The Barrakee Mystery

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Cemetery Clue

DURING THE last week in May a great rain fell over the whole of the eastern States. Many places in Southern Queensland received over eight inches, whilst the reading for the week at Barrakee was four inches and a half.

Everyone was delighted, for plentiful grass and herbage were assured for the stock and continuous employment made certain for all hands. Probably the most joyful man in New South Wales was Mr Hemming, now free from the great Thorley and master of Three Corner Station. Mr Thornton had paid forty-five thousand pounds for the property and, given average luck, the little sheepman would pay off the debt in ten years.

The action of giving Mr Hemming so wonderful a life was typical of the squatter of Barrakee. He was generous to a fault; but the safeguard to the fault was the Little Lady, and to her in this matter Mr Thornton made final appeal. She was the last tribunal, and her decision was always final, based as it was on her womanly intuition of the character of the person to be helped or benefited. And the joy of the two personages of Barrakee over the rain was no less keen than that of Mr Hemming and his wife.

The rain had come just in time to be of great profit to the ewes and lambs. The season promised to be an excellent one. Blair had finished cleaning out Tilly’s Tank with three days to spare, and was brought into the station to cart wood for the winter and the coming shearing. He continued to find life a matter of great importance, and the secret of Clair’s whereabouts was well kept by himself and his offsider.

Bony also was preoccupied by the seriousness of life, for he had discovered a most important clue, yet one which deepened the mystery he was so determined to solve.

It was late one afternoon in early June that he had strolled up on the sandy plain at the back of the homestead and visited the cemetery. The visit had not been premeditated. In fact, Bony had taken little heed of his meandering footsteps, his mind being occupied by the secret love meetings between Ralph Thornton and Nellie Wanting.

Now, among other things, Bony was a gentleman; which is to say that he practised the virtues of gentlemen as exemplified by the great Napoleon. Above all, Bony was intensely moral. The loose-living customs of the civilizedaborigines, and the majority of white people as well, found no favour in the man who tried to pattern his life on that of his hero.

Ralph interested him because Ralph was a mystery, and the mystery to Bony was what the young man found in Nellie Wanting that he did not find in Kate Flinders. Regarding the Darling of the Darling as the most beautiful woman it had been his privilege to look upon, he was convinced that Ralph was indeed favoured by the gods. Yet here was this young man, hedged about by parental love, engaged to be married to an angel on earth, secretly meeting a black girl and, to do that, risking all worth having in life.

Where the half-caste was undecided was whether he could presume so far as to inform Ralph that his amour was discovered, and to advise him to put an end to it. Ralph was proud. He was a squatter’s son. Bony was a half-caste and ostensibly a mere station-hand. An alternative was to put Mr Thornton in possession of the facts. Yet another line of action was the moving of Pontius Pilate and his people far up the river. That could be easily done through Sergeant Knowles, but at the same time it would remove a source of information which Bony still hoped would yield the solution of the greater mystery.

So much did these thoughts engage his mind that he failed to observe that he had entered the wire-fenced cemetery, and indeed was sitting on one of thegraves. And it was whilst still in deep cogitation over the lesser mystery that there grew, as it were, before his eyes the lettering on a plain granite headstone. Bony’s thoughts were suddenly wrenched away from Ralph’s amour to the name, cut deeply into the slab. With widening eyes he read:

“Mary Sinclair. Died, February 28th, 1908.”

Sinclair! Where had he heard that name? No, he had not heard but read it. It had been written by his old friend in North Queensland, among other details of the strange white fellow who had been made a sub-chief of a tribe ruled by one Wombra. His friend had named Clair Sinclair.

And now, here was Mary Sinclair, a Mary Sinclair who had died more than nineteen years ago. And it was from nineteen to twenty years ago that Clair or Sinclair had started out after King Henry. The triangle again, the eternal triangle. Was Mary the sister of William? Was it because of Mary that William had killed King Henry? The dates coincided strangely.

Bony got to his feet and began to pace to and fro between the graves, his mind racing in and out among little illuminated patches amidst encircling darkness, his hands gripped before him, his eyes almost closed. He had hoped that the solution of the mystery would have come from the blacks’ camp, as indeed it yet might, but always something turned up or happened to point to the homestead of Barrakee.

Hoofbeatsof a horse caused Bony to pause in his walk and, looking up, he saw Mr Thornton, mounted on a black mare, riding towards him from the road. After the disappearance of Clair the squatter had wondered why the detective elected to remain, since the case appeared to be complete. Bluntly asking Bony for his reason, he had been told with equal bluntness that the case, so far as he, Bony, was concerned, was not complete, the motive for the murder being still unknown. This being a matter of indifference to the squatter and considering also the fact that Bony was doing good work about the homestead for which he was not being paid, Mr Thornton had not pressed the subject. On reaching the cemetery he smiled with his usual friendliness, saying:

“Good evening, Bony! Looking for inspiration among the tombs?”

Bony returned the smile, and proceeded to roll a cigarette.

“Inspiration comes to me; I never seek it,” he said. “The favoured of Dame Fortune is he who ignores the jade. Is it not wonderful how in so little time the grass is already growing? In a week or two the ground will be covered.”

“It is wonderful-no doubt of that,” Thornton agreed, seating himself on the foot of Mary Sinclair’s grave and pulling out his cigarette-case. “It would be better, though, had the rain come a month sooner, for then the grass would have been better able to weather the frosts we are sure to have at the end of the month.”

“Well, well! Let us be glad that the rain has come,” Bony murmured. “It is as well, perhaps, that we cannot order Nature to act as and when we like. Just imagine now, if the great ones of history had possessed that power! Philip of Spain would himself have accompanied his armada and ordered the sea to remain calm; whilst the Emperor would not have been beaten by the cold after the burning of Moscow. Speaking of the dead, would you mind telling me whoare the dead around us? Edward Crowley-who was he?”

They both glanced at the expensive monument to Bony’s left.

“He was the only son of Jim Crowley, the man who formed this run a hundred years ago. Edward was sixty when he died.” The squatter pointed out a grave over which stood a cross of red gum. “Harold Young sleeps there. He was my first overseer, and was drowned when foolishly attempting to swim his horse across the Washaways.”

“Ah! Sad indeed. Your own son nearly lost his life not very long ago in the Darling.”

“Do you mean Ralph?” Thornton demanded in surprise.

“Yes, I do,” replied Bony. “He dived into a deep hole about a mile and a half up the river, with the foolish idea of blocking a fish lair with some sunken snags. It appears that, when he moved one of the snags, others fell and caught him by the foot, keeping him prisoner.”

“Oh, this the first I’ve heard about it. Go on.”

Bony’s inherent love of the dramatic was fully aroused. He went on:

“As I have stated, your son’s foot was caught by the snags he had loosed twenty feet under water. He was unable to free himself, and he would assuredly have been drowned had not someone dived down after him and engineered his release just when the boy was at his final struggle. In fact, your son was that far gone out of this life that, even had his final struggle released him without other help, it is doubtful if he would have survived had she not brought him to the surface.”

“Great heavens, man! She! Who was this she?”

“A woman of my people-Nellie Wanting.”

“You don’t say so!” Mr Thornton regarded Bony with a look of slow-dawning admiration. “Well, she had grit, that girl. I thought the youngster had something on his mind. Doubtless he said nothing of it, fearing to worry us, especially his mother. But I must at least thank Nellie Wanting personally. The devil, now! Had the lad been drowned it would have killed my wife. How did you find out about this, Bony?”

“I learned the details from the girl’s mother,” the detective answered. “I would, however, deem it best if you did not make any mention of it. You see, the young man himself not having told anyone, it might be for the best to respect his motive for silence. Perhaps I have been indiscreet?”

“Not a bit of it,” Thornton assured him warmly. “But I must talk to him in a guarded way to be more careful and takeless risks. In any case, I would like to reward the girl’s pluck. Tomorrow I’ll give you a fiver to give to her.”

“That, I think, would be appreciated,” Bony returned. “However, we are getting away from the dead who are still close to us. Who and what was this Mary Sinclair here?”

Mr Thornton looked sharply at the indicated headstone. For a second he hesitated. Bony noted it, but when the squatter quickly turned his eyes on the detective Bony was regarding yet a further headstone.

“Mary Sinclair was our cook and died of peritonitis,” Mr Thornton said, and at once regretted mentioning the cause of her death.

Bony appeared little interested, however. He asked about the fourth grave, and was told that the occupant had been a boundary-rider who was thrown from his horse and killed.

“Is it correct that we are to expect a flood?” asked the half-caste, deftly turning the subject.

“Reports have it so,” Thornton replied. “Most of Southern Queensland is under water, and all the tributaries of the Darling are running bankers. It would not surprise me if we should have a record flood, and I am hoping we don’t get it till after shearing. I have been intending for years to bridge the Washaways, but have always put it off. But let us go. I am getting cold.”

“Ah, yes! The sun has gone. Do you rideon. I shall not forget to call for Nellie’s present in the morning.”

They parted with friendly nods, but when Thornton had left him Bony’s face grew serious.

“So she was the cook, eh?” he murmured.