Читать книгу The Bone is Pointed - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 10

Old Lacy’s Daughter

“Now, Mr Lacy, let us go back to the vital day, the eighteenth of April,” request Bony. “What was the weather like that morning?”

“Dull,” instantly replied Lacy, in whose life weather conditions were of the greatest interest. “A warm, moist wind was blowing from the north, and from the same quarter was drifting a high cloud belt with never a break in it. We did not expect rain; otherwise I wouldn’t have sent Anderson to ride the fences of Green Swamp Paddock.”

“Kindly describe the subsequent weather that day.”

“About eleven the sky to the north cleared, and the last of the cloud mass passed over us about twelve o’clock. At this hour another mass of cloud appeared, coming from the north-west, and the front edge of this mass passed over a little after one. It began to rain shortly after two o’clock, beginning light and gradually becoming steady. When I went out to the rain gauge at four o’clock, fifteen points had fallen. The rain kept on steadily for the remainder of the day, and stopped only some time early the next morning.”

“How often has rain fallen since, and how much?”

“No rain has fallen excepting a very light shower on the seventh of August. The water didn’t run in the sand-gutters.”

Not yet was Old Lacy able to make up his mind that Bony was master of his particular job. The questions that followed helped him to do so. “Did you give Anderson his orders that morning?”

“Yes. After I had dealt with the men, I spoke to him. Not only was he to ride the fences, he was to take a look at Green Swamp itself and report on the water remaining in it. When the water is low the swamp is boggy; then it has to be fenced off and the well out there brought into service.”

“Can you recall the time that he left the homestead that day?”

“We had breakfast here at eight,” replied the squatter. “Anderson occupied a room in the office building, but he ate his meals with us and sat with us in the evenings when he felt inclined. I didn’t see him actually leave that morning, but it would have been about twenty minutes to nine.”

“Thank you. Now this is important. Did you instruct him which way to ride the fences—clockwise or anti-clockwise?”

“He rode opposite the clock. That is, when he left here he turned east along the south fence.”

“How do you know that?” persisted Bony.

“Know it? The groom saw him ride that way.”

“Ah, yes, the groom. I’ll come to him in a minute. Now where, do you estimate, would Anderson have been at noon that day?”

“Well, he rode a flash horse called The Black Emperor. The mileage of the south fence is eight miles. Assuming that he had no work to do along that section, and I don’t think he would have had any, he should have reached the first corner of the paddock at about eleven o’clock. He’d then ride northward along the east fence for almost eight miles, when he’d reach the sand-dunes back of Green Swamp, arriving there, say, at one o’clock or a little before. From this point he’d leave the fence and strike across country westward for half a mile to reach the hut beside the Green Swamp well. At the hut he would boil his quart-pot for lunch.”

“But,” objected Bony, “the following day when the searchers examined the hut there was no sign that Anderson had boiled his quart-pot.”

“That’s so,” agreed Old Lacy. “I’m not saying that he did spend his lunch hour at the hut. He might have camped for lunch when he reached the edge of the sand-dunes. He could have filled his quart-pot from the horse’s neck-bag.”

“So the horse carried a water-bag? There was no mention of a water-bag in Blake’s report. Was the bag on the horse when it was found the next morning, by the groom, standing outside the gate?”

“Yes. It was there all right.”

Bony smiled at his host, saying:

“We are progressing, if slowly. Let us assume that Anderson did not eat his lunch at the hut, that he halted for lunch beside the fence where it meets the sand-dunes. According to your observations, when Anderson reached the sand-dunes that second cloud mass was approaching. Being a man like yourself, having had long experience of weather portents, would he think that that second cloud mass would bring rain?”

“By heck, he would!” agreed the old man.

“Very well. You say that it began to rain shortly after two o’clock. Supposing that Anderson found work to do that morning, and that he didn’t arrive at the sandhills till some time after one o’clock, and that it began to rain while he was eating his lunch, would he think it necessary to leave the fence to visit the swamp?”

Answering this question Old Lacy almost shouted.

“No, he wouldn’t. The purpose of visiting the swamp was to see how much water was left in it, and so to establish the degree of danger to stock. If it rained the danger would be non-existent. I see your drift, Inspector. Assuming that it rained before Anderson left his lunch camp, he’d most likely continue riding the fence northward to the next corner, there turn westward and leave the fence somewhere north of the swamp to examine it if by then the rain had stopped.”

Bony’s eyes were now shining. He said:

“We can now understand why he did not visit the swamp and the hut. The rain coming when it did, when Anderson was where he probably was, relieved him of the duty. I have, of course, to prove that he rode as far north as those sand-dunes. By the way, it has not yet been established by anyone that, on this day in question, Anderson’s horse carried its neck-rope as was usual. What is your opinion about it?”

“No one can speak of the neck-rope with certainty, but I’m sure the horse carried a rope. The man wouldn’t go without it.”

Bony rolled and lit a cigarette, and now leaned back in his comfortable chair and permitted his mind to relax. He was experiencing satisfaction that he had impressed this hard old man with his mental ability.

“You will, I know, recognize the difficulties confronting me,” he said. “This case interests me. It is one worthy of my attention. My investigation may occupy me for a considerable time, so I dare to hope that you will not become bored with me if I am quartered on you for several weeks, even months.”

“I don’t mind how long you are with us, Inspector,” Old Lacy said with emphasis. “Anderson was a good station man, but he had a bad temper. No doubt you’ve heard about him putting Bill the Better in hospital, and thrashing a black named Inky Boy. I made him square up over that, and one or two other matters, but when he had the damned cheek to ask me to persuade my gal to marry him, he reached the limit. You haven’t met my gal yet. She’s out riding this afternoon. You’ll see her later.”

“A good horsewoman?” inquired Bony.

“There’s no woman in these parts can beat her. When she’s riding Sally, a pure white mare, she looks a picture.”

“Indeed! Is she out on Sally this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

Bony was seeing now a different picture, a picture seen in a flash of time—the white horse neck-roped to a tree a few yards back from the Karwir boundary fence, and the brown horse neck-roped to another tree on the Meena side of the barrier.

“Miss Lacy was not in love with Anderson?” Bony mildly prompted.

“In love with him! Of course not. She’s only twenty now, and he wanted to marry her a full year back. Hell! What he said to me after what I told him, wasn’t worth saying. Him my son-in-law!”

“You didn’t sack him—evidently.”

“Sack him!” again echoed Old Lacy, but now his eyes were twinkling. “Not me. Why, the place would have been dead without him. It’s been mighty quiet here since he disappeared. Anderson was never a good boss’s man, and he wasn’t any man’s boss. If I’d made him overseer that time my last one left, I’d have been always writing pay cheques and looking for new hands. Him my son-in-law! I’m getting old, but I’m not that old. Anyway, my gal had no time for him.”

Bony laughingly said:

“I suppose she is still heart-whole?”

“Yes, she is that. Never had a love affair yet, to my knowing, and she would have told me if she had.”

Still thinking of the meeting of the riders of a brown and a white horse that was undoubtedly Sally, Bony was not as certain as was his host on this point. A possibility occupied his mind for two seconds, and then he asked:

“A violent man like Anderson would almost surely have enemies. The blacks would not be friendly towards him. What about the groom whom Anderson beat up and sent to hospital?”

“A weed of a man. Like a rabbit. He was paid good compensation. You can leave him out. The blacks make a different matter of it, though. I have always thought they caught Anderson and fixed him in revenge for what he did to Inky Boy, as well as for a nasty business with a young gin employed here in my wife’s time.”

Bony made a mental note of the seeming fact that his host’s sympathies were not with the victims of the missing man’s violent temper. It was strange that Old Lacy appeared still to have some regard for a man with whom his association had not been cordial. When Bony spoke again he did so with unusual slowness.

“We must not lose sight of a possibility,” he said. “I expect that, like me, you have known of men being lost in the bush and, despite extensive searches, their bodies not being found till years afterwards, if ever. Anderson may have been thrown from his horse in Green Swamp Paddock and killed by the fall. That the paddock was thoroughly searched does not preclude the possibility. He may have received concussion, besides other injuries, and then have wandered right out of Green Swamp Paddock to die somewhere in adjoining country.”

“All the country adjoining Green Swamp Paddock was carefully examined, because we recognized that possibility,” countered Old Lacy. “If he did that, what became of his hat, his stockwhip, and the horse’s neck-rope that I’m sure it had that day?”

“I grant you that the absence of the neck-rope provides a strong counter-point to the thrown and injured supposition,” Bony conceded. “I would like to examine his horse, The Black Emperor. Could he be brought to the yards to-morrow morning?”

“He could, but he’s over in the yards now with a mob of horses containing a couple of young uns the breaker’s working on. We’ll go across and look him over if you like.”

They rose together, and Old Lacy led the way to the veranda door. He extolled the virtues of the great horse, but did not allude to its vices, while he conducted the detective through the garden and across the open space to the yards.

In the same yard with The Black Emperor were a dozen other horses that gave him half the yard to himself. Bony’s eyes glistened when they saw this beast, and the soul of him thrilled to its jet-black beauty. A king of horses. Indeed, an emperor’s mount.

“He’s six years old,” the squatter said, faint regret in his strong voice. “He’s the finest horse in Queensland to-day, but he’s no damned good. He’d throw a man and then kick him to death. Anderson and he were a good pair in more than in looks.”

“I’ll ride him to-morrow if you will permit,” Bony said, a lilt in his voice. “What a beauty! Was he never shod?”

“No.”

“His feet want trimming.”

“If you’re game to ride him, Sam, there, the breaker, and Bill the Better can put him into the crush and do his hoofs.”

“Very well. They want doing. But I will cut the hoofs.”

The Black Emperor snorted and laid back his velvety ears when Sam, a lank, seemingly indolent man, approached him with the bridle. But the horse was not to be caught so easily and eventually had to be roped, the old man continually shouting unnecessary directions. When The Black Emperor was in the crush, Bony trimmed the hoofs with the long chisel and mallet, expertly removing growth so that they became as nearly as possible the shape they were when the animal was last ridden by Anderson. He then led the horse from the crush back into the main yard, and Old Lacy and Sam and Bill the Better, sitting on the top rail, watched him subdue the brute’s temper until The Black Emperor stood quiet and apparently docile. Even when the bridle was removed the horse did not attempt to break away but permitted Bony to fondle his glossy black neck.

“I would like to ride him to-morrow morning,” Bony said when he joined the others on the top rail of the yard. “He will be too unreliable for ordinary work, worse luck.”

“Well, you bring him in with the horses in the morning, Bill,” instructed Old Lacy.

Bill the Better was sitting beside Bony, and he said:

“Bet you a coupler quid The Black Emperor will throw you.”

“You would lose your money,” Bony replied, with a laugh.

No one of the four noticed the girl on the white horse reach the gate spanning the road to Opal Town, nor did they notice her until she had led her horse to a position immediately below their high perch. Bony saw her first, and at once jumped to the ground. The old man said more loudly than was warranted:

“Hullo, me gal! You home?”

With remarkable agility considering his years, he lowered himself to the ground, to be followed by Sam who went back to his work and Bill the Better who took away the white mare.

“Meet Inspector Bonaparte,” Old Lacy said. “Inspector, this is my daughter, Diana.”

“Inspector—of what?” inquired the girl, her voice clear and her eyes critical.

“Why, an Inspector of—” began Old Lacy, when Bony cut in.

“Of nothing, Miss Lacy,” he said, bowing. “I am made happy by meeting you. I am supposed to be a policeman, but really I’m not, as Colonel Spendor would be ever ready to agree. My name is Napoleon Bonaparte, and I am an officer of the Criminal Investigation Branch.”

Diana Lacy was petite and dark. She stood now regarding the dark handsome face of this stranger with whom her father had become quickly familiar, in itself a remarkable thing. The light switch tapped softly the leg of her jodhpurs, and her blue eyes were wide open despite the glare of the sunlight.

Bony was swift to see the forceful personality behind the eyes of this Karwir woman who was still a girl. She was more like Old Lacy than was Eric her brother. Now debonair, his manner a trifle too polite, he was yet quick to see the flash of alarm in her eyes before it was replaced with an expression of faintly amused interest. She looked as though she had stepped from the pages of a society paper.

“Inspector Bonaparte has come to solve for us the mystery of Jeff’s disappearance,” boomed Old Lacy. If the girl heard this she gave no indication of it. Her mind was working fast—and Bony knew it. She had perfect control over her features, but she had not thought of her hands—until she saw Bony glance at them. Then she knew that her hands were slowly clenching and unclenching, and casually she thrust them into the pockets of the jodhpurs.

“It has been a great day for a gallop, Miss Lacy,” Bony remarked pleasantly. “And fine country to gallop over, too. I shall enjoy taking The Black Emperor out to-morrow.”

“You should, Inspector,” agreed Old Lacy.

The tension had ended and the girl turned to gaze between the yard rails at The Black Emperor.

“You will want to be careful, Inspector Bonaparte,” she said without looking at him or her father. “Mr Anderson often said he had never ridden a horse having an easier action.” She turned towards them, glanced at the sun, and suggested crossing to the house for afternoon tea.

“How did you come?” she inquired of Bony.

“Your brother brought me from Opal Town in his aeroplane.”

To her father Diana said:

“Has anything been done for Mr Bonaparte’s accommodation?”

“Yes. The lad got Mabel to fix a room. We’ve already had a drink of tea, but another won’t come amiss.”

“I promise not to make more trouble than I can help, Miss Lacy,” Bony said when they were crossing to the garden gate. He was wondering a little at her coldness, and thought he could guess the reason of her unease immediately after he was presented to her. “Unfortunately for Karwir, I may be here some time. You see, beginning an investigation so long after the paramount events means great difficulties to be overcome.”

If he successfully impressed her she did not let him know. She appeared to take him as she doubtless would take a fence—for granted. After a little silence she spoke, and now he decided that she was going to be one of the difficulties he mentioned.

“Your stay here will not put us out, Mr Bonaparte,” she said, with disapproval but thinly veiled. “We can, of course, understand your difficulties, but you have come rather too late to do any good, don’t you think?”

“Forgive me for disagreeing, Miss Lacy,” Bony assured her with undaunted cheerfulness. “You know, if I failed to solve this mystery I should be truly astonished.”

They were now arrived at the gate which Bony held open for Old Lacy, who was chuckling, to pass first into the garden. He smiled at her whilst she stood waiting for her father, noted her trim small figure, her haughty face, the cold blue eyes with their violet irises. Then she was passing him, to flash at him a sidewise glance and to say softly, as though for his sole benefit:

“It’s quite likely that you will be astonished.”