Madman’s Bend Read online

  “Most of them are out here. Yes, he made a statement. There was the other point you wanted cleared up, the one about who, and how often, waited to take the mail from him. The drill for all these wayside deliveries is that the people have to leave their outward bags in the boxes, even if there is no mail to send out. He takes these bags to the post-office at Bourke and White Bend, and the same bags are returned to the same boxes, mail or no mail. When he gets to the boxes here, there’s always someone from Mira with their mail-bag and waiting to take the inward—or nearly always, anyway. Because Madden’s Selection is so much nearer, quite often there would be no one at the box, because the outward bag could be left before the mail car reached it and the inward bag picked up at any time.”

  “The important part of the drill conforming to postal rules is to have the outward bag at the boxes for the driver to carry on to the respective post-office.”

  “That’s so,” replied Lucas.

  “And on the morning the driver found the abandoned utility there was no outward bag in the Madden box.”

  “We now know why.”

  “We think we know why,” Bony said, and began the manufacture of another cigarette. “This morning the Mira overseer brought the mail to the box. He had an interesting theory to account for the damaged mudguard.”

  “I heard part of it from the mail driver,” Lucas said, and then slowly went on, “I don’t know that I have a clear idea.”

  “I am beginning to suspect there is some connection between what happened to that utility and to Lush,” Bony said, regarding the constable with puckered eyes. “I asked young Cosgrove what he thought might have happened to Lush, and he said that, having run out of petrol just where the ute did, Lush got out and in the dark wandered over the cliff. The fact that the headlights were off when the mailman arrived could mean that, realizing he was stranded, Lush switched them off, then got to ground and missed direction in the dark and so walked over the cliff.

  “Vickory the overseer goes a few steps farther. He pictures Lush getting to ground in a rage and rushing to the mail-box for a piece of timber with which to take it out on the utility. Lush gives it a heck of a crack, the stick breaks, he flings the stick away and, rushing again to the mail-box in the dark, misses it and so goes over the cliff. Now, can you visualize Lush switching off his lights before rushing to the box for a leg?”

  “A bit hard to see that,” Lucas admitted.

  The lights were switched off, according to Cosgrove, and if Lucas, having broken the first leg, went to the box for the second and then fell over the cliff with the lights still on, who switched them off?”

  Lucas shrugged.

  “Then the mail driver remembers seeing a part of the box lying on the damaged mudguard, and this supports Vickory’s theory, and in part supports Cosgrove’s opinion. Therefore we find a modicum of agreement between these three men.

  “In her statement to you Jill Madden said she returned home to find her mother badly injured and her stepfather absent, and that she hadn’t since seen him. That ties in with the theory that he walked or fell over the cliff and was drowned. When I taxed her about the door and the bullet hole in the ceiling she added much to what you took down. She admitted she sat up waiting for Lush to return, that she had locked the doors and windows, and that if he broke in she was determined to protect herself and her mother by shooting him.”

  “You could be getting to some place by going round in a circle, Inspector.”

  “Possibly, and please don’t call me Inspector when we are alone. My friends call me Bony. I probed into this second edition of the girl’s story, and she said that Lush came to the locked door, was refused admittance and began to scream abuse. Still refused, he went to the wood-heap for the axe and proceeded to bash the door down. She fired a warning shot at the ceiling and, when he would not desist, she fired a shot at the axe-head which protruded through the door. After that shot there was not a sound from Lush, and she expected to find him dead when she opened the door at daybreak. He wasn’t there, and he wasn’t asleep in one of the outbuildings. If we are to believe that Lush wasn’t killed, then can you picture him being stunned to silence by the shot through the door, and not continuing his defiance and abuse? The natural reaction to the shot would be to retire hastily and shout defiance. And if Lush had lost control of himself, as he is supposed to have done by attacking the utility, he wouldn’t have cleared out but would have gone on bashing at the door and yelling abuse—or wrecked a window.

  “There is another angle, too,” Bony went on. “I am unable to see Lush leaving his attack on the door and returning to the derelict utility, if he did return to it, without taking with him a can of petrol to bring the ute home. Can you?”

  “Having got home he would have cooled down about the stranding, but he would have come to the boil again when the girl fired through the door, and he could have forgotten to take petrol back to the ute,” argued Lucas.

  “You offer another supposition which increases the fog,” Bony said. “It is a good one, too, although on examination I am doubtful of it. However, we’ll look at it further. We concede that in his rage he forgot to take petrol, that on returning to the ute he realized he had forgotten the petrol, and boiled over again and rushed for the box leg. Having turned off the headlights, he didn’t think to turn them on again to enable him to see what part of the vehicle to bash with it.”

  Constable Lucas stared at the table lamp, then said, “Did Jill Madden say why she had not mentioned the door in her statement to me?”

  “She did. Her mother was alive the next morning and begged her to burn the door in case someone saw it and scandal broke out. When you took her statement she was too upset by the death of her mother to think of the door. I was present, you will remember, and I am sure she was really upset, and had reason to be so.”

  “Proper fog over Madden’s Selection, isn’t it?”

  “So dense that I intend to transfer to Mira homestead and carry on from there.” Bony rose and brought the coffee from the stove and filled the cups. He smiled at the policeman, his blue eyes seemingly very dark in the lamplight, and glinting with yellow lights. “This case delights me, Lucas. What at first appeared superficial now has depths as deep and as dark as the bottom of that bend hole.”

  Lucas combed his fair hair with his fingers, and, returning Bony’s smile, looked much younger than his thirty-odd years.

  “Vickory told me there were three tramps camped on the river bank below the shearing-shed on this side. Would you know anything of them?”

  “No, Inspector.” Bony frowned, and Lucas chuckled. “Suits me, Bony. You don’t look like an inspector any more than I look like a Roman Emperor. But the Super told me of your record, and it’s might decent of you not to wear the braided hat.”

  “Oh, I can when I’m so minded,” said Bony, laughing. “My career has been highlighted by so many successes that I have to practise humility to retain mental balance. Let’s sup on some of that ham. Fire up the stove.”

  Having set the table, Bony was slicing bread when he asked, “Any of the men at Mira ever given trouble?”

  “Nothing serious. Most of them get a bit rowdy when they’re in town. Even young Cosgrove had to be locked up to cool off. No charge, though. Sorry for himself when loosed the next morning. Funny how drink affects men. Mr MacCurdle becomes dumb. Young Cosgrove sings at the top of his voice. Feller named Grogan wants to fight, and he can’t fight his way out of a paper bag, and everyone knows it, including him. They’re not a vicious bunch.”

  “What is your opinion of Mrs Cosgrove?”

  “Is the boss, with everyone knowing that, too,” replied Lucas. “MacCurdle is supposed to manage the place, but she manages him. Vickory is supposed to overseer the men, and he does that. But Mrs Cosgrove, I’m told, does the hiring and the sacking. Has the reputation of feeding the men well, giving them spells in return for extra work, but work they have to when she wants it that way.”

  “And t
he relationship between her and the son?”

  Lucas chuckled. “According to the wife, Mrs Cosgrove thinks the sun shines on him. Believes there will be no woman good enough for him to marry, and therefore intends he won’t marry. Keeps him short of money, considering the money she has tied into Mira and what her husband made in his time.”

  “Plenty of money?”

  “More money than the Queen,” replied Lucas without disrespect.

  Chapter Nine

  Unusual Characters

  BONY WAS at breakfast when Mrs Cosgrove phoned him.

  “Good morning, Inspector Bonaparte. How are you?”

  “Well, thank you, Mrs Cosgrove. How did your visit to Bourke turn out?”

  “No incident on the road, but it was a tiring journey—my son had to go very wide of the river, there and back. I’ve been telephoning northern neighbours about the flood, and they estimate it will reach us not later than six tonight. Have you any plans?”

  “Yes, I would very much like you to invite me to stay at Mira for a few days. I would try to be as little trouble as possible.”

  Bony fancied that Mrs Cosgrove hesitated before saying, “Of course, Inspector. We shall be delighted. I am sending the men for Jill Madden’s things, and the cows and dogs and fowls. They could collect your case, too. What have you been doing these cold days?”

  “Oh, milking the cows, feeding the chooks and the kookaburras,” Bony lightly replied. Then, abruptly serious, he went on, “The death of Mrs Lush brings her husband’s disappearance into the realms of homicide. That means I shall have to continue looking for him.”

  “It is dreadful, isn’t it? Poor woman! What she put up with makes my blood boil. Jill told us about it. She will be coming with the men to make a final check and lock everything up.”

  “Very well, I’ll leave my case with hers as I may not be here. The cows are still near the shed, and the chooks I’ve kept in their yard. The dogs, of course, will be chained.”

  “You are a man of many parts, Inspector,” Mrs Cosgrove said. “I’ve been talking about you with Superintendent Macey, and it appears you are quite famous in police circles. Anyway, I shall be looking forward to your stay with us.”

  After thanking her, Bony replaced the receiver, and went out to hang on the line the bedsheets he had used and washed. Finally he put sandwiches and a bottle of cold tea in a sugarbag which could be slung from the shoulder by a rope handle, gave the remainder of the food to the dogs, and departed.

  The morning promised a better day than the previous one. The wind still lay to the east, but was much less strong, and Bony could feel the warmth of the sun as it travelled south from the northern hemisphere.

  Coming once again to the mail-boxes, he paid particular attention to the remaining three legs of the Madden box. A fifty-pound wooden tea-chest with its open end to the east, it rested on a square frame of three-by-three-inch milled timber; this was supported at each corner by a leg of two-by-two-inch milled timber. The entire arrangement had been painted inside and out, and now needed repainting. The legs having been sunk into the ground, the remaining three still gave the box stability.

  Testing the legs of the Madden box, Bony found it would not need much effort to tear a leg from it. With one hand against the corner of the box, he was confident he could wrench the leg off with the other, and when he examined the place where the missing leg had rested he found the part buried in the ground still there, its severed end showing the ravages of white ants.

  In a state of uncontrollable rage Lush could have wrenched the leg free. Having done so he would have had to take eight steps to bring the leg down upon the upper curve of the mudguard. The blow was sufficient to dent the guard and to snap off the end protruding beyond the apex of the convex shape, the tensile strength of the wood having been reduced by the termites.

  Then what had he done? According to the overseer’s theory, he had flung away the piece of timber in his hand and rushed back to the box for another leg, missed the box in the dark and so gone over the cliff. Where was the broken leg? Bony had circled the place to find it and to pick up betraying tracks. He had looked over the water-hole and the flanking rock ledge for it.

  Lush’s reputation certainly supported the overseer’s deduction from the material facts, but from the same facts, based on the missing box leg, an equally plausible theory could be built—namely that Lush had been met by someone when he returned to the utility with a can of petrol; there had been a struggle, Lush had wrenched away the leg to attack or to defend himself, and had either slipped over the cliff or been thrown over.

  Both these theories could contain the truth, but Bony had relegated them to the sphere of remote possibility in favour of the probability that Jill Madden’s bullet, fired through the door, had killed Lush and that she had disposed of the body.

  She had admitted to taking the damaged door to the fireplace at the killing-yard and there burning it. Bony had seen at the side of the house a light iron wheelbarrow, and he had seen its marks on the path from the killing-yard to the house when he and Ray Cosgrove had looked for Lush, and again when Jill and Ray had been with him the preceding day. The barrow was obviously used to transport carcasses from the yard to the house, but it could also have been used to transport Lush to the killing-yard, from which place it would have been no great task to get him down the bank to the small but very deep river hole from which the homestead water supply was raised. There would be no tainting of the house water, which came from rain-tanks.

  Bony had made his visit the previous day to the camp of the three dead-beats on the river bank below the Mira homestead because, although their camp was nearly two miles from the abandoned utility, they could not be discarded as possible participants in Lush’s disappearance. This Darling River, sometimes called the Gutter of Australia, had once been notorious for scoundrels living in secret camps deep in its great bends, men who would lie in wait for travellers on direct tracks, and either lure them from the road or kill them and convey their bodies into the waste to dispose of them. One or more of these three men could have seen the abandoned utility before Cosgrove had done so.

  This was yet another possibility, with the probability still manifest, the only certainty being the water advancing down the river to fill over all the bend holes, to flood into all the bends, to cut off Madden’s homestead, and drive Bony to the Mira homestead on the far side. He who loved time because time was ever his ally seemed now about to be deserted by it.

  Picking up his lunch-bag, he walked on down to the lower level bordering the outside verge of Madman’s Bend, and then turned into it to come again to the leopard-wood tree that he had been so glad to see.

  Every man has to live with himself, and Bony was not going to be constantly reminded of having been afraid of this waste to the point of fearing being afraid of it. From here in he followed wide zigzagging lines in the hunt for evidence that a man or men on foot had recently emerged from the area.

  He saw a diamond snake sluggishly crossing a patch of wind-collected leaves. He saw a goanna lying along the dead branch of a tree, and the reptile looked down upon him with black and brilliant eyes filled with hate, occasionally thrusting out its forked tongue, seemingly as a threat. He heard a goat bleating and another answering, but they were unseen. Once he thought he could hear a bell rhythmically tolling a tinny note, and he judged it to be hung from the neck of another goat gone wild, or even a cow. But mostly it was silence about him, a silence having no association with the whispering of the slight wind passing the grotesque and shapeless trees.

  Whether it was because he was concentrating on the job, or because the sunlight now was stronger and more golden, or because he was unconsciously refusing to think of the unknown which brought fear, today he experienced no spiritual influence directed by his maternal progenitors. Now grim in determination, he trudged on and on, evading fallen trees, skirting deep gutters, crossing shallow billabongs, yet always following his zigzagging lines over a general
course deeper and deeper into the great bend.

  He was sitting on a log and smoking a cigarette, and thinking he would go no farther, when the back of his head and neck was touched by a thousand cold but gentle pinpricks. He swung about, and saw nothing but the haunting face of desolation. It was then that he experienced a tingling in the soles of his feet, rising up about them to his ankles, and he stood and moved his toes. These physical sensations had always given him warning of danger.

  Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte was smitten by fear, and the man known to his countless friends as Bony bit his nether lip as he waited, taut as a violin string, for the danger to make its origin known.

  It began to do so a moment later. There reached Bony an unnameable sound, low and distant, not unlike sea waves crashing against rocks, not too fantastically unlike a great organ so far away or so buried in stone that only the deepest note carried to his straining ears. What a place! What an evil place was this dry, dirty, terrible waste!

  From the cadaverous trunk of a leaning box-tree emerged the shape of a man. He was a very tall man. He was dressed in old trousers and was wearing a tattered green overcoat. He was bearded, and his grey hair draggled beneath the rim of his battered felt hat.

  Advancing towards Bony, who stood feeling the pins-andneedles in his feet and neck subsiding, the man placed his feet as though sleep-walking. Bony could not see his eyes: they were directed downward. In one hand this apparition carried a billycan, and resting on the rump of his buttocks was the usual cylindrical swag or blanket roll, the top of which was higher than the hat.

  “Bomb ... Bomb ... Bomb.”

  These repeated sounds coincided with the man’s tread. A few moments later they were repeated, and were followed by varying tones which ultimately made a tune or melody. The man was loudly humming a tune to which his feet kept time, and when he was fifty yards off Bony recognized the tune. It was the Dead March in ‘Saul’.