Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

White Trail or Black?

SHAVED, SHOWERED and dressed, Bony sat at his desk and read his inward mail delivered by plane that morning. The first opened was in his wife’s handwriting, and most of what she wrote dealt with the hypothetical case of a woman who bore a child long after she had given up the idea. There was nothing of the jargon of psychology, but profound knowledge of feminine complexes expressed in simple and therefore powerful phrases. Bony’s old friend, the Chief of the Victoria CIB, enclosed a note when forwarding a Research Report concerning people named Nonning and Martin; and there was an official communication from Superintendent Canno which, in civil service confines, is called a ‘Please explain’.

The explanation required concerned the entire lack of progress reports.

When Sergeant Yoti looked in from the open door, Bony was sitting upright in the chair, his hands relaxed upon the opened mail, and his eyes closed. At first he thought Bony to be overcome by fatigue occasioned by being at work all night, and then changed the thought for another on studying Bony’s attitude.

He went in and Bony opened his eyes.

“Good day, Sergeant?”

“H’m! Thought you were asleep. Doing a spot of thinking?”

“Yes, I was teasing a problem.” Yoti sat down and began loading his pipe. “What does one do when situated precisely midway between two impulses, equally compelling?”

“Poor old Bulford knew the answer to that one,” replied Yoti. “And he’s being buried tomorrow.”

“Inquest over?”

“An hour ago.”

“Who was there beside the officials?”

“Mrs Bulford, the teller and the ledger-keeper and the bank inspector. The Press, of course, nine city reporters as well as the locals.”

“None of the Bulford friends?”

“No. Excepting Dr Nott, Mrs Marlo-Jones and Mrs Coutts.”

“Clear verdict, I suppose?”

“Yes. Unsound mind. Probably caused by loss of the baby. The bank inspector found everything in scrupulous order.”

“Poor fellow.”

Pensively, Bony stared at the opened mail, and Yoti smoked abstractedly, until under pressure of silence he said:

“I did come to call you to lunch.”

“Then we must obey. But first, did your tracker report for duty this morning?”

“Haven’t seen him about, but then I’ve been at Court most of the morning.”

“Make sure whether he came or not, and I’ll entertain your wife.”

At lunch, Yoti said that Fred Wilmot was not on the job, and then referred to Bony’s problem. Mrs Yoti glanced at her husband, and he frowned warningly, for Bony was again pensive, an unusual mood at table, and they talked of other matters of no consequence until Bony said:

“Because I cannot be at two places at once Iam feeling distinctly thwarted. Faced with the twin trails of White and Black, and free to choose, I would choose the White. However, being sentimental, and because I cannot call on anyone of equality with me in bushcraft and knowledge of the aborigines, I have to choose the Black.”

“Enlightening, isn’t he?” Yoti put to his wife.

“Could you let me have a bottle of strong coffee without milk or sugar, and sandwiches for two meals, Mrs Yoti?”

“Of course. And cake?”

“No cake. Too hot for sugar. But do you happen to have an empty sugar sack I could use as a tucker bag?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I’ll call at the kitchen door for the coffee and sandwiches in the bag at ten to three. Thank you, Mrs Yoti. Now, Sergeant. Could you take me for a ride of some four miles, starting at three this afternoon?”

Yoti was exceedingly busy but could not resist plunging a finger into this pie.

“You will find me waiting in your car at three o’clock. Both of you I thank for co-operation. Now I must write instructions.”

Bony having left them, the woman looked at her husband. The Sergeant said:

“Worrying like hell.”

“But not about himself,” argued Mrs Yoti.

“Howd’you know that?”

“Because I do.”

“Damnation! Ask a woman why and all she says is ‘because’. Lemme get back to my office.”

Yoti relented, affectionately kissed his wife’s ear and departed. At work, constantly he watched the clock on the wall, and when it was three he stumped out to the public office and told the duty constable he would be away perhaps for an hour, or maybe a week.

The yard and the driveway between Station and residence pulsated with heat. There was no one about. Crossing to the garage, he opened the doors and went in. He saw no one in the car. He climbed in behind the wheel, started the engine, was backing the car out to the yard, when a voice said:

“Take the Ivanhoe track.”

Yoti waggled his rear mirror, and still could see no one. Leaning back over the seat, he then saw Bony crouched on the floor.

“Hiding from the goblins?” he asked.

“I wish to leave town unnoticed. Tell me when we’re clear.”

Yoti drove down the almost deserted Main Street, turned right to the boulevard, travelled to its ornamental extremity and finally angled north between the drowsing orchards and vineyards. Where the track rose to the red soil plains which had so entranced Alice, Bony was given the ‘all clear’ and he clambered over to sit beside the Sergeant.

“I’m leaving in the dash-box these three envelopes,” he said, with something of urgency in his pleasing voice. “Those addressed to Alice McGorr and Essencontain specific instructions. The third envelope is addressed to you and marked not to be opened until six o’clock tomorrow evening, and then only if I should not claim it before that time. Clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“If I should meet the misfortune between now and six tomorrow, my investigation of the Rockcliff murder would be lost to the Department, and so I have outlined the work done and this should be ample for you to proceed against the woman’s murderer.”

“Are you telling me that the name of the murderer is in that envelope?” Yoti asked.

“Yes, although the evidence is not yet conclusive. I must again emphasise that the arrest of the murderer is of less importance than the solution of these baby abductions.”

“I shan’t forget that. The killer and the kids are the Black and White trails you spoke of, I take it?”

“No. The White indicates one place and the Black another, and obviously I cannot attend both places at the one time. Therefore, because the safety of a baby must take priority, I have no choice.”

“You located one of those babies?” Yoti shouted.

“I have reason to hope so.”

“Haw! And there’s me and old Canno thinking you been up the same street as all those other CID nitwits. What have I got to do tonight? Sit and chew me fingernails?”

“Yes. You may have your turn tomorrow… after six o’clock. I’ll leave you in the middle of this clump of she-oaks ahead. Don’t stop. Slow down enough for me to jump out, then drive on for another mile before turning back. Anyone seeing you turn will concentrate on the car, not on these she-oaks… and me.”

Bony slipped on the sheepskin overshoes and tied them to his ankles. Taking up the sugar bag containing his meagre rations, he opened the door, and as the car rolled between the she-oaks, he jumped to the ground. Yoti drove on for another mile, where he turned on a hard claypan. By then Bony was under an old-man saltbush half a mile from theshe-oaks, and before the car dwindled to a black dot-head of a long shaft of rising dust, he was high in a tree and employing powerful binoculars.

At the end of five minutes, he was sure that, other than Yoti in his car, nothing moved on that landscape. Animals, both wild and domesticated, would be hugging the shade and waiting for the sun to go down before leaving to graze or make for the man-made water supplies. Man’s actions could be different. Other circumstances could drive a man into the searing sunlight as he was then being driven.