Arthur Upfield - Murder down under

“Take my advice, Eric, and don’t introduce your friends to your best girl. One of them has been paying Lucy a lot of attention, and a fence-rider cannot stand that, because he is away for such long periods.”

“The old man is still away,” Eric said with a grin which wiped away the possibility that Mrs Loftus’s poison had had any effect on his mind. “So I can court Lucy as she should be courted. I am to tell you that she and Sunflower expect us both for tea at six o’clock this evening.”

“That is delightful of them,” cried Bony. “I shall be most pleased to accept.”

“Good-oh! I’m going out there for the day-I’ve got three Sundays to take out-and I’ll come for you about five o’clock. Try and knock off on time tonight.”

Bony smiled generously, saying, “Permit me to remind you that I haven’t any Sundays to take out, that I am working for the Rabbit Department, and that I shall be late for work if I do not go along for my breakfast at once.”

Hurley sighed.

“I wish I had the gift of the gab,” he said. “I wish I could talk like a book. Tell Ma Poole that I’ll be up forbrek at eight.”

Leaving the Depot, Bony walked rapidly along the main street. Beyond the station, already eight or nine wheat trucks awaited admission to the wheat stack now daily growing steadily higher. A large sheet of white paper bearing roughly printed letters in red ink, pinned to the notice board outside the post office, attracted the detective’s attention, and, reading it, he was informed that the officers of the local branch of the Wheat Farmers’ Protection Association desired the attendance of every member at the meeting to be held at the Burracoppin Hall the following Saturday evening. Mick Landon’s neat signature was appended as the secretary.

Now a little less hurriedly, Bony went on his way, his gaze fixed reflectively upon the ground. Next Saturday night Landon would be in Burracoppin at that meeting. Would Mrs Loftus accompany him? Mrs Loftus was a member of the Association, Bony knew. She would have a vote. Probably shewould accompany Landon. And if Mrs Loftus and Landon attended the meeting it seemed certain that Miss Waldron would go with them, for Miss Waldron would be nervous of remaining alone at the farm after what had occurred there.

“You are quite an expert needlewoman, Miss Jelly,” Bony said when, after tea, Lucy and he were sitting on the veranda and Hurley was helping Sunflower with the washing-up in the kitchen.

“Yes. I am supposed to be very good,” Lucy admitted with low laughter. “Do you like this?”

Bony’s gaze travelled swiftly from the ample figure of Mrs Saunders, then gallantly watering a single rose-tree with water ladled from a petrol-tin bucket, to the silk-worked table centre, almost finished, which lay spread over the girl’s lap. The sun was about to set. The still air throbbed with the incessant hum of the tireless harvester machines.

“It is certainly very beautifully done,” he told her with an engaging smile. “It must take long and constant practice to be able to do it so well.”

“I have almost finished it. Would you like to guess for whom it is intended for a gift?”

“For Eric?”

“Oh no! One does not give a man a table centre.”

“Then it must be for Mrs Saunders. If not she, then I give up.”

“It is not for dear Mrs Saunders, either. I’ll tell you. I am making it for your wife.”

“For Marie?”

“Yes. Will she not like it?”

“Like it!” he echoed. “Why, of course she will like it. We have nothingso beautiful as that in our home, because one could not buy such exquisite work in a factory-filled shop. Like it! My wife will adore it. Indeed, it is very kind of you.”

Bony’s blue eyes were lit by the bright flame of his mind. He was glad that he had promised this young woman to remove the shadow over her life, and his sentimental heart beat at its nearness to her sweet presence.

“I am glad you think she will like it. I wanted to show my appreciation of your kindness to us, and this centre will remind you of us when you are at home in Queensland. Will that be soon?”

“It will, I think, be soon.”

Pensively he stared out over the vast extent of cleared flat country to the far-distant mottled-green sand rise with the clumps of ragged trees along its summit. The proposed gift touched him as nothing ever had done. She was saying:

“May I ask when you expect to leave? You see, I would like to know so that I can finish this for you to take with you.”

“I shall be staying in Burracoppin until I have learned the reason of your father’s strange absences, and that will be shortly after he receives the next telegram calling him away. Meanwhile, would you like to join me in a little adventure?”

Lucy Jelly regarded him with wide, steady eyes.

“Tell me about it,” she said invitingly.

“I am badly in need of the services of a good needleworker,” he began slowly. “Unfortunately, I can use a needle only in a crude way. You remember I told you how your father was shot, and I know you have been wondering what I was doing near the Loftus homestead to see it done. Actually, long before the Loftus people returned from the dance, I thoroughly examined the interior of the house. There I found several most interesting things and came across a little mystery which has been bothering me. I found that a small opening had been made in the flock mattress of Mrs Loftus’s bed, an object pushed among the flock, and the opening most neatly sewed up again.

“Badly as I wanted to know what the mattress concealed, I dared not cut the stitches because I knew that I never could sew up the slit precisely as Mrs Loftus had done. Of course I could not make another opening, for she would discover it, and it was important that she did not know I had been there.

“Later I thought of you. You could sew the slit again exactly as Mrs Loftus had done after I had cut her stitches and found what she had hidden there.”

“But whatever would she say?” asked Lucy.

“She would not know. We would go there next Saturday night if she and her sister and Mick Landon go to the farmers’ meeting at Burracoppin, which I think most likely. They should be away at least three hours, so that we would have plenty of time.”

“Is it important that you should know what she has hidden?”

“Were it not I would not dream of asking you to assist me.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. I am sorry I asked you that.” For three seconds she paused, biting her nether lip. Then, with sudden resolution, she added: “I’ll help you. What number cotton did she use? Was it white cotton?”

“What number?”

“Yes. Sewing cotton is numbered according to its size and strength. Very likely, as the mattress is of strong material, she would have useda forty cotton. It was cotton, wasn’t it? It was not white thread?”

“Inside a lady’s room I am an utter fool. Still, I believe Mrs Loftus used white cotton and not thread. But the number of the cotton

…”

“In that case I will take several different cottons, several sizes of needles, and some white thread because some thread is very like cotton.”

“But surely Mrs Loftus would not note a change in the number of the cotton she used?” Bony asked, aghast at his exposure of his lack of knowledge.

“It would be quite likely for a clever woman to do so, and Mrs Loftus is a very clever woman. If you want her work copied, let us make a good copy. What time shall we go?”

“You would really like to accompany me?”

“I know now that I would. Tellme, do you suspect Mrs Loftus of anything? I shall not repeat what you tell me, Mr Bony.”

“I think she hasle motd’enigma.”