
Flora’s heart beat. She had set a trap with her slow driving and he appeared to have been caught by it. Now satisfied that he was truly anxious about her uncle, she pressed harder on the accelerator pedal, saying:
“Ifit’s speed you’d like, watch me drive.”
The speedometer needle rose to forty-five miles an hour, the car swaying as it followed the winding track.
“How far is it from the homestead to that part of the road where your uncle would first come to the telephone poles,” Bony asked casually.
He glanced at the sun now three fingers above the scrubbed horizon, and she noted the action.
“About nine miles,” she replied, braking the car to take deep sand-drifts lying over the track. Beyond the drifts she sent the needle up to forty miles an hour and kept it there, determined to make this man talk of what was in his mind. Presently he said:
“Is this car only a seven horse-power machine?”
Now Flora bit her lip and sent the needle to the fiftymark on the dial. The condition of the road made such speed positively dangerous.
“Ah, that’s better,” Bony cried. “The air at this speed is pleasantly cool. It is going to be a nasty day tomorrow, I fear. Dust and heat and sticky flies.”
The sun had set. The shadows were barely distinguishable. The glory of the sky coloured the world, painting the leaves of the bushes with purple and the trunks of the trees with indigo blue, filling the dells between the ridges of wind-driven sand with quicksilver. The scrub passed by and they emerged into that strange country of sand pillars crowned with living grass. The telephone poles came from the east to cross this country in company with the road.
The men saw the sagging wire between two poles standing at either side of the track. At the lowest part it was a bare two feet above ground, but as the road passed near the right of the two poles the wire was not a danger. Flora stopped the machine.
“Please, all ofyou, stay here,” commanded Bony.
He got out, flashed a meaning glance at Burning Water. Flora turned in her seat to watch him. Burning Water appeared restless. Itcheroo seemed intensely interested. They saw Bony walking to the lowest extremity of the sagging wire. They saw him examine the knot joining the evident break. They watched him trotting over the uneven ground, his head thrust forward. He stopped once to pick up something and examine his find before thrusting it into a pocket. Presently he returned to the car, and Flora searched his face for news. All he said was:
“Kindly drive fast to Watson’s Bore.”