Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“You mistake me,” Martin said, speaking rapidly. “I am not contemplating escape from you, but rather from myself-from this body and this brain. Let me speak. Lee and the sergeant will soon find that Hang-dog Jack’s hands are not burned. So there is little time left. When I have finished, you will get up from your chair and leave me here without feeling the slightest desire to arrest me, for you are not a Sergeant Simone.”

“That remains to be seen. Please proceed.”

Borradale sighed, and the agony of his mind was portrayed on his face. The pain of his hands must have been severe, but he gave no sign that he was conscious of it.

“Until an hour or so ago I did not know who was the Strangler,” he said, battling for control. “I am glad-immensely glad-that your trap has succeeded. But I must begin at the beginning.

“When I was at school I gave much trouble by sleep-walking. Sometimes I was rescued from sitting on the sill of the dormitory window with my legs dangling over a sixty-foot drop. Sometimes I was found on the roof of the building. Once I was watched climbing to the roof by way of a rain-spout. On another occasion I was followed to the park beyond the road where, in a line of ornamental trees, I climbed about like a monkey.

“On awakening I never could recall the details of these escapades. My school fellows used to regard me as something like a Tarzan of the Apes, and I took no little pride in my unconscious antics. My somnambulism almost came to be taken for granted. I never committed harm to anyone or to myself. Dieting had not the slightest curative effect. And then, when my father died and I had to come home to manage Wirragatta, I was assured by the head that I had grown out of my somnambulism, as I had not walked in sleep for several months.

“Arrived home here, I was claimed physically and mentally by Wirragatta and my father’s old overseer, who almost took my father’s place in my affections. I thought but little of my former somnambulism. It had never been real to me, because I recollected nothing of what I did. My adventures were related to me as though they were the experiences of someone else.”

Bony’s cigarette had gone out. Interest in what was being said, and speculation on what was about to be said, completely mastered him, but he noted with an underlying interest that the pistol in Borradale’s hand never wavered off the direct line to his heart. He could see in Martin’s face, as well as hear in his voice, the emotional tempest which was being chained by will-power. If the chain broke, then he might be presented with the chance to take charge of the situation.

“From my earliest memories,” the younger man went on, “a violent wind-storm produced in me extraordinary effects. First wouldcome mental depression. That would be followed by a period of acute nervous tension. When in this back country, both before and after I was at school, at the height of a dust-storm, I can produce vivid sparks by gently rubbing my hair. I retire to bed at the normal hour, feeling tired and yet nervously jumpy. When I awake the next morning every muscle in my body aches and my mind suffers great depression. These last symptoms are not singular to me. A woman who occasionally visits us suffers hysteria when a wind-storm breaks, and I have heard of a man who nearly goes mad with headache while the centre of the disturbance is passing.

“Now I must hurry. Like everyone else, I was greatly shocked by the dreadful murder of Alice Tindall. It was done, as you know, at the height of a bad wind and sand-storm. Simone came here, fussed and bullied a lot, and achieved nothing. The blacks cleared out after a while, and their action was attributed to their fears and superstitions.

“One windy night, when returning from Broken Hill, my car broke down oppositeStorries ’ house. From there I walked home. It was after midnight. When on the creek track I heard someone coming towards me, and, wondering who it could be at that hour, I stopped under one of the trees and waited.

“It was Hang-dog Jack, and the following day I called for him and asked for an explanation. The earnestness with which he spoke prevented me from laughing. He told me that he had been deeply in love with Alice Tindall, and that after her murder he talked with the blacks, who told him that for some time they had known abunyip to inhabit the trees. He had discovered that, bunyip or not, something haunted the bush at that spot, and he was offering himself as a victim, being confident of his own tremendous strength to deal with it.

“Because of Simone’s behaviour, I decided to tell him nothing of what Hang-dog believed. When Marsh was murdered I again talked to the cook, and pointed out to him that it was improbable that the blacks’bunyip would wander so far from the trees. After some hesitation Hang-dog Jack confessed that he had found the body of Marsh on the Broken Hill road where it inclined to the bed of Nogga Creek, and that to frustrate Simone, or another detective, and so save thebunyip forhimself to deal with, he carried the body to the Common gates.”

“Why did you not inform me of all this?”Bony naturally asked.

“Because from the first I was sure you would find out about thebunyip and its activities in thetrees, and because I did not wish to get the cook into trouble over moving the body of Marsh. I was convinced that Hang-dog Jack was not the Strangler.

“I thought you would question my conduct as a man of substance and a Justice of the Peace. You will find it difficult, inspector, to believe me, but it is the truth spoken by a man about to die. Please do not let me think you intend to act hostilely. I am a good shot, I assure you. But to proceed…

“Not until some time after Frank Marsh was murdered did I have the faintest suspicion that I might be the murderer. I awoke one morning to discover in my left hand an ugly wood splinter. I could not recall how or when or where I had come to get it. The day before I had returned from a trip outback, occupying eight days. I had not been near a box-tree all that time, and I was convinced by a piece of bark attached to the splinter that it had come from a box-tree-and Nogga Creek. I sent it to an expert down in Adelaide and he pronounced it to be a splinter of box-wood. No matter how I concentrated my mind in going back over the preceding week, I could not account for the splinter being in my hand. I was positively sure it had not been there the evening before.

“It was the splinter of wood which first made me think about those old somnambulistic stunts of mine, and the question which became a kind of mania with me was: Had I committed two murders when in a state of sleep-walking? These two crimes were committed during the night of a dust-storm, and always had I walked in my sleep at school when a wind-storm was raging.

“If you will look to your left, you will see on a chair my day clothes neatly folded. It has been a life-long habit with me, first formed by my mother when I was a child, always to fold my clothes neatly and place them over a chair-back before going to bed. For many years I have never omitted to do that little task.

“It stands to reason that if I walked in my sleep at night, and went prowling among the trees along Nogga Creek, that the clothes I wore would reveal rough usage. My folded clothes never revealed anything of the kind. In fact, I have tied cotton round them before getting into bed and always found the cotton unbroken in the morning. It was the same with my pyjamas and dressing-gown. They were never torn or soiled, as the garments must have been had I worn them out of doors and when climbing trees.

“In short, inspector, I could never find any shred of evidence against myself. Am I plain?”

“Perfectly,” Bony replied. “Please go on.”