Mr Jelly's Business. Arthur W. Upfield
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in a white muslin dress. And behind her came Mr Jelly.
If you possess imagination sufficient to magnify a cigar to the size of a six-foot man you will obtain a pictorial impression of Mr Jelly. His head was small with a pointed crown, and his feet were small. From his head downwards and from his feet upwards Mr Jelly’s circumference gradually increased till the middle was reached. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, bald save for a ring of grey hair which rested upon his ears like a halo much too small for him. His complexion was brick red, not alcoholic red, but the red of sunrays and strong winds.
“You will break your confounded neck one of these days,” he told Hurley in the peculiarly soothing voice of a doctor addressing a rich patient. There was remarkable gentleness and kindly concern in that voice, a surprising vocal inflexion to be heard on an Australian farm.
“Not me, Mr Jelly. Hullo, Luce! Did you expect me?”
The girl’s big brown eyes were clear and steady.
“Yes, of course. Have you forgotten that you said you would come tonight when you left last night?”
“Forgotten! Of course he’s not forgotten.”
“Hullo, Sunflower!”
“Hullo, Eric!”
“I’ve brought a new friend along because you ought to know him,” Hurley announced easily. “Luce, this is Mr Bony. He has just started for the Rabbit Department.”
Bony found himself being very thoroughly examined. Wearing no hat, he bowed as never man had bowed to Lucy Jelly. She looked upon his ruddy brown face illuminated by the keen, clean mind, watched the smile slowly break over it which swept aside her instinctive race prejudice, saw his teeth gleam whilst he said with polished grace:
“Mr Hurley insisted on bringing me, Miss Jelly. I am very happy to meet you.”
Her eyes widened a fraction at his accent. Without pre-thought she said:
“I am glad you came.”
“This is Miss Dulcie Jelly, known to her friends as Sunflower,” came the next introduction.
Again Bony bowed, and this time he offered his hand.
“I hope you will accept me as your friend, for Sunflower is a very pretty name.”
“I will think about it, Mr Bony,” the young lady replied with unusual reserve.
“And now it is the old fellow’s turn,” put in Mr Jelly.
“Mr Bony—Mr Jelly.”
Mr Jelly stared into the blue eyes of the Saxon, swiftly examined the features of the Nordic. He noted the rich, even colour of the face, in which he could see no vice. Returning the stare, Bony instantly knew that here was a man superior to his fellows, a man of great force, one who had plumbed the depths of knowledge if not the heights.
The introductions accomplished, Mr Jelly invited them into his house, saying:
“Well, come along in. We’ve just had dinner, but there’s tea in the pot. I haven’t seen you around Burracoppin before. From what part of Australia do you hail?”
“Queensland, Mr Jelly. I knocked up a good cheque there breaking in horses, and saw in it an excellent chance to visit Western Australia. Unfortunately, I stayed a little too long, and now must make a cheque with which to get back again.”
“Horsebreaker, eh? Humph!”
While following his host through the kitchen door he glanced over his shoulder, to observe Hurley slowly following with one arm round the waist of Lucy Jelly and the other about the shoulders of little Sunflower.
The kitchen, evidently, was the dining-room. It was spotlessly clean, and austere in its furnishing. Bony was made to seat himself at the table and was given a cup of tea and offered a plate of small cakes. Mr Jelly lit the lamp. The world without was hushed to an unthrobbing silence.
“Bony is interested in ants, Mr Jelly,” Hurley remarked in his pleasant way. “I found him reading a book about them which has more Latin words in it than English.”
“Ah!” murmured Mr Jelly noncommittally, studying Bony in the lamplight.
“Ants always interest me,” Bony confessed. “The termite especially is a wonderful insect.”
The critical expression in Mr Jelly’s eyes of light blue was replaced by one of pleasure.
“You are correct, friend. I am delighted to find in you a man of intelligence. The termite was living, as doubtless you are aware, millions of years before man appeared, even millions of years before the Australian bulldog ant, which is the oldest ant. You will agree that the termite’s social laws are so far advanced beyond ours as to make ours merely the confusion of anarchy.”
“I am glad I came tonight,” Bony said, smiling.
“I am glad to meet a man who can discuss subjects other than horses, machinery, and wheat and the doings of our local society lights.”
“You have followed Henry Smeathman?” Bony asked.
“No, but I have read what Dr David Livingstone said about the termites of Africa. A great naturalist as well as a great missionary. But, come! Let us go to my little den and leave these younger people to entertain each other. Coffee at nine-thirty, Lucy, please.”
Again following Mr Jelly, Bony once more glanced back. Lucy Jelly was smiling happily. Sunflower Jelly was watching Bony with her big solemn eyes, the eyes of a Maid of Orleans or of a judge in ermine. Mr Eric Hurley closed one of his eyes as his generous mouth widened into a grin.
Carrying a lighted lamp, Mr Jelly led the way to a room at the farther side of the house. This room contained a plain oak bedstead with coverings, a desk, set against one wall angle, which was littered with papers and account books, a glass-fronted bookcase rarely seen in Australian farmhouses, and a large table set before the one window. The table was covered with a black cloth, and on it were several folio-size scrap or press-cutting albums, a pot of glue, writing materials, and an empty picture frame. Hanging on the walls was a gallery of framed portraits.
“This is Bluebeard’s chamber,” Mr Jelly was saying in his soft, soothing voice. “It is my private room. None of my household ever comes here. Well?”
“Here, I see, is the likeness of Maurice, the Longreach murderer, and there is Victor Lord, who killed a woman at Bathurst, New South Wales,” came from Bony, who was examining the pictures. “Surely, Mr Jelly, you are not a criminologist as well as a naturalist?”
“Indeed I am,” Mr Jelly admitted. “Of the two branches of science I am the more interested in criminology, but I do not neglect the science of agriculture. I do not permit my hobbies to interfere with the practice of my living. There are my children to be considered, and, my wife being dead, the responsibility is entirely on me. Yes, I have given much study to the lives of all those men whose pictures hang on those walls. All of them are murderers, and all of them have been executed. Study of the subject of homicide compels me to believe that it is the result of physical disorder. Sit down. If I can interest you, you will be an exception who will gladden my heart.”
“I am sure you will interest me,” Bony stated gently. He was actually more interested in Mr Jelly than he had been in a man for many years. To observe the farmer seated at the table with the soft light falling on his benign face, the ruddy complexion, the grey fringe of hair, and the light blue eyes, was to place him at a vast distance from such a hobby or life interest as homicide.
“Pardon my curiosity,” Bony continued, “but how did you secure all those pictures, for they are studio portraits?”
“They are photographic copies of newspaper pictures,” the farmer explained, adding with a sweep of his hand over the table: “Here I have their dossiers, accounts of their final trial and death. These albums are full of them, full of the greatest dramas in human life; accounts of men fighting for their vile lives, of women nobly