Arthur Upfield: Death of a Swagman

“It is not my real name, you know,” said the person outside the door. “My real name’s Florence. Young Mr. Jason gave me the Rose Marie name. I’m glad you like it. I do too. So does Miss Leylan. What are you in there for?”

“For having been rude to a sergeant of police.”

“Oh! That’ll be my father. He doesn’t like people being rude to him. Why were you rude?”

Bony related the incident of his arrest. Then he chuckled, and unexpectedly, the person outside laughed with him.

“You didn’t mean to be rude, did you?” she asked, swiftly serious.

“No, of course not. I was only trying to be funny. Can I come to the door now? It’s rather difficult talking to you from here.”

“You may.”

The large grey eyes examined him with even greater interest when his face was brought to the level of the door grille, and, noticing the trickles of perspiration on his dark brown face, Rose Marie said with anxiety in her voice:

“Is it hot in there?”

“Somewhat,” replied Bony ruefully. “How is it out there?”

“Goodo here in the shade. Would you like a drink of tea?”

Henodded, his eyes wide with anticipation and containing a little admiration, too, for Rose Marie’s hair was light brown and appeared to reflect the sunlight beyond the shadow of the jail. Her face was perfectly oval and fresh and winsome.

“I’ll make you a drink of tea,” she told him solemnly. “You must be thirsty in that hot old place. You wait! The kettle’s boiling. I promised Mother I’d have it boiling by the time she got back from the parsonage. I won’t be long.”

He watched her cross to the rear of the station, noted her firm carriage and steady, deliberate walk, a mannerism of movement evidently copied from her father. There in the sunlight her hair gleamed, the twin plaits hanging down her back seemingly ropes of new gold. Ten minutes later he watched her return, carrying a tray covered with a cloth. She set it down upon the ground before the door, and then looked up at him and said firmly:

“You promise not to run away when I open the door?”

“I do, of course.”

“Cross your fingers properly and promise out loud. Hold them upso’s I can see.”

Bony obeyed and loudly promised not to run away, with the mental reservation that he would not run away for a hundred pounds.

There was no further hesitation. Rose Marie moved the box from the door, slipped the heavy bolt, opened the door wide, and came in with her tray.

“My!” she exclaimed, putting the tray down on the bench. “It is hot in here.”

“Better leave the door open,” he suggested. “All the hot air will then go outside. Oh! I see that you have brought two cups and saucers. And cake! You know, Rose Marie, you are being very kind. Are you going to have tea with me?”

They sat one at each end of the bench with the tea tray between them. With the precision of an experienced hostess the little girl set out her service of cups and saucers and plates. They had two blue stripes round their edges and the tea cosy of white wool also had its two blue stripes. It was evidently not the first occasion that Rose Marie had served afternoon tea.

“Do you take milk and sugar?” she asked.

“Thank you… and one spoonful of sugar, please,” replied the delighted Bony, the romantic heart of him charmed. “You have a very nice tea set.”

“Yes, it is pretty. I knitted the cosy all by myself to match the cups and things. Miss Leylan says I made four mistakes in knitting the cosy. Can you see them?”

“No. I can’t. I don’t see any mistakes. Miss Leylan must have been mistaken. Who is she?”

“She comes in from Wattle Creek Station three times a week to our school. She’s the sewing mistress. I like her. Her brother owns Wattle Creek Station, you know. Will you say grace, please? Mr and Mrs James always do when they take tea with Mother.”

“I expect you could say it better than I could,” he said hastily, adding when the grace had been offered: “Who are Mr and Mrs James?”

“The minister and his wife. Mr James is a lazy good-for-nothing dreamer, and Mrs James is a slave to him. That’s what Mother says. Someday I am going to ask Mr James what he dreams about. Have you any brothers and sisters? I haven’t. I heard Mrs James tell Mrs Lacey one day it was a shame that I didn’t have a brother or a sister.”

Bony shook his head. He was conscious that his table manners were being studied, and hoped they were being approved.

“No, I have no brothers and sisters,” he told her, and related how he had been found, when a small baby, in the shade of a sandalwood-tree in the far north of Queensland, and how he had found a mother in the matron of the mission station to which he had been taken. That produced many questions which had to be answered, for was she not his hostess and he her guest? His reward was the information that Constable Gleeson was her father’s only assistant, that the elder Mr Jason was considered “queer” by her mother, and by her father the essence of a broken-down actor, and that young Mr Jason had given her the name of Rose Marie because he loved her and was going to marry her some day, and that Detective Sergeant Redman who had come from Sydney was “just a horrid man.”

“Why was he horrid?” Bony asked, his own impression of Redman not having been good.

“ ’Coshe was.” Grey eyes flashed and the twin hair plaits were jerked into a half swing. “He was ever so rude to young Mr Jason. I hate the big police bully. That’s what Mr Gleeson calls him. I told Sergeant Redman that I hated him too, and he only laughed at me. When I told young Mr Jason about that he said he would punch Sergeant Redman on the nose if he came here again and laughed at me.”

“But why was Sergeant Redman rude to your young Mr Jason?” Bony pressed.

“ ’Cosyoung Mr Jason wouldn’t answer all his silly old questions.”

“Oh! What were the questions about, do you know?”

“About poor Mr Kendall who was killed out in his hut.”

“But young Mr Jason wouldn’t know anything about that, would he?”

“Of course he didn’t,” Rose Marie replied indignantly. “No one liked that beastly Sergeant Redman.”

Footsteps fell on the ground beyond the open door, and Rose Marie murmured: “Oh my!”

Into the doorframe loomed the figure of Sergeant Marshall. He stepped inside the cell. Rose Marie’s little body stiffened into rigidity. Her hands were clasped and nursed in herlap, and over her face spread an expression of resignation, such as she had probably seen on her mother’s face when she waited for a storm to break.

Bony stood up. From regarding his daughter, Sergeant Marshall surveyed the evidence of the afternoon tea. The silence was tense. Then the policeman exploded.

“Well I’m damned!” he said, giving a pause between each word.

Bony Gets Down to Business

“FLORENCE, take those things back to the house and then wait for me at the office.”

“Yes, Father.”

Sergeant Marshall stood stiffly erect, his red neck swelling over the collar of his tunic, reminding Bony ofan goanna when annoyed. The sergeant’s eyes were like small brown pebbles in his brick-red face. With delightful dignity Rose Marie stood up and, with wilfulunhaste, collected the afternoon tea service, picked up her tray, and sedately marched out, her back like a gun barrel, the plaits of her hair giving never a swing. Then, to Bony, the sergeant said:

“Good job you never made a break for it.”

“You know, it never occurred to me,” Bony told him gravely. “By the way, I have a letter for you.”

The sergeant’s eyesnarrowed, and his big body appeared to rise slightly on springs in his feet. Other than that he made no move. Neither did he speak whilst watching Bonyunstrap his swag, although he was prepared to jump should the prisoner produce a weapon. His eyes narrowed still more when he was presented with a plain foolscap envelope inscribed with his rank, name, and station.