Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

When his hands fell from his face and he held up his head to gaze vacantly on the littered writing-table, beads of perspiration gathered on his fine forehead. His shoulders drooped as though the load he bore was beyond human strength to carry. And, whilst sitting thus, his eyes rested on a sheaf of letters filed on a long, straight wire with a wooden base.

In spite of his mental preoccupation he could not but be interested by the fact that this table belonged to a woman so methodical that her business letters were kept for possible reference. There must have been fully thirty of these letters bunched on that wire file, and almost at the bottom the edge of one stood out a little from those above, and there was revealed to him in block letters the name of an Adelaide firm of jewellers.

For some while he stared at it uncomprehendingly, and then words formed at the back, as it were, of the thoughts filling his mind, words that became joined as the links of a chain. Almost without conscious volition he reached forward, pulled the file towards him, slipped up the covering mass of letters and read the letter from the jewellers. Then was the cup of his anguish filled to the brim, for there beneath his eyes was the proof that was the corner-stone of the structure he had raised from the past with fine red sand.

If only he had known the direction of his drift! If only he had known, he could have steeled himself against the dark-haired, wonderful white woman with the magnetic personality. If-if he had but known at the very beginning the riddle of Dash leaving his position as jackeroo to become a trapper, at which he now shrewdly guessed! If he could have known this and have had reasonable ground to suspect what the jewellers’ letter contained, he could have thrown up the case much earlier and retired with honour.

But there were those letters to Sydney asking for vital information; there was the sending there of the small silver disk; therewas lastly and not least his orders that Illawalli be brought down from the far north of Queensland. How now to explain all that without admitting failure? How at this stage could he countermand the order to Sergeant Morris regarding the arrest of Dot and Dash?

The other point of view he did not then remember. It was not till later that he thought of his duty to the service to which he belonged, his duty to the majesty of justice. For, after all, the man Marks had been murdered, and his murderer still lived. To lay down his cards, to put before his superiors the complete chain of proofs-wanting but the body of Marks-would mean striking down the woman he had come to revere, to whom he had given his word that for her he would do anything.

So preoccupied was his mind that he was utterly unconscious of removing from the file the jewellers’ letter, as he was unconscious of hearing Jeff Stanton’s great car go purring off into the night. So preoccupied was he that he did not hear the door of the room open and close, and did not see Marion Stanton until she stood directly before him.

“Bony-why are you so troubled over the little thing I have asked of you?” she said with a frown.

He stood up and gazed deeply into her eyes, so deeply that she became uneasy, not with fear of him, but because she saw that in his face which reminded her of pictures of St Joan of Arc tied to a stake, and of King Charles standing beside the headsman’s block. It was a look that indicated renunciation, or sacrifice.

“I am no longer troubled,” he told her with a smile she saw was forced. “I promised to do anything for you, and you have asked me to do that something. I will do it. But how I wish I had known you loved this man Dash!”

“Why-why?” Once more he saw the blood dye her cheeks and, guessing rightly what was in her mind, hastened to correct her.

“To me, Miss Stanton, you have been most kind,” he said, and would have taken her hands had not she drawn back. “You have been kind in a way which no white woman has been before. To use a well-worn phrase, yet one very apt, you have stooped to conquer. From an Olympian height you have bent down to one in the mire, and my feeling for you has more of spirituality in it than of earth. I rejoice that you love this man, who is so well known and respected as Dash, the partner of Dot; and not only will I see that he does not fall into the hands of the police, but I will also guarantee to restore him to you.”

“You will? Oh, Bony, tell me, tell me how?”

“That is a question which one day he himself will be able to answer. Then you will understand how it is that now I am unable to explain. I am reminded of a task I must perform at once. Immediately afterwards I will go after him and bring him back.”

“You will, Bony-true?”

“As sure as that I shall be lectured by your father for missing the truck,” he said, with his old smile back once more. “There is, however, a little matter I would like you to explain, if you would be so generous.”

“What is that?”

“Tell me how it was Dash became a trapper.”

And without hesitation she explained the one battle she had lost to old Jeff: how, in spite of the harshness of his decision, she had seen its justice and its far-sightedness.

“The probationary period is over to-day, Bony,” she said softly, “and instead of welcoming him here, I had to warn him about Sergeant Morris. Oh, what could he have done, Bony? Nothing, nothing dishonourable, I am sure.”

“I, too, have grounds for assurance that it was nothing dishonourable,” he cried, with a smile of dawning comprehension, as one who sees a light after a long period of darkness. “Ah, all is clear now. I see-I see!”

“See! What do you see?”

But she saw the growing light of triumph fade from his blue eyes, saw it replaced by an expression of hopelessness, and then again by his old gaiety. It was all so swift that she failed then to analyse these expressions, and said again swiftly:

“What is it you see?”

For the second time he made to take her hands, and this time she permitted him to succeed. In the dim light cast by the shaded lamp she saw his face as it was ever to remain in her mind. His teeth flashed in a laugh, gentle and cultured.

“I see,” he said, quite slowly, “I see that I shall have to get you a wedding present. I will get it to-night.”

And, before she could say a further word, he had bowed with old-world grace and left her-left her wondering wherever he had learned to bow like that.

Young Men and Young Ladies

IF MRS THOMAS’S outstanding vice was a susceptibility to alcohol, doubtless acquired in the course of “working up” hotel business, she had never permitted it to loosen her tongue regarding matters of business concern. It was a mental make-up of which she was proud. Her body was so inured to the stimulant that it required a very great deal of it in a short space of time to reduce her to the condition vulgarly known as being drunk. She was drunk the night Father Ryan called for volunteers to go with him to Windee, which is to say that she reached the stage when to weep was far easier than to laugh. This being the first time she had reached this stage during her sojourn at Mr Bumpus’s hotel, it fell to Mrs Bumpus to decline to serve her with more, and at first persuade, then command, the guest to go to bed.

Mrs Bumpus, however, was not a woman who could command with assurance of being obeyed. Had she continued her persuasion she might have won the unequal battle, for it was humanly possible to persuade Mrs Thomas, but humanly impossible to exact obedience, especially when she had arrived at the weeping stage, which occurs about midway between sobriety and utter stupor.

Mrs Thomas wept loudly and without ceasing, and told Mrs Bumpus that she would continue to weep even more loudly if she, Mrs Bumpus, refused further to serve her with a drop, just a little drop, of brandy. However, on the point of brandy Mrs Bumpus was firm, and her guest was forced to swallow small glasses of bottled beer, with long intervals between glasses. Mrs Thomas was seated on the barrel at the farther end of the bar-counter, crying softly now, and Mrs Bumpus was glaring at the clock on the wall every half-minute and making up her mind, ever more firmly, to give Bumpus the very devil for leaving her there with that terrible woman.