Circumstantial Evidence
THERE WERE now four questions that Bony badly wanted to answer but found he could not. What had become of the money it was believed Marks carried with him, amounting to about thirteen hundred pounds? The cashier at the bank had issued one-pound treasury notes to that amount, and the numbers of these notes were not ascertainable. Did Marks carry the money the day he was killed? If he did, how was it that the murderer had not left Windee to spend it, especially when the case seemed to be officially forgotten?
Circumstances seemed to indicate that the man or men responsible for the removal of Marks was or were too clever or too cautious to permit even that moderate amount of money to remain in existence. In all probability it had been burned with the body, if the body had been burned.
What had been the precise nature of the business on which Marks had visited Jeff Stanton? Stanton’s explanation of it to Sergeant Morris was exceedingly vague. It might-Bony considered it tentatively-be the real motive actuating the killing. Supposing Jeff Stanton to be the murderer? As a supposition it would account for the non-appearance of Marks’s money, or for the absence of any result of its being put into general circulation. Yet, if Stanton committed the crime, and supposing Marks’s body had been incinerated beneath where lay the charred remains of three kangaroos, how came it that those animals had been shot by Dot?
Bony was constrained to believe that the secret lay hidden in the business discussed by Stanton and Marks in conference. The finger was inclined to point to Jeff Stanton, if it could be assumed that the money existed. Neither Ned Swallow not Jack Withers was a man who would continue at work when possessed of thirteen hundred pounds. Both men were normally intelligent. Withers was extremely excitable, as was shown when he witnessed the corroboree fight; whilst Ned Swallow was by no means a quick thinker, or able to act instantly with circumspection.
These two men Bony crossed off the list of seven suspected fish, leaving five-one of which was the sting-ray. The two deletions were effected because Bony was justifiably sure that Marks’s killer was a man of strong will, a clear mind, and ruthlessly determined. This character fitted Jeff Stanton to perfection. In many respects it also fitted the bookkeeper, Mr Roberts; and what characteristics were lacked by Dot were supplied by Dash, so that together they also would fit.
The third question was what lay behind the altered attitude towards him of Marion Stanton and the faint suspicion behind the eyes of her father? It was a clear question and demanded a clear answer. It did not raise nor could it be answered by other questions.
The fourth question was what lay behind Moongalliti’s threat to point the bone at any of his tribe who breathed a word of what Ludbi had seen, be it little or much, and this question could only be answered by old Illawalli, then being hurried to Windee.
They were the four principal questions among a larger number. Bony would have liked to obtain answers to the mystery of the sapphire in the ants’ nest, the mystery of Dash leaving the “Government House” to become a fur-getter, and the mystery of Jeff Stanton’s earlier life before he took up the land on the range.
The reports furnished by Sergeant Morris were fairly informative. The dossiers of Dot and Dash started from their arrival in Australia. Their overseas history was not important to the case. The lives of both Marion and young Jeff were easily traced, and but little more difficulty was experienced in dealing with Ned Swallow, who came from Queensland, and Jack Withers, a Victorian. Mr Roberts was born in Adelaide, came of a well-known business family, and for years was employed by a stock and station agency. About all those everything was fairly clear. But nothing could be found regarding the birthplace or the first twenty-two years of Jeff Stanton’s life. It was quite a minor point, but it added to the collection of mysteries.
Thinking about these several matters, Bony paid a visit on foot one Sunday afternoon to the tree in the fork of which were concealed his sheepskin sandals. With these on his feet he swung south by west for two miles, when he came in sight of a windmill and well, and the inevitable water-troughing. A hundred yards or so from the mill he came upon a camp-site, the one occupied by Dot and Dash when Marks disappeared.
There remained still the poles with which the partners’ tent had been erected, whilst a dozen yards from these was the site of the camp-fire. A litter of empty tins revealed that the two men liked peach and melon and lemon jam, tinned fruit and tomatoes, and condensed milk. Bony found several cartridge-cases fitting Dash’s Savage, and two fitting Dot’s Winchester, besides a few fitting a twelve-bore gun.
There were many things in that camp-site to indicate the tastes and characters of its one-time occupants, and Bony examined it with care. Of tracks therewere none other than those of innumerable rabbits. The ashes on the fireplace spoke of a tenancy lasting several weeks. There was nothing peculiar about it. The wind had levelled the ash-heap and partly covered it with sand, and it was entirely on impulse, born of memory that a fireplace is a gold-miner’s favourite cache, that Bony began to excavate a hole in the centre of where the fire had been habitually built.
The mixture of ash and sand was loose and fine. Bony worked with his hands, and he had scooped out a hole two feet deep when he felt the touch of metal. A little further trouble, and there lay exposed a neatly made box fashioned from a four-gallon petrol-tin.
Slowly he lifted it up. The lid was fastened down by a wire catch, and with his lips compressed into a straight line he opened the box. Within was a parcel wrapped in black waterproof cloth, used at one time for protectingfracteur from damp. With firm unhurried fingers he undid this parcel, and suddenly smiled gently when he saw many neat packets of one-pound treasury notes.
There were twenty-three of these packets. He counted the notes in one of them. There were fifty. The total was eleven hundred and thirty pounds; and as though to prove that the money had belonged to Marks there was a bank draft for two hundred pounds made out in favour of Thomas Marks, and payable at Perth, Western Australia.
For this “find” the cupidity of Dot was responsible, so Bony believed. His was a nature that could not bear to see good money destroyed. He knew it was good money, since the notes were untraceable. He knew that he could spend them any time he chose. Why had he not already done so? Was it natural cunning or natural covetousness, or just plain fear? Or was it because his partner was the dominant figure, and they waited for an agreed period of time to expire before they divided and left Windee?
Bony had made an important step forward. He had obtained evidence-of a sort. It was not conclusive evidence that Marks was murdered, for the partners might havefound the box and contents, and it could be suggested that Marks had cast it from him whilst he aimlessly searched for a path leading to a human habitation and life.
He thought for a while, and then, suddenly smiling, wrapped up the notes again in the cloth and set the parcel aside. The tin box he securely fastened and replaced at the bottom of the hole. Lastly he filled in the hole and smoothed the surface carefully, leaving no trace of the spot having been disturbed.
Taking up the parcel of treasury notes, he looked over the campsite before walking back to the junction of the roads, where he took off the sheepskin sandals and found a fresh hiding-place for them in a hollow tree. The result of his afternoon’s work was highly gratifying to him, for, although it was not conclusive, it was a further proof that Time was on his side.
When he entered his bunk-room, shared with Jack Withers, the cross-eyed man put down a novel he was reading, and, with one eye looking out through the open door and the other fixed at a point several feet above Bony’s head, he drawled: “Ole Noonee bin along looking for you. ’Pears quite upset like. Says Moongallitiet summat wot made ’imfeel like throwing a seven. Wants you to go along and look ’imover.”
“Ah, perhaps someone has been pointing the bone at him,” Bony surmised with a smile.
“ ’Taintlikely, unless it’s the ole blokewot’s just arrived.”
“An old man? Stranger?”
“Yaas. Emblysays ’is name is Illawalli.”
“Indeed!” Bony’s surprise was hidden by blandness. “Have you seen him?”
“Yus-and smelled ’im. ’E’s abouta ’undredand fifty years old, and as ’ighas any black wot ’as offended me nose. Must be old Moongalliti’s great-great-grandfather, come to life from Noah’s Ark.”