Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“Oh! Why?”

“The weather conditions were exactly the same as when Alice Tindall was killed.”

“Is thatso! Who investigated?” Bony asked sharply.

“The same officer-Sergeant Simone.”

“Results?”

“None! The young fellow had been killed just as the girl had been killed and just as senselessly.”

“And last night, or early this morning, in precisely the same weather conditions, this Storrie girl was almost murdered in exactly the same manner?”

Constable Lee nodded gloomily.

“That’s it,” he assented. “She went with her brother to a dance in Carie last night. The brother and the truck were missing when the dance broke up, so she walked home with her sweetheart. On the way they had a tiff, and they parted when half-way to the creek. This morning one of the coach passengers saw her lying several yards off the track. She had been almost strangled to death and she had suffered a severe blow on the forehead, which has rendered her unconscious ever since. If she lives, she’ll be lucky.”

“You have communicated with Broken Hill?”

“Yes,” answered Lee. “If they send Simone again, they should get their heads read.”

Bony chuckled. “If they send anyone-which probably they won’t, knowing I am here-we will hope it is Sergeant Simone. Why don’t you like him?”

It might have been the fact that Bony was not a member of his own State Police Force that made Lee unusually candid when he replied:

“Sergeant Simone may be a good detective in a city or large town, but he’s not the shadow of one when dealing with a bush case. He is too overbearing with bush people. You can’t get anything out of bush people by bullying them.”

Bony nodded approvingly.

“My opinion of you, my dear Lee, is becoming quite favourable,” he said smilingly. “You know, I think I shall thoroughly enjoy myself whilst on this investigation. My thanks are due to you, Mr. Borradale, for drawing my attention to these murders through my revered chief, Colonel Spendor. The Colonel said, ‘Bony, the son of an old friend of mine is being annoyed by a blackguard whose vice is strangling people. Go and get him.’ I said, ‘Do you refer to the blackguard or the friend’s son, sir?’ and he said, ‘Damn you, sir. Don’t you try to be humorous withme’. ”

Lee’s mild eyes now were opened to their fullest extent. He was staring as though his ears were faulty, and Bony chuckled.

“This strangling person uses his brain,” Bony went on. “Only the rare murderer does that. In general, murderers are the most stupid of criminals, prone to commit a hundred mistakes. They are more stupid than embezzlers. I believe that it is the fear of the rope which upsets the average murderer and makes him make mistakes. Even the really clever murderer, the odd one in the hundred, will make at least one vital mistake. Not always, however, does the investigator see, or recognize, the mistakes, so that it is always the investigator who fails to sheet home a crime and not the cleverness of the criminal to get away with it. Now permit me.”

Bony pushed back his chair and rose. On moving the cigarette-box, he commanded half the table surface.

“We have here excellent sketching materials,” he murmured as with a finger point he drew on the dusty surface of the polished table a rough map of the locality. He was as facile as a lightning-sketch artist, and both Martin and the policeman were astonished by his accuracy.

“When were you last in the district?” asked Lee.

“I have not been here before, but when in Broken Hill I studied several large-scale maps. Now please point out to me on this sketch where the three victims were discovered.”

With a grimy finger Lee did so.

“Ah!” Bony murmured, and then stood back as though to admire a hung masterpiece.“Yes… very interesting… very. I am glad I came. Thank you, Mr. Borradale. You have put me in your debt. I admire clever murderers immensely-almost as much as I admire myself. Officially I am always delighted to order their arrest. Privately I would like to let them go so that they could commit another murder without making the same mistakes.”

Constable Lee’s face was a study of outraged law. He glared glassily at the now laughing detective. The twinkling blue eyes beamed on Martin, and the squatter could not forbear to chuckle. He had heard of Bony through intimate friends, and he knew the half-caste’s reputation.

“I’m glad that Colonel Spendor consented to get you to lift this horrible shadow from us,” Martin said soberly. “Anything we can do to assist you in your investigation will be readily done. The entire community will be grateful to you if you can apprehend this strangling brute.”

“Without public collaboration a detective’s work is made trebly difficult, Mr. Borradale, and I thank you for your offer of assistance. First, I want my name and rank suppressed. I will work for you, Mr. Borradale, as a casual hand under the name of Joseph Fisher. You can take me on your wages-sheet from now. Set me to work clearing that boundary-fence of deadbuckbush. From you, Lee, I require the name of every man and woman in the district. Not now, but later, I would like to study the weather records over the last five years. But to no single person mention who or what I am.”

The Fence-Rider

IT WAS BY chance that Mounted-Constable Lee met Donald Dreyton several miles to the west of Carie on the boundary of Wirragatta Station. For five minutes they conversed across the netted barrier, and Dreyton learned of the brutal attack on Mabel Storrie. When Lee went on his business, Dreyton regarded the stiff military figure astride the grey gelding with the manner of one whose eyes are blinded by mental pictures.

Behind the fence-rider stood one riding- and two pack-camels, animals possessing personality and able to think and reason.

Dressed, this first day in November, in khaki slacks, a white cotton shirt, a wide-brimmed felt hat and elastic-sided riding-boots, with face and forearms tanned by the sun, Dreyton had the appearance of being over forty when actually he was but a little more than thirty years of age. Constant exposure, day and night, to the sun and the air had so darkened his skin that the peculiar blue-grey of his eyes was startlingly emphasized. The thin nose and mobile lips, added to the breadth of forehead, indicated intelligence above the average, whilst the two sharp lines between the brows bespoke constant mental activity. He was not a bushman born and bred, but in this was no oddity.

It was seldom that Dreyton troubled to ride. For one thing his riding-camel vigorouslyobjected to being kneeled to be mounted, nor would it consent to be climbed up and down whilst standing. At nearly every wire strain something was required to be done to the fence, and consequently Dreyton walked the ten to fourteen miles every day along his section of one hundred and eighty-three miles. It was doubtless this incessant walking that gave to his body its lithe grace of movement.

Having filled a straight-stemmed pipe with rubbed chips of Yankee Doodle tobacco, having lit the pipe with a match ignited on the seat of his trousers, he resumed his patrol to Carie and the homestead of Wirragatta.

It was almost four o’clock when he arrived at the corner post between the two black gates in the Common fence, there ruefully to observe the long rampart of dead buck-bush built by the wind against the fence running south from that point to Nogga Creek, where his section terminated, and for many miles beyond. So clear was the air he could see the individual trees bordering the creek, while Nelson’s Hotel and Smith’s bakery appeared to be within easy stone-throw.

When again on the move, headed southward, Dreyton smiled a little grimly. He knew it to be certain that a pair of brilliant dark eyes would be observing him from the south end of the hotel’s upper veranda. Between Mrs. Nelson and him existed a kind of armed neutrality, created by her desire to know everything about Donald Dreyton and his determination that she should know as little aspossible.