The sun swung sharply round to Bony’s right shoulder when the machine turned to follow the southward road to Karwir. No smoke rose from the chimney of the hut below them. No dogs moved. There were no horses in the yards down there, or human beings to wave at the passing plane.
Fascinated by the speed with which the road unwound to thrust the scrub trees towards and under the machine, Bony was unconscious of time. He saw cattle lying in the shade beside the road. Now and then he saw a running rabbit, and noted how the rodents appeared to be chased by tiny balls of red dust. Sometimes he saw the thin thread of the telephone wire stretched from tree to tree.
Now the trees thinned to terminate in a clearly defined line. The machine began to cross a wide ribbon of grey and barren land bordered on its far side by an irregular line of coolabahs, in which no foot of wood is straight. The coolabahs passed under, and again the machine crossed a wide ribbon of treeless and bare grey ground, to be met with another line of coolabahs. A third grey ribbon of bare ground was crossed before the machine again flew above massed trees bordering the everlasting road. They had passed the Channels stated by Sergeant Blake and shown by the wall map to extend from Meena Lake to Green Swamp.
Two minutes after crossing the Channels, there appeared far along the road a white blob that magically resolved into a painted bar-gate. It was the gate that darted towards them, not they towards the gate. Beyond it stretched a thin, dark line, to cross, in the far distance, a blue-grey crescent rising above the rim of the world. It was the fence crossing the plain to Karwir, the fence separating Green Swamp Paddock from North Paddock. It was rule-straight, but the road skirting its east side continued to curve like the track left on sand by a snake.
What made Bony look to the westward when the machine passed over the boundary fence, instead of to the right to observe Green Swamp Paddock that seemed to be so important to his investigation, he could not recall. As the gate passed beneath the plane, he saw the netted and barb-topped barrier lying like a knife blade along the centre of a rule-straight brown sheath dwindling to a point some three miles away.
For only a half-second did he see this cut line and the fence, but, during that fraction of time, he saw, about three-quarters of a mile westward of the gate, a white horse standing in the shade of a tree on the Karwir side of the barrier. Opposite this horse, on the Meena side of the barrier, stood a brown horse, also in the shade cast by a tree. Both animals were saddled, and appeared to be neck-roped to their respective trees. Stockmen chance-met and enjoying a gossip, Bony surmised.
The machine now was flying along the seemingly endless fence towards the homestead beyond the plain already sliding to pass beneath them. It appeared like strands of black cotton knotted at regular intervals, the knots being the posts. The plain folded away mile after mile to the clean-cut horizon west and south and east. Behind them, the mulga forest was drawn over the swelling curve of the world.
The miles were being devoured at the rate of two a minute. Down there on that road loaded wagons drawn by bullocks once moved at two miles to the hour.
The horizon to the south grew dark, darker still, to become saw-edged with tops of tall trees, the bloodwood trees bordering the creek against which stood the Karwir homestead. Tall and taller grew the trees like a row of Jack’s beanstalks, and at their feet straight-edged silver panels resolved into the iron roofs and walls of buildings. The fans of three windmills caught and sent to the oncoming plane the rays of the sun. Dust rose from toy yards constructed of match sticks, yards containing brown and black ants and two queer things that were men.
With interest Bony gazed down upon the big red roof of the homestead itself, noting the orange-trees almost surrounding the building, the trees themselves surrounded by what appeared to be a canegrass fence. They passed over a narrow sheet of water, another line of bloodwoods, and now a little to the left stood the corrugated iron hangar beyond which was the spacious landing ground. A few seconds later they were on the ground, once more earth-bound. The yawning front of the hangar opened wide and wider to receive its own as Young Lacy taxied the machine into it. Then came abruptly an astounding silence in which lived a very small voice.
“There you are, Bony. We have arrived,” announced Young Lacy.
“And to think that twenty years ago one would have had to travel that road on a horse or in a buckboard,” Bony said, smiling down at Young Lacy who first reached the ground. The cheerful young man accepted the proffered suitcase and waited for Bony to join him.
“I’ll come back to put the crate to bed,” he said. “Come on! The old man will be waiting to meet you. Be prepared to meet a lion. The dad’s got a lot of excellent points, but strangers find him a bit difficult. The best way to manage him is to refuse to be shouted down. To begin well with him is to continue well.”
Bony laughed softly, saying:
“Thank you for the advice. In the art of taming lions I have had long and constant practice. It seems that your father conforms to a type to which belongs my respected chief, Colonel Spendor.”
Young Lacy conducted the detective across a bridge spanning the creek, thence to a narrow gate in the cane-grass fence enclosing the big house. Within, he was met with the cool fragrance of gleaming orange-trees, and the scent of flowers in beds fronting the entire length of the fly-proofed veranda along the south side of the house. He followed Young Lacy up two steps, and stepped on to the veranda, linoleum covered and furnished plainly but with studied comfort. Standing before one of several leather-upholstered chairs was Old Lacy—a patriarch of the bush, with a pipe in one hand and a stock journal in the other. His feet were slippered. Gabardine trousers reached to a tweed waistcoat open all the way. His plain white shirt was of good quality, but he wore no collar and no coat. His hair was thin and as white as snow. His beard was thin and as white as his hair. There was power in the grey eyes, and character in the long Roman nose. No smile welcomed the detective.
“This is Detective-Inspector Bonaparte,” Young Lacy announced.
“Eh?” exclaimed Old Lacy, like a man who is deaf. Young Lacy did not repeat the introduction. Bony waited. To have spoken would have indicated weakness. “A detective-inspector, eh? You? ’Bout time, anyway, that that fool of a Police Commissioner sent someone to look into this murder business. Well, the lad will show you to your bunk.”
“Mr Bonaparte,” Young Lacy said with slight emphasis on the title, “can remain here with you, dad. No arrangements will have been made for Mr Bonaparte because Diana went out before I left for Opal Town, and I forgot to tell Mabel to prepare a room. I’ll get her to make a pot of tea, and then fix one of the rooms.”
“Humph! All right!” Old Lacy seated himself in the chair he had but recently vacated, and he pointed to another opposite. “Sit down there, Bonaparte. What are you, Indian or Australian?”
“Thank you.” Bony sat down, quite happily. “I am Australian, at least on my mother’s side. It is better to be half-Australian than not Australian at all.”
“How the devil did you rise to be a detective-inspector? Tell me that,” the old man demanded with raised voice.
With effort Bony restrained the laughter in his eyes, for he clearly understood that this baiting was a real man’s method of testing a stranger. Before him sat a man who, having conquered life by fighting all comers, detested weakness; one who, having fought all comers, continued to do so by habit. Calmly, Bony said:
“My career as a detective, following my graduation from the university at Brisbane, would take a long time to describe in detail. In this country colour is no bar to a keen man’s progress providing that he has twice the ability of his rivals. I have devoted my gifts