Arthur Upfield - Sinister Stones

“The scene of the crime could be miles away,” commented Walters.

“It is, but we’ll find it.” Bony completed the making of another alleged cigarette. “Medical opinion is thatStenhouse was killed either on the 15th or the 16th, with preference for the first date. Of significance, however, is that on the 15th two parties of travellers passed over that section of the Wyndham Road where Laidlaw foundStenhouse. We know that the party of photographers passed the place last, and that it was about two in the afternoon of the 15th. The stage was set after that time and date, but, in view of the opinion of the two doctors, Stenhouse could have been shot before that time and date.

“I have here the dead man’s official diary found in the attache-case with him. The last entry is dated August 14th and reads: ‘Left Red Creek at 7am and proceeded to Leroy Downs where obtained statement from Mary Jo concerning alleged assault by James Mooney. Proceeded to Richard’sWell where arrived at 5.45 pm and invited to stay the night.’ According to the diary, therefore, on the morning of August 14th ConstableStenhouse was at Richard’s Well, a station homestead approximately sixty miles south of Agar’s Lagoon and eighty-odd by road.”

“It’s on record that he was down there,” Walters said. “In accordance with routine, he sent me a telegram on the 12th saying he was going on patrol to Richard’s Well and beyond. On the file here is a letter written by the owner of Leroy Downs reporting a complaint made to him by one of his aborigine domestics of an assault on her by an aborigine stockman named Mooney.”

“Then it would seem thatStenhouse was killed eighty-odd miles south of Agar’s, and his body and jeep taken to a point ninety miles north of Agar’s,” contributed Clifford.

“Did I not always mistrust the obvious, I would incline to accept that view,” Bony said, dryly and without malice. “Since we know that the persons responsible forStenhouse’s death did set the murder stage we must not confine our view of the stage by the properties of the two bullets, the hole in the seat back, the animal blood, and the absence of the vehicle’s tracks, supported by the items indicating that the murder was committed by the tracker. The entry in that diary might be fictitious.”

Walters snorted. Irwin grinned and would have chuckled if his superior hadn’t been looking at him.

“Show me the diary,” commanded the Inspector.

Bony pushed the book across the table, and Walters almost snatched it to read at the page opened for him.

“Same handwriting,” Bony pointed out, “as the previous entries.” Reluctantly Walters agreed. “Assuming thatStenhouse wrote that information and yet did not travel to the place named on the business stated, would you ultimately learn that the entry was made to cover other activities?”

“No,” admitted Walters. “Anyhow, we can easily find out if he did or did not go to Richard’s Well. We can contact the people at Richard’s Well or those at Leroy Downs by radio.”

“And can be sure that the killers ofStenhouse will be sitting at their transceiver,” Bony said. “That wouldn’t do. I’ll go south and see these people. Perhaps you will permit Irwin to accompany me. We must begin by testing the genuineness of that diary entry.”

“That seems to be the start.”

“And I suggest that Clifford takes Irwin’s trackers to the placeStenhouse was found, and gives them more time to prospect for tracks. The jeep would have been driven there from a point across-country.”

“Clifford can leave within an hour,” assented Walters.

“I suggest, further, that Clifford contacts theBreens who are droving cattle to Wyndham and question them regarding who they saw on the road, other than Laidlaw, and from their aborigines find out what the smoke signals to the west meant on that day they met Laidlaw.”

“What’s the smoke-signal angle?”

“On the morning Laidlaw met theBreens he saw smoke signals sent up by the blacks far to the west of Black Range. Irwin’s trackers, who at that time did not know howStenhouse had been murdered, told me that the signals might mean that a policeman had been shot. The point is, if that be so, the blacks are likely to know who shotStenhouse.”

“Those far-west blacks are rather illusive,” remarked Irwin. “They’re not station blacks.”

“Aboriginal interest in this murder is almost proved,” Bony said. “There is the possibility that the aborigines are not concerned with the death ofStenhouse, the white policeman, but with the death of Jacky Musgrave, the black policeman. To them a policeman’s tracker is a policeman.

“I’m not stating whereStenhouse was murdered. I don’t know… yet. We brought in the steering-wheel ofStenhouse’s jeep for finger-printing. Your SergeantSawtell could do the testing. The diary and personal possessions will give himStenhouse’s prints. I’m confident that no prints other than those left byStenhouse and his tracker would be found on the jeep, because adhering to the controls were two long hairs from a goat, indicating that the man who last drove it wore gloves of goat-skin, possibly the skin of the animal killed for its blood.

“As I have said, the people responsible forStenhouse’s death are exceedingly shrewd, and they were exceedingly stupid in the small, the relatively unimportant, points. A killer invariably stamps on his crime his own mental attributes, as you will know.”

Clifford, young and keen, asked what was to be done about the jeep, and it was arranged that the local mechanic would accompany him, taking another steering-wheel, and returning with the licensee’s car.

“You were doing something toStenhouse’s boots,” remarked Irwin.

“I did examine them,” Bony returned, and produced an envelope. “I found on the heels what appears to be whitish clay. The surface of theKimberleys is reddish. A spectroscope analysis would assist us.”

Inspector Walters glanced into the envelope. He inserted the top of a finger, which then withdrawn was smeared by a chalky substance.

“Looks like the mullock dug from a well,” he observed.

“It might be,” agreed Bony, and added with emphasis: “The same kind of soil is embedded under the dead man’s fingernails. He could have stood on the mullock from a well when drawing water for his canteen, but why would he want to burrow among mullock with his hands? Have that analysis done as quickly as possible.”

It wasn’t so strange that even Walters stood when Bony stood and crossed to the wall map. Irwin pointed out the position of the three homesteads mentioned in the last diary entry, and below them the Musgrave Range down deep in the desert.

“Jacky Musgrave’s tribe has often given trouble,” he said.“Led by a Chief called Pluto by the whites… a cunning fellow. Stenhouse told me he contacted Pluto when he conscripted Jacky for two plugs of tobacco, but no other white man ever saw Pluto, that I know.”

“The stations don’t extend that far south?”

“No, not by many miles.”

The map showed the road to Wyndham running north and skirting Black Range for a third of the distance. At Bony’s request, Irwin marked the Wallace homestead situated fifteen miles eastward of the road, and theBreens ’ station to westward of the northern section of Black Range. These two homesteads were equidistant from the place where the dead policeman was found.

“Thank you,” Bony murmured, and then decisively: “Please prepare for the track. You, Clifford, for the north, and you, Irwin, for the south. Days, even hours, will blur those pages of the Book of the Bush we have to read. I’ll be ready when you are.”

The two menleft, and Bony asked Walters forStenhouse’s record.