Winds of Evil. Arthur W. Upfield

and put the detestable Simone well in the background.

      “Now … There is, I believe, coming into general use in America, a method which will bring out finger-prints on clothes. I did think of having Mabel Storrie’s clothes sent to America for examination, but time is against me. We shall certainly have one, if not more, sand-storms within the next month or two, and during a sand-storm the strangling brute is active. Let us hope, and hope sincerely, for more sand-storms to come in the near future. Did Simone confide much in you?”

      Lee grinned when he awoke from the trance into which Bony’s little speech had thrown him.

      “Let’s say he boasted to me,” he corrected.

      “Well, then. Did he ever say he thought that the murderer was a tree-climber?”

      “A tree-climber! No, he didn’t.”

      “What is your opinion of Donald Dreyton?” was Bony’s next question; and now, before Lee answered, his puzzled frown vanished.

      “Dreyton is quite a decent man. Never given me the ghost of any trouble. He doesn’t drink to excess, and is liked by everyone.”

      “He appeared to me in that light. And yet. … Tell me all you know about him.”

      “I have him pat all right. He arrived here from Broken Hill three days before Alice Tindall was murdered. He put up at the hotel, and his luggage consisted of one large port-manteau. The day after his arrival he got work on Wirragatta as a homestead rouseabout. Then, on the very day Alice Tindall was killed, or rather the day preceding that night, he relieved the book-keeper, who left. Dreyton was book-keeping for eight months before he left the office to take on the rabbit boundary-fence. He’s been on that ever since.”

      “Concise! Excellent!” murmured Bony. “What was he before he came here?”

      Lee laughed shortly.