Matt sighed his deep years-long anguish, was quiet for several minutes, and then asked the question he must have asked himself a thousand times:
“Why? Tell me why? Tell me how come an upstanding young feller should of done that? He’s come of good stock. He’s reared by God-fearing parents. He’s loaded with gifts by the Almighty. And in a flash like, he turns from a human being into a bloody savage. You tell me how that can be.”
Chapter Five
The Door
A cloud drifter over the karri and changed the deep blue of the sky to white, and the changing of the colour appeared to cause two kookaburras amid the branches to exchange low and sleepy chucklings. The usual rooster crowed and flapped his wings, and a dog came to the garden gate to peer in at the three sitting on the bench. When Matt spoke, he was calmer.
“Ted got the idea that Marvin arranged with Luke to forget the papers, and then take the milk truck back to get them, the truck being due at the time Rose left alone with Marvin. As I said, the truck came here from Timbertown, picked up Luke and went on down to Rhudder’s homestead. There it took on the cream and what-ever, and left in half an hour for the return, calling in here for our cream cans.
“Seems that when Ted went down for Mrs Stark he had a word with Jeff, and it came out that the papers were supposed to be banked two days before. Ted said he thought Luke had forgotten them then, and made it the excuse for Marvin to travel alone with Rose that morning. They had a fight over it, did Ted and Luke, and a week later Luke went up to Perth and got himself a job there.”
“And Rose? She recovered from her injuries, obviously,” commented Bony.
“Yes, from her injuries but not from the other thing. Mrs Stark was mighty good to her, and so was Sarah, Jeff’s wife. When we told Sarah what had happened she almost told us we were liars, but she had to believe it later on. It took Rose a long time to get past having nightmares, to get past crying fits long after the wounds she’d got healed up.”
“But she recovered, didn’t she?” pressed Bony. “She was courted and was married, and she had children and now is a happy woman, or I’m a duffer.”
“That’s so, Mr Bonnar,” Emma agreed. “It was made up to her for all she suffered.”
“Her husband doesn’t know what happened to her?”
“No, no one does,” replied Emma.
“Then how does Constable Sasoon and his wife know?”
“Because they’ve been our friends for years.”
“Very well,” Bony said, quickly. “Mr Jukes, you tell me what would be the result, other than being hanged, of you shooting Rhudder? No, I’ll tell you. Your motive would be discovered and published to the world, and all the world, including your son-in-law would then know what did happen. I’m sure your daughter wouldn’t want that.”
“The world would never know the motive,” Matt sullenly asserted.
“Yes, it would. The police or the prosecuting counsel would get it out of you. And besides, you continue to have warm regard for Jeff Rhudder, and how could you face him after shooting his son?”
“He’s threatened to shoot him himself.”
“Threatened, yes. Shoot him, I much doubt. Knock him down if physically able, yes. Order him from the house, yes. From what you tell me of this character, I feel sure he wouldn’t go to the ultimate. And from what I am able to judge of your character, I am sure you wouldn’t either. Had Marvin slain your Rose, it would have been quite different.
“And now, both of you,” Bony continued in abruptly cheerful vein, “although you haven’t consented to put me up, I shall thank you in advance. Please call me Nat, and I shall call you Matt and Emma. I have never failed to conclude an assignment, never failed to reach the murderer. I shall not fail this time. If I don’t find Rhudder here, I shall catch up with him some other place. And then, for sure, he will be tried in Adelaide and hanged.”
“That’s what Sam said, Marvin having murdered in South Australia and not in New South Wales.”
“With his record prior to the murder of the bookmaker, hanging will be inevitable, and your hunger for justice will be assuaged. Don’t let it ride you any more, Matt. Think of those bonny grandchildren, and leave Marvin Rhudder to me and the judge. Look, is this your man, Karl Mueller, coming on the horse?”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Emma, impulsively squeezing Bony’s arm. “It must be twelve o’clock and no lunch ready.”
“Remember I am Rose’s friend,” he reminded them. “As, in fact, I am.”
Emma looked back at the visitor as she was about to pass into the house. She was smiling, for the weight of anxiety which had oppressed her since the return of Marvin Rhudder was lifted. Her husband continued moodily to look at the blaze of flowers in the strip of garden, and Bony watched the man and horse approaching from the cleared space beyond the mighty tree.
“Could you let me have a horse?” he asked.
“Any time. This afternoon? Karl’ll bring one in.”
“Not this afternoon. I am thinking you might like to show me the coast. Go fishing perhaps.”
“All right. The tide will suit. We can fish it up. I’ll check the gear.” The stocky Jukes stood to say, before turning away: “I’m glad you came, Nat.”
The dogs off the chain raced to meet the horseman. The kookaburras chortled, and a magpie swooped on the rooster and made him shout defiance and clap his wings. One Tree Farm was alive again.
Presently Karl Mueller came to sit with Bony, and with no more greeting than if they were fellow workers.
“Nice day.”
Bony agreed, glancing at the weathered face and then into the friendly grey eyes. The wind ruffled Karl’s blond hair streaked with grey at the temples.
“You travellin’?” asked Karl after the appropriate pause.
“No. I am visiting,” Bony replied. “I’m staying a few weeks. Friend of Rose and her husband. I come from the Murchison.”
“Friend of Rose, eh!” A slow smile spread over the rugged face. “Good! How’s she? How’s the littlies?”
Emma halted the lunch preparation to listen to Bony’s answers, and smiled again when he made no mistake about names and age and sex, even the children’s colouring. When she called them, Karl was warming to the visitor, and the conversation during the meal was almost gay.
Rhudder’s Inlet was gradually revealed to Bony when Matt drove him in the utility over the undulating paddocks he farmed, where now and then the sheen of water appeared in the clefts of the changing horizon.
“Is it far off the road where Marvin crossed the creek and left his tracks?” Bony asked, and Matt said they could get the ute to within five hundred yards.
It was more than a creek. When in full flow in the rains it would be a turgid river a hundred yards wide here passing over flat country from the northern hills. After all the days since Marvin Rhudder splashed across its bordering flats, without troubling to remove his boots, some of the imprints on the caking mud were clear cut.
“Nothing much to see,” remarked Matt as Bony stood and regarded the prints.
“I want only to memorize them,” he was informed. “I see here where Sasoon took plaster casts, and his trackers did a good job concealing that operation. All right, Matt. We’ll get on.”
They topped