Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“You think, then, that Simone arrested the wrong man?”

“Yes, I am sure he has.”

“How will Elson get on?”

“He will be charged and probably remanded. I feel confident, however, that the Crown Prosecutor will not be satisfied with the evidence set before him by Simone, and that Elson will be released.”

“I hope so, Bony. The lad was all right, you know. He was a bit wild with the girls and all that, but he’s not vicious.”

“I think with you. I would not be surprised if the Strangler turns out to be a stranger to everyone here. It is quite an interesting case.”

“I wish you luck with it. I may take a run out to the camp in a day or so. Dogger Smith will take a peg or two out of young Harry’s ladder. The young blighter is afraid of nothing. I expressly told him not to ride Black Diamond, and, as you are aware, he rode the brute to Carie to see his girl. He has let me see he would like to be promoted to the boss stockman’s place and live in the married people’s cottage, with Tilly for his wife. Because I would like to promote him and see him married to Tilly, I have decided to teach him a lesson. The young rip is a born horseman and a good sheep-man, and he looks on manual work as terribly degrading.”

They laughed together.

“It will probably do him a great deal of good,” said the delighted Bony.

“I think it will. He has many excellent qualities. Please do not mention to him what I hope to do for him. Ah, here is my sister on the veranda. She wishes to speak to you, I think. I’ll go back and finish the orders.”

Martin nodded, leaving Bony at the wicket gate to pass through to the garden and so to the veranda, where Stella waited, cool and charming.

“How are you getting on with the investigation?” she asked.

“Slowly but surely, Miss Borradale,” Bony replied. “There are many little matters I have to straighten out.”

Her warm hazel eyes became swiftly serious.

“I am not going to be dangerous this morning,” Bony gravely told her, whereupon she laughed deliciously and her eyes told him he should dare to try. “I am going with Harry West to work at repairing a fence, and I shall be away for several days. Would you grant me a favour?”

“If it is not impossible, certainly.”

“It is this. While having no intention to alarm you, or to be melodramatic, I would urge you not to leave the house at night without escort, not even to step into the garden. And in future, after a day of wind and dust, keep your bedroom window and door locked, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. And, too, instruct the cook and the maids to do likewise.”

“Surely there is no danger to us in the house, is there?” she asked, her face now drawn and revealing the horror which had been in her heart for many a long month.

“The reason why my namesake, the Great Napoleon, won so many battles, Miss Borradale, was because he took every possible precaution against defeat. It is during the night following a day of high wind and dense dust that every man, woman and child in and south of Carie is in grave danger. All that I ask is that all sensible precautions be takenspecially throughout such a night.”

Stella expelled her breath in a slow sigh.

“Very well,” she assented.

“Thank you. Within a week or two I shall have removed the danger for all time.”

“Then you suspect someone?”

“Alas! I suspect ten people,” he replied. “One of the ten is my man. Have no uneasiness. I shall get him in the end. I have never yet failed to finalize a case.”

“Never failed?”

“No, never. As Colonel Spendor says, and says truly: I am a damned poor policeman but a damned good detective. Permit me to leave you. I must roll my swag and assist Harry West to load the truck.”

When she bowed her head slightly in assent, he bowed to her and wished heraurevoir. Watching him walk to the gate, she felt like crying after him mockingly. Then she remembered the expression in his blue eyes and turned to enter the house for breakfast. Had he been dressed in evening clothes and with a jewelled turban on his head he would have been the living likeness of her idea of an Indian prince-polite, assured, dignified.

By the time the truck was loaded with rolls of wire, shovels and crowbars, rations and a tent and swags and a round iron tank, it was nearing noonday. Hence it was after one o’clock when Bony and Harry West and Harry’s five sheepdogs left Wirragatta for the scene of their coming labours.

Two miles below the homestead the outback track crossed the now empty river over a roughly built but stout bridge, and thereafter the road ran southward for several miles before bearing again to the west. During the first half-hour Harry maintained a grim silence. There was no cabin to the truck and one of the dogs stood with its jaws resting on Harry’s shoulder, another crouched against Bony, while the remaining three rode the load. All enjoyed the speed.

“Make us a smoke,” requested Harry dismally. He handled the truck as though it were his greatest enemy.

“Certainly, my dear Harry,” consented Bony, rolling him a cigarette.“Why are you so depressed this calm and warm afternoon?”

“Depressed!” snorted the youthful outlaw-rider. “Stiffen the crows! What bloke wouldn’t be depressed at coming down to a fence lizard? Which ends of them shovels do you use to dig with, any’ow? Fencin ’! Come down tofencin ’ and you want to know why a bloke’s depressed.”

With one hand working the steering-wheel, Harry struck a match and lit the rolled cigarette. The track wound sharply across a wild range of sand-drifts, and the detective regarded the slim, brown hand clutching the wheel with some misgiving as the speedometer was registering forty miles an hour. The cigarette alight, Harry reinforced his right hand with his left and savagely pressed down on the accelerator.

“I reckon I done me dash for that married cottage,” he moaned. “Last year a bloke done some crook work, and the boss set him scrubbing the house verandas. You see, the boss don’t ever sack a man. If he wants to get rid of him, he sets him to work such as scrubbing floors, knowing that no bloke will stand that for long before he asks for his cheque. I got a good reason to ask for mine, too, ’costhis fencing to a horseman is just as crook as scrubbing floors is to a fencer.”

“You must swallow your pride, Harry,” Bony said softly. “You listen to one who is possessed of much worldly wisdom. We should always mould our conduct on the examples set by the great men in history. Er -Nelson, Napoleon, Marlborough and others learnt in their youth how to obey. Having learnt how to obey, they were fitted to demand obedience. There arrived a point in the lives of all great men when they could and did put telescopes to their blind eyes and otherwise intimate to their superiors that they could-er-retire to the equator. The secret of success, Harry, is to know just when you can tell a superior to retire to the equator without resultant disadvantage to oneself.”

“I didn’t exactly tell the boss to go to hell, Joe. Some fool went and let theridin ’ hacks outer the yard when I wanted one to ride to Carie. Black Diamond was in a yard by himself and they hadn’t the guts to let him out. Any’ow, I can ride that cow on me nose.”

“I don’t doubt that, Harry. The circumstances, I admit, were annoying, and the business urgent. The boss said not to ride Black Diamond. You said ‘Iwill ride Black Diamond.’ Inexperience permitted you to disobey the boss when you expect advancement. Impulse blinded you to the obvious way of disobeying without subsequent unpleasant result. Now, Black Diamond is black all over. If you had thought at all, you would have stolen some white paint and given him a forehead blaze and white hocks. Then no one in Carie would have recognized him.”