Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

For two hours the menace of the boning had been banished from Bony’s mind, and, calling the dogs, he climbed back over the fence to his camp and put on the billy to boil for tea. He was elated by his discoveries, and hope burned brightly that he would complete his case before physical illness mastered him. At long last he possessed a lead. He had correctly placed sufficient pieces of the puzzle to enable him to see almost the entire picture.

At six o’clock, when Sergeant Blake reached the boundary fence, he found Bony waiting with the tea newly made, the mare neck-roped to a tree and the dogs tethered to other trees. Bony’s eyes were bright, but his cheeks were a little sunken and his lips appeared to be much thinner.

“How’s things?” asked the policeman.

“I was sick again this morning,” replied Bony. “However, I managed a few biscuits for lunch, and I am feeling much less depressed because I have made several important discoveries.”

“Good! Let’s have some dinner. I’ve brought it. The wife says that if I won’t get home in time for dinner, then I must take it with me. There’s cold beef, a salad and an apple pie with cream.”

“What a feast!” Bony exclaimed. “My bread is rock-hard, the meat has become fly-blown, and the cow has bolted.”

Blake set the food out on a square of American cloth, and Bony, tempted, ate while he told about his work that afternoon.

“Anderson’s hair was light-brown, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Blake nodded, saying:

“It was. And he always wore it fairly long.”

“Still, Sergeant, it has yet to be proved that the hair I found attached to the bark came from the head of the missing man,” argued Bony. “Er-excuse me. I am very sorry. It is an insult to your wife’s excellent cooking.”

He hurried away to the trees and Blake heard him retching. It was the Barcoo sickness all right, or was it? The previous evening when they had eaten at this place, Bony had done this very same thing. As Blake well knew, the Barcoo sickness strikes quickly and without warning, and if this was the Barcoo sickness then its following so closely on the boning was an extraordinary coincidence.

“Rotten luck,” he said when Bony returned.

“You’ve said it, Blake. I quite enjoyed the meal.”

Bony helped himself to tea, added milk from the bottle Blake had brought, but did not take sugar.

“As I was saying,” he continued, “we have yet to prove that the hair I found caught up by the bark of that tree came from Anderson’s head. Fortunately, we have an excellent chance of proving it. The Karwir people have never disturbed Anderson’s room, and, when there the other day, I noticed that his comb and brushes contained several of his hairs. As I have the microscope, will you run me in to the homestead?”

“Certainly.”

“Then we’ll get along. For a detective I am going, this evening, to be communicative. I will invite the Karwir people to be present when we examine under the microscope the tree-caught hair, and a hair from one of Anderson’s brushes. I want you to observe carefully the reaction of each member of the Lacy household. Say nothing. Note and tell me afterwards what you observe, if anything. Now let’s go. The animals will be safe enough.”

Half an hour later the car was braked before the gate in thecanegrass fence, and Blake followed Bony to the door in the long south veranda where they were welcomed by Old Lacy himself.

“Why, Bony, it’s you! Hullo, Blake!” he boomed.

“Good evening, Mr Lacy,” Bony said in reply. “Sergeant Blake came out to see me this afternoon, and I have persuaded him to run me in. I can now personally state my regret at the destruction of Green Swamp hut. It must have been due to my carelessness.”

Old Lacy stood aside from the doorway.

“Go in! Go in! Don’t let the firing of that hut worry you. It was past time that I built another out there, and save for a few rations the only articles of value in the place were a crowbar and a couple of shovels. Hi, there, Diana! Is there any dinner left? Here’s two visitors.”

Bony hastened to assure Old Lacy, and Diana who appeared from the house dining-room, that he and the Sergeant had dined, and he was about to state the reason for the call when the squatter commanded them to sit down and have a peg. Never a drinker, Bony sipped a glass of whisky and soda with real gratitude.

“You’re notlookin ’ too well, Bony,” observed their host.

“No, I am not well. I have a touch of the Barcoo sickness.”

At once Old Lacy was concerned, saying:

“That’s bad. Not many complaints worse than that. Chlorodyne and brandy’s about the only thing for it, with a feed now and then of potatoes steeped all night in vinegar. You must take some out with you, unless, of course, you’d care to camp here a few days.”

“You are more than kind, and I should like to accept your suggestion; but this case is at last moving and I may complete it more quickly than I anticipated.”

“Ah-ah! That’s good. What have you found? Anything important?”

“It may be of great importance,” Bony replied cautiously. “You will remember that I told you I found a wisp of green cable silk, believed to have come from Anderson’s whip cracker, caught by the bark of a tree. To the bark of that same tree I have found a human hair still clinging after all these months. It is of the same colour as Anderson’s hair, but we cannot be certain that the hair I have found came from his head until we compare it with one known to have come from it. I have brought the microscope, and I suggest we all go over to Anderson’s room to compare the hair I found with one taken from his brushes.”

With remarkable agility Old Lacy sprang to his feet. Blake rose next and then Bony before Diana Lacy. After his first bow of greeting, he had not looked at her, and now he stood aside to permit her to pass on behind her father.

“We’ll soon decide the matter,” remarked the old man. “If the hair you found is Anderson’s, what will it prove?”

“That he was tied to a certain tree and flogged with his own whip.”

“I thought it was something like that. Those damned blacks treated him to the medicine he gave to that loafer, Inky Boy,” the old man said triumphantly, triumphantly because his own baseless theory promised to become fact.

The girl, Blake and Bony, halted outside the door of Anderson’s room in the office building while the old man entered the office for the key.

“Yours must be an extraordinary interesting profession, Mr Bonaparte,” she said, tonelessly.

“Sometimes, Miss Lacy. There’s a lot of routine work, however, in every case. Perhaps the most interesting part of an investigation is provided by clues such as human hairs, finger-prints, tobacco ash and the manner in which a man wears out his boots.”

Old Lacy emerged from the office, followed by his son who cheerfully greeted the callers, and, the door having been unlocked and thrown open, they trooped into the room that had not been occupied for six months. One open door of the wardrobe revealed suits hanging within. On a hook beside the window were Anderson’s several whips. The bed was made, but red dust lay lightly on the coverlet. On the chest of drawers were the missing man’s toilet articles arrayed before a wide mirror.

“Now, I’ll set up the instrument and we’ll see what we see,” Bony said quietly, and the others stood back without comment. “Could we have the office petrol light?”

Young Lacy hurried out to the office. Through the single window the glory of the departing day tinted their faces with scarlet, giving soft russet tints even to Bony’s black hair as he manipulated the microscope set upon the dressing chest. The lamp was placed beside it, pumped and lit, and the red oblong within the window frame became purple. Having arranged side by side between two plain glasses the hair he had found adhering to the tree and one he took from a hair brush, Bony adjusted the mirror and focused the instrument.