The Barrakee Mystery

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bony is Surprised

ASSURED THAT her hero was thoroughly recovered, of which the ardour of his kiss seemed sufficient proof, Nellie became a thing of heredity and instinct. With surprising swiftness she sprang up and ran away, along the dry river-bed towards the camp, ran with wide eyes and parted lips; full of fear of what she had done, what had been done to her; full of hope yet dread that the young man would pursue her as the bucks of her tribe had pursued their women for ages past.

Ralph, however, did not follow. Still seated, he watched her flying feet and graceful figure till she disappeared round the first slight bend; and then, his blood still aflame and his pulses throbbing wildly, he snatched up his towels, rushed up the bank, and hurriedly dressed. And it was whilst lacing his shoes that Dugdale joined him.

Immediately the young man looked up into the sub-overseer’s face he knew that Dugdale knew, had seen, what had happened down there beside the pool. The first thing to banish Nellie momentarily from his mind was his recent closeness to death, and that gave place to the memory of his position in the world. The blood crimsoned his face. As a heavy load suddenlylaid upon him, he felt self-accusation, self-contempt, and shame.

“Hallo, Dug!” he said, without looking up.

Dugdale sighed, but said nothing. At last the shoes were laced. Ralph picked up his towels and rose to his feet. Tears of mortification clouded his eyes:

“I suppose you saw?” he questioned, faintly defiant.

“Fortunately, Ralph, I did.”

“Why fortunately?”

“Because, sooner or later, you would have been observed. It is better that it should have been me than-Kate.”

“But, hang it, Dug! There’s no harm in a fellow kissing a girl is there?”

“Little harm, perhaps, in an ordinary chap doing such a thing-me, for instance-but a lot of harm for Mr Ralph Thornton, promised in marriage to the Darling of the Darling, to kiss a gin.” Dugdale paused, then repeated, with emphasis: “A gin, Ralph.”

The sting conveyed by that “A gin, Ralph” angered the young man, into whose eyes leapt a cold glare. Yet, even while his gaze was held by that of the older man, the fact that Nellie Wanting was a gin caused that feeling of shame to reassert itself, and suddenly Dugdale found himself faced by the straight young back and the bowed head.

To the sub-overseer the agony of loss occasioned by the engagement of his idol to his employer’s son had been softened by the knowledge that Ralph was a fine, sterling boy, who should, and would, prove worthy of such a gift. The very last thing Dugdale had expected of young Thornton was that he should have forgotten his colour. To him, those kisses meant far more than a mere flirtation. The thought, so dreadful to him, was that the boy’s lips, which had touched Nellie Wanting’s mouth, would likely enough be pressed to those of Kate Flinders, the loveliest and purest girl in Australia, before that day was wholly gone.

Poor Dugdale! He had never seen in any woman’s eyes be she white or black, that which Ralph had seen in the eyes of a black “gin” that afternoon.

And poor Ralph, too! Alive with the joy of youth, aflame yet with the glory of a lover’s first kiss, ignorant of the irresistible forces drawing him, for ever drawing him, along one inevitable road! Knowing that he had done wrong, done his wife-to-be a greater wrong still, it came with a shock of surprise to him that he did not feel sorry. There was a tremor in Dugdale’s voice when he spoke:

“Ralph, old boy, let’s forget it,” he said. “You have a great future and a great happiness before you. Live only for those two things. Great God! Are they not worth living for?”

The young man swung round, his face still reddened.

“What has all this to do with you?” he demanded.

“I am thinking of your father, and the Little Lady, and Kate,”came Dugdale’s answer, whilst they stared into each other’s eyes. “Three people, Ralph, whose kindness and generosity I can never repay. Surely you can understand the hurt they would receive if they knew about this flirtation. Cannot you see for yourself that the terrible part of the affair is that Nellie Wanting is black?”

It required Dugdale’s almost brutal plainness of speech to bring home to the young man the enormity of the thing. The younger man’s eyes fell. He bowed his head, and Dugdale, racked by disappointed, hopeless love, worked heroically, like the man he was, to bring his successful rival back to the path of rectitude.

“If Nellie had been a white girl,” he said, “I would have urged you to confess to Kate and ask forgiveness. The insurance of happiness must be paid by confession, and forgiveness. But confession of this would not insure happiness. How could it? It is best, as I said just now, to forget the whole wretched affair. Don’t you think so?”

Ralph did. He was utterly miserable, utterly puzzled.

“You are right, Dug,” he said a little wistfully. “I-I’ve been a beast, and I can’t marry Kate now.”

Dugdale laughed softly. He slid an arm through that of Ralph and gently urged him into the homeward walk.

“Don’t be an ass, old boy,” he pleaded. “You are not the first poor devil to be tempted by a woman, remember. And remember too, that you can’t insult Kate by jilting her. The country would lynch you, for sure. Besides, there’s Mr and Mrs Thornton. You’ll see that in an hour or so. You will become more cheerful and look upon yourself not as a beast but as a temporary fool. Hark! There’s the dressing-bell. I’ll race you home. Ready?”

Under the now lightening load Ralph laughed chokingly and assented. The half-mile to the homestead was covered in record time; and, after his toilet, when the dinner-gong sounded, Nellie Wanting’s lovely face had dimmed, and Nellie Wanting’s kisses had ceased to thrill.

But later the young man retired early to his room with the excuse that he was tired, and Dugdale returned to the hole below the garden and fished for hours in the kindly darkness.

So it happened that no one heard of Ralph’s diving adventure until Bony gleaned it from old Sarah Wanting a week later.

The attempt to arrest Clair had been less than a nine days’ wonder. The attempt had failed utterly. The gaunt man had disappeared. Regarding this, the police, reinforced by several troopers, were confident of ultimate success, in spite of the fact that the majority of thebushmen were wholly sympathetic towards Clair. Had Clair killed a white man it would have been quite different.

Bony sensed the sympathy. He was, however, quite indifferent to Clair’s fate. He was now givingall his mind to discovering who was the person who warned Clair of the coming of the police. The mystery of King Henry’s death was a mystery no longer, but the mystery behind the murder was still to be solved.

The half-caste had infinite patience. That was the keystone of his success. He made open love to the sceptical Martha, he took rations along to Pontius Pilate and spent hours in the blacks’ camp. And it was after leaving the camp late one night and whilst returning to the homestead in his noiseless fashion that he was suddenly halted by the sound of whisperings.

Bony kept quite still. Presently he observed a deeper shadow in the general darkness under the gums. From that shadowcame the whisperings and occasionally the sound of passionate kisses.

It seemed then that Bony was as much interested in lovers’ meetings as he was in the atom and in Napoleon Bonaparte. He sat down on the ground just where he was. He sat there for half an hour till the lovers parted. He was still sitting there when Nellie Wanting passed him on her way back to the blacks’ camp, and when she had gone he rose silently to his feet and followed the man.

He followed him across the billabong to the lower end of the tennis-court, along by thecourt, and across the cleared ground between it and the offices. There was a light in the jackeroos’ sitting room, and when the door was opened to admit the newcomer it revealed Ralph Thornton.

Bony was astonished. He would have been less surprised had the lover proved to be Mr Thornton himself. For hours that night the detective-inspector lay pondering over the import of that lovers’ meeting.