Читать книгу The Battling Prophet - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 5

A Regrettable Death

The coach captain was young, smart in the grey uniform of the company, and a facile talker. It was obvious that his female passengers found him disturbing; that he was being mentally seduced by those in whom hope was waning and those whose husbands had exhausted their repertoire.

The voice from the amplifier was pleasing, and grammatical errors easy to condone. There was little of the bored tones of the guide, and more often than not the man spoke as though to close friends, as, indeed, the majority of the passengers had become, for they had left Sydney ten days before on this tour to Adelaide and now were on the return journey. Only one man had joined them at Adelaide.

“We are now approaching Murray Bridge,” announced the captain. “As you all know, we are returning to Melbourne via the Princes Highway, and here at Murray Bridge we halt for morning tea. I know you understand how we must keep strictly to schedule, so please don’t go wandering down the street.”

“Not unless you go with me, Captain,” said a middle-aged woman who was good for a solid tip at the end of the tour.

Again on the road a man remarked:

“Country looks terribly dry even this far south.” And the amplified voice said:

“Droughtiest year for the last seventeen. All across South Australia and Victoria, and high into New South Wales, the man on the land is being hard hit.”

“Old Ben Wickham was right again,” a woman said, and her travelling companion added:

“He’s been right for years, but this time all the farmers believed him. Pity he died.”

Both before and after leaving Border Town the effect of the drought was apparent. There was no new fallow; the grass paddocks were burned brown and patchily bare; there were no green crops. It was as though this were the end of summer and all the thirsty land awaited the autumn rains. But it was early spring, when all the world should have been bursting with vigorous life. Brown was the universal colouring, broken only by the dark of pine plantations and the barbered gardens of neat homesteads. The district was almost denuded of stock. Of human activity there was none to be seen.

Mount Gambier was ever a thriving town, and important as a police administrative centre. The passenger who had joined the coach at Adelaide changed here to an old bus that connected Mount Gambier with the small fishing village called Cowdry. The way ran over the low hills and climbed to the famed Blue Lake, into which, so said the cynical driver, the Mount Gambier people emptied tons of washing blue every six months. Beyond this serene pool the road crossed bare uplands where even the occasional tree seemed lifeless.

“Depressing, isn’t it,” observed the man from Adelaide, who was seated immediately behind the local driver.

“Yair, looks grim all right,” agreed the driver. “Still, there’s no argument. Old Wickham predicted the drought, and them who wouldn’t believe him deserved what they’re getting. There’s lots of people who howled him down for crying drought, and lots who’ve been on his side. Would have cheered him up if he’d lived.”

“His home was down this way, I understand,” said the Adelaide passenger.

“Yair. Place about twenty thousand acres called Mount Mario. You can see it ahead just right of that line of pines. They took his body to Adelaide for cremation, and flew the ashes back and scattered ’em over Mount Mario. Nice-lookin’ place from the road. I’ll pull up and let you take a peep at it. You’re staying with John Luton, you said. You get off at the bridge.”

“Thanks. Yes, Mr. Luton invited me down for a few days’ fishing. The kingfish are in, he tells me.”

“Coming around. Bit early this year. Where you from?”

To this frank question the passenger proffered a lie, as the driver’s curiosity was due to habit. They came to the line of pines bordering the road and offering a magnificent windbreak to the pasture-lands beyond. Then into the line of trees grew the white sandstone pillars of a gateway, where the bus stopped.

From this point the plebs could get an eyeful of Mount Mario. The wrought-iron gates were swung wide; the driveway ran straight between wide borders of flowing daffodils all the way to the large house crowning a low hillock. There were people on the wide patio, and the oblique rays of the sun gleamed on the chromium of several cars standing against a green wall of lambertianas. To the right of the house of Colonial architecture squatted an observatory as though denying all interest in the heavens, and still farther to the right was a long building flanked by rows of white boxes on stands and white-painted cylinders elevated like mortar barrels.

There had lived and worked Ben Wickham, who had had many enemies and many followers; a famous meteorologist whose death terminated a stormy career marked by professional jealousy, governmental stupidity, and by fierce opposition from commercial and certain financial interests. From this Mount Mario had been flung challenges; from it had issued defiance of obstruction; to it had looked, with ever-growing confidence, farmers and graziers from all over Australia.

Ben Wickham had predicted that last year would be very dry over certain areas. He named days when slight and useless rain would fall. It was so. He had predicted that this year would be disastrous in named areas. His forecasts had proved to be one hundred per cent accurate. And then, having removed the gamble on the weather for the man on the land, he had died.

The circumstances of his death were not, it might well be said, quite respectable for one of his affluence and renown, and no newspaper reported them. The local doctor did not hesitate to sign the certificate, and the relatives readily carried out the dead man’s wishes regarding the disposal of his ashes ... according to the newspapers.

“Yair. Nice place,” repeated the driver, and drove on beside the wind-break following the gentle decline to the bridge which crossed a royal river. “You get out here, sir. That side track’ll take you to Luton’s cottage. Less’n half a mile. See you again some time.”

The passenger stood beside the highway and watched the vehicle cross the bridge before taking up his battered suitcase and turning to the unmade road skirting the river-bank. Here grew great gums, and between the trunks the sheen of water dappled with sunlight caught his eye, and that same eye noted the fallen tree litter and the ants working close to their nests, for when the sun set it would be cold.

The river drifted beyond screening gums and lower bush, and presently the track debouched on to an open place where three evenly spaced tree giants guarded the river to the right, and a white-painted picket fence guarded a small weatherboard cottage to the left.

At sight of the stranger, two dogs bounded from the broad veranda to race to the gate and bark with more welcome than hostility. When the wayfarer spoke, they turned themselves into the shape of an S, and escorted him along the cinder path dividing plots of growing vegetables. Reaching the veranda ahead, they barked again, and this time there was the faint note of house guardians.

Then the front door swung open and on to the veranda stepped a man.

He was twice the traveller’s weight, seemed half as high again, and was certainly twice his age. The white hair, clipped short, was plentiful. The full white moustache failed to hide the stern mouth and the rugged chin. Most men begin to decline at forty; this one hadn’t begun to decline at eighty.

“Good day-ee!” drawled the traveller in the manner of the inland. “Are you John Luton?”

“I was this mornin’ when I woke up,” replied Mr. Luton, examining his visitor with eyes extraordinarily clear and vital. “I think I know who you are, but tell me.”

“I am, of course, Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.” The faint bow which accompanied this statement appeared to pass unnoticed by Mr. Luton, who said warmly:

“Glad to meet you. Come on in and we’ll boil the billy.”

The dogs stood aside to permit Bony to step directly into the front room. It was an ordinary room, obviously devoted to comfort during winter evenings, the only objects of note being several photographic enlargements of bullock teams attached to table-top wagons loaded with mountains of wool, and two great bullock whips arranged like crossed swords against one wall. Above the small radio on the mantel was suspended, of all things, a bullock yoke.

Bonaparte was conducted to the kitchen-living-room beyond, where Mr. Luton filled a jug from the bench tap and switched on the current. From the cold stove he took a teapot to the back door, tossing the leaves outside and narrowly missing a huge black-and-white cat. The cat came in, the fur on its back standing upright. It was more hostile to the visitor than the dogs had been.

“You got my letter,” remarked Mr. Luton, spooning tea into the pot.

“How did you know I was in Adelaide?” Bony asked.

“Seen your name in the paper. It said you was mixed up with the investigation into a smuggling racket. Glad you came, Inspector. I been more’n a bit worried over Ben Wickham, as I wrote. He was a fine feller. They don’t breed ’em like him these days.”

Mr. Luton was standing with his back to the stove, seeming to tower over the seated Bonaparte, who was rolling a cigarette.

“Excuse the question,” Bony said, “but how old are you?”

“Me? Eighty-four. Nothing namby-pamby about me Wasn’t with Ben Wickham, either, and he was seventy-five. Heart failure, the quack said he died of, due to alcoholic poisoning. Alcoholic poisoning! You ever had the hoo-jahs?”

The hazel eyes regarded Bony with interest and anticipation. They were the eyes of the voyager by land or sea, eyes accustomed to searching beyond horizons, and the years had not come between. The impressions they were now receiving were not indicated by the weathered features, but the alert mind was summing up the visitor—his light-brown face, his blue eyes, the straight nose and slim nostrils, the level brows, the sleek-straight, black hair. Even by European standards, the female partner in this unusual creation must have been a fine-looking woman. When Mr. Luton was obliged to switch off the electric jug, D.-I. Bonaparte said:

“My varied experience does not include delirium tremens. Your letter indicates that you have studied the subject.”

“How many times I’ve had the hoo-jahs, Inspector, I’m not admitting, being a humble man. I could fill a book about the hoo-jahs, all sorts of ’em, and their effects.” Mr. Luton vigorously shook the teapot to induce the leaves to settle. “I might find it a bit hard to prove it, but I will.”

“You do not look an alcoholic.”

“Not at the moment, Inspector.” Mr. Luton smiled and away sped fifty years. “You wouldn’t deny me my claims if you happened along when I was on a bender.”

The tea was poured and a plate of sweet scones placed within reach of the visitor.

“I’ve a troublesome corn on a big toe, Inspector. That’s all that’s wrong with me. I can read the papers without glasses, and I can hear the wireless without it loud. I can drink myself into the hoo-jahs when I like, and I can ride the water-cart when it suits me. I can take only one night-cap, and I can work up for three bottles of grog a day—after a bit of practice.

“My old friend, Ben Wickham, was as good as me on all them points. All that was wrong with him, when he died of something give to him, was a touch of lumbago. They said he died in the hoo-jahs of alcoholic poisoning. He was having the hoo-jahs all right. We both were at the same time. But he didn’t die of ’em. I told the quack that. And the policeman. And all I got for me trouble was a threat to have me put away in an old men’s home in Adelaide.”

“You think you might convince me?”

“Yes. I’m betting on it.”

“On what grounds?”

“You being a bushman, like me. That covers a lot, Inspector. Ben wasn’t exactly a bushman, but near enough. I’m asking you to believe I’m not shouting down a rabbit hole. Do I look like a ruddy lunatic?”

“On the contrary. It was not your thesis on alcoholism which induced me to apply for ten days’ leave. The doctor’s reputation is high in those quarters able to assess it. The policeman’s record is without blemish. But your reputation, Mr. Luton, is—shall we agree?—just faintly tarnished.”

“I’ve never robbed a man,” shouted Mr. Luton, eyes blazing. “I owe no man anything. I’ve always . . .”

The arched brows, the coldly analytical blue eyes, which only a moment before were warm and friendly, stopped Mr. Luton’s outburst. He sat opposite his guest, applied a match to his pipe, and admitted calmly:

“You’re about right, Inspector. I’m not much account locally. Still, I done no man wrong, not even Ben. I know what I know, and what I know no one will believe ... exceptin’ perhaps a bushman. A bushman can understand other bushmen and their ways. So I’m still hoping.”

“You will, at least, find me sympathetic, Mr. Luton.” And Mr. Luton remembered how astonished he had been at what he had seen in those deep blue eyes, and was relieved that those same eyes were again expressing warmth.

The cat had subsided on the hearth before the cold stove. The two dogs were squatting that they could watch both their master and the visitor. Bony struck a match, lit a cigarette, puffed out the flame and balanced the stick on the heeler’s nose. The dog played along, moving only his tail.

“You got a way with dogs,” observed the old man, faintly impatient. “I hope you will be stayin’.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Luton. Even the coach driver assured me that the fishing was good. Ah! Someone coming.”