Arthur Upfield - Man of Two Tribes

“An idea, Inspector. I’m ready.”

“Riddell! Brennan! Get the aborigine to his feet.” The stockman was hauled up. He needed repairs and was badly frightened. “You are a medicine man,” Bony stated, and the whites of the black eyes expanded. “When I left with the camels, you were told to track me? Tell me the truth. You need not be afraid… afterwards. How far did you track me?”

“Out to bore. Sammy Pickup, he was riding after steers and he saw the camels out on the Plain. Hetell Boss.”

“The Boss told you sit-down and make talk with medicine man up north?”

“Yair. That’s right. Boss said for me to make talk with Luritja man. I sit down. I make talk, and make talk, and bimeby I know Luritja man he hear and make talk to me.”

“What did the Boss tell you to make talk about?”

The medicine man glanced at theWeatherbys, but the elder could still be asleep and the younger brother stared at his shoes.

“So you gather little sticks and rub magic into them with yourchuringa stone,” Bony pressed, and the aborigine’s face brightened, and he nodded. “You make fire with little sticks, and you sit-down before the fire, and presently your spirit leaves you to fly through the air to meet the spirit of the Luritja man. What did you tell to him?”

“I tell him Boss says to tell him you are making for desert, looking for Patsy Lonergan’s traps. Boss say for me to tell Luritja man to hang round, and if you find where white men are hid he’s to put you with ’em, and everything you have, but not rifle and pack ropes. Luritja says, ‘all right.’ He says next time fly-machine goes, for to leave plentybacco and rations at same place. So I tell Boss, and Boss says, ‘good-oh’.”

“All right,” Bony told him. “You can go. Untie him.”

Myra Thomas gripped his arm, saying:

“Is that dinkum? It is all true, that way of talking?”

“Dinkum for me, Myra,” he said.

“But what a story! What a script that will make!” Turning, she almost ran to the elder Weatherby, shaking him saying:

“Paper. Writing paper, quick. And a pencil.”

“Was I right?” asked Easter, and Bony smiled affirmatively.

“Now we come to Edward Jenks,” Bony said. “Stand him up, please.” Brennan and Riddell supported him. Maddoch came, and the girl with a pad and pencil. “Constable Easter will arrest you, Edward Jenks, on the charge of having murdered Igor Mitski. I shall do my duty by doing all possible to make that charge stick.

“Riddell has said that he thought he saw Maddoch strike Mitski, but the situation of the wound was such that Maddoch’s height relative to that of the victim absolves him. Although not as tall as Mitski you are not much taller than Maddoch, hence Riddell’s mistake. Unlike Maddoch, you are athletic. You are capable of jumping high, as all of us have so often observed. It was when at the apex of a jump that you smashed the rock against Mitski’s head, for that jump placed you at the same height as your victim.”

“You won’t make that stick, Inspector,”sneered the grinning Jenks.”

“Before you killed Mitski, Jenks, in your mind was the picture of the hen in a yard with many roosters, and you planned to eliminate all your rivals. That plan became less attractive on recognising me.”

“You got no witnesses, for a start,” Jenks claimed. Into the sweep of his eyes he took the three released murderers, and Bony saw them nod assent.

“You could be mistaken, Jenks,” he said, coldly. “Such is my reputation, when you discovered me with youyou felt you must do something about the rock. Your opportunity came only when I asked for additional lamps, and you went to the kitchen for those lamps. You tossed the rock on to Myra’s bed to implicate her. Why? Because she baited you.”

“You mongrel!” spat Myra Thomas. “I’ll witness against you. And you others will, too… or else.”

Jenks was formally arrested and cautioned by Easter, and a little later, Riddell drew Bony aside to say:

“We’re out of it now, Inspector. What happened in them cavernsdon’t count no longer. I’m sort of sorry…”

“I believe I understand, Riddell. Loyalty among thieves, no. Loyalty among killers could be firm. I could break that down, but I am now telling you something you don’t know. Jenks tried to implicate Myra by tossing on to her bed the rock with which he killed Mitski, and that doesn’t call for loyalty. I could have all of you held on suspicion of complicity.”

Riddell shrugged, and Maddoch said:

“You could, Inspector, but you won’t. We played the game, and you will. You wouldn’t take it out on us.”

“What wouldn’t he take out on us?” interrupted Brennan, and Maddoch explained. “Not you, Inspector. Only an hour back, when Jenks was threatening to break out, I told you you’re too much of a gent. You’ll do your job. You’ll go your hardest. But you won’t go that hard to shove us all in back again. D’youknow what?”

“What, Mark?” asked the smilingBonaparte.

“We were all right before that bitch was dumped down among us. We never made her a member, you know. Had to draw the line somewhere.” Without, was born a sound as of a top, and the sound swiftly became a low roar. “More flatfoots arriving. The place will be chocker with ’emin a minute. Will you keep in touch, Inspector, afterwards?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Cheers! When we get old Doc Havant back, the Institute will have to have an annual get-together. Will you come?”

“Well, I suppose that will be a duty, being a Fellow,” agreed Bony.

He took from a pocket the small rock slab on which Brennan had engraved the Fellowship, and Easter came and looked over his shoulder and wanted to know what the letters meant. Slowly, Bony recited:

“Fellow of the Released Murderers’ Institute. I really earned that, Easter.”