Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“Strange man,” remarked Bony. “I understand that he’s been an actor. He can certainly quote Shakespeare. When was he out at your home last?”

“Ah, that’s telling.” She cut off the giggle before it got fully under way. “Let me think. Oh yes. It was last Saturday week. You needn’t be jealous, Inspector. You will be welcome any evening. My sister is due today from Melbourne. She plays the violin rather well.”

“I may accept your invitation. Thank you. Better stop before the gate. There is a lot of barbed wire about it.”

When he did not trouble to shut the gate after the car had been driven beyond it, and had regained his seat beside her, she said:

“What about shutting the gate?”

“Drive on, Mrs Sutherland. Minutes may count vitally. The gate can wait.”

“Oh, all right! What do you expect to find down here at Sandy Flat? The murderer?”

“No, Rose Marie.”

The wind was racing the car. The dust was being swept along with it. The woman’s hands were glued to the steering wheel and she risked sand-skidding. Ahead, the Walls of China were light brown and indistinct. She said:

“D’youthinkhe will have killed her?”

“I am hoping not. It’s why I asked you to bring me, and did not wait to suggest to Sergeant Marshall that he bring me. Better drive slower when we reach the white ground. A few seconds will make no difference.”

They passed out from the tree line to the white sandy waste footing the Walls. Ahead, the dark blurs of the hut and the reservoir tank appeared very small. Mrs Sutherland was driving well over thirty miles an hour when twenty was the safety limit. The engine was labouring when she drove the car in a circling movement to stop outside the hut and facing the road back.

“Stay here, please,” Bony commanded.

The doorstep was covered with sand, like fine drift snow. The temporary wire catch was dropped down over the nail. He released it and pushed inward the door. Then he turned and beckoned to Mrs Sutherland.

When she entered the hut he was raising the drop window in the far wall. He from the window and she from the door stood without movement regarding the little body on the bunk. Simultaneously they advanced to thebunkside. Then Bony was on his knees. And then she heard him cry, loudly, so loudly that the moaning hiss of the wind was subdued:

“She’s alive!”

Clad only in her pyjamas, Rose Marie was lying on her back. On her face the sand dust lay thickly, and Bony gently blew it off her brow and her closed eyelids.

“Is she asleep?” asked Mrs Sutherland. “Move away so that I can take her up.”

“Wait! I don’t think she’s asleep.” Bony softly patted the limp hand. “Rose Marie! Wake up! Mrs Sutherland and your friend Bony are here to take you home.” Gently he raised her head. Mrs Sutherland uttered a cry. There was blood on the back of the child’s head. It had dripped through the wire netting of the bare bunk to the floor beneath.

“Bashed on the head with a blunt instrument, eh!”Bonysaid, his voice a snarl. He moved each of her legs, and then each of her arms.“Doesn’t seem to be any other injury. I’ll carry her to the car and take her back to town. Never mind the door. You get into the car first and take her from me. I’ll drive.”

Mrs Sutherland climbed into the seat Bony had occupied, and he passed the limp little figure into her waiting arms. The wind tormented the canvas hood and carried the hissing sand past and under the machine. Presently they reached the gate, and without stopping to close it Bony drove on to the main road and up the long incline. They were well past the cemetery when the child said loudly:

“Annabella! Annabella!”

“Who is Annabella?” Bony asked of Mrs Sutherland.

“I don’t know-unless it’s Annabella Watson, Mr Watson’s mother.”

Bony made no further comment, and a moment later Rose Marie said in a singsong tone of voice:

“Annabella Miller, what are you doing with that caterpillar?”

“The child’s delirious,” Mrs Sutherland said. “Poor little mite. She’s repeating a rhyme learned at school.”

“Annabella Miller,” now whispered Rose Marie, “what are you doing with that caterpillar?”

Presently they reached the street, passed the church, and were between the skirting pepper-trees.

“I am going to drive into Dr Scott’s yard,” Bony announced. “His drive gate is always open.”

“Very well. If the doctor will care for her, I’ll stay and do the nursing. I was a nurse once.”

They arrived at the doctor’s residence and Bony drove into the driveway and stopped the car outside the veranda steps leading to the front door. He got to the ground and took the child from Mrs Sutherland and carried her into the house through a side door which happened to be open. An elderly woman met them, and Bony called for the doctor.

Bony followed her into a large room, a combination of surgery, library, and laboratory. She smoothed a mattress on a trestle bed and shook the pillow, and Bony laid the child down. The doctor came in, exclaimed sharply, bent over the still form. Bony sat down in a great easy chair. Quite suddenly he felt very tired.

He heard the doctor call for hot water and the elderly woman hurried from the room. He saw Mrs Sutherland draw near to the trestle bed a trolley loaded with instruments. She selected a pair of scissors and placed them in the doctor’s outstretched hand. The elderly woman came back, carrying a can from which issued steam. The two women stood by the little doctor, who was bending over the child.

Bony knew that should Rose Marie die the edifice of the philosophy responsible for his success in crime detection would fall, possibly without replacement by any other. The mood of self-condemnation was heavy upon him.

Lawton-Stanley came in. He glanced at the three about the bed. On seeing Bony, he crossed to him and sat on the arm of the chair.

“Someone saw you carry the child in,” he said. “Thank God she’s alive. Hurt much?”

Bony nodded.

“We found her at Sandy Flat,” he explained. “Will you go and tell the Marshalls? Tell everyone to keep out. If you see Gleeson, ask him to come here and keep everyone out.”

Lawton-Stanley rose to his feet. “Can I give the Marshalls any hope, d’you think?”

“I don’t know.”

The evangelist departed. Bony continued to sit in the great chair, the thought in his brain that the death of the child would affect him as much and as vitally as it would the sergeant and his wife.

Presently the doctor came to him and sat on the chair arm as the minister had done.

“Bad,” he said. “Fracture at the base of the skull. May pull through. Be a long time, and she will require very close attention. I am going to keep her here. Mrs Sutherland will do the nursing. Where was she?”

“In the hut at Sandy Flat.”

“Ah! Any connexion with those other murders?”

“Yes. The murderer may very well make another attempt to kill her. The house will be guarded day and night, never fear, until I get him. That won’t be long now. Lawton-Stanley was here. I asked him to fetch the parents.”

The doctor pursed his lips. His grey eyes were hard and small.

“There were jute fibres on that piece of carpet,” he said slowly. “They came from a sack of some kind. I put a quantity of them into this envelope.”

Bony indicated thanks with a movement of his head. Mrs Marshall appeared in the doorway, her husband behind her. The doctor went to them, spoke rapidly and firmly, and conducted them to the trestle bed. After a little while the sergeant came over to Bony.

“Not as bad as I thought, although bad enough,” he said.

“Nothing is ever as bad as imagination can paint it,” Bony told him, rising.“Ready for duty?”