Arthur Upfield: Venom House

Introduction to Drowning

LIKETHEHOTELS, Australian trains are not what they ought to be, and Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte was glad to leave the bone-shaker at the four-pub town called Manton where he was to take the service car to Edison-Edison being a one-pub town on the coast south of Brisbane.

The youth guarding the station exit accepted his ticket with native indifference, and languidly informed him that the service car would be parked outside the Post Office.

The one point in favour of the service car was that it did have four wheels. It must have come from somewhere, and could be expected to go, if only for a yard or two. The driver was tall and lanky and young. He wore an English cloth cap back to front, hung a burnt-out fag to the corner of his mouth, and evidently preferred his shirt tails outside his drill trousers. The single redeeming feature was a pair of grey eyes which actually laughed.

“She’s all right,” he assured the prospective passenger. “Get you anywhere any time.”

“I want to go to Edison.”

“Then yougets to Edison when she gets there. You Inspector Bonaparte?”

“I am Inspector Bonaparte.”

The grey eyes took in the carefully-groomed passenger: his smart grey suit, light grey felt, brilliantly polished shoes. They also noted the dark complexion, the straight nose, the firm mouth, the eyes which recalled the blue of the sea.

“Well, we’re all set,” the driver asserted, tossing Bony’s suit-case upon the back seat already crowded with parcels, spare tubes and tools. “Hop in the front gallery, Inspector. No other passengers this trip. Old Mawson said to look out for you. Sorta busy, and couldn’t come himself.”

Bony almost committed Mr Pickwick’s injudicious error of asking the age of the cab horse. The alleged automobile complained when accepting hisweight, and it shuddered when the driver started the engine by tickling something under the rusty bonnet and then leaping to the steering-wheel before the effect of the tickling could die in a convulsion. The gate-change gears were slammed into first and the journey begun with flying-saucer acceleration.

Twenty-one miles to Edison, isn’t it?” questioned Bony.

“And a bit,” replied the driver. “Could do it in thirty minutes, but the road’s crook and we gotta coupler places to call. You gonna go into them drownings at Answerth’s Folly?”

“Yes. What is your name?”

“Mike Falla. Me old man’s got a farm two miles outa Edison, but I couldn’t stick the cows and feedin’ pigs. Carsis more in my line.”

“You have other cars?”

“One more. Not as good, though. Can’t beat the old stagers, y’know. Cars we’re getting now falls to bits as soon as you take ’em on the road. They’re all spit and polish and no guts.”

The town road became a track, and abruptly the track dipped to take a narrow bridge spanning a chasm of a gully. The driver changed down to first andbraked the contraption with the engine. Beyond the bridge Bony asked:

“Saving your brake linings?”

“Ain’t gotnone. They turned it up beginning of last winter.”

“You manage all right without brakes?”

“Yair. Nothing wrong with the ruddy engine to ease her up.”The cigarette butt danced a jig across the wide mouth. “Funny about them drownings, isn’t it? Beats me. Ed Carlow wasn’t exactly a siddy, y’know. Six feetsomething, and sixteen stone if an ounce. Fight sooner than spit. Don’t get it at all. And old Mrs Answerth was harmless enough, and she had nothing to be killed for. Sorta reminds me of Ginger, them drownings do.”

“Ginger!” murmured Bony.

“Yair.”

The track was like a snake on the rampage, twisting to avoid the larger trees of the scrub hemming both sides. Being mid-September in Southern Queensland, there were teeth in the air meeting Bony’s face. The yellow track, the grey-green tree-trunk and the dark green foliage of massed shrubs were painted with the vivid veneer of spring. The service car fought its way to a rise, gasped at the top and sang with relief when nosing down the opposite slope. Speed increased. Each successive bend was taken by the complaining tyres, and at each bend Bony anticipated disaster.

“One day you will meet an oncoming vehicle,” he remarked.

“Yair.”

The cigarette butt continued its dance. Like a lion springing from its lair, the car spun on to the floor of a wide valley, and followed a rule-straight yellow ribbon edged with wire fences. Beyond the fences flat paddocks were tiled with ploughed chocolate clods. Here and there were small neat farmsteads about which waved fast-growing maize. The time now being favourable to ask the driver for attention, Bony reminded him of Ginger.

“Dog,” replied Mike. “Greatest fightin’ dog I ever had. Red Irish terrier. Tackle anything from rats to the old man’s prize bull. Any stray dogs come around our place, Ginger got going. Usta tremble all over with a sorta joy. Always the same tactics, too. He’d kid the stray down towards the dam, sooling him to fight by pretendin’ he was scared. Then down by the dam he’d hop into him, and when the stray had had enough, Ginger would drag him into the water and drown him. Always drowned ’em, he did. D’youknow what?”

“Well?”

“The bloke what done our drownings musta seen Ginger doing his stuff, and got the idea off Ginger. Ed Carlow had been in a fight and the bloke held him under Answerth’s Folly till he drowned. And old Ma Answerth was held under, too. Same way as Ginger held his strays under.”

“There may be something in what you infer,” agreed Bony. “Many people know of Ginger’s methods?”

“Hundreds. I usta breed kelpies. Good many town dogs would come out to visit, and Ginger would attend to ’em. Then the owners would arrive and start an argument, but not before I’d buried the bodies. The old man’s no sap, and I can always pull my weight, but one day Mary Answerth came out looking for her heeler, and it so happens that Ginger was just getting her heeler into the dam. She outs with a shot-gun and shoots Ginger cold, and she called us plenty. We sorta objected, and she slaps the old man down and passed me a coupler jolts what snapped me off at the knees. Nothin’ worse, Inspector, than a woman with the wrong sorta punch.”

“Mary Answerth… she is the daughter of the late Mrs Answerth?”

“One. T’other is Janet. All lolly stick and lisp. Not bad-lookin’, though. There’s a son, too, but I’ve never seen him. A bit wonky, y’know. They keep him chained up. See this gate ahead? You hop out and open her while I circles.”

Having acceded to similar requests in the far outback, Bony knew what was expected of him. The driver changed to low gear and braked with the engine, and as they passed a gate in the right-hand fence, the passenger jumped from the vehicle and ran to open it. Meanwhile, the car proceeded past the gateway, circled and so came to it again, to pass through. Then, having slammed the gate shut, the passenger ran after the still moving car and boarded it. The driver’s judgement was excellent. So was that of the passenger.

A mile off the main track, they came to a farmhouse where the car was finally stopped by being run mid-way up a steep bank. There it was held by a block of wood thrust behind a rear wheel by a small girl. A woman appeared from the house, and Mike Falla gave her several parcels and a sheaf of mail. She regarded Bony with undisguised curiosity, and the driver said:

“Inspector Bonaparte. Gonna find out all about the drownings.”

Silently groaning at the publicity, Bony acknowledged the introduction. The woman raised her brows, and the little girl stared up at him whilst chewing the end of her beribboned pig-tail.