Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

“Sorry,” he said. “Been trouble at the Settlement, and I’ve been kept by the phone. You know anything about it, Bony?”

“I haven’t been near a telephone for days, Sergeant.”

“Good at skipping round logs, aren’t you?”

“Better than falling over them. What has happened?”

“Padre Beamer rang up to report that a Kurdaitcha visited the Settlement last night. According to the blacks, this monster stands twenty feet high, has two huge eagle’s feet, takes a fifty-yard stride, and draws noughts and crosses all over the place. I suppose it was from the blacksmith’s shop out there you got those filings and plaster of Paris?”

“It could be. What else did Mr Beamer complain about?”

“Seems that the blacks reckon the Kurdaitcha lives here in Mitford. He rides a bike and cramps his feet into number nine shoes. He wants me to go out there and look at the evil signs drawn on the ground, and chalked on benches and wall-boards and anvils and things, beside those terrible footprints.”

“Pleasant day for the trip, Sergeant. I’m sure Mrs Yoti would like to accompany you. She told me only yesterday that she seldom goes anywhere with you.”

Yoti snorted something about being too damned busy to go tracking a fool Kurdaitcha.

“Might have to send Robins, and he’s been on duty all night with Essen.”

“Not possible. I want to borrow Robins’s car for the afternoon. Anything on Mr Beamer’s mind?”

“Yes, most of the blacks are packing to go on walkabout. Got the wind up. Even Marcus Clark is yelling to be off, roaring for someone to bring him crutches. What in hell did you do it for?”

“Merely to watch what would happen,” Bony replied, chuckling. “And, of course, to create a diversion from my examination of the watch-mender’s bench.”

“Why that? You could have gone out there in daylight.”

“One must be subtle when dealing with a subtle people.” Bony passed his cup to be filled by Mrs Yoti, who was not pleased by her husband’s attitude. “You see, Sergeant, when we investigate a murder we can go straight to the scene, trample all over the place, shout to all and sundry, bring all the inventions of science to bear on the clues. Nothing done or left undone can possibly affect the murdered. I came to Mitford to find what had happened to a number of infants and, until otherwise proved, I must hope to rescue those infants alive. Homicide methods applied to the abduction of those babies, I am confident, automatically destroy all reason to hope.”

“And you think those blacks are in this baby-pinching racket?”

Yoti was almost glaring at Bony, and Mrs Yoti, standing by the stove, paused in the act of filling the coffee-pot.

“Yes. Possibly they are in this baby-pinching racket. It is also possible that you are in it, or Mrs Essen, or Dr Nott, or all of you. The vital objective is to find those babies.”

“I must agree with you, Inspector Bonaparte,” interjected Mrs Yoti, and, stoically, her husband proceeded with his breakfast.

“Mr Beamer can be placated, Sergeant,” Bony said a moment later. “Tell him that if a white man drew those figures, theabos would certainly know it and would not fly into a panic. It would seem that one of their medicine men has been up to mischief. Ask him to let us know if Clark goes with them, and later on find out how manyabos remain in camp and who they are. And I would like to know if the blacks all went away in oneparty, or split up into several parties, and which track, or tracks, they took.”

“All right! That’ll calm Beamer.”

“Of course,” murmured Bony. “There is no situation so difficult that it cannot be countered with diplomacy.”

“Chicanery!”

“The meaning of both words is identical. I presume you are intimately acquainted with the surrounding country?”

“Ought to be.”

“D’youknowif, say, within twenty miles of Mitford there is an outstanding unusual geological feature, such as rocks balanced on rocks and usually called Devil’s Marbles?”

“There are Devil’s Marbles not far off the track to Ivanhoe, twelve miles out from the river. You can’t miss them in daylight,” replied Yoti thoughtfully. “There are several deep caves in the cliff face where the river once took a sharp bend. Take the track to Wentworth. People atNooroo homestead will tell you where to go from there.”

“H’m! Now let us switch from geology to arboriculture. Is there up- or down-river a particularly large or aged red-gum?”

“No gum outstanding in those respects.”

“Is there a tree ortrees which seems to be an oddity out in the red soil country?”

“Yes, there is. About eleven miles from Mitford, the track to Wayering Station dips down into a shallow depression about two miles across. Almost in the middle of it is a solitary red-gum. It’s been burned by grass fire, struck by lightning, and still thrives.”

“Sounds promising. Anything else come to mind?”

“No-o. But I’d like to know what’s in your mind.”

Bony pushed back his chair and rose. Taking both the Sergeant and Mrs Yoti into the range of his gaze, he said softly:

“Dreams.”

He went out and they looked at each other silently, and silently Sergeant Yoti rose from the table and, without speaking, left for his office.

It was twenty minutes to ten o’clock when Bony entered the Library and studied the large-scale map of the district and surrounding country. Mentally he plotted the position of the Marbles, the solitary tree, the caves in the original bank of the river, and memorised routes and distances from Mitford. Thus engaged, he became conscious of the curator-librarian at his elbow.

“Good morning, Inspector. I looked into the records about that rock drawing and found that it was presented to the library… the original library it must have been… by a Mr Silas Roddy in the year

“It was good of you take the trouble.”

“Not at all. Only too happy to be of service. I could find nothing in the records interpreting the meaning of the drawing. It is stated, though, that Mr Roddy brought the drawing back with him when he returned from prospecting pastoral leases in the far north of South Australia. It seems that he brought other aboriginal relicsback, too, for the rock drawing is only an item of a list. There are stone and wood churingas, ancient dilly-bags, rain stones and a set of pointing bones.”

“Are the rain stones and pointing bones still here?”

“Oh yes. Er… Have you any reason to hope the rock drawing will be found and returned to us?”

“Yes. I may hope to return it, or have it returned. Peculiar that no one seems to know what the drawing means. I was talking to Professor Marlo-Jones the other afternoon, and he said he had seen nothing like it elsewhere.”

“Only that it might represent an ancestor dropping rain stones.”

“Yes, he told me that was his opinion. He said, also, that the drawing would be of little value excepting perhaps to a rabid collector of aboriginal art. It wasn’t even a good drawing-nothing like the one in the Adelaide Museum.”

“It is of value to Mitford.”

“Of course,” Bony agreed. “I’m sure you may expect to see it again on the stand in the Reading Room. The books taken out by the late Mrs Rockcliff were returned?”

“Yes, and thank you, Inspector.”

Bony departed and thoughtfully strolled up Main Street. The Council men had only now finished flushing the gutters from kerbside hydrants, and the sun was silvering the gutter pools andsplashings on the pavement. Two sparrows were taking a bath in one pool, showering themselves with silver and gold, and a woman walked across a wet area of pavement leaving the imprints of her shoes to evaporate on the dry cement. And beside her shoe-marks were the prints of a man’s shoes, size eight and worn along the outer edge under the toes.