Treasure Trove
IT WAS ONE of Bony’s axioms that Time is the investigator’s greatest ally. Time, through his inherited gift of observation, provided him with the shaving which, examination in daylight convinced him, had come from the place where a wise ancient laboured lovingly to build coffins. Time, through friendship with a dog, provided him with a new shoe which was to prove to be the hammer with which the shell of this mystery was broken open.
The shoe was so new that the leather under the instep still retained its original gloss. It was a size seven and dark-brown and, basing his judgement on the price he had last paid for his shoes, Bony estimated the cost of this one, with its fellow, as about five guineas. The maker’s name was stamped on the inside, a name renowned for quality.
Unfortunately, it was so new that the wear to the sole and heel could give nothing of the character of its owner.
Stug would not have found the shoe at great distance from the Lighthouse yard. Superficially, it would seem that because the shoe was new it must have come from the inside of a house. On the slope down from the Lighthouse were several houses, but at this time only one of them was occupied. As it was early winter and thenights cold, it wasn’t likely that the occupiers of that house slept with the doors open. Had it been an old shoe… Old shoes are tossed out with the garbage.
The murder victim had worn size seven shoes.
There was no necessity to call the dog when Bony left the hotel shortly after ten the next morning and walked down the highway to the turn-off to the picnic ground. The sun was shining, and towards the ocean the wide bar of white sand shut in the creek and kept out the breakers.
As Bony mounted the headland slope the cliffs lay to his right, and to his left were the summer houses behind those once occupied by the keepers of the Light. Now and then, Bony softly cried “Sool-em, Stug!”, and the dog ran about with nose to ground and tail vigorously flailing. Nothing much happened whilst they were on the slope, save that a rabbit broke from cover and Stug merely glared at it.
At the graves of the two pioneers Bony halted, watching the dog, and Stug lay down for a rest. From the graves it was but a short distance to the Lighthouse fence, and when they stood outside the locked gate, the dog began to evince additional interest in this adventure.
He ran about with nose to ground, and then returned to look expectantly at his companion. He remembered the incident of the shoe and that Bony had kept it from him. Bony walked on and skirted a house, whereupon Stug lost interest. No, the houses meant nothing to him. They returned to the yard, and again the dog remembered the shoe.
This time, Bony proceeded towards the seaward cliff, and almost immediately Stug ran on ahead, nose to ground, following an old path. On the path were the dog’s tracks made the previous night. The path wound among the bushes of tea-tree, finally emerged into the open but a few yards from the cliff and gave out. But Stug ran on to the cliff and disappeared over its edge.
When Bony stood where the dog had disappeared, the beach below was that section where he had buried the penguin, and from which he had witnessed what then appeared to be attempted suicide. In fact, he was now standing where the struggle had occurred between the girl and the man. The drop was sheer to the sand below… sheer save for a narrow ledge which began at Bony’s feet and slanted steeply down the face of the cliff.
The ledge passed from sight several yards to Bony’s left, and beneath a distinct overhang. There was no sign of the dog, who must have gone down that ledge… for dogs do not fly off into space. One could step from the cliff verge to the beginning of the ledge, did one have nerve enough to stand on a pathway nowhere wider than twelve inches, and often less. At its higher end grew tufts of grass, and brush sprouted from the cliff face. Lower down there was nothing save rocky protuberances an experienced alpine climber could use for hand-hold.
Suddenly the dog appeared coming up along the ledge. He appeared from under the bulge of the cliff, and he was exceedingly excited. The narrowness of the pathway worried him not at all. Clenched between his teeth was a shoe. Arrived at the top, he playfully snarled, dropped the shoe and ran a short distance where he waited for the shoe to be tossed.
Bony picked it up, vented a sigh of immense satisfaction, and, after effort, managed to push it deep into a side pocket. It was certainly the fellow of Stug’s previous find, which now was locked in Bony’s suitcase. The dog was disappointed but not dismayed. He returned to the cliff and trotted down the ledge. A little way down he stopped and, managing successfully to turn about, he barked invitation to the man to follow.
Go down that ledge! Not for a million! Bony cried “Sool-em!” but Stug declined to sool anything if his cobber wasn’t game to go with him.
That at least one brand-new shoe had been lying somewhere down that ledge was proven. Bony thought of assistance, of ropes. He considered the feasibility of being lowered below that overhang, and then imagined the rope frayed to breaking point. Down beneath the overhang might be other articles of clothing thrown over the cliff by the murderer he sought. For a split second he considered calling on the police at Lorne to assist in the investigation of the face of this cliff. The thought quickly expired, and before he was actually aware of it, he had stepped from the verge down to the ledge.
Men perform great feats for small reward. There are many who play the game of life with the dice loaded against them. Bony turned to face the aged face of Split Point, and proceeded to shuffle along the ledge. Slowly he sank down from the verge, and then he was beneath the edge of the cliff and gripping weathered rock with both hands. His mind fought backThought which was panic.
The dog turned again and ran on down under the overhang. He could be heard vociferously urging Bony to follow him, and Bony knew that to hesitate, to go back to safety on firm ground, and plenty of it, would achieve nothing but the acknowledgement of common sense. Provided the ledge didn’t give under his weight, provided he did not stop to look down, provided the rocky protuberances he chose to grip did not part from the cliff face, he would continue to live.
When the ledge took him under the overhang, he felt like a bristle under a giant’s chin. The wind slapped the back of his clammy neck. The beach was an electro-magnet increasing in power to drag him from the gold knobs of the vast golden wall. The sea hissed like serpents about his feet, the soles of which tingled with exquisite agony. His gripping hands were white like marble. And in his ears thundered the voice of pride:
“Go on, craven! What about the great D I Bonaparte now? Not so good, eh? Keep going… the dog’s ahead of you.”
The ledge rounded a curve. He could see it from the corner of his eye. It was now a little wider, sixteen to eighteen inches. He reached the curve at the narrow shoulder, passed round and saw, just beyond, Stug waiting for him, Stug standing on a tiny level area and barking encouragement, and behind Stug the small dark opening of a cave.
He must have held his breath all the way down, for when he stood on the little platform with Stug, his lungs panted for air. With his back to the cave entrance, he gazed out over the smiling sea, and all he could see was water. He could not see the beach, and realized that no one on the beach could see him… or the mouth of the cave. He looked upwards, and nowhere could he see the top of the headland. There and then, he decidedthat never, never would he walk back up that ledge.
Then he was conscious of the dog nuzzling the back of his legs, prodding him with his nose, growling and shaking hell out of something. Still panting, he turned about to see Stug with a man’s waistcoat, and the dog backed into the cave continuing to growl and worry the garment.
The entrance was a trifle less than five feethigh, and little more than three feet wide. Bony went in after the dog, and inside was able to stand upright. It appeared to be occupied.
That was the first impression Bony received. On the floor of rough rock lay a man’s clothes, and with them a small suitcase. Memory of his ordeal was erased from his mind as he stooped to examine the clothes ranging from a light raincoat to underclothes and socks, and when Stug interfered he shouted angrily, and then repented and petted.
“You lie quiet, Stug, and leave all this to me. I’ll give you my own waistcoat to tear to pieces when we get out of this place. You lie down and take a nap. Just watch me smoking a consumption tube and trying to regain my habitual calm.”
He sat down beside the clothes, and with trembling fingers managed to roll a cigarette and light it. With his head on his forepaws the dog watched him, his great black eyes unwinking.
The suit was of good quality and in good condition. It was navy blue, and the colour and quality of the material and the cut more than hinted that its owner had been a seafaring man. The tailor’s name had been cut from the lining of the coat. The coat buttons were of bone and gave nothing. There was nothing in the pockets save a wallet. There was nothing in the pockets of the trousers, but the buttons gave a clue, for they were of metal and on each was stamped the name of a tailor in Adelaide.
The wallet contained eight ten-pound Treasury notes, a five-pound note, four pound notes, and seven shillings and five pence in coins.
The raincoat was of poor quality. In therighthand pocket was a wristlet watch, and a gold signet ring. The watch was good but not expensive. The ring was broken. It had been broken previously and soldered. On the hexagonal plate were engraved the letters BB. Like the suit coat, the raincoat had been deprived of the maker’s tab.
“We can now, my dear old pal Stug, say that robbery wasn’t the motive,” Bony told the dog. “And can even assume that the murderer wasn’t particularly intelligent. He removed the tailor’s name from the suit coat, and didn’t notice that the trouser buttons bear the tailor’s name. He was cautious enough to remove the maker’s name from the raincoat, and that, I think, was unnecessary because the raincoat is probably one of hundreds turned out by its maker.”
The shirt and the tie were expensive, and the underclothes turned out by the mills in thousands. The socks gave nothing. The hat was of a popular make and sold to the retail trade by the ton. The victim’s head size was Bony’s size.
There was no doubt in Bony’s mind that these clothes were once owned by the dead man found in the Lighthouse. Although the floor of the cave was dry, the clothes were faintly mouldy and felt slightly damp, a condition to be expected of clothing exposed to sea air for several weeks.
“Leave that alone,” he said to the dog, nosing into a much smaller cave at the base of the far wall. “What have you there?”
He crossed to see, and found a dead sheep.
The sheep had been dead for several days, and obviously it had starved to death. The dog barked, and Bony looked at him.
“So that’s how it was, eh?” he said. “The poor sheep was feeding on the cliff top, and it came to the verge and saw the tufts of long grass growing on the ledge. It went down for the grass, and then found it couldn’t turn round like you do. So it came on down the ledge, and didn’t have sense enough to go up again. It stood on the little platform and bleated for days. No one came to the beach below, to hear although not able to see it. And towards the end, Stug, the sheep came in here to die in the darkest place.
“You followed your nose to find out all about the smell. Nothing but the smell attracted you, because you’re too well fed at home. And you found the shoes and remembered how, when you were a pup, you loved to pounce on shoes and sneak them out of the house and bite them to pieces.”
Patting the dog, he returned to the clothes, was reminded that one shoe was still in his pocket. The shoe he removed, and placed it with the wallet, the watch and the ring. He removed buttons from the trousers and added them to the treasure trove. In his mind was the unavoidable climb up the ledge. He cut the bottom from the leg of the trousers, preserving the cuff, inside which would be dust which the experts might make something of.
The clothes were then neatly folded and stacked on a rock shelf which the dog could not reach, and the suitcase examined. It contained a suit of cheap pyjamas, a hairbrush and comb, a shaving outfit, and a small brown paper parcel. The parcel contained thirty-three ropes of pearls. More than probably they were imitations. Two strings he pocketed, and the comb because it imprisoned hairs. The remaining articles he replaced, and put the case on the rock shelf.
This was not a cave known to visitors as those beach caves were known. It was not a place to be visited by anyone not driven by hard necessity. The murderer knew of this cave, and he had risked the journey down the cliff face to deposit here his victim’s possessions. He must have used rope or straps to clamp the clothes and suitcase to his back, for he would certainly have had to use his hands to grip the rock.
Still swayed by the satisfaction given him by this discovery, Bony leaned his back against the wall of the cave and rolled another cigarette, and as he smoked his gaze wandered from the uneven floor to the dead sheep, from the sheep to the walls, the shelves and the crevices. Hope was fleeting that there was another way to the cliff top.
Midway up the opposite wall he espied a niche. As it was large enough for a man to crawl into, and might lead to the top, he went over and felt within, as the shadow was heavy. At once his fingers touched metal, and in the next instant he knew the metal to be rusty keys. He ignited a match to look at them, two keys similar in size to the Lighthouse keys. Dropping them into a pocket, he groped into the niche and brought out a thick wad of paper.
On his knees at the entrance to obtain full light, he saw that time had pulped the paper but had not obliterated the evidence that once the wad had been magazines bound together with string. He managed to part the wad, to bare a page. The print was so blurred as to be unreadable. He tried again, and made out lines like an etching, and after study was able, with a little guesswork, to read: Jack Harkaway’s Adventures in Greece.
Back at the niche, he found a ball of twine so rotted he could barely handle it. There was a Y-shaped piece of wood with material fastened at the ends of the fork. Once it had been a boy’s catapult. He found a book which, like theJack Harkaway’s Adventures, was pulped by time and the sea air. He could read nothing within the leather covers, but the spine bore the indented letters reading: “Cora.. s. and by R. M. Bal. an… e”.
Further groping brought to light a cigar box, and strangely enough this box was well preserved. It contained foreign coins, a penknife, snapshots faded beyond determination, and sea shells. Finally drawn out was what proved to have been a box of matches, and four clay pipes which had never beensmoked.
All this junk Bony put back in the niche, his mind fired by the knowledge that once this cave had been a boy’s dream of coral islands and pirates bold. Only boys would have the nerve to negotiate that ledge now awaiting Napoleon Bonaparte.
The ledge! He would have to return via that ledge to life and eventual triumph. There was nothing more to be discovered here. He buttoned his coat, passed out to the level place before the cave, spoke to the dog, and faced the golden cliff.
The dog followed, sure-footed, supremely confident. A gull cried from somewhere in the glaring sky behind him. Go on, Bony! Don’t stop! You are loaded with treasure trove, the doubloons and the pieces of eight of success. Not so hard, is it? Better than coming down. The ledge took your weight comingdown, it will take your weight going up.
Slowly he drew near to the top. Another foot or two would bring his eyes to the grassy verge of the headland. Better not look up. Be wise and keep the eyes busy locating rock knobs and crevices for handholds. A littlefarther, and he recognized a handhold he had taken when going down. He was at the top… almost.
The sky fell and the light waned. Pain shot downwards to his feet, loosed his knees. The light continued to wane. Grip-grip! For heck’s sake, grip! If the grip slips, there’s only the beach below. Stop the light from fading out altogether. Will power might do it. If the light goes completely out you’ll certainly fall.
The light held, began to strengthen. Again he could see the cliff face, and his hands whitened by the strain. It was raining. The raindrops were sliding down his forehead, dripping from his nose. His legs wouldn’t move… not at first… not till he shouted at them to move. The dog was barking from somewhere, perhaps the beach, perhaps the cliff top. It didn’t matter. The surf was roaring like a vast herd of ravening tigers.
His feet and hands at last were moving. They had to move… had to keep moving… Red rain was falling down his forehead, down his nose. He felt grass under his hands, and yielding sand touching his fingertips. He swam upon the grass, and then lay still with the toes of his shoes beating upon soft turf. An animal whimpered and a hot tongue caressed the nape of his neck.