Читать книгу Duck Season Death - June Wright - Страница 9

PART ONE

Shooters and Suspects

I

The summer had been an abnormally wet one. From the Fisheries and Game Department of the State Government of Victoria came a bulletin to the effect that duck-shooters might look forward to an excellent season’s sport. Dry conditions in the north had sent flocks of chestnut and grey teal, freckled, wood, hardhead and black duck winging their way south to the lush swamps and reedy lakes scattered below the Murray river.

One of the districts suggested by Game Research officers for the three months of duck-shooting was a radius of fifteen miles centred approximately by the small town of Dunbavin.

About three miles to the northeast of Dunbavin, the country rose out of its swampy bed in a knoll known as Campbell’s Hill. Nearly a hundred years previously, a squatter from the wild cattle district further inland had built on the rise a pseudo–hunting box. He used to retire there to escape the importunities of Her Majesty’s Colonial Surveyors, and to ease his nostalgia for the grouse moors of his homeland by shooting the plentiful wildfowl. Constructed of sturdy stone, the house had outlasted each subsequent owner who had put it to as many varied and unprofitable uses as there were shoddy additions to its original walls. The present owner, Ellis Bryce, had made it into a hotel catering for duck-shooters.

Ellis was a man of unending wild-cat schemes which he took for inspirations of genius. Indolent by nature, his enthusiasm seldom went beyond the initial idea. Having bought out the previous owner of Campbell’s Hill, who had been trying to make a go of rice growing, he satiated his genius by talking the local licensing court into a permit to sell liquor and putting up a hanging sign whose gothic lettering read The Duck and Dog Inn. Then he sat back grandly and allowed his sister, Grace, to do all the mundane toil connected with the running of a country pub.

Miss Bryce was devoted to her widowed younger brother, and had followed him into all his projects, lending the resources of both her energy and her meagre income. She was a faded but wiry little woman, pared down to skin and bone by years of unnecessary bustling and fretting.

One humid, rainy day towards the end of February, Miss Bryce sat at Ellis’s littered desk in the gunroom checking through the reservations for the opening of the season. Her brother lounged in an armchair in the hall outside, occasionally calling out items which caught his fancy in the local newspaper. He enjoyed pointing up the bucolic journalese by reading in a declamatory manner.

“‘A delightful afternoon was had by all at the lovely home of Dr and Mrs Spenser, who opened their beautiful grounds for a Garden Fete in aid of our newly formed and enthusiastic Arts and Crafts Group. Wearing a charming gown of burnt sienna marocain figured with lime green leaves, Mrs Spenser—’”

“Ellis, will you be quiet! How do you expect me to work out the allocation of rooms when you’re—We’ll have the guests arriving and no notion how to place them and all you can do—You don’t seem to realise the amount of work—” Miss Bryce always talked in unfinished sentences, her darting mind in advance of her tongue.

“They’ll shuffle down all right,” he returned easily. “What is a cloche curvette? Mrs Spenser was wearing a smart brown one.”

“Probably her old basin felt, done up,” Miss Bryce replied absently. “Ellis, who is this man, Harris P. Jeffrey?”

“‘Dr Spenser dispensed hospitality with his customary genial bonhomie.’ If his hospitality was anything like the whisky he gave me once, I’d say he dispensed right out of the bottles from his surgery . . . An American, by the sound of his name and the look of the initial. They always seem to have their Christian and surnames the wrong way round.”

“An American!” repeated Miss Bryce uncertainly. “Oh dear, and we’ve only got the one bathroom.”

“So what!” Ellis tried out the phrase distastefully, as though ready to make every concession to the visitor’s well-being.

“Aren’t they rather funny about wanting private bathrooms? I don’t know how many times I’ve told you to install another one, or at least a shower recess. That alcove at the end of the upper passage, and there’s the water tank right outside—Ellis, you must bestir yourself. Now see what has happened—an American coming!”

Her reproaches blunted themselves on The Dunbavin Post. “‘A distressing disturbance to the peace occurred outside Duff’s Hotel following the cricket match between Dunbavin Eleven and the visiting team from Jumping Creek on Saturday evening last. Sergeant Motherwell—’”

“I’ll put Mr Jeffrey in the room next to the bathroom,” decided Miss Bryce, as a solution to the problem. “I see we have the Dougalls coming again. Do you think they would mind if I put them in a smaller room this year? The Happy Holiday Agency made a booking for a two-bedroom and it pays to keep their clients satisfied. A deposit paid too—father and son. Miss Dougall could have her usual room of course. What do you think, Ellis?”

“‘In my twenty years as duty officer in this town, declared Sergeant Motherwell, commenting on the situation which could have got out of hand but for his timely appearance on the scene of the commotion—’”

“Ellis!” cried Miss Bryce.

“‘—never heard such violent uncontrolled language.’ Poor old Motherwell! What does it matter where you put Pukka and Memsahib? They always complain about something, anyway. Which reminds me—there was a telegram from our old friend, Sefton. You’ll find it on the desk somewhere. He’s bringing his nephew along with him this year.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? Now you’ve upset—you really are the most inconsiderate—” With a long suffering sigh which had no effect whatsoever, Miss Bryce fumbled amongst the bills, receipts and circulars and found the telegram. ‘Reserve accommodation for self and nephew, Charles Carmichael, from evening 28th February—Athol Sefton.’ As Ellis was now talking to the Duck and Dog’s solitary guest, she did not call out for his advice, but marked in two adjoining rooms on the floor plan she had drawn up. She would tell Ellis later what she thought of Mr Sefton’s impending sojourn.

The guest—a pale, unobtrusive man called Wilson—had arrived a week earlier. He was evidently not a duck-shooter for he had brought no guns with him; neither had he made any enquiries about local equipment, while he was patently nervous of the two or three water dogs Ellis kept for the use of the guests. Although afflicted with a stammer which made conversation not only embarrassing but tedious, he was no trouble and went off for long walks wearing khaki shorts, which revealed his pale bony legs and a pair of field glasses slung around his plucked chicken neck. Miss Bryce presumed that he was some sort of ornithologist, who did not like to vouchsafe the information because of the terrific effort needed to form the word.

Miss Bryce’s distraction became further diverted as her roving eye lighted on an open letter lying on the desk. It was written in bold capitals with a few dashes and twirls to make up the rest of the words. The worry lines on her face waxed as she deciphered it. Presently she turned her head sideways to call out to Ellis about it and almost rubbed noses with Wilson, who had come into the gunroom unheard.

Miss Bryce dismissed the extraordinary notion that he had been looking over her shoulder. “Why, good morning, Mr Wilson! Going out walking again? And it’s such a wet day! Good weather for ducks, as so we hope. But you have a raincoat, haven’t you?” Unlike her brother, who maliciously delighted in engaging him in conversation, she always kept to questions which required only a nod or shake of Wilson’s head. When he had gone, she turned back to the letter. “Ellis, I don’t like the sound of this young woman Jerry wants to bring home for the weekend. Who is she?”

“A m-m-model.”

“Shh, he’ll hear you. And you shouldn’t tease him like that. It’s most unkind. How would you like—it’s a pity you don’t pay more attention to your children instead of—it was an artist last time—at least she called herself an artist. I’m sure I couldn’t make head nor tail of that painting she gave you. It looked to me as though one of the dogs had got to it. Still, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer an artist to a model. Why does Jerry get entangled with such females?”

Ellis gave a sudden guffaw. “Not that sort of model. This one’s paid to wear clothes.”

“I think it is high time you behaved as a father should and not let your children run wild.”

“Wild? Shelagh? Now, come, come!”

“Yes, Shelagh is all right, though I must say it doesn’t seem right for a girl of twenty-two to be so certain of herself and so—well, sort of unfeeling, even if she is a nurse.”

“Yes, I know,” said Ellis, yawning. “At least Jerry’s females are amusing.”

“Ellis, you are the most unnatural father. You’ve allowed those two to grow up anyhow. It is easy to see whom Jerry takes after. But Shelagh is a good girl. At least she is conscious of her duties and comes home to help at this busy time. That finishes the rooms, thank goodness.” Miss Bryce marked a room for Margot Stainsbury as far from Jerry’s as possible. “Now for the seating arrangements.”

“All this organisation has worn me out,” said Ellis. “I think I’ll go and open the bar.”

“Oh no, you don’t. You must decide what we are going to do about Mr Sefton and Major Dougall.”

“What about them?”

“We can’t have a repetition of last year. In fact, if I had my way we would send a polite letter to Mr Sefton telling him we are booked out this year. He is the most unpleasant man I have ever met—a real trouble-maker for all his grand manner. He was downright insulting to poor Major Dougall. And Mrs Dougall was telling me how he’d deliberately misled them over some investments.”

“Put Athol next to Jerry’s model,” suggested Ellis. “That will keep him occupied.”

“And have Jerry making scenes like he did over that artist creature?” she asked scornfully. “Not that it wasn’t a very good thing for him that she did get off with Mr Sefton, but—oh dear, how difficult it all is! And you’re no help, Ellis. You’re as malicious as Mr Sefton. I declare you enjoy seeing everything uncomfortable.”

“I admit I find Athol at work not unamusing.”

“No doubt you’ll still find him amusing when the other guests refuse to stay with him in the house.”

“They won’t,” he said lazily. “The drinks are too good and so is the shooting—and so is your cooking, Grace.”

She tried not to look mollified and retorted tartly, “Well, don’t blame me if your amusing Mr Sefton one day causes trouble that even you won’t find entertaining, Ellis.”

II

A cocktail party, Charles Carmichael reflected, is one of the drearier rituals of modern social and commercial life. It was no wonder that critics became either inflated with carbohydrates and self-importance or soul-cynical and dyspeptic. Charles told himself that he belonged to the latter class and smothered a corroborating belch.

The motive of the present day’s party was the launching of a first novel, and the press, book sellers and other interested representatives had been invited to eat, drink and make merry in its honour. They were always being invited to the Moonbeam Room or the Persian Room or this, that or other Room to honour something and knew what was expected of them in return.

A man from the publisher’s publicity department hovered attentively around Charles, wondering if his attention was a waste of time. Culture and Critic rarely gave good reviews to anyone or anything. Even its faintest praise was made more damnable by an inevitable sting in the tail. Intellectual smearing was Athol Sefton’s policy, and as he was proprietor, publisher and editor in chief, there was little Charles could do in return for the martinis and the canapés.

Culture and Critic was a small but influential quarterly, the main office of which was situated in Sydney. It ran a few world syndicated articles and commentaries dealing with music, art and literature, but its main concern was the local artistic scene. With the aid of a secretary, a broken-down journalist and frequent abusive wires, letters and phone calls from Athol, Charles looked after the Melbourne office. The only section in the magazine where he was allowed carte blanche was the detective story review. He was a peaceable young man and this salve to his self-respect evidently enabled him to put up with the tantrums of his uncle by marriage.

Catching sight of Charles across the crowded, smoke-misted room, Margot Stainsbury gave a little shriek of recognition, excused herself ruthlessly to her companion, a dark and dour young man in crumpled corduroy trousers, and began to weave her lovely synthetic body through the drinking groups. Several tired businessmen looked at her with prawn-eyed expectancy, but although she automatically flashed her twenty-guinea-a-shot smile at them, she kept on to the place where Charles was listening to the publisher’s representative expounding on the book of the year.

“Darling!” she shrieked again, and flung butterfly arms around his neck, lifting up out of the two suede straps and pencil-like heels which constituted her shoes.

Charles had not seen Margot for nearly a year, at which time he had been brought to the sudden and shattering realisation that she was the sort of girl you only took out to dine and dance.

“Oh—hello!” he said feebly. “What are you doing here?”

She shone a perfunctory smile on his companion, then linked arms affectionately. “Oh, you know me—always around. Angel, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you. There’s something most frightfully important I want to tell you.”

The publicity man chivalrously, though reluctantly, began to edge away. He felt Culture and Critic owed him something. With a clatter of chunky costume jewellery, Margot put out a restraining hand. “Oh, please don’t go. You will make me feel dreadful. I’m sure I am breaking up some most frightfully important discussion. Chas and I can talk later, can’t we, dear?”

“It’s probably a toss-up which is of more frightful importance, so let’s stick to neutral ground,” said Charles and introduced them.

“How do you do, Miss Stainsbury. Haven’t I see—?”

“Of course you’ve seen her before,” interrupted Charles, with a touch of derision. “Miss Stainsbury is the most sought-after model in the country. Here is the face that launches a thousand sales.”

“Oh, Chas!” Margot fluttered her lids demurely. Then, because the publicity man wasn’t, as she had first thought, a member of the press and showed an inclination to hover like an unwanted dog after a desultory pat, she said plaintively, “Do you know, I’ve hardly had one drink yet.”

Charles, remembering being the humiliated victim of this gambit of hers, remained unmoved. Slavering happily, the publicity man plunged away to the bar to do Margot’s bidding.

“And you round off the trick by moving to another part of the room,” said Charles, guiding her through the crowds.

“You didn’t mind, darling? He looked the type to cling. Such odd people one has to meet at cocktail parties. You weren’t actually talking about anything frightfully important, were you, Charles?”

“He thought so, but not frightfully. He wants Athol to let me write some nice things about the novel that overgrown schoolboy in the corner there has written.”

Margot made a parade platform swivel, and surveyed the author with an expertly dispassionate eye. “Is he the cause of all this?”

“Unwittingly, poor fellow! Which reminds me—what are you doing in this commercially erudite company? Not your usual venue if I might say so?”

Her large eyes widened reproachfully, threatening to eclipse the rest of her wholly enchanting face. “I can get by anywhere, so don’t act as though you’re not pleased to see me. Don’t I always read Athol’s nasty bits about the latest novels? Oh, and yours too, darling—though I can’t understand why you must get so intense about murders and blunt weapons and things.”

“The detective story is just as much an artistic expression—” began Charles defensively.

“You see what I mean, dear?” she interrupted kindly. “So boring when you become earnest. Now Athol is never boring, though I agree he can be an absolute beast sometimes. Do you know, Chas, it took me all my time to get him to take me to lunch at Manonetta’s last week? He wanted to go to some ghastly out-of-the-way spot, but as I pointed out to him, I can’t afford not to be seen. And even when I got him to Manonetta’s,” her voice rose incredulously, “he absolutely insisted upon a side table. I might just as well have been wearing something off the peg. Don’t you agree that was brutish of him?”

“Oh, quite! So you’ve seen Athol recently. How was he?”

“Darling, I’m just telling you. Do pay attention. A side table at Manonetta’s. What I mean to say is—you know Athol! And it can’t be just because of his wife’s death. I know she was your aunt, Chas, but did you ever see such a drear? Anyway, she’s been dead for months now.”

Charles thought of his late aunt, whom he was reputed to have resembled, and protested.

“Oh darling, she was! An out-and-out drear. How did Athol come to marry her, even though she did have money? By the way, I trust she did the decent thing by our Charles.”

“No, she didn’t—at least, not to the extent of your eyeing me in that calculating way, Margot. Athol would be your better bet.”

“At the moment Athol is not very impressionable material.”

“That’s unusual—both for him and for you. Losing your grip, Margot?”

Her eyes flashed momentarily. “Unusual! That’s just what I’m telling you, Chas, but you don’t seem the least concerned.”

“Maybe if I knew what you were talking about I could be concerned. I do wish you would be more concise. Athol is unusual, is that it? But isn’t he always?”

“He’s not being unusually unusual,” she said, with a gesture of impatience. “And he’s not pining away after your aunt. Who would? He seems to me to be—well, I know you will just scoff—frightened.”

“Athol? Nonsense!”

She gave a little shiver. “Haunted!”

“That’s even greater rubbish. I was speaking to him on the phone only this morning. He sounded just the same.”

“Yes, haunted is about the right word,” Margot nodded in agreement with herself. “We were talking about ghosts too.”

“Ghosts? Oh, now, look here—”

“It was after he came back from the telephone. But I’d already noticed how changed he was. We were having claret with our lunch, and do you know it was the first wine the waiter offered? Athol, who likes to make a thing about tasting and sending waiters scurrying! Now, do you understand, Chas?”

“What about the phone call?” asked Charles stolidly.

“Someone called him—just as they were making our Suzettes. Aren’t people inconsiderate? But Athol went at once, which is odd too when one comes to think of it. When he came back he ordered a whisky and soda. After all that claret and he never drinks spirits before evening as a rule. Of course, I could see that he was most frightfully shaken about something.”

Charles frowned. He could think of only one reason for Athol’s alleged change in demeanour—financial anxiety; though it had never seemed to worry him before this. Culture and Critic had never been inaugurated as a money-spinning venture. An astringent influence in an uncultured society was the way Athol always referred to it. With its limited circulation and meagre advertisements, it just paid for itself, any lapses from monetary grace being covered by Athol’s small private resources and his wife’s larger ones. Perhaps the terms of the late Mrs Sefton’s will contained some hindrance to this admirable scheme which she had been persuaded against carrying out in life. She had been a semi-invalid for as long as Charles could remember and Athol was capable of making even the strongest woman do what he wanted.

“It was then,” Margot was saying in a trilling voice, “that he asked—half-jokingly, of course—if I believed in ghosts. So you understand why I said haunted, Chas?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t. However, Athol is coming down in a day or so. I’ll probably learn what the trouble is then—if there is anything and you haven’t made all this up, Margot. He wants me to go bush with him—shooting ducks.”

“Are you really, darling? How odd! So am I. See that perfectly sweet boy over there? His father runs a hotel at some damn-awful place called Dunbavin. That wouldn’t be where you and Athol are going?”

“None other. The Duck and Dog.”

“How marvellous to think I won’t be leaving civilisation behind altogether. I must go back to Jerry—he gets so jealous, poor pet! If that man ever comes back with my drink, you have it to fortify yourself for Athol. He spoke about you quite savagely after the ghosts.”

He watched her rejoin the glowering young man in the velvet trousers. He felt a touch of pity for him. Margot could be quite ruthless.

III

‘With a tender smile, Lawrence took Estella in his arms. Her lovely face, framed in a cloudy mist of tulle, looked up at him trustingly. “My darling,” he whispered adoringly. “Mine at last”.’

Heaving a sigh, Adelaide drew a bold line under the final words of her story and moved her dreamy gaze to the window. The view was not a prepossessing one; a blank brick wall of the next house of the terrace and a flutter of washing hanging on an improvised clothes-line. A slit of sky between the two roofs of rotting slates was the only possible redeeming feature, but Adelaide’s vision was turned inwards on the white satin of Estella’s wedding gown and Lawrence’s handsome face and athletic figure.

The boarding house where the Dougalls resided was perhaps the most sordid and depressing of all they had endured over the past few years. They had been there for six months now, economizing in preparation for their annual migration to the Duck and Dog.

Retirement and the end of the British Raj in India had coincided for Major Dougall. Instead of returning to England, he had decided to settle in Australia, bringing with him his wife and daughter. The army had been the only life he had ever known, and while he had enjoyed every moment of it, his career had been but a modest one. It was not to be expected then that his civilian career would be in any way brilliant. Gullible and short-sighted in investing his small capital, it soon became a failure, and the Dougalls found themselves moving from hotel to flat and on down the scale to a succession of dingy boarding houses as the Major’s income shrank.

Years of easy living and the rigid social code of Anglo-Indians had left Mrs Dougall incapable of adjusting herself to a new and cruder life. She clung to the old standards by building a protecting wall of memories of the halcyon Indian years between herself and the sordid realities of the present, behaving, speaking, thinking and even dressing precisely as she had done then. Being a strong-minded woman, she succeeded in bolstering up the Major’s flagging morale, so that he almost completely joined her in the happy self-deception. Without her, no doubt, he would have long since pressed his old service revolver to his highly coloured forehead.

Their daughter, Adelaide, however, floated half-way between fast-fading memories of life in Simla and the present. At first, she had made an effort to help the family finances. Against her parents’ wishes, who could not realise the need to earn a living, she had tried a commercial course of typing and shorthand. But, unable to master either art and helped on by her mother’s disapproval, she had soon given up. In the intervening years, she had picked up a little money by baby-sitting or taking a surreptitious job in a shop during the sales. She was still as immature and diffident as the eager, shy girl who had dispensed tea to the subalterns of her father’s regiment on her mother’s At Home day. She, too, lived on memories. These included a short-lived, barely developed romance with a junior officer, which had been squashed by Mrs Dougall on the discovery that the young man’s father was in trade.

Since then, Adelaide had fallen in love hopelessly numerous times. There was the doctor who had attended her when she had jaundice, a total stranger who had travelled regularly on the same train with her during the summer sales week. She enjoyed the hopeless loves, luxuriating in her nightly wet pillow, but when a fellow-boarder at one of their places of abode showed signs of reciprocation to the extent of trying to enter her room one night, she was immeasurably shocked.

The short stories she wrote in secret, but never submitted for publication for fear of rejection, were sweetly romantic tales invariably ending at the engagement of the handsome hero and heroine—or at the most with the wedding reception and a detailed description of the wedding gown. Sex was some dark, secret thing that she kept on the other side of the wall, like her mother and father kept the harsh world at bay. She always skipped the frank passages in books and averted her eyes carefully whenever she saw a pregnant woman. Such things had nothing to do with Adelaide’s ideas of love, and even if they did come to her mind in hot unguarded moments, they were still not to be connected with—with Him.

Her new love, which she had nursed for eighteen months now, was more hopeless than any she had ever cherished before. Her masochism was heightened by the fact that the man was married. She had based a story on her plight, in which an accomplished and charming girl (which was how Adelaide sometimes dreamed herself to be instead of plain, spinsterish and inarticulate) falls in love with a distinguished and learned man some years her senior (which was how He appeared in her eyes), unhappily married to an invalid, querulous wife incapable of sharing his interests (which was how Adelaide imagined His wife to be). The poignant renunciation scene between the would-be lovers still moved her whenever she re-read the story.

Sitting at the window of her musty little bedroom, Adelaide’s heart suddenly beat fast under her flattened bosom. A flush spread over her thin, sallow face as she thought of how that story might even yet come true—but with a changed and happy ending. For the first time in her life, she found herself wanting to face reality.

The change had taken place suddenly. They had been at breakfast, Mrs Dougall opening the single letter on her plate with the air of one about to deal with a pile of social invitations, and the Major with his red face and bristling white moustache hidden behind the more conservative of the morning papers. In his high, strangulated voice, which always sounded as though his uvula was in the way of his larynx, Major Dougall had said, “I see that fellah has lost his wife. Died—um—let’s see the date—two days ago.”

Adelaide looked up quickly from the unappetising rissoles on her plate. ‘That fellah’ could only be one person. Athol Sefton. Her father had harkened back to him several times during the year, making plain his dislike which was like a nagging tooth to be eased only by being clenched. When her father had finished with the paper, she took it up to her room. There was no doubt at all as to who it was. His querulous, invalid wife was dead. He was free!

“Free at last!” whispered Adelaide exultantly. Suddenly the wife seemed to have been the only obstacle in the way of her happiness.

From that moment on, Adelaide Dougall concentrated on an imaginary situation which to her had now become real. Each word and glance that he had ever given her was pondered upon and built up into occasions of deep significance. Their parting and the past months of separation had been as intolerable to him as they had been to her—of that she became convinced. She even looked for word from him, but when no letter came she told herself that, of course, it would not be proper for him to get in touch with her yet.

But that did not stop her from raking the crowded city streets and passing to and fro in front of the hotel where she knew he stayed when he was in Melbourne. But, of course, he intended waiting until they met again at their first place of meeting—the Duck and Dog at Dunbavin. It was the sort of romantic gesture that she could appreciate, and she began to mark off the dates on her calendar.

Thus, as the weeks went by and became days, Adelaide worked herself up to a feverish, erotic pitch which was as pitiful as it was dangerous.

IV

I should have checked in to a larger hotel, thought Jeffrey. Here I stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe if I talked like some of these Aussies—“Oi’m stying at the Hotel Broight,” he essayed aloud, and made a derisive sound.

‘Stying’ is just about it, he thought, staring at the dirty curtains which shrouded dirtier windows overlooking the rubbish-littered backyard of the hotel. Lying on the bed, cradling a glass of beer on his chest, he remembered the way the chambermaid had said, “You’re an American, aren’t you? Just fancy!” as though he was someone from Mars.

Hell, didn’t they remember the Yanks here? It wasn’t so long ago. Maybe folks’ memories are short when they know they should be grateful. It didn’t seem that long ago to him since they had been here. Camp Pell, they had called it. He had taken a ride out there, just for old times’ sake, to have a look at it—to remember himself as a kid in olive drab, sweating it out in the South Pacific Theatre. The cab driver had asked him if he had ever come up against that American soldier who murdered those three women.

Jeffrey’s body grew taut and his fingers suddenly clenched on the glass. He raised his head and, finishing the beer, set the glass on the bed table which already had a film of dust on it before the ashtray overflowed with his own cigarette ends. He lay back again, his hands under his head and a wry grin on his lips. That’s a word you’ll have to get used to, son, he told himself.

‘But they won’t get me like they got Leonski—I’m not a psychopathic strangler. There’s a difference between murdering for the hell of it and—the bastard, the dirty rotten bastard!’ he thought suddenly, burning up.

Funny how the years hadn’t minimised his fury or mellowed his bitterness. He had carried the injury with him all this time, so that he felt almost that he had grown up with it—that it was as much a part of him and as familiar as his own body. He always knew that one day he would come back to do what he had sworn to do on that reeking, sweltering atoll somewhere in the Pacific where he had received the news. Instinctively his hand crept to his inside coat pocket, encountering first the holster where his Luger lay snug against his side, then the old shagreen wallet where he had kept the letter from that moment outside the master-sergeant’s palm-thatched hut. Return and revenge had been his goal in the same way as other men’s goals were to be president of a company or captain of a baseball team. He had worked towards it, preparing himself both physically and mentally.

Sometimes he had tried to fight against inexorable ambition which kept driving him on, telling himself that the years were passing, what did it matter, what had happened to him had happened to other men and would happen again. But still he went on making plans and marking every saved dollar for a special purpose.

A knock at the door caused him to start up tensely. “Are you there, Mr Jeffrey? There’s someone to see you.”

He guessed who it would be, but still he asked for the name before unlocking the door.

A neatly dressed, middle-aged man, rather like a trusted bank clerk, entered. His small eyes behind bi-focal glasses were both watchful and observant as he was as insistent on checking the American’s identity as Jeffrey had been in checking his. “We have to be very careful in our business, Mr Jeffrey,” he said, more as a statement of fact than by way of apology.

“Sit down,” the other invited, shaking up a cigarette to offer his visitor, “and tell me what you’ve got for me.”

“Thank you, no. I don’t care for American cigarettes. Regarding the party you commissioned us to trace,” he went on, pulling out a notebook and turning over the pages. “He left Sydney on the eleven thirty plane this morning and is due to arrive any moment now. He is being met by a man called Carmichael who is his nephew by marriage. His wife, just in case it is of interest to you, died a few months ago. So far we can discover no reservation made for him at any hotel. It is my belief that he will be staying with his nephew who has a bachelor flat just outside the city. I have his address with me if you want it.

“From the evening of the 27th—that is, tomorrow—the party has a booking at a hotel in the country some hundred and fifty miles away. The name of this hotel is the Duck and Dog. It is situated near the town of Dunbavin. Your party usually spends the first part of March there every year for the duck-shooting. We are unable to anticipate his movements further,” the little man concluded, as though defying anyone else to be able.

But I can, thought the American exultantly. Shooting ducks, huh? I know one who is a dead duck right now.

The private enquiry agent went on. “We were uncertain of your precise wishes, Mr Jeffrey, but following the general tone of your instructions we took the chance on booking you in at the same hotel. I trust we acted correctly?”

“Fine!” said Jeffrey, trying to keep the note of reckless triumph out of his voice. The whole business was turning out better than if he had planned it.

The agent gave a little deprecatory cough. “Naturally we do not enquire into our clients’ intentions, or the outcome of the work they ask us to undertake—” he paused, his small shrewd eyes on the American’s face.

The other said sharply, “Yes, go on!”

After a pause, the agent said, “Very often after much careful and discreet work on our part, our clients undo it all by behaving foolishly.”

Jeffrey’s facial muscles felt stiff as he tried to grin easily. “What are you getting at?”

“Just a little advice, if you don’t think it out of order. Is it your intention, now that we have finished our commission on your behalf, to continue to keep your party under observation?”

Jeffrey lit another cigarette. His fingers were trembling slightly. “Could be,” he replied. “But I thought you said you started minding your own business at this point.”

“Sometimes the point is marginal. In your case I feel compelled to advise you to keep in part with your environment. In other words, Mr Jeffrey, if you wish to continue—let us say anonymously—you had better go to the Duck and Dog prepared and equipped to shoot ducks.”

The American coughed over his cigarette as a laugh of relief caught him unawares. “Thanks for the tip. It would be sticking my neck way out if I didn’t dress and act the part.”

The agent looked gratified, then shook his head. “It is not so much acting and dressing. I’m afraid the fact that you are an American will make you stand out, so to speak, in the district you intend to visit. The point is, can you shoot?”

His client laughed again. “Sure I can shoot. They taught us to do that sort of thing back in ’42.”

“Ah yes, quite! War is a terrible thing,” said the agent with the air of announcing a profound and original truth. “But there is, I believe, a difference between shooting game and—ah—sniping at the enemy. What you need is a shotgun. In order to preserve your anonymity I suggest your purchasing one before you leave town.”

“You’re being most considerate,” murmured Jeffrey.

Again the little man looked pleased. “Don’t mention it. It’s just that I do like a job to be tucked in on all corners, so to speak. Now here is the name of a reliable gunsmith. All the best sportsmen go there, I believe.”

“Why, thanks a lot—”

“You’re welcome. It is our aim to give our clients every possible service in order to achieve their objectives—short of murder, of course.” He tittered lightly as he drew out a folded slip of paper. “Now, if you are quite satisfied, Mr Jeffrey, there is just the little matter of our account.”

“I’ll settle up right away,” said the American jerkily, turning away from him to take out his wallet.

Money and receipt were exchanged. Then the agent packed up his briefcase and went to the door. “Well, goodbye, Mr Jeffrey—and good luck. I hope you have an enjoyable time shooting ducks.”

V

“Dunbavin!” said Andrew, easing the utility over one of the many bumps of the rough country road. “Look it up on the map, will you, darling? I believe the F. and G. recommend it too.”

Frances unwrapped the map and spread it over her knees, bending forward to hide the small tolerant smile that women smile when they think they know how to manage their men.

Their unconventional honeymoon had started off in New South Wales shooting marauding kangaroos, on which an open season had been declared. Then on further south, where they had tried their luck with the wild pigs that roamed about the Murrumbidgee. Late February found them crossing the Murray into Victoria, where duck-shooting was the next item on Andrew’s list.

He slipped a sudden arm about his wife’s shoulders. Life was good. Frankie was a grand wife. He had enjoyed teaching her how to shoot, marvelling at her occasional fluke, for he maintained it needed years of practise to become a really accomplished shot. Perhaps he enjoyed her ineptitude even more.

Then there were the warm twilights when they made camp just where they fancied, and Frances squatted over the fire he had lighted cooking kangaroo steak or a rabbit stew, her face intent and shadowy in the firelight. His arm tightened so that she was pulled sideways against him as he thought of the nights hazy with stars when they lay rolled in blankets, Frances small and silent in his arms.

“Look out, Andy!” Frances protested, wriggling free. “You’re making me tear the map.”

“To hell with the map,” he replied, and the truck swerved crazily as he gave her a swift kiss. “Happy?”

“Of course. Look, if we follow this road it seems to lead to the main highway to Dunbavin.”

“Okay—we’re off to see Dunbavin, Dunbavin the place for ducks!” he sang, leaning forward and putting both hands at the top of the wheel. “You’re really happy, Frankie? Like being married to me?”

“Of course,” she said again, sounding surprised. “What silly questions you ask, darling!”

Somehow he felt oddly comforted when she called him that. She had a lovely voice, Frankie had, when she chose to put expression into it—sort of warm and husky. It must be all the amateur acting she did at home. Everyone used to say that she ought to try her luck in Sydney—study for the stage or try television audition, perhaps go abroad. He was damned thankful she hadn’t.

“Look!” he said suddenly, slowing the utility and lifting one hand to point. “They know we’re coming. They’re up to welcome us.”

A slow-moving formation of ducks appeared in the sky ahead. They seemed to hang immobile before dropping down behind a clump of low trees which hid a lagoon. “They are a good omen,” said Frances and put her hand into his.

Just as the term of endearment had pleased him, so the spontaneous gesture of affection brought a surge of something like gratitude. Impulsively he said, “This pub—the Duck and Dog—what say we put up there for a night or two? I bet you’ve had enough sleeping in the open. What about a change from roughing it?”

“But Andy, we’d never get in. They’re certain to be full up and the expense—”

Andrew was himself again, confident and masterful. “Bet you anything you like I can get us in and hang the expense. Aren’t we on our honeymoon?”

“There is no harm in trying, I suppose,” she returned doubtfully. “And it would be nice to eat a meal someone else has cooked for a change.”

“I’ve no complaints to make about the present cook. We’ll enquire where this joint is when we get to Dunbavin.”

He pressed the car forward over the corrugated road.

“Andy, I’m sure it must be somewhere near here. We’re coming to the main highway and the map says it is this side of the town.”

They glided on to the smooth bitumen. “That’s a relief,” said Andrew. “Hullo! Looks like one of the natives ahead. We’ll stop and see if they talk the same language south of the border.”

It was Wilson, the first guest at Ellis Bryce’s hotel.

“Good-day there!” greeted Andrew. “Can you tell us where to find a pub called the Duck and Dog?”

Wilson struggled with his Adam’s apple, his eyes fixed with intense concentration on the car’s number plate. “There’s a t-t-turn—” and he pointed further along.

“A turning a bit on?” Andrew queried, unconsciously imitating Ellis. “Left or right?”

“L—l—”

“Left, is it? Thanks, mate. Much obliged.” He drew his head in and put the car into gear, giving Frances a broad wink. Wilson with his solemn face and painful stammer was a terrific figure of fun to him. An inarticulate sound made him turn back. “You were saying?”

Wilson made a stupendous effort and left out the extraneous words people with impediments will try to use. “Duck-shooting?”

“That’s so,” returned Andrew, surprised at the sudden clarity. “The wife and I want to put up at the pub for a night or two. We heard there was good sport round these parts.”

Wilson screwed his head round and blinked in a puzzled fashion at Frances. Maintaining his telegraphic style of elocution, he asked, “Name, Morton?”

“Turner’s the name. But what’s that to do with you?”

The other flapped his hands around for a moment. “F-full-up,” he brought out at last.

“There you are, Andy,” said Frances.

“You the proprietor?” Andrew asked Wilson, who shook his head. “Then how do you know they’re full up? The season doesn’t open until Monday. Oh, a guest, huh! Well, maybe we’ll go along and enquire just the same. Be seeing you, sport!”

He tilted his jaw and there was a determined look in his eyes as they came to a narrow dirt road little better than a cart track. A sagging signpost, which Ellis Bryce had had erected in the first flush of inspiration, bore the direction PRIVATE ROAD: DUCK AND DOG INN. He put the car into second as it made its first climb for many miles. “I’m not going to let a little twerp like that put me off. Nosey sort of bloke, wasn’t he?”

Presently the hotel came into view—a sturdy two-storied building of stone with sprawling additions of sun-blistered weatherboard clinging about it like parasitic growths.

“Well, this is it! Stay where you are and keep your fingers crossed, honey.”

“Good hunting, Mr Fixit,” Frances returned brightly. She watched him stride confidently to the open door which was set in the centre of the building between two beds of colourful geraniums. Presently a worried-looking woman with wispy untidy hair and dressed in an overall appeared. Andrew put one hand on his hip and stamped his feet about as he spoke to her, which was how he always stood when he was being aggressive and not quite sure of himself.

The woman put a hand up to her hair as though making sure it was still untidy, and glanced vaguely in the direction of the utility as she listened. Presently she interrupted the barrage and disappeared into the house. With a wink and a thumbs-up sign at Frances, Andrew followed.

A few minutes later, he emerged, grinning triumphantly. “Okay, Frankie! I’ve made it. Hop out and I’ll get our stuff.”

“Andy, you’re marvellous! However did you do it?”

“Gift of the gab mostly. Though there was a room booked and the people haven’t turned up. Had a telly or something from them only this morning. So balls to that stuttering little chap we met. Will his face be red when he sees us!”