Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“Ah-probably I would,” agreed the policeman.

“I think we have been wasting time among the dunes.”

“Then Anderson must lie out on that flat, soft ground bordering the depression.”

“Yes, he must,” Bony said. “And yet- Try to see yourself standing somewhere near here, with the body at your feet, and the problem of its disposal hammering at your brain. You have been riding all day and you have no digging tools with you. All you have is your hands and the ends of sticks with which to make a hole.”

“Why are you so sure that Anderson was buried here and not taken a good way away?” pressed Blake, as though he wanted time to conceive himself faced by such a dilemma.

“Because the men who killed him would know what every bushman knows-that no matter where a man may be, no matter how far he may be from human habitation, when in the bush he can never know when he will be met by someone. No, Anderson’s killers wasted no time in burying him, and ran as little risk as was possible. Here they could see to a great distance on all sides; and since there were more than one, one could watch from the summit of a dune while the other dug the grave.”

“Could they have ridden across to the Green Swamp hut and got a shovel or even a crowbar?” inquired Blake.

He did not see the faded blue eyes flash into momentary brilliance. When he did look at Bony, the dark lids hid the blue eyes.

“One could have ridden over to the hut and brought back a shovel and even a crowbar,” Bony answered. “That seems unnecessary, though.”

“Yes, I suppose so, when there’s so much soft ground available. How are you feeling now?”

“A little better but I do not feel able to do any work. This afternoon we’ll just sit and talk, if you will be good enough to keep me company for an hour or two.”

About the time that Sergeant Blake left Bony’s camp, Diana Lacy and John Gordon met some two miles westward of the bloodwood-tree on the Karwir boundary. Not since that day Bony arrived at Karwir had these two met, and this meeting had been delayed by Old Lacy’s accident, which had vastly added to the girl’s household tasks. Her increasing alarm at the reports of Bonaparte’s health had at last dictated an appointment arranged through a discreet person in Opal Town.

“Oh, John I’ve got so much to tell you and so little time to do it in, as I must be home by five o’clock,” Diana cried. “Let me go and please let me talk.”

“Very well,” reluctantly assented her lover. “Let’s sit on that tree trunk over there in the shade. I’ve been wondering about you, aching for your kisses. Afterwards, I guessed why you didn’t turn up the day following your visit to Meena, but it was a fearful disappointment.”

In the tree shadow they sat, John’s arm about Diana’s slim waist, her head resting against his shoulder, his lips caressing her dark hair. She told of Bony’s discovery of the piece of green cable silk, of the hair found on the tree trunk, the hair that had not come from the head of Jeffery Anderson. Then she told of her meeting with Bony after her last visit to Meena.

“I gave the feather-filled mattress to Jimmy Partner,” Gordon admitted. “I had to know what this detective was doing, and there were no birds on the lake to provide feathers for the blacks’ feet. They should have burned the case. I suppose they didn’t trouble even to obliterate the camp.”

“Yes, that might be so, dear, but don’t you see, the Inspector found no one at home when he visited Meena. He went inside to place the mattress case on the end of the dresser. I’m sure he went into your room and took some of your hair from your brushes. That’s what he went there for. I could see that he suspected you when the microscope proved that the hair he had taken from the tree wasn’t Anderson’s. He must know by now that it wasn’t Anderson but you who was tied to the tree that day.”

“We know that Bonaparte found the piece of cable silk,” Gordon said calmly, so calmly that Diana twisted her body in order to look at him. “After he got the dogs, the blacks were forced to keep well wide of him, but we know that he found marks on the tree trunk that interested him enormously. It doesn’t really matter what he finds and what he learns so long as he doesn’t find the body, and he won’t find that.”

“But, dear-”

“Supposing he has found sufficient on which to reconstruct the affair, what can he prove from what he has found? Nothing of any importance. He can’t prove that Anderson is dead. We know that he has been walking about all over the place, digging into the base of sand-dunes, and that sometimes Sergeant Blake has been helping him. He knows he can’t do anything until he finds the body, and, as I have just said, he’ll never do that.”

A silence fell between them for a little while. Then the girl sighed and said:

“I wish I were not so worried about it.”

“I’m not greatly worried about it, sweetheart,” Gordon told her. “I’m worried only about the possibility of Bonaparte putting in a confidential report that may affect the Kalchut in a roundabout manner. Neither mother nor I want to see official interference with them. That would mean their swift de-tribalizationand inevitable extinction. No matter how kindly officialdom might deal with them, once they are interfered with it is the beginning of the end.”

“But the time must come when-”

“Yes, dear, that too is inevitable, but weGordons are going to delay the inevitable as long as possible. This Anderson business is going to make matters doubly hard for us. In death, Anderson will do the Kalchut more harm than he did when alive.”

“And you feel really sure the Inspector won’t find him?” pressed Diana.

“Quite sure.”

Again they fell silent, and again the girl broke the silence.

“Well, the Inspector can’t last much longer. He’ll have to go away soon.”

“Go away soon. What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know he’s very sick?”

“No.”

“You don’t? Didn’t the blacks who have been watching him tell you?”

“No.”

“That’s strange, dear. The Inspector has been frightfully ill with the Barcoo sickness. Sergeant Blake says he’s so ill that he can hardly walk at all. Are you sure you don’t know anything about it?”

“I’ve said so. The blacks never mentioned it to me. They would have known. How long has he been ill?”

Violet eyes searched deeply the hazel eyes regarding her beneath puzzled brows. Gordon saw in the violet eyes a dawning horror, and then he was listening to her account of Bony’s attack of the Barcoo sickness, of Bony’s reference to the likeness of his symptoms to those suffered by the victim of the pointed bone, of her father’s conviction that Bony had been boned. And while she recited all this her heart was lightened of its load of suspicion that her lover had induced the boning, for in his eyes horror and anger swiftly blazed.

“The blacks did bone him,” she cried, just a little shrilly. “That’s why they didn’t tell you he was so ill. Oh, John, and I’ve been thinking you might have got them to do it to drive the Inspector away from Karwir.”

“Of course I didn’t. If they have boned the detective they did it off their own bat, knowing quite well I wouldn’t stand for it.” Gordon pursed his lips, worry now settled upon him in earnest. “D’youthink Bonaparte knows he’s been boned?”

“Yes, John, I do. I-I think he’s the bravest man I’ve ever met. He’d sooner die than give up. Oh, I’ve done what I could to get him away, indirectly, of course. I suggested to Mrs Blake and her husband that the Sergeant should report Bonaparte’s illness to his headquarters, and I’ve persuaded dad to write down to Brisbane about it.”