Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

Nothing would have given him greater delight than to make ChicChic a gift of this object. He was of a race of men who had never owned anything excepting freedom when they became old. Nothing belonged to the individual: everything to the tribe. Possessiveness had ever been non-existent, and if ChicChic wanted the bit of glass, or his shirt, he would normally have given it to her, and she in turn would give it to another aborigine if he or she wanted it-for to have was not to possess.

But behind and in front was Sergeant Crome. And Sergeant Crome was a white man and, more, a white policeman. Sergeant Crome wanted that silly-looking lump of blue glass, and Sergeant Crome must have it.

ChicChic began to cry. She couldn’t understand Ted Pluto’s going on like this. They were tears of disillusionment. Poor Ted attempted to comfort her, tried to explain that he must give up the thing to Sergeant Crome, that he and the other boys had been searching for it ever since the white woman had been killed, that Sergeant Crome had shouted and sworn it must be found. ChicChic remained indifferent to Sergeant Crome. She loved Ted Pluto, and Ted Pluto refused her a bit of old glass.

“Go ’way! Go on, Ted Pluto, go ’way!” she screamed. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you to take me to Sunday school. I’ll tell Mrs Playfair on you, and she’ll tell the minister, and he’ll soon tell you to get to hell out of it for keeps.”

A white suitor would have surrendered, but despite the black man’s partial assimilation by white civilisation, he remains his own man. He sees more to be drawn from the future than the present. When ChicChic pushed him from the kitchen and slammed the door in his face, Ted Pluto turned away and sadly walked back to Headquarters.

From the piece of glass in his great hands Crome looked into the smilingly triumphant eyes of Ted Pluto and said:

“Good on you, Ted, my lad. Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t find it, Sergeant,” Ted replied. “I got it from a white girl playing in a street. She was with some white boys-playing hold-ups. I had to pay ’emfiveshillin ’ for it. Yougivit back fiveshillin ’, eh, Sergeant? And pound of tobacco, eh?”

“You never asked the kids where they found it?” persisted Crome without ire, almost nonchalantly, for to shout or bully would have been useless.

“No, Sergeant.”

“Think we can find those kids? You remember the street?”

“Too right, Sergeant. I paid those kids fiveshillin ’.”

“Here’s your five shillings, Ted. Come on. Let’s find those kids.”

ChicChic was an unpleasant dream. The clouds shadowing the spirit of Ted Pluto vanished. He had done right, had behaved like a man, and Sergeant Crome was pleased with him, so much so that he invited Ted to get into the front seat of the car instead of the back. It was a fine afternoon, much better than going to that old Sunday school, even with ChicChic. The sergeant didn’t even object when Ted rolled a cigarette.

“Out towards the Manse, eh, Ted?” Crome asked.

“Yes, Sergeant.” Half a mile of pleasant driving, and then Ted instructed the sergeant to follow a road cutting off an angle. It was good, giving orders like this, and there was no need to ration his tobacco, either, with that pound lot coming to him.

Ted told Crome to stop at the corner where the hold-up had been staged. There were now no children playing a game, and Sergeant Crome frowned and brought back the clouds to shadow the aboriginal spirit.

“Should have found out where those kids got the haft,” he said severely. “Where’s your brains, Ted? Never be a policeman going on like that. Now we’ve to find those kids, and there’s a lot of ’emin Broken Hill. You’d know ’emagain?”

“Course, Sergeant, I know ’em.” Ted brightened. “P’rapsthey’re spending the dough in the nearest lolly shop. In that next street there’s a lolly shop.”

“Good on you, Ted. You’ll make a policeman after all.”

The sun shone brightly on Ted Pluto, and his chest could be seen, almost, expanding with pride. On the kerb of the pavement outside the lolly shop sat two of the boys.

Crome stopped the car beside them, leaned out, and grinned.

“Good day!” he cried. “How’s things?”

“Gooddayee, mister!”

“Come here,” Crome invited, and they stood on the running-board and leaned over the door to stare at the silver lying on a huge palm. “Remember that bit of glass you sold for five bob?”

“Yes, mister. We picked it upcoupla days ago. True, mister.”

“Think you could point out where you found it?”

“Too right, we could. Some way from here, though. You take us in the car an’ we’ll show you.”

“Inside a garden it was, mister,” added the second boy.

“All right! You go to the shop and buy four ices, and we’ll take you along.”

One of the boys accepted the coin and dashed into the shop, returning with four ice-cream cones. The sergeant handed them out. The boys climbed into the rear seat. Ted Pluto lived in heaven, and Crome drove with one hand whilst licking an ice.

Eventually he was directed to a street of substantial houses and pulled the car into the shadow cast by one of a number of pepper trees.

“In this street, you say?”

“Yes, mister. The garden’s further down, though.”

“Well, one of you boys stay here with Ted. The other can come and show me the place.”

Crome got out and terminated the argument over which of the boys was to go with him. They strolled along the pavement under the pepper trees, passing garden gates, and under wide-spaced light standards.

“That’s the gate, mister,” the boy said, pointing ahead, and Crome told him not to shout and not to stop walking when they came to the gate.

They came to a double gateway, and one of the gates was open and appeared never to be shut. The grounds contained severalti -tree shrubs and a fine old pine, and the driveway curved to avoid the pine tree. Farther on in the same fence was a small wicket gate, with the ground about proving it was never used. The boy said:

“It was just inside that little gate, mister. Rod seen it first, though. He fetched me to see it, and I went in and got it.”

Man and boy passed on to skirt more garden fences, and presently they turned about, and so again came to the little gate. Crome said nothing. He and the boy continued walking. Beyond the solitary pine tree stood a stone house, weathered and commodious, and of two storeys. He had seen it before.

There are very few stone-built, two-storeyed houses away from Argent Street.

The Fearful Burglar

JIMMY’S WORLD was so unstable that he was mentally giddy. Having to work by day and sleep by night was a prospect irksome and degrading. Evil influences were at work, and he felt unable to cope with them unless and until he could stage a rebellion and regain his freedom.

The worst menace was this damned Bonaparte, who seemed determined to cruel his pitch-giving orders and blackmailing him. Burgle a house for a handbag or a baby’s dummy, or else! Take your pick! Just plain blackmail. Then there was the Attraction. She demanded that he proves his intentions by taking a steady job at the mines before she’d marry him. Give up independence to become a slave. Yes, Mr White! No, Mr Black! Watching the clock every morning, and again every afternoon. What a fate!

Being intelligent, Jimmy Nimmo knew that when a burglar falls in love the end of his career is in sight. And he was wise enough to know that to retire from the game when on top was to invite stagnation. What to do, therefore, when an Attraction just couldn’t take it when you told her you were a respectable burglar? Not tell her, of course-and then you couldn’t be a married respectable burglar. Blast! Why did he have to fall in love with a woman who wouldn’t be a burglar’s wife?