Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“Whether or not Anderson had time to make another cast I am unable to determine, but Jimmy Partner now rushed him. We all know that Jimmy Partner is superlatively strong and an expert wrestler. It was comparatively easy for him to master Anderson, and during the struggle John Gordon shouted to him not to kill Anderson. He knew what many of us know, that once an aboriginal is thoroughly aroused he is a terrible person. Having Anderson at his mercy, Jimmy Partner recalled the treatment of Inky Boy, and a lubra, and the treatment about to be meted out to a man dear to him and to his people. It is not surprising that he killed Anderson with his hands.

“Leaving the dead man, he ran to the tree and released John Gordon. I am inclined to assume that during his struggle with Anderson one of Jimmy Partner’s hands was wounded and bleeding, and that when he was releasing Gordon, blood from the wound stained the neck-rope.”

“That’s quite right,” interrupted Gordon. “In fact, so far you are remarkably accurate.”

“Good!” Bony said, with great satisfaction. “But to proceed. John Gordon was a quick thinker and clever. He realized that other than Jimmy Partner and himself, who were directly concerned in the tragedy, there were no witnesses whose evidence would prove justifiable homicide, and that inevitably the law would arraign Jimmy Partner for murder, and, probably, himself as accessory. The effect of the tragedy, however, would reach out far beyond himself and Jimmy Partner. Miss Lacy would be brought into it. Anderson’s history would become public property, and the affair with the lubra, and that with Inky Boy, would be broadcast. There would be an outcry because those affairs had been hushed up, and the Kalchut tribe would be drawn into the limelight.

“We know that three generations ofGordons have followed a splendid idea, which is to preserve one aboriginal tribe from the evil shadow of civilization as long as is possible. We know that three generations ofGordons have, by wise overseership, maintained the Kalchut tribe in its original state. TheGordons have encouraged the Kalchut people to maintain their rites and customs; they have frowned on anything tending to destroy the practice of those rites and customs. They have shielded the Kalchut tribe from Government officials and from missionaries, in fact from every kind of white and yellow men. And so this people has remained happy and healthy, while neighbouring tribes have become debased and wretched. That the shadow of civilization will eventually fall on the Kalchut tribe we are agreed; but its blighting effect can be deferred as long as is humanly possible.

“And so, with the dead body of Anderson lying at his feet, John Gordon clearly saw the threat to the ideal handed down to him by his father. He realized that this man, who when alive had delighted in sadistic cruelty, would in death thrust the shadow of civilization upon the Kalchut aborigines and thus hasten their de-tribalizationand ruin. Public bodies would demand what is called ‘official protection,’ and religious bodies would demand a different kind of interference that would have the same fatal result. I concur earnestly and without reservation in the decision made by John Gordon, the decision to hide the corpse so that the disappearance of Jeffery Anderson might not be associated in any way with the Kalchut tribe.

“As I have said, fortunately for many, John Gordon was a clear and a quick thinker. He and Jimmy Partner had with them no digging tools, but they knew that at Green Swamp hut there were shovels and a crowbar, and that no stockman was living there. Gordon sent Jimmy Partner on The Black Emperor to fetch the crowbar and a shovel, and while Jimmy Partner was away he selected the site of the grave. He is to be complimented on his choice.

“He decided to bury the body beneath one of the ribbons ofclaypans skirting the dunes. Already water was collecting on thoseclaypans, and, selecting one but a few yards distant from the solitary mulga-tree, Gordon dammed back the water gathered in the pan above it. When Jimmy Partner brought the tools, he, being the stronger of the two, used the crowbar to crack the surface of the claypan as though it were a sheet of thick ice. The cement-hard surface blocks thus created were carefully removed. Then the grave was carefully excavated, the soil being shovelled out and on to the claypan lower down the slope. Into the grave were placed the body, the stockwhip, the neck-rope and the dead man’s hat. The removed earth was then solidly packed about and over the body until the grave was filled to the proper level to take the surface material. Like the pieces of jig-saw puzzle the blocks were fitted together over the grave, like tiles laid and fitted on a cement hearth bed. The interstices were filled in with water-softened clay, human fingers doing this work. Finally the water from the claypan higher up was released, to flow into that beneath which was the grave, and so to the one below whereon was still the residue of excavated earth, which was carried away on to the flat, porous land.

“The rain eventually filled all thoseclaypans, but in due time the water was evaporated by the sun’s heat and the wind, and during the last stages of evaporation the cement-like clay of the pan beneath which Anderson was buried settled into its natural level and became so hard that the wheels of a ten-ton truck would have made no indentations. It remained only for me to see the infinitesimal abnormality in the surface of that particular claypan, and I would not have seen it had I not known for what to look. Is my reconstruction correct?”

Gordon nodded. Diana continued to stare down into the little fire.

“By the time Jimmy Partner came back from returning the tools to Green Swamp hut it was early evening,” Bony went on. “The Black Emperor was let loose, the end of his reins being permitted to trail upon the ground, and we know that several hours afterwards he reached the homestead gate.

“On the way home, John Gordon instructed Jimmy Partner to inform Chief Nero of all that had happened. The tribe was to go on walkabout being the tale that a lubra at Deep Well was dying. Jimmy Partner was to accompany the tribe. The aboriginal attached to the police at Opal Town was to be recalled, the method of communication with him being the age-old one of telepathy. Abie at once obeyed the summons, and so when the police were called in to investigate the disappearance there was not one black tracker available for several days. When they were employed, they had been carefully instructed.

“I am not going to weary you by detailing how I found where you two met that day I arrived, and how I found that traces of the meeting had been removed. That was a secret you wanted to keep from me, not knowing that Napoleon Bonaparte has a soft spot in his heart for lovers. I haven’t time to explain how I learned that I was being tracked and watched by men whose feet were covered with feathers, or how I came to suspect that you, Miss Lacy, knew something concerning Anderson’s disappearance and were opposed to me, fearing for your lover. In my inner heart I never believed that you, John, instigated the blacks’ boning of me, and I am delighted that you did not and that you stopped it when you learned of it.

“However, your stopping of the bone-pointing resulted quickly in my completing this investigation, for immediately my mind was freed of the terror created in it by those other minds, I reasoned that only theclaypans had not been examined, that one of them would provide a perfect grave, and that over at Green Swamp hut was the ideal tool ready for use. I regret that you will have to replace the battery jars in the instrument at Pine Hut, smashed by my order to interfere with Miss Lacy’s communication with you.”

Bony now produced from his pocket-book six envelopes. That addressed to Old Lacy he put down on the ground beside him. The remaining five he held as though they were playing cards, saying: