Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

So Colonel Spendor hadn’t deserted him because he dared to disobey orders! The all-powerful Superintendent Browne himself had come to Karwir to ascertain why he, Bony, had not reported for duty. They must want him badly down in Brisbane, for the Super to have come in Loveacre’s aeroplane.

They watched Young Lacy shake hands with Captain Loveacre and Superintendent Browne. They saw Young Lacy point to them, and then they watched the three men advance, Loveacre slightly in the lead. He had donned a straw panama, and now he was raising it to Diana although he continued to gaze at Bony.

“Good day, young feller-me-lad!” he cried to Bony before he could hold out his hand to grasp the one immediately offered. “Every time I happen to meet youyou manage to stage some kind of a wonder. Last time it was a flood of water and now it’s a flood of animals. And birds! I had to make a detour east, to prevent smashing a propeller. You are looking peaked.”

Bony smiled and the birdman was shocked.

“I have been indisposed, Captain. Allow me to present you to Miss Lacy.”

“Happy to meet Eric’s sister, Miss Lacy. Does Karwir often put on a show like this?”

“Only for Mr Bonaparte’s entertainment, Captain Loveacre,” the girl replied, laughing.

“Now, Miss Lacy, meet Superintendent Browne, my brother-in-law, who is having a flying holiday,” interposed Sergeant Blake.

Bony’s eyes went cold. He was, after all, not so important to the Criminal Investigation Branch. A flying holiday it was, not a special mission to plead with him to return to duty, the Commissioner giving him another chance.

Gruff and hearty, Browne acknowledged the introduction, nodded to Bony a little too casually, and then the party turned to watch the drama being played beyond the fence. And Bony was smiling, for he had recalled that Browne’s salary would not meet the expense of such a holiday and, moreover, that Browne was known to be a careful man married to a still more careful woman. He remembered his self-imposed task of acting camp cook, and, without a sign, he walked slowly and still falteringly across to the temporary camp where he filled the tea billies and set them on the fire. He was seated on Gordon’s tucker box waiting for the water to boil, when Browne detached himself from the group at the fence and came across on his tracks.

“Well, how’s things, Bony? Heard you were very ill.”

“I have been so, but I am round the corner and on the road to recovery. Why have you come?”

“That being a straight question, I’ll give a straight answer. The Old Man sent me.”

The large man, dressed in tussore silk, seated himself on the ground and rested his back against a tree up which ants were running. He began to fill a pipe. Bony smiled, wondering how long the ants would permit the Superintendent ease.

“Why did Colonel Spendor send you for me?”

“He reckons you would be of greater service to the Branch alive than here at Karwir under the ground. From information received we learned that you were desperately ill, that you were being boned by the local blacks, and the Old Man sent me to take you back. You coming quietly?”

The question was absurd. Browne weighed sixteen stone of bone and muscle, Bony weighed in the vicinity of eight stone and could not have resisted a child of twelve.

“And your informant-who was it?”

“In police practice the informant’s name is never divulged, as you well know,” Browne remarked casually. “When the Old Man heard about you he showed that he has a soft spot for you in his heart. If the Chief Sec objects to the expense of this plane trip the Old Man will be paying for it.” Browne knew how to deal with Mr Napoleon Bonaparte. “It’s going to be a wicked day for the Force when Colonel Spendor retires, Bony, and you and I will be losing a good friend.”

“I concur in that,” murmured Bony.

“Good! I didn’t doubt that you would. Now you pack up right now and we’ll start back. Loveacre says we can camp the night at Opal Town, using the Karwir private ’drome. You let up on this disappearance case. Not finishing it can’t be held against you. Then we’ll talk to the Old Man who will, I think, reinstate you without loss of pay.”

“You think he will?” asked Bony, his eyes shining.

“Sure to. Can’t do without you. Knows you’re a tiger once you begin an investigation, knows you haven’t any more respect for authority than a crow, but in his big heart he thinks a lot of you.”

Bony sighed. He was quite serious when he said:

“Very well. I’ll relinquish this investigation. You see. I am a sick man, and it is most difficult to work longer on it. I should like to write a line of thanks to Old Lacy for his great kindness to me. Have you writing materials?”

“Yes, on the plane.”

“And I have a few words to say to Miss Lacy and to Mr Gordon. After that we might wait here while Mr Gordon or Young Lacy goes to the homestead for my things. It is only twelve miles away and it will not take long. I shall be glad to leave Karwir.”

“D’youthink you were really boned by the blacks?” asked Browne, his grey eyes small.

“Oh, yes. But you will do nothing about it. The blacks have made me well by un-boning me. Their medicine man has done me a very great deal of good and I am infinitely better than I was yesterday morning. Now you get me the writing materials while I make the tea.”

From this task Bony looked up to observe the broad back of the Superintendent walking towards the big machine. He smiled, for there were several ants on that broad back. A minute or two later he beat an empty water tin with a stick, attracting the attention of Captain Loveacre and Diana, and the party working at the fence corner. When they had all come into the shade for afternoon tea he was busy writing his letter to Old Lacy. It ran:

Dear Mr Lacy-The Chief Commissioner has chartered an aeroplane and sent my superior officer to take me back to Brisbane. I should much like to have paid another visit to Karwir and thanked you in person for the great kindness you have shown me during this investigation into the disappearance of Jeffery Anderson. I owe more to you than you may appreciate, and I am happy to say that the Kalchut medicine man visited me yesterday and to-day and has begun to send me along the road to full health and strength.

Miss Lacy will inform you of the details of my investigation which will, I think, completely satisfy you as to the fate of Jeffery Anderson and the reasons why I intend taking no action against any persons. Anderson’s fate and the manner of it is better forgotten, and in this I am sure you will agree.

I have the honour to announce to you the engagement of your daughter to Mr John Gordon.

I am confident that you will be overjoyed by this announcement, for Gordon is a splendid young man and they are very much in love. I look forward to receiving notice of the wedding, when it is arranged, and to adding a piece of cake to my treasured collection of wedding cake. We are both getting old, and it is good for us to be sentimental sometimes.

And so, good-bye, or it may beaurevoir.

I have, indeed, the honour to be,

Most sincerely yours,

Napoleon Bonaparte, D.-I., C.J. B.

P.S.-I was nearly forgetting. During the course of the investigation, I learned that Jeffery Anderson was your son by a woman named Kate O’Malley. It puzzled me why you kept him at Karwir, why you treated him as you did. It was strange that his mother’s love for the Irish national colour was shown by your son in his choice of cable silk for his whip crackers. It is a sad chapter better closed. Remind Miss Lacy to send me a piece of the cake, won’t you? Hope you will be up and about long before the cake is cut.