Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

“A sturdy little town. Orderly?”

“No crime. A few drunks on Saturdays and a fight or two at the football. No place for a feller wanting to keep in training. Still, we can’t all go up like you’ve done.”

They came to the bookshop, and the policeman entered with Bony. Bony did not want the road map, but he bought one and a couple of magazines. Again on the sidewalk, he said:

“Is there a foreign element in this town?”

Gibley frowned for a fleeting split-second.

“Can’t say there is,” he replied.“Italians out atDoubie’s Creek. They keep close, work hard, and don’t often go to market in the brawl line. Any reason for asking?”

“I am always interested in the composition of a community. By the way, where is the Police Station?”

“Farther up the street, and then down a side street. Good house. The kids are well schooled, and the climate is healthy.”

“You must have hurried to reach the bank when they telephoned you I was there?”

“Yes. Had to move. They wanted a check-up on you.” The big man brought his gaze back from the road to the slim man at his side. “What the… Did they tell you they phoned?”

“Oh, no,” drawled Bony. “No, they didn’t tell me, Gibley. It just happens I am a mind reader… sometimes.”

“Damn! I sort of slipped, didn’t I, Inspector? Well, I got office work to do. Be seeing you again, I hope. The wife’s pretty handy with the teapot, any time you like to call.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

The policeman crossed the road to take a side street to his station, and Bony strolled on until he found a cafe where he lingered over an ice-cream he didn’t want. From the cafe he walked back along Main Street, on the Post Office side, went into a butcher’s shop and purchased five pounds of the best steak. He was now sure that Constable Gibley had seen him enter the cafe, had watched him enter the butcher’s shop, and continued to watch as he entered the Post Office, where he despatched a telegram to the Officer in Charge of the Traffic Branch, Adelaide, asking for the owner of car numbered X

Constable Gibley was lounging in a shop doorway when he gained the street and sauntered on. He could see Mr. Luton grimly on duty. Crossing the road, he put down his parcels on the seat, and asked:

“Who is the most talkative barber in this town?”

“That one,” replied Mr. Luton, pointing. “Self-winding, like them new-fashioned clocks.”

Bony nodded and found the barber without a customer. The man had a talker’s chin. Also a high-pitched voice. During the first fifteen seconds he had greeted Bony, discussed the weather, tried out the races of the previous Saturday, and was branching into fishing. By this time Bony was tied with a sheet and at his mercy. He managed to get in:

“Ben Wickham wasn’t wrong in his drought forecast, was he?”

“Luck, sir. Justflamin ’ luck. And the mugs take him for true. Greatest disaster that ever happened to Orstralia, that fortune-telling, star-gazing crook. The low-down on the weather! He says that next year the drought isgonna move up into Queensland again. And what’ll happen? All the fool cockies won’t fallow and sow, won’t take on hands, won’t buy nothing. Okay! Okay! Good luck to the cockies. But no matter what, there’s no guarantee there’ll be a drought. Therains’ll come as usual and the cockies won’t have no fallow, no sowing done, no crops. And millions of people starving over in Asia. Thousands starving here in Orstralia. Depression. That’s what it means. Why, even my business has gone downmore’n fifty per cent this year. Good job old Wickham did dieorf. We don’t want his sort in Orstralia. No good for business.”

“Many people come down here for the fishing?” Bony edged in.

“Usetabe a number of regulars. This year hardly any. No money. They say trade is terrible bad in Adelaide. People…”

“The policeman ought to have a quiet time.”

“Nothin’ much for him to do. Blokes haven’t got the dough to get blind and kick up rusty. Gibley! Time he got moved on. Nose is too long. Thank you, sir. That’ll be three and six.”

Bony left the chair and surveyed his hair-cut which he found passable. He said, while searching for small money:

“Many strangers in town?”

“Strangers! Look, I don’t think there’smore’n three, thetown’s that dead. I can count ’emon one hand. One, a la-de-dawhat’s beenstayin ’ with the manager over at the Commonwealth. Two what’s living in a caravan and doing somefishin ’. Don’t like them. Foreigners of some sort. Don’t know what. Then there’s a feller what rented a holiday shack for a month as from last week. Cripes! We’relookin ’ up, sir. You make number five stranger. Where you staying, if I might ask?”

“With Mr. Luton, out of town on the river.”

“Oh, Luton! Fine old-timer, he is. Not many of hissort left. Good old battler. Sooner call a spade a bloody shovel than a trowel. See you again.”

Bony crossed the street and joined Mr. Luton, and the old man said, importantly:

“You’d been in the bank five minutes when Gibley arrived in a hurry and stopped outside like he’d suddenly remembered he had nothing to do and no place to go. A minute after you came out, the bank office-boy went over to the Post Office with two telegrams. Either that or one message took two pages to write on.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing except that Gibley’s been following you around. He’s eyeing us now from inside the paper shop.”

Bony was delighted and looked it. He said:

“How often have you baited for bream and caught a king-fish? Let us have a drink.”

Experience Points a Finger

THEafternoon was cold and blustery, and Bony employed the first part of it at Mr. Luton’s wood-heap, splitting billets for the stove and axing logs for the lounge fire. Mr. Luton did not approve, but Bony wanted exercise, and the labour did produce an idea. Into a tin he dropped the witchetty grubs which the splitting disclosed, juicy fat grubs about the size of a man’s thumb.

It was here that Knocker Harris found him, and, up-ending a log, he sat and relaxed preparatory to a gossip.

“Youdoin ’ a bit ofyakker,” he remarked on the obvious. “Bit of work don’t do nobody any ’arm, like. Have a good time in town?”

“Quite,” replied Bony, leaning on the axe.“Met the policeman. Seems all right.”

“Yair. Seems,” snorted Knocker. “Good atpinchin ’ drunks, and hoeing into the Italians when they kick up a dust. Sooner fish than earn his wages, though.” Mr. Harris spat. “Gonnaput me and John into an Old Man’s Home! That’s what he thinks.”

Bony chopped, watched shrewdly by Knocker, who presently said:

“You walk both ways or get a lift?”

“Walked. We tried to hire a boat, but none are available.”

“Beentryin ’ to get John to buy one, but he don’t take to the idea, like. Anyway, I’ve caught kingfish on me night line, so the yarn ofhavin ’ to troll for ’emdon’t play poker with me. You find out what was give to Ben?”

“Haven’t really tried. By the way, you saw him when he was dead?”

“Yair. About ten minutes after John found himkonked out in the sitting-room.”

“How did he look?”

“Look? Calm like. Coulda been asleep, but he wasn’t.”

“Have you ever seen a man dead of the horrors?” Bony asked, conversationally.

“No. Seen a bloke once pretty crook ondrinkin ’ homebrewed spud juice andmetho. He was a beaut. Black hair and aziff what hid all his faceexceptin ’ his eyes. Did he perform! You oughtaseen him.” The quiet drawling voice held no trace of humour, and not much of interest, till he said: “You know, what John calls the horrorsain’t real horrors, like. They had sense enough, them two, to go on the cure, like, before they got the dinkum sort of horrors. All they had wasseein ’ things what they could flick off their ears or their hair, like. They didn’t do noprancin ’ around, you know, like climbing up the roof or up a tree. They never yelled and screamed like some I knew in the old days. Only time they got excited was when they flogged the trees for bullocks. You oughtaseen ’em. Characters!”