Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

There was no catching this man in a verbal trap. There was no getting round corners to see into his mind. Ill he certainly was, but he was still master of his mind.

“Well, good-bye!” she called to him. “You really ought to see a doctor, or you will come to believe that you’ve been boned by the blacks. Anyway, follow dad’s prescription of the sliced potatoes steeped in vinegar. Dad’s a good bush doctor, you know.”

Bony bowed his head to indicate that he heard her above the whine of the wind, and stood watching the car glide away with its escort of following dust.

“The Barcoo sickness is what he’s got,” she was saying aloud, a habit easily formed by one travelling alone. “The pointing bone business is all tosh. John would never get the blacks to do such a thing. I can’t think that he would, although he and his mother would go far. No, it can’t be that. Anyway, pointing the bone wouldn’t be effective against a man like the Inspector. He’s educated. He’s ever so much more highly educated than I am.”

She drove all the way to Pine Hut with the dust clouds raised by the wheels behind her. The hut came out of a red murk to meet her, silently to salute her as she passed it to reach the Karwir road to Opal Town. Here at the road junction she stopped the car, undecided whether to go on to the township or to return home. Again she spoke aloud.

“Oh yes, that man went to Meena hoping for the opportunity of getting some of John’s hair. The opportunity was just waiting for him. In one of his pockets at this moment some of John’s hair is wrapped up in a cigarette paper or an envelope. Ye gods! That man’s as deep as the ocean. Oh! I wonder now! Yes, that might work. There can’t be any harm in trying it. An acorn planted may become a giant tree.”

Diana reached Opal Town at exactly twelve o’clock, and there standing outside the police station was Sergeant Blake.

“Good day, Miss Lacy!” he shouted above the wind. “Bad day to come to town.”

“Yes, isn’t it, Mr Blake?” Diana agreed, sweetly. “I have to shop and couldn’t delay doing it. You know, dad’s quite worried.”

“Oh-what about?”

“He’s worried about Mr Bonaparte. He says that if Mr Bonaparte really has got the Barcoo sickness he should leave at once and see a doctor. He feels that he is in some way responsible for anyone working on his run, you see. Although Mr Bonaparte is not actually working for dad, he is on Karwir. It would be terrible if Mr Bonaparte became so weak and ill that he died in his lonely camp, wouldn’t it?”

“He won’t do that, I think, Miss Lacy. I go out and meet him every evening. He’s very keen to finalize his case, and from the way it’s going he mightn’t be long in doing that.”

“Well, let’s hope he does it soon and then seeks medical aid. I met him this morning. He looks really ill. He told me that his illness was not unlike the effects of being boned by the blacks. Surely he doesn’t thing the Kalchut blacks have boned him?”

“I wouldn’t put it past some of them,” Blake countered, cautiously. “Are you going to run in and see the wife? She’d be happy to make a pot of tea.”

“I know she would, and I will go in and ask her. I’m as thirsty as a cattle dog after a day’s work. Now you stay out here and keep your eyes open for escaping criminals. You wouldn’t be interested in our gossip.”

Blake smiled and opened the door for her, and then glanced at her flying feet as she ran into the police station. He stared down the dust-painted street and frowned. It would be awkward if Bonaparte did die out there on Karwir. There might be hell to pay over it.

In the living room the large Mrs Blake was fussing about her visitor.

“You go into the bedroom, Miss Lacy, and wash the dust off your face and hands. You know the way. I’ll make the tea. My, what a day!”

Diana hurried with her toilet, indeed grateful to Mrs Blake, but frantically hoping that Sergeant Blake would not come in and ruin the chance for a little gossip.

“How’s your father?” asked Mrs Blake when Diana joined her. “He’s a wonderful man for his age and all. Pity the country hasn’t more like him.”

“Oh, he’s quite well, thank you. Of course, he refuses to give up or even to think he’s getting old. He’s a little worried about Mr Bonaparte, though.”

“Yes, the Sergeant said Mr Bonaparte was poorly,” Mrs Blake remarked. “What a wonderful man he is to be sure. So polished, so unassuming.”

“They think a great deal of him down in Brisbane, don’t they?” suggested Diana, still frantically hoping that thistete-a-tete would not be interrupted.

“The Sergeant says that they think the sun shines out of his boots,” replied Mrs Blake. “How is your tea?”

“Lovely. I was so thirsty. It’s a beast of a day. Yes, that’s what dad says about Mr Bonaparte. That’s why he’s so worried, in a way. You see, if anything happened to Mr Bonaparte, if he became so ill and weak that he died out there in the bush, dad would feel himself partly to blame. They’d say, down in Brisbane, that he ought to have done something to make Mr Bonaparte give up.”

“Hm! They might do that, Miss Lacy. Still, Mr Bonaparte is not that ill, surely?”

“I met him this morning on the road. Stopped to talk to him for five minutes. He looks positively awful. He cannot keep any food down, he says. Well, you know, he can’t go on like that, can he?”

“No, that’s so,” agreed Mrs Blake, her brows drawn close in a frown.

“I think that Sergeant Blake ought to urge him to go away and receive medical attention. It’s none of my business, I know, but if anything happened to Mr Bonaparte they might blame Mr Blake for allowing him to go on when he’s so ill. I don’t know what to do. Neither does dad. Well, I must be going. I must hurry through my shopping and get home before the dust gets much worse. Thank you for the tea. It’s really kind of you. When are you going to make that husband of yours bring you to Karwir in the new car? You make him.”

Mrs Blake smiled. “He’s always too busy-so he says,” she answered, a little grimly.

She followed the girl out to the car, and Diana was thankful that the Sergeant was nowhere in sight. Having again urged Mrs Blake to make her husband take her out to Karwir, Diana set off on her shopping excursion, which, surprisingly, was very quickly completed.

When she left the town the bush on the Common was lashed by the dust-laden wind and the undersides of the blue-bushes were brilliant purple. Into the teeth of the hot wind she sent the machine, now less pestered by the dust that rose in a long slant behind it.

“An acorn becomes a giant tree in favourable circumstances,” she said aloud. “The little acorns I planted in the minds of Sergeant Blake and his wife might well grow to big trees. He’ll urge Bonaparte to give up the investigation and retire. She’ll urge her husband to write to headquarters about his illness, if he won’t give up. And headquarters will do something about it, for sure. And then John will be safe.”

She saw nothing of the brown mare and her rider on the drive back to Karwir, where she found it impossible to take her lunch with her brother on the south veranda. The dust compelled them to eat in the morning-room, and after lunch Young Lacy returned to his work in the office. Diana retired to her room, partly undressed and donned a dressing-gown before settling to write letters.

It was a little before four o’clock when she heard the car returning from outback. Two minutes later Young Lacy burst unceremoniously into her room. Calamity was written plainly on his boyish face.

“Bill the Better is home. The dad has come a cropper. Bill says he’s broken a leg. Went down the well and slipped.”