Arthur Upfield - Murder down under

“Muir informed me that the vicinity of the York Road gate, as well as the edges of the wheat paddocks around the wrecked car, was thoroughly searched.”

“Doubtless that is so,” Gray assented. “Still, the possibility remains that Loftus may have been killed by a man or men possessing a car, who could have taken the body miles away to hide it in uncleared bush north of the one-mile peg beyond the railway.”

“There is solidity in the composition of your theory,” Bony said slowly, his eyes half closed, yet aware of the quick look brought by his ponderous language. “I am beginning to think that tracing Loftus will resemble the proverbial looking for a needle in a haystack. However, we must not rule out the possibility that Loftus disappeared intentionally. How did he stand financially?”

“He was as sound as the average farmer.”

“And how sound is the average farmer-I mean in this district?”

“Distinctly rocky. Nearly all are in the hands of the Government Bank.”

“Was Loftusan-er -amorous man, do you think?”

Inspector Gray took time to answer this pertinent question.

“Well, no,” he replied deliberately. “I should not consider him amorous. To an extent he was popular with the ladies, but, nevertheless, he was a home bird. And, as I said before, Mrs Loftus is still young, good-looking, and a good wife. There you see the Loftus farm.”

They had reached the summit of the long slope. Before them lay a great semicircle of low, flat country chequered by wheat and fallow paddocks: to the east and south-east reaching to the foot of a sand rise similar to that on which they stood; to the south far beyond the horizon; to the south-west extending to a sand rise which drew closer the farther north it came. The Loftus farm was situated immediately to their right as they slipped down the grade. The house lay not quite half a mile from the road at the foot of a long outcrop of granite with oak-trees growing in the crevices. A tractor driven by one man, which pulled a machine operated by a second man, moved with deceptive slowness round a near paddock.

“That will be Mick Landon driving the tractor,” Gray said when he had taken in all the view. “The man on the harvester is Larry Eldon. He comes out every day from Burracoppin on a bike.”

With narrowed eyes Bony examined the scene spread out before him, for the land dipped a little to the foot of the granite outcrop. Silently he regarded the small iron farmhouse, the stables beyond, and the stack of new hay beyond them. Over all that vast belt of brown fallow and golden wheat here and there moved the humming harvester machines like giant sloths, feeding on the grain voraciously and flinging behind them the dust of their passage. Gray said:

“That’s Mr Jelly’s place. You remember I mentioned him. He’s a mystery, if you want a mystery. With him mystery is added to mystery. Most of us when we go away come back poorer than when we leave. He comes back richer than when he goes.”

“Mysteries!”Bony sighed as though greatly content. His eyes were almost shut when he said: “Always has my soul been thrilled by mystery.”

Seated at the table in his room at the Rabbit Department Depot, Bony slowly read once again the collection of statements gathered by John Muir. The most important of these statements was that signed by Leonard Wallace, the licensee of the Burracoppin Hotel. It appeared to be a straightforward account of his movements and actions from the time he left Perth to the moment he entered the room in the hotel occupied by his wife and himself. There were three statements which in part corroborated this, in addition to that rendered by Mrs Wallace.

One was signed by Mavis Loftus, giving the date of her husband’s departure for Perth, the nature of his business there, the date of his expected return, which was 4th November-two days after his actual return. Michael Landon stated over his signature the orders that Loftus had given him before he went away and the fact that he had not seen or heard Loftus during the night of 2nd November or at any subsequent time.

The story, in full, of the finding of the wrecked car was given by Richard Thorn, employee of the Water Department.

From the mass there was nothing to point to murder, nor was there anything in them to make Loftus suspect of wilful disappearance. As far as Bony could then cull from his collection of facts the missing man was remarkable for no one habit, vice, or virtue.

Seated there in the quiet peace of late afternoon, idly examining each signature, noting the badly formed scrawl of Leonard Wallace at one extreme and at the other the neat calligraphy of Mick Landon, he experienced the sensation of elation he always felt when a baffling case, by great good fortune, came his way.

Questions poured through his mind as water through a pipe. He declined to halt the flow with a mental tap to find an answer to any one of them until he had cast his net in the still water about this small wheat town. When the fish had been landed for his inspection, then would he search for the deadly stingray which, if found, would prove that George Loftus had been slain.

Hearing the Depot gate being opened and a horse-drawn dray enter the yard, Bony rapidly collected the documents and placed them in his grip, which he locked. His bed was made, and from beneath clean clothes folded neatly for use as a pillow, he produced a book, then lay on the bed and pretended to read.

He heard the horse and dray cross theyard, saw horse, vehicle, and driver pass before the open doorway. Came then the sound of a dog racing over loose gravel. The door of the chaff room next his rattled when a speeding animal passed through the small cut opening at the bottom. A dog scratched and sniffed loudly. A man whistled and shouted:

“Ginger, come here!”

Into the room swept the whirlwind. His clothes were covered with a greyish dust; his face and neck and arms were whitened by the same dust. Hazel eyes, reddened by dust, gleamed good-humouredly.

“Ginger! Hi, Ginger! You callused-jawed pork sausage! You chase cats! You kill the boss’s cat and get me sacked! You-you-you-!”

A dog, a red-haired cross between a whippet and an Irish terrier, came to heel, to stand with lowered head anduplooking soft black eyes which so plainly said:

“You’re only kidding now.”

“Lay down, you callused-jawed slaughterer.”

Ginger lay down, head resting on forepaws, shortened tail thumping the floor.

“What kind of a day have you had?” Bony asked.

“Lovely… lovely! I’ve been breathing chaff dust for eight and a half hours. It’s got under my clothes, and tomorrow I’ll be a red rash. See you later. I’m headed for a shower. Come on, Ginger!”

Whirlwind and dog departed, to return with equal speed ten minutes later. Bony continued to read while his room-mate dressed in clean clothes, and when Hurley finished lacing his boots he happened to look at the cover of Bony’s book.

“What’s that? What’s the name of that book?” he asked.

Above the lowered book Bony’s blue eyes twinkled.

“It is entitled,” he said,“A Contribution to the Natural History of the Australian Termite, written by a little-known but really clever man named Kurt von Hagen.”

“What’s it all about?”

“About the Australian termite.”

“Who’s he, when his hat’s on?”

“Do you refer to the author or the termite?”

“The termite. What’s a termite?”

“A termite is a white ant.”

“Oh! Then why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place? You interested in white ants?”

“I am interested in everything,” Bony replied grandly.“Art, philosophy, the sciences. At present my leisure is devoted to the study of the termite, which is the most wonderful of all living creatures. Its civilization is so simple, yet so complex, so strong as to defy every other creature save man, yet so vulnerable as to die in sunlight. We may be excused for thinking that what many regard as-”