Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“The shock to her mind must have been indeed terrible. Has she been able to describe her assailant?”

“No. She didn’t see the blackguard. He came up behind her. He joined his fingers across her throat and pressed the balls of his thumbs into the back of her neck. I tell you it’s damnable. Here am I paying taxes-here we all are paying taxes on everything we eat and drink and put on our weary backs in order to support a lot of useless world-touring politicians who won’t give us real detectives to bring a common garrotter to book. We bush folk are no one’s concern, and when we want policemen with brains they send us Sergeant Simone. Oh, a great man is Sergeant Simone. He’ll look at you and swear you are the murderer just because he doesn’t like the way you part your hair. Tish ! He can rant and rave and threaten and look wise, but he’s got a brain no bigger than a rabbit’s. He tells me he can play chess, and when I invite him to my board he-The man’s an ass.”

“So you play chess, doctor?”

“Of course I play it. If I had my way I’d make every policemanplay chess for six solid months, with time off only to eat and sleep. Then we would have real detectives sent us when we need ’em. I suppose you don’t play?”

“Yes, I play a medium game.”

“Ah! So you play, eh?”

Again the cheeks were fully distended. Then the irate manner slowly waned, vanished, was replaced by one of hail-fellow-well-met.

“If that is so, I hope to have the pleasure of your visit to my house. You will find me at home nearly any night. And, sir, at your service. Might I expect you tonight?”

“You are exceedingly kind, doctor. I will be delighted,” Bony assented.

“No more delighted than I, but heaven help you if you cannot play better than that wretched Sergeant Simone, for then, should I ever get my hands on you professionally, I’ll make you wish you were never born. And don’t laugh. Men meet doctors as unexpectedly as they meet death. Good day to you, Joe. Come on, Jenny!”

Jenny opened her eyes and “came on”, leaving the smiling Bony gazing after her and her master and in his ears the dwindling command to “Come on, Jenny!”

From the hip-pocket of his drill trousers, Bony extracted the list of names provided by Constable Lee. He felt he was doing a rash thing, but he deliberately crossed off the name of Dr. Mulray.

Towards eleven o’clock he saw, glittering in the sunlight, a smart single-seater car speeding from Wirragatta along the creek to the boundary gate. He was too far distant to reach the gate in time to open it for the woman driver who was obliged to descend, open the gate, run the car through to the Broken Hill road, and then descend again to close it. The car was turned south, and after it had disappeared among the creek trees Bony decided that its driver was Stella Borradale. And then, when a few minutes later the hum of its engine ceased, he guessed that Stella was visiting theStorries.

He had taken his lunch and billy to the trees, there to obtain wood with which to boil the water he used from the canvas bag, when he heard the car returning. Thus it was that, again reaching the gate, Stella found Bony waiting and holding it open for her passage. Having driven the car through the gateway, Stellabraked it to a stop and waited for the detective, who presently appeared hatless beside her.

Waiting for her to speak first, he watched her eyes lose their expression of haughty good humour. Absolutely without snobbery as she was, Stella naturally was conscious of inherited superiority over this coloured man, but as her swift gaze moved about his well-chiselled features, finally to become levelled at his blue eyes which were regarding her respectfully she received a queer little shock.

Not till long afterwards did she recognize just what she was now seeing in the depths of his blue eyes. In that first moment of meeting Napoleon Bonaparte, she recognized a mind superior to that of any half-caste she ever had known. She was pleased to think that the new hand did not see the effect, and therefore did not know the cause of the shock. After all, was she not the part-owner of a principality, and was he not a half-caste station-hand?

“Are you Joseph Fisher?”

“Yes, madam, I am he. I regret that I was too distant to open the gate when you came from the homestead.”

Without looking away from him, Stella groped about the seat of the car, found her vanity bag and took from it her cigarette-case.

“Where do you come from?” she asked while her fingers blindly removed a cigarette from the case. The question was one she felt she had a right to ask, but immediately she had put it she felt it to bean impertinence, and no longer could she encounter Bony’s eyes. She was becoming angry with herself, not at having asked the question of a half-caste, but for asking it of this man whose clear blue eyes regarded her so gravely. With a quick movement, she thrust the cigarette between her lips-and then found a burning match held in service.

“I am a native of Queensland,” stated Bony, now smiling. “At the beginning of things for me I was found beside my dead mother in the shade cast by a sandalwood-tree. I was taken to a mission station where I was reared by the matron-the finest woman who ever lived.”

Stella now was looking at Bony with a singular expression, an expression which at once troubled him because he could not define its cause.

“You speak well,” she told him. “You must have received a fair education.”

“Yes. I worked my way up through-Yes, I had quite a good education.”

“Indeed! And your name is Joseph Fisher?”

Bony bowed the lie. And then Stella Borradale laughed.

“But why have you come all this way to work? This is a long way from, say Banyo, which I am told is on the railway between Brisbane and Sandgate?”

She saw now the blue eyes blink, and at once was assured of his identity.

“Banyo!” he repeated. “Did you say Banyo, Miss Borradale?”

“I did. You know, Joe, I don’t like your alias at all. It is not nearlyso nice as your real name, Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte.”

Defeated, found out, Bony chuckled.

“The victory is to you, Miss Borradale,” he said quickly. “Now please tell me how you guessed.”

“By putting two under two and adding them. My brother has long been expecting a mysterious visitor. Then you arrived. Then he and Constable Lee and you held long conference in the study. Those two points make number two. When you said you came from Brisbane and mentioned the sandalwood-tree and the matron of the mission, you gave me the second number two. When I added them up to make four I at once recalled what my dear friend, Mrs Trench, of Windee, told me about Detective-Inspector Bonaparte.* I should have known you were no ordinary bush worker three seconds after I saw you just now. Being so facile at inductive reasoning, I’m sure I must be right in saying that you are here to investigate two horrible murders and a very near-murder.” * The story is told inThe Sands of Windee.

“Now that you know, may I depend on your co-operation?”

“Most certainly. Anything I can do I will do gladly.”

“The only people who know my real name and vocation are your brother and Lee. I chose to adopt an alias and work as a station-hand through no urge to be melodramatic. My task is to find a monster hidden among a community of normal people, and as a station-hand success will be less difficult to attain. It is really essential that no one other than your brother and the constable, and now you, should know me for a detective.”

“I will not so much as breathe it,” Stella affirmed earnestly.

“To no one?”

“To no one. You may depend on me. Having heard such wonderful stories of you from Mrs. Trench and Dash Trench, the gloom cast by this strangling beast seems already lighter. Do you think you will find him?”