Читать книгу Bony Buys a Woman - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 10

The Art of Reasoning

“Lemme go, you Arnold Bray. Lemme go, I say,” shouted Sarah, and, having inserted the large woman into the office, Arnold and Harte freed her arms and blocked the doorway. Either Sarah was in excellent form, or the struggle hadn’t lasted long, but she now stood with fists balled into her hips, a glare in her eyes, and requiring only a broomstick or a rolling-pin to ape her white counterpart.

“She was round at the back wall with her ear to a crack,” announced Arnold. “Just listening in.”

“I was only sittin’ in the shade outside that hot ole kitchen,” shouted Sarah, and Wootton would have spoken had not Bony said, placatingly:

“Well, there’s no harm in that, Sarah. It’s deep shade here, and you are entitled to it. Still, there’s house shade outside the kitchen door, and I saw only an hour ago a nice chair. You go there and sit in that easy chair, or even better, what about morning tea?” Again Wootton attempted to speak, but Bony waved him to silence. The lubra’s black eyes encountered the blue eyes of the slim Napoleon Bonaparte, blue eyes hinting at laughter, friendliness, and abruptly she smiled:

“Mornin’ tea! Crikey! I forgot about it. That Meena! She should of told me.”

Nodding to Bony, she turned about, scowled at the men and went out like a cork down a drain.

“Well, what d’you make of that?” demanded Wootton, his face flushed. “Eavesdropping for sure. You should have made her tell us why she was doing that, Inspector!”

“You cannot make those people do anything they don’t wish to do,” Bony said, coldly. “That she was listening is a point, but only that. We have to remember that she and Yorky were friends, and that she must be interested in his fate, as we are. I think you men may leave. Perhaps this afternoon or this evening we could get together again and talk. All right with you?” They assented: then as they were about to go, young Lawton asked:

“Mind telling why you wanted us to mark that map with where we were that day Mrs Bell was murdered?”

“Not at all. It was mere police routine. You see, any one of you four men could have returned after Mr Wootton left that day, then shot Mrs Bell and taken the child away and killed her. Even you, Mr Wootton, could have done just that.”

“But what about Yorky? Yorky was known to come here that morning,” pressed Lawton, and the others nodded quick agreement.

“As I told you, it is merely police routine to establish the whereabouts of everyone at the assumed time the crime was committed. In fact I think Constable Pierce asked for that information, and that it is recorded in his report.”

“He did make a song and dance about it,” admitted young Lawton. “Looks like we’re all sort of suspect, don’t it?”

“Pierce acted rightly,” patiently continued Bony. “Look at it this way. Not one of you is supported by a witness as to what you did between the time you left the homestead and the time you returned. No one saw Yorky at the blacks’ camp other than Mr Wootton. To be sure, Bill Harte found Yorky’s tracks back of the meat-house, and showed them to Arnold Bray, who agreed they were his. To be sure, Yorky’s tracks were found at the homestead gate. Pierce took plaster casts of those tracks. Before Yorky is put on trial, if he is, the casts must prove that he actually made those tracks, that he was, in fact, at this homestead on that morning. A good policeman, and Pierce is a good policeman, leaves nothing to chance.”

“Fair enough,” supported Wootton. “All right, you men can take the day off, and if you think of anything, I’m sure the Inspector will be happy to talk it over.”

They were drifting across the square to the quarters when the morning tea gong was beaten, and they about-turned and went back to the meal annexe. Tea and buttered scones were served by Meena to Bony and his host on the house veranda, and when she had withdrawn, Bony questioned about her.

He learned that a religious body conducted a Mission Church and school a few miles out from Loaders Springs. Aborigines, both adults and children, were warmly welcomed. A large number of children chose to live at the Mission, chose to because there was no compulsion. They were taught the elementary subjects—drawing and painting, basketwork, needlework, woodwork, and in return assisted the pastor and his wife with the stock and the garden.

“I visited the place one afternoon,” Wootton said. “Surprised me, the work the children were doing in class. And how they sang, too! I had only just come here, was still raw to the country, and I asked the pastor what happened to the children when they left. He said: ‘Oh, the lads become stockmen, and the girls do domestic service round about. That’s when it suits them. We do our best, as we hope you can see, but after they leave us, the old ones get them back.’”

“I can understand that,” Bony agreed with the pastor. “Meena, though, seems to be an excellent maid.”

“I think so. Yes, she’s good in a house. But then neither she nor Sarah will stay here overnight, and there’s no telling that they’ll turn up in the morning, or go off with the others on a walkabout. That girl can sew and mend as good as Mrs Bell could. And Charlie—you saw him this morning—is a damn fine wood carver.”

Wootton stretched his thin, short legs and lit his pipe.

“You ought to see the dolls he carved for little Linda Bell. One is the dead spit of Ole Fren Yorky, and there’s another you’d say was my image. The one supposed to be Mrs Bell isn’t so good, but another one, of Meena, to my mind, is the best of the lot. We’ll go and see them if you like. They’re over in the playhouse.”

“Yes, I’d like to see them. I understand that the men built the playhouse. Which reminds me: did Linda spend much of her days there?”

“A good deal, Inspector,” replied the cattleman reflectively. “You know, you can’t wonder that we worshipped that child. Every Sunday afternoon she’d invite us all there for tea. Had her own tea set and her mother filled the teapot. I went sometimes. She’d have her visitors squatting on the floor, and she’d hand down her small cups and saucers and plates of scones and cake; and the men would talk to her with exaggerated politeness, and she would be the little lady.” Wootton sighed. “Only that last day I was commissioned to buy a box of chocolates and special handkerchiefs for her.”

A few minutes later they left the house for the canegrass playhouse. It was noticeable how the thick walls shut out the noises of the crows, the windmill raising water, and the soft hissing of the gusty wind over the ground. Standing within the entrance, Bony surveyed the interior, noting the cut-down furniture, and the fact that objects were not positioned as described by Constable Pierce. Almost at once Wootton exclaimed:

“Why, two of the dolls have gone! They were set up on the shelf bench. And those presents. The comb and the box of handkerchiefs have gone too. Now, what the hell!”

“When did you last see them?” asked Bony.

“Oh, about a fortnight back. The men wanted to tidy up the place, having the idea of making it nice for Linda’s return. I obtained permission from Pierce, and they went to work. Swept the floor, cleaned the window, put the dolls side by side on the bench, and the presents on the bench, too. I’ll call them.”

Bony heard Wootton shouting. He surveyed this room, and was saddened by its emptiness of personality. The cut-down table and chair, the books, the old trunk, and small dresser with the bright chintz curtain only hinted at a life which once had warmed this place. Oddly enough, he felt himself to be an intruder.

They came crowding in, Wootton and his men, silently taking in this well-remembered place.

“Ole Fren Yorky and Meena gone off on walkabout all right,” exploded Harry Lawton.

“And the handkerchiefs, and the comb, the blue one,” drawled Eric with fierce breathlessness. “Left the chocolates. They was no good anyhow. Heat melted ’em.”

Harte quietly went forward and gazed along the surface of the shelf bench. His voice was cold.

“Who was in here last? I was looking in Sunday, week back, and them dolls was all there where we put ’em in a row. I remember how Meena was sort of turned to look at the boss. It wasn’t yestiddy, nor the day before, they were took. There’s plenty of dust fell on the places where they were sitting.”

They talked. They pondered. Finally they agreed that the last man to look into the playhouse had been Bill Harte and that had been nine days ago. All remembered that the dolls were then on the bench, and that the presents Linda was to have received that day her mother was shot were also set out on the bench.

“Them ruddy blacks have raided the place,” Harry Lawton accused.

“We’ll find out right now,” decided Eric. “Come on, let’s argue it out with old Canute. He’ll make the thief part up ... or else.”

Anger charged the quiet air, and then Bony spoke:

“I would like you to leave the matter to me, and to say nothing of it in the hearing of Sarah and Meena,” he said with easy authority. “Now just see what else has been taken ... books, from that dresser, anything?”

Arnold examined the books, shook his head. He lifted the curtain in front of the dresser, disclosing a dainty tea service, a box containing coloured wools, and material. Again he shook his massive head and dropped the curtain. Eric cried:

“Wait on, Arnold! Them cups and things.”

He sprang forward and lifted the curtain. Then he straightened, paused to be supported on his discovery, finally shouted quite unnecessarily:

“There was six cups and saucers. Now there’s only five. Look! A cup and saucer has been pinched, too.” Men swore. Bony said:

“Keep on looking. Be sure if anything else is missing.”

Dolls to comfort a little girl. A china cup for her to drink from instead of a tin mug, perhaps a jam tin. Handkerchiefs and blue comb taken, but not a box of chocolates spoiled by the heat.

Aboriginal children would not have ignored the chocolates, although ruined by heat.

“Her Kurdaitcha shoes,” drawled Bill Harte. “They don’t seem to be here, either.”

The Kurdaitcha Man of legend, the fabulous being who walks by night, his feet covered with emu feathers glued with blood so that he leaves no tracks for aborigines to follow when it is light. Harry Lawton withdrew from the search to tell Bony that Charlie had fashioned imitation shoes for Linda.

“Yes, those pretty pieces have gone, too,” Arnold declared. “All decorated with feathers and pictures drawn on ’em with hot wire. Old Murtee could have taken them for his collection of magic things.”

Eventually it was agreed that nothing else had been removed. Eric again suggested ‘arguing it out’ with Canute, and it was Arnold who told him, ‘That’s out,’ because Inspector Bonaparte said so. It was noticeable that their first reaction of cautious familiarity towards Bony was replaced by firming respect, for, as it had been with so many others in the past, his eyes, his voice and speech caused them to forget his mixed race. He was saying:

“It is often wise to set aside the act in favour of the motive. Just now when we found Sarah listening to us, the act might be of smaller importance than the reason prompting her. So it is with these missing articles belonging to Linda Bell. Who took them is of lesser interest to me than why they were taken. Assuming, of course, that they were not removed by the aboriginal children, or by someone intending to give them to the children.”

“I think I see your point, Inspector,” observed Wootton. “Someone could have taken them to Linda, wherever she is with Ole Fren Yorky.”

“Proving that Linda is still alive,” added Arnold with satisfaction.

“That Linda wanted them things to play with,” hopefully supplemented Eric. “Could of been that Yorky came here himself to get ’em.”

“We’d have seen his tracks,” Arnold said.

“Not if he came last Sat’day, or yesterday week,” objected Bill Harte. “Them two days it blew like hell, and blew all night too, remember.”

“It could be more likely that one of the aborigines stole them to take them to Yorky for Linda,” contributed Wootton.

“So we come back to the abos,” crowed young Lawton.

“Yair, the abos, Harry,” agreed Eric. “We’ll get it out of them. Who pinched the dolls and things, and what was done with ’em. Now what-in-’ell you smiling about, Inspector?”

“I’m beginning to wonder who is the detective,” Bony replied. “Inductive reasoning must keep to specified rules, and often to indulge in such reasoning is unwise until all the available facts and probable assumptions are marshalled. There is an assumption which has not yet occurred to you, an assumption which we have authority to examine. We may assume that the presents and the dolls were removed by someone with the intention of putting into our minds the idea that Linda is still alive. The motive for that is obscure, but still reasonable to accept.”

From Bony they looked at each other, bewilderment plainly evident. To make confusion stick, he went on:

“Recall what I said about the tracks you believed were left by Yorky. Until proved, we may only assume he made them, and we may assume someone else falsified them, knowing that most people see what they want to see. So there is one assumption we may add to another, and those two to yet a third, and then we have a faint glimmer of a theory.

“Crime investigators are trained minds. I have been trained to think along lines of deduction and induction. These are two separate processes of thinking, as doubtless you know. Or perhaps you don’t know. Which is why I require you not to question the aborigines, or to mention this matter to the domestics over the way. Is that understood?”

Eric coughed and nodded. Young Harry nodded and looked vacant. Arnold was thoughtful, and Bill Harte’s bright dark eyes were curious. Mr Wootton blinked and spoke for all.