Arthur Upfield - Man of Two Tribes

Was she being honest? Bony doubted it.

She went on more calmly:

“Mitski was gentle and thoroughly decent. He was like Cliff Maddoch, a dreamer, the kind of man a girl dreams about when she’s seventeen, but when she’s twenty, her man has to be the strong, determined type, the sort she has to fight off to save her virginity. Film stuff.

“When I was dumped here, it was Doc Havant who kept the roosters away, and it was Mitski who helped him carry me into the other annexe and nurse me out of the dirty drug I’d been given. I couldn’t play favourites and so what could I do but be nice to Brennan and Riddell and the rest?”

Plausible! Reasoned! Genuine or fake? Did she believe what she said? Or was she blinded by vanity?

“I’ll tell you what would have happened if you hadn’t come,” she went on. “The man who murdered Mitski planned to murder the others so he’d be the only rooster in the pen. In my opinion Riddell is that man. Riddell was quick in accusing Maddoch. And it was the kind of plan Riddell would think of. Which is why I was glad to see you giving that ape a little something to think about besides me.

“Then you believe that my coming alters the situation?”

“It couldn’t possibly make it worse. Or could it?”

“Then will you please adopt an attitude of watchful coldness to everyone-especially me?”

“Certainly, Inspector-to the others.”

“You know the story of Jonah-how the sailors tossed him to the whale because his presence aboard the ship was disastrous? You could find yourself situated as Jonah was, with no possibility of the whale being in Fiddler’s Leap. Think about that.”

She jerked her head swiftly to toss her hair from her face and, as he was about to leave, she stood to stir the large pot on the stove. In thedoorless arch between the small and the large caverns, he turned to watch her. She must have felt his gaze for she looked over a shoulder at him and smiled, causing him to think that perhaps a dose of the medicine he had given Riddell might be effective.

Clifford Maddoch he found recovered, although the chest was painful, and Dr. Havant suavely promised banishment of pain by morning. They three took towels and soap to the Jeweller’s Shop, where they washed and brought oil-drum buckets filled with water for the kitchen. The burial party returned, saying nothing, and they went off with towels also.

The cook served a substantial meal of Irish stew well seasoned with onions and potatoes, and it was Jenks who assisted Maddoch to wash the utensils. That done, the day above haddeparted, and Myra Thomas invited Havant to tell them a story.

“Yes, if you would all like me to,” assented the doctor. “Last night I finished Jack London’sBurning Daylight. In honour of the coming of our latest member, I shall tell you the story ofThe Mystery of Swordfish Reef, which I read several years ago, and is the record of one of Inspector Bonaparte’s murder investigations. Agreed?”

“Unanimously.”

Bony settled himself against Curley’s pack-saddle, a well-fed Lucy sleeping beside him. The two lamps, placed on the floor in the centre of the chamber, revealed the doctor sitting, Eastern fashion, on a folded blanket, his back resting against the rock ledge, and the others in various attitudes. The doctor began the tale, and Bony was astonished by the manner of the telling, which was as though Havant were reading from a book. His listeners were so engrossed they did not notice Lucy when, an hour later, she left Bony and trotted off behind Brennan, to enter the kitchen. Perhaps ten minutes after that-it might have been longer-she barked at the company raptly listening to the story-teller, and when the doctor ceased speaking, and the company looked to see the dog bark from the edge of the opening above, they were silent for a full pregnant minute. Then Mark Brennan voiced the thought in all minds.

“If that dog can get out up there, so canwe.”

Mitski or Ganba

SOMEtime during the night, meaning the night above ground, Ganba roused Bony from well earned slumber. From the very intestines of the earth moved Ganba, creating sounds to fly along passages, through cracks, and echo from rock to rock. Sometimes one could hear Ganba slithering along a passage, being pinched by an overhang, then racing in freedom to an exit from which he could ensnare a blackfellow.

Bony had been sleeping on the floor of the main cavern, and within feet of the annexe where the men were sleeping. On being wakened by Ganba, he rolled a cigarette without bothering to ignite the hurricane lamp, and Lucy, obviously nervous, nuzzled against him.

Comforting her, he wondered if the dead Mitski was usurping Ganba’s role. Mitski had said that after Arthur Fiddler fell to his death in the underground river, there arose direful sounds, suggestive of a great beast, replete and belching. When utterly alone, he had had the courage to trace the source of the sound to the split in the earth which had taken his companion, and he had reached the conclusion that the body was blocking the river, or partially so, like a choir boy’s chewing-gum in the pipe of an organ.

In the men’s sleeping quarters someone struck a match and lit a lamp, and Dr. Havant said:

“It’s all right, Clifford. Only poor Mitski complaining of the manner of his burial.”

“Wish he’d quit, then,” Jenks grumbled. “Heoughta know we don’t have soft ground down here.”

Nothing further was said, and soon the light was extinguished. The rumblings and themoanings died away, and Bony composed himself to sleep. When awakened by a further session of Ganba’s peregrinations, he felt that he need sleep no longer, and for the second time made a cigarette.

A lamp was lit in the men’s quarters, and then Jenks appeared with it, and stood looking down at him.

“Ruddy racket,” he said. “Hope it don’t go on for a month.”

Without invitation, he squatted at the foot of Bony’s blankets and bit hard into a plug of tobacco. With the casualness of the Australians down through decades, he asked:

“How you doing, Inspector?”

“Reasonably well, despite a mind crowded with questions,” replied Bony. “A question I’d like answered nowis, what have you people tried by way of escape?”

“Oh, that!” exclaimed the sailor indifferently. “Well, we got the notion of putting on a circus act. Doc worked out the height of the hole in the hall roof. The idea was for Joe to stand under it, and Mark to climb up and stand on his shoulders. Then for me to climb up them two and stand on Mark’s shoulders, and Maddoch to shin up me and stand on mine. Doc reckoned that ought to get Maddoch high enough to grip the edge of the hole and haul himself out. We wasgonna make a rope out of the blankets, and Cliff was to take one end up with him, find a place up top to tie it to, and the rest would be Jack and the Beanstalk.”

“A good idea,” agreed Bony.

“Yes, a beaut. But it didn’t work out. We done a lot of practising, but still couldn’t make a go of it. Mark managed to stand on Joe, butneither me or Cliff could get up to stand on Mark, because Joe wobbled too much. Gave it away after some of us got hurt.”

“What about a blanket rope across Fiddler’s Leap?” pressedBony. “Ever try that way?”

“Thought about it, but no one was game to take the jump to the other side, and there’s not much on the other side we could chuck a noose to bite on. Oh, we done somenutting out, Inspector. I thought I’d try and dig me way out. Went in for a yard or two, but the rock’s too hard and they stopped me wearing out more knives. But there is a way out, ain’t there? Must be. This here dog found it.”

“Yes, she found it,” agreed Bony.