Into the grey eyes slowly had crept a gleam. When Old Lacy again spoke his voice was less, much less, loud.
“Damned if I don’t think you’re right,” he said. “I’ve known lots of fine blackfellers and more’n one extra good half-caste. I’ve known many white men who’ve made a pile and think themselves king-pins. And as for those swine dropping bombs on women and children, well, they’re less than animals, for even dingoes don’t kill their females and the little pups. Don’t mind me. I’m a rough old bushy in my ways and talk. I’m glad you came. I want to see justice done for what I think happened to Jeffery Anderson. You’ll be a welcome guest at Karwir, and you can expect all the help we can give. You’ll want that, after these months following Jeff’s disappearance.”
“Of that I am sure, Mr Lacy,” Bony asserted, conscious of the warm glow within him created by yet one more victory over the accident of his birth. “The lapse of time since Anderson was last seen will, of course, make my investigation both difficult and prolonged. I may be quartered on you for a month, possibly six months. I shall not give up, or return to Brisbane, until I have established Anderson’s fate and those responsible for it.”
“Ah—I like to hear a man talk like that. It’s the way I talk myself, although not so well schooled. Ah—put it down here, Mabel.”
The uniformed maid placed the tea tray on a table between the two men, then vanished through one of the house doors. Bony rose to say:
“Milk and sugar, Mr Lacy?”
“No sugar, thanks. Can’t afford it at my time of life. In fact, I never could.”
“Sugar is expensive, I know,” murmured Bony, taking two spoonfuls. “Still, aeroplanes and things are expensive, too.”
The old man chuckled.
“I think I am going to like you, Inspector,” he said.
Chapter Five
Old Lacy’s Daughter
“Now, Mr Lacy, let us go back to the vital day, the eighteenth of April,” request Bony. “What was the weather like that morning?”
“Dull,” instantly replied Lacy, in whose life weather conditions were of the greatest interest. “A warm, moist wind was blowing from the north, and from the same quarter was drifting a high cloud belt with never a break in it. We did not expect rain; otherwise I wouldn’t have sent Anderson to ride the fences of Green Swamp Paddock.”
“Kindly describe the subsequent weather that day.”
“About eleven the sky to the north cleared, and the last of the cloud mass passed over us about twelve o’clock. At this hour another mass of cloud appeared, coming from the north-west, and the front edge of this mass passed over a little after one. It began to rain shortly after two o’clock, beginning light and gradually becoming steady. When I went out to the rain gauge at four o’clock, fifteen points had fallen. The rain kept on steadily for the remainder of the day, and stopped only some time early the next morning.”
“How often has rain fallen since, and how much?”
“No rain has fallen excepting a very light shower on the seventh of August. The water didn’t run in the sand-gutters.”
Not yet was Old Lacy able to make up his mind that Bony was master of his particular job. The questions that followed helped him to do so. “Did you give Anderson his orders that morning?”
“Yes. After I had dealt with the men, I spoke to him. Not only was he to ride the fences, he was to take a look at Green Swamp itself and report on the water remaining in it. When the water is low the swamp is boggy; then it has to be fenced off and the well out there brought into service.”
“Can you recall the time that he left the homestead that day?”
“We had breakfast here at eight,” replied the squatter. “Anderson occupied a room in the office building, but he ate his meals with us and sat with us in the evenings when he felt inclined. I didn’t see him actually leave that morning, but it would have been about twenty minutes to nine.”
“Thank you. Now this is important. Did you instruct him which way to ride the fences—clockwise or anti-clockwise?”
“He rode opposite the clock. That is, when he left here he turned east along the south fence.”
“How do you know that?” persisted Bony.
“Know it? The groom saw him ride that way.”
“Ah, yes, the groom. I’ll come to him in a minute. Now where, do you estimate, would Anderson have been at noon that day?”
“Well, he rode a flash horse called The Black Emperor. The mileage of the south fence is eight miles. Assuming that he had no work to do along that section, and I don’t think he would have had any, he should have reached the first corner of the paddock at about eleven o’clock. He’d then ride northward along the east fence for almost eight miles, when he’d reach the sand-dunes back of Green Swamp, arriving there, say, at one o’clock or a little before. From this point he’d leave the fence and strike across country westward for half a mile to reach the hut beside the Green Swamp well. At the hut he would boil his quart-pot for lunch.”
“But,” objected Bony, “the following day when the searchers examined the hut there was no sign that Anderson had boiled his quart-pot.”
“That’s so,” agreed Old Lacy. “I’m not saying that he did spend his lunch hour at the hut. He might have camped for lunch when he reached the edge of the sand-dunes. He could have filled his quart-pot from the horse’s neck-bag.”
“So the horse carried a water-bag? There was no mention of a water-bag in Blake’s report. Was the bag on the horse when it was found the next morning, by the groom, standing outside the gate?”
“Yes. It was there all right.”
Bony smiled at his host, saying:
“We are progressing, if slowly. Let us assume that Anderson did not eat his lunch at the hut, that he halted for lunch beside the fence where it meets the sand-dunes. According to your observations, when Anderson reached the sand-dunes that second cloud mass was approaching. Being a man like yourself, having had long experience of weather portents, would he think that that second cloud mass would bring rain?”
“By heck, he would!” agreed the old man.
“Very well. You say that it began to rain shortly after two o’clock. Supposing that Anderson found work to do that morning, and that he didn’t arrive at the sandhills till some time after one o’clock, and that it began to rain while he was eating his lunch, would he think it necessary to leave the fence to visit the swamp?”
Answering this question Old Lacy almost shouted.
“No, he wouldn’t. The purpose of visiting the swamp was to see how much water was left in it, and so to establish the degree of danger to stock. If it rained the danger would be non-existent. I see your drift, Inspector. Assuming that it rained before Anderson left his lunch camp, he’d most likely continue riding the fence northward to the next corner, there turn westward and leave the fence somewhere north of the swamp to examine it if by then the rain had stopped.”
Bony’s eyes were now shining. He said:
“We can now understand why he did not visit the swamp and the hut. The rain coming when it did, when Anderson was where he probably was, relieved him of the duty. I have,