Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

“Good enough policeman. Knows the book. But I still don’t get that bank angle. We ask the manager why he rang Gibley immediately Bonaparte left him, why he asked Gibley to look him over. The manager fidgets, and asks us to tell him why he shouldn’t be suspicious of a man with a name like that claiming to be a police inspector.”

“Seemed on edge because we’d looked in,” agreed Boase. “I’ve a pretty good ear for clocks.”

“Meaning, Super?”

“Meaning that whena man don’t tick properly, I know it.”

The slop-slop ofslippered feet told Bony that Mr. Luton was returning with the fish. He heard Sergeant Maskell warmly thanking their host for the gift, and a minute later the sound of their departing car reached him, whereupon Mr. Luton closed and locked the front door. Bony crossed to the brandy steps, to hear Mr. Luton whisper through the auger-holes:

“They’re gone. You hear ’em?”

“Every word, Mr. Luton.”

“How did I go?”

“Magnificently,” replied Bony.

“You want anything?”

“No. I’ll come up for dinner after dark, if that will suit you.”

“Do me. I’ll be on the watch, and have dinner ready by half-past six.”

Bony descended the brandy steps and perched on the rum cases against the bar counter. Absently he rolled a cigarette and smoked, going over every word Boase had said, seeking beyond the words. He knew Boase was curious as to why he had come to Cowdry. Boase had not found out why he had called at the bank, because the manager wouldn’t tell, and had invented an explanation for calling Gibley. The suspicion that the telegram despatched by the manager, that day he had called at the bank, concernedhimself became a conviction. Only through that bank manager had his superiors known he was at Cowdry.

The wording of the telegram of recall was not in character with those who sent it, and to arrive at this knowledge one had to go back to their actions in the past.

First: Bony had been promoted to Detective-Inspector because of special abilities, and for special investigations. He was not to be employed on city crimes, where, obviously, his talents would be wasted. He was to be employed on special assignments in the Outback and outer urban areas. And his services were to be available to other Australian States should they be asked for. That was the original intention when the appointment was granted, and it remained so, with only an occasional exception.

The appointment was made some twenty years before by the Chief Commissioner of the Queensland Police Department, when Bony was a young man recently graduated from a training depot, and with a reputation which began some considerable time before he entered the depot.

At the time, the Chief Commissioner, Colonel Spendor, was himself a new broom. A strict disciplinarian, he was given to choleric ranting and abuse of his officers and his secretary. Yet all his threats were merely blah, and all his decisions were just, and all his officers and the secretary remained through the years his most loyal junior colleagues.

Of them, Bony was the most difficult. These are not the times when a police officer can be a Javert. If he does not apprehend a criminal within what is assumed to be a reasonable period, he may be put to another investigation and another officer assigned to his unfinished labours. Or he may be taken off his investigation, which is left in cold storage.

What to do, therefore, with a born Javert? What to do with a responsible senior officer who, when once put on a trail begun by a killer, will not leave it when a Chief of theC.I. B. orders him back, and when he is so instructed by the Chief Commissioner himself?

In the Army, a court-martial. In the Civil Service, a cupboard job where the delinquent can rust in his own stupidity. But not with Colonel Spendor.

Second: there was almost a routine in these recalls sent to Inspector Bonaparte. An order to return to headquarters issued by theC.I. B. failing, a direct order from Colonel Spendor would be despatched. This also failing, Colonel Spendor would rant and rave, and send yet another telegram giving a date when pay would cease if, etc., etc. This, too, being ignored, the final telegram would sack Bony from the Police Department.

Thus the routine. Silly in itself, as no police officer may be sacked unless on the advice of the Police Disciplinary Board, directed by the Chief Secretary.

At the conclusion of every such routine, Bonaparte would report to his immediate superior, and would be ‘carpeted’ before Colonel Spendor. Colonel Spendor would go through his act, unique in itself, and venomously pardon him, after being informed that the culprit had successfully concluded the investigation to which he had been assigned, invariably a homicide, and usually one on which other officers had fallen flat on their faces.

How can you sack a man who never fails to bring home the pork?

Those earlier orders were off the record.

Only this last recall order was according to the book. But why the haste to have himleave his ‘spot of fishing’?

Why was action taken to prevent him from yet again thumbing his nose at the ‘higher-ups’?

The Final Straw

THEwind was blowing direct from the South Pole and, to counter it, the fire in Mr. Luton’s sitting-room was leaping up the chimney.

Before the fire lounged Mr. Luton and his guest, both arrayed in pyjamas and dressing-gowns, the one smoking a pipe, the other inhaling from something vaguely resembling a cigarette.

Adventure had come again to Mr. Luton’s days; contentment seeped into his mind as the fire warmed his body.

“What’s the next load we pick up?” he asked in the manner of the teamster.“Police? Foreigners? Ben’s relations?”

“Police, probably,” lazily answered Bony. “By now the hounds will know I did not arrive in Melbourne…”

“Hounds! Don’t like the word, Inspector. Makes me think of a fox, and you the fox, or Brer Rabbit, like you said.”

“I’m sure Brer Rabbit never had a more comfortable burrow. And all the adventures Brer Rabbit had with Brer Fox and Mr. Man were notso interesting as our encounter with Mr. Badger. You see, the police will be rushing here and there questioning people about me, wearingthemselves out, while I snugly relax.”

“But what the hell are they after you for?” demanded Mr. Luton.

“They haven’t yet explained,” Bony replied. “Meanwhile, I have ideas, one of which is gaining prominence. Shall I tell you a story?”

Mr. Luton nodded, and wiggled his toes in his carpet slippers.

“Once upon a time,” Bony began, “there was a great and mighty king, wearied by his courtiers, had writer’s cramp through signing so many documents, and longed to bestir neighbouring kings and presidents.

“This great king wasn’t English or Australian. He believed that, when dissatisfied, the only possible counter was to do something about it. And so he decided he would travel to far countries and start something.

“In the course of his world tour, he came to Australia, where the courtiers and the officials grovelled before him, and all the people were told to gather and give him cheers.

“This kind of reception, however pleasing to thegrovellers and the common herd, bored him so much that he determined to find his own amusement. So one dark and stormy night he made a rope of his bed-sheets and slid to the ground and stole away unseen, as all the guards were in the canteen and betting on who would receive the coveted medals.”

Mr. Luton’s pipe had gone out, and he had forgotten to wiggle his toes. Bony lit another alleged cigarette and began the next instalment.

“All this, of course, happened in Australia, actually the country into which stepped Alice through the Looking-Glass. Once the great king had eluded the stuffed shirts, he wanted to sing and dance-and did. People looked at him and wondered, because it was hours after the six o’clock pub-shut, and how, thus, could he be drunk?