Arthur Upfield - Wings above the Diamantina

“No. Don’t waste time, man. I am exceedingly anxious.”

“No time will be wasted. Captain Loveacre, who is bringing my friend, is expected to arrive here at about five o’clock. It is unfortunate that he cannot land at Coolibah. Good-bye!”

When the detective replaced the receiver his eyes encountered those of Sergeant Cox.

“What’s the little mystery about the spare tube?” questioned the big man.

“I wished to convey to your brother-in-law a request to increase his vigilance. Before I left Coolibah I made up with Mr Nettlefold a series of code messages. Is Constable Lovitt in town?”

When Cox replied in the affirmative Bony went on:

“Then have him ride his motor-cycle across the plain as far as the edge of the scrub, there to wait for us. Have him leave when the aeroplane is sighted. When he sees us he is then to ride on, like a pilot engine, ahead of us to Coolibah. Should he meet any motorist whose car is broken down, Lovitt will see to it that that motorist does not throw any-lightning.”

“You expect opposition-a hold up?”

“I greatly fear being overwhelmed by a bad electrical storm.”

Cox sighed. His expression was severe.

“I am afraid I don’t get you,” he said sharply.

“There have been many cases”-Bony prefaced a somewhat lengthy explanation-“when the police have been unable to bring a charge because of insufficient proof with which to convince a jury. They, the police, know a certain person to be guilty of a crime, but knowing is not proving it to others. I know who flew Captain Loveacre’s red monoplane from Golden Dawn to Windy Creek Station, and then on to Emu Lake. I know who poisoned the brandy. I am practically certain who drugged Miss Double M, although, knowing these things, I have not sufficient proof to obtain warrants for two arrests. In this case I find much to annoy me. I am annoyed chiefly by the demand for haste dictated by the condition of Miss Double M. Nothing annoys me so much as having to hurry.

“So you see, I am compelled to use the powers possessed by my friend, Illawalli, in order that that young woman’s life may be saved-if it is not already too late. Illawalli will finalize my case for me; he will cut in before I have reached the point where I can say: ‘Here is how it all happened!’ Being unable to prove who drugged the girl, I am unable to make him confess the name of the drug, and because the victim is dying I am unable to spend any further time drawing the net closer.

“In an effort to force the hands of the men who drugged and tried so hard to kill Miss Double M several days ago I let it be known that Dr Knowles was confident of curing her. I then warned your brother-in-law and Knowles to take every precaution against a determined attack on her life by asking that a tyre tube be sent to Faraway Bore. Nothing happened. I think now that nothing happened at Coolibah because certain persons feared that the risk would be too great when a safer chance could be taken to stop Illawalli from reaching the patient.

“At this moment it is possible that certain people know all about Captain Loveacre and his passenger, and of our hopes being centred in Illawalli. They do not know what I know and they do not know what I suspect. They think that if the girl dies they will be safe for ever. They believe that the drug they administered will not be conquered by any treatment Knowles or other doctors can give her. They know, further, all about Illawalli and his powers, and that Illawalli can and will read her mind to place in our hands all the proof we need. Knowing as much, knowing that Illawalli will have to be taken to Coolibah by road, I gravely fear that a serious effort will be made to stop him. Nitro-glycerine was used in the aeroplane. A canister of it thrown against a car would certainly kill its occupants. With Lovitt ahead, and you behind with Illawalli, they will, I hope, recognize the danger-to themselves.”

“Why not make the arrests and chance getting the proof,” advised Cox.

Bony shook his head.

“It wouldn’t do,” he said. “No, it wouldn’t do. We are not dealing with people with criminal records. If we made a mistake it would be finish for both of us. Come! I don’t like the sound of that thunder.”

He left the office, and walked quickly to the front gate where he gazed anxiously at the sky. To the west all was clear. The yellow sun was shining, and the wind was laden with strange and alluring scents. Directly above Golden Dawn rat tails of cloud were drawing swiftly eastward after the rear edge of the vast cloud mass that had passed over. The rear of the cloud mass lay roughly north and south, and moment by moment it was growing in depth, whitening in the sunlight. Here and there great plumes of cloud towered high above the edge of the mass, like snow-covered mountains, with flickering lightning in their hearts.

“Going to clear up,” predicted Cox on joining Bony.

“I am sorry that I cannot agree with you.”

“But all that is passing away eastward,” Cox protested.

Bony continued to stare upward at the puffing, swelling cloud mass. Its base was darkening to ink-black, and the serrated top of the western edge, with the vast mountain peaks spaced along it, was being frozen here, gilded there by the sun. Icebergs floating on a sea of ink…

Sergeant Cox gripped Bony by the arm. “That lot is going to come back on us,” he growled savagely.

The detective nodded.

The gibber plain, sunlit to its eastern horizon, appeared as though a storm of wattle blossom had rained upon it. It was bright yellow in sharp contrast with the ink-black sky. The store, the hotel, and the houses north of the hotel stood out against the pall of sky like buildings floodlit against a dark night-night ripped and scarred by lightning.

“Yes, it will come back,” Bony breathed. “And away to the north flies Captain Loveacre on a southerly course. He will now be flying southward in front of that aerial ice pack which will force him ever westward. He is too far away to be able to land at Golden Dawn in one hour’s time, unless that storm again changes direction, and moves to the east.”

“He will, then, have to make a forced landing somewhere,” Cox pointed out.

“Without doubt, he will have to land many miles north or west of Golden Dawn. Then we will have to bring Illawalli many miles by car if the landing is made safely. The odds are that the landing will not be a safe one, because ground like this surrounding Golden Dawn is rare. Yes, a car will have to bring Illawalli over water-logged plains and swollen creeks. And perhaps the river will come down and stop us reaching Coolibah with him, preventing him from seeing the dying woman. And I will have failed! I’ll not fail to produce her murderers, but I will have failed to save her life with my friend’s aid. And I once told Dr Knowles that the Almighty holds the scales evenly between good and evil.”

Bony’s face was distorted with emotion. The tails of the storm now had been sucked into what had become the frontal ramparts. The air was clear before those ramparts of cloud, and now thecloud mountains were disappearing beyond the edge of the mass as it advanced over Golden Dawn. It began to rain before the sun was vanquished, huge, golden drops falling with seeming slowness to the ground, there to break into a multi-coloured mist.

Bony had just time to drive the runabout into Cox’s garage and gain the station veranda before the deluge began.

Storm Havoc

AT THE CONTROLS of a two-seater biplane, Captain Loveacre regarded with anxiety the writhing, twisting wall of snow-white cloud little more than a mile from the tip of his sport wing. To maintain that distance from the perpendicular field of imitation ice and snow, he was forced to steer his ship several points west of south-several points westward of his course to Golden Dawn. He had flown a little more than half the distance from Cloncurry.