Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

“Barter trade, eh?”

“Trade! No! No trade, Inspector. Can’t do notradin ’, else it makes me in business and Igets taxed by the bloodsucking Council.”

“How often do you go into town?” was Bony’s next question.

“Once a fortnight, generally. To draw me Bachelor’s Mite from the Post Office.”

“What else do you do when you go to town?”

“Oh, not much,” replied Knocker Harris.“Calls in at the chemist for pills and things, and at the sports store for fish hooks and lines. Then I have one small tiddly of rum to give me strength to get home, like, and I has a yarn with a few I know.”

“A tiddly of rum!” snorted Mr. Luton. “When I offer you a proper snort you turn it down.”

“Meaning not to be unneighbourly, John. Actually because I like a chip on me Pension Day, and me cobbers likes a drink at the pub.” A wail crept into the voice. “I keep telling you I can’t take the booze like Iuseter. It plays hell with me ulcers and things. Whyain’t you got some ulcers, too? Why me, and not you? The way you and poor old Ben shoved it down, like, you oughta have nostomicks at all.”

Mr. Harris served tea in jam tins fitted with fencing-wire handles. He placed a tin of condensed milk on the table and with it an apostle spoon of bright silver. The sugar bowl was a fruit tin. The appearance of the spoon astounded Bony, but he said:

“When will you be going to draw your pension?”

“Next Thursday, Inspector. Iwalks in, but I often thumbs a ride out.”

“I was wondering…” began Bony, when hell broke loose.

Outside a bullock bell began to clang and clang as though agony itself were tortured metal. The miniature dog yapped and twisted into an S and than a reverse S, in its excitement. The bell sounded as though tied to a bullock in convulsions.

Knocker Harris jumped to his feet.

“Got me a fish,” he shouted. “Be seeing you.”

Seizing the kerosene lamp, he rushed outside, leaving his visitors faintly illumined to each other by the fire. The bell continued its roar, and above it, Mr. Luton said:

“Could be a big fish. I’d say about fifteen pounds.”

“Could be a 300-pound marlin,” observed Bony. “I assume the fish is ringing the bell.”

Mr. Luton chuckled and beamed at Bony. Abruptly the bell ceased its uproar, and hesaid:

“Knocker’s as proud as a woman with a new baby when that bell goes off. Take a look at it in daylight. Bit of a character is Knocker. Harmless enough, though. Decent sort.”

Presently the yapping dog came in, followed by Knocker carrying a bream. He assessed the weight at four pounds, and his friend argued it wasn’t more than two. The discussion went on over the fish lying on the table, and twenty minutes were spent in gutting it, and then washing down the table.

“You was saying, Inspector, when that fish got hooked?” said Harris.

“Ah, yes. I was wondering if you would make a special trip to town to-morrow morning. You could buy yourself a tin of salmon.”

“Coo! Why the salmon?”

“Well, you might think of something you really want. You could call at the hotel for your usual tot of rum. You could call on the chemist for a bottle of cod liver oil. By the way, is a local paper published in Cowdry?”

“TheCowdry Star. Comes out everyToosday,” proudly replied Knocker Harris. “I know the editor, like. Champion of the down-trodden toiler, he is.”

“Excellent,” decided Bony. “Perhaps you could pass to him an item of local news for his social column.”

Two pairs of bright eyes watched the dark expressionless face of D.-I. Bonaparte. Two ancient men waited. He said:

“I would be greatly obliged, Mr. Harris, did you take a trip to town in the morning, and to everyone you know, including the newspaper editor, whisper that you understand a detective is staying with Mr. John Luton, and that you think he’s come down from Adelaide about something concerning Ben Wickham. Just that, no more. And don’t mention I asked you to do this, or my name.”

They looked from Bony to each other. Knocker Harris nodded as though with dawning comprehension.

“Okay, Inspector,” he said. “I’ll be in town by nine o’clock.”

The Fisherman

HAVINGcast his baited hook into the river of humanity, Bony strolled beside the Cowdry River and communed with the birds. Having slept on several problems, he was, this scintillating morning, satisfied by his own approach to them.

His position relative to these problems was clear. The seconding to the South Australian Police Department having terminated, he had no official authority in this State. He had been granted absence of leave from his own State Department, and was thus almost a private citizen and could not approach these problems as he could in his own State of Queensland. To reduce the method of approach to the problems to its minimum in plain English: he could not go about stating he was so-and-so enquiring into the circumstances surrounding the death of Ben Wickham.

In fact, he felt no urge to do so, no urge to track a hypothetical murderer. He felt relaxed and the need for further relaxation, to take every ounce of benefit from the period of leave granted. Like the good actor, the good detective is emotionally taxed, and Bony yearned to do nothing but loll about and fish.

He had been thinking of nothing but fishing-for fish-when Mr. Luton’s letter reached him. The writer’s extraordinary thesis on delirium tremens was supported by the writer’s obvious sincerity and the clarity of his mind, but perhaps what was even a greater inducement to accept the invitation to fish in the Cowdry River was his own instinctive loyalty to the race of men who had left their mark so indelibly on the Outback to which he was attached by ties never to be severed.

Mr. Luton, of that remarkable race, had appealed for help. Mr. Luton, living on the south coast of South Australia, was a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by foreigners incapable of understanding him. It was a plea for help which Bony, of the Inland, could not ignore, and the thesis, in which, it was alleged, hid a means to murder, could not be set aside by Detective-Inspector Bonaparte.

Having listened to argument in support of Mr. Luton’s thesis, he was still wary of giving it support, but he was convinced that Mr. Luton was completely sane and truthful. Loyalty again to Mr. Luton was actually the mainspring of the decision to do something about it. But what? The body of the alleged murder-victim was but dust settled upon the pastures of Mount Mario, and therefore nothing could be proved in opposition to certified medical opinion. There would appear to be nothing definite about the dead man’s will, and no information about the dead man’s recorded work in meteorology.

Thus the gentle prodding, per Knocker Harris. Thus to broadcast the fact that a detective was staying with Mr. Luton, and probably was working on Mr. Luton’s silly idea that Wickham had not died of the booze but “of something given to him.”And thus to withhold who the detective was, and the fact that the detective had no official authority, and was merely on leave of absence from a distant State.

So to wait and fish and loll about in the sun, to wait and see what kind of fish would jump.

The three ancient gums held his attention for several minutes. They were actually grey box. The bark was softly grey, and, at this spring-time, the old bark had been cast, since when the trunks had suffered assault. Not only were these trees evenly spaced fifty-odd feet apart, they also were in line, and up and down this line of gums two madmen armed with great bullock whips had skipped and screamed and thrashed the imaginary animals to haul the imaginary wagon from a sand-bog, or urge them round a bend of the track that the wagon wheels would miss a damaging obstacle.