Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“You have not been very helpful, Mr. Dreyton,” he began, “but then you did not know I was supposed to be a police officer. Had you confided in me as you did in Mr. Borradale-for we will always refer to Martin as Mr. Borradale-about that piece of cloth you found in the tree and one or two other discoveries you made, I would have been saved a portion of mental labour. However, I think none the less well of you.

“I have just left Miss Borradale in the morning-room. Naturally she is still profoundly shocked, but she is thinking of Saint George and the Dragon. Er -in the course of my investigation I found it necessary to know all about you. I want you to read this document. It concerns you.”

The other’s blue-grey eyes stared from the detective to the pinned pages of typescript slipped across the table. Without speaking, Dreyton accepted it and began to read. Bony, with a cigarette between his lips, lay back in his chair and found much of apparent interest in the lamp suspended above them. He heard Dreyton exclaim. He heard the papers rustling. Then he heard Dreyton sigh. When again he encountered the blue-grey eyes he saw in them a great hope.

Bony said, “Before Martin Borradale shot himself he informed me about a matter I have not mentioned to anyone. He said that he had long desired to have you in this office, and for several reasons. He wanted you here because he felt he was losing his grip on affairs generally, and because he liked you very much, and his sister liked you, too. He had a particular idea concerning his sister and you, and in his will he has bequeathed you his half-share of Wirragatta.

“Wait, please. Your preference for the fence-work over this office work, with its accompanying privileges, mystified me not a little. Even now I am not absolutely sure of that reason. However, I rather think that the reason was worthy of the nephew of Admiral Sir Reginald Dreyton, and the son of Captain Dreyton. Pardon my seeming impertinence-I may be excused, for I am serving the dead-but I believe now that the reason no longer exists. When I left Miss Borradale I told her you wanted to see her at once. She is waiting to receive you in the morning-room. My dear man, if ever a woman needs comforting-”

With a clatter, Dreyton’s chair was pushed back, and he was on his feet. He looked like a man gazing on a glorious vision.

“You are a strange fellow,” he said, and almost ran to the door.

“And you,” loudly asserted Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, “are another!”