Retrospect
IT WASA thoughtful man who walked across the river’s dry bed to the men’s quarters. Bony’s inquisition of Stella Borradale had brought out several facts, only one of which at the moment appeared to have any significance relative to Bony’s investigation. This was the fact that Donald Dreyton must have known that Alice Tindall was walking back to her camp and that Frank Marsh was walking back to theStorries ’ house.
Martin Borradale knew this, too, and it was likely that yet others would be discovered who knew as much. Yet this series of crimes began shortly after Dreyton arrived at Wirragatta. It was he who climbed trees, to discover a piece of grey flannel in one, and it was he who for some mysterious reason preferred life on a boundary-fence to the comparatively luxurious life at the homestead.
And yet- It was as difficult to believe Dreyton capable of such terrible deeds as to think it of Martin Borradale, of Harry West, or of Bill the Cobbler. Bony had detected a kindly streak even behind the exterior of Hang-dog Jack. He was searching for a ferocious beast, and no one he had yet met came near his mental picture of this beast. Almost despite himself his mind kept reverting to Dreyton, for there was the keen suspicion that the temporary book-keeper knew certain facts and suspected others which he had never divulged.
When Bony entered the men’s dining-room Harry West and the horse, Black Diamond, was the subject under discussion. Harry was reviling Constable Lee for reporting him to the boss of Wirragatta for riding Black Diamond into Carie.
“Fair towelled me up, he did,” Harry complained.
“You deserved it,” Bony asserted as he seated himself at the table. “Pass the beetroot, please.”
“Oh, Iain’twhinin ’ about it, Joe, only it’s a bit thick to be chewed forridin ’ amoke I can manage with one hand.”
“Why did the boss order that no one was to ride Black Diamond?” inquired Bony of everyone in general.
“ ’Coshe’s a man-killer,” replied Hang-dog Jack. “That ’orsehas already killed one bloke and injured two others. Give the boss his due, he done quite right to declare Black Diamond an outlaw. ’Arryhere is the only bloke wot ever rode him, but to go and ride ’imin the dark-well, he deserves what’s coming to ’im.”
“There’s no law against riding a measly horse to a township, is there?” Harry demanded hotly. “Lee’s a liar to say that I rode to the public danger. Why, I only got as far as the pub corner. Didn’t I, Joe?”
“It was far enough. You might have ridden down someone on the road.”
“Someone on the road!”came the withering echo. “Ain’tevery man, woman and child in the district afraid to go out after dark?”
“But Simone’s nabbed Barry Elson,” Bill the Cobbler pointed out.
“You’re a bigger fool than I take you for if you think Barry Elson done all them murders,” Harry flashed out.
“We don’t think it, and neither does anyone elsewot’s got any gumption,” put in Young-and-Jackson. “Didn’t Simone tell Hang-dog Jack that he reckoned he was looking at the murderer of Alice Tindall?”
“Perhaps he spoke a true word when he spoke in jest,” Harry heatedly got in, and then ducked when the bone of the leg of mutton carved for the meal whizzed past his head.
“You ’intI done them murders again, Harry West, and I’ll break you inter little bits,” snarled the cook, crouched now at the head of the table, his face hideously convulsed with rage, his long arms curved and his hairy-backed hands opening and snapping shut. Yellow teeth were bared in a ferocious grin.
“If we all took the sergeant seriously,” Bony said in effort to pour oil on troubled waters, “then I would not sleep o’ nights. Sergeant Simone told me that he thought I was the murderer, and I cannot understand why he did not arrest me instead of Elson. Come, now, don’t let us lose our tempers over what the sergeant said. Harry, sit down.”
The quiet authoritative tone succeeded. Harry sat down and the rage slowly passed from the cook’s face. Hang-dog Jack turned back to his serving-bench, and thereafter the meal was eaten in silence.
“You should not have said that about truth and jest,” Bony reproved Harry West as they walked across to the bunk-house. “When controlled by such a gust of anger, Hang-dog Jack might do you a serious injury. Once he got his hands on you, you would be lost.”
“I didn’t think,” confessed the young man. “Besides, I was riled at him for backing up the boss. The bosssorta hinted that I’d lost me chance of one of the married houses for riding that black devil against his orders. Ah, well! Poor old Hang-dog Jackain’t a bad sort. I’ll go back and apologize to him. No bloke can be responsible for his dial.”
“To apologize requires courage,” averred Bony, glancing quickly at Harry’s fearless face. To that facecame a grin.
“To apologize to Hang-dog Jack certainly does,” Harry said. “Say, are you going to town tonight?”
“Yes, I promised to play chess with Dr. Mulray.”
“Good-oh! When youstartin ’?”
“Just after sundown.”
“That’ll do me. We could arrange to meet and walk back together. I don’t like the idea of coming on alone in the dark-on foot.”
“Very well,” agreed Bony, and Harry returned to the kitchen to prove his courage and raisehimself high in Bony’s estimation.
The sky was aflame to the zenith, and the vociferous birds were winging about the homestead and river trees when the detective and Harry West left for Carie. The track to Carie ran beside the river for a quarter of a mile before branching off from the creek track just above Junction Waterhole. When they arrived at this splendid sheet of water Bony halted beneath one of the huge red-gums whichwas the third last to the first of the creek box-trees. A gentle easterly breeze rippled the crimson-dyed surface of the water, and when a fish jumped for a fly its gleaming scales gave back crimson fire.
“It was here where poor Alice Tindall was found, wasn’t it?” Bony asked.
Harry West shrugged his shoulders without knowing it. “Yes,” he said, to add quickly: “Come away, Joe. I hate this place even in daylight.”
“Why, it is entrancingly beautiful,” Bony objected. “What a waterhole! It must have been a great camping-place for all the blacks in this district. Water! Cool and precious water now that the summer is come again. Shade! Real shade cast by these trees which suckered before Dampier ever saw Australia. Therewas loving and fighting, chanting and feasting for years upon years, Harry, all about this waterhole. Then the white man came, and for still a few more years the blacks lived their unfettered lives. But there was no more hunting and, because the white man’s tucker was easy to get-by working for it-there was no more real feasting. Finally came the dreadedbunyip to drive them all away, and this beautiful place now is desolate.”
“Aw, come on!” urged Harry. “We can talk about ’emon our way. Yes, therewas always blacks hereabouts before Alice Tindall was strangled. After that, when Simone had finished roaring at ’em, not a one would come within fifty miles of the place. And I don’t blame ’em, bee-lieveme.”
“She was a nice-looking girl, wasn’t she?” Bony said as they strode away from the river, across the bluebush plain.
“Too right she was. As you know, she was a half-caste, but like you she had sharp features. Old Dogger Smith-youain’t met him yet; he’s the biggest character inNoo South-told me she was born white and didn’t begin to colour until she was past twelve. That sounds funny, but it’s right, maybe. But pretty! Gosh-she was just lovely.”
“How old was she when-?”
“Getting on for eighteen. She was a corker. She had blue eyes, lighter in colour and brighter than yours, Joe. She had long straight hair what hung down her back in plaits. She wasn’t too dark of skin, either. Well, Miss Borradale always took a great interest in Alice. She wanted Alice to be a maid at ‘Government House’, but Alice wouldn’t take it on. Still, that didn’t makeno difference with Miss Borradale. She encouraged Alice to visit the maids at ‘Government House’, and she gave her clothes and showed her how to wear ’em. Alice often went with Miss Borradale out riding and sometimes in the car, and it was because of Miss Borradale that Alice grew up as good as she was pretty. Blokes would no more look cross-eyed at Alice than they would at their sisters.
“ ’Courseall the blokes were after her. When she was a baby, according to old Dogger Smith, there was a lot of talk about her being taken away from the tribe, and people reckoned she would have been took, only her motheruster cook at ‘Government House’, and she got old Borradale to put a spoke in somebody’s wheel. Anyway, as I said, Miss Borradale had a lot of influence over her, and she wouldn’t have anything to do with any bloke, black or white. I fancymeself a bit, and I tried pretty hard to hang my hat up on her, but it was no win. Even Hang-dog Jackuster shiver and shake when she spoke tohim, and the funny part about it was that she wasn’t afraid of him. You’d think she would have been scared stiff by a bloke with a dial like he’s got. There was one man, though, who could have got her if he had thought about it.”
“Oh! Who?” purred the interesteddetective.
“The boss. I seenher looking at himmore’n once when he wasn’t looking at her, and she didn’t know I was looking at her. Sheuster stand still-quite still-and look at him… like… like…”
“Like what?” Bony softly asked.
“You ever been in love, Joe?” surprisingly asked Harry West, and he appeared to find the distant town interesting as he put this question.
“Of course. I am still in love.”
“Well, then you’ll understand. Aliceuster look at the boss with her blue eyes shining like stars-like-like my Tilly looks at me sometimes. Itries to remember how she looked them times, not as she looked when me and the boss saw her dead.”
The young man fell silent, and, having given him a few seconds, Bony urged him to proceed.
“The evening before, Alice had been up at ‘Government House’ jabbering with the maids. It came on to thunder andlightnin ’ and the night was as black as the ace of spades. Anyhow, Alice stayed put till the dry storm had passed over, but even then the air was thick with sand. We blokes had gone to bunk. It was no use any of us asking to take her to the camp, because she would have refused and run off, and even I couldn’t catch her. I tried one afternoon, kiddin ’ I’d kiss her if I caught her, but she left me at the post.
“At the time, a recent flood down the creeks had left filled to the brims both Junction and Station waterholes, and there was a wide stream of waterconnectin ’ them. Alice had to walk up this side of the river and cross it above Junction Waterhole to reach the camp, which was on the far side. Not one of the blacks heard her scream out-if she ever did-and the camp from the place where she was strangled was only sixty-odd yards away. Anyway, old Billy Snowdrop, wot’s supposed to be the king of the tribe, came running to the homestead, where me and the boss and Dogger Smith was talking by the stockyards.
“For quite a bit, Billy Snowdropkep ’ up a jabbering we couldn’t understand about a banshee orbunyip what lived in the creek trees near the camp. After Dogger Smith grabbed Snowdrop’s whiskers and shook him up we gets it that early that morning Sarah was on her way to the homestead to do the washing, not having enough gumption to know there wouldn’t be no washing done that day, when she finds Alice dead under a gum-tree. Well, we ran back with Billy Snowdrop to the body. Aw-it was crook all right. It mightn’t have been so crook if Alice had been old and ugly. I don’t like thinking about how she looked that morning. No, not even now.”
“Did no one know whowas her father?”
“Not that ever I heard.”
“What was done after you were taken to the body?” Bony asked.
“The boss sent me back to the homestead to drive the car into Carie and bring back Lee and Dr. Mulray. He wouldn’t let me go near ‘Government House’, or tell Donald Dreyton to telephone from the office, for fear of upsetting Miss Borradale, who got upsetbad enough when she did hear. As I was leaving, the blacks were rushing across the river above the waterhole, and Billy Snowdrop was yelling for all of ’embar one or two good trackers to keep back.”
“Did they find any tracks, Harry?”
“By then the wind was raging like hell let loose. Therewas no tracks for even them to find, and it started them off talking about thebunyip.”
For a spell they walked in silence.
Then Harry said,“ ’Course, we all reckons abunyip is a kind of blackfeller’s bush ghost. When Simone heard of it he laughed at the blacks, and when they kept it up he roared at ’emand told them to shut up about their fool banshee. Ever since then I have thought there might be something in thatbunyip idea. Old Dogger Smith reckons there is, anyway. He fell out of Ma Nelson’s pub one night a bit the worse for wear, and he got slewed and ended up at Nogga Creek, where he thinks it’s as well to camp. He swears he dreamed hearing a banshee orbunyip laughing at him from up in the tree he was camped under. Queer old bird, Dogger Smith.”
“In what way?”
“Well, for a start, he’s about a hundred and fifty not out. Then, when you camps with him, he keeps you up all night talking about murders. He’s great on murders. Thereain’tno one in this district he don’t know all about. He knew ’emwhen theywas babies, and he knew everything about their pa’s and ma’s before ’em. He’s a corker all right, but he’s got sense with it.”
The sun’s flaming aftermath was drenching the township with colour, and they had vaulted the boundary-fence in preference to opening and shutting one of the gates, when Bony asked:
“What men were at the homestead when Alice was murdered?”
“Men? Oh, me and Dogger Smith, Bill the Cobbler and Hang-dog Jack.”
“Only four of you? How many were there when Frank Marsh was killed?”
“Lemmethink! Yes, the same four and Young-and-Jackson and Waxy Ted. Cripes! That was a night!”
“Indeed!”
“Too right! The day before Frank Marsh was killed Waxy Ted got a fiver fromTatt’s. What does he do but invite all hands to town that evening Frank was murdered. It happened that Lee was upset about something and wasn’t in a good mood, and Mum Nelson gave orders to James that the bar wasn’t to be opened up to the general public. It was no good Waxy Ted trying to get a drink, ’coswhen he’s half-stung he will insist on singing ‘The Face on the Bar-room Floor’. So me and Bill the Cobbler, we took the fiver to the back door and persuades James to hand out thirty bottles of beer, which we takes to the mob parked at the Common gates.
“Hot? It was a hell of a night, and after we had neckedmore’n half the beer we wasn’t even cheerful about it. So we decides to stagger back to the men’s hut and polish off the rest, and just as we were about to start, along comes Frank Marsh. He was a decent bloke. He was working and camping at theStorries ’, making water-tanks. Anyway, when he arrived on his way to town we had to open up another round of bottles, so that by the time we parted from him it must have been around ten o’clock. Gosh! We didn’t think then that poor old Frank would belying dead at them gates next daybreak. You know, Joe, things are getting worse than crook. Me and Tilly is afraid to walk out after dark.”
“You don’t think Barry Elson committed these crimes?”
“No, I don’t, as I said at dinner. The blokewot’s doing them must bestrongish. Alice and Frank and Mabel were reasonably well set up, and it would take a stronger man than Elson to kill them with his bare hands. Tilly backs me up in that.”
“Ah, Tilly! Did she like the ring?”
“Too right, she did. She’s still talking about it. She reckonsit’s miles better than the one Ma Nelson gave Mabel Storrie, and that was a bonzer.”