Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“Well, well. Let it be a lesson to you. Now to your office.”

Marshall glanced down at his pyjama-covered stomach and grinned. He tried to walk with dignity, failed, and ambled heavily after Bony, who carried the tray. He closed the office door and Bony poured tea, then sat in the official chair and gathered together the notebooks and papers he had brought from the kitchen. The sergeant sat down on the visitor’s chair and sipped his tea whilst watching this most extraordinary man manufacture his extraordinary cigarettes. And then Bony was regarding him seriously, and he could see on Bony’s face the evidence of fatigue.

“We progress, Sergeant,” Bony said, as though occupancy of the official chair had removed the previousbonhomie. “Events during the last few hours have established that the killer of Kendall and that swagman lives here in Merino. I told you, didn’t I, that Providence is always kind to detectives?”

He related all that had occurred from the moment he had arrived at the hut at Sandy Flat to the finding of the strip of hessian in the Merino gutter, and Sergeant Marshall became so engrossed that when the story was finished the tea in his cup was cold.

“I must get back to Sandy Flat as soon as possible,” Bony went on. “The wind would have smoothed away all tracks before daybreak, but that reservoir tank and mill might provide a clue as to what the fellow was doing there. Before I left town I thought of calling on Mr James. Then I thought of asking you to do so. Finally I decided to go slow with Mr James. We can’t afford to make a mistake with a parson. They can muster a lot of influence and kick up a deal of fuss should a poor detective make a mistake concerning them. If James is actually our man, and I am by no means certain that he is, wemusn’t jump on him till we are all set. And so far, we are not properly set to do any jumping on anyone.”

“Did that chap look anything like the parson in build and gait?” Marshall asked.

“We can’t rely on the manner of his walk. Remember he was wearing swathes of hessian about his feet and would then walk not unlike a man wearing snowshoes. In build he was similar to James. That is all I can say. His clothes were much more loose-fitting than those normally worn by the minister.”

Marshall pursed his lips. He said:

“I suppose a parson is as likely a killer as a butcher or a bricklayer?”

“Quite. Criminal history contains many. In this particular case, however, we are in danger of allowing our personal antipathy to cloud judgment. Our greatest difficulty is the absence of motive behind the killing of Kendall, and if the murder of the swagman was not the result of attempted blackmail, then we do not know the motive for that killing, either. It doesn’t follow because we know of no motive that there was no motive.

“Because we don’t know the motive, we can assume that there was none, and on this assumption we may further assume that the killer is insane. Only an insane person would kill without a motive… or for the sheer lust of killing, which is in itself a motive.

“You should read ‘The Rape ofLucrece ’, a poem written by Shakespeare. Old Shakespeare was a good criminologist. In that poem he describes the growth of an idea of the crime in the criminal’s mind before the crime was committed. Very often the crime of murder is the effect of thought extended over a lengthy period. In other words, the actual act of the crime is the effect of long and careful planning, following an idea which has become an obsession.

“If we assume that Kendall’s death was due to insane blood lust, we may be sure that the satiation of that lust was not accomplished on the spur of the moment. We may assume that, even were we ignorant of what we do know of the murderer’s efforts to escape detection.

“There is in this district no one sufficiently insane to kill without a motive. However, there may be one or even two people in this small community sufficiently insane to kill from the motive of satiating the blood lust. And, believe me, Marshall, the lust to kill is in itself a terrible thing. It is more terrible than killing for revenge or for gain, for it makes of a man a human tiger, a ravening human tiger whose thirst for blood is never quenched.

“This type of killer is invariably super-cunning, and also invariably super-vain. His vanity is enormous, so much so that when he is brought to trial he craves to read the newspaper reports and to wallow in the temporary fame he has achieved. Do you think the Rev. Mr James is a super-vain man?”

“No. He has never struck me that way,” Marshall replied.

“Mr James is a loafer, and he is cunning enough to be a quite successful vampire man,” Bony continued. “He is a supercilious and intelligent man, and I should say that his mental make-up comprises twenty per cent cunning, thirty per cent sheer stupidity, thirty per cent tiredness, and but twenty per cent vanity. If we assume that the murder of Kendall was the result of the lust to kill, we must go cold on the idea that James is the killer, despite all the circumstances against him.

“There is also further evidence tending to remove James from the suspicion of having killed Kendall. We have through theeffluxion of time made a great advance on Redman’s investigation. We know that the man who killed Kendall was not one of Kendall’s class, working all over the state and seldom remaining in any particular place for long. Kendall’s murderer never left this district, because he was here when the swagman was killed, and he was here last night.

“He lives here in Merino. It might be, of course, that the killing had its genesis many years ago in some other place, and that after years of separation killer and victim happened to come together again here in Merino. If we accept that hypothesis, our friend James is ruled out still further. Kendall, remember, was a bushman and James was a city man. Kendall was just a rough, roaming man; James is the son of a minister of religion, and his life has been lived in the religious confines of home, church, and college.

“It is possible, of course, that Kendall accidentally discovered a criminal weakness in James, or another here in Merino, and attempted blackmail, and was murdered because of it.”

“That seems likely, come to think of it,” Marshall put in.

“Yes, I agree. But I warn you again not to allow your imagination to be fed by personal dislike. There is something else in this investigation which has inserted itself into my mind even against a degree of mental resistance. That thing is… windmills. You are justified in wanting to ask what windmills have to do with this killing of Kendall. It is what I would like to know.

“Kendall was killed on a night when the moon was at full and when the wind was blowing at an estimated velocity of twelve miles an hour. Last night the moon was at full and the wind blew. There was no wind that night the swagman was killed, and we must not forget that the time of that death was dictated by the swagman himself.”

“The moon at full may have an effect upon insane persons, but I think we can rule this out of ourprobings, although we must keep in view the fact that the light of the moon might be the factor behind these murders.

“Why did the fellow with sacking about his feet and a hood over his head ride to within a few miles of Sandy Flat, tether his horse and walk to the windmill, release the mill to the wind, climb up the ladder to the floor of the reservoir tank, stay there for at least forty minutes, and then come down to the ground and brake off the mill, and finally set off back to his horse? When we can answer those questions we shall know the motive for the murders.”

Marshall poured himself a second cup of tea. It was almost cold. He heard Bony say softly: