Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“Too right ’e did. But ’e couldn’t put thatacrost Old Lacy. Well, I must get along with the milk, Inspector. See you after.”

A forthright little man, but hardly a man killer, thought Bony as he crossed the dry bed of the creek above the long waterhole supplying the homestead. Anderson must have been an evil man, a violent man who perished through violence, one who might well have lived to perish at the end of a rope.

A few minutes after three o’clock Young Lacy’s plane alighted, with Bony in the passenger’s seat, on the wide ribbon of white claypan encircling the lake bed, just below the plateau on which Meena homestead was built. Together pilot and passenger followed the faint path up through the sand-dunes to the plateau where John Gordon and his mother had come to meet them.

Bony took an instant liking to this man and this woman. Young Lacy effected the introduction, and Bony’s first impression was confirmed when both accepted him without the slightest hesitation.

“Welcome to Meena, Mr Bonaparte,” Mary cried with faint excitement. “We have so few visitors that those we do have are very welcome indeed.”

“We expected you before,” Gordon said, frankly extending his hand. “It’s a pity our lake is dry.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Mrs Gordon agreed. “The sound of the waves is just like the surf, and the air is always cool even during the summer.”

“I’ve had no opportunity to come over before to-day,” Bony told them. “After what I have heard about your great interest in the aborigines-they occupy a warm place in my heart, you know-this visit gives me very great pleasure.”

“We can talk about them for hours, John and I,” Mary said, still controlled by that faint excitement. “But let’s go along to the house. It will be so much cooler on the veranda.”

Chatting to him all the way, she conducted the detective into the house, and through it to reach the veranda overlooking the great basin of the empty lake. There she made both him and Young Lacy comfortable, before bustling away to prepare the afternoon tea.

“I understand, Mr Gordon, that you represent the third generation ofGordons occupying this country,” Bony remarked.

“Yes, that’s so. My grandfather was the first to take up this land. WeGordons have clung to it through many bad droughts, and in return the land has given us a living. Grandfather was very Scots, you know, and they say that the Scots are the world’s best servants to the land.”

“I think so, too,” agreed Young Lacy. “But I’m not so sure that the Australian-Scots are such good servants to a netted boundary fence.”

The glint of humour in his hazel eyes caused Gordon to smile.

“Don’t you worry, Eric,” he said. “I’ve just got all that footing across the Channels completed. Jimmy Partner told us that Mr Bonaparte passed them twice when he and the others were doing it. I haven’t seen the job, but I can trust Jimmy Partner to have made it good.”

“Doesn’t that fence belong to Karwir?” inquired Bony.

“No. It’s half and half with Meena,” replied Gordon. “Karwir paid to have it built, and Meena agreed to maintain it with materials supplied by Karwir. Where the fence bounds Meena and Mount Lester the arrangement is the other way round.”

“Oh yes! By the way, Mr Gordon, if we might get a little business talk over and done with, Blake in his report on this Anderson case says that Jimmy Partner and you mustered sheep away from the Channels where they pass through the fence into Karwir. Were you and Jimmy Partner together the whole of that afternoon of the eighteenth of April?”

“No. We separated, I should say, about three o’clock. I left Jimmy Partner to drive a mob of sheep towards Meena, and then went on to see if I could pick up another mob. You see, the Channels are very boggy in wet weather, and it was raining.”

Whilst listening, Bony’s face was bland, and the usual keenness was absent from his eyes. He had been made to feel that he was a most welcome guest at Meena, and his questions were being put with no little diffidence. His first impression of this confident young man was wearing well. He could detect no unease in either his voice or his eyes.

“Did you discover any more sheep near the Channels?”

“Yes. I picked up a mob between that corner right on the southernmost depression and the road gate. It was then, I think, about half-past four.”

“Who reached home first?”

“Jimmy Partner got back a little before nine and I reached home shortly after him.”

“Neither of you saw Anderson that day?”

“No.”

“Or his horse?”

“No. Jimmy Partner and I were several times near the boundary fence where we could have seen him riding it on the far side had he passed when we were there.”

“Thank you, Mr Gordon. Just one more question. After Jimmy Partner left you, could he have doubled back to the boundary where, by chance, he might have met Anderson?”

Gordon flushed a trifle. He replied steadily:

“He could but he didn’t. The mob of sheep I left in his charge he drove five miles nearer the homestead before leaving them. I know he did this because the next day I went out for them and brought them to the yards here. I found them about where he said he had left them. He had gone off with the tribe on walkabout to Deep Well.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s another thing. At three o’clock, when we first saw the netted fence that day, Anderson should have reached the gate over the main road and been on his way straight to Karwir. Oh, I’ve worked out his probable movements that day, knowing the time he left the homestead. He would have been well past the Channels at three o’clock.”

“Well, then, what time did you cross the main road when bringing the sheep away from the Channels?”

“I couldn’t tell you the time but it was getting dark.”

“You didn’t see any fresh tracks on that road-horse tracks or motor tracks?”

For the first time Gordon hesitated to reply. Then:

“There may have been tracks of horse or car,” he said. “It was growing dark and I didn’t notice. But I think I’d have noticed if there had been any because I crossed the road where the ground is sandy, and where fresh tracks would have been plain.”

Bony sighed, for at this moment Mary Gordon appeared carrying a large tray.

“Well, I’m glad we have got the business part of our visit over. You know, the warmth of your reception to me, a detective-inspector, on duty as it were, embarrasses me. You, Mrs Gordon, instead of glaring at me and plainly hinting you would like to see the last of me, go to great trouble to give us afternoon tea.”

“I think I would offer a cup of tea to my greatest enemy,” she said smilingly. “It is a good old bush custom to boil the billy directly anyone arrives.”

“How true, Mrs Gordon. How did you and Mr Gordon get along with Jeffery Anderson?”

Now he saw indignation flash into her eyes, and the eyes of her son become agate-hard. It was the son who spoke.

“We never had anything to do with him save on two occasions when he injured our people. I mean, of course, the blacks here. We always call them our people. My father did. So did my grandfather.”

Bony rose to accept tea and a cake from his hostess, and, having resumed his chair, he said:

“Tell me about your people, as you so wonderfully call the unfortunate aborigines. I should like to hear about the first and secondGordons, too, if you will.”

He noted the flame of enthusiasm leap into their eyes as the woman’s gaze met that of her son. It was a torch, lit by the first Gordon, accepted by her from the second Gordon when he died to hand on to her son. He now carried it, but she marched with him. Very softly, she said to the young man: