Arthur Upfield: Sinister Stones

At Agar’s Lagoon

SHOULDYOUFLYnorthward from Perth, fringe the Indian Ocean for fifteen hundred miles, and then turn inland for a further three hundred, you might chance to see Agar’s Lagoon. You will recognize Agar’s Lagoon if you look down on a tiny settlement completely ringed with broken bottles.

There is no lagoon anywhere near, because the stony creek skirting the township is far too impatient to carry the flood water away from the Kimberley Ranges and empty it into the quenchless sand of the great Inland Desert. The creek is infinitely less romantic than the bottle ring, estimated to total a thousand tons and laid down by a long succession of hotel yardmen who have removed the empties in vehicles ranging from bullock-drays to T-model Fords.

Nothing can be done about it; for, being so far from Perth, it is economically impossible to return the empties. Of necessity the ring must broaden outward, otherwise the hotel, the post office, the police station, a store and ten houses would ultimately lie buried beneath glass.

To Agar’s Lagoon had come Detective-Inspector Bonaparte, his journey to his home State from Broome, where he had terminated a homicide investigation, having been interrupted by a faulty plane engine. In this northern corner of a continent where plane schedules are erratic, he had to check in at the ramshackle hotel at a time when the tiny settlement was comparatively dead, even the policeman being absent on a patrol.

The hotel was comparable with the saloons of old America, being a structure of weather-board, iron andpise, an oasis amid the thousands of square miles occupied by a hundred-odd white cattle- and sheep-men, prospectors, and the inevitable Government servants.

Bony found himself to be the only guest, and the only man about the place to gossip with was the hotel yardman-cum-barman, a wisp of a man recorded officially as John Brown. He was a part of the building, of the hectic scenery, and all knew him as ’Un. Bony was still to learn the genesis of this name, bestowed on Brown during the First World War when he arrived from nowhere wearing a Kaiser Wilhelm moustache in full bloom. The fall of the Kaiser’s Germany found the moustache as aggressive as ever, and even when the years bleached it and the beer stained it, the name clung. The Hun, born in Birmingham, degenerated to ’Un, even the local Germans affectionately so calling him.

He squatted this early evening on the hotel veranda beside the solitary chair occupied by Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, unaware of the guest’s profession and rank, and his reputation in every police department in the Commonwealth. Along the stony street passed a flock of goats in charge of a small white boy and an aborigine of the same age and size, and beyond the dust-dry creek the setting sun was flailing the armoured tors of Black Range.

“How long I been here?” echoed ’Un. “I came here back in nineteen-fourteen. Same pub. Same police station. Same houses. Two years laterme and Paddy the Bastard found the Queen Vic Mine, and we went through threeforchunes in three years. All in this pub, too. The year after Paddy died, I sold the mine to a syndicate for a thousand quid.”

“Real money, eh?” murmured Bony.

“Too right! Easy come, easy go. Paddy drankhisself to death right on this here veranda. It took the policeman and five men to hold him down.”

“A powerful man, indeed.”

’Unapplied a match to what might be tobacco in the bowl of his broken pipe. Despite the years spent in this undeveloped territory of Australia, the Brummagem accent was strong. When he chortled the sound was not unlike the frantic calls of the rooster.

“Powerful!” he said. “Why, when I broke me leg out at the Queen Vic, he carried me here, and that’s all of nine miles. Why, when he spat at a man, that man went out like a light. Him and Silas Breen got into a argument on what won theMelbun Cup in 1900 and they fought for a week, knocking off only to eat. Hell of a good mate was Paddy. I never hadno mate after him. Now, strike me pink! Here’s theBreens coming to town.”

The lethargy of the settlement was shattered by the noise of a heavy truck bouncing over the rough track. The hens rushed for home in the pepper trees. Two dogs raced neck and neck with the vehicle until it stopped before the hotel steps. Dust was wafted along the veranda front, and when it had passed, Bony saw the rear of an enormous man descending from the truck. He turned slightly, hitching up hisgaberdine trousers, and Bony could see his face. It was square and rugged and grim. The thatch of grey hair was unkempt, and the long drooping moustache as aggressive as that which adorned the wizened face of ’Un.

He stood by the truck while another enormous man gingerly clambered down, a man not as tall but as wide and as thick as the first. His hair was barely touched by the years. It was black, as black as the square-cut beard. He nodded curtly when the other spoke to him, and led the way to the veranda to mount stiffly the three wooden steps. His face, where not concealed by the beard, was white, unnaturally so in this land north of Capricorn, and his dark eyes were feverishly brilliant.

“Good day, ’Un!” he said to the yardman.

“Day-ee, Jasper!” replied ’Un.“Day-ee, Silas! How’s things?”

“Fair enough,” answered the black-bearded man. “Coming in for a snifter?”

Jasper and Silas Breen entered the hotel.’Un said:

“That’s an order. You come, too. Save argument.”

“I dislike argument,” averred Bony, rising from the chair. “Are there any more like theseBreens?”

“Plenty,” replied ’Un proudly. “There’s Ezra Breen. He’s much younger and tougher than these two. Got a temper, has Ezra.”

The yardman led the way to the bar. TheBreens were breasting it, and Ted Ramsay, the licensee, was asking them to name their poison. He was large and flabby, and destined within six months to be held down until his brain exploded. The oil-lamp suspended from the match-boarded ceiling was already struggling with the waning daylight to penetrate far corners. Behind the counter, the wall shelves were stacked with gaudily labelled spirit bottles, and on the floor were crates of bottled beer, for barrelled beer would not carry this far from Perth.

“None of your pig-swill, Ted,” boomed Silas Breen. “Put up your best whisky. Damme, usBreens has bought this pub two hundred times over.”

“Four hundred times,” amended Ramsay. “You’ve bought it a hundred times since I’ve been here.”

He placed a bottle of whisky and glasses on the counter, and was adding a jug of water when the elder Breen called in a voice which must have carried through the building:

“What’ll you have, Mister?”

“Beer for me, please,” replied Bony.

“Same here,” piped ’Un. “What’s wrong with you, Jasper? Youain’t looking so good.”

“No. Fell off me horse. Got shook up, that’s all. Luck!”

TheBreens appeared to occupy half the small bar. Beside them, Bony was a stripling and ’Un a mere straw. They were tremendous, these brothers Breen. From them radiated physical power hinting at no limitations, like that of waterspuming through the needle valve of a dam. The thick glasses they held in their sun-blackened, hairy hands were somehow reduced to fragile crystal in the paws of gorillas.

Jasper Breen stood beyond his brother. He leaned more heavily against the bar counter, and the attitude was maintained. Silas stood with his weight squarely on his feet, and now and then he glanced at Jasper, concern in his eyes although his face was unruffled. Jasper’s right arm was held against his side with a leather belt.