“A Little Experiment”
“I HAVE SOME official letters for you,” stated Sergeant Morris in his crisp manner when greetings had been exchanged and Bony was seated. “How did your experiment with Illawalli turn out?”
“Not quite up to expectations, my dear Sergeant. He told me all that Moongalliti knew, but that was not quite all I wanted to know.”
“What did it come to?”
“I will tell you when I find out the little he, Moongalliti, doesn’t know. With your permission, I will just scan these letters.”
The half-caste proceeded to read his mail. The first communication was from the Research Department, Police Headquarters, Sydney, relating to a boot-sprig. The second was far more lengthy and dealt with Marks’s early history and that of a certain Mrs Thomas. Mrs Thomas’s history was obtained chiefly from official records. The third letter was from Colonel Spender demanding to know when Bony anticipated returning to his duties in Queensland, as the murder at Longreach was baffling everybody. The fourth letter was from his wife, and this he decided to read later. The fifth letter related to a small silver disk, and the writer was Sir Alfred Worthington, a very famous Australian.
From his letters Bony’s eyes rose slowly to the impatient face of Sergeant Morris. Bony’s eyes were veiled to hide the triumph in their blue depths, and from the sergeant they wandered to a police trooper engaged on clerical work at another table, and from him came finally to rest on two emu eggs set up on the mantelpiece as ornaments.
“I want an urgent telegram dispatched,” he said at last. The sergeant reached for pencil and telegram forms. Dictated the half-caste: To Inspector Sutley, Criminal Investigation Branch, Sydney . Wire personal particulars Mrs Thomas-mail photo if possible.-B.
The message was given to the trooper, who was ordered to dispatch it at once. On his leaving, Bony picked up from the mantelpiece the two emu eggs, and, examining them, saw that they had at each end a small hole through which the contents formerly had been blown.
“Can youlay your hands on a. 44 Winchester or Remington rifle and a. 22 Savage rifle?” he asked softly.
“Yes. The trooper has a Savage, and I can borrow the Winchester. Why?”
“It is necessary to carry out a little experiment. Can one in your back garden be observed by any of the neighbours?”
“I don’t think so. But what’s the scheme?”
“Go and borrow that Winchester. If you see the trooper, tell him to bring away his Savage. We might want two cartridges for each rifle.”
Sergeant Morris rose obediently, even though he saw the incongruity of a uniformed police-sergeant obeying an aboriginal half-caste. When he was gone, Bony searched the officer’s desk till he found a half-sheet of postage stamps, from which he detached a strip of the gummed border. Tearing off two rough squares, he stuck them over a hole in each of the eggs, and over the paper he melted ordinary sealing-wax.
Returning with the borrowed rifle, Sergeant Morris found Bony lounging down in his chair, the back of his head supported by clasped hands, a cigarette between his lips.
“The trooper has gone to his lodgings for his Savage rifle,” he told Bony, who thereupon rose and picked up the large, blue-green eggs.
“These will more easily be filled with water if they are submerged in a basin. Perhaps Mrs Morris will oblige?”
“You’re darned mysterious, Bony. What is the idea?” demanded the sergeant, with prominent determined jaw and glinting grey eyes.
“Patience, friend, patience; and perhaps, in a few days, I will describe the perfect murder. However, I do not promise. Let us fill these eggs with water.”
Together they made their way to the kitchen, where Mrs Morris was discovered making pastry. A dish was procured and filled with water from a rain-tank, and after a little trouble the eggs were filled to Bony’s satisfaction. Back in the office once more, Bony sealed the remaining openings in the shells as he had done the others, and by that time the trooper appeared carrying a well-kept. 22 Savage rifle. He and his superior followed Bony carrying the eggs into the neat garden at the rear of the premises. There Bony selected an earth border surrounding a tiny grass lawn that was the pride of the sergeant’s lady. Making sure that beyond the fence there was nothing but opencommon, he then formed two golfing tees and on them set the eggs firmly up on end.
“Which of you is the better rifle shot?” he asked his perplexed audience. “Rowland is,” Morris admitted promptly.
“Very well. Now, Mr Rowland, I want you to lie down about twenty feet from these eggs. I want you to fire a bullet from the Winchester exactly through the middle of one of the eggs, and a bullet from the Savage exactly through the middle of the other. Take your time and don’t miss, for probably we could not find another emu eggshell in Mount Lion.”
The trooper loaded the Winchester and took up the specified position. When the rifle cracked the egg very slowly fell from its supporting tee, and Bony, picking it up, said: “See, the bullet has passed through the egg, making a very neat round hole through each side. With my penknife I will mark it with a ‘W’. Now the other, Mr Rowland.”
The action of the bullet from the Savage rifle was markedly dissimilar, as was the report of the exploding cartridge. The egg collapsed at the moment its water content was whisked away in spray. But one small piece of shell remained, the rest having been dispersed in a thousand fragments. On that one piece of shell Bony scratched the letter “S”.
“Thank you!” he said. “The experiment was entirely successful. Let us return to the office.”
Again seated in his chair, with Sergeant Morris in position at the farther side of the paper-littered desk, Bony fell to making his eternal cigarette with the long thin fingers bequeathed him by his mother. With his head bent to the task he nevertheless now and then looked up at the stern military face of the police sergeant, a ghost of a smile playing about his mobile lips.
“Once, I think, I told you that murder generally is a very sordid affair, yet to a man of my intelligence a crime very easily finalized,” he drawled softly. “The number of men-and doctors are included among them-men of mental ability who have tried and dismally failed to destroy the bodies of their victims, is remarkable. Perhaps the difficulties that confront a murderer desirous of utterly destroying the body of his victim should make law-abiding normal people very thankful. Equally thankful, too, the police who investigate crimes of this kind.”
“I should say so,” Sergeant Morris interjected sharply.
Bony waved his hand airily. “The chief and overwhelming evidence against a murderer is the victim’s body, or part of it. A body, or identifiable parts of a body, being found, convicts ninety-nine murderers in every hundred. The odd one escapes justice not through his own cleverness, nor by good luck, but because the investigating officer is a fool.”
The sergeant frowned. Bony continued blandly: “In British law a charge of murder made when no body or part of a body is found is almost unknown. There is one case recorded, and one only. A woman named Perry and her two sons were hanged for the murder of a farm bailiff without the production of a body by the prosecution. It may be surmised, therefore, that when, a few years later, the supposed murdered bailiff turned up alive, he caused no little surprise. This case may be the cause of the judicatory authorities being very particularabout making a human body the basis of a murder trial.
“In any case, if a killer can manage to destroy without trace the body of his victim, his chance of escaping due punishment for the crime is excellent. You remember that I told you I knew six wholly different and effectual methods of destroying utterly a human body with agencies and implements obtainable by anyone. Windee has revealed to me a seventh.
“I know now how the murder was committed and the body destroyed. I know that there were two, possibly three, men implicated in it. I know the name of one man, and may be excused for guessing the name of the second. The third man I do not yet know. To complete my case I want this third man’s name and also the motive.
“You may say that to establish a motive for murder is the most important part of a prosecution. I agree. In this case, however, it has been necessary first to establish the fact of murder, because the body of Marks, or any recognizable part of it, does not now exist. The discovery of the motive will indicate the third man, whom as yet I cannot name.”
“Who are the other two?” Morris demanded.
Bony’s smile contained a hint of scornful remonstrance.
“I believe,” he said slowly, in a manner which implied that he believed nothing of the sort, “I believe that all great detectives in fiction, Mr Sherlock Holmes and DrThorndyke among them, never divulged their progress in a case until it was finished, so far as they were concerned.”
“But, damn it, we are notbook detectives!”
“Your objection is perfectly legitimate, my dear Morris. On the other hand, although I am not a book detective, neitheram I an ordinary policeman in plain clothes, despite my official rank and connections. I am a man who has never yet failed to finalizea ease allotted to me. Why? The answer is simple. I have from the beginning refused to be bound by red tape. I have never cared a tinker’s curse for chief commissioners, advancement in the service, instant dismissal from it, or any other of the many things that govern a policeman’s career.” Bony rose to his feet. “Nothing influences me in my profession but the elucidation of some mystery, which often is extremely simple. Permit me to leave you now. I have an appointment with Father Ryan. I am taking with me Marcus Aurelius and Virgil.”
“Who the devil are they?” exploded Sergeant Morris.
“They are, I think, strangers in Mount Lion,” replied Bony, walking out.