June passed, and August gave way to September, and still the bush kept Jeffery Anderson.
Chapter Three
A Stranger to Opal Town
The mail car from St Albans arrived at Opal Town every Tuesday about noon, weather permitting, and the twenty-third of September being fine and warm, it arrived this day on time. A shock-headed youth relinquished the wheel, backed out of the car, surveyed the township, saw Sergeant Blake standing before the door of the post office, and called, cheerfully:
“Good day-ee, Sergeant!”
Sergeant Blake, wearing civilian clothes, returned the greeting and transferred his interest to the passengers. The two young men who were obviously stockmen he greeted, each by name, but the third and last passenger caused him to narrow his eyes. This third passenger was plainly stamped as a city man by his clothes and heavy suitcase. Of average height and build, he was remarkable for the dark colouring of his skin, which emphasized his blue eyes and white teeth when he smiled at something said to him by the driver who was delving for the half-dozen mail-bags.
The stranger stood a moment at the edge of the side-walk, regarding the hotel across the street, while the other passengers and the driver moved past the Sergeant to enter the post office. When slim, dark fingers began the manufacture of a cigarette, Blake thought the time opportune to learn something of this stranger’s business in a town so situated at the end of one of the long western trails that but few strangers ever came there, even swagmen.
“Staying long in Opal Town?”
The stranger turned to regard him with eyes containing a distinct twinkle.
“I hope not,” he replied, lightly. “Are you Sergeant Blake?”
“I am,” was the cautious reply, followed by a further examination of the stranger’s face and clothes.
“Then I hope you will be pleased to meet me. I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Blake was only just in time to prevent his lower jaw sagging and his eyes widening in astonishment. Napoleon Bonaparte! The man of whom he had heard so much indirectly and semiofficially! The man who, it was said, had never known failure! The man who had so often proved that aboriginal blood and brains were equal to those of the white man! Automatically the Sergeant’s right hand flashed upward in a salute.
“I am more pleased to see you, sir, than you might think,” he said warmly. “Your coming is quite unexpected, sir. I haven’t been notified of it.”
“I dislike advance notices,” Bonaparte murmured, and the Sergeant, seeing that his superior was glancing over his shoulder towards the post office, also lowered his voice when he spoke.
“Will you be putting up at the hotel, sir?”
“That, I think, we shall decide after we have had our conference. I could leave my case with the post office official meanwhile.”
Blake carried out this suggestion, and then together they walked along the street to the police station at its western end. “I think already that we will be able to work well in harness, and enjoy an official association,” said the stranger to Opal Town. “But, please, Sergeant, kindly omit the ‘sir’ and call me Bony. Everyone does. When I am home, my wife often says: ‘Bony, the wood box is empty.’ My eldest son, Charles, who is studying at the university I myself attended, most inconveniently says: ‘Can you lend me a quid, Bony?’ The rising generation is, I fear, contemptuous of the correct use of words. But to revert. Being addressed as ‘sir’ or as ‘Inspector’ causes in me a sensation of discomfort. Even our mutually respected Chief Commissioner calls me Bony. He shouts: ‘Where the so and so have you been, Bony?’ and ‘Blast you, Bony! Why don’t you obey orders?’ ”
Blake glanced sideways at the detective, strongly suspicious that he was being fooled. Consequently he was careful to make no comment. Bony flashed a glance at him and marvelled at the stiffness of the Sergeant’s body.
“Are you married?” he asked.
“Oh yes.”
“Then, perhaps, your wife might be persuaded to make us a pot of tea. Cups of tea and cigarettes make me a brilliant man when normally I am quite ordinary.”
At the police station, Bony was shown into the office and left there for a moment whilst the Sergeant interviewed his wife. He returned to find the detective studying the large-scale map of the district.
“The wife says that lunch is quite ready,” Blake said, a little of the stiffness gone out of him. “We’d be glad if you would join us.”
“That is, indeed, kind of you,” Bony said, smilingly.
So the Sergeant took him to the bathroom, and from there to the pleasant veranda beside the kitchen where the meal was set out and where Bony was presented to his hostess.
“If you will sit here, Inspector,” Mrs Blake said, indicating a chair.
“Dear, dear!” Bony exclaimed. “I forgot. Forgive me, Mrs Blake. Now do I look like the Governor-General?”
Mrs Blake became still, and then, since Bony was obviously waiting for an answer, she made it a negative one. She experienced a growing feeling of wonder when he smiled at her and said:
“Thank heaven for that, Mrs Blake. My friends all call me Bony. May I account you one of them?”
It became quickly apparent that he could and when they found a common subject of interest in the welfare of the aborigines, her husband was ignored. Mrs Blake became almost vivacious, and Bony suspected that Sergeant Blake could have been less a policeman to his wife.
Back again in the office, Bony once more studied the wall map.
“This Karwir Station is quite a big holding, Sergeant,” he remarked. “I’m going to ask you a great number of questions which you may think unnecessary seeing that I have read your report on this case. As the man vanished on Karwir Station, we will make it the pivot around which shall revolve influences that may or may not bear on Anderson’s disappearance. However, first put me right if I am wrong on these several points.
“Anderson left Karwir homestead to ride the fences of Green Swamp Paddock on the eighteenth of April. The next morning his horse, still with its saddle and bridle, was found standing at the gate. A hundred and seventy points of rain had fallen, and, in consequence, the horse could be backtracked for only a mile along the road. That day a search was made for Anderson by mounted men. On the twentieth the horsemen again searched, and, during the afternoon, Mr Eric Lacy, accompanied by his sister, flew his aeroplane over the same ground. On the twenty-second Mr Gordon arrived with three trackers. By this time two constables and yourself were added to the body of searchers. The search was continued until the twenty-ninth, when it was abandoned. No clue to the man’s fate was found. You know, Blake, it is all quite remarkable.”
“It is that,” agreed Blake. “I no longer think that Anderson was merely thrown from his horse and killed or even injured. Either he was murdered, or he wilfully vanished for some reason unknown.”
“I think you are right Sergeant, and I shall establish one or other of your alternatives. Two weeks only did the Commissioner give me to complete this case, but I always refuse to be hurried or to give up an investigation once I begin it. I am not sure, but it is either five or seven times that I have been sacked for declining to obey the order to return to headquarters before I have completed a case. So many people in our profession, Blake, insist on regarding me as a policeman. Well, now—
“Let us first visualize this Green Swamp Paddock on Karwir Station. It is situated on the north-eastern extremity of the run, almost due south of Opal Town from which it is distant only ten or twelve miles. In shape it is roughly oblong and it is bounded on the north by the netted boundary fence separating Karwir from Meena