Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“But my district inspector-”

Bony waved his hands.

“Copy my example,” he urged. “Never permit yourself to be concerned with inspectors and chief commissioners and people of that class. They are all right in their places.”

“So am I… so far. Anyway, it’s your funeral.”

“Not quite so morbid… after this afternoon,” Bony implored. “Now let’s get down to a battle of pros and cons, and when we have finished you will see that matters have not been allowed to slide as much as you think. To begin.

“You are not aware that I sent those door handles to Sydney from Mildura Post Office, are you? How do we know that the killer is not a member of the post office staff? Already I can see that you appreciate the significance of hunting for a killer in a small community like Merino. There are only a hundred and fifty people inall your district, and only eighty persons, including children, living here in Merino.”

“How did you get those handles away?”

“I addressed them, together with a long covering report, to a friend of mine in Sydney who will himself deliver the package and report to headquarters. I stuck up a commercial traveller and gave him five shillings to cover registered postage. I should get back the receipt tomorrow.”

Bony inhaled deeply. Then he placed the cigarette on the edge of the desk-the ash tray was a jam tin-and, interlocking the fingers of both hands, rubbed the palms together and beamed at Marshall.

“We’ve got a hold on a first-class murder investigation,” he said softly and with tremendous satisfaction in his voice. “The killing of Kendall and that swagman, together with the possible intended killing of old Bennett is not the work of a man who kills his nagging wife, or another who slays his sweetheart because she has been untrue to him. This feller you and I are after is in the same class as Jack the Ripper. He’s an aristocrat, not a sniffling lounge lizard.”

“Damned if I can see anything to be cheerful about,” snorted Marshall. “Still, tell me some more, and then I might.”

“Now I have been through Redman’s collection of statements and his long general report. What he knew when he left Merino is only a fraction of what I know, and you know but a fraction of what I know. From Redman’s material, I cannot see how Redman came to suspect young Jason above others. Because a man fights with another who is subsequently murdered, we cannot even assume that he killed him, even although he was licked in the fight. In actual fact a man who fights is less likely to kill than one who declines to fight. What is your opinion?”

“I never considered young Jason,” replied the sergeant.

“Did you ever employ your mind with the motive for Kendall’s murder?”

“Yes. Loss at cards. Kendall was a bad man. He might have cheated that night, but notso’s an accusation could be made against him. Remember the statements made to Redman by the men who played against him?”

“I do. They both stated that Kendall won over fifteen pounds in less than two hours, and that they thought he cheated but weren’t sure. I have given those two statements some consideration, but we have to offset them by police reports on the characters of those who signed them. Both are well known in this district; both are stated to be good citizens.

“I haven’t concentrated on the killing of Kendall as much as I would have done had it not been for subsequent developments. I began with the most remarkable feature of Kendall’s death; then got myself ten days in your lockup because that remarkable feature goes to prove that Kendall’s murder was out of the ordinary and was done by a resourceful man. I saw, before I left Sydney, that I would require absolute freedom to make inquiries among people who did not know me.”

“What is the remarkable feature?” asked Marshall, impatiently waiting for Bony to get to the meat. Bony grinned mirthlessly:

“The game of noughts and crosses on the door of the hut at Sandy Flat,” he said.

“Ah! I remember you mentioning that more than once.”

Bony abruptly leaned forward and began to shuffle the pile of documents on the desk between himself and the sergeant. “Here it is-this photograph of the front of the hut,” he said. “See the drawing of the game with chalk on the hut door. It is done with white chalk, and not the red or blueraddle with which sheep are marked, indicating that the chalk was carried about for just that purpose by the man who drew the game. Take a glance at it.”

Marshall studied the now familiar picture.

“Observe closely that game of noughts and crosses,” urged Bony. “The assumed players did not complete it, for there is neither a nought nor a cross in the centre of the left-hand section. See the position of the ticks and the little curved lines and the dot at the right extremity of the lower horizontal line. Those additions to the game itself are done but roughly as though carelessly by a player when pondering on his move to be. Consider the number of variations which could be made with the crosses and the noughts and the small additions. Why, one could concoct a cipher with such material. And that, my dear Marshall, is just what it is.”

“You can read this cipher?” he asked, less as a question than as a statement.

“I can read it,” claimed Bony. “I have seen that cipher on homestead gates, on telephone posts, and burned on chips of wood or bark and left in the vicinity of homesteads and near small townships. There is one on the gatepost just the other side of the town dams which states that you are not a hard policeman but are given to charging swagmen in order to get work done by them whilst in custody.

“The cipher is used by only the genuine swagmen. As you are aware, a goodly proportion of the men travelling these outback tracks are honest station hands looking for a job, or going back to a job from a bender at a wayside or town hotel. There is, however, a minority of swagmen, better known as sundowners, who never work and who must walk hundreds of miles in the year tramping from station homestead to homestead, where they obtain rations or a handout. It is this minority who have evolved the noughts-and-crosses cipher to leave information for others of their class.

“You see how it goes. Asundowner arrives at a gate in the fence enclosing the homestead area or the township area. He looks for the cipher on that part of the gate or telephone post which the road user would never see, telling him that the station cook is generous, or that the station owner should be avoided.

“Mind you, that cipher is not now universally used, and with the passage of time it has become more complex, so that it is almost as difficult to read by one familiar with the original cipher as it is to read fortunes from the cards. However, to revert. That particular example scrawled on the door at Sandy Flat hut comprises a statement both clear-cut and definite.”

“Go on,” urged Marshall. “How do you make it all out?”

“It would take a long time to explain, and the necessity doesn’t arise now. I will, however, point out a few simple things. The semicircle at the left extremity of the top horizontal line means meat. The quarter circle connected to the top horizontal line and the left-hand perpendicular line means dead or death. The short line drawn at an angle at the top of the right perpendicular line represents brought-brought to this place. And the V at the bottom of the same line represents police, or a policeman’s helmet. And so on and so forth, including the positions of the noughts and crosses.

“A most important meaning, or message, is conveyed in the central square, where the cross is overlaid by the nought, or the other way round. That is the clear danger sign: get out, clear out, don’t be seen hereabouts. In effect the cipher reads: ‘A dead body has been brought to this hut for the police to find. Danger. Clear out. Touch nothing.’ ”