Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

The Prisoner’s Visitors

TO SERGEANT MARSHALL, administrator as well as policeman, Detective Inspector Bonaparte was an entirely new proposition, the antithesis of Detective Sergeant Redman.

Marshall knew no class of men better than policemen and plain-clothes investigation men who once were uniformed policemen. He was aware, and took pride in the fact, that the modern policeman is the product of a machine-like organization built up by generations of men engaged in the perpetual war against law-breakers. There was no doubt in Marshall’s mind that Detective Sergeant Redman was a good investigator. His record was proof of that. But Redman’s training began as a constable on a city beat, where he had learned the rudiments of the warfare against criminals operating in cities, and he had continued in the same warfare, and against the same enemies, when promoted to the Criminal Investigation Branch. As an investigator here in the bush, however, Redman was a lesser quantity than Gleeson, who could recognize the tracks of any particular horse sufficiently well to follow them for miles, and who did know the difference between the tracks made by a dog and those made by a fox.

Here, in the vast untrammelled and uncultivated interior of Australia, the science of crime detection was as different from its city counterpart as the tracks made by a fox are different from those made by a dog. Here in the bush the sciences of fingerprinting, blood grouping, hair sectioning, and general photography were of relatively small importance compared with the sciences of tracking and of the effects of varying wind pressures upon the face of the earth.

Marshall had yet to experience personally Bonaparte’s methods of crime detection, but he had heard sufficient about this Queenslander to appreciate their extraordinary success. That Bonaparte chose to enter Merino as a stockman, that he had artfully got himself charged in a court of law, and now was painting government property for two shillingsper diem and his meals, did not appear to Marshall as unorthodox as it would have done to a police officer having no experience of the bush.

Certainly no one in Merino would ever imagine that the half-caste stockman painting the police station fence was a famous detective inspector investigating the murder of George Kendall. Bony had said after breakfast on the morning following the funeral of Edward Bennett:

“You administer a district comprising roughly nine thousand square miles, a district occupied by about a hundred and fifty people, of whom nearly two thirds live here in Merino. Without being disrespectful, I may call myself a fisher of men. I cast my net and in due time I bring in for examination all these people. All of them are fish. All are harmless fish except one that is a sting-ray. It is not very exciting work. It is not comparable, for instance, to angling for swordfish. I don’t go about armed with loaded guns andthings, save on very rare occasions. The uniformed policemen do all the necessary shooting. The only shooting I do is with my mind. The mental bullets I fire cause a man to die at the bottom end of a rope.”

Well, well! Was Bony even then getting ready to fire one of those mental bullets?

Seated at his desk, through the open window of his office the senior police officer of the Merino District could observe Detective Inspector Bonaparte industriously painting the police station fence fronting the street, and he could hear him cheerfully whistling “Clementine, My Clementine”. When a few moments later the whistling ceased, Marshall saw that his daughter Florence had joined the painter.

Rose Marie said to the catcher of sting-rays:

“Good morning, Bony!”

“Good morning, Rose Marie! Are you off to school?”

“Yes. But I’m early. I can talk to you if you like.”

Bony slapped the last drop of paint from his brush to the wood.

“How do you like the colour?” he inquired mildly.

“I hate it.” The little girl’s dark eyes gazed steadily at the light yellow of the new paint work. “It makes me feel sick.”

“It makes me feel tired, Rose Marie. Now why should the government permit only the most artistic shades of colouring to be applied to the inside of Parliament House down in Sydney and send this fearful stuff to Merino? But never mind.”

Laying the brush across the top of thepaintpot, he sat down on the bare ground with his back to that part of the fence still to be painted, and began to manufacture a cigarette. Gravely the girlunslung her school satchel, placed it beside him as a seat, and joined him at his ease.

“Mother said that you’re themost lovely man she’s ever met,” she told him.

“Indeed!”

“Yes. I heard her tell Father so after you left the kitchen last night.”

“Oh! Where were you?”

“I was supposed to be asleep in my bedroom. It’s next to the kitchen. Would you like to know what father said about you?”

“Do you think I ought to know?”

“Yes, because it was nice. I wouldn’t tell you if it had been nasty.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you didn’t tell me. You see, it might make me vain. What’s your teacher’s name?”

The question was asked through the faint haze of cigarette smoke. He observed the dark eyes regarding him with open trust. The small oval face was healthy and not yet burned by the summer suns.

“Mr. Gatehead,” she told him. “He’s a nice man, but his wife isn’t. Mrs Moody says that Mrs Gatehead is a real useless trollop, and however he came to marry her is beyond reason. I like Miss Leylan. She’s our sewing mistress, you know. She’s in love with a minister who goes round Australia in a big truck. Miss Leylan thinks that I’m too young to be in love. Do you?”

“No. We are never too young, Rose Marie, and never too old to be in love.”

“Thank you, Bony,” she said solemnly. “You see, one day I am going to marry young Mr Jason. He’s saving up his money to buy a Buick, and then we will be married by Mr James, and young Mr Jason will drive me straight off to the kingdom of Rose Marie.”

“Oh! And where is that?”

The school bell began to clang and the child rose to her feet. Whilst she was adjusting her satchel she looked down at him with bright eyes.

“You promise not to tell?”

He nodded.

“Cross your fingers and promise… loud.”

He obeyed. She said:

“The kingdom of Rose Marie is where I’m going to be queen and young Mr Jason the king.” She then proceeded to recite what she had learnt by heart. “You follow the new moon to where it sinks into the sunset glow. There is a lake of liquid gold, and in the middle of the lake is an island all green with tall grasses and flowering trees. The island is the kingdom of Rose Marie, and when we get there all the stars will fall and hold tight to the tops of the trees and be like those electric globes in Mr Jason’s garage.”

“True?” asked the entranced Bony.

“Yes. Young Mr Jason told me. My, I must run! The bell’s stopped.”

“You promise me something before you go?”

She crossed her fingers and promised.

“Promise that you will never again speak the word ‘trollop’. It isn’t a nice word.”

“All right! I promise, Bony. Good-bye.”

She left him, running, the bars of her golden hair floating behind her.

He was wishing that he had been blessed with a daughter in addition to his three sons when a dog came to stare at him.

“Good day!” he said to the dog.

The dog wagged its tail. It was a large rangy animal of nondescript breed, brown head, brown back, and white chest.

“What is your name?” Bony asked. “Come on, tell me your name.”

The dog wrinkled his nose and suspicion left his eyes. He came nearer, willing to be friends.