Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

Diana, shorter than the elder woman, her youth and supple grace making striking contrast, said simply:

“I’d like a cup of tea. I’m sorry John is out. I wanted to see him most importantly.”

“Well, come along in. The place will be upside down, but you mustn’t mind. I went out before John left.” Mary Gordon bustled on ahead through the wicket gate and along the cinder path to the veranda door, across the veranda and into the kitchen-living-room. There she turned to her visitor to say: “Well, I never! I told John not to bother with anything, and he’s washed up and tidied and actually re-set the table for me. Now you sit there on the couch while I make up the fire. And off with your hat. It’ll cool your head.”

With her hands raised to the task of removing her hat, Diana glanced about this pleasant, plainly furnished room that always gave the impression that it was thoroughly cleaned at least six times every day. It enshrined the family life of the Gordon clan. The modern sewing machine and the radio cabinet contrasted with the old muzzle-loading muskets left by John the First. The new tin kettle squatted beside the great iron ones brought here from outside in those years when utensils were made to last. The grandfather clock, the pride and affection of the first Mrs Gordon, gleamed not unlike the slender mulga shafts of the aborigines’ spears. Table and chairs, pictures and ornaments represented the fashions of a hundred years. There were no flowers, but the floor exuded the refreshing smell of carbolic.

“The rabbits here are terrible,” Mary rattled on. “I’ve never in all my life seen so many. What they’re living on I don’t know. I’ve got to stand over the hens while I feed them to stop them being robbed by the rabbits who don’t fear me any more than the hens do. The cats and the dogs won’t look at them, they’re so sick of the sight of them. Jimmy Partner says they mayn’t stay here much longer, and he and the blacks have been working at the skin getting. Yesterday he and the blacks built mile-long netted fence wings in the form of a great V, and at the point of the V they built a large trap-yard.

“Last night they lifted the netting off the ground and just hung it atop the temporary posts so that the rabbits from the warrens could run out on to the lake and feed on what’s left of the rubbish in the middle of it. Then, before dawn, they went along the wings and pegged the netting to the ground. I went out while they were doing it, and afterwards we all walked round the lake to the far side where we waited till daybreak.

“My, it was exciting! We stretched out like a lot of Old Country beaters, and marched across the lake towards the trap beating tins and things. Oh, Diana! You ought to have been there. It was marvellous. The rabbits streamed towards the trap before us like a huge flock of sheep, all making for the warrens beyond the wing-fences. The eagles came down low and flew so close that you could see their beady red eyes. When the rabbits reached the wing-fences they ran along them in to the V point just like two rivers of fur. There must have been thousands and thousands. Thousands of them escaped by running back past us. Thousands more wouldn’t go into the trap-yard, but in the yard, when we got to it, Jimmy Partner estimated there were five to six thousand. The blacks are all down there now skinning them. And skins are such a good price this year, too.”

“The Kalchut banking account ought to swell this month if the blacks can trap them like that,” Diana said, smiling at the other woman’s enthusiasm.

“It will, dear, but if they catch as many every morning for twelve months it won’t make any difference to the horde.” Mary abruptly sat down on the couch beside the girl. “I’m sorry John isn’t at home. He’ll be ever so disappointed when he knows you came.”

“I suppose he will be away all day?”

“Yes, he will so. He and Jimmy Partner have been cutting scrub for the ewes away over at the foot of the Painted Hills. Jimmy Partner ought to have been with him to-day, but Nero and the others didn’t quite know how to make the trap-yard.”

Diana nodded. Mary saw her disappointment.

“John has never told you about what happened to Jeffery Anderson, has he?” Diana softly questioned.

“What happened to him! No. What did happen to him?”

Mary’s expression of pleasure at the visit changed swiftly to one of alarm.

“Would you be a brave dear woman and not question me? You see, I can’t say anything because John made me promise not to. I have always thought he ought to tell you, but he says it would be better for him and everyone for you not to know. Things are better forgotten. I’ve come over chiefly to get him, or you, to collect every hair of his that may be on his comb and brushes and pillows and towels.”

“Mercy me, why?”

The girl made a slight despairing motion with her hands.

“I can’t tell you. I promised John I wouldn’t without his permission. You’ve just got to trust me and him, too. He’d be angry with me if he knew I had said anything to you at all, but I can’t help it as he is away and we must gather up any hairs he might have left.”

Mary glanced helplessly out through the window. When she encountered the violet eyes again there was horror in her own.

“I-I-have sometimes wondered,” she said slowly. “I can’t forget that night of rain when I waited here listening for them to come home, and then went down to the blacks’ camp to get them to go and search. They were very late. Jimmy Partner was talking to Nero, and the next morning all the blacks went off on walk-about. Then John came home, and he had a blue bruise across his throat, and he said it had been done when he rode under a tree branch in the dark. I-I-won’t ask questions. But please answer this one. Is there any danger to John-through Inspector Bonaparte?”

Diana nodded and sighed softly.

“Yes. The detective is finding out about things. Oh, I wish John had been home, and then I should not have had to upset you. I wish he had confided in you. But it’s too late to wish that. We’ve got to work to protect him. We’ve got to be very careful. I can see now that John was very wise not to tell you anything at all, because, should Inspector Bonaparte come again and question you, you can tell him nothing because you know nothing.”

“But I do. I know about-”

“You know nothing, dear. Just remember that you know nothing. You can help him by knowing nothing. Don’t you see that?”

Mary Gordon stood looking down into the troubled eyes, and slowly her mouth became grim and her own eyes determined.

“I shall give nothing away, Diana, and I shall never question John. He will tell me when he thinks it proper. I know how to fight. I’ve had to fight all my life. There now, the kettle’s boiling, and after we’ve had a cup of tea we’ll hunt for every blessed hair.”

Turning, she walked towards the stove, then stopped to stare at a striped linen mattress cover neatly folded and resting on the dresser.

“That’s funny!” she exclaimed, crossing to the dresser and taking up the mattress cover. Permitting one end to fall to the floor, she shook it out, and discovered that the end on the floor was cut right across. Reversing it, she held the striped cover like an open sack. Diana watched, a frown puckering her eyes. She saw one brown hand slip down and into the cover and then come out with a black feather held between forefinger and thumb.

“What is there peculiar about it?” asked the girl.

Mary uttered a little sharp laugh of bewilderment. Then she said, looking at Diana over the mattress cover:

“Years ago, when my husband was alive, the lake was crowded with birds, and one winter he and the blacks shot enough of them to fill two mattresses with their feathers. One mattress John has always slept on. The other was always on one of the spare beds. About four weeks ago I found the mattress on the spare bed missing. I asked John about it and he didn’t know anything. I asked Jimmy Partner and he didn’t know about it. The blacks have never once robbed us. And now here’s the mattress cover with all the feathers gone.”