Arthur Upfield: Death of a Swagman

“How do you know that?” Jason asked, and exhaled the last of the smoke.

“Thesundowner was known to have an automatic pistol in his possession when he was at Ned’s Swamp Station homestead,” Bony lied. “Tell me, why did you visit old Bennett the night he died?”

Jason smiled that cold and humourless smile.

“As you seem possessed of such imagination, albeit uncontrolled, why not try to guess?”

“Very well, I will,” Bony agreed. “Old Bennett had learned from his daughter or his son-in-law that you had an arrangement with them and Mr James to take the minister’s horse at night to visit Mrs Sutherland. Old Bennett chided you about it in the hotel, and you decided to-er-bump him off.”

Jason placed the stem of his pipe between his white teeth and slowly nodded his head, saying:

“You are even good at guessing, Inspector. Is there anything else?”

“Having killed the swagman, why did you hang the body?” Bony asked.

“I did it to make it appear that Way hanged himself in remorse for having murdered Kendall. That would have cleaned up the Kendall case and stopped men from living in that hut for a long time to come. Again, anything else?”

Mr Jason might well have been terminating an interview.

“Yes. You might tell me why you wanted to kill Rose Marie?”

“I did not want to kill the child,” replied Mr Jason. “I didn’t want to kill old Bennett. But I saw clearly that I would have to. Old Bennett dropped dead when he saw me outside the door, and so saved me the trouble. I overheard Rose Marie tell you beyond my garden fence that she had promised my son not to tell of something she had found out about me watching windmills. I couldn’t trust to a child’s promise, and so I decided to kill her.”

Mr Jason lit his pipe and gravely handed the matches back to Bony. No longer was his face expressionless. There was a faint colour in his cheeks, and his eyes became quick in movement.

“As it has all turned out,” he said, “I am glad that I did not kill the child as I intended, and I hope she will recover. If I had had a daughter like her… but no matter. You see in me, Inspector, a man whom life has thwarted. My father thwarted my ambition to become a great Shakespearean actor. My wife was an ambitionless creature, and she thwarted my desire for a son who might have become what I wanted to be. And then when I came to see glorious visions in revolving fans my son attempted to thwart me there.”

“What did you see in the windmill vanes?” interjected Bony.

Jason’s face actually glowed. His eyes became glittering orbs. The cold pipe became clenched in his two hands.

“It was like looking through a doorframe beyond which was a scene of wondrous delight. I used to step through the door-frame, and I would find myself being interviewed by newspapermen, or gazing at great and colourful signs announcing that the Great Jason was to play Hamlet or Othello. All the visions I had had in the past came to reality when I stepped into the windmill vanes. I lived as I had always dreamed of living. I didn’t really live at other times. And I shall never again enter the spinning, shimmering vanes… no, never again… for the graveawaits… for me… even for you.”

“Where did you obtain the chloroform?” asked Bony.

“From my brother in Sydney,” was the answer spoken under the stress of emotion which was swiftly mounting in intensity. Into the dark eyes swept remorse, and when Jason spoke again the rich intonation was absent. “I ought not to have said that. I got it when I was down in Melbourne some time back.”

“And the strychnine with which you poisoned your son’s dog?”

“Oh, that! One can buy pounds of it in any store, and cyanide, too. The sale of such poisons should have been stopped years ago. I wrote to the Premier about it, but no notice was taken.” Once more the eyes of Mr Jason burned, and he went on: “I have done a little good in my life… not much. I could have done far more had not life thwarted me. And now… the end.”

Mr Jason slowly rose to his feet, and Gleeson’s hands rose in readiness and Gleeson’s eyes bored into the back of the prisoner’s head. Mr Jason came to stand at his full height. The pipe was held in his two hands. He stared above the seated Bony and Marshall, stared out through the window. His voice was deep and clear when he cried:

“ ‘Thoughdeath be poor, it ends a mortal woe.’… ‘He that dies pays all debts.’… ‘Death is a black camel which kneels at the gates for all.’ ”

The fingers of the right hand, which had been placed upon the bowl of the pipe, flashed to his mouth. In them was the little cup which collected the nicotine at the bottom of the bowl.

Gleeson was too late. His arms swept about Jason’s body, imprisoning the man’s right arm and the hand which had conveyed the cup to his mouth. Jason spat out the cup, which fell upon the desk.

“ ‘Thetongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony,’ ” he quoted. “I am no gallows meat, nor will I rot among a community of lunatics. I…”

His dark eyes blazed like black opals. His back became arched against Gleeson’s chest. And then, like a lamp going out, the warmth faded from his eyes, and Gleeson laid down the body.

Bony Concludes His Investigation

BONY RANG for Dr Scott. He had not risen from his seat, and he toyed with the telephone whilst the doctor was being called. Sergeant Marshall was standing looking down at the two constables who were kneeling beside the late Mr Jason, J.P., Deputy District Coroner. When Bony heardScotts ’ voice he asked the doctor to come immediately, and when he had replaced the instrument he said:

“How many are thwarted by life? All of us would be were we not strong enough to fight it.” He sighed, and then said: “Well, well!”

Gleeson stood up. His face was impassive, but his eyes blazed.

“I’m sorry, sir, for being too late to grab him.”

“Seeing that you were standing behind him, Gleeson, I think you did very well,” Bony told him. “We had the pistol. We had the tobacco knife. No one of us could have known that he would secrete poison in the nicotine cup of his old pipe. If anyone is to blame it is I.”

No one spoke till the doctor came tearing in. The little man’s gaze swept over them, then down to the body on the floor. As the constable had done, he fell upon his knees, was there for a few seconds, then rose to his feet.

“Dead!” he snapped out.“Poisoned. What’s it all about?”

“Jason is the man I have been after. I allowed him to smoke his pipe while I was interrogating him. Here you will see a tiny metal cup which is screwed to the bottom of the bowl to catch the nicotine drained from the bowl. It is evident that the dead man suspected that his time was short; for, you see, he stopped up the small hole in the bowl of the pipe and filled the cup with powdered cyanide.”

The doctor accepted the little cup from Bony, looked into it. It had been cleaned and dried thoroughly, and, although it had been in Jason’s mouth, the interior was still dry and still contained a little of the poison.

“Quite a natty idea,” Scott said.“Would hold more than sufficient cyanide to kill a dozen men. Jason had quite a collection of pipes. Saw it when I was attending him some time ago. This, and another he had, were small replicas of the big German affairs. And so he did all the murders, eh? And you had him nailed?”

“Yes, we had got him all tied up,” Bony admitted.

“There’s no ‘we’ about it, Doctor,” Marshall cut in. “Mr Bonaparte did the job well and truly.”

Scott stood up.

“Well, I can do nothing here,” he said. “Hope you’ll drop in before you go and tell me the story, Inspector. Your girl’s going along nicely, Marshall. Came to half an hour ago. She’s sleeping now, nice and cool and natural. No, no! I will permit no visitors till tomorrow.”