Arthur Upfield: Murder down under

“Jelly-come out!” ordered Mick Landon.

With all his will power Bony commanded the girl to remain both silent and motionless. He himself moved from the table edge to a position opposite the door without sound, the water-filled vase now resting on his head and held by both hands.

“Do you hear me, Mr Jelly? Come out!” Landon again ordered, with raised voice which held chilling menace. Standing to one side of the door, he was invisible to Bony.

Again, one of many periods this night, the seconds slowly dragged away. Not a tiniest sound came from Lucy or from Bony, standing as a statue of an Indian water-carrier. Bony could not hear the girl’s breathing, not knowing that she had stuffed her mouth with her handkerchief. Bitterly now was he blaming himself for having brought her to this position of danger, when almost sure of the kind of man Landon was, merely to serve his vanity to complete this case with irrefutable evidence before handing it over to John Muir; when by the bold move of having the suspects arrested he could have secured the evidence without let or hindrance afterwards.

With abrupt swiftness Mick Landon stood squarely in the open doorway. Before the match he struck broke into the full volume of its flame the spluttering light revealed to the detective the long-barrelled revolver in the hand which held the match. Almost at the precise instant that the vase left his hands, when he hurled it at Landon’s face, he launched himself across the short space between them, his hands flung forward to grip the wrist of that hand holding the revolver. So quick was his leap that the water cascaded over him as well as Landon, and the vase was crushed between their meeting bodies.

With a shattering report the revolver exploded. The report deafened him, for when the cartridge was discharged the weapon almost was touching his ear. He heard Lucy Jelly cry out at the instant that he gripped Landon’s right arm, then to endeavour to bring it across his own in a bone-breaking arm lock.

But Mick Landon had not forgotten the lessons taught him in the Police Barracks during his training as a recruit. A younger and much stronger man than Bony, he tore free his arm, jabbed at Bony’s face with his left elbow, swung round, and pressed the muzzle of his weapon into Bony’s stomach.

“I’ve got you,” he said with a short, hard laugh. “Put your hands above your head quick-quicker.”

“Mr Bony! Oh, Mr Bony, I’m hurt!” Lucy cried with a low wail of anguish.

“Who’s that in there?” Landon demanded, startled by the voice within the house. Then he said, as surprise swamped surprise: “So it’s you, is it, you black sneak? What’s your game? What are you after?”

The whites of Landon’s eyes were clearly revealed to Bony, so wide and staring werethey. Believing that the man had killed a human being in the person of George Loftus, Bony now believed that Landon would not hesitate to kill to cover the first murder. To prevaricate would not do; the truth only would so astound Landon as to present to Bony a possible chance to get by the steadily held revolver.

“I’m after you, Landon, and the woman who is the moral co-sinner with you,” he said, watching the other like a hawk.

“You seem to know a lot. Why do you want me? Speak up quick.”

“I want you, of course, for murder-you and Mrs Loftus. I have you both in my-”

“Oh, Mr Bony! I’m wet with blood. Come quickly. I-don’t you hear me? It is so dark. I-I-I-can’t see the window.”

“Who’s that in there? I’ve asked you once before.”

“It is Miss Jelly, Landon. You hear; she is hurt. She must have been shot when your weapon was discharged. Let us go to-”

And the detective risked almost certain death. With panther quickness, knowing that the space of time Landon had held him rigid with the threat of his weapon inevitably would have worn away a little of his vigilance, his raised hands flashed downward, knocked the revolver to the left as he leaped to the right, reached upward as his now doubled body lurched towards the man’s ankles. Landon felt his legs swept from under him. His revolver shattered the night stillness. From the ground he fired again at the hurtling figure of the detective, missed, was paralysed for a split second to see one rushing shadow coming from the cart shed and a second speeding across the stubble, rolled away from Bony’s groping hands, sprang to his feet, and raced round the south vine-clad veranda of the house. Overwhelming panic fell upon him as a deluge of water. He thought of but two matters-the encircling police, and the coming to him in a cell of the public hangman.

Immediately Landon disappeared Bony forgot his first duty of giving pursuit, his mind at once becoming occupied with the plight of his brave assistant.

“Let him go,” he cried to Hurley and the second man, now both close to him. “Come with me. Miss Jelly has been injured. Hurry!”

Rushing into the house, he produced matches from a pocket, struck several in a bunch, and lit the lamp on the table. When the wick had caught fire, when he had replaced the glass chimney, he turned to see Hurley just inside the door, and beyond him Mr Jelly.

The three saw Lucy Jelly lying across the bedroom doorway as though dead. Mr Jelly almost jumped the distance between the main door and his daughter, sweeping Hurley aside in the movement. Bony, picking up the lamp held it near the limp figure in Mr Jelly’s arms. Mr Jelly’s fingertips gently caressed the ashen face.

Her eyes opened in a flash of consciousness created by his touch. Her wandering gaze became held by her father’s ruddy face beneath its halo of grey hair.

“Father! Father! Oh, it was so dark! That man, Landon, I think he shot me. The flash of the pistol! It was like-like-like a shooting star which hit me.”

Mr Jelly’s voice was tremulous.

“It is a time for courage,” he said softly.

Bony watched with fearful heart the girl’s lids flutter down over her eyes whilst he recalled that when Mr Jelly had returned from his last absence, and his attention had been drawn to little Sunflower suffering from a scalded foot, he had used the same expression: “It is a time for courage.”

Blood, a dark mass of blood, was oozing through the silk of her blouse. Her father snatched up her own scissors which she had been holding when the bullet struck her. He began to cut the blouse downward from the neck. Above the snipping of the scissors Bony heard the distant hum of a car engine, and that sound appeared to melt the ice clogging his mind, yet had no affect on the ice freezing his heart.

“Eric, fetch that car,” he ordered sharply.

He heard the fence-rider run out of the house but did not see him leave. He sprang up and to the fireplace where he had left the japanned box and the torch. With the light of the torch dispelling the shadows cast by the table and the kneeling figure of Mr Jelly, he found a large enamelled basin which he filled with rainwater from the galvanized tank outside. Without speaking, he set it down beside the working farmer, stepped over the girl’s form into the bedroom. Counterpane and blankets he tore from the bed. The upper sheet he whipped away, and, at the bedroom door, began to tear it up into large squares and long strips for bandages.

“The swine! The shooting, murderous beast! I’ll get him. I’ll make sure that he drops,” he actually snarled in so ferocious a tone that Mr Jelly looked sharply up at him, to wonder at the hate-convulsed brown face and the blazing blue eyes.

Bony spoke no more for a full half minute. Then he said as fiercely:

“Is shedying! Is she badly hurt?”

When the farmer replied it was as though he lifted a bag of cement from Bony’s shoulders.

“No, thank God! The bullet has passed through her body high up on her right shoulder. I fear that it has shattered the blade, but I don’t know for certain.”