The Night Rider
A TREELESS PLAIN has its wardrobe of dresses, a wardrobe much better stocked than that possessed by a forest. Unlike women, nature dons a dress to suit every mood, and not one to create a mood. Some of her moods call for ugliness, colour dissonance, even drabness.
On this particular evening in the second week of November the bluebush plain surrounding Carie wore a dress of orange and purple, for the setting sun had drawn before its face a mantle of smoky crimson bordered along its topmost edge with ribbons of gold and of pale green.
This celestial drapery was beyond Mrs. Nelson’s range of vision. She was sitting in an easy chair at the extreme south end of the balcony of her hotel, the knitting with which she had been employed now idle in her lap, her small, white, blue-veined hands resting upon it. Even so, she could command an excellent view of the one and only street.
It was an evening to calm anyone’s troubled mind, but the mind of Mrs. Nelson was by no means untroubled. In fact, it was greatly excited by recent events.
To the south, a bar of dark green was Nogga Creek, and after the sun had set it became a bar of darkling colour fading gradually into the dove-grey sky. From the wide eastern horizon, coming inward towards the town, the grey of distance merged into purple-a purple slashed by streaks of orange where the sun’s aftermath caught the lines of tobacco bush-a purple which flowed about the greater splashes of light red, beneath which lay the thousands of tons of fine-grained sand deposited by the winds since Mrs. Nelson was a girl.
Smith’s Bakery opposite, and all the town to the left of the hotel, was stained with dull reds and browns-stains which obliterated the harshness of iron roofs and weathered walls of wood, of iron, of petrol-tins, of chaff-bags. Along the street had been driven a flock of goats, and, as though their passage had been transmuted into an imperishable mark, minute sand particles raised by their cloven hoofs now hung steadily in mid-air, forming a nigger-brown varnish, which coloured old Grandfer Littlejohn, talking excitedly with Mr. Weaver, the many playing children, and the unusual number of gossiping women standing on the footpaths. Even the figures of Bony and Mounted-Constable Lee, talking outside the police station front gate, were tinted with this umber shade.
What an afternoon it had been! The little woman on the veranda was feeling almost exhausted by the strain of the excitement. She had, of course, watched the departure of Sergeant Simone on the track to Allambee, and for two hours she had found much enjoyment in speculating on his destination and the purport of his business. Then she had seen the sergeant’s car returning along the sole street, had watched it turn just before it reached the police station and so disappear in the direction of the lock-up. And in the car with the sergeant had been Barry Elson.
It was as well that, despite her years, her heart was robust, because the subsequent wait and the suspense were hard to bear. That old fool of a Littlejohn had hobbled to the police station corner and stood there to stare at the lock-up instead of coming to tell her if Elson really had been arrested. Mrs. Nelson was about to send for James and order him to go and ascertain what it was all about when Sergeant Simone drove out to the street and pulled up before the petrol pump outside the store.
After that, for an hour, the car was parked outside the police station whilst that annoying brute of a man was inside talking mysteriously to Constable Lee. People began to animate the usually empty street, and they stood like statues staring across at the lock-up when the sergeant drove his car to it, and out of Mrs. Nelson’s view. Ah, and then he had suddenly reappeared with Barry Elson at his side, and had driven away, to vanish under the Nogga Creek trees on his way to Broken Hill.
Tilly came on to the veranda and told her in hushed voice all that she had guessed. One could see the look of amazed relief in Tilly’s homely face. One could tell by the movements of the people in the street that at long last the shadow of the Strangler had been lifted from Carie.
And then, about half-past seven, that stranger half-caste working on Wirragatta had appeared at the Common gate, to walk into Carie to the police station, where he had been for the last half-hour. Oh, what was he doing in the police station? What was he talking to Lee about? Mrs. Nelson sent for James. And James received certain orders.
Mrs. Nelson’s dislike of Sergeant Simone was due less to his profession than to his refusal to inform her of the progress of his investigation. She disliked Donald Dreyton because he avoided acquainting her with his past history. With Joe Fisher, she was positively angry, for not only was she unable to find out whence he had come and who he was, but he had not even called at the hotel for a drink and a yarn with James. Old Grandfer Littlejohn had been ordered to come up for an interview, but to hide his ignorance of what was going on the old fellow had cackled about nothing.
The plain was swiftly changing its gown for one of dark grey and indigo blue. From two dozen tin and debris-littered back yards hens were quarrelling for roosting-places. Mr. Smith sat down on his doorstep, and Grandfer Littlejohn arranged himself on his petrol-case set at the edge of the path outside his son’s house. And then Bony left Constable Lee, and, on his way towards the hotel, was stopped by Grandfer… Five minutes later Bony entered the hotel, and the watching Mrs. Nelson sighed and settledherself to receive a visitor.
No longer could she see the division of land and sky. Far distant a bright light burned steadily as though through the uncurtained window of a stockman’s hut. Not being interested in the stars, Mrs. Nelson could not name this one. Nogga Creek was now a dark fold in a deep cloth of velvet.
The minutes passed unnoticed by the watching woman. Sounds of town life slowly became hushed as the plain nestled beneath the blanket of night. One by one the sitters rose and passed beyond doors. Lights within the houses winked out to stare at Mrs. Nelson and from below came the familiar sounds made by the hotel yardman when placing steps in position and mounting them to light the lamp suspended over the main door. By now the Common gates had been eaten up by the night and the plain was sinking swiftly into a pit.
Came presently a swish of starched clothes. Tilly appeared. Behind her came the new Wirragatta hand, Joseph Fisher.
“Here is Mr. Fisher, ma’am,” Tilly announced, and Bony said, advancing, “It is indeed kind of you to ask me to come and see you, Mrs. Nelson. I trust I find you well?”
The old woman’s eyes gleamed like glinting water. The soft, pleasing voice astonished her. She had known many half-castes and quarter-castes. Most of them had spoken pleasingly, but this man’s voice contained something deeper than mere vocal sounds.
“I like to meet all my customers personally,” Mrs. Nelson said lightly. “Tilly shall bring a chair for you-if you will consent to stay for a few minutes and talk to a lonely old woman.”
“There is nothing that would please me better. Permit me to fetch the chair.”
Bony turned back to take the chair Tilly was bringing from the sitting-room. From the moment James had informed him that his employer would like him to visit her, the detective was, to use a word he himself always barred, intrigued.
“May I smoke?” he inquired whilst arranging the chair with its back touching the veranda rail.
“Certainly.”
“Thank you. I am mentally sluggish when unable to smoke.”
“They tell me, Mr. Fisher, that you were camped at Catfish Hole the night Barry Elson nearly murdered poor Mabel Storrie. Did you know about the terrible crimes that have been committed near here?”
“Yes. But who would want to strangle a poor half-caste station-hand? I suppose that you, like every one else, are glad that Elson was caught at last?”
“Of course! We shall all be able to sleep peacefully tonight,” replied Mrs. Nelson. “What part of the State do you come from?”
As Bony expected this leading question, he was decided to save time. He said:
“For many years I was working on Barrakee, on the Darling. Before that I was farther up the river, above Bourke. You see, I was born north of Bourke. I left the river to escape my sponging tribal relations. I have never before been out this way.”
“By the sound of you, you have received a good education.”
“Oh, yes. A Mr. Whitelow saw to that.”
“Your father?”
“That, madam, I am unable to answer,” gravely replied Bony. “Mr. William Shakespeare, or some other, wrote something about the wisdom of the man who does know his own father.”
Just how Mrs. Nelson would take this Bony was uncertain, but interested. There followed a distinct silence before Mrs. Nelson said:
“You are caustic, Mr. Fisher, and I do not approve of caustic people.”
“Your pardon, Mrs. Nelson. Do you really think that young Barry Elson attacked his sweetheart?”
“Who else? I have thought it all along,” she conceded, evidently pleased that they had successfully skated across thin ice. “He is a young man I have not liked, but until the attack on poor Mabel Storrie I had certainly not connected him with those two terrible murders. I suppose Sergeant Simone questioned you severely?”
“ ‘Severely’is the correct adverb,” Bony admitted with a low laugh, and he wished he could see his questioner’s face. The sequins decorating Mrs. Nelson’s black silk blouse gleamed now and then as they caught the light of the hotel lamp reflected upward from the wide light-sword flung across the street.
Mrs. Nelson waited for Bony toproceed, and having waited vainly she said, “You would get on better with Constable Lee. What does he think of Sergeant Simone arresting Barry Elson?”
“Lee is too good a policeman to tellme what he thinks.”
“I don’t know about that,” swiftly countered the old woman. “Lee is just a grown-up boy. There’s nothing bad in him like there is in Sergeant Simone. Lee’s policy is to live in peace and let live in peace. Simone told me that Lee is too popular to be on duty in a bush town, and that he considered it advisable to get him transferred.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, indeed. And so I gave Mister Sergeant Simone a piece of my mind. I’ll tell you just what I said to Sergeant Simone, because I would like you to tell Lee some time and so ease his poor mind. Both his wife and him are scared to death that he might be transferred, and then what her father and mother would do I don’t know. Don’t let him know I asked you to tell him. Mention it casually.”
“Yes. I understand perfectly,” Bony agreed, the sound of the cash register and the murmur of voices in the allegedly closed bar drifting up to them. It appeared that many after-hours customers were celebrating the departure of Sergeant Simone, or the arrest of the supposed Strangler. Lee certainly was leaving people to live in peace.
“Very well, then. I said to Sergeant Simone only last night, and up here on this veranda- ‘Simone,’ I said, ‘like all government servants, you and your Commissioner think you have got the boss hand. I, a little old woman, would break you like a straw. I own the majority of the shares in theSydney Post, and I’d have a reporter sent up and tell him how you have failed in your duty of catching the murderer of Alice Tindall and consequently let Frank Marsh be murdered. I’d make the people of New South Wales laugh at you first and then hunt you out of the State. So, you see, you don’t know me, my man. I’m the boss of this district, and don’t you ever forget it.’ ”
Bony laughed softly. Another silence fell upon them. Far away towards Nogga Creek there came to Bony’s abruptly straining ears the rhythmic drumming of a horse’s hoofs pounding on the earth track. The animal was being furiously ridden.
Bony sensed, rather than saw, Mrs. Nelson’s fragile body stiffen in her chair, and he knew that she, too, heard the thudding hoofs. Together they listened, Bony trying to decide if the rider was coming from Wirragatta or from Storrie’s selection, and whilst he listened he watched the sequins glinting on Mrs. Nelson’s black blouse and noted that their movement was becoming more rapid.
Then he said slowly and softly, “I wonder, now!”
It caused Mrs. Nelson to ask sharply, “At what do you wonder?”
“I wonder if Sergeant Simone had his prisoner handcuffed.”
“I don’t understand you, Fisher,” Mrs. Nelson said, become so agitated that she omitted the courtesy title. “Do you think this horseman is coming with news of another-?”
“Supposing that Barry Elson was not handcuffed, wouldn’t it be possible for him to strangle the sergeant and escape in the car, and for this horseman to have found the body on the track?”
“Don’t be a fool, man!” snapped Mrs. Nelson. “Why, Simone could eat his prisoner. Still-still-I fear-Which direction is the rider coming from?”
“I cannot determine,” answered the thrilling Bony. He stood up to peer into the black void hiding the Common. “I think he is now at one of the gates.”
For three seconds the silence of the night surrounded them. Then from out the void the hoof-beats again came to them, quickening to a wild thrumming pounding. Which of the two gates had the rider just passed through? Which one?
“I-I-oh, I hope there hasn’t been another murder done. I couldn’t stand…” Mrs. Nelson cried softly, the fire with which she had described her threats to Simone burned to cold ash.
“What’s that?” Bony demanded, his entire attention centred on the possibilities of the horseman’s errand. His body, to Mrs. Nelson, was silhouetted against the sword of light cast across the street by the hotel lamp, and she saw it stiffen. From along the Broken Hill road, swiftly rising in tonevolume, came the pounding tattoo on sandy ground of the animal’s hoofs. Both half-caste and white woman could picture the rider crouched along the horse’s neck, a great horror on his ashen face.
It seemed that Mrs. Nelson no longer could bear the suspense engendered by the oncoming horse and rider. She rose from her chair and stepped quickly to the veranda rail at Bony’s side, there to clutch the rail with smallberinged hands.
Somewhere in the void beyond the end of the street came to them a sharp metallic report which further agitated Mrs. Nelson and sent Bony hurrying below. Mrs. Nelson heard men’s voices raised, and out through the main door of the hotel ran James, the barman, and his several customers. Mr. Smith appeared in front of his shop, his rotund figure illuminated in the light-sword cast by the hotel lamp.
The pounding of hoofs rose in crescendo, but no faintest indication of horse and rider was to be seen in the black void of night until man and animal abruptly burst into the light-sword, to be followed by a rolling cloud of dust. A stockwhip cracked like a machine-gun, metallically. The horse was reined back upon its haunches, and then its rider sat and stared at the gathering of men outside the hotel, which now included Bony.
“What’s up?” demanded James Spinks.
The little crowd moved towards the rearing horse.
“Look out!” someone shouted. “Harry’sridin ’ Black Diamond.”
“What’s up?” shouted the youthful Harry West. “Nothink’sup. Can’t a bloke ride to town without all the populationwantin ’ to know what’s up?”
“What do you mean by riding to town like that?” James wanted further to know, and Bony saw that his face was drawn and ghastly white.
“Well, how was I to come? Think I wasgonna lead this devil of a horse?” complained Harry. “Stiffen the crows! It’s a bit thick if a bloke can’t ride to town to see his girl without being roared at. You draw me a schooner of beer time I get in fromparkin ’ this cross between a lion and a tiger-cat.”
“Drat him!” Mrs. Nelson cried softly. “Drat him! He gave me quite a fright.”