Death of a Lake. Arthur W. Upfield
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had previously been born and had died periodically for centuries.
Where the “whirlies” had danced all day, where the mirage had lain like burning water, the colours of the changing sky lived upon dancing waves, and the waves sang to the shores and called the birds from far-away places ... even the gulls from the ocean. Giant fleets of pelicans came to nest and multiply. The cormorants arrived with the waders, and when the duck-shooting season began in the settled parts of Australia the ducks came in their thousands to this sanctuary.
All that was only three years ago. Nineteen feet of water covered the depression three miles wide and five miles long. Then, as a man begins to die the moment he is born, so did Lake Otway suffer attrition from the sun and the wind. The first year evaporation reduced the depth to fourteen feet, and the second year these enemies reduced it to eight feet.
It was the second year that Ray Gillen came over the back tracks from Ivanhoe way on his motor-bike and asked for a job. He was a wizard on that bike on all kinds of tracks and where no tracks were, and he was a superb horseman, too. Even now the sound of his laughter spanned the ridges of time since that moonlit night he had gone swimming and had not returned.
He ought to have come ashore. It was strange that the eagles and the crows never led the waiting men to the body, for there were exceptionally few snags in Lake Otway, and no outlet down the Tallyawalker Creek that year.
If only a man could strip that girl’s mind and forget her body. She used to catch her breath when Ray Gillen laughed, and when he teased her, her eyes were blue ... like ... like blue lakes.
The Golden Bitch!
Chapter Two
Bony comes to Porchester
It was not an event to be forgotten by those closely associated with it. The details were recorded by the police and studied by Detective-Inspector Bonaparte many months later.
Ray Gillen arrived at Lake Otway on September 3rd, and the next morning was taken on the books by Richard Martyr. As is the rule, no questions were asked of Gillen concerning previous employment or personal history, the only interest in him by his employer being his degree of efficiency in the work he was expected to do. And as a stockman he was certainly efficient.
Nine weeks later, on the night of November 7th, Gillen was drowned in Lake Otway, and late the following day the senior police officer at Menindee arrived with Mr Wallace, the owner. To Sergeant Mansell Martyr passed all Gillen’s effects, he having in the presence of witnesses listed the contents of Gillen’s suitcase and the items of his swag.
At that time the men’s quarters were occupied by Lester, MacLennon, Carney and George Barby. The quarters consisted of a bungalow having three bedrooms either side of the living-room. Lester occupied one room and MacLennon another. Carney occupied the same room with Gillen, and Barby had a room to himself.
November came in very hot and the men often descended the steps cut into the face of the bluff and bathed in the lake, which at this date was twelve feet five inches deep. Neither Lester nor MacLennon could swim. Barby could, but never ventured far from the shore. Of about the same age ... twenty-five ... both Gillen and Carney were strong swimmers, especially the former, who boasted that, with a little training, he would swim across the lake and back.
On the night of November 7th the moon was almost at full. The day had been very hot, and the night warm and still. The men played poker, using matches, until a quarter to eleven, when they went to bed. Carney stated that shortly after he and Gillen got to bed, Gillen announced his intention of going for a swim. Carney, on the verge of sleeping, declined Gillen’s invitation to accompany him. He stated that it wasn’t until he awoke the following morning that he discovered Gillen hadn’t returned.
The last Carney saw of Gillen was when he put out the light on leaving the room. Gillen then was wearing only his pyjama trousers. A quick check of Gillen’s clothes proved that he could not have returned from the lake, slept, awakened early and dressed and gone out. It was after breakfast, when Martyr appeared to give his orders for the day, that Gillen was reported missing.
For Sergeant Mansell a routine job. He examined Gillen’s clothes, his swag of blankets, and the contents of his suitcase, the suitcase being of good quality. There was no clue to Gillen’s people. He examined the man’s motor-bike, a powerful machine in good condition, noted its registration and engine numbers, and went back to his office.
Wallace and his overseer organized the hands. Aborigines were brought from the River, and meanwhile Lester and Carney and MacLennon scoured the country about the Lake in the extremely unlikely event that Gillen had wandered away and become lost.
On the third day, and subsequently, all hands patrolled the shores to await the coming in of the body. The wind direction and the currents set up by the wind were carefully calculated. But the body did not come ashore, and it was ultimately assumed that it had been trapped by a wire fence crossing the lake which was, of course, submerged when the depression filled with water.
Among Gillen’s effects was neither a driver’s licence nor a registration certificate for the machine he rode. It was learned that the registered owner of the motor-cycle was a timber worker in Southern Queensland. He was traced to Toowoomba, where he was living at a good hotel and spending freely. He said he sold the bike to a man named Gillen, and described Gillen. He said that his present state of affluence was due to having a half-share with Gillen in a lottery ticket which won £25,000.
Asked how the money was divided, the timber worker told of an agreement to draw the full amount in cash from the bank into which the cheque for the prize had been paid. In an hotel room they had portioned out each share in Treasury notes. They wanted to look at a lot of money, and Gillen had left the next morning on his bike, saying he intended to tour Australia.
And the extraordinary facet of this tale of luck and division of so large a sum in notes of low denomination was that it was true. Gillen had left Toowoomba with something like £12,500 in his possession.
When his effects were examined first by Martyr in the presence of Lester and MacLennon, there was no money.
All the banks in the Commonwealth were asked if an account in Gillen’s name had been opened. Result negative. Gillen’s journey south into New South Wales and still farther south was traced. Here and there people remembered him. Debonair, handsome, a man seeking adventure. Plenty of money? Well, no, he didn’t give that impression. What had the timber worker said of Gillen? “Money! Ray never cared a hoot for money. Twelve thousand odd in his kip wouldn’t worry him.”
Questions: Had he arrived at Lake Otway to accept a job when he possessed twelve thousand pounds? Again according to the timber worker, it was likely. Significantly, the timber worker added: “Ray would take a job anywhere where there was a ‘good sort’ around.”
There was a “good sort” at Lake Otway. That £12,000. could not be traced. Gillen was known to be an excellent swimmer. The statements of four men tallied in that they all played poker with Gillen and always with matches. Fifteen months after Gillen was thought to be drowned, Inspector Bonaparte happened to peruse the case file.
There were several angles which, although unusual, were by no means psychologically improbable. Firstly, the personality of the man Gillen. He had been born and educated in Tasmania. On leaving school he worked on an uncle’s farm, but the farm, apparently, was too cramped, and the boy crossed to the mainland, where he passed from job to job until, as a stockman in Northern Queensland, he had volunteered for service in Korea, where he had completed his term of service. Returning to Queensland, he joined two men in a timber contract.
After leaving the Tasmanian farm, there had never been lack of money in Gillen’s life. The sudden acquisition of a large sum of money did not cause Gillen to rush to the flesh-pots, as it had done to his partner in the lottery ticket. That lucky ticket provided Gillen with additional means to freedom, and many a man wants just that.
Therefore, that Ray Gillen had stuffed about £12,000 into his kip and set off on a motor cycle to see Australia was in keeping with the psychology of many young men in Bony’s experience.