Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“Yes, often.”

“Little Rose Marie spoke it quite distinctly when we were bringing her to town, and when she was lying unconscious in Mrs Sutherland’s arms. I was merely wondering if there was any significance in it. How long have you been in Merino?”

“Too damn long. Eight years,” replied Lovell.

Bony smiled.

“If you want a change, write a thousand-word letter to the postmaster-general and tell him what you think about his rotten politics and his rotten post offices, and his rotten radio voice. You’ll be shifted quickly enough. Sound advice… if you want a transfer to a better town. I must be going. Thanks ever so much for your co-operation. Receipt of that registered envelope saved a lot of bother.”

On leaving the post office, Bony walked slowly back to the police station. He was about to turn in at the gate, when he saw young Jason standing outside the garage doorway. He beckoned to him, and when the young man arrived at the gate he found Bony waiting for him at the open front door.

Two Particular Fish

“SIT DOWN, Mr. Jason,” Bony said, waving to the chair set opposite the official chair at the table desk. He pushed tobacco pouch and papers across the desk towards young Jason, who nodded and began the task of making a cigarette without removing his gaze from the man he had learned today was a detective inspector.

“If you think I did it, have another think,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “I could have done in Kendall, but I could not have done in Rose Marie.”

“Oh! Why?”

Bony gazed into dark eyes now regarding him with a fixed stare. The greasy cap had been dropped on the floor beside him, and the almost black hair, parted low on the left side, was well brushed. But the eyes were not level and the mouth was not straight, and the left shoulder was lower than the right. The hands manufacturing the cigarette were large and strong. They were capable hands, very capable.

“You wouldn’t understand if I told you, so I’m not telling you… why.”

Bony lit a cigarette. Then he said briskly:

“All right. Now listen to me. There is someone here in Merino who took Rose Marie from her bed last night, carried her away, then hit her on the back of her head with a blunt instrument, took her to Sandy Flat, and dropped her unconscious body on the bunk inside the hut. You say that you didn’t do it, and I have not even hinted that you did, and so may I presume that you will assist me to find out who did that foul deed?”

“It depends,”came the surly answer.

“Depends! Depends on what?”

“Nothing.”

There was no expression in Bony’s eyes as for a half a minute he regarded this unfortunate young man.

“When Mrs Sutherland and I were bringing Rose Marie back to town she became semi-conscious and she said several times: ‘Annabella Miller, what are you doing with that caterpillar?’ Did you teach her that little line?”

The surliness fled from the dark eyes and was replaced by an expression of wistfulness.

“Did she really say that?” young Jason asked quickly.

“She did. One of your own little rhymes?”

“No. But she learnt it off me.”

Bony nodded. The wistful expression was yielded again to the hard stare. The cigarette, now alight, was rolled from one corner of the crooked mouth to the other. It was obvious to Bony that the brain behind the high and broad forehead was exceedingly active.

“What does Dr Scott think about her?”

“It depends,” replied Bony.

“Depends!” echoed young Jason. “Whatd’you mean?”

“It depends on you whether I answer your question or not. I am willing to play ball if you are.”

“Oh! So that’s it, is it?”

“That’s how it is,” agreed Bony, adding quietly: “You’ve always liked little Rose Marie, haven’t you? As a matter of fact, although I am a detective, I also love little Rose Marie, so that if you and I do not agree on anything of value, we agree on that. I have reasons to think that you did not abduct the child and attempt to kill her, and also I have reasons to think that you may be able to assist me in locating who did.”

“That talk’s all very fine,” young Jason sneered. “We get that in the newspapers almost any day. ‘Unknown man who witnessed the accident is asked to call at the detective office as it is thought he may be able to assist in identifying the body.’ I had quite enough of it when that Sergeant Redman was here. Why, he said right out that I had a motive for killing Kendall.”

“I know that… And had I been here, it is likely that he would have said the same about me.” Bony paused, then: “Now I am going to tell you something. It is one of my reasons why I don’t think you attempted to kill Rose Marie. You once had a brown and white dog. You were fond of that dog. More than once I have seen you whistle it to you and pat it. It was obvious that that dog loved you. And I know that you didn’t poison it. A man doesn’t poison his own dog… not with strychnine. If he wishes to destroy it he shoots it.”

Whilst he spoke Bony watched the anger grow big in the dark eyes.

“So the dog was poisoned, was he? How do you know that?”

“I found him… on the Walls of China.”

“On the Walls of China?” echoed young Jason. “Why, he wouldn’t have gone all the way out there. He never left town. He was never a hunter. That dog never hunted anything, not even a town cat.”

“Yet I found him dead on the Walls of China,” Bony asserted. “Ibacktracked him and saw where he had had the fits from the place where he had picked up the bait. And the strange thing about it is that the station people all state quite definitely that no poison baits had been dropped anywhere on the Walls of China.”

The middle-aged half-caste and the unfortunate white man stared at each other.

“I don’t get it,” said young Jason.

“Do you ever ride a horse?”

“No… Why?”

“Do you ever go for long walks in the surrounding bush?”

“What the hell would I want to go and do that for?”

“Because it has occurred to me that the dog might have been following someone… when it picked up the bait.”

Young Jason nodded his head very slowly.

“Yes… that… might… have been… how it happened. He was following someone.”

“Who do you think he would follow?”

“Who? How the devil do I know that? He might have followed-he might have followed anyone.”

The pause did not go unnoticed by Bony. Then the young man asked a shrewd question:

“If you backtracked the dog to where he picked up the bait you would know if he was following anyone because if he had been you would have seen the bloke’s tracks too.”

“No, I saw no boot marks anywhere in the vicinity,” Bony said truthfully.

“Then why suggest that the dog was following somebody?”

“I don’t know. I merely put the idea forward because it seems so strange for a town dog to be so far away, and then to be poisoned deliberately.”

“When did you find the dog?” asked young Jason, and the manner in which he was now cross-examining Bony secretly amused the detective.

“About the time you missed him,” Bony replied. “Tell me why you are so interested in windmills?”

“Windmills!” young Jason almost shouted. Then in a softer voice he went on: “I’m not interested in windmills, only when I’ve got to do repairs to the mill up at the town dam. And I’ve been mucking about with that mill, which was wore out years ago, so much that I’m sick and tired of even thinking about it. Who said I was interested in windmills?”

“No one actually told me that you are so interested, but you made Rose Marie promise, with her fingers crossed, to say nothing on the subject, about which she had evidently learned something.”