Much Ado About a Bloodstain
THEFOLLOWINGmorning when Meena waited at the breakfast table, she placed the food before Wootton and Bony efficiently and with no trace of either nervousness or servility. Her large dark eyes never once met those of the guest, however, and yet there was no apparent avoidance, no revelation of consciousness of the visit to her camp. When she had departed for the kitchen Wootton asked:
“What’s your programme today?”
“Oh, I have to contact Pierce,” casually replied Bony. “First, though, I would like to talk with William Harte before he leaves for the day’s work. You won’t mind?”
“Not at all.” Wootton brushed his moustache with his napkin. “As I said yesterday, anything any of us can do. Did you inquire about the missing dolls at the blacks’ camp last night?”
It was a natural question, Bony having been absent from the homestead, and in view of the talk in the playhouse about the dolls.
“Yes, I did,” he replied. “I talked to Canute and his Medicine Man. Put it to them straight about the dolls. They both said they knew nothing, and were sure no one of their people had stolen them.”
“It must have been one of them, or one of us five white men,” argued Wootton. “No one else has been around the place since Harte last saw the dolls on the bench. As someone said yesterday, Yorky could have come back for them, but that would have been rather risky for him, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t the blacks have known?”
“Likely enough to both questions.”
“Then you think the blacks know where Yorky is hiding out?”
“Yes and no to that one, Mr Wootton.” Bony smiled disarmingly, adding, “You have not been long enough in this country to know that to hasten is to crawl, and to crawl is to hasten.”
“But the child, Inspector.”
“Her condition will not be bettered or worsened at this point. Permit me to ask the questions. Tell me, Mrs Bell was shot on February 7th. Late that night the policeman and the doctor arrived. When was the body taken to Loaders Springs?”
“Next day. The doctor took it in his station wagon. She was buried at Loaders Springs.”
“Did he leave before or after the aborigines came in the trucks sent for them?”
“He left after lunch, and the trucks didn’t return till after sundown. Why all this?”
“Now, now! I ask the questions. Charlie carved the dolls’ heads and tinted the faces. Who made the clothes?”
The cattleman frowned, obviously uncertain.
“Couldn’t rightly say. Mrs Bell, I think. Might have been Meena. Shall I call her?”
“Please do.”
Without rising, Wootton called, and the girl came, to stand placidly awaiting his orders.
“Meena, who made the clothes for Mr Wootton, Mrs Bell, and Ole Fren Yorky?”
“I did.”
“All of them?”
They could see that Meena was wriggling her toes in her red shoes, although to them her feet were not visible. She giggled, and the small white teeth momentarily pressed down on the lower lip. In that moment she was remarkably attractive. She said:
“I didn’t make Mr Wootton’s trousers, or Ole Fren Yorky’s. The ones I made, Linda didn’t like because she couldn’t take ’emoff. So Mrs Bell made new ones that Linda could take off and put on.”
“And what happened to the trousers you made?” asked Bony.
“I don’t know what Linda did with them.”
“Who stuffed the dolls’ bodies?”
“Mrs Bell tried hard.” Again Meena giggled-a delightful sound. “I did first. Then Linda tried. Then Mrs Bell had a go. Arnold did it in the end with sawdust in the carpenter’s shop.”
“And Charlie carved the heads, painted them, and put the hair and whiskers on the men?”
Meena’s eyes rested steadily on Bony, who could then see the grey flecks in the dark irises. She nodded, and Bony buttered a piece of toast.
“Did he carve them when supposed to be working for Mr Wootton?”
“No. No time for anything when station work going on. He did them any old time.”
“How much was he paid for them?”
This question brought a change of expression. Indignation gleamed in the dark eyes, shadowed the voice.
“Nothing at all. Charlie work for nothing… for Meena.”
“Did them for nothing!” echoed Bony, and now the honey skin darkened, and once again came the joyous giggle.
“Well, I paid Charlie,” she said. “I give him one kiss for Mr Wootton, one for Mrs Bell, and one for Ole Fren Yorky. Not till he done them and give them to Linda.”
“Oh! And how many kisses did you pay for Meena?”
“Why you want to know? But I’ll tell. I’m not scared. I let him kiss me twice for Meena, ’coshe worked double as hard on her.”
“When are you going to marry that feller?” asked Wootton and Bony was surprised by the firmness in his voice.
“I belong to old Canute,” replied Meena, swift rebellion in her eyes and voice.
“Rubbish! Young woman like you unclaimed because of that stupid old custom.”
It was a pity that Wootton said that, because it banished the girl’s natural frankness, and reverted her to the normal evasiveness of the aborigines, whose greatest weapon, as with all, is laughter. To further questions, Meena answered with giggles which were not the genuine reflection of her mood, and presently Wootton dismissed her.
“Can’t make her out,” he complained to Bony. “Good looking wench like that. Any white man could have done worse than marry her. I’d marry her myself if I’d half the chance.”
“You are not married?”
“Was. Been a widower for fourteen years. Joking, of course. Those Indian Summers I read about once don’t work out. Besides…”
“Go on,” urged Bony, laughing. “An Indian Summer could be an improvement on Hoary Winter.”
“Not for me. I know what the heat’s like. I lived in hell for twenty-two years. I know all about temperatures. Well, I’d better go along and give the men their orders. I’ll tell Bill to wait about for you.”
Wootton left by one of the two pairs offrench windows, and Bony dallied on at table, sipping coffee and smoking.
He wasn’t happy about Wootton. He was an odd man out in this setting of Lake Eyre. He was like a newly cut diamond in an old-fashioned gold ring, and what was that saying about new wine in old bottles… exploding? Five years he had been in this country, and he wasn’t assimilated by it as fully as some immigrants in much less time. It could be a streak of pomposity. He would dig into the background.
There was the question of Mrs Bell’s body. Rising, he crossed to the chair under the wall telephone and called for Constable Pierce.
“You, Inspector!” Pierce said from Loaders Springs. “Yes, sir, what can I do? Run out there to report?”
“Perhaps. I have the copies of your reports and the statements, and I am edging myself into the picture. I am speaking softly in order not to be overheard. You hear me all right?”
“Quite clear, sir.”
“You have still in your possession the plaster casts you took of Yorky’s tracks?”
“Yes, a copy. The originals, and the bullet from the body, I sent down to Adelaide.”
“When first you saw the body it was in the woman’s room?”
“Yes, on the bed.”
“Did you touch the body? Then or subsequently?”
“No. Dr Crouch was with me.”
“Could you fetch Dr Crouch to your phone?”
“Expect so. Shall I send for him?”
“Yes, do. I’ll hold the line. See that I’m not cut off.”
Bony was waiting when Meena came in with her clearing tray, and Bony waved her out. He left the instrument for the few seconds necessary to cross to the door and close it, and smiled at the picture of Meena’s face. He hadn’t long to wait before a deep voice spoke.
“Dr Crouch speaking, Inspector.”
“Ah! Good morning, doctor! I won’t keep you long. Recall to mind, please, what happened on your arrival here. You found the body of Mrs Bell in her room. Who was with you?”
“Pierce and Wootton.”
“Finding the woman obviously dead, you turned the body over to examine the wound, I presume. Who was then with you in the room?”
“I told Pierce the woman was dead. Wootton looked ill. I asked Pierce to take Wootton away. He did so. No one was with me when I examined the body. You make me curious.”
“I’ll satisfy your curiosity one day, doctor. Meanwhile, be patient with me. You found the body lying on its back under a sheet?”
“Yes.”
“How did you leave the body at the termination of the examination? I mean position.”
“On its back… under the sheet as I found it.”
“Later that day it was removed to your station wagon. Who conveyed the body to the car?”
“I don’t know, Inspector. I gave orders for it to be transferred from the house to the car.”
“Tell me this. To examine the bullet wound in the woman’s back you had to cut away the clothing?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me just what you did do.”
A little impatiently, Crouch described how he had with scissors cut the white linen blouse from the back of the neck to the band of the skirt. The wound was such that it wasn’t necessary at that time to examine the body further for secondary wounds, as the wound between the shoulders was obviously fatal. And Dr Crouch was now even more curious. Suavely, Bony asked him to stand by to permit Pierce access to the telephone. To Pierce he said:
“When you first saw the body, Wootton was with you. What exactly did you do? Don’t tell me what the doctor did. I know.”
“Well, I entered the room, having been informed by Bray that Mrs Bell’s body was there. The doctor was with me, and so was Mr Wootton. I turned down the sheet to establish the fact that the body was actually there on the bed. Mr Wootton gave a sort of moan, and Dr Crouch told me to take him out. Which I did.”
“The body was lying… in what position?”
“On its back, Inspector.”
“No other person entered the room while the doctor was there?”
“No; Wootton sat on a chair in the hall, and I was with him.”
“Now we come to the removal of the body to the doctor’s car. Who supervised that task?”
“I did. I had Arnold Bray and Eric Maundy with me.”
“What did you do?”
“Well the body was under the sheet again,” Pierce said with slight stoicism. “I tucked the top sheet about the body, and turned up the edges of the under sheet about the body, and the men carried it out.”
“No one of you three men saw the body?”
“No. It was as I said. No one looks at a body unless he has to.”
“That’ll be all for the moment, Pierce. Come out today. Better make it for lunch. I’ll tell Wootton you’ll be here.”
“I’ll be there, sir.”
“Good! And bring those plaster casts.”
Bony left by the window, and, crossing the square, found William Harte on the narrow veranda of the quarters. Harte was attaching a new silk cracker to his stock-whip, and his bright eyes gleamed with shrewd expectancy at Bony’s approach. Having seen Arnold in the open motor shed, and the other two stockmen riding from the yards, Bony knew that he had Harte to himself, and, nodding the day’s greeting, he leaned against the veranda rail, and fell to rolling the inevitable cigarette.
“How long have you been in this Lake Eyre country?” was his opening.
“All me life. Was born away over on Clifton Hills.”
“You must know it well,” conceded Bony. “Is there any shadow of doubt in your mind that those tracks behind the meat-house were made by Yorky?”
The bright eyes became mere dark spots in the leather face.
“If them tracks were imitations, then they were ruddy good, Inspector. You’re raisin’ the doubts, not me. I don’t think…”
“Supposing I told you that those tracks hadn’t been left by Yorky, would you gamble your way?”
Harte took time before replying:
“No, I don’t think I would, Inspector. Not now.”
“Even though Wootton saw Yorky at the blacks’ camp that morning? Knew he was to head this way?”
The slow grin twitching the corners of the man’s mouth supported the shrewdness Bony had already attributed to him.
“I’d say Yorky made ’em, but I wouldn’t do no betting on it. There wasn’t enough of those particular tracks to make me bet my shirt they was made by Yorky.”
“We’ll leave it, Bill. Another matter. You saw Mrs Bell’s body lying on the ground near the house. Can you recall the size and shape of the bloodstain on her blouse?”
“Too right. I won’t forget that ever. The crows had made a mess of her neck and shoulders, but the blouse wasn’t torn.”
Dark brown eyes and deep blue eyes held steady for a long moment.
“Between ourselves,” Bony asked, slowly.
“It’s your hand,” agreed Harte.
“Draw me a picture of that bloodstain.”
Harte crouched to the earth floor of the veranda and with the point of his clasp knife granted the request.