Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“You are, then, Miss Leylan?”

“Yes. What is your name?”

“I am known as Robert Burns.” Bony raised a hand and mimicked the parson at Merino. Then he adopted a Scotch accent and denied his descent from the poet. “For some reason unexplained,” he went on, “all my friends call me Bony. I prefer it that way. It saves a lot of arguments.”

“You speak very well-Bony. Good school?”

“My father gave me a sound education,” Bony replied gravely. “Do you think your brother will give me a sound job?”

“Probably. I didn’t actually hear what he said to Mr James. I left them together. Mr James didn’t mention the matter when I saw him this morning.”

“You saw him this morning?”

“Oh yes. We met by chance away out east from the Walls of China a little before I found our horses. The silly man had blown his horse. It was in a lather of sweat and he was rubbing it down with a piece of hessian sacking. If I’m any judge, he would have to walk his horse back to town.”

“Your brother is a great friend of his, I understand,” Bony suggested.

“Not exactly. My brother says that the minister makes his toes itch to be up and doing. We like his wife. You will find her a splendid woman. Well, I must be going. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Miss Leylan. By the way, do your menlay poison baits on these Walls of China?”

“No. Why?”

“There is a dog dead over there, and I thought it might have picked upa bait.”

“Indeed!” She turned and gazed in the direction indicated by him. “I’ll ride over and have a look at it.”

“I have seen it before. It’s a town dog.”

She heeled her mount round, waved a hand to him, and rode away.

He turned from watching her to see the dust of a car coming down the slope from Merino, and to murmur:

“Well! Well! So this very morning Mr James was wiping down his blown horse with a piece of hessian sacking. And Mr Leylan is not a great friend of Mr James, after all. Well! Well! Our official interest in Mr James goes on and on and on.”

Dr Scott Examines the Body

DR MALCOLM SCOTT was short, tubby, and sixty, white of hair, and had a fresh complexion which defied the sun. Why he came to practise in Merino no one knew and he never bothered to explain. He arrived, had a comfortable house built between the bank and one of the stores, and quietly settled down to enjoy life in his own manner and alleviate the superficial sufferings of a people notoriously healthy.

It could be assumed that Merino would have assimilated Dr Scott. To use the vernacular: “What a hope!” Dr Scott assimilated Merino, for he became its first citizen in all activities excepting those connected with the law. He got to know everyone and everything about everyone, or nearly so. And he had the knack of keeping everyone in his place so that he could be familiar to all while none dared be familiar to him.

He was out of town when Marshall reached Merino, necessitating a wait for an hour, by the end of which Mounted Constable Gleeson’s iron control was beginning to crack. On arrival at Sandy Flat, they discovered Bony sitting on the doorstep of the hut.

“I hope you brought back the hamper and tea billy,” he said pleasantly, when they had left the car and stood before him. “I am beginning to be hungry.”

“Stomach! Stomach! Stomach! It’s always stomach,” snorted the doctor. “Can’t you forget your stomach and enjoy good health? And what a place to have a stomach, too! NowWhere’s this body?”

Bony rose to his feet, and said gravely:

“It awaits you.”

The three men grouped themselves behind Dr Scott.

“Coo!” he exclaimed softly. “What’s your opinion, Marshall?”

“Haven’t decided.” replied the cautious sergeant. “We’d better go in. Have a look, Gleeson, at the way the straps were joined and then tied to the crossbeam. Note the general layout. I’ll open that trap window.”

Bony did not again enter the hut. He heard Marshall tell his constable to photograph the corpse and the use made of the dead man’s swag straps, and then he walked to the car and took out the hamper and billy can.

“Ever seen him before, Gleeson?” Marshall asked.

“No, Sergeant.”

“How old would he be, Doctor?”

“About fifty.”

“Colour of eyes?”

“Hazel. Grey hair… was dark brown.”

“Any distinguishing marks-without stripping him?”

“Yes. First joint of little finger of right hand missing.”

“Thanks. We’ll leave the contents of the swag till later, Gleeson. There seems to be nothing else. No fire lit for weeks. He didn’t even have a meal here. Couldn’t have been here long before he died. Shall we take him down, Doctor?”

“Yes. Get my bag from the car, please, Gleeson. Afterwards we’ll want some hot water-and soap-plenty of it. I see half a bar over on that shelf.”

Ten minutes later they heard a distant voice shout:

“Lunchoh!”

Marshall, who was standing just inside the door, turned about to see Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the noted crime investigator, standing beside a fire he had made over by the tank stand. In the shadowwas the unpacked hamper and a steaming billy. Beside the fire were two petrol buckets of heated water.

“Ready for a drink of tea, Doctor?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Drink anything… now,” snapped Scott. “Ugh! Filthy business! Let’s get outside.”

They were thankful for the hot but fresh air without, and the sergeant wedged shut the door. It seemed to them that they had left a noisome dungeon.

“Gentlemen! Lunch is served,” Bony said in welcome, and, strangely enough, they were glad to hear the tone of gaiety in his voice. “There is the dish I brought from the hut. Hot water aplenty. I forgot that soap, Marshall. Sorry. Towels are minus.”

Dr Scott glared.

“Seen you somewhere,” he said impolitely. “Why, hang it, I remember. You’re the fellow who was painting the police station fence. The colour makes me sick.”

“It causes Rose Marie to feel sick too,” supplemented Bony. In fifteen minutes he was saying to his guests:

“Tea in this china cup for you, Doctor. And this other china cup for you, Sergeant. Gleeson and I will drink from these tin pannikins I brought from the hut. It’s all right, Gleeson. They are station property, and I have scoured them well with hot water and sand. What a beautiful day!”

In after years, whenever the doctor recalled this scene, invariably he remembered the manner in which Bony appeared to evolve from a nebulous figure painting a fence, through the clearer stage of seeing him seated on the doorstep of a hut in which was suspended the body of a man, to this moment when smilingly he proffered to him a cup of tea. Subsequently he always felt like a man who mistook his host for the butler.

He said to Sergeant Marshall: “You could arrange for the inquest to be held tomorrow. Seems all straightforward.”

“It will depend upon my superior,” Marshall countered.

“Yoursuperior?”

“Permit me to intrude-again,” murmured Bony. “I am going to take you into my confidence, Doctor, because I need your co-operation. I am a detective inspector of the QueenslandC.I. B. on loan to this state to look into the circumstances of the death of George Kendall. My name is Napoleon Bonaparte.”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Scott.

“That is actually my name. Sandwich?

“I have made myselfau fait with your history, Doctor, and I am entitled by it to be confident that you will maintain what is at present a police secret,” Bony said. “For twenty-eight years you practised in Sydney, where you were widely and favourably known. You came to Merino ten years ago for domestic reasons. Your chief interest in life is the study of biochemistry. Finally: you are known most favourably to the police force at Merino.”