Death of a Swagman. Arthur W. Upfield
Читать онлайн книгу.
down at his own desk and wrote rapidly on an official form. Then he said:
“You are charged with (a) giving fictitious answers to lawful questions put to you by a police officer, (b) being insolent to a police officer in the execution of his duty, (c) having no visible means of support, and (d) loitering outside a licensed premises. Lock him up, Gleeson.”
“There is an (e) within brackets but I had better not mention it,” Bony could not resist pointing out, and then another human vise became clamped about his upper arm and he was conducted to one of two whitewashed cells in a building at the rear of the station. The constable heard him laughing as he walked back to his typewriter.
Bony sat down on the broad bench which was to serve him as a bed. His clear blue eyes were bright and twinkling with mirth whilst his long slim fingers made a cigarette with the usual hump in the middle. Often had he been threatened with arrest by policemen who knew him only as a station hand, but this was the first time he had been jailed. His cell was clean but too warm for comfort beneath its iron roof, the air being admitted only through a barred opening in the roof and a small iron grille in the door. Philosophically he placed his swag of blankets and personal gear as a pillow for his head and laid himself along the bench and smoked whilst pondering on the advisability or otherwise of presenting his credentials to Sergeant Marshall. Eventually he would have to do so, but there were certain advantages to be gained by remaining incognito for a week or so.
He had been there for probably an hour when he heard movement outside the door as though a box or case was being placed against it. A moment later he saw a pair of large dark grey eyes gazing steadily at him through the grille. He swung his feet off the bench and sat up.
“Good afternoon,” he said politely.
The steady appraisal continued, inquiring, assessing. Bony stood, whereupon a sweetly childish voice ordered:
“Stay where you are or I’ll go away.”
“Very well,” he said, and sat down. “Now that you have looked me over carefully enough, what do you think of me?”
“What’s your name?” came the faint echo of the sergeant’s voice.
“Bony.”
“Bony! Bony what?”
“Just Bony. Everyone calls me Bony. What’s yours?”
“I am Rose Marie. I’m eight. My father’s a policeman.”
“Rose Marie,” Bony repeated slowly. “What a beautiful name.”
“It is not my real name, you know,” said the person outside the door. “My real name’s Florence. Young Mr. Jason gave me the Rose Marie name. I’m glad you like it. I do too. So does Miss Leylan. What are you in there for?”
“For having been rude to a sergeant of police.”
“Oh! That’ll be my father. He doesn’t like people being rude to him. Why were you rude?”
Bony related the incident of his arrest. Then he chuckled, and unexpectedly, the person outside laughed with him.
“You didn’t mean to be rude, did you?” she asked, swiftly serious.
“No, of course not. I was only trying to be funny. Can I come to the door now? It’s rather difficult talking to you from here.”
“You may.”
The large grey eyes examined him with even greater interest when his face was brought to the level of the door grille, and, noticing the trickles of perspiration on his dark brown face, Rose Marie said with anxiety in her voice:
“Is it hot in there?”
“Somewhat,” replied Bony ruefully. “How is it out there?”
“Goodo here in the shade. Would you like a drink of tea?”
He nodded, his eyes wide with anticipation and containing a little admiration, too, for Rose Marie’s hair was light brown and appeared to reflect the sunlight beyond the shadow of the jail. Her face was perfectly oval and fresh and winsome.
“I’ll make you a drink of tea,” she told him solemnly. “You must be thirsty in that hot old place. You wait! The kettle’s boiling. I promised Mother I’d have it boiling by the time she got back from the parsonage. I won’t be long.”
He watched her cross to the rear of the station, noted her firm carriage and steady, deliberate walk, a mannerism of movement evidently copied from her father. There in the sunlight her hair gleamed, the twin plaits hanging down her back seemingly ropes of new gold. Ten minutes later he watched her return, carrying a tray covered with a cloth. She set it down upon the ground before the door, and then looked up at him and said firmly:
“You promise not to run away when I open the door?”
“I do, of course.”
“Cross your fingers properly and promise out loud. Hold them up so’s I can see.”
Bony obeyed and loudly promised not to run away, with the mental reservation that he would not run away for a hundred pounds.
There was no further hesitation. Rose Marie moved the box from the door, slipped the heavy bolt, opened the door wide, and came in with her tray.
“My!” she exclaimed, putting the tray down on the bench. “It is hot in here.”
“Better leave the door open,” he suggested. “All the hot air will then go outside. Oh! I see that you have brought two cups and saucers. And cake! You know, Rose Marie, you are being very kind. Are you going to have tea with me?”
They sat one at each end of the bench with the tea tray between them. With the precision of an experienced hostess the little girl set out her service of cups and saucers and plates. They had two blue stripes round their edges and the tea cosy of white wool also had its two blue stripes. It was evidently not the first occasion that Rose Marie had served afternoon tea.
“Do you take milk and sugar?” she asked.
“Thank you ... and one spoonful of sugar, please,” replied the delighted Bony, the romantic heart of him charmed. “You have a very nice tea set.”
“Yes, it is pretty. I knitted the cosy all by myself to match the cups and things. Miss Leylan says I made four mistakes in knitting the cosy. Can you see them?”
“No. I can’t. I don’t see any mistakes. Miss Leylan must have been mistaken. Who is she?”
“She comes in from Wattle Creek Station three times a week to our school. She’s the sewing mistress. I like her. Her brother owns Wattle Creek Station, you know. Will you say grace, please? Mr and Mrs James always do when they take tea with Mother.”
“I expect you could say it better than I could,” he said hastily, adding when the grace had been offered: “Who are Mr and Mrs James?”
“The minister and his wife. Mr James is a lazy good-for-nothing dreamer, and Mrs James is a slave to him. That’s what Mother says. Someday I am going to ask Mr James what he dreams about. Have you any brothers and sisters? I haven’t. I heard Mrs James tell Mrs Lacey one day it was a shame that I didn’t have a brother or a sister.”
Bony shook his head. He was conscious that his table manners were being studied, and hoped they were being approved.
“No, I have no brothers and sisters,” he told her, and related how he had been found, when a small baby, in the shade of a sandalwood-tree in the far north of Queensland, and how he had found a mother in the matron of the mission station to which he had been taken. That produced many questions which had to be answered, for was she not his hostess and he her guest? His reward was the information that Constable Gleeson was her father’s only assistant, that the elder Mr Jason was considered “queer” by her mother, and by her father the essence of a broken-down actor, and that young Mr Jason had given her the name of Rose Marie because he loved her and was going to marry her some day, and that Detective