Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

Jeff nodded. “The groom is out after the horses right now. He’ll fix Moongalliti. I am sending half a dozen nigs out to the danger zone on horseback at once.”

Half a minute later a mob of some thirty saddle-horses was brought to the yards by the groom, quite invisible on his stock horse in the dust they raised. The policemen were walking to the yards for their horses, and, passing Bony, were halted by him, since just then there was no one to see them.

“Great doings!” he said, with flashing blue eyes.

“Too right! But we’ll get ’emin the end. I’m-”

Sergeant Morris stopped speaking. An expression of dawning surprise spread over his brick-red face. Then: “By the way-you told me you could drive a car, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I think I remember having done so. Why?”

“Then why in thunder didn’t you offer to drive when none of the men would do so?” demanded Morris.

Bony laughed softly.

“Because it is not so very important that Dot and Dash should be arrested to-day, or even to-morrow.”

“But you ordered their arrest!” gasped the astonished policeman.

“I know I did, Morris. But, after all, their arrest was notso important as what would happen when it was known they were to be arrested, or were arrested. However, it will be as well to gather them in. Charge them with murder, although I am almost sure neither committed the murder. This mystery is going well. The murderer of Marks has but to make one slip.”

“You are a most unorthodox detective.”

“Everyone says that,” Bony murmured. “I am, however, the greatest detective in Australia.”

Father Ryan Acts

FATHER RYAN had eaten his dinner at the policeman’s table as usual, and was seated at his desk gazing over it and beyond the open window towards the hotel with meditative eyes. The sun was on the verge of setting, and but two sounds drifted in upon him from the silenced world-the voices of several children at play in the street, and the occasional reiterated phrase, “How dry we are!” screamed by the cockatoo in his cage on the store veranda.

But of these sounds Father Ryan was unconscious. He was thinking of the only guest staying at the hotel, and wondering what on earth kept her in Mount Lion. He was a little afraid of Mrs Thomas, but felt no dislike for her. She shocked him, certainly. Her outspokenness had at times really pained him. On the other hand, save for her indulgence in liquor, her behaviour was above reproach. Had Mrs Thomas been a man, her drinking would have aroused no comment, though her generosity in “shouting” would have done. Her ability to consume liquor was a never-failing marvel to Mr Bumpus, who was even more afraid of her than was Father Ryan. In fact, she was the topic of conversation among the whole population of Mount Lion. She was at once the giver and the withholder; she gave her money in “shouts”, and she withheld at all times any information about herself.

Father Ryan, however, knew a little more about her than did the other inhabitants of the bush town. To him had Mrs Thomas come asking questions, many questions, questions that sought to find out if within recent time anyone had risen to affluence even for a short period. In his capacity as a Roman Catholic priest she had confided that she was the sister of the missing man, Marks. That was about all she did confide. Father Ryan knew nothing about the case of the Stolen Bride, and was but told the relationship between her and Marks to secure his sympathy and aid in her search for the truth. For the official statement concerning the disappearance of Marks she did not believe, knowing that her brother was a bush-man born and bred.

The grounds of her belief in foul play had been communicated to him with a downright clarity that had brought Father Ryan to believe, with her, that Marks had not died simply from exposure. It was the apparent fact that in his district there was a man who had killed and robbed which so disturbed the little priest. He had been so sure he knew the hearts and minds of all the people who were his friends that he was like the husband who was told that his wife was unfaithful.

Into the calm water of his life, so seldom disturbed by human passion, had dropped a stone that had agitated it for some considerable time. That evening the agitation was subsiding, for Father Ryan was making himself believe that Mrs Thomas was suffering from hallucinations; and, just when he was congratulating himself on having arrived at this decision, another and heavier stone was dropped by Mrs Morris, who came bursting into his study.

“There’s been trouble out at Windee, yer reverence,” she exclaimed, dropping himan habitual curtsy. “Oh, such trouble! Morris has been out to arrest Dot and Dash, and they’ve escaped, and the place is on fire, andit’s Christmas Day to-morrow and-”

A large blue neckerchief smothered her wheezy voice whilst being used to wipe the perspiration from her broad face. Her body, almost as big in width as in length, appeared to sway on the small feet.

“One item at a time, Mrs Morris!”

The priest’s deep and musical voice seemed to reach her as a cooling wind. She felt his hand on her forearm, felt herself urged backward and into a wide-armed chair.

“Now, then. Tell me your news-slowly-and in sequence,” he said gently. “From the beginning, please.”

“Morris has just rung me up,” gasped the woman, still all of a flutter. “He and Mr Rowland left for Windee this afternoon, but he never told me what job he was on, which isn’t like him. He says they are after Dot and Dash, and when Iast him what for, he said: ‘N-i-x!’ You know what he is when he says: ‘N-i-x!’ don’t you, Father? Itain’t no use arguing. Says Dot and Dash was warned he wanted them and they escaped. Then at the same time old Jeff gets word that all the back of Windee is afire, and about thirty thousand sheep in danger of being burnt up. He’s coming home, is Morris to get Slater’s car, and chase Dot and Dash. Oh, what could they have done? That snip of a Dot! No one can help liking him. An’ poor Mr Dash! A proper gentleman in every way-”

Father Ryan let her run on. No longer was he following her. His mind was flashing back and forth between Dot and Dash and Mrs Thomas. Mrs Morris continued to drone on, but upon the tablets of the priest’s mind had at last become written in letters of flame: “Dot and Dash? Dotor Dash?”

Was it one of these two, or was it together that they were responsible for the disappearance of Marks? Was Mrs Thomas’s seemingly unfounded suspicion really substantial? Dash-Hugh Trench-Marion Stanton. Marion-Marion, who had waited two years! Marion, whom he had regarded with such sincere affection ever since she was little!

Mrs Morris was still voicing complaint and speculation when the fact of the fire wriggled into the ambit of his mind. The back of Windee alight-thirty thousand sheep in danger-all hands rushed to the scene-thirty thousand sheep-thirty thousand! Old Jeff gone out there too. Even Roberts would go. Marion and Mrs Poulton, likely enough, left behind. And Marion-Marion thinking of Dash, wondering, wondering, wondering! Alone and wondering. And Dash fleeing with Dot-the law on their heels. The law-and Marion!

Out of the mental welter stood the name Marion-the little girl whom he loved, and who loved and confided in him; the woman he loved, and who still confided to him all her secrets, little and big. She wouldbe wanting him at that moment. He must go, at once.

Without speaking, he snatched up a light coat, but failed to remember choosing a hat, and left the now breathless Mrs Morris to follow him to the gate, there to stand and watch him cross the road to the hotel. She saw him make straight to the public bar door and disappear within.