Arthur Upfield: Sinister Stones

“Bring a glass from the sideboard and help yourself to a snort,” ordered Dr Morley, who then gazed at the ceiling as though intensely bored. “It has been in my mind for some time thatStenhouse would be murdered. A good policeman but not a good type. His body, you say, is now in his car on the Wyndham road. H’m! I don’t know how come, but I thought he was away down south on the edge of the desert. A Detective-Inspector, you mentioned?”

“Yes, I have that rank. I’ve contacted the senior police officer at Wyndham, who is better situated to communicate with divisional headquarters at Broome. The Wyndham man says the doctor is in Darwin. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to reach the body by plane.”

“And the track as rough as the road from Hell,” growled the old man. “Worst track in all Australia. The most benighted, undeveloped area in the continent, and the richest in metals, human health and many other resources. Well, I suppose I must look-see over ConstableStenhouse. Howd’you propose to make the trip?”

Bony smiled.

“I’ve commandeered Ramsay’s car,” he said, adding after a pause: “Through his nominee referred to as ’Un. Laidlaw, the transport driver, will drive the car. They are loading now with petrol and spare tyres.”

“Better get a couple of pillows to take the jars,” the doctor advised.“And an overcoat if you have one with you. It’ll be chilly before dawn. I’ll get my bag and one or two items. Once I could rough it. Now I’m soft.”

Bony returned to the hotel and procured a bed pillow and raincoat. In the darkness of the street, he found the car and with it Sam and two other men. DaveBundred, the postmaster, bumped into him, saying:

“Sergeant Booker, at Wyndham, says he’d be glad if you would remain on the scene until Constable Irwin arrives. Irwin left Wyndham before the message was dispatched. He’ll have farther to travel, but his section of the road is easier than from this end.”

Sam Laidlaw said:

“All set when you are, Inspector.”

They had to wait five minutes for the doctor, who arrived with long arms burdened. Bony relieved him of the heavy Gladstone bag, passing it into the car when the doctor had buttressed himself with cushions in the back seat.

“We have a tucker-box, I suppose?” the doctor asked.

“Too right,” replied Sam. “She’s filled up by ’Un.”

“And plenty of tea and sugar and water and petrol?” persisted the doctor.

“And a bottle of rum to go with the tea, Doc,” supplemented ’Un.

Sam, still wearing only his greasy shorts, wedged himself behind the wheel and the little yardman sat beside him. Bony settled himself in the back seat, and thus the journey was begun. The headlights cleft the darkness and emphasized the roughness of the alleged street, and immediately Bony was thankful for the doctor’s suggestion of pillows, for the vehicle appeared to have no springs.

The pounding went on all night, and when day dawned Bony had ‘had’ what the maps state is The Great Northern Highway. He was, however, rewarded when the new day was about to be crowned by the sun.

The sky was splashed with eastern purple. To the left, Black Range glowed with blossom-pink luminosity. The purple sky became as rusty iron, and the rust was burnished away to leave it polished silver. The pink of the Range deepened to the red of a robin’s breast, and when the sun appeared the luminosity vanished, and the greens and greys emerged.

An hour later, Sam shouted:

“There itis, gents.”

As Sam had come to the policeman’s jeep, so did Bony and his companion in the car… abruptly when the car roared to the top of the ‘bump’. Sam stopped the car where he had halted his transport, and several crowscawed their defiance from the stark limbs of a baobab tree.

No one spoke or moved. The jeep, pushed aside by Sam, was angled to the track, and they could see the blanket-shrouded figure behind the wheel. The blanket was grey, and the figure looked as though roughly chiselled from granite. When Bony did speak, his voice was crisp.

“We will make camp and have breakfast. Please keep away from the jeep. We must wait for Constable Irwin. When should he be here, Sam?”

“Barring blow-outs, he oughta be here any time now,” replied Sam. “Come on, ’Un, let’s make a fire. I got no stomach: only a backbone.”

Sam made a fire, and the yardman dragged out the tucker-box. The billy was filled from a drum, and the doctor stood waiting for the water to boil, a tin of coffee in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other.

Bony circled the jeep, standing forlorn like a good ship aground on a reef. This ‘bump’, like all the thousands which made up the floor of the comparative valley between the ranges, was sheathed with ironstone flakes and weathered stones. The Great Northern Highway was merely twin ribbons maintained by the wheels of motor traffic, and between the ribbons, as well as either side, grewspinifex and tussock grass.

Presently the doctor called and Bony joined the group by the fire. Sam poured coffee into an enamel pannikin, and the doctor urged him to help himself to the brandy.’Un was cooking slabs of steak on the blade of a long-handled shovel.

“Like old times,” he said. “Often thought I was getting sick of living at the pub and parking me legs under a table, and now I know I am sick. You oughta have an off-sider, Sam. What about taking me on? I’d be a hell of a good chaperone.”

Talking of nothing, they breakfasted with relish, and then smoked while waiting for the policeman from Wyndham. And the dead man waited in his jeep. Bony said:

“You mentioned, Doctor, that you understood ConstableStenhouse had gone south of Agar’s Lagoon to the desert country, and we find him dead approximately ninety miles north.”

“That’s so, Inspector,” agreed Dr Morley. “I don’t get it. Didn’t you hear thatStenhouse had gone south, ’Un?”

“I did. Everyone at Agar’s thoughtStenhouse had gone south on patrol to Leroy Downs. Jacky Musgrave said so, anyhow. Stenhouse never gave much away. Secretive sort of bloke. You never knew how youwas with him.”

“Jacky Musgrave! The police tracker?”

“Yes. Been withStenhouse for nigh on three years,” replied ’Un, twirling the points of his upturned moustache. “Good tracker by all accounts, and pretty thick withStenhouse. Stenhouse could have got him to put it around that he was headed south when he intended heading north. Musta. He’s north now, ain’t he?”

“How long was he stationed at Agar’s Lagoon?” askedBony.

“Seven years and a bit.”

“He was a widower, I believe.”

The cheerfulness departed from ’Un. Sam Laidlaw spoke:

“Wife died on him three years back. Doc can tell you about her.”

Dr Morley remained taciturn. He was still wearing his overcoat and, squatting on his heels, was apparently entranced by the blue spirals of smoke rising from the camp fire. Again the transport driver spoke:

“Wife got knocked about a bit. She was only two hands high, and couldn’t take it. If she’d been my sister, Stenhouse would have been sitting dead in his jeep years ago. Fair’s fair, I reckon. A good belting don’t do any woman any harm, but no woman is expected to take punches from a bloke likeStenhouse.”

Sam picked a live coal from the fire and balanced it on his pipe. Dr Morley helped himself to brandy and added a dash of coffee.’Un concentrated his gaze on the crow cawing defiance from a wait-a-bit tree. Bony rose and wandered away.

The three men covertly watched this stranger: noting the way he placed his feet, the manner in which he held his head. Observation with them was a habit from which came inductive reasoning.

“Colour in him, for sure,” murmured Sam.