LITMIR.BIZ

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and then, seeing stains along the wood, knew what it was for and why the birds made no attempt to fly at his approach. They, too, demanded dinner, and there were eight of them.

      The fowl-house was inside a high-netted yard to protect the birds from foxes. When Bony appeared again with a dish of wheat and proceeded to the yard, clucking for the birds to follow, they ignored him. Hang it, the fellow was a stranger! Inside the yard he clucked louder than ever, and now the two dogs went into action. They mustered the fowls in through the gateway as they would muster sheep into a yard.

      Bony had rewarded the dogs with their meal and decided not to chain them for the night when his attention was again drawn to the waiting kookaburras by soft hooting and low, broken chuckling. Happily he cut meat into small pieces and took it to the platform-perch affair. The kookaburras barely bothered to make room for the meat to be put on it, and they evinced no ill manners by gobbling or squabbling.

      “One can learn much of people from their animals and birds,” he told them. “The girl would have tamed you, my wild friends. The man probably trained the dogs, and the wife doubtless raised the fowls and dusted the house every day of her life—save for the inside of the old back door.”

      Bony was at dinner when a man suddenly appeared in the frame supporting the old door. He was not William Lush because his face was long and unlike a crumpet. The two dogs, now wagging tails of welcome, had not barked a warning of his coming. Bony invited him in, and he entered carrying the suitcase and a letter.

      “Brought your case, Inspector,” he said. “A letter from Mrs Cosgrove, too. Said for me to wait for any answer.”

      “Thanks. Have a cup of tea?”

      “Just had dinner.”

      Bony read: “Jill Madden says you are to make free of the house. Bed linen and blankets in the linen cupboard and meat in the meat-house. Please give the dogs a bone, and lock up the chooks, and please feed the kookaburras. They will be waiting on the dinner perch. My son will call early in the morning.” It was signed “Betsy Cosgrove.”

      Bony looked up at the waiting man.

      “There is no answer. What’s your name?”

      “Vickory. Vic Vickory. I’m the Mira overseer.”

      “Tell me, Mr Vickory, why did Mrs Cosgrove trouble to write this note when there is the telephone?”

      “Oh! She said she couldn’t raise you, and thought you must be out looking for Lush.”

      Bony rose and manipulated the wall telephone. There was no connection.

      Shrugging, he said, “The line is broken somewhere. Now there is a message for Mrs Cosgrove. Ask her, please, to have the line repaired first thing in the morning.”

      “I will, Inspector. Good night.”

      Chapter Five

      One Frosty Night and Morning

      Bony sat on the bench outside the back door and watched the sun go down in a clear, dustless sky, its rays coldly lemon. The kelpie dog lay under the bench beneath him, and the other, a border collie, lay on the ground a yard or so from him. The kookaburras departed to perch in the same gum tree and join in an evening chorus of gargantuan mirth on the high notes and sinister cackling on the low. And, when the fowls had ceased their quarrelling about who should roost with whom, the peaceful silence of the evening was itself a kind of lullaby.

      It was quite dark when Bony heard a car coming down the river track. He wondered who it could be. He could not expect Constable Lucas, and traffic hereabouts was remarkable for its scarcity: not a vehicle had passed since the policeman had left. The dogs sat and listened, and the kelpie growled. Then to the right appeared a white glow, which grew like a searchlight and continued along the road, passing the house almost a mile to the west.

      When the second car announced its coming to the dogs it was after nine o’clock. It turned off at the junction and aimed its headlights at the house. Both dogs stood, the smaller leaning stiffly against Bony’s leg. Bony patted him and ordered them to be quiet. The car stopped, the headlights were switched off, and Constable Lucas said, cheerfully, “I hope the kettle’s boiling. Why the blackout?”

      “We were communing with the stars,” replied Bony, and led the way inside to light the lamps and then add fuel to the stove. The dogs stayed outside, as is customary at homesteads.

      “Hard trip?” Bony asked.

      “Fairish,” replied Lucas. “Had a blow-out that kept me, and the Super demanded details of this and that. How did you do?”

      “Loafed, made pals with the dogs, was visited by the Mira overseer who brought my case, and fed the stock, which includes eight kookaburras. I have half a dozen nice chops I’ll grill for you. You’ll stay?”

      “For the chops, yes. Then it’s on my way. I mentioned the door changes to the Super, and he seemed impressed. Did you come across the new one?”

      “What did the Super say about them?” Bony asked. The table was covered by a cloth, and, having made tea, he laid a place for the constable. Lucas grinned, but his eyes remained serious.

      “Said you are a known bloody bloodhound, Inspector. Said you could scent crime before it was committed, and that when you didn’t return with the doctor you had certainly sniffed it. And then what? Orders me to go back to my station and to accept any instructions you give. Oh, there’s something else. I am to tell you that he telegraphed for permission to hand the job to you, said permission being received at six-thirty pm.”

      “Kind of him, but unnecessary. I gave myself permission.” Bony smiled, and his brilliant blue eyes beamed. Looking away from their magnetism, Lucas once again noted the dark face, the Nordic features, and for a moment fell beneath the spell this man of two races could exert. The aroma of grilling lamb chops sharpened his hunger, and over the teacup he asked again about the missing door. The slight incongruity of an inspector grilling chops for a constable, first-class, did not occur to him, but then the inspector was not in full uniform.

      “The new door was burnt yesterday,” Bony said, and withdrew a wood sliver from the stove to light a cigarette.

      “Ah! It was, eh? Where?”

      “The site doesn’t matter. The fact is interesting. The old one was rehung after Mrs Lush was knocked about.”

      “Then something happened to the new one.”

      “Something happened to it, something which could not be repaired and the door repainted.”

      “Funny. You make anything of it?” asked the policeman.

      “Not much. The women could have locked Lush out before he went to town, or after he came back on foot from the mail-boxes. I can see him, angry at being refused money, going to the shed for his utility, bringing it back to the house and making another effort to extract a cheque from his wife. When he found the door locked against him he went to the woodheap for the old axe and smashed it in. And, such was his fury, attacked his wife.”

      “It could have been that way. Being locked out boiled him over.”

      “Then Mrs Lush persuaded the girl on her return home to remove the damaged door and destroy it to prevent talk should anyone call.”

      Lucas agreed that that accounted for the change, but he might not have done so had he been told about the hole in the ceiling now in the shadow cast by the lampshade.

      “What do you know about two men named Roberts?” asked Bony.

      “The town butchers. They live a mile out of town on a smallholding property. I’ve never had trouble from them, although I’ve suspected they gamble. At home, of course. Cards, not two-up. As they own the property I can do nothing when they invite friends there for a game. Why? They interest you?”

      “The girl said, remember, that Lush wanted three hundred pounds, that he was desperate for the money. Young Cosgrove

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