Wages of Affability
ATEIGHTO’CLOCKthe next morning, when Irwin left Agar’s Lagoon to take Inspector Walters to the aerodrome, the inhabitants were engaged in routine chores. Having given Walters the assurance that theStenhouse case would be duly completed, Bony lounged on the hotel veranda and smoked his third after-breakfast cigarette.
The bar was open but no one was drinking. Ted Ramsay, the licensee, was in the back yard on routine business. ’Un had hitched four town donkeys to a cart and was loading the empties to be taken to the bottle ring. The storekeeper was sweeping the stones at the front of his shop, and children were milking goats wherever they could be caught.
There was nothing unusual about the weather. The sun shone warmly from the cloud-free sky, and the dust continued to hang in golden veils above the track taken by Irwin’s utility. The hens scratched in the road dust, and down on the bed of the creek several aborigines were encamped beside a log from which rose blue smoke.
All was normal and quiet excepting within the hotel kitchen, and when Bony entered he found Mrs Ramsay in a rage, and the girl who waited at table and ‘did’ the rooms on the verge of tears, and being ordered to ‘clear out’. With Mrs Ramsay all was wrong and nothing right, and on being blandly invited to disclose her trouble, she complained that her husband was racing to the grave, the cook was a dirty old soak, the maid was a lazy bitch, and the damned pub simply wouldn’t catch fire and burn them all out.
“He’s a good cook, I’ll say that for ’im, Inspector,” vouchsafed Mrs Ramsay, who was washing the breakfast dishes. “But Igotta watch ’imelse he smokes while he cooks and dribbles into things. It’s that husband of mine that’s the trouble. Not satisfied with getting ’imselfdrunk, he has to get the cook soaked with him. And now they’re both in the back yard doing their morning vomiting act together, and I had to cook the breakfast, and see that Inspector Walters gets off with a good impression of the place. An’ the only real help given is by old ’Un. If I had married ’imnow…”
“We often regret we did not do otherwise when that very otherwise would have done for us,” Bony quoted, and took up a drying-cloth.
“ ’Undo me in? Not a hope. I can deal with ’imwith one ’and,” declared Mrs Ramsay, and then permitted astonishment to sweep from her angry soul all that cluttered in this fine morning. “Why, Inspector! You can’t dry these things.”
“Why not? I won’t drop them,” Bony said. “I have to wait for Constable Irwin to return from the ’drome, and how better could the time be employed? Besides, Mrs Ramsey, I have to butter you before asking a favour.”
“Ho, is that it?” cried Mrs Ramsay, and wiped her button of a nose with the length of her enormous forearm. “Policemen, publicans, rich cattlemen and stiffs off the track, you men are all the same. Put ’emon the table and I’ll sort ’emout. The dishes, I mean. Bet you’re married, any’ow. I can tell. Well, go on, Inspector. What are you angling for? Not me, I’ll warrant.”
“First a happy smile.”Sniff. Easy laughter. “That’s better. Irwin and I have to go out again, and we may be away for several days. If you could let us have bread and cooked meat…”
“Is that all? Of course, Mr Bonaparte. What time will you be leaving?”
“Shortly after nine, I hope. You might keep our rooms for us for the time being.”
“I will. Keep ’emlocked, too.” Mrs Ramsay having completed the washing of the utensils and sponged out thesink, wiped her hands on her apron. Bony proceeded with the drying, and she would have taken the cloth from him. “But I can finish up,” she objected.
“I’ll manage while you get the bread and meat… How long have you been living here?”
“Too long. Eighteen years too long. Me and Ted have been in this pub five years. Wewasprospectin ’ before then. Found theShootin ’ Star and made enough out of it to buy in here.”
“You would know everyone in this country, then.”
“Every man, woman, child and goat,” replied Mrs Ramsay, bringing cooked beef from the out-size refrigerator. “People’sall right. Work hard. Live hard. Not too many bad eggs. What about those fresh chops for grilling?”
“They look good. Thank you.”
“Better take a pound or so of butter, and I’ll get you a piece of bacon you can cut into when you want. Which way you going?”
“North,” Bony replied, placing the cutlery into the sections of a large shallow tray. “How did you get along with ConstableStenhouse?”
The face which was pleasant when happy became grim.
“Right enough,” she said. “He had his meals here… after his wife died. Never talked much to no one. Never got over that… ’erdying like she did. I seen ’emmarried. Pair ofsweet’earts they was then. Don’t know what got into ’im. Wasn’t the booze, ’coshe didn’t drink.” Mrs Ramsay was wrapping a huge slab of fruit cake within a newspaper, and Bony was confident that his dish-drying was paying handsome dividends. “Yes, just likesweet’earts theywas once. And then one night he came for me to go over to the station, and Doctor Morley was there.
“Mind you, I don’t think they would’ve saved her even if they could’ve flown her to Derby. It was December, and the floods. Worst ‘wet’ we’d had in years. Three planes bogged and not a hope of another coming. Me and Doc Morley bided by her for four days and nights, but she went out. I reckon if it hadn’t been for Doc Morley ConstableStenhouse would have found ’imselfin serious trouble. Fine old bloke, Doc Morley, ain’t he?”
Bony agreed.
“Poor old Mr Wallace… Yoube seeing him?”
“Most likely.”
“Theshock of it give ’imthe stroke. Never been the same since. Broke ’imup completely.’Ertoo. Poor soul. Well, we all ’as our troubles. Some more than others. If you aremeanin ’ to call on them, don’t forget to take their mail. I’ll leave the tucker on the bench and you can fetch it when Mr Irwin’s back.”
“Thank you very much,” Bony beamed. “A little buttered, eh?”
“Go along with you, Mr Bonaparte,” Mrs Ramsay giggled. “Let me ’aveme dreams.”
Bony walked through the building to the front, the air cool and the light poor in this part which was first to be built when materials were confined to mud and stone and roofing-iron at astounding cost. On the way to the post office, he met ’Un and his donkeys returning from the bottle ring, and immediately he stopped to speak to the yardman, the donkeys stopped too.
“Where was your Queen Vic Mine?” asked Bony.
“Where? ’Way over east. Nine mile out,” replied ’Un, the memory of it seemingly causing the automatic action of twirling the points of the upturned grey moustache. “She was a great show.”
“Did you ever prospect the ranges to southward?”
“Yes. Me and Paddy spent about eighteen months in them ranges. Never didno good. Picked up a floater or two but couldn’t locate the reefs. Plenty gold there waiting for someone to get on to it.”
“Anyonehave any luck?” asked Bony, leaning on the nearside leader of the team.
“Yes. Coupler blokes found half-ounce stuff, but the cost of getting it out to astamper killed it. Parties still doing a bit of dry-blowing, you know.”
“H’m! They tell me that Mr Lang, of Leroy Downs, used to drive a donkey team across there. You know that track?”
’Unchuckled, and the donkey against which Bony was leaning nearly fell down in its sleep.
“Every yard of it. Wouldn’t beno track now, of course. All you’d see would be flat marks rounding the slopes. Good bush-man, old man Lang. Had to be to get across them hills.”
“No one mining for gold near that track, I suppose?”
“Not that I knows of. Nearest shaft to old man Lang’s track would be three miles west. Coupler characters called German Charlie and Tiny Wilson working it.”
“How would they get on for water during winter? No creeksrunning, are there?” pressed Bony.
“Not this time of year. Ruddy torrents in the ‘wet’. Them fellers would get water in rock holes and the like.”
Bony shifted his weight from the donkey and stepped aside. “No one would sink a well on that track. How did old Lang do for water?”
“Rock holes.”
“I’ll see you before leaving this morning,” Bony said, and proceeded towards the post office. He heard ’Un call to the donkeys. So there was no prospector’s shaft, and no well sunk along that old donkey-wagon track at which ConstableStenhouse could have picked up whitish clay on the heels of his boots.
At the post office he found DaveBundred, the postmaster, who took his poison from the rum bottle.
“Mornin’, Inspector! How’s things?”
“Could be a lot worse,” Bony admitted to this bald, red-nosed, round-shouldered postmaster, meteorologist, Justice of the Peace and Deputy Coroner. “I’m going out again to the scene of the shooting, and will probably call on theWallaces. I could take their mail.”
“Sure. They’ll be pleased to get it.”Bundred turned to a side bench and proceeded to make up bundles of papers to add to letters and parcels. Bony wrote a telegram to his wife, saying he hoped to be returning almost at once, and knowing she would accept that with reservation.
“How long have you been at Agar’s?” he asked whenBundred dumped the assorted mail matter on the counter.
The watery, pale-blue eyes glinted with faint amusement.
“Thirteen years and a bit,” was the reply. “The bit’s all right: the years are superfluous. Could have got better offices down south, but I suppose it’s the blasted climate that gets you in. Wouldn’t be happy down in Perth even as the Postmaster-General. Hate Perth. Too hot in summer and too damned cold in winter.”
Bony smiled.
“The bottlering’s grown somewhat since you first came to Agar’s?”
“Somewhat! Too true it has. My wife says I’ve added five thousand empties to that ring. Exaggerates terribly, she does…exceptin ’ about those bottles. There’s another five thousand she knows nothing about. You married?”
“Alas!”
“Anyone sighted Jacky Musgrave yet?”
“No… not that I know.”
“Back home by this time,” predictedBundred. “Themblacks can travel when they want to. Never took to Jacky Musgrave. Too secretive altogether. Stenhousemusta told him to put over that yarn about going south on patrol.”
“Most likely,” agreed Bony. “Stenhousehad only the onetracker, didn’t he?”
“Only Jacky. Wouldn’t be bothered with the locals. Reckon he thought the local blacks might tell something about him.”
“Much to tell, d’you think?”
The lids blinked down over the watery eyes.
“Might be. Stenhousechanged a lot after his wife died.”Bundred lit a cigarette. “Wasn’t a bad kind of bloke when hecome here in the beginning. Got kind of sour about something. After his wife died he wasn’t worth knowing. All right to me. Had to be. Bit of mail for theBreens. You going out that way?”
Bony said he thought theBreens would be too far off the track, and the pale-blue eyes surveyed him with ill-concealed calculation.
“Think we could have a nip before you start?” suggested the postmaster.
“Not for me, thanks,” replied the reminiscent Bony. “I have a night out rarely, and haven’t recovered yet from that night with theBreens. They can certainly put it away.”
“You’re telling me. Jaspermusta been off colour though, to have passed out like he did. Queer feller, Jasper. Some nights he can down whisky by the gallon. Other times a couple of noggins will rock him.”Bundred grinned rather than smiled, revealing teeth badly needing attention. “We had a session one time that lasted two days and three nights. That time Jasper passed out the second day, and they propped him against the bar wall, tied a bit of string to his beard, and jerked the string to make him nod every time his turn came round to shout.”
“Did they then insist on paying for the entire company?” asked the amused Bony.
“No, not that time. Thatmusta been three years ago. Matter of fact it was just over three years. We were burying MrsStenhouse, and everyone came in for the funeral. Which reminds me, Inspector. You’ll find theWallaces pretty bitter, but they’re good folk. TheBreens are wild, as you saw for yourself. TheWallaces are more like us.”
Bony, loading his arms with mail and parcels, said:
“The cattle industry must have looked up.”
“Ezra is the brains out there. Got the idea that the war being over they’d have to organizethemselves and make money instead of being satisfied with just enough for tucker and a booze up now and then.”
“H’m. Evidently done a good job.”
“Evidently,”Bundred agreed. “Told me he realized when he was at the war that Kimberley was grown up and ought to have things better than cheap rags to wear and tin pannikins to eat and drink out of. Fine gal, Kim. Lucky man who gets Kimberley Breen.”
“Anyone tried yet?”
“Jack Wallace might know. He’d have to get past Silas and Jasper, then Ezra. There’s only one bloke could manage to get past those three.”
Bony waited, and then fell for it.
“The President of Ireland. He’d have to be the President of Ireland to be good enough for Kimberley.”
“Out of the top drawer, eh?”
Bundredsighed.
“She’s got hair that glows like polished copper, and eyes that grow as big as pansies when she looks at you. She looked at me once. Came in for the mail, and afterwards I didn’t shave for a fortnight ’cosI couldn’t bear to look at myself.”