Arthur Upfield - The Mystery of Swordfish Reef

The club secretary found a packet of cigarettes in the table drawer and lit one. Then he rose to his feet and crossed to the barometer, which he gently tapped with a finger-nail. The pointer moved steadily to halt at the figures 29.95.

“Hum! Barometer beginning to fall. You say that the wind is from the east. TheDo-me might well show up before night.”

“Hope your guess is correct,” Telfer said dryly.

“And,” went on Blade, “if she doesn’t, then one or more of the Eden launches may have word of her when they get in this evening. I’m not worrying a great deal as yet, because of my confidence in Bill Spinks. He knows as much about this coast, and the currents off it, as any man bar old Joe Peace.”

“I still don’t like thisDo-me business,”persisted Constable Telfer. “Listen to me. Yesterday there were three launches out at sea with theDo-me. As you know, they were theGladious, theSnowy and theEdith. The last of those three to sight theDo-me was theGladious just after eleven o’clock. TheDo-me was then still trolling to the east, towards Swordfish Reef.”

Blade regarded the policeman steadily.

“You have been busy today,” he said. “Go on.”

“An hour after he last saw theDo-me, Remmings on theGladious was five miles farther south. There was a haze on the sea, reducing visibility to a few miles, and the current at the south end of Swordfish Reef was setting south. If theDo-me ’s engine had broken down after Remmings lost sight of her, she’d drift southward fairly fast because there wasn’tno wind to fill her sail. In which case a trawler, working six or seven miles south of theGladious, and as far off the land, might easily have seen theDo-me. Unlike the launches, that trawler would work all night in that same area. And last night, or rather early this morning, Remmings ran alongside the trawler and spoke with the captain. No one on the trawler had sighted theDo-me.

“This morning the trawler was working a little north of Eden and about eight miles off shore. The Eden police got a launch-man there to go out and speak her. He spoke her at a little after twelve o’clock, and she hadn’t sighted theDo-me up till then. The Eden launch then patrolled for an hour or two without result. She has just returned to port, and I have just had her report through the Eden station.”

After this long and detailed statement Constable Telfer stared at Blade with a positive satisfaction in his prominent eyes. Blade looked away and gazed thoughtfully at his typewriter. A period of seconds passed, when he said:

“That doesn’t sound so good.”

Telfer snorted and continued.

“Before I came here I walked down to the jetty and had a talk with Harry Low. TheLilyG. Excel didn’t go out today. Low reckons it don’t sound any too good, either, because this morning the sea was flat and the visibility was extra good. The men on the bridge of the trawler would have been looking for theDo-me, and they could have seen her mast at eight miles, if not a mile or two more.”

The two men fell silent, Telfer vigorously drawing at his old pipe. Blade drumming the fingers of one hand on a paper lying on the table. In his mind the affair of theDo-me was now growing big with portent. After a while, Telfer asked:

“What could happen to a launch out on the ocean, alone, cut off from human sight and contact by a haze?”

“Happen! Oh!… She could catch fire. But if theDo-me had caught fire yesterday, the smoke would have been observed by Remmings, and perhaps, by the trawler. And then theDo-me carried a small boat, and those on her could very easily have rowed ashore.”

“Low says-” Telfer began. “Low one time was whaling down at Eden, and he says that a whale could come up to blow under a launch and capsize her without giving any warning to those on board.”

“I suppose that could be possible,” conceded Blade. “But it would be by no means probable. I have never heard of such a happening. It would be as unlikely as a launch being attacked by a sea-serpent or a gang of mermen.”

“Could theDo-me have capsized through any other cause, do you think?”

“Not through any cause due to the launch herself,” replied Blade. “It was a very calm day, remember. TheDo-me is as seaworthy a craft as any at Bermagui.”

The policeman’s chair scraped noisily on the floor and he rose to his feet. With slow deliberation, he slid the notebook into a breast pocket whilst he looked down at the club secretary.

“We’ll know what happened to theDo-me some day-perhaps,” he said. “It’s rough on the Spinks women, this not knowing what has happened. They’re up on the headland now. They’ve been there since breakfast this morning, and they were up there before daybreak. See you later.”

After Telfer had gone Edward Blade thought to note the time. It was four minutes to five. The sunlight was slanting into his office through window and open door. He began to type a letter to a sports firm, gave it up and walked to the doorway, where he paused and searched the sky. It was streaked with faint gossamer ribbons. Re-entering the office he again tapped the barometer. The pointer indicated a drop to 29.5. Standing in the doorway once again he looked to the north past the township, over the inner bay and across the great bay to Dromedary Mountain, backing it. Thin clouds crowned its summit. Opposite the office, across the road and the un-built-on land, the river’s estuary came from the low promontory protecting its mouth to curve eastward past the launch jetty. The stretch of sheltered water was covered with dark cat’s-paws.

“Going to be a dirty night,” he murmured, summing up all these weather signs. “Ah!”

Coming towards him, to pass his office on her way home, was Marion Spinks. The wind on the headland had blown her hair into disorder. Even here in the street it teased the hem of her skirt.

“Any sight of theDo-me, Miss Spinks?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“I’m going home to make tea and take it to mother,” she said. “She won’t leave the headland. She won’t come home and wait.” Her control gave way at last under the long strain, and in her voice was a sob.“Oh, Mr Blade! I’m afraid… I’m afraid.”

“But, Miss Spinks, this wind will bring theDo-me to port somewhere.”

“Yes, I am hoping that about theDo-me. I am afraid now for mother. She’s taking on so. I can’t do anything with her, and she won’t come home. She says she must stop on the headland looking for theDo-me.”

“Have you both been up there all day?”

Marion nodded her head, dumbly miserable, even desperate. Blade was quick to make a suggestion.

“Well, then, while you are home getting the tea, I’ll slip off home and ask the wife to go with you and persuade your mother to come home. Mrs Blade once was a trained nurse, you know, and she would know how to manage your mother.”

“Oh, if Mrs Blade would!”

“Shewill, I’m sure. I’ll have her here when you pass with the tea,”

Blade smiled encouragement at the girl, and she went on her way. Looking after her, memory of her eyes big with dread stayed with him, but he could not help noticing her poise and dignity.

His wife was with him in the office when Marion returned carrying a basket and a billy of tea. He stood in his doorway watching them pass along the street, pass the hotel, gain the end of the road and take the path to the summit of the headland.

The first of the launches in this evening was a smart craft namedVida; its owner reported that the sea was rising before the wind and predicted a stormy night. He had no news of the missing launch and, as the other launches were all hurrying in, he thought no news of theDo-me had been gained.

The last launch in was theMyoni. Williams, her owner, told Blade that he had taken his angler as far south as Bunga Head, and that he had not sighted theMarlin since nine o’clock that morning. This was shortly after six when the roar of the surf was louder than the whine of the wind about the mast stays of craft moored to the sheltered jetty. The river’s mouth was foaming, and now and then the sea on the bar and beyond it lifted high above the water in the channel.