Arthur Upfield: Sinister Stones

It was motionless and facing his way. There was movement about it, chiefly on its canvas top, and he realized it was the vehicle used by Constable MartinStenhouse, stationed at Agar’s Lagoon. Again it vanished as the transport dipped for another gully, and as the engine roared and whined and the transport creaked and complained, Sam cogitated on the motionless police car and decided that the policeman had stopped to shoot a turkey or a kangaroo.

When next he saw the jeep it was just beyond the radiator of the transport as the huge vehicle groaned and belched its way up the stony slope as steep as a house roof. Sam braked to an abrupt halt and switched off the engine. The silence flung itself against the sides of the cabin and bashed his ears, and he sat still to watch an eagle and several crows rise from the canopy of the jeep.

It was the canopy which distinguished this jeep for Sam Laidlaw, for it had been added by the policeman and oldSyl Williams the blacksmith at Agar’s Lagoon. The sunlight was reflected by the narrow windshield so that Sam could not see into the jeep, but the presence of the birds made him uneasy.

He left the transport and approached the vehicle standing squarely on the narrow track. Not until he came abreast of the compactly sturdy product of a global war was he able to defeat the sun-reflecting windshield, and then saw seated behind the steering-wheel the slumped figure of ConstableStenhouse.

BecauseStenhouse might be ill or asleep, he said:

“Good day-ee, MrStenhouse!”

The policeman did not move. He was seated with his head bent forward. One hand rested on the steering-wheel, which, because of the left-hand drive, was on the side farthest from Sam, who had stepped to the right. He walked round the back of the jeep and so reached the constable.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and gently shook the motionless figure. “Cripes! Dead as hell!”

He raised the head and noted the wide eyes and the fallen jaw, and gently he permitted the head to regain its former position and stood back to take in the entire picture. That the jeep had been here for some time was proved by the close interest of very wary and wily birds, as well as by the condition of the dead man’s face.

There were dark marks under the vehicle, and Sam crouched and determined these marks to be dried blood. He looked into the vehicle and saw that dried blood covered the floor about the dead man’s feet.

“Done in… looks like,” he said, aloud.“By the tracker, too. ’S’avalook.”

He rummaged among the gear behind the seat, finding, with the extra tyres and the tool-box, a tucker-box andone swag of blankets. There was no need to investigate the swag, for the outer canvas of the roll was heavily marked with the constable’s name.

There should have been a second swag, a much poorer outfit, and Sam removed filled petrol drums and other gear to make sure. The tracker’s swag was not there.

“Trackermusta shot you and cleared out,” Sam remarked to the corpse. “Mightabeen an accident sort of, and the tracker’s walked back to Agar’s to report. Mighta been that way, but somehow I don’t think so. Assumin ’ youwas shot accidental, and the tracker decides to get back to Agar’s, he wouldn’t have bothered to carry his swag. No fear… if I know them blacks. He’d have taken all the cooked food, and got out of most of his clothes and his boots and travelled light.”

Sam squatted on his heels and cut tobacco chips. He wished someone would come along and share the responsibility, for something would have to be done about this business, and a feller doesn’t want to go and do anything wrong which would make the cops nag at him. This policeman was dead all right, and the blood proved he hadn’t died in his sleep or of heart failure. The tracker must have had a lot to do with it.

In the first place, because there was no black tracker’s swag in the jeep it didn’t prove that there was no tracker. Stenhouse wouldn’t be out this far without a tracker, any more than he’d travel around theseKimberleys without a couple or more spare tyres. In the second place, the vanished swag indicated that the black had cleared out, either because he had killed the policeman or because the death of the policeman had frightened hell into him. What remained was a dead man sitting in his jeep, and Sam squatted on his heels and smoked while wondering what to do about it.

This particular ‘bump’ was ninety-odd miles from Agar’s, and on by far the roughest section of the entire trip from Wyndham. Nothing could be done for ConstableStenhouse, but what ought to be done with the body?

Sam knocked the ashes from his pipe, scratched his naked body under the armpits and stood up, having decided to leave ConstableStenhouse in his jeep. He was then confronted with the task of moving the jeep off the track, for it was not possible to drive his heavy transport past either side of it.

He tried pushing it forward, and, failing to move it, attempted to push it backward. This he did manage to accomplish by exertion of his great strength plus much profanity. When he had cleared the track, the cries of the birds produced a paramount thought, and unrolling the policeman’s swag he draped a blanket about the dead man, being then satisfied he could do no more.

Feeling the urge to get away, he swung the crank-handle of his transport and the resultant roar provided distinct comfort. His mind was on that tracker who must have been with ConstableStenhouse, and all about this scene were low trees and tall boulders providing adequate cover for an aborigine armed with a rifle… or a long throwing spear.

Dr Morley Answers a Call

SITUATEDSOFARfrom thesea, and amid the southern ramparts of the Kimberley Ranges, Agar’s Lagoon is blessed by a remarkably good climate throughout the winter months. The long summer is endurable, when the seaports of Broome and Wyndham are blobs of perspiration.

An enthusiastic advocate for theKimberleys ’ climate was Dr Morley, who asserted that were it not for the contagious ills of the south, man would live for centuries. There seemed to be authority for his assertion if one could accept his claim to eighty-six years when he did not look a day more than sixty. His body verged on gauntness, but he walked more sprightly than the average youth of today. His brown eyes were clear, and despite his substantial contribution to the bottle ring, his mind was as alert and aggressive as that of a keen business man of forty.

When Bony tapped on the door of his three-roomed shack, Dr Edwin Morley’s voice was as strong and gruff as that of an old-time bullock driver:

“Come in and be damned.”

Bony opened the fly-netted door and entered a passage illuminated only by the light in a front room. Entering this room, he was astonished to find it carpeted, book-lined, comfortably furnished, and restfully lit by shaded oil-lamps. The long-legged man reclining in an easy chair beside which was a small occasional table bearing whisky decanter, soda siphon and glass, said nothing further in greeting, and Bony, standing just within the doorway, found his eyes held by those light-brown ones. At once he adjusted his approach.

“Forgive my intrusion, sir. I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. You are Doctor Morley?”

“I am. Sit down.”

Bony accepted the invitation. With the interest of the expert diagnostician, Dr Morley examined him from his white canvas shoes upwards, passing the creased drill trousers, the silk shirt tucked into them, and steadily noting the colouring of the face and hands and the oddly unusual blue eyes of this half-aborigine.

“I am staying at the hotel,” Bony explained. “Half an hour ago a transport driver arrived from Wyndham, and reports that he found ConstableStenhouse dead in his car some ninety miles from here. It’s his opinion that the constable was killed by his tracker, who has vanished. I would very much like you to accompany me to the scene of this affair and ascertain howStenhouse died. I understand you are not in general practice and, therefore, I make the suggestion with some diffidence.”