Cake in the Hat Box. Arthur W. Upfield
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rifle,” said Irwin.
“Mightn’t have brought one.”
“Unlikely, sir. The tucker-box ...”
Irwin pounced on the small wooden case, rummaged among the contents and laughed.
“No cooked tucker,” he said. “Tracker must have shot him, and cleared out with his swag and the constable’s rifle and what cooked tucker there was. It adds up.”
Bony was standing back from the front offside wheel.
“If the tracker shot him, he must be familiar with rifles or revolvers,” he said. “He could have shot Stenhouse from this point, but there was little margin to miss the windscreen. Ah, Doctor. What’s the verdict?”
“Shot through the heart, I think,” replied Morley. “Soft-nosed, steel-jacketed bullet from a high-velocity rifle. The bullet passed out through the back, making an exit wound about two inches in diameter. The range, I’d guess, was about twenty-five yards.”
Bony beamed, and the doctor’s eyes swiftly clouded.
“Most interesting,” Bony said, and held out his hand on which rested the bullet taken from the oil tin. “This was not the bullet which killed him?”
“No, definitely not.”
“Been dead ... how long?”
“The day before yesterday at shortest, and at longest the day before that.”
“Placing death either on the 15th or the 16th, eh?” Bony paused to light a cigarette. “We haven’t found a soft-nosed, steel-jacketed bullet. Look at the seat back, please. The bullet which passed through it was not, you think, the bullet which passed through the body?”
Dr Morley leaned into the vehicle to examine the seat back, and on turning to Bony he shook his head.
“When the bullet emerged from the dead man’s back, it was a shapeless metal mass, such a bullet expanding after impact. I’d say that the bullet which passed through the seat back is the one you have in your hand.”
“Fired through the seat back before the body was placed there behind the steering-wheel, eh?” Irwin surmised.
“Could you tell us, after our return to Agar’s Lagoon, if that blood on the seat and on the ground is human or animal?” asked Bony.
“Yes, I could do that. Shall I take a specimen?”
“If you please. This case is beginning to provide interest. Might I have your cooperation by keeping your findings from the public?”
The doctor’s assent was gruffly spoken, and to smooth the umbrage Bony urbanely related how he was once inconvenienced by a doctor innocently mentioning a vital fact to an interested party outside police circles. To Irwin he said:
“Call Laidlaw.”
The almost naked transport driver ambled from the fire, where he had been washing his hands after bundling the corpse in blankets and ground-sheet.
“You said, I think, you met no one on your trip from Wyndham to Agar’s Lagoon?”
“No one at all,” averred Sam. “I seen only the Breens drovin’ their cattle to the Meat Works. I passed ’em about twenty miles north of McDonald’s Stand.”
“How far off the track?”
“Less’n half a mile. Kimberley and Ezra Breen was in charge ... with four abos.”
“Thanks, Sam. When would they have passed here?”
“Wouldn’t pass here. Their station’s on the far side of this Black Range. They’d hit the Wyndham track north of McDonald’s Stand at the end of the Range, and that’s fifteen miles away.”
“What kind of outfit did they have?”
“Pack-horses and spare hacks.”
“Well, that appears to dispose of the Breens. Call ’Un, please.” To the yardman Bony said: “Give me your attention, ’Un. You know everyone who passes through Agar’s. Who was the last to arrive there from this track?”
“Sam, of course,” was the instant response. “Afore Sam, there was a party of Gov’ment photographers. They went on to Darwin.”
“When did they arrive at Agar’s Lagoon?”
“Last Toosdee. Left again on Wednesdee.”
“So that they passed this point some time on Tuesday the 15th. Keep that in mind, please. At what time did they arrive at Agar’s Lagoon?”
“’Bout six.”
“Good! Now tell me who was the last to leave Agar’s Lagoon to take this track, and when.”
’Un took time to answer that one. “’S’far as I know, it was Mr Alverston and two blacks with him. They left Agar’s about seven in the morning in a utility. It was on Toosdee morning. The Gov’ment men said they met him at McDonald’s Stand around noon. They boiled the billy and had a bite of scan afore they parted.”
“And as far as you know, no one was on this track after Tuesday, exceptin’ Sam?”
“That’s right, Inspector.”
“Very well.” Bony noted the sun time. “Fix those two trackers with a meal. I want to put them to work.”
The yardman having departed, Bony questioned Sam.
“Tell me about Alverston,” he requested, and the transport driver said that Alverston was a station manager, and that after leaving the photographers he would drive a further forty miles towards Wyndham before taking the turn-off to his station, which lay to the north-east.
“Did you see any smoke signals on your own journey south?”
“Yes,” replied Sam. “There was smokes far away to the west of Black Range.”
“How many?”
“Five in a row. I remember there was three continuous columns and two broken up. Couldn’t read ’em, of course.”
“That was Tuesday morning ... not Monday?”
“Tuesday morning, it was. I noticed them smokes before I met the Breens.”
“All right, Sam.”
The trackers had received their meal and had taken it back to Irwin’s utility, and when Bony approached them they stood expectant, their faces indicative of pleasure as though to receive a great honour. Both appeared absurdly incongruous in their greatcoats and heavy boots. They crouched with Bony as with a stick he sketched on the ground the smoke signals described by Sam. He sought confirmation of his own reading of them.
“These feller smokes,” he said, blandly. “What they bin tell you, eh?”
One kicked at a stone and turned as though to admire a view. The other laughed as though to hide embarrassment, and he said:
“P’haps smoke fellers bin tellum policeman him bin shot.”
Bony smiled his triumph, and they laughed in unison. Neither had been near the dead Stenhouse. Neither had overheard that Stenhouse had been shot.
Those far-away aborigines living in the very heart of the Kimberley Mountains knew how Constable Stenhouse had died.
Chapter Five
Dead Man’s Diary
The police station at Agar’s Lagoon had seldom been as busy as on the morning of August 19th. The township was subdued; the pub deserted. The town goats were indifferent, and of them there were a thousand and one.
Inspector Walters, the Senior Police officer in charge of the vast district of the northern third of Western Australia, had arrived from his headquarters at Broome, bringing with him