LITMIR.BIZ

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young and keen, asked what was to be done about the jeep, and it was arranged that the local mechanic would accompany him, taking another steering-wheel, and returning with the licensee’s car.

      “You were doing something to Stenhouse’s boots,” remarked Irwin.

      “I did examine them,” Bony returned, and produced an envelope. “I found on the heels what appears to be whitish clay. The surface of the Kimberleys is reddish. A spectroscope analysis would assist us.”

      Inspector Walters glanced into the envelope. He inserted the top of a finger, which then withdrawn was smeared by a chalky substance.

      “Looks like the mullock dug from a well,” he observed.

      “It might be,” agreed Bony, and added with emphasis: “The same kind of soil is embedded under the dead man’s fingernails. He could have stood on the mullock from a well when drawing water for his canteen, but why would he want to burrow among mullock with his hands? Have that analysis done as quickly as possible.”

      It wasn’t so strange that even Walters stood when Bony stood and crossed to the wall map. Irwin pointed out the position of the three homesteads mentioned in the last diary entry, and below them the Musgrave Range down deep in the desert.

      “Jacky Musgrave’s tribe has often given trouble,” he said. “Led by a Chief called Pluto by the whites ... a cunning fellow. Stenhouse told me he contacted Pluto when he conscripted Jacky for two plugs of tobacco, but no other white man ever saw Pluto, that I know.”

      “The stations don’t extend that far south?”

      “No, not by many miles.”

      The map showed the road to Wyndham running north and skirting Black Range for a third of the distance. At Bony’s request, Irwin marked the Wallace homestead situated fifteen miles eastward of the road, and the Breens’ station to westward of the northern section of Black Range. These two homesteads were equidistant from the place where the dead policeman was found.

      “Thank you,” Bony murmured, and then decisively: “Please prepare for the track. You, Clifford, for the north, and you, Irwin, for the south. Days, even hours, will blur those pages of the Book of the Bush we have to read. I’ll be ready when you are.”

      The two men left, and Bony asked Walters for Stenhouse’s record.

      “He was a good policeman and an exceptional bushman,” Walters said. “Privately, I didn’t like the man, and I don’t think anyone else did. His wife died under circumstances which nearly ended his career, and after that I thought of having him transferred to the city. Would have, but good bushmen are damned rare.”

      “You are giving Clifford this district?”

      “Yes. He’ll get along better with the people, but he’ll never understand the aborigines like Stenhouse did. Thanks a lot for taking over this job. Think I should ask Perth to contact your department, in Brisbane, and make formal request for your services? Trouble enough in the world without adding to it.”

      Bony’s face broke into a captivating smile.

      “It was, I think, Kitchener who said no man is indispensable, and I’m not vain enough to believe I’m indispensable to my department. Half a dozen times I’ve been sacked for ignoring orders, but they have taken me back. Because I am intelligent? Because I have never failed to finalize an investigation? Oh no! Merely because they know the department is not indispensable to me.”

      Chapter Six

      Tracking Constable Stenhouse

      Two o’clock in the afternoon of this late winter’s day, and the sun powerful enough to blister skin not customarily exposed, and the exhilarating air so clear as to give the illusion that the ranges were painted on canvas.

      Six miles westward of Agar’s Lagoon, the utility emerged through the Kimberley Gates to a large expanse of comparatively level country where the aerodrome had been established. Past the aerodrome Irwin had to reduce speed and be wary of sharp if shallow water gutters. Now the ranges crept forward on both sides like the two paws of a bored cat playing with a blouse.

      Twenty miles from Agar’s Lagoon, Irwin turned off to a track running southward across flats covered with spinifex grass ... light-green cushions crowded with tall straw-coloured pins.

      “It’s better going than the track to Wyndham,” remarked Bony. “You haven’t had to change down for half a mile.”

      “Won’t last long,” predicted Irwin. “We’ve to cross several mountain spurs, but beyond that the country is almost flat and continues so down to the desert.”

      “Nowhere else have I seen the sky so filled with shooting stars, if I may use the phrase,” Bony remarked.

      “Big one fell not far off the track we’ll be taking.”

      “I wonder if the meteors are attracted by these Kimberley Ranges. There might be something in the idea that somewhere in them lie huge deposits of radio-active ore.” Bony laughed. “Look at that mountain slope. Red rock and soil covered with pale-green spinifex. Reminds me ... now what does it look like?”

      “A woman’s over-rouged face partially toned down by a green-spotted veil?”

      “Good!” exclaimed Bony. “That’s just what it does resemble. And this dry creek we have to cross looks like the Grand Canyon.”

      Having with exceeding caution manoeuvred the utility down and across the creek bed, and given the engine every ounce of power to climb its far side, Irwin broached a subject which had been in his mind for some time.

      “You mentioned this morning that you had felt undercurrents at Agar’s. I thought that peculiar because I’ve felt those submerged influences, too.”

      Bony was mildly astonished that this large, raw-boned man, who laughed when there was no reason to do so and yet was intelligent, could be sensitive to subversive influences.

      “Were you stationed at Agar’s at one time?” he asked.

      “Yes. Five years ago I worked down here with Stenhouse. Was with him a couple of months, or rather I was stationed at Agar’s while he was down in the desert rounding up a gang of sheep killers. I can get along with people as a rule, but I could never get anywhere with the people at Agar’s. They seem to be entirely different, cliquish and reserved.”

      “They’re not entirely cut off from civilization, either,” observed Bony.

      “Oh, no. Since the war there’s been quite an increase of road traffic through Agar’s from Derby and Broome to Darwin and the Alice.”

      “More than along the track from Agar’s to Wyndham?”

      “Much. That track’s too tough at the best of times.”

      They passed out from the claws of a senna-coloured range to enter comparatively flat country supporting robust gums, wattles and edible shrub and grass.

      “It would appear that Stenhouse either unearthed unlawful activities, or that he was murdered as the result of a personal feud. Which of these theories do you support?”

      “Neither, particularly.”

      “Well, what unlawful activities could be operating? Is there much cattle thieving?”

      “No, very little.”

      “Mining, then, gold? If gold was being transported over the ranges to a coast inlet and from there to an Asian port, the price would be very much higher. Remember the soil adhering to Stenhouse’s boots. I think that soil is from a mine dump. Hallo! A homestead!”

      “Red Creek, the first of the homesteads mentioned in the diary.”

      Dogs raced forward to meet them. Goats grazing along the bank of a wide creek containing a chain of water-holes paused to look at the approaching vehicle. And then the

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