Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

“Possibly my making love to Runta is inexcusable, Miss Stanton. Yet I remember that even worse sins have been committed by scientists in search of truth. Before the blacks returned from their walkabout, I discovered one evening a low hill of ironstone near the creek below the homestead. The top of the hillock is flat, and I saw that it had been used for centuries by the blacks in connection with some mystic ritual.

“I have always been interested in the aboriginals, their folklore, ceremonials, and ways of life, and intend to write a book when I have sufficient data. As you know, I am a stranger to the blacks here. Being a half-caste, I am looked down on by the blacks, justjust as a half-caste is looked down on by white people. Moongalliti and the members of his tribe at first regarded me with suspicion, and, in order to gain their confidence, I made harmless love to Runta, knowing that she was not matrimonially attached at the time.”

“Even so, I can see no excuse for such conduct. What is worse, Bony, is the manner in which you drove her away.”

Now Bony did sigh audibly. He tried hard not to smile, and she saw it.

“Unfortunately Runta became very serious,” he said. “I am inclined to think that equally with me she loved my peach pies and toffee.”

“What would your wife say if she knew-knew of your scientific zeal?” Marion asked less coldly.

“No man is a hero in shining armour to his wife. My wife knows her husband very thoroughly. In her last letter to me she said so. At my request she sent me a very resplendent dress for Runta.”

“You told her?”

“Believing that Runta is entitled to compensation, I asked Marie to send me a present for her. It arrived two days ago. I took a peep at it. The background is Chinese yellow and there are large purple spots all over it. I am assured that it is an extra out-size, so it should…”

He broke off to listen to the most delicious laughter he had ever heard. The girl’s head was thrown back and her eyes became half closed. Bony’s face became lit, too, with the ecstasy her beauty created in him, and she saw it and felt glad because of it, and slipped from her horse to stand in front of him.

“Bony, you’re the most extraordinary man I have ever met!” she said, laughter still in her voice. “The two gins helping Mrs Poulton told her about your love affair, and I thought it was one of the common sordid cases. I was disappointed in you, and now I am glad it was so harmless after all. I am glad for another reason. I havebeen wanting to ask your advice. Would you give it?”

“To do so would make me a very proud man.”

“Then let us walk on home.”

Together they turned towards Windee, she with the horse’s reins slipped over her arm, he carrying the blackened billy-can, the horse following softly. For nearly a minute Marion did not speak. Then:

“You were on the truck when Ron brought Mrs Thomas to Windee, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I first saw her in Mr Bumpus’s bar.”

“What did you think of her?”

“I considered that she was a remarkable character.”

“She drinks-horribly.”

“So I observed, and so I was emphatically informed by Mr Bumpus.”

“Did she say why she was coming to Windee?”

“No, but I understood she was seeking employment.”

“It was not that at all,” the girl said sadly. “I wish it had been. I wish I knew. To me she is an utter stranger, yet she knew Fatheryears ago, and taunted him in a veiled sort of way about something which had occurred. She frightened Father. She’s made him positively ill. And the other night when she was drunk-drunk, mind you-she accused father of murdering that man Marks who got lost in the bush four months ago.”

“Mrs Thomas’s departure must be a relief to you,” Bony said softly and reflectively.

“In a way, yes; but Father is still suffering from her beastly accusations and the secret of the past which has so suddenly been flung in his face. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I can help him. Would it be wise to urge him to share that secret with me?”

“Most certainly it would,”assented Bony. “If it were but a youthful folly, the sharing will lighten the load. Do you know why Mrs Thomas left so hurriedly?”

“No, Bony, I do not. She and Father had a terrible row the other night. They were in the dining-room with the door shut. Mrs Poulton and I were on the veranda. We could hear the squeak of her voice and then Father’s roar when he shouted, ‘I won’t!’ many times. But-but, Bony, there was despair in his voice.”

“As though, in spite of what he said, he knew he would have to give in to her wishes or demands?”

“Yes-like that.”

For a little while they walked in silence, a silence broken by the girl, who exclaimed: “And I was looking forward to such a happy Christmas. The Fosters are coming, and Father Ryan. Dot and Dash are coming in, and Father is giving all the men a Christmas Dinner.”

The next day was Christmas Eve, and the fact that Dot and Dash were coming into Windee occupied Bony’s mind equally with the fact that Mrs Thomas was making demands on Jeff Stanton. It was almost proof that Jeff Stanton was Joseph North. Was she blackmailing? Did she know something about Marks’s death? It appeared so. Or was the urgency of the demands based on the case of the “Stolen Bride”?

Bony came to believe that the best way to help the girl who had given him her friendship was to force on this Marks case, and the best way to do that was to order the arrest of Dot and Dash. He would settle with Mrs Thomas. Mount Lion was a police-controlledtown, Sergeant Morris could order her to move on.

To Marion Bony said in his gentle way: “That cloud up there is black underneath, yet its middle and top are snow-white. In the morning there probably will be no clouds in the sky. Induce your father to confide in you by all means. A shared load is a lightened load.”

And when Marion gazed into Bony’s smiling face she came to believe it.

Joseph North

IMMEDIATELY AFTER his dinner Bony wrote a letter to Sergeant Morris in which he ordered the arrest of Dot and Dash on the charge of having murdered Luke Green, alias Marks. Also he gave precise instructions that the arrest was to be made without divulging his connection with it, and that the partners were expected at Windee on the following day, an opportune time and place. This letter he sent per one Warn, a blackfellow who owned a horse as well as a silent tongue.

It was the custom of Jeffrey Stanton to sit on the main veranda of Windee every evening after he had spoken per telephone to his overseer at Nullawil and his riders east of the range. Invariably his chair was placed in one position, which was midway between the drawing-room door and the fine-mesh-wire-screened front of the veranda. There he smoked his eternal cigarette and glanced through theWool Growers’ Gazette, or leaned back with closed eyes and a strangely softened face whilst Marion played the piano in the room behind him.

It was the only spell of relaxation he permitted himself. Seated alone on the veranda, listening to the piano, the old squatter was an entirely different being from the one who faced the world in his image during the day. Possibly none other than Marion knew of this unsuspected softening, unless it was Bony, who often, when the night was dark, stole through the wicket-gate and drew close to the outside of the wire screen, able to see within, but himself invisible.

At other times he had come to hear Marion play, and share with the Boss of Windee the witchery of her music. The evening he dispatched the order for the arrest of Dot and Dash he entered through the wicket-gate with his usual noiselessness, and with a further object than that of hearing good music.