Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

Looking after his retreating figure, Stella Borradale permitted herself to blush. Only by exerting tremendous effort had she delayed it so long.

Once out of the garden, Bony sauntered up-river, humming a lilting tune. He was feeling elated as he always did when having spent time in the company of a good woman, and one whom he could completely blind to the facts of his ancestry. That was balm to his stupendous vanity. To make a white man or woman forget his social status and the stain of his skin was always to him a wonderful triumph. It was the eternal eagerness to be regarded with equality which had produced in him the exception of the rule that all who have the aborigines’ blood in their veins must in the end go back to the life and conditions of the bush nomads.

The hot sun was westering, but the birds as yet remained quiescent in the branches of the slumbering river trees. By walking along the dry bed of the river, Bony managed to pass the men’s quarters without being observed, and, after he skirted Junction Waterhole, he walked up Nogga Creek over its dry, shingle bed. Now, however, he maintained a wary watch of the tree-branches beneath which he was obliged to pass. These rows of bordering trees were to him like old friends, despite the being who used them at night. Every one he knew intimately: every one knew the secret he was so persistently teasing from them.

Coming to the boundary-fence and the Broken Hill road, he paused long enough to be sure that no chance traveller was approaching. Satisfied on that score, he jumped the fence and slipped across the road, and from this point he flitted from tree to tree until he was behind that one nearest the prospector’s camp.

Beyond the tent stood an old half-ton truck and beside it a much-repaired shaker. The man was washing sand at the edge of Catfish Hole, and the woman was tending meat grilling on the fire coals. She was slim and of medium height. On her feet were snakeskin shoes. On her shapely legs were silk stockings. Her skirt was of white duck and her blouse of white muslin. A mop of fair, short hair was the only untidy thing about her.

Bony stepped from the tree and gravely bowed.

“Good afternoon, madam,” he said.

Uttering a sharp exclamation, the woman sprang up and about to face him.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh! Hullo, Mr. Bonaparte!”

Bony smiled and bowed again, saying:

“You make quite an attractive woman.”

“Do I? I hope so. I am trying to be as attractive as possible.”

“Good! I see your husband approaching. You must introduce me.”

The man walking swiftly to them was grey of hair and moustache. His shoulders were broad-very broad-and his hips were narrow-very narrow.

“Bill, this is Mr. Bonaparte,” said the woman.

The granite-hard expression on the prospector’s face relaxed.

“Pleased to meet you, inspector,” he said in deep bass tones. “I was hoping you would come along.”

“I would have come earlier, but there was no real necessity. What is your name and rank?”

“Smithson, sir. William Smithson, sergeant.”

“Champion boxer and champion wrestler in the New South Wales Police Force,” added the woman.

“Not now,” corrected the sergeant. “Still, I can take care of mostof ’em. Satisfied with Elson’s get-up, sir?”

“Quite. Barry makes quite an attractive woman,” Bony replied, and studied Barry Elson with open admiration. “Did the Commissioner explain to you why I requested your services and those of your-er-wife?”

“Only that I had to report to Broken Hill, meet Elson, hire a truck and a prospector’s outfit, and come here with Elson dressed as a woman and armed with a miner’s right. Of course, Elson has told me all about this strangling gent, and I can make out what is wanted of us.”

“Good again. I will explain further. Perhaps meanwhile you might invite me to dinner. We can talk over the meal.”

With approval Bony noted that these two acted their parts with credit. The sergeant washed from a basin, and his “wife” continued the preparation of the meal until “she” called them to dinner.

“How was Miss Storrie when you last heard, Barry?” inquired the detective as he was given a plate of grilled chops, a slice of damper and a pannikin of tea.

“She is well forward to complete recovery, Mr. Bonaparte,” replied Elson. “I think she has forgiven me. She will, I know, if we can trap this strangling brute. I’d like to thank you properly for what you did for me as well as for giving me this chance to clear myself.”

“There are many people here who do not believe you attacked Miss Storrie, Barry. I suppose Simone was most disappointed?”

“He was, by the look of him. The inspector down at Broken Hill had me in his office and almost apologized. Then when I got your letter asking me if I would offer myself asa bait -why, I jumped at the idea.”

“Ah! I was hoping that Simone would be annoyed.”

“Strange how that feller got on as well as he has done,” growled Smithson. “He’s been mighty lucky all through.”

“He is an unpleasant person after one has become accustomed to his ego. However- Are you still willing to carry on with this scheme of ours, Barry?”

The young man’s rouged and powdered face flushed and his eyes grew bright with enthusiasm.

“Too right!” he said earnestly. “Only by bringing this sneaking scoundrel to book can I avenge Mabel and clear myself.”

“I must impress on you that you will run a grave danger,” Bony pointed out. “I don’t myself like the idea now. If anything very serious should happen to you, I would always regret planning this trap. How does that iron collar fit you?”

“Comfortably. It will take very strong fingers to bend that iron against my throat. The police blacksmith made a good job of the collar. It protects all my neck right up hard against my chin, and it is light and easy to wear.”

“Doctor Mulray brought the acid paste?”

“Yes. It’s good stuff, too.”

“I should say,” agreed the sergeant. “I got a pin-head of it on a finger and it burned like fire.”

“It doesn’t tend to melt and run on account of the heat?”

“No,” Elson answered. “I was out last night, and the night before last, just to let the Strangler know I wander out of camp. If ever he gets his fingers round that iron collar his hands will be that blistered that they won’t heal for a month.”

“It’s a neat little scheme, Mr. Bonaparte,” the sergeant said admiringly. “As per orders, Elson walks up and down along the creek from here to the road several times during the late evening. If the Strangler attacks him, he’ll be branded plain enough. Should he get away-which he won’t from me-all we’ll have to do is to go through the population forhim. ”

Bony was pondering with his fine brows knit.

Presently he said, “I want you to remember this, sergeant. The fellow’s capture, should he attack Elson, is of far less importance than Elson’s personal safety. Once the fellow gets his hands smeared with the acid on the collar, it does not matter if he gets away, because we can very easily pick him up when his hands are well blistered. We have to remember that he is exceedingly strong in the arms. He must be allowed to attempt to throttle Elson, but must not be given time enough to injure Elson, which he might attempt to do when he finds he is unable to strangle him. Therefore, Elson’s safety must come first.

“I do not anticipate an attack until the night following the next day of wind and dust, and by the signs in the sky this evening another wind-storm is due to break on us. Both you and I must never be far away from the bait, but we have to exert every possible precaution against giving the Strangler the suspicion that Elsonisa bait and thus frighten him from the trap. Now listen carefully. This is what each of us will do from tomorrow night, as I do not require Elson to parade the creek-bank tonight.”