Mrs. Walters brought afternoon tea, and Bony said:
“I must make one small condition to accepting your hospitality, Mrs. Walters. I insist on being treated exactly as any member of your family ... and I understand you have two children to look after in addition to your husband. You see, I know what guests mean, the extra housework, the extra washing up. D’you like washing up, Walters?”
“Damned if I do,” exploded the inspector.
“Damned if I do, either, but when at home I’m damned if I don’t. Hullo!”
In the doorway appeared a schoolboy, his case in one hand, a cap of black-and-white rings in the other. His eyes sparkled with excitement, and when his father asked sharply what he wanted, he answered in the gruff tones of early adolescence.
“Abie’s taking the petrol cure, Dad. He’s down behind the gum tree in the compound.”
The inspector jerked to his feet and made for the door. The “petrol cure” being a new one to Bony, he excused himself with Mrs. Walters and hurried after the inspector and the boy, who led the way through the kitchen and out across the rear veranda. Ahead was a space of some several acres, bordered on one side by stables and out-houses, and on the other by a row of ten or a dozen cells. A hundred yards from the house grew a solitary gum, and as they approached the tree so did the boy and his father walk stealthily. Silently, the three moved round the trunk.
With his back to it and reclining at ease was a booted and overcoated figure, identifiable only by the hands as an aborigine. The head was enveloped by an exceedingly dirty dress shirt from which arose the smell of petrol.
With swift action the inspector whisked away the shirt. Gripping the man by the coat collar, he stood him up as though he were a straw. The round face was vacant. The dark eyes rolled in their sockets. With his left hand the inspector slapped the black face and shouted:
“Where did you get the petrol, Abie? Come on now ... tell!”
“Bin milk-um jeep. Lemme lo.”
“Coo! All right, my lad. I’ll attend to you after you come round.” Walters lowered the almost insensible man to the ground, and his son knelt and made Abie’s head comfortable on the battered felt hat. “He’ll be all right in an hour. Can you beat the blacks for finding out new ways of getting drunk!”
“One of your trackers?” inquired Bony.
“Yes. Not enough work for two, and this one’s a lazy devil. Always in mischief when Pedersen’s not here to keep his eyes on ’em.”
“Not as bad, though, as Mr. Dickenson, is he?” said the boy, and his father snapped out:
“Worse. Old Dickenson only drinks the acid out of car batteries.”
Chapter Two
The Wood Pile
Broome has no Main Street. It has no shopping centre, no shops fronted with plate-glass display windows. There are no trams, and no railway. Several airlines use the airport, but no one knows when a plane is due, or when one is about to depart. Sometimes a ship arrives to be moored to the long jetty at high tide. When the tide goes out the ship rests like a tired hog on the sand beside the jetty and the loading is languidly carried on while the tide comes in and re-floats the vessel.
The town is situated behind coast sand-dunes, sprawled on the flats north of the Dampier Creek. The streets are very wide, and all the houses sit down like old ladies wearing hoop skirts and being far too lady-like to take the slightest notice of their neighbours. Every house occupied by the white population is of the bungalow type, and every house is protected with storm shutters, some even wire-cabled to the ground, for when the summer willies blow they are apt to lift more than dust.
The police station was a large house squatting in about four acres of straggly trees, dying grass and bare earth. The floor rested on piles three feet above ground, and the rooms were many and airy.
At dinner on the day Bony arrived at Broome, there sat at table the inspector and his wife, their son Keith, aged fourteen, their daughter Nanette, aged thirteen, and Inspector Bonaparte, alias Mr. Knapp. Inspector Walters carved the roast. His back was straight, his hands dexterously employed the bone-handled carving knife and fork with the bright steel shield. His expression was severe. He said nothing, and, sensing the slight strain, Bony opened the conversation.
“You mentioned a gentleman named Dickenson who drinks the acid from car batteries,” he remarked. “What happens?”
Young Keith opened his mouth to reply but remained silent at a warning glance from his mother.
“Hospital,” replied Inspector Walters. “Old Dickenson is a queer character, but quite a decent old pot when sober. Receives a little money every quarter day, and that gives him about two weeks on the whisky. As he hasn’t any credit at the pubs, after his benders he will, if given the opportunity, milk a car battery and drink the fluid. Naturally, when found he has to be taken to hospital. Battery acid is bad for the stomach, so they say.”
“Wonder he doesn’t die,” observed Bony.
“Too tough to pass out for keeps. He doesn’t take it straight, mind you. Ten drops in a tumbler of water is the correct strength, I understand.”
“Poor old thing,” murmured Mrs. Walters. “They paint him blacker than he really is. Has been quite a gentleman. He was very rich at one time in his life. He owned an estate in Hampshire, England, and an ocean-going yacht.”
“Been living in Broome long?”
“Fifty years. What finally broke him was the willie of March, 1935. Twenty-one luggers and a hundred and forty lives were lost, and old Dickenson’s remaining fortune went down with three of those luggers.” Walters snorted. “I’ve been asked to move him out of town, but I won’t do it. The only harm he does is to himself. You can’t tell a man to move out of town when the nearest town is 130 miles to the north, and the next nearest 300 miles to the south.”
“All the kids like him,” edged in young Keith. “Tells us yarns about foreign places, and his adventures among the Indians in South America.”
“Oh!” murmured Bony. “That’s interesting.”
“Yes, and I don’t see why Old Bilge should lecture us about him and tell us not to speak to him. Old Dick ...”
“How many times have I told you not to call your headmaster Old Bilge?” irascibly demanded Walters. “I’ve a good mind to write and tell him what you call him. Here’s your mother and I scraping and saving to give you a good education, and you go around saying ‘jist’ for ‘just’ and ‘gunner’ for ‘going to’. Anyway, you’ll have much for which to answer tomorrow.”
“I’ve heard something about this Cave Hill College,” Bony remarked soothingly, and Mrs. Walters was not quite sure about his right eyelid when he glanced at her. “Very good school, isn’t it?”
Walters explained that Cave Hill College was considered among the best in Australia, drawing boys from as far distant as Perth as well as from the vast hinterland.
“Must be about five hundred boys there now,” he went on. “And only a few day boys too. We couldn’t afford the boarding fees.”
“There is, of course, a State school?” pressed Bony.
“Yes. Quite a large school. Nan goes there. Doing very well, too.”
“Good!” Bony smiled at the girl, who flushed and fidgeted. “Why, Keith, do you boys call your head-master Old Bilge?”
The boy hesitated, and this time Bony’s eyelid did flicker.
“His name’s Rose.”