Mr Wallace attended the main-bar customers, and his wife waited on the wants of several men standing at the slide counter in the parlour. To these customers her expression was one of demure coquettishness, but often she turned her head to look down on her husband, when into her eyes leapt contemptuous disapproval that was at once dispersed when she caught the eye of a visitor. Obviously little Mr Wallace’s life was not a happy one.
“See you working on the rabbit fence today,” a man said to Bony. “Have one with me?”
“With pleasure. Yes, I am now working for the Rabbit Department.”
“Hi, Leonard! A cuppler pots.”
Bony’s new friend was prosperously stout, middle-aged, mellow-aged, pleasant-faced.
“Hi! Buck up, Leonard! A cuppler pots,” he repeated in a voice that wheezed.
Mr Wallace then was drawing pots for a party of men at the far end of the bar. He was doing his job in the manner of an expert. Even so, Mrs Wallace thought otherwise.
“Oh, get out of the way, you slow-coach,” she hissed, pushing him from the pumps. Winter then was vanquished by spring with amazing quickness: “Two pots, Mr Thorn,” she exclaimed gaily, placing the drinks on the counter and accepting the shilling with a smirk.
Mr Thorn smirked also. When she turned her attention to the parlour customers he said to Bony, sotto voce:
“Poor ole Wallace! But don’t you run away with the idea that Wallace is all mouse. He stands a lot over a long time and then suddenly bucks. When he does there’s ructions; my bloomin’ oath, there is. I was workin’ late larst night, and when I got back to town about eleven the pub was shut. Any’ow, I sneaked over to see if I could rouse Wallace on the quiet and could ’ear her going off like a packet of crackers. She was telling ’im ’ow she knew he had murdered George Loftus, and he was tellin’ ’er that if she didn’t shut up he would murder ’er. No, by no manner of means is Leonard a nice little gentleman orl the time.”
“Mrs Wallace must know something, surely?”
“She might, but I don’t think so. That’s just ’er nasty ’abit of mind. Now, if ’e murdered ’er it would be more like it. She’s the sort of woman who gets surprised when ’er throat is cut slowly.”
“It is very strange George Loftus disappearing like that, isn’t it?” Bony remarked thoughtfully.
Mr Thorn became confidential. He breathed beer affectionately into Bony’s face.
“There’s nothing strange about it,” he whispered. “He done just wot I’d ’ave done in ’is place. If you just thinks, it all comes plain. Orl these detectives and things makes a hash of jobs like this becos they ’aven’t got no imagination. Now, I ’ave got imagination. I could write books about this township and the people in it. There’s some bloomin’ characters ’ere orl right. No, ole George Loftus disappeared becos ’e wanted to disappear. He was unfinancial. No, ole Loftus wanted the chance to get out, and ’e took it. ’E disappeared becos ’e was broke and saw the chance to get out with some cash. He went down to Perth to argue with ’is creditors, and then, likely enough, wangled a cuppler ’undred quid from them or the bank to carry on over the harvest.
“Two ’undred pounds sounds a lot to a man wot’s broke, but it don’t sound so much to a man wot’s married and ’as a hungry farm waiting to swallow most of it. Says Loftus to ’isself: ‘Well, ’ere’s the boodle, and I’m orf. If I fades away, the bank’—or whoever lent him the money—‘will sool the Ds on to me, and me dinah will sool ’em when the bank gets tired. I gotta use me brains. I’ll stage a nice mysterious disappearance, an’ whiles they’re all ’untin’ for me corpse I’ll do a get-over to the eastern States.’ ”
“In a case like this, all you gotta do is to put yourself into the other bloke’s ’ead. It’s simple, ain’t it?” finalized Mr Thorn.
“It certainly is,” agreed Bony delightedly. “Have a drink with me?”
“I don’t mind if I do. I always——”
“Hi, Dick!” boomed a bass voice. “Just seen your boss and he says there’s a burst at the two-o-five.”
“Then let ’er keep busted. I ain’t movin’ outter this pub till I gets chucked out,” announced the Water Rat emphatically. To Bony, Mr Thorn whispered: “See ’im? Look at ’im. Just look at ’im.”
Near the main-door end of the bar there stood with military straightness one who towered above the others. Seldom had Bony seen a finer human head. It was massive, crowned with a mop of snow-white hair, regally poised above massive shoulders. The keenest of steel-blue eyes were spoiled by the underlids, which drooped in half circles of vivid red, eyes which had suffered the agony of sandy blight, eyes that had glared at the dancing mirage in dreadful places. A snow-white beard fell down before the great chest clothed only with a flannel singlet, armless, revealing the arms of a giant.
“Look at ’im,” implored Mr Thorn. “ ’E can swing an axe orl day. ’E can put up a mile of fence whiles any ordinary main is putting up a cuppler strains. ’E can drink more’n me. Do you know ’ow old ’e is?”
“No,” Bony admitted.
“No more do I. No more does anybody. But we know for positive sure ’e’s over eighty. You wouldn’t believe it, but ’e is. ’E ain’t never gonna die. When we’re stiff ’e’ll be goin’ strong. We calls ’im the ‘Spirit of Orstralia’.”
Chapter Six
“The Spirit of Orstralia”
The Spirit of Australia! What a name! How truly appropriate! Courage, strength, dependability; purpose, power, and unbreakable flexibility; dauntless and deathless. The Spirit of Australia! If any man was rightly nicknamed, this man was. Age rested on him as a crown of jewels, not as fetters of lead. More than eighty years old! It was incredible—till one peered deeply and saw that tremendous experiences had been the battlements which defied the onslaughts of Time.
“Who is he? What is he?” Bony at last inquired.
“’Im? ’E’s a cocky ten miles out,” Mr Thorn replied, wiping his lips with the back of his hairy hand. “’E drives sixteen ’orses in the old-fashioned way of two abreast, carting in ten tons of wheat every other day, when ’is sons get goin’ proper with the harvester machines. ’Ullo! There’s Mick Landon!”
“Where?”
“There,” Mr Thorn said, pointing to a new arrival within the parlour. “See ’im?”
There was no need for Mr Thorn to point. Beyond the sliding counter the knot of men were welcoming a young and handsome man with fair hair and blue agate eyes. To Bony the classical features were marred by the eyes, for the pupils were of the one colour and had that strange deadness of expression to be associated with fish’s eyes. Watching him, Bony was able to see them move rapidly from man to man, and from that group to Mrs Wallace, and beyond her to him and those who stood near him. A keen, alert, mentally vigorous man in the prime of life.
“’E works for Loftus,” Mr Thorn carefully informed Bony, as a showman may describe his exhibits. “Terrible good farmer, too, is Mick Landon. Would ’ave ’ad ’is own farm by now, if it ’adn’t bin for the wimen. They are orl mad on ’im. ’E can do wot ’e likes with ’em. Even the married ones get dopey when ’e looks at ’em. But for orl that, ’e’s a good bloke and a good sport. No one can run a darnce like ’im. If ole Loftus ’as bin murdered, which I ain’t sayin’ ’e is, he might marry the ole woman. Mick could do worse. She ain’t a bad looker, and she ain’t a bad worker. Hey! Come on, Leonard. You’re slippin’.”
“Think I’m a scalded cat?” demanded Mr Wallace vehemently.
Mr