Читать книгу Madman's Bend - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 11

The Dead Stand Still

When Bony arrived at the house the sun showed it was one hour to noon. Having removed the cases to the laundry, he locked the doors and strolled to the mail-boxes to put questions to the mail driver scheduled to reach them at twelve. The wind had sprung up again, cold and tangy from the far distant Snowy Mountains, and while waiting he walked on farther to note how the track to White Bend veered, as though fearfully, away from the great wilderness of billabongs and dusty declivities called Madman’s Bend.

He saw a horseman approaching from out of this bend, and shortly afterwards recognized the Mira overseer, the man who had visited him the previous day. On the pommel of the saddle rested the outward mail-bag. He called to Bony before dismounting.

“Got cold, hasn’t it? Hope this easterly won’t last.”

His dark eyes were small, and his long face looked a trifle pinched. He was wearing a leather windcheater, and the tight trousers tucked into short leggings seemed to Bony the sensible clothes for the time and place.

“It can be unpleasant,” he agreed when Vickory had dismounted. “It could be less so in the lee of that gum. The mail is more often late than early, I suppose.”

“Tries not to be,” Vickory said, busy with a cigarette. “After tomorrow he’ll have to take the outside track.”

“The men still searching for Lush?”

“Yes, some again in Madman’s Bend and others through the top bend beyond the Mira homestead. With no sun even a good man could get bushed in Madman’s Bend. About nine square miles.”

“But since Lush disappeared the sun has shone every day.”

“That’s so. With the sun he wouldn’t bush. Musta fell over into the hole. If he doesn’t come up soon he never will.” The overseer drew at his cigarette and thoughtfully regarded Bony. “There’s three no-hopers camped on this side a bit down from our shearing-shed. Just swagmen. Told them about the flood and they seemed surprised it’s so close. Nothing else, ’ceptin’ a couple of stray horses, and they must have been living off the smell of a gum-leaf.”

“The three men you found: how far is their camp from this place?” asked Bony.

“About a mile and a half straight through. Not Lush’s type, though. Lush was too flash to clobber with them. He reckoned himself a squatter.”

“Reckoned?”

“Reckoned, yes. He’s past tense for sure. I think the mail’s coming. On time.”

They could now see the white dust cloud raised by the mail car being swept away westward. Bony continued, “They tell me that Lush when full never drove faster than ten miles an hour. He was full when he left White Bend Hotel. D’you think that after driving some twenty miles at ten miles an hour he would then be drunk enough to walk over this cliff?”

“Not drunk enough—angry enough,” said Vickory. “He was a smarmy bloke. Spoke soft and polite, drunk or sober, to men. But under it he stank. He was sober enough when he took a shovel to a milk cow ’cos she swished her tail in his face. One of our riders happened to see him. He was still bashing the cow when she was dead. Happened, too, with a trotter he raced in town. Backed him all he could and didn’t even get a place. Took him to the races in a float: drove him back that fast and that long the horse was never any good afterward.”

“What has this to do with his disappearing into the hole?”

“What I’m getting at is this. Lush gets here in the middle of the night, runs out of petrol, loses his block, rushes to his mail-box and drags out one of the legs, and belts at the utility. Leg breaks and so he goes for another, and in blind rage misses the box and takes a header over the bank. Easy done. The night was as black as the ace of spades.”

The oncoming mail car was not unlike a laden black beetle.

“An interesting supposition,” Bony said without levity. “Anything to support it?”

“There were four legs to the box. Now there’s three. There’s a dent on top of the near-side mudguard that he could have made with the leg. Pity there’s no leg or part of one to prove it. Still, when it broke he could have flung it yards in his temper.”

Bony felt like complimenting Vickory on having argued so well when the heavy vehicle was braked to a halt. The red-headed youth leaned out from the driving-seat and said, “Lush turned up yet, Vic?”

He had no passengers. He took the Mira bag as the overseer answered, and gave out the inward mail-bag. When Bony approached he asked whether he was Inspector Bonaparte, and casually asked, “Found neither hair nor hide of Lush, eh? Musta done a get after bashing up his wife, and now she’s dead he won’t stop going.”

“When you arrived here and found the utility, was anyone waiting with the Mira mail?” asked Bony.

“Yes. Ray Cosgrove was waiting.”

“You looked into the utility?”

“Too right! Then I looked around for Lush.”

“Was there anything on the utility, anything on the driver’s seat? Purchases?”