Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

“During the past half-century or thereabouts,” replied Mr. Luton. “If you read the papers you’ll know that three years ago he made it public that, given fifty years of weather records, he could forecast for sure what the weather would be like four, five, six years ahead. No matter what part of Australia, no matter what part of the world, providing he had them fifty years’ records. Not what the weather was likely to be, but what the weather would be, any particular day or night. He predicted this drought, even the days when the rain threatened and didn’t come. You know what happened?”

“What did happen?” replied Bony.

“The farmers didn’t do any fallowing last summer and autumn. They didn’t sow crops this winter. So they didn’t buy any super-phosphate and other manures. They didn’t buy any machinery last year, and they won’t be buying any this year. They sold their stock and sacked their hands. And the graziers cut their stock down to barest, and put off their stockmen. And none of ’em, neither farmers nor graziers, lashed out a lot of money on work and wages and machinery just to watch it burned to dust by the sun. So none of ’emare in the hands of the banks and financial concerns. Instead of the drought bankrupting ’em, they’re all living comfortably on their fat.”

Mr. Luton regarded Bony with quiet confidence, and Knocker Harris said:

“And that’s why Ben was murdered.”

“Murdered because he assisted the farmers and graziers?” Bony expostulated.

“No, murdered because the finance companies, the big merchants and the banks couldn’t sell their stuff and lend money to the farmers and graziers and make ’emtheir slaves for years to come, like they always did following droughts.”

Knocker Harris again put in his oar.

“And theGov’ment’s in it, too, Federal and State. ’Cos why?’Cos the men on the land threw thousands of men on the labour market. The machinery makers have their yards a mile high withrustin ’ iron, and the manure firms have mountains of super no one will take at any price, and the oil companies can’t sell tractor oil. Y’see, Inspector, knowing what the weather is going to be this day next year, like, and this day the year after, is no damn good to lots and lots of people with lots and lots of money to lend out to drought-stricken farmers. So they bumped off poor old Ben.”

Mr. Luton rose to knock his pipe against the stove. Bony slowly rolled yet another thing some persons might name a cigarette. The two men watched and waited as though for his verdict.

“The newspapers told me,” he said, “that Wickham died in this house, and early one morning. The doctor stated, and so signed the certificate, that death was due to heart disease. You support a private report made to me that he died during a bout of delirium tremens. Well?”

“We were having the hoo-jahs. We were both getting over ’em,” declared Mr. Luton. “We were at the tail-end of ’emwhen Ben died that morning. He shouldof come out of them hoo-jahs like he always did. Same as me. But he died instead. Of something else.”

“The doctor said it was alcoholic poisoning,” interjected Bony.

“The quack’s a bone-pointer, like. He wouldn’t know,” argued Knocker Harris, savagely pulling at his dirty-grey ragged moustache.

“Mr. Wickham had been drinking hard for more than three weeks,” Bony persisted.

“Not a reason,” countered Mr. Luton. “We often drank hard for six weeks. Once for two months, solid. Nearly got carted off to hospital that time.”

“Wickham was seventy-five.”

“I’m eighty-four, Inspector.”

“You told the policeman that that morning you woke from a good sleep. Feeling slightly better, you decided to light the stove and prepare something to eat. You were busy with the stove when you heard Mr. Wickham laughing. Mr. Wickham was occupying the front room. You went to him and found him sitting up in bed. He continued to laugh, and appeared to be unaware of your presence. You returned to the kitchen and brewed a pot of tea. When you returned to your friend with tea and dry biscuits, Wickham was lying back on the bed asleep. So you thought. You covered him with the bedclothes and left him for an hour. On again going to join him, you discovered that he was dead. Correct, Mr. Luton?”

“All correct,” replied the old man, his eyes hard, his chin like a rock. “Still, Ben didn’t die of the drink. He was pointing to things on his legs, and he was laughing like hell at what he was seeing. We had been boozing on gin for a bitmore’n three weeks, andgin don’t have that effect on any man. Want me to prove it?”

“If you can,” Bony assented, “prove it.”

“I will, when I’ve lit the stove. Switch on the light, Knocker.”

The stove was already prepared for lighting, and the electric light pushed the dying day a million miles beyond the doorway. Knocker said, as though Bony might be doubtful:

“He can, too.” He smiled brightly, and Mr. Luton, turning back to the table, saw the smile and stared disapprovingly. He was breathing a trifle fast, and the fingers loading the pipe shook a little, all telling Bony that this was the crucial moment for which Mr. Luton had hoped. He began slowly, a pause between each word:

“Back in the Year One, when I was wearing out me tenth pair of pants, I’d got sense enough to stick to whatever I started on, and found I could go further and stand up longer. You know how it is with us-a good, hearty booze-up every year, perhaps twice a year, very raremore’n three times a year.

“I haven’t had time to tell you yet, but Ben andme was mates for something like ten years, flogging bullocks over the tracks back of New South. What I led with, he followed suit. When we boozed on whisky, the things we saw sort of grew before our eyes. When we blinked, they didn’t vanish, but stayed on the table, on our knees, wherever they happened to appear and grow like roses on a bush. Following a spell on rum, the things appear suddenly and vanish suddenly after playing around like they wanted to bite you. The gin hoo-jahs is still different. You see them out of the corner of your eye. They always stalk you from behind, and when you turn to look at ’em, they aren’t there. Understand?”

“Partly. Go on,” Bony urged.

“Ben andme wasdrinkin ’ gin that time he perished. He was laughing at things he was seeing on his legs and feet, pointing at them, and laughing so he couldn’t describe ’emto me. Them things wasn’t caused by the gin, and they wasn’t even the whisky hoo-jahs, ’cosyou don’t laugh at them. For two days we’d been seeing the gin hoo-jahs-things that creep up behind you and vanish when you try to look straight at ’em. So it wasn’t the gin that tossed him.”

“Throughout the day before he died, your friend was seeing things from the corners of his eyes… as you were doing?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Inspector.”

“What would he have been drinking to produce the effects on him which you saw that morning, when you found him sitting up and laughing and pointing to things on his legs?”

“General mixture of beer, spirits and sherry.”

Bony pondered, and Knocker Harris brought his chair to sit at the table.

“Last night in Adelaide,” Bony said, “I was introduced to several habitual drunks by a sergeant of the Vice Squad. One victim said that the hoo-jahs, to employ your name for them, always dropped on him from the ceiling. Another told us that the hoo-jahs came from nowhere and crawled all over him. Yet another victim said he had a pet hoo-jah with legs sticking up from its head and three eyes in its stomach. And so on. I have to admit that all these persons mixed their drinks, with the exception of a woman who invariably drank sherry. Have you ever had the hoo-jahs on wine?”