Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

Dreyton’s stony expression melted into a slight smile. He stood up and deliberately stretched.

“By no means,” he said. “Look at me! I am as tough as leather. I am as healthy, as fit as a Melbourne Cup winner. I see the sun rise every morning, and I can lie abed and look at the stars before going to sleep at night. I can read with profit, for I have the time and the peace to think of what I have read. I miss the tennis, of course, and the good food and the agreeable society, but, Mr. Borradale, I think I have gained more than I have lost.”

Dreyton looked all that he said he felt. Compared to him, Martin appeared dapper, and he was endowed generously with physical strength.

“Then, Donald, you won’t come back-permanently?”

The other fell to filling his pipe, and having lit it he sat down and said with slow impressiveness, “You know, Mr. Borradale you are being extremely decent to me. I was a-hungered and you gave me food-and all the rest of it. You make me feel an ungrateful dog, and so I would like to put you right on one point where you appear to be wrong. You seem to think that outside the office I forget I am the book-keeper. I don’t forget it. I don’t forget it for an instant. Neither do you or Miss Borradale, but you are both too splendid ever to let me see or feel it.

“You say I am a mystery. I cannot solve that mystery for you, but I will tell you this much. Whatyou have I once had. Seeing what you have poignantly reminds me of the estate from which I have been cast out. To people of that estate book-keepers are considered small if worthy fry. The wounds on my soul given it by my fall are still capable of being scarified by the salt of your affluence-if you will permit the crude simile.”

“I have suspected that,” Martin said softly. “It’shard luck, but I think you should not let it govern you.”

“I most certainly am not worrying about it, or whining about it, Mr. Borradale. I am explaining this now because I cannot be but constantly reminded of your exceptional kindness. It is something like this with me. Alone, with my camels for companions, I can feel a true man. On that fence, when renewing rotten ground-netting, when cutting posts, when tracking my camels, I can forget the past and live the present, be my own master and crave for nothing I haven’t got. When in close association with Miss Borradale and yourself I cannot forget or cease to be envious of you. And that doesn’t do, as you will agree. I am happy to be able to repay in small measure by undertaking this office work when you are in need of a book-keeper.”

The ghost of a scowl which had been growing on Martin’s face abruptly vanished.

“I am glad we have been candid,” he said, rising. “What must be cannot be helped. Stella and I both like you immensely, and you have only to hint you are tired of the fence life and the book-keeper’s billet is yours. Perhaps in time you might be able to change your mind. However, let’s pass to something else. Westall’s cousin has come up from Melbourne for a holiday, and we have invited him and Westall over for the week-end. We should have some really fast tennis.”

“Good! You will have to practise that backhand of yours. As for me-well, I have become a perfect dud.”

“Oh, rot, Donald. Hop into your things and come along for a singles. I’ll be waiting for you. By the way, I consented to let Joe Fisher borrow the weather records. He has some idea of being able to foretell droughts and good years by a study of them.”

Dreyton was locking the books away in the safe when, a few minutes later, Bony entered.

“Good evening, Mr. Dreyton,” he said, being careful to address the book-keeper, not the fence-rider.

“Hullo, Joe! What can I do for you?”

Blue-grey eyes encountered deep blue eyes across the book-keeper’s writing table.

“I have called for the weather records Mr. Borradale said I could have to study,” replied Bony.

“Here they are. I am, however, to point out their value and to ask you to be sure to return them intact.”

“Mr. Borradale can depend on me,” Bony said with assurance, although he was positive that Borradale had never thought to be so particular.

Dreyton was now openly looking at the clock, but the detective pretended to be dense.

“One is able to foretell with reasonable certainty a dry season or a big rain by observing the ants and the birds, especially the parrot genus,” he went on. “I have noted a singular thing about the galahs in this district. Although they have nested with unfailing regularity along Thunder Creek, from Catfish Hole down to the river, along Nogga Creek, they have not nested for at least four years.”

Not a muscle of Dreyton’s face betrayed his quick interest.

“Indeed!” he said carelessly, and Bony felt the national reserve of the Englishman fall like a cloak about the book-keeper. “What would account for that, do you think?”

“Ah… it is hard to be positive, Mr. Dreyton. It is so interesting that I would really like to be sure. Galahs, like many other birds, use the same nesting-holes every year, and one cause which may determine their abandonment of their nest-holes would be the systematic robbing of their nests of eggs and young birds.-Doyou collect birds’ eggs?”

Dreyton laughed, genuinely amused.

“Of course not.”

“Or obtain young galahs to send to friends in the city?”

“Again, of course not.”

“That being so, I was wondering-pardonmy unmannerly curiosity-why you climbed one of the Nogga Creek trees that afternoon we met on the boundary-fence.”

“How do you know that I climbed that tree?” Dreytonasked, a degree too quickly.

“Your tracks shouted the fact as I was passing on my way back from work. They even told me that you exercised the greatest caution not to permit Mrs. Nelson observing you through her glasses from the hotel balcony.”

It was as though Dreyton held his breath whilst Bony spoke. It was the barely audible sigh and not his eyes which betrayed mental strain.

“You’re a strange fellow, Joe,” he said slowly, but with steel in his voice. “As a matter of fact, I thought I saw something unusual up in that tree. It was nothing, after all. A piece of newspaper.”

“Something which had attracted the crows,” Bony suggested.

“Er-yes. They were kicking up quite a din as I neared the tree, and they flew away when I came under it. Now be off, there’s a good fellow. I’m due at the tennis court, and I am late already.”

“A piece of newspaper!”Bonyechoed, a note of disappointment in his voice. “I was hoping you would say that you found a piece of grey flannel cloth caught in the ends of a broken sapling.”

That brought the temporary book-keeper close to the half-caste, to glare down into the blue eyes from a superior height.

“Just what do you mean?” he asked, and for an instant he looked ugly.

“Mean? Why, what can I mean?”

“What the deuce have my actions to do with you? Are you trying to blackmail me?”

“No, most decidedly not,” Bony replied calmly. “I suffer one vice, a curious mind-or should I say a mind enslaved by curiosity? You know, your discovery in that tree is very interesting, Mr. Dreyton. I wonder how that piece of grey flannel-dark-grey, I think it was-came to be impaled by a broken sapling situated at least thirty feet above ground. From the trousers of a bird-nester, I suppose. Probably he accounted for the galahs not nesting about there.”

“There’s no doubt about that,” Dreyton said with forced carelessness. “Now do go away, Joe. I have to change for tennis.”

“Ah… of course. I am sorry I have detained you,” murmured Bony. “I suppose… I suppose you would not consent to show me that piece of flannel cloth?”