Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

Arriving at the edge of ‘the lawn’, he refrained from stepping on to it, in view of Knocker’s snares-not that he was fearful of tripping over one, but because he could not re-set it exactly as Knocker had done. Skirting the lawn, he noted that the wind was from him to the hut as he crossed the path. Six yards farther on was the river-bank, the rough landing-stage, and the contrivance of fish-line and bullock-bell.

The midget dog was still passive inside the hut. No bird voiced an alarm outside it. Bony pulled in the line, removed the bait, tossed it back and vigorously rang the bell. He skipped into the bush. The birds woke and complained. The little dog in the hut frantically yapped. The door opened and out rushed the dog, followed by Knocker, carrying the pressure lamp, and another man wearing a belted overcoat.

The visitor was tall, inclined to be stout, and was plainly excited. Though the moonlight fell strongly on him, Bony could not identify him. He hurried after Harris, who hurried after the dog, who raced to the belled fish-line.

“No go! Fish got away.” There was a hint of anger in Knocker’s voice. The man said:

“Pity. It might have been a beaut.”

“Took me bait, anyhow,” grumbled the hermit.“Must have been onlyplayin ’ with it, like. I thought the bell didn’t ring like sheoughter.”

“Tough luck,” sympathised the stranger.

“Yair,” agreed Knocker, re-baiting the hook, and, standing, swung the lead well out into the stream. The dog yapped its disappointment, and, when Knocker began to move back to the hut, ran on ahead. The stranger said:

“Oh, well, I’ll get along. I’ll do what I told you. Be here at eight for the bait. You’d rather the meat and things instead of money?”

“Yair. I don’t wantno arguments with the blasted Council.”

“Wise fellow. Well, see you to-morrow.”

“So long. Left your car at the bridge, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Find your way back to the clearing?”

“That’ll be right. Good-night!”

The stranger was able to find his way, without doubt, and obviously this was not his first visit to Knocker Harris. Bony followed him without difficulty. He eventually reached the clearing in front of Mr. Luton’s house, having then received Bony’s ‘pass’ for bushcraft, although he still had much to learn.

Casually the stranger crossed the clearing, unaware of the object behind him, which flitted in the deeper shadows cast by Mr. Luton’s ‘bullock team’. He skirted the track and had proceeded about a dozen yards when a man spoke to him and he halted to merge with the close-set scrub where Jessica Lawrence had seen a man standing.

Bony moved, on hands and knees, until he was within four feet of the two men now seated on a fallen tree-trunk.

“Damn cold waiting here. Do any good?”

“I’m not clear yet,” replied the stranger.“Got a deal of background on old Wickham and Luton. They were certainly close buddies.”

“Pretty thick, eh?”

“Thick as thieves are supposed to be. We could be right about that missing data. Old Wickham could have planted it with Luton, and Luton could be lying doggo. That girl left yet?”

“No, else I wouldn’t be here.”

“Tellin’ the old boy how her sweetie was nabbed, I bet.”

“Most likely.”

“What do we do about her when she does come out?”

“As I told you,” replied the stranger whose face Bony had seen.

“I don’t much like it,” objected his companion.

“I like it more since I pumped old Harris. That girl’s sweet on Linke. She and Linke have been visiting Luton before old Wickham jumped off, and since. Those two were closest to Wickham. We know that. So we do as planned. We bale her up if she’s alone, and we deal with old Luton if he’s with her. We tell her we know enough about Linke to have him put away. If she answers a few questions we forget what we know about Linke. No rough stuff-not much.”

Silence between them until the stranger said it was after ten-thirty.

“Wish she’d hurry up and come out.”

“So do I,” agreed the other. “But we sit here if we wait till daybreak.”

Bony moved away, finally to walk noiselessly by the track towards the bridge. He was both perturbed and gratified by these developments, even though this last pair of conspirators could not beso clearly labelled as the first. But there was the parked car, and much can be learned from a car.

It was standing well off the highway, on the far side, under gums beyond a space cleared for material when the road was being re-surfaced. It occupied Bony three minutes to be assured no one was sitting in it, or exercising cold legs in its vicinity. It was registered in Victoria, a Buick sedan of 1952 vintage, dark grey and lovely in the moonlight. There was nothing about it to indicate anything but a private car.

Bony automatically noted the registration, the size and make of the tyres, the fine leather of the upholstery. As he sat behind the wheel, the distance of the pedals suggested that the man who had visited Knocker Harris was its driver. The open dash-box beside the wheel contained a notebook, a pencil, pressure gauge, and, luckily-for every successful policeman has to be lucky, an envelope containing a garage account. The bill had been posted to Mr. S. V. Marsh, 32 Myall Avenue, Toorak, a fashionable Melbourne suburb when on the right side of the tram-lines.

The glove-box held a silver box of cigarettes, supporting the view that Mr. Marsh was a wealthy man. But wealth is deceptive. Many persons spring from wages to comparative affluence-a minor point.

Bony hated even the thought, but he found the tool compartment and took from the roll of canvas an adjustable spanner. The roll he returned to the compartment. The door he carefully closed, and was careful, too, that the door of the glove-box was shut.

The winter winds, even the recent imitation shower, had failed to dampen the treedebris, which Bony gathered with his feet and made a pile of, at the rear of the car. He pushed moredebris under the front end. Then he loosened the drainage plug of the petrol tank and kickeddebris under the rear end.

Motionless, he listened, watching and waiting for the next cloud to weaken the moonlight. Save for the wind, nothing disturbed. The cloud came. He struck a match. There was not sufficient petrol spilled to make an explosion, but enough to cause him to run for cover.

Bony flitted across the highway, under the trees, and through the light scrub bordering the track to Mr. Luton’s house. When midway, he stopped. As he looked back, the glarerose bright between the tree-trunks and enamelled deep orange the foliage of the trees about the bridge.

There was nothing stealthy in the movements of the intending waylayers of a charming girl. Bony watched them, walking fast, so concerned as to be speechless.

Bony’s flittering became a fast run. He knocked at the back door of the cottage, paused, then called:

“All set, Mr. Luton. The dogs are asleep and well fed.”

The door opened and Bony slipped into the lightless sitting-room.

“Now, Jessica, we go. I will escort you home.”

“Everything all SirGarno?” asked Mr. Luton.

“A slight mishap near the bridge, that’s all,” replied Bony. “Lie low and don’t open up till I return. Ready, Jessica?”

Outside the door, Bony apologised when he took her hand and hurried her along the path. The dogs were excited and he spoke to quieten them. They had cause to be excited. The girl saw the reason as she was being assisted through the wire fence at the bottom of the garden.

When in the open paddock and following the faint path over the drought-smitten earth, she referred to it.

“The fire?” exclaimed Bony innocently. “Ah, yes! A careless smoker dropped a lighted match. People will never learn. You can conduct ‘Safety First’ campaigns till you’re blue in the face, and they won’t learn. Heard a statesman once talking on the radio, urging listeners to ‘put out that match’. One moron talking to a million. Of course he was a moron. They all are. Every year they warn the people about dropping lighted matches, especially when near treedebris and petrol and that kind of combustible. If the statesmen had any intelligence, they would prohibit the manufacture and sale of matches, and make everyone buy a lighter. People don’t drop cigarette lighters. They’re too expensive.”