Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

Beyond the loose-box was a doorway in this end of the stables, and quietly Bony stepped past the sleeping aborigine and went out. He found a tap, and a tin dish on a wooden case, and about the case the water had moistened the ground, and the ground revealed the prints of Abie’s naked feet. They were identical with those on the paths skirting Mrs. Overton’s house. It was one of the strangest twists in an investigation Bony had ever encountered.

Bony went on to sit in the shade cast by the tree beneath which he had first seen Abie with a petrol-saturated rag about his head. What was that ebony-skinned gentleman up to? He had been following the man wearing the size eight shoes to the left sole of which was attached that circular object, the man who had, without the smallest doubt, entered Mrs. Overton’s house and strangled her. Proudly wearing boots all day, it seemed that Abie preferred to walk in naked feet by night.

That Abie had the ambition to become an aboriginal Holmes was a thought instantly to be discarded as fantastic. Whatever purpose Abie had had in trailing a murderer, it was much stronger than the ambition to become a great detective, because the time of the act was opposed to his racial instincts. Assessing Abie’s standing in relation to white civilisation, Bony placed him much nearer the wild blacks than those who have become famous in pulpit and art. The motive driving Abie out into the dark night must have been powerful, when instinctively he would cling to the protection of his camp. The danger from evil spirits to black-fellows who wander from the camp-fires at night had been instilled in Abie with his mother’s milk.

More extraordinary was Abie’s deliberate deceit when instead of pointing out the tracks left by the man who had murdered Mrs. Overton, he had drawn a mark round the track made by Mr. Dickenson, who had not walked through the laneway before parting with Bony in broad daylight. Abie would bear watching.

Sawtell and the constable appeared in the compound, and Bony went to meet them.

“Going to have a word or two with Locke,” announced the sergeant.

“All right. I’ll go with you,” Bony said.

When at the cell door, they could see the prisoner seated on the board bed. Clifford unlocked the door, and they passed in, the constable remaining outside. Sawtell gave the man his shoes. Locke thanked him, easily and without betraying emotion.

“I suppose you know why you’re here?” asked Sawtell.

“Oh, yes,” replied Locke, without looking up from lacing the shoes.

“What were you doing in town the night before last?” Bony questioned.

Having laced the shoes, Locke stood up. He was clean and neat. His eyes were light-grey and revealed nothing. Good-looking, the cleft chin and the sensuous mouth would certainly appeal to undiscerning women. Coolly, he asked Bony:

“What have you to do with me?”

“That’ll be all on that line, Locke,” snapped Sawtell roughly.

“All right! I was in town on the spree. What about it?”

“What were you doing in town on the night that Mrs. Eltham was murdered?” was Bony’s next question.

The light-grey eyes blinked back the flash of fear.

“I wasn’t in town that night.”

“But you were, Locke,” Bony insisted. “What did you do that night?”

“You’re not trying to frame me for that murder, are you?”

“What an idea!” exclaimed Bony, and Locke shouted angrily:

“Then what’s behind these questions? I didn’t throttle those women. All I did was to clear out of New South Wales instead of reporting every week.”

“Where were you on the night Mrs. Cotton was murdered?”

“In the bar. I was in the bar all evening drinking with the mob. The sergeant knows that. He checked up on me like on all the others.”

There was indignation on the man’s face and in his voice, and Bony was not happy about it. Abie had crossed the compound and was standing just beyond Constable Clifford.

“On the night before last, you were in town,” Bony said loudly. “Sometime during the night before last, a Mrs. Overton was strangled.”

The small effeminate mouth trembled. There was horror in the light-grey eyes, horror born of realisation that, having once escaped the hangman in New South Wales, there would be no escaping the hangman in Western Australia. No one in Australia, no one at all would ever believe that he who had strangled a girl in Sydney had not strangled three women in northern West Australia.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, his voice a whisper. Then in startling contra-distinction, he shouted: “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”

“Pipe down,” ordered Sawtell. “You’ll be treated fairly. We’ll be taking you to Perth this evening on the plane.”

Bony left the cell, Clifford opening the door. Abie’s eyes were wide, and Bony tried to look into them and failed. The sergeant came out and, seeing the tracker, roughly asked him what the hell he was doing there, and to clear off and bring in a horse named Nancy and get on with his job of breaking her in. The aborigine shuffled away in his heavy boots, and Bony said to Clifford:

“See that Locke has cigarettes.”

He felt that he had made slight amends to the prisoner who had not been charged with murder, and yet was sure he would be. A man in white drill trousers and white sports shirt appeared.

“Anything fresh, Sergeant?” he asked Sawtell.

“No, only thatthe prisoner will be taken down to Perth on tonight’s plane.”

“Ah! Who’ll be his escort?”

“Clifford, I expect.”

“Thanks. My paper will appreciate that. Everything clinched, I suppose, about these murders?”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Sawtell.

“You know.” The stranger to Bony became persuasive. “Give us a break.”

The sergeant regarded the correspondent sternly. He said with significant deliberateness:

“Officially, I don’t know anything. We’re sending Locke to Perth for holding on the charge of breaking the terms of his parole.”

The correspondent was satisfied.

“Yes… ah, yes. Yes, I understand,” he said, and believed that he did. Twenty minutes later the radio was flashing the news to Perth that a man had been arrested in connection with the Broome murders, and thirty minutes later Bony sat down with Mr. Dickenson on the bench in front of the Port Cuvier Hotel.

“Mr. Flinn inside?” he enquired.

“Went in an hour ago,” replied the old man.

“How are you standing up to it?”

“Standing up to it? Good! Gives me something to do.”

“I’d like to switch you to a more important assignment,” Bony said. “They’ve brought in Locke, and he’ll be taken down to Perth tonight. The newspaper correspondent thinks that Locke is the man wanted for these murders. Now, Mr. Dickenson, I’m more in need of your co-operation than ever. I cannot be everywhere at the same time.”

“Well, whatever I can do…”

“I appreciate your help, Mr. Dickenson.” Bony broke off to light a cigarette. The old man gazed across the street at the busy hotel, and his expression revealed the price he was paying to assist Bony. Inherited instincts and the early influence of the class of society from which he had fallen were still with him.

“I think we’ll let up on Flinn for the time being,” Bony went on. “Having to send Clifford to Perth with Locke will make us still more short-handed. I’d like you to undertake another assignment this evening, an all-night one.”

The old man removed his gaze from the drinkers on the hotel veranda to regard his bench companion.

“I can see quite well in the dark,” he said. “I have seen much of Broome life after dark.”

“Much, I think, which I might find of value. Could we meet, say at seven o’clock, this evening? Outside the post office?”