Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

“Good day, Bony!” he greeted, with his wonderfully sunny smile.

“Good morning, your reverence!” Bony replied, with a slight bow. “Being such a warm day, would you care for some refreshment?”

“I honestly believe I am entitled to refreshment this hot morning, but I rather fear meeting a somewhat extraordinary lady who arrived here last evening.”

“The track is clear. She has retired to her room,” laughed the half-caste.

“Then I no longer fear”-and, taking Bony by the arm, the little priest drew him through that door which led to Mr Bumpus’s private room. When the publican followed them in, Bony looked interrogatively at Father Ryan.

“A glass of wine, Mr Bumpus,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

“Bottled beer,” stated Bony.

Mr Bumpus withdrew.

“What is your opinion of the visiting lady?” questioned Bony softly. Father Ryan’s eyes clouded.

“My opinion is hardly formed,” he said. “Obviously she drinks to excess, and yet there is something very straightforward in her manner as well as her speech. I approached her to solicit a subscription for my benevolent fund, but before I could speak she said to Bumpus: ‘A drink! A drink for the Church! A double whisky!’ I was obliged to drink at least half the spirit, for which I do not care; and during the rest of the half-hour I was with her I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.”

Mr Bumpus came in with the drinks on a tray. After he had offered the wine to Father Ryan and taken his drink off the tray, Bony placed thereon the cheque for ten pounds and asked Mr Bumpus to change it.

“I suppose Mount Lion does not see many strangers?” was Bony’s next question.

“Well, no, excepting the mail-car passengers, and invariably they stay only one night. Really, I think the last visitor we had was a fellow named Marks, the man who got lost in the bush and presumably perished. A very sad and a quite mysterious affair.”

Mr Bumpus came back with Bony’s change, which he counted out on the table in notes and silver. Bony was about to pick it up, when Father Ryan cut in:

“It might be as well to subscribe ten shillings to my benevolent fund,” he said jovially. “You will find it a sort of insurance against indisposition.”

Bony chuckled, and offered a pound note, saying:

“I was fully expecting it to be more.”

“You have yet to prove yourself. I may have to raise the premium, but I sincerely hope not. Come! If you will accompany me to my rooms, I will write you a receipt; also I have a volume by Nietzsche in which he says a lot about human progress being an illusion, and that mankind advances and retreats alternately in historical cycles. This, I think, from something you said on the tin-kettlingnight, is something like your belief. I am much afraid you are a Pagan.”

“Perhaps. Anyway, I believe with some of the Greeks that every event in the past will be repeated in the future,” Bony rejoined gravely. “I am forced to that belief by Nature, since cycles of life are so pronounced among animals. And man, after all, is but an animal.”

“You are wrong,” the little priest said stoutly. “So was Machiavelli when he said that, as human passions are always the same, so their effects must be always the same. You must read BernardBosanquet and ponder on what he has to say about idealism.”

Reaching the wicket-gate, Father Ryan, talking volubly, was leading Bony to the side-door of the house when Sergeant Morris called loudly for the half-caste to go to his office. The priest’s hand fell on Bony’s forearm, his appealing eyes looked up into the dark face, and he said softly: “Come and see me when the sergeant’s business is over. I want to talk to you, for I realize you are a man of intelligence. It is many years now since I talked with an intelligent man.”

“I shall be delighted,” Bony assented. “But I shall bring my friends, Marcus Aurelius and Virgil, with me.”

“A Little Experiment”

“I HAVE SOME official letters for you,” stated Sergeant Morris in his crisp manner when greetings had been exchanged and Bony was seated. “How did your experiment with Illawalli turn out?”

“Not quite up to expectations, my dear Sergeant. He told me all that Moongalliti knew, but that was not quite all I wanted to know.”

“What did it come to?”

“I will tell you when I find out the little he, Moongalliti, doesn’t know. With your permission, I will just scan these letters.”

The half-caste proceeded to read his mail. The first communication was from the Research Department, Police Headquarters, Sydney, relating to a boot-sprig. The second was far more lengthy and dealt with Marks’s early history and that of a certain Mrs Thomas. Mrs Thomas’s history was obtained chiefly from official records. The third letter was from Colonel Spender demanding to know when Bony anticipated returning to his duties in Queensland, as the murder at Longreach was baffling everybody. The fourth letter was from his wife, and this he decided to read later. The fifth letter related to a small silver disk, and the writer was Sir Alfred Worthington, a very famous Australian.

From his letters Bony’s eyes rose slowly to the impatient face of Sergeant Morris. Bony’s eyes were veiled to hide the triumph in their blue depths, and from the sergeant they wandered to a police trooper engaged on clerical work at another table, and from him came finally to rest on two emu eggs set up on the mantelpiece as ornaments.

“I want an urgent telegram dispatched,” he said at last. The sergeant reached for pencil and telegram forms. Dictated the half-caste: To Inspector Sutley, Criminal Investigation Branch, Sydney . Wire personal particulars Mrs Thomas-mail photo if possible.-B.

The message was given to the trooper, who was ordered to dispatch it at once. On his leaving, Bony picked up from the mantelpiece the two emu eggs, and, examining them, saw that they had at each end a small hole through which the contents formerly had been blown.

“Can youlay your hands on a. 44 Winchester or Remington rifle and a. 22 Savage rifle?” he asked softly.

“Yes. The trooper has a Savage, and I can borrow the Winchester. Why?”

“It is necessary to carry out a little experiment. Can one in your back garden be observed by any of the neighbours?”

“I don’t think so. But what’s the scheme?”

“Go and borrow that Winchester. If you see the trooper, tell him to bring away his Savage. We might want two cartridges for each rifle.”

Sergeant Morris rose obediently, even though he saw the incongruity of a uniformed police-sergeant obeying an aboriginal half-caste. When he was gone, Bony searched the officer’s desk till he found a half-sheet of postage stamps, from which he detached a strip of the gummed border. Tearing off two rough squares, he stuck them over a hole in each of the eggs, and over the paper he melted ordinary sealing-wax.

Returning with the borrowed rifle, Sergeant Morris found Bony lounging down in his chair, the back of his head supported by clasped hands, a cigarette between his lips.

“The trooper has gone to his lodgings for his Savage rifle,” he told Bony, who thereupon rose and picked up the large, blue-green eggs.

“These will more easily be filled with water if they are submerged in a basin. Perhaps Mrs Morris will oblige?”

“You’re darned mysterious, Bony. What is the idea?” demanded the sergeant, with prominent determined jaw and glinting grey eyes.

“Patience, friend, patience; and perhaps, in a few days, I will describe the perfect murder. However, I do not promise. Let us fill these eggs with water.”

Together they made their way to the kitchen, where Mrs Morris was discovered making pastry. A dish was procured and filled with water from a rain-tank, and after a little trouble the eggs were filled to Bony’s satisfaction. Back in the office once more, Bony sealed the remaining openings in the shells as he had done the others, and by that time the trooper appeared carrying a well-kept. 22 Savage rifle. He and his superior followed Bony carrying the eggs into the neat garden at the rear of the premises. There Bony selected an earth border surrounding a tiny grass lawn that was the pride of the sergeant’s lady. Making sure that beyond the fence there was nothing but opencommon, he then formed two golfing tees and on them set the eggs firmly up on end.