Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

“Letters? Official?”

“One official, one private, both with the Brisbane postmark.”

“Oh, the chief writes wanting to know what the devil this, that, and the rest of it; and my wife writes that the children are well and that she still loves me,” Bony predicted with a smile. “What do you think of the bride?” he asked.

“What do you?” was the guarded response.

“Nice sort of a girl. Who is she?”

“Daughter of old MacKennie. Owns a run called Willoughby. Comfortable, but not rich. Willoughby is east of Mount Lion.”

“And that tall, well-dressed man-Dash, they call him?”

“He’s a mystery.”

“Good! I like mysteries. What do you know of him?”

“Precious little,” Morris admitted.“Came in nineteen-nineteen. Receives a remittance from London four times a year. Was a jackeroo on Windee for three years, and suddenly threw that up and joined Dot. Quite a retrograde social step, but they get on well together and make money.”

“H’m! Any vices?”

“None chronic. Drinksno more nor less than I do,” the sergeant went on. “Yet no one knows his people, or what part of England he comes from inside Hampshire, unless Jeff Stanton does. People must be big bugs, because Dash is a gentleman in the commonplace acceptance of the word. He gives one the impression he was once in the British Army.”

“No doubt of that by the way he carries himself. Now about the nigs, Morris. Do you know why they are at Range Hut?”

“Oh, just on a walkabout, I think. Have you made any discoveries?”

“Nothing of importance,” was Bony’s evasive reply. “By the way, do you know who gave Miss Marion her ring set with sapphires?”

“Lord, no! Never noticed it. Why?”

“I was just wondering. It is rather a unique ring. The setting is entirely old-fashioned. You see, I know a little about jewellery. Have you sent for Marks’s or Green’s record?”

“Yes. Last week. I’ll let you have it as soon as I get it. But have you discovered nothing as yet?”

“One or two little things.”

“What are they?” pressed the sergeant.

“I have found out that there was a struggle, a fierce struggle, when Marks’s car came to a stop, which was where it was found. When I receive the man’s history I may be able to say how he was killed, as well as prove indubitably that he was killed.”

“And you found no trace of the body?”

“No. I rather think there is no trace to find.”

“No trace? But the body or portions of the body must exist. To totally destroy a body is the most difficult thing in the world.”

“One would think so, to read the newspapers and novels of to-day, wouldn’t one?” Bony said naively.

“And so to Bed”

THAT THE tin-kettlingof the Fosters was a huge success was agreed with complete unanimity. It was five in the morning when Jeff Stanton, in conference with Father Ryan, decided that the hour of departure had arrived.

Stanton’s party was the same, and they left ahead of the trucks on account of their greater average speed. The false dawn tinted the eastern sky, which now they faced. The air was cool enough for the women to need their wraps, but not for the men to wish they had brought overcoats.

For a while conversation among them was general, and then gradually silence fell and the silky hum of the giant engine was the only sound. Marion sat with Mrs Poulton in the rear, and she nestled against her father and was promptly asleep with his arm around her. Mrs Poulton slept lying back in her corner quite comfortably. Father Ryan smoked a cigar, happy and content; the sergeant wished he was at home and in bed.

As for Bony, his mind was busy. There were several points in regard to this case which wanted clearing up, points that it should have been easy to clear up. There was the question of the object of Marks’s visit to Windee. He had arrived at Mount Lion with the full intention of interviewing Jeff Stanton. At the time of the search for Marks Sergeant Morris had asked casually the business that brought Marks to Windee. He was told that Marks was a one-time friend, and was satisfied with that because so far there was no suspicion of foul play.

Bony felt that to get Morris to ask Stanton bluntly what business Marks had with him would not yet be politic. He had noproof, or even leaning in thought, that Stanton had had anything to do with Marks’s death or knew the manner of it. Time was on Bony’s side. Marks’s history might disclose valuable aids to putting a theory on a practical basis. Then, again, the aboriginal tribe was about to return to Windee after a “walkabout” that had hindered his questioning them. Once he became friends, especially with old Moongalliti, he could work to find out who was responsible for making that warning sign. For whoever made that sign witnessed the murder. Yes, a great deal lay in the womb of time.

The most astonishing feature to date was the fact that the sapphire which the ants had brought up from their nest had originally been set in the ring now worn by Marion Stanton. That she had been implicated in any struggle with Marks seemed very remote, yet skilful questioning of Mrs Poulton had elicited the fact that Marion had habitually worn the ring given her by her mother. And that night, whilst playing on the leaf, he had been able to make certain that the missing stone had been replaced by another when the pianist’s hands had rested idly on the keys. He had not boasted when he said he knew something about jewellery.

There was yet another mystery which, however, was entirely distinct from that of the disappearance of Marks. To most men this second mystery would have appeared trivial. It was the singular fact that Dash had left the “Government House” to become a vermin-destroyer and fur-getter.

To meet Dash even casually was to place him immediately in the squatter class. It required no brain fag to decide that he was a gentleman. The fact of his being a remittance man was peculiar, but not necessarily discreditable; and certainly his habits since he had been at Windee had been above reproach.

He had brought a letter of introduction to Jeff Stanton, and had been offered the position of jackeroo, or pastoralist’s apprentice. This position entitled him to a room in the “Government House” and to be treated as one of the family-a position quite in accordance with his upbringing.

Then suddenly he left all that to become the partner of an illiterate American, and to carry on work which the least fastidious gentleman would not undertake because of the exceedingly rough living and the necessity of constantly handling dead animals. Why did he make that sudden change? Why suddenly give up a life of comparative comfort among his near equals at least for the rough, uncouth existence of a fur-getter? Money was not the object. At least it did not appear so, for Dash was not extravagant, neither did he drink to excess. Something had happened a few years back which had never become public property.

This, as well as the greater problem, occupied most of Bony’s wakeful thoughts. He had arrived on the scene of a crime of violence two months after its commission, when the sand had overwhelmed all traces of it. Before he could prove who committed that murder he must prove that the murder itself had been committed, for the blackfellow’s sign was not definite proof. Whilst this sign pointed to the fact of murder, whilst it entirely satisfied the half-caste, it would not weigh a featherweight in itself with a judge and jury. As Morris had hinted, the judge and jury would want nothing less than proof of the existence of Marks’s body, or identifiable portions of it, to satisfy them that murder had been done.

As a case, it delighted Bony. From the fallen sands of time he had to reconstruct the crime, as from the sands of the bush he had to recover clues and definite proof. Here was no corpse on the library carpet silently crying for vengeance, and giving the investigator a dozen important clues with which to start his tracking. Yes, Bony was absorbed. His belief was becoming strengthened that at last he had found the perfect murder-had stumbled by chance on a problem worthy of his exceptional intelligence…