Читать книгу Bony and the Mouse - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 10

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There was a period, seemingly very short, when Joy Elder floated from one place to another, and at each place paused only to choose the biggest garnet of those lying as thickly as the mica specks on the slopes away up from Dryblowers Flat. Then she was conscious that she was actually awake, that she felt drowsy, and that pain rhythmically thudded against her body. Now she remembered. She was lying with her back against a ghost gum, and Tony Carr and a strange man were crouched over her foot. She remembered how Tony had looked at her, an expression of sick horror in his eyes, and how the other man was looking at her foot and doing something with a tin pannikin filled with blood, or red stuff, anyway.

That was a long time ago. The sun had gone and it was night, and the moon was in the sky, masked by dust haze, its light dim and brown. Tony Carr was no longer there. He must have gone for help. The other man was there, though. She felt rather than saw him crouched beside her. His eyes were strangely blue and filled with compassion, and there had never been anyone just like him. He was holding her hand and his fingers were gently stroking her wrist and making her think of her mother, who had died so long ago down in Kal.

Somewhere a clock was ticking, and there couldn’t be a ticking clock here in the depression where the ghost gums lived. Funny! There were no stars up there; only a white roof, a ceiling. She was inside a house. She was in bed, between sheets. And the strange man was sitting beside her, and still caressing her wrist.

“Where am I?” she asked plaintively, because the foot was aching like a burn.

“In Sister Jenks’s little hospital,” replied Bony. “Can I get you anything?”

“Please, a drink. I’m so thirsty. I could drink and drink. I’ve never been so thirsty before.”

“Perhaps we could persuade Sister to make us a cup of tea. How would that do?”

“Two cups, please. Three cups.”

She watched him move towards the end of the room. There was light there and she could see three other beds that seemed to be vacant. She heard him call softly for Sister Jenks, and at once the sister replied: “What is it? Who is that?”

“The patient is awake and asking for a drink. Perhaps a pot of tea ... perhaps two pots of tea, Sister.” Bony replied, and came back to sit again beside Joy’s bed. To Joy Elder he whispered: “Now I am going to be nagged at for being here. Don’t you say anything.”

Arrayed in a floral gown, carrying an oil lamp, Sister Jenks appeared. She placed the lamp on a table near the door, and came forward to stand at the foot of the bed, to be halted by amazement.

“What on earth are you doing here, Nat Bonnar?”

“Just watching the patient, Sister. Couldn’t sleep, so thought I’d come along and sit with her. She’s awake.”

“So I can see,” agreed Sister Jenks, and bent over Joy and asked how she felt.

“My foot hurts, Sister, and I’m so thirsty.”

“All right, dear, we’ll see to it. Nat Bonnar, first door to the right is the kitchen. Go make a pot of strong tea. And stay there till I come.”

There was a pressure lamp on the kitchen bench, which Bony quickly had in action. There was also a pressure stove, on which he soon had water heating. He found a teapot and a caddy of tea, and located the ice-chest for the milk. The tea was brewing when Sister Jenks came in from her patient. Her small features were hardened by anger, and her eyes sparkled.

“Now, Nat Bonnar, alias So-and-So, what’s the meaning of this?”

“Hush! A nice cup of tea for the patient, and perhaps a bite to eat. Tea for ourselves, and then, Sister, the upbraiding.”

“Well, your effrontery leaves me gasping,” she almost hissed. “How did you break your way into the ward?”

“I didn’t break in,” countered Bony, pouring tea into the cups, and holding the pot so high that splashes fell on the clean white cloth he had found. “Breaking and entering is a serious offence in law. Just walking in is much less so. So I just walked in ... through the back doorway, the door being unbolted.”

“You didn’t. I bolted that door last thing.”

“Meanwhile the patient suffers thirst,” Bony mildly pointed out. “A cup of tea right now, with a couple of thin slices of bread and butter. Followed in an hour with a good hearty meal of tough steak and week-old bread. She’ll be so bucked she will be able to run all the way to Dryblowers Flat.”

“What nonsense!” expostulated Sister Jenks, and took the small tray he held to her. She marched to the door and knew she looked a trifle ridiculous, and felt like dropping the tray and ... and ...

Nat Bonnar drew a chair to the table and thankfully enjoyed the tea and bread and butter. Five minutes, and Sister Jenks returned and sat with him, glared at him, then snapped:

“At least you owe me an explanation.”

“I do,” he agreed. “Now is the time for it. There is always a time for everything. First, what do you think of that girl?”

“Her condition? Temperature is up. The wound is inflamed, and that’s your fault. The potash solution you used to wash out the wound was much too strong. You ought to have known better.”

“But you didn’t operate with a butcher’s knife and see the wound as I saw it. You didn’t see the dirt and the blow-fly grubs, and you don’t take into account that mulga wood is poisonous and that the wound was more than twenty-four hours old when I had to deal with it. And, further, you don’t give credit for the fact that I am an itinerant bush worker, not a doctor, or hospital-trained as you are.”

“How like you are to what I’ve been told!” she said with conviction. “We’ll leave it. What are you doing in here at four in the morning?”

“Are we friends or enemies?”

“What a man! Answer my question.”

“What a woman! You answer mine.”

Sister Jenks returned to the chair she had vacated.

“Did my aunt or my uncle tell you about me?” she asked.

“Your uncle did invite me to dinner five days ago,” he conceded. “We talked of many things, including you and your work at Daybreak.”

“Then we must be friends.”

“There is no compulsion,” he pointed out.

Their eyes clashed across the table. She said:

“No, there is no compulsion. Forgive me for being irritable. My mental pictures of you have proved blurred. Patient’s soup will be ready. You’ll stay?”

Bony nodded and the slight figure in the flowered gown passed to the stove to serve the meal for the patient. She was absent for half an hour, saying, on returning:

“Almost asleep. She’ll do for a few hours. I don’t like the foot, though. And I’m sure I bolted that door.”

“It was not only unbolted. It was ajar.”

“And you believe someone crept in here while I was asleep?”

Bony shrugged, and lit another cigarette from the small pile he had made while she was with the patient.

“I’ve got myself a job at the hotel as yardman,” he announced. “After the beer drought, the bar was kept open till midnight. I was prospecting Main Street, and thought I saw a man enter your side gate. A late hour for a visit when your house was in darkness. I came along to check. The front door was secure. The windows hadn’t been tampered with. The back door was ajar. I came in, closed the back door and bolted it, and sat with the patient until she woke. At what time did you lie down to sleep?”

“Half-past ten. The clock woke me at half-past twelve to visit the patient. She was asleep then, as I thought she would be, with the tablet I’d given her. Then I went back to bed.”

“You didn’t go outside via the back door?”

“No. And I didn’t go to the back porch for anything, so didn’t notice the door being open. I’m certain I bolted the door before lying down at ten-thirty. We have a murderer in Daybreak, you know!”

“Then the door was opened by someone between ten-thirty and five minutes to one, when I came in.”

“But why? For what reason?” pressed Sister Jenks.

“There are always countless ‘whys’ associated with an investigation. May I suggest that you retire to your room and sleep again? I’ll sit here and ponder on the probable answers to the ‘whys’.”

“Sleep, Nat! May I call you Nat?”

“It would be safer to confine yourself to Nat.”

“I couldn’t sleep, not now. That tea is cold. I’ll brew another pot. Something to eat? Cold meat and bread and butter?”

When he accepted, she turned once again to the bench, halted and said. “Supposing that man came in just before you did. He might be still inside the house.”

“Be assured that he isn’t. I’ve sniffed into every room, including yours.”

“Sniffed into every room!” she echoed, and he chuckled with delight.

“Sniffed, it was. Merely stood just inside every room and sniffed. Like the witch-doctors of Africa, and some in Australia, I can sniff out an enemy. I found your antiseptics a little distracting to my nose, but I’m confident that my nose didn’t let me down.”

“And you sniffed into my room, too?”

“Yes.”

“Well, of all the nerve!”

“I had to ... to be assured that no male prowler was in your room.”

“Oh! Well, I give up, Nat.”

“As well in the beginning as later. And you don’t want to sleep?”

“No. I want to ask you some questions.”

“How extraordinary,” he exclaimed, mockingly. “I want to ask you some questions. Permit me, selfishly, to be first. On arriving here with the girl, what followed? Who brought her in?”

“Bert Ellis and Bob Merke. Bert works for the Town Council and Merke with his brother in the only garage we have.”

“They carried her into the ward, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“And left immediately?”

“Yes. Just before they did, the girl’s sister, Janet, appeared. She’s two years older than Joy. They both live with their father at Dryblowers Flat, and, like all of them down there, the sisters are, shall I say, a little difficult to understand. Anyway, Janet was perfectly cool about her sister. She helped me undress her and put her into bed, and she made no fuss over assisting me to attend to the foot, which, as you know, wasn’t pretty to look at. A Mrs. Powell who comes in to housekeep for me prepared food, and we roused the girl to take nourishment.”

“Just you three women and the patient. Anyone call?”

“Harmon, the policeman, came. He wanted to question the patient, but I said he’d have to wait until the morning.”

“No one else?”

“No. Of course there was a good deal of talk about it outside. When Janet left she was questioned plenty by the townsfolk. Her father was there, but she pacified him.”

“Was Janet wearing shoes, d’you remember?”

“No. She must have come from Dryblowers without waiting to change into her town clothes.”

“Your housekeeper ... she left before you locked the back door for the night?”

“Oh yes. You are worried about that door, aren’t you?”

Bony smiled, and rolled a cigarette, or what might be called one. He said:

“Your aunt informed me that you have been wasting your fresh young life for three years by working among these awful bush people, and that she wished you were working in a city hospital where you would meet so many nice young doctors. Now, now! Her words, not mine. I defended you and the awful bush people. I refer to your work and the period you have spent at Daybreak only to register two facts. One, that you know every man, woman and child, and two, that you were here before the series of crimes began. Is it true that the first of these crimes occurred after Antony Carr came to Daybreak?”

“Yes. He had been here about five months when the aboriginal was killed. But I cannot believe ...”

“Believe nothing of any person in this situation we have at Daybreak. It is pre-conceived ideas and unfounded opinions that have contributed to the creation of confusion. All born in the minds of people whose interests in life are extremely limited.”

“And you think my interests in life are extremely limited?”

Across the table the dark eyes gleamed, and the shapely mouth matched the determined chin. Slowly Bony smiled.

“I think it likely. Your aunt is sure of it. Now if we could tell her that your base doctor is young and handsome and unmarried, you see how extended your interests in life could become.”

“All Aunt thinks about is having me married, Nat.”

The expression of pique vanished, and Sister Jenks smiled in a manner belying her youth. “Now what is all this leading to?”

“The disclosure of the person responsible for three murders at Daybreak, all within six months. You know that person. You knew the three victims. You are, I hope, the magnifying-glass I shall use to examine them and all others living in and about Daybreak. A little badinage and a little teasing are the cloths with which to polish the glass.”

“Then I hope you won’t use the magnifying-glass to examine me,” she said, and he countered with:

“I have already employed my own glass to do that, Sister Jenks.”