Arthur Upfield - Sinister Stones

“Such as?”

“Why you have been impersonating your brother Jasper.”

“Yes… why?” cried Kimberley, her voice sharp and resolute.

The big man swung a leg over his horse’s head and sat sideways in the saddle.

“That’s my business,” he said. “UsBreensmind our business, mister, and we don’t take interference from anyone. We market our cattle and we looks after ourabos, and we owe no man a farthing. If I want to play a little game with Kimberley, making out I’m Jasper, that’s my business. Jasper doesn’t care. You ask him.”

“Your brother Jasperlies buried beside your mother and father.”

Not a muscle twitched on the heavy face. The huge hands clasped against the hard stomach remained passive. Kimberley slipped from her horse and ran to Bony and clutched him by the arm. Her voice wailed:

“What’s that you said? Tell me!”

“It’s true, Miss Breen,” Bony told her loudly enough for the others to hear. “Your brother Jasper was shot, and Silas took him to Agar’s for surgical attention. Doctor Morley was drunk, and Jasper died of his wound in the hotel bar. Silas brought home your dead brother and buried him in the cemetery… when you were with the cattle.”

“It’s a lie,” roared Silas, and Ezra spoke, softly and yet with a lash.

“Quit, Silas. Get off the bloody horse and take it.”

As the big man dropped to the ground, he shouted:

“It’s a lie, I tell you. I’m the boss around here.” He strode towards Bony. Irwin stepped forward to intercept him, but Ezra was first, and said, like the tail-end of the cry of the whip-bird:

“Quit.” The big man glared at Ezra, and wilted. Passing Ezra, he stood before Bony, looking down from his superior height, and now the small blue eyes betrayed entreaty engendered by recognition of defeat.

“Whatd’youwant to know, Inspector?” he asked, making an effort to soften the demand.

“Actually, very little, Mr Breen,” Bony replied. “Everything of importance I know already. Shall we discuss these tragedies and try to save something from the wreck caused by an event which perhaps you did little to bring about?”

Silas produced pipe and tobacco, and squatted on his heels. Kimberley was crying and Ezra was stroking her hair and urging her to accept Bony’s suggestion. Bony sat on the ground, Irwin beside him.

“I’ll tell the story,” Bony began. “A few minor points can be confirmed by you, or by reports I shall receive from Perth. The story begins a few years back, when youBreens discovered opal against the foot of Black Range. It was black opal, the queen of opals, and when Ezra returned from the war, one of you journeyed to Perth and contacted a jeweller namedSolly, who agreed to buy your opal and to pay for it in cash. You wanted it thus for two reasons: to keep your opal mine secret from prospectors and others who would crowd the field, and also that you might exclude the proceeds from your declaration of income for taxation.

“The arrangement withSolly, the jeweller, was that you would post down to him the opal hidden in books, and the money was posted back to you in the same way.

“In all this there was nothing wrong excepting the evasion of taxation. You began to spend money freely when you went to Agar’s Lagoon. Ezra received valuable books fromSolly the bookseller, books that were sent by post, and Kimberley made many purchases through the post, including two expensive hat boxes. I mention this because the obvious acquisition of wealth was noticed by many at Agar’s Lagoon. To counter curiosity, you put it about that you had inherited money from a relative. That was not so.”

Bony waited for protest, and its absence proved his contention.

“Then a bag of registered mail was stolen when in transit from Agar’s to Broome, and among the contents was a registered parcel from you toSolly, the bookseller. The theft of the mailbag does not enter the story I am relating excepting that as a result of the theft the knowledge came to ConstableStenhouse of your mining of black opal. Am I not correct?”

Silas moved his gaze from Bony to Ezra, and Ezra nodded. “Yes, we did lose a book containing opal in that robbery.”

“Knowing you were mining opal, Stenhouse decided to find the location and help himself, and although I am not clear on this particular point, I put forward the theory of how he found it. He had with him as his official tracker an aborigine who was extremely loyal, and it was Jacky Musgrave who obtained the information from one of your own aborigines, either in personal contact or through others.”

“He robbed us,” shouted Silas, who seemed unable to speak normally. “He visited the mine and helped himself, the swab. ’Twaslast year. We didn’t know it was him, then. Didn’t know who ’twas till that day Jasper found him down the shaft.”

“He chose what he thought was a good opportunity,” Bony proceeded. “He knew that you had planned to leave for Wyndham with the cattle on August 7th.”

“We were delayed in the general muster,” Ezra interjected. “Didn’t leave the Nine Mile Yards till the morning of the 15th.”

“We know thatStenhouse was on the Wyndham road very early on the morning of the 14th,” continued Bony. “Before day broke he had driven his jeep off the track to a clump of scrub hard against Black Range, approximately opposite your opal mine, and he and his tracker crossed the Range at night, and so did not see that the cattle were still held at the Yards. He and Jacky were working at the mine when Jasper Breen and Patrick O’Grady came on them. Jasper, perhaps, told you what happened?”

“Yes,” replied Silas. “Stenhousewas down the shaft, Jackyhaulin ’ the mullock. Afore they could get to the shaft, Jacky pulledStenhouse up on the bucket. Pat stayed with the horses, and Jasper went over to argue it out. Stenhouse shot him with his automatic, and Pat yanked Jasper’s rifle from the saddle holster and shotStenhouse dead. The black tried to get away, and Pat shot him, too. Jasper was pretty crook. So Pat came and got me.”

“And you decided that Ezra should leave without the full number of cattle required?”

“That’s so,” agreed Silas, slowly nodding.“Rode home for the truck, sending Pat back to Jasper. I drove out for Jasper with three blacks we could trust.”

“Frypan, Stugger and Stan?”

“That’s right. You seem to know most of it.”

“Jasper told you he would be allright, and you, assisted by your boss stockman, took the body of Jacky Musgrave and planted it inside the skeleton of a horse,” Bony went on. “Your blacks followed and brushed out your tracks going from and returning to the mine. Then you carried the body ofStenhouse over the Range, followingStenhouse’s tracks back to his jeep. You had brought a black goat from the homestead, and you took that over the Range, too.

“You killed the goat for its blood, and drove the dead policeman in the jeep to the Wyndham road, keeping to the tracks made by the jeep whenStenhouse drove it from the road. And your aborigines followed all the way and obliterated the tracks. At the road, you staged an act, making it appear that Jacky Musgrave had shotStenhouse and then cleared out. You made so many mistakes, Mr Breen.”

“How so?” shouted Silas, bristling at this threat to his pride.

“Well, to begin with, you must have known that a soft-nosed bullet from a high-powered rifle would make a substantial exit hole in the body, and you fired a forty-four revolver bullet through the back of the seat, making a hole which certainly didn’t tally with the hole in the back of the dead man. You did think to clean his revolver, and be sure you left on it none of your prints when you put it in the attache-case on the seat. You were careful to keep your hands wrapped in pieces of the goat’s skin while you drove the jeep, but you left hairs of the goat on the controls.