Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“Windmills! Windmills have an important place in this puzzle, but where they fit in beats me so far. Er -I think I shall have to do something which is distasteful to me. It is not the first time in my career that passion for investigating crime has warred with my instincts as a gentleman-the meaning of the word ‘gentleman’ being in its widest sense. Were it not for the fact that our killer might kill again before we can unearth him, I would not even contemplate doing this thing which I find distasteful.

“Well, now, here it is. There is here in Merino a person who could tell us something about windmills, or, for us, could add a significant something to this subject of windmills. That person, however, is under a bond of silence. With her fingers crossed she promised someone not to tell something about windmills. At the time I took but little notice of it, but it has grown to importance since last night.”

Sergeant Marshall sat bolt upright.

“You are not referring to our Florence, are you?” he demanded.

Through a haze of tobacco smoke Bony regarded the sergeant.

“I happened to tell Rose Marie that Lawton-Stanley’s father was a maker of windmills in Brisbane,” he explained slowly. “She was keenly looking forward to meeting Miss Leylan’s fiance, and she became upset by the thought that Lawton-Stanley would want to sell his father’s windmills in Merino. When I pressed her to tell me why she was afraid of such a thing as that, she told me that she had promised not to tell-with her fingers crossed.”

“Oh, that be blowed!” exploded Marshall. “I’ll soon get that out of her.”

“One moment, Marshall. That might seem an easy road, but it is one which I will not take until every other avenue is explored. Rose Marie is a sweet child, and when she makes a promise she stands by it if the promise is made when her fingers are crossed. Neither you nor I are going to force her to break that promise because there are all too few people in the world today who place any value whatsoever on their given word.”

“But, as you just mentioned, another poor devil might well be murdered if we don’t nail the killer pretty soon,” objected the sergeant.

“Nevertheless,” Bony persisted, “we will allow ourselves to persuade her to tell us what she knows by putting to her such questions, and in such a manner, that she will not know she is telling us what she promised with her fingers crossed not to tell. I think I can manage to do that. She is your daughter but she is not to be forced to break a promise so solemnly made. I hope that you agree with me?”

Marshall nodded, and his affirmative reply was spoken softly:

“She’s a great kid,” he said, and in his mind ran another thought: “And you’re a fine man.” Bony was saying:

“It is a little early, even now, to wake Rose Marie, but I should get back to Sandy Flat. I’d like to talk to her before I leave. You go and ask her to come here to me. Tell her that Bony wants to see her. And you stay out and get dressed. You’re a disgrace, in pyjamas at seven-thirty in the morning.”

Marshall heaved himself to his bare feet and passed out of the office to pad along the passage to the rear of the house. Bony swung round in his chair. Through the window he could see the front fence, the pepper-trees, and a portion of the roof of the butcher’s shop all painted with the light of the risen sun. As though in the background of his mind, he heard Marshall padding about somewhere in the rear of the house. He heard Mrs Marshall’s voice raised in surprise. Then he heard her husband’s voice outside the station house, shouting the name “Florence”.

Several minutes passed, and then he heard Marshall’s heavy feet again in the house, and his voice loud, in keeping with the raised voice of his wife. The big man came running along the passage and entered the office as though he sprang across the threshold. He strode to the table desk and, glaring down at Bony, shouted:

“She’s gone. Our Florence has vanished. She knew too much about windmills, and that killing swine has taken her. Her bed’s cold. She’s been gone for hours.”

Bony Holds Audience

“WELL, what haveyou got to say, Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte?” Sergeant Marshall demanded in a tone of voice which, had Bony heard it from another policeman, would have astounded him. “You’ve been dawdling on this case, waiting for time or Providence or something to drop the clues into your open hands. Evil never triumphs, eh? You never rush about like Tom, Dick, or Harry Redman, do you? You take everything calmly, and just wait and wait and wait, until another poor devil is murdered and the killer can hand you another clue or two. You never allow emotion or even humanitarian thoughts to sway you when you’re on an investigation, do you? You proceed calmly and without undue haste, don’t you? You don’t care two hoots if a dozen persons are murdered, do you? Not even when a little girl is murdered for knowing something about windmills? Why the hell didn’t you tell me that Florence knew something about something vital to that killing swine? I’d have got it out of her-quick.”

With singular deliberateness Bony stood up, stood up to meet the blazing brown eyes of Sergeant Marshall, still incongruously dressed in pyjamas. Feeling in his own body had drained away so that he was conscious of having no physical feeling at all, save a sensation of terrible cold in his brain.

“You are right, Marshall, and you are wrong,” he said. “As a father you are right: as a policeman you are wrong. Take a hold on yourself. What’s Gleeson’s telephone number?”

“He’s out in the yard, searching the outbuildings. But what’s the use? They’ll find her body. Oh, they’ll find that. I’m going to have a word or two with that snivelling parson. I’ll fix him for a start.”

“Youwill leave the parson to me, and you will continue to followmy instructions. You don’t know nearly so much asI know about this investigation. You will now conduct me to the bedroom occupied by your daughter, and thenyou will get dressed and start work.”

Marshall swung round. He opened his mouth to say something, snapped it shut, and walked to the door. Bony followed him along the passage to a room opening off it just before the kitchen was reached.

Over the foot of the bed the clothes were tossed in disarray. On a chair beside the bed the child’s school clothes were laid, neatly folded, and upon them was a plate on which a peeled orange had waited for the child to eat on awakening.

“Go and dress,” Bony snapped.

“I’ll see you-”

“Sergeant Marshall, go and dress and then report back to me.” Bony glared upward into the furious brown eyes. “Take a hold on yourself. Until we find Rose Marie is dead, I for one will believe she still lives.”

The anger began to fade out of the brown eyes, and into them crept a new expression, one of painful surprise, for Marshall found himself looking upon the Mr Hyde of kindly Napoleon Bonaparte. He was gazing into eyes which appeared to glow with a bluish fluorescence, and underneath those eyes was a mouth, lipless and filled with clay-white fangs. The usual carefree and debonair expression had vanished, giving place to one of ferocious hate. And that new face which he had never seen before gave him comfort, for what he saw in it matched all that was in his own heart.

Bony strode to the open window. It faced to the north. Beyond it, some twenty feet away, was the paling fence bordering the north side of the station compound. He bent forward and thrust his head beyond the sill and noticed the fine red sand being whisked over the hard ground by the wind. He said something for which Lawton-Stanley would have fined him a full twenty shillings.