Arthur Upfield - Murder down under

Still smiling, he walked out of the house, followed by Bony, who really wanted to make sure that the fellow actually did return at least as far as the rabbit fence. Outside in the silent night he said:

“Seen any more prowlers?”

“No. I think old Loftus is satisfied with what he got.”

“You still think it was Loftus?”

“I ammore sure it was since we heard that it wasn’t Loftus at Leonora. By the way, do you know who it is who wants to buy hay?”

“I do not.” Bony replied distinctly.

“Would you like to earn atenner?”

“I’d do a lot of trying,” Bony admitted. “I’m sick of Western Australia. I want to get back to Queensland.”

Landon caught at Bony’s arm.

“I’ll give you atenner,” he said, “if you find out who it is who wants to buy Mrs Loftus’s hay. Will you have a go?”

“I certainly will,” the detective agreed fervently. “That will be an easy ten pounds for me.”

Lucy Jelly’s Adventure

THE FARMERS’ meeting at the Burracoppin Hall was advertised to start at eight-thirty. At eight o’clock Bony had made his dispositions for his second attack on the secrets of the Loftus homestead.

Behind his offer to purchase Mrs Loftus’s hay was his conviction that buried in the haystack was the body of the missing farmer, and if this were actual fact he considered it likely that immediately Mrs Loftus heard of some person’s interest in it she would have it fired.

If the body of Loftus was buried in the stack, its position most assuredly would be somewhere along its line of centre, as far as possible from either wall, so that the smell it cast off would not penetrate to the outside to be noticeable to the chance passer-by. And, too, it would lie near the ground, because when Loftus disappeared the haystack was only beginning to be built. To remove it would necessitate pulling away from the stack tons of hay in sheaves, sheaves to be piled in great heaps to arouse the curiosity and suspicions of more than one visitor to the homestead. The only practical method of removal was to fire the stack, and, when the ashes were cool, to remove the remains and dispose of them finally elsewhere. It was this procedure, Bony was confident, Mrs Loftus and Landon would carry out when satisfied that the search for Loftus was long given up, and he had hoped that his offer for the hay would expedite the date.

Yet Landon and his mistress had made no such move after Hurley had made the offer for the stack. Nor had they done so when the fence-rider had brilliantly insinuated that Mr Jelly was the prospective buyer. This, in consequence, had made Bony one degree less sure that the body was in the haystack.

What he wanted, and hoped to obtain, was further evidence against the suspects. Previously dissatisfied with his examination of the kitchen, he counted on the possibility of there finding the box to the lock of which fitted the key he had found in the table leg. If not in the kitchen, it might be found beneath the earth floor of Mick Landon’s tent.

At eight o’clock all that was left of the day was the shaded purple ribbon lying along the western horizon. Far to the north-west and north lightning flickered about massed clouds, lighting up their snowy virgin hearts coyly hid by the falling veils of rain. The muttering thunder held no menace, so distant wasit.

Hurley and the detective sat at the edge of the main south road, ready to take cover among the close-growing bushes massed on either side and covering the summit of that long sweep of sand rise between the Loftus farm and the old York Road. They could see light shining from the window of the Loftus farmhouse and could judge with fair accuracy the position of the farm gate down the long, straight road fading into the ever-mysterious gloom of early night.

Beyond the rabbit fence, beyond the government’s private road, hidden among the scrub, was Hurley’s motor-cycle.

To avoid the probability of anyone on the Loftus farm hearing the machine stop at this place at this time, the two men had brought the machine from the town that morning in the fence-rider’s cart. The canvas drop sides of the hooded vehicle adequately masked the operation of withdrawing the machine from the cart and carrying it into the dense bush. Most carefully Bony had obliterated their own tracks, and they then had renewed three posts in the fence to account for their halt there. Everything possible had been done to prevent suspicion, which, once aroused, might decide Mrs Loftus not to attend the meeting with Landon, whose secretaryship commanded his attendance.

They now waited the passing of the Loftus car, and at twenty minutes past eight first observed its headlights flash out near the house and later watched them whilst the car was being driven slowly over the bumpy track to the gate. Bony walked across the road and took concealment amongst the bush, leaving Hurley on the fence side, so that their observations of the passengers in the oncoming car might be checked.

“It was Landon driving, all right,” Hurley said after the car had passed and they were watching its red tail-light dwindling to the glow of a cigar end. “The two women were on the front seat with him. There was no one in the back seat.”

“Your report coincides with my own, save that from my position I could not identify the driver,” Bony said. “We will give them a quarter of an hour.”

Actually the detective allowed twenty-five minutes to pass before he and Hurley brought out of the bush the latter’s machine to the government track.

“You carry on, Eric. I’ll await you at the farm gate.”

When Hurley had set off to pick up Lucy Jelly, waiting opposite her father’s house, Bony picked up two sugar sacks, shouldered them, and walked down the rise to the meeting place. Three cars passed, travelling with speed towards Burracoppin and, presumably, the farmers’ meeting. By his watch it was five minutes to nine when Lucy and her cavalier reached him.

“You are still willing to help me, Miss Jelly?” Bony asked her when he had assisted her to alight from the pillion seat.

“Yes. I’ve brought cottons and needles and a pair of scissors.”

“It should not take us long. Now, please, permit Eric to lift you over the fence. I will go first, because the barbed wires are dangerous.”

Now on the west side of the rabbit fence, he led them to the Loftus farm gate, wide open, and halted them several yards from it, where low bushes gave adequate concealment. Here he emptied the contents of one of the sugar bags, which proved to be three balls of binder twine. From one of the balls he secured the running end, made a loop, and gave it to Hurley with instructions to fasten it to his wrist, for it was his intention to lay a line signal to the homestead. He said:

“When I am ready I will pull on the twine till it is fairly taut. I will then tug three times as a signal, and you will tug three times, signalling all clear. Whereupon you, Miss Lucy, will at once come to me, keeping to the stubble and wearing those elegant sheepskin shoes I made for you. Should anyone pass through the gate towards the homestead, you will warn me by pulling in all the twine, replacing it in the bag, and then stand by for a possible quick retreat. Now is that all thoroughly understood?”

Having their assurance that it was, he set off with the remaining sugar sack and the two balls of twine, allowing the twine of the third ball to run out after him until, reaching its length, he paused to secure its end to the new end of the second ball. In this way half of the third ball was laid down when he came to the edge of the stubble paddock facing the front of the homestead.

The three dogs were barking viciously, chained to their kennels. They presented to him the greatest problem, as he had expected they would be after the laying of the aniseedtrail, and, short of poisoning them, the only method left him to silence them was the tempting offer of many beef bones within the second sugar sack.