Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

When Marshall again looked up from studying the photograph, he said admiringly:

“Where did you learn it all?”

“Oh, from a swagman who thought I was another of his clan. To proceed. We may presume that the man who scrawled that game of noughts and crosses on that door had seen someone take the body of Kendall into the hut, and then had watched that somebody kill one of Kendall’s ration sheep, catch the blood and pour it on the floor about the head of the man, and hang the carcass in the meat house. The first part of the presumption I adopted when first I saw that photograph, the second was yesterday when I learnt that a fresh and uncut carcass of a sheep was hanging in the meat house the following morning. Scott supports the second part. He says that, in his opinion, the sample of blood he scraped from the floor of the hut where the body lay is animal blood, not human.

“Recall. The drawer of the game of noughts and crosses states clearly that a dead body was brought to that place. He doesn’t state that a dead body is in it. It was brought there. Therefore he must have seen it brought there, and most likely he saw the face or recognized the figure of the man who carried it into the hut. However, I am breaking away from fact to supposition when I say it is likely that the watcher recognized the man who brought the dead body and placed it in the hut.

“Given two facts, an investigator is entitled, protem., to assume a third with which to connect them,” Bony went on. “My assumed fact is based on this deduction. The man who saw him who brought the body to the hut knew him and subsequently began blackmail. He arranged that that same hut should be the place of meeting of himself and his victim, or that it be the place where the money was to be deposited by the victim.

“That swagman, remember, did not leave the station homestead until after ten o’clock at night. That was the night of December fourth, three nights before the full moon. When he walked into the hut to meet his blackmail victim, or to obtain the blackmail money, he walked into death. For he was strangled with a strip of hessian and his body was hanged with his own swag straps. But, Marshall, remember that the motive for the killing of that swagman, our assumed motive, is merely supposition, and we may yet be grievously wrong. Interested?”

Sergeant Marshall’s despondency had long since vanished. He said:

“What makes you think that the killer lives here in Merino?”

“I wasn’t sure about that until after I arrived here,” Bony replied. “I might be rash in saying that I am sure about it even now. You remember the marks made by hessian-covered feet about the hut at Sandy Flat. Those same hessian-covered feet made similar marks about the hut occupied by old Bennett that night he died. The same man walked off the eastern end of the macadamized road running through Merino, and he walked back to that end of that macadamized road after he paid a visit to old Bennett.”

“Ah! Ah!” breathed Marshall.

“I believe that we are also entitled to assume that the killer of Kendall knew that old Bennett knew of the murder, and that the murderer went to old Bennett’s hut to silence him. When the old man opened his door, the poor weak heart did the foul work for him. But why the killer waited a little more than a month before acting as he did would be absurd even to assume. You light the lamp. I’ll draw the blind.”

Bony made yet another of his cigarettes with the hump in the middle of it. He went on:

“Perhaps you can now appreciate this case of ours as being not one suitable for the attention of a city detective. And I hope that now you can appreciate the fact that the murderer of Kendall and that swagman can be any man living within the boundaries of your district, if not within the boundaries of Merino. He may turn out to be Dr Scott, either of theJasons, the schoolmaster, the minister, even Gleeson, even you, Marshall. Gleeson, by the way, was exceptionally intelligent in his questioning of Dr Scott yesterday, was he not? The murderer is hardly likely to be an obvious choice of our guessing. We can, however, think that he is fairly strong, one able easily to lift and carry a man of medium or light weight. He was able to carry Kendall, whose body weighed nine stone six, and he easily lifted the swagman’s body, weighing seven stone four pounds. He is not old or a weakling.

“We could reduce the number of possibilities by making a list of every able-bodied man in the district, but I hardly think it would be of immediate assistance. However, you might do that sometime.”

“I’ll do it. It won’t be difficult,” asserted the sergeant.

“Good! Now I want you to make an inquiry. The day before yesterday the swagman camped in the woolshed at Wattle Creek homestead, and that afternoon the mail car passed through that homestead on its way to Merino fromPooncaira. It stopped there to pick up the Wattle Creek mail, and doubtless there were letters in that station mailbag addressed to persons in Merino. The book-keeper, who would collect the letters from the station box to put into the mailbag with the office mail, would be familiar with the handwriting of the station hands. He might well remember seeing a strange handwriting, say that of the swagman, and he might remember to whom in Merino the letter was addressed. The addressee of a letter posted by the swagman to a person in Merino might be the victim of his blackmail. There is just a chance we may get a lead there.”

“Shall I ring up or go out to see that book-keeper?”

“Better go out. Should you see Mr Leylan, you might mention to him that your jailbird is a good worker and civil, and that he would like a job at stock work. Mr James has already spoken to him about me. I would much like to get a job riding from the Sandy Flat hut.”

Marshall’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t know that I’d like to live in that place,” he said.

“Perhaps you would not. I know that I will not. But since when is a detective thought to have nerves like other men? I will live there if it can be arranged, because I want to examine the country east of the Walls of China.

“There is something else, too. If we could prove where Leylan spent the night that the swagman was killed, we could remove him from our imagined list of probabilities, take him into our confidence, and so arrange for me to go to Sandy Flat without any botheration.

“By the way, when you were having an interview with Sam the Blackmailer, I was inspecting the Wattle Creek woolshed. On one of thewoolpresses I discovered another noughts and crosses sign. It contained the information that the men’s cook was generous to swagmen, and that the boss could be touched for a plug of tobacco. That was all.”

Windmills and a Woodcutter

BONY HAD COMPLETED the painting of the paling fence fronting the police station compound and had begun work on the division fence separating the compound from the residential property owned by Mr Jason. This division fence was constructed of corrugated iron sheets nailed to a wooden frame-work which was now receiving Bony’s attention.

At half past nine on the morning of December seventh it was already hot. From the street came the noise of cars and a truck, and from within the garage came the sound of iron being hammered. Merino was engaged with its morning business; it was as though everyone wanted to get it done before the promised hot afternoon began.

It was Saturday morning, and from the kitchen door there issued Rose Marie, dressed in a blue and white cotton frock, with a large floppy-brimmed sun hat shading her face. She pushed a smallpram in which were installed two large dolls. Sedately, and conversing in motherly fashion with her charges, she pushed the pram across the compound to where Bony was working.