Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

They were there an hour later, obviously waiting for the dawn, and Bony silently climbed down the tree, knowing himself free from observation by those blinded by the fire, andhimself energised by memory of a woman’s hands.

Within the tree cavern it was totally dark, and he knelt and found the woman lying on her side, the infant resting in the cradle of her arm. Bony found her hand, traced it lightly with his fingertips. His fingers, now impatient, found the woman’s face. The scarf had been removed. She was Alice McGorr.

Alice McGorr’s Story

BONYSATat the feet of Alice McGorr. Within the frame of the arched entrance Night portrayed the distant camp fire and about it the stilled figures seemed to be waiting for the Dawn to free them. Within the heart of the Ancient Tree it was so dark that Bony could see nothing of the recumbent form of the woman and the child nestling against her. The child continued to sleep, but Alice, Bony suspected, was drugged.

Within himself, the tension which had been steadily mounting for several days was now being submerged in the warm glow of satisfaction that yet another assignment was about to be completed, that once again the ever-present menace of failure had been subdued by triumph.

Although unable to see the eastern sky, he knew when the Dawn stole softly over the earth. Young Wilmot added fuel to the fire, and the lubra brought water. Chief Wilmot stalked away to the buckboard, where he obtained the bridles and departed for the horses. The stout and prosperous-looking white man sat on a blanket for a cushion and waited expectantly for the billy to boil.

The Day fought Night and the picture for Bony was etched on rose-tinted steel until the sun flashed above the rim of the world and all the metallic hardness vanished. It was then that Alice opened her eyes, to close them swiftly for a little while longer. When again she opened her eyes, she gazed wonderingly at Bony, and then at the black roof of the cave. She was trying to answer Bony’s encouraging smile when the infant stirred, and the miasma vanished as she turned quickly to look down upon the babe.

That was a moment never to be erased from Bony’s memory.

Her caress woke the child. It kicked against the enfolding clothes and yawned, and Alice continued to gaze upon it in unbelieving amazement. Then the baby yelled for breakfast.

The group about the fire came to startled attention, beyond them Chief Wilmot roping the horses to the wheels of the buckboard in readiness to be harnessed. The white man hurried to the tree, the lubra behind him, and, stooping, peered into the cave… and into the muzzle of Bony’s automatic.

“Good morning!” Bonysaid, interrogation under the cheerful greeting. The white man jerked away, and Bony followed to confront him outside the tree. The lubra shouted, and theWilmots came running. The white man demanded:

“Who the hell are you?”

“Forgive me,” murmured Bony at his suavest. “I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. And you?”

“I… What in… Where’s my wife? What’sall this mean?”

The stout man was well dressed, accustomed to being answered obsequiously, the city tycoon off balance in the vital Australia. Behind him, young Wilmot nudged his father and grasped the lubra by the arm. They retreated hastily.

“Step back a dozen paces,” ordered Bony. “This automatic is too temperamental even for my liking. That’s better. You are under arrest. Your accomplices, I observe, are deserting you.”

The white man turned to see his supporters swiftly harnessing the horses to the buckboard. Compared with them a fire-engine crew were sleepy dolts. Again turning to Bony, he saw Alice standing with him and the child in her arms.

“Where’s my wife?” he shouted. “Where’s my wife?”

“In hospital where she belongs, you baby-snatching swine,” replied Alice, her voice raised to straddle the yells of the infant. “I suppose you’ve got baby’s food in the car over there. Get it.”

The man waved his arms in the hopeless gesture of defeat, and proceeded to obey the order. At the car, he found Bony just behind him.

“The ignition keys first, please,” commanded Bony. In possession of the keys, he stepped away while the other man burrowed in the boot for a hamper, and the blacks climbed aboard their chariot. They began to shout at each other and the horses, and young Wilmot stood to wield the whip with greater vigour. The speed of their departure made Bony chuckle. The old man was pointing to the south, and Bony saw slipping down the distant rim of the plain the glitter of a speeding car.

Flushed with anger, the stranger carried the hamper to the camp fire, Bony hard on his heels. He dumped the hamper beside the tucker box, and was told to stand on the far side of the fire and remain there.

Alice McGorr placed the baby in Bony’s arms, and proceeded to mix milk. The child yelled its impatience, and the stranger said:

“Who did you say you are?”

“I am the Bridge built by a white man and a black woman to span the gulf dividing two races,” replied Bony, grandiloquently. “To all my friends I am Bony; to you I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.”

Thus, when Essen and a constable arrived, trailing a tall cloud of rose-pink dust, they were confronted by a domestic tableau, the paramount figure being ‘The Bridge’ supporting an indignant baby.

“Wish I owned a machine like this,” Bony said when making Alice comfortable in the front seat of the tycoon’s car. He peeped at the baby lying on her lap. “Head better?”

“Much, thanks,” she replied and giggled. “Wish you did own a car like this. Wish you didn’t have a wife.”

Somewhat startled, Bony closed the door and firmly passed to the driver’s side, to slip behind the wheel and start the engine. Far away on the depression rose the dust from Essen’s car in which the constable sat with the white man who said his name was Marsh, and who had mislaid his wife.

“Envy is a corroding sin, Alice,” Bony ventured, when they reached the track to Mitford. “I knew a man who owned a Rolls-Royce, and he wished he were young again and driving a T-model Ford with boon companions and rich red wine. Now tell me how you came to be here.”

“Well, as you ordered, I went to theDelphs ’ house last night. I was a few yards off the front gate when I met the cook, dressed for an outing, and I walked back with her to Main Street while she told me she had been given the night off with a ticket for the pictures, and a box of chocolates as a present from Dr Nonning for looking after Mrs Delph. She told me that Mrs Nonning was running the house and nursing Mrs Delph, and that she was still very ill. Dr Delph had been out on his rounds, driving himself as the chauffeur-gardener had been sacked.”

“That chauffeur-gardener didn’t sleep at the house?”

“No. He’s married, and lives at his own place. Anyway, after leaving the cook, I hurried back to the house. It was then quite dark. Dr Delph’s car was parked on the opposite side of the boulevard, and Dr Nonning’s car was parked outside the front door. On the lawn side of the car was a flowering tree growing there just for me, and I could watch the front door and the hall through the car’s two windows. The hall light was on, but not the outside light.

“Nothing happened until half past nine, when Dr Nonning came out and took from the boot of his car a long flattish case. He put it on the hall table. At twenty to eleven Nonning and Delph came out, and Delph backed Nonning’s car to the street and drove away. Nonning went in again and opened the case on the hall table. He was fiddling with something there when Dicky, his wife, appeared and said something I couldn’t hear. I heard him say not to worry as it was going to be the last, and she’d better stay with Flo.