As for Mr Wallace and his wife, here was a study of the opposites revealing one of the greatest of human mysteries: the attraction for each other of people diametrically opposed physically and mentally. Bony asked the silent trees what it was in Mrs Wallace which once had been honey to the little bee, and what quality in him had aroused admiration, possibly passion, in the bosom of that majestic woman.
The still, warm air perceptibly cooled the fever produced by heat and artificial mental stimulation, and, while he walked oblivious of the time and place, the detective examined the fish brought to him by the first cast of his net. Separately he picked them up to find among them one which might resemble the stingray, putting each one down dissatisfied that the examination was inconclusive.
Leonard Wallace might have killed Loftus, for he was of that type whose nature is mild with the placidity of the supposedly extinct volcano. There was much in common in the characters of Dr Crippen and Mr Wallace.
Of his wife’s melodramatic accusation Bony took little heed. Such an accusation as that her husband murdered Loftus seemed the visible expression of mere feminine unreasoning spite, feminine desire to hurt that which in other circumstances it would strive to protect.
On the other hand, there was reason behind Mr Thorn’s bibulously inflamed imagination. While so far there was no apparent motive for anyone killing the farmer—other than a chance passing tramp—there could be many sound reasons or motives for Loftus to carry out his own disappearance. Having been a popular man, doubtless during the recent years of prosperity he had had money with which to support his popularity. Such a man would suffer distress from lack of money, and had he been able to secure a loan in Perth the temptation to disappear with it and start a new life in a different State might well have surmounted a love of home. Men have done worse things than deserting a wife, with less reason.
Yet, after all had been weighed in the balance of fact, the scales were even. The puzzle of Loftus’s absence remained, and as hour succeeded hour the half-caste became more absorbed by it. He turned back when from far to the south came the low, murmuring roar of wind among the scrub, heralding the strong breeze which swept from the coast inland with the regularity of a clock at this time of night at this time of year. The “Albany Doctor” people called it, because the strong, cool wind from Albany way swept clear the bodily and mental languours brought on by the heat of the long day.
Bony was about a quarter of a mile from the Depot, the sound of the coming wind being then like the roar of surf, when the trunk of a white gum tree reflected the glare of approaching headlights behind him.
The machine was travelling at a high speed, the noise of the engine swamped by that of the wind which suddenly rushed through the scrub about him and raised a cloud of dust above the road.
Why Bony stepped behind a tree long before the driver of the car could have seen him was inexplicable even to himself, save that his maternal ancestry prompted the act, the impulse of the hunted, subjugated woman shy of the approaching stranger. Sheltered from observation, he now heard the racing engine and heard, too, the loud report which he quickly learned was caused by a tyre burst.
The car lurched dangerously and finally was stopped directly opposite the watcher. A man got down and examined the tyres with the aid of a flash lamp.
“A blowout,” he said to someone still within the closed car.
The first man proceeded to obtain jack and tools. The second man alighted, a tall and big man dressed in dust coat and soft hat. Together they removed the deflated wheel and put on the spare, the first man grumbling all the time, the big man silent. There was no doubt in Bony’s mind that the big man was Mr Jelly.
Within four minutes the change was effected and the car moved on. Bony watched the tail-light grow rapidly smaller. The car took the left-hand turn, the west turn towards Merredin and Perth.
Thoughtfully he walked on, wondering why Mr Jelly should be travelling away from his home at that time of night. He was still wondering when he reached the Depot gate, where he was halted by a voice outside the hotel.
“Let me in, Lizzie,” pleaded a now subdued Mr Wallace.
No reply came.
“Hi! Let me in, Lizzie, old girl.”
There was a light in one of the rooms on the first floor. It percolated through the drawn blind, revealing the substantial figure of Mrs Wallace standing on the veranda. Her arm was raised. Bony saw it swing forward and downward. Came then the crash of bedroom china on the roadway, and a startled exclamation from Mr Wallace.
When the licensee began to run towards the gate, Bony for the second time that night concealed himself, this time in the deep shadow of the corrugated-iron fence. Unaware of him, Wallace opened the gate and almost ran to the Rabbit Inspector’s house. Inspector Gray appeared with a lamp held above his head in answer to the loud summons.
“Good evening, Mr Gray,” Wallace said politely. “Will you please lend me your double-barrelled gun?”
“Sorry, Leonard, but the gun is at my son’s place.”
“All right.” There was disappointment in Mr Wallace’s voice. “All right! Sorry to knock you up. Good night!”
The door was shut. Wallace departed towards the rear of the hotel, probably to sleep in the stables, and Bony, now with further food for thought, walked slowly to his room thinking—thinking how strange it was that when asked for a gun at midnight Gray showed not the slightest surprise and had not sufficient curiosity to ask the reason prompting the request.
Chapter Seven
Within Another World
Before starting off for his post-cutting work, Bony wrote to the Commissioner asking him for details of debts owing on the Loftus farm, and if, when last in Perth, George Loftus had secured a further bank loan or any cash backing from other financial concerns. He also requested the Western Australian Police Chief to instruct the senior officer stationed at Merredin to report to him at Burracoppin as soon as was convenient.
A second letter he addressed to his wife, an educated half-caste like himself, who ruled their bush-girt home at Banyo, near Brisbane. Among other matters he wrote:
This case has many points in common with that which attracted me to the sands of Windee. Whilst remembering that in your goodness of heart and with your broadness of mind you could find nothing wrong with my final actions in that case, where I permitted sentimentality to cloud my sense of duty, resulting in an official confession of failure which has marred my unblemished record, I remember, too, your admonishment that the first and last duty of a crime investigator is to reveal the guilty criminal.
I shall not slip down that incline again. At Windee a lovely face and an understanding mind beat down my judgment and spoilt my greatest triumph. There is in this case, too, a pair of eyes lit by an understanding mind, but I shall watch and guard against my heart weaknesses. She is only fourteen years old and her name is Sunflower. I wish we had a fairy daughter.
Yes; there is in this affair much resemblance to that of Windee. There is no horribly violated body lying on the library floor, or anywhere else so far as I can ascertain. I am sure that murder has been committed; therefore, you will understand that, as in the Windee case, first I must prove the fact of murder and secondly reveal the murderer.
You know about that sixth sense which unerringly tells me that blood has been spilled. That undefined sense prompts me now. I believe that George Loftus was killed when I have no slightest evidence of it. There are in this case elements of peculiar interest. Quite possibly it may turn out to be one of those macabre murders such as those acclaimed by the lecturer in Thomas de Quincey’s immortal essay, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” The lecturer states:
“People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed—a knife—a purse—and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry,