The Barrakee Mystery

Chapter Six

The Inquiry

“Now, Mr Thornton, after that very excellent lunch we will examine the men.” The khaki-breeched, blue-tunickedsergeant of the New South Wales Mounted Police paused with the squatter outside the office. Near by, in waiting, was a group of seven men, while on the barracks veranda stood Dugdale, Ralph, and a jackeroo named Edwin Black.

The sergeant was conducted to the office, where the two men seated themselves on the far side of the wide desk. The uniformed man filled his pipe, and, seeing that he did not intend to open his examination at once, Thornton took a cigarette, saying meanwhile:

“Thought you’d want to examine the scene of the murder first.”

“I might have done, had the rain not fallen last night and wiped out tracks,” the dapper, grey-moustached official rejoined. “As it is, we will start to get the story ship-shape, beginning with you.”

“With me!”

“With you.”

“What do I know about it?”

The sergeant smiled. “Don’t know yet. I’ll soon find out. What time did Dugdale tell you of his discovery?”

“At nineteen minutes to nine,” was the unhesitating answer.

“You are sure of the time?”

“Positive.”

“What sort of condition was Dugdale in?”

“He was drenched to the skin and, I think, a little upset.”

“Yes, yes. Of course. But was he out of breath? Were his clothes disarranged, torn?”

“No, to both questions.”

“Very good. Now, how many men do you employ here?”

“There are seven at present working about the homestead or riding the near paddocks.”

“Is this the list of their names?”

“Yes. Added to it are the inmates of the barracks and the name of my son.”

“Then I think we will first see Dugdale.”

“Call Dug, Mortimore, please,” the squatter said to his bookkeeper.

When the sub-overseer appeared the sergeant appraised him with a fixed stare, motioning with his hand to a vacant chair.

“I am told that you found the body of an aboriginal last night between the garden and the river,” he said in his most official manner. “You made the discovery on your return from a fishing expedition. Tell me just what happened from the moment you entered the boat to go fishing. Take your time, and miss nothing.”

When Dugdale paused at the end of his narrative, he was asked:

“Do you know the native?”

“No, I have never seen him before,” Dugdale replied quietly.

“You say that as you were nearing the bank on your return you heard a peculiar whining sound that ended in a sharp report. Why a peculiar sound?”

“Because never before had I heard such a sound, unless it reminded me of the whirr of ducks flying close overhead.”

“Ah! That’s something.” For a moment the interrogator gazed pensively out of the window. Then:

“After the sound, when you were ashore and mooring the boat, you heard someone gasp for breath. Was that gasping sound caused by a man being out of breath from struggling?”

“I think not,” the sub replied slowly. “It was like that of a man who had dived deep into water and, having been down some time, filled his lungs with air on reaching the surface.”

“And you saw no one?”

“It was dark.”

“I know that. But did the lightning reveal anyone?”

“No.”

“Sure?” suddenly barked the sergeant, for his penetrating eyes observed a slight flush about Dugdale’s cheekbones.

“Quite sure.”

“Very well. That will do for the present. Send Mr Ralph Thornton in, please.”

When Ralph entered the office the sergeant was writing on a slip of paper. Pushing it across to the squatter, he nodded affably to Ralph to be seated. On the slip of paper which Thornton read was the sentence:

“The lightning revealed someone to Dugdale.”

“How did you put in the evening last night, Mr Ralph?” the young man was asked in a much kinder spirit.

“I played cribbage with Black in the barracks after dinner.”

“What time did you start playing? Any idea?”

“A little after eight, I think. We played till ten o’clock.”

“That lets you out. Ask Mr Black to step in for a moment, please.”

Edwin Black corroborated Ralph’s statement, and in turn sent in Johnston, the carpenter. Johnston was not asked to be seated.

“Where were you, Johnston, between the hours of seven and nine o’clock last night?” asked the sergeant, resuming his official poise.

“In the men’s hut.”

“Doing what?”

“Reading a blood about a bloke wotarsenicked his three wives.”

“Oh! You mean you were reading a novel?”

“Somethinglike that,” Johnston, tall, angular, and red-haired replied. “In my young days we called ’em‘blood and thunders’. I remember-”

“Precisely. Who was in the hut with you at the time you were reading this blood?”

“Bob Smiles, Bert Simmonds, and Jack O’Grady.”

“That’s four of you. Where were the others-Clair, McIntosh, and Fred Blair?”

“How the devil do I know?”

“Now, now! Were those three absent between half past eight and nine o’clock?”

“Look here, Sergeant! I’ll answer any question about me,” murmured the carpenter, with studied calmness.

“All right, Johnston,”came the unruffled dismissal. “Send in Bob Smiles.”

Smiles, Simmonds, and O’Grady briefly corroborated Johnston’s replies, and at last William Clair came in. He wore a six-day growth of whiskers.

“I don’t know you, Clair. Where do you come from?” was the first question put to the gaunt man.

“Can’t say as I come from anywhere,” Clair replied in a hoarse voice.

“Got a sore throat?”

“I have,” Clair said calmly. “I wish you had it instead of me.”

“I don’t. Where is your home address?”

“I haven’tno address. I’ve been carrying my swag most of my life. The last place I worked on was Humpy-Humpy Station, out of Winton, Queensland, in nineteen-twenty.”

“Right. Now how did you spend last evening?”

“I was away down the river most of the time setting half a dozen dog-traps,” Clair replied.

“Must have got wet.”

“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have got this blasted cold.”

“You’re unlucky. When did you start out on your trap-setting?”

“About sundown.”

“And you got home?”

“Just after they had lugged the corpse up here to the carpenter’s shop.”

“All right, Clair. Send in McIntosh.”

To the sergeant’s questions, McIntosh, a youth of eighteen, admitted that he was “courting” the housemaid, and that they had sheltered in the shearing-shed during the rain.

Blair, the last man, then entered.

He was a little wiry man, under five foot six inches, a man more than fifty years old, but with the spring and suppleness of a youth. A blistered complexion accentuated the greyness of his hair and the goatee beard that jutted forth from his chin.

He was employed as bullock-driver. To the people of Wilcannia he was known as the fierce little man whom it required the combined energies of the entire police force to put into the lock-up. This occurred every time Blair visited Wilcannia, which was every quarter.

Now, Sergeant Knowles was a pearl among policemen in that he possessed a keen sense of humour. He never bore Blair any malice for sundry bruises received whilst helping his subordinates to lock him up. He had for Blair a profound admiration, owing to his courage and fighting qualities, drunk or sober. With perfect gravity, he said:

“Is your name Frederick Blair?”

Blair, knowing this inquisition had nothing to do with his employer, and wishing to make sure that the sergeant should not think he was nervous in any way, seated himself in the vacant chair with studied insolence, elegantly crossed his legs, and as elegantly placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his much-greased waistcoat.

“Is my name Frederick Blair?” he remarked, to the ceiling. “Now I wonder!”

“I am asking you,” the sergeant said gently.

“How many demons ’aveyou got with you?” Blair inquired, with equal gentleness.

“Trooper Dowling is outside.”

“Only two of you? I can manage you with one ’and.” Blair’s goatee raised itself towards his nose. “Now look ’ere, Sergeant, the last time I was in Wilcannia you wanted the bleeding jail whitewashed, so you goes and grabs me and two other blokes on the d. and d. charge, and gets us fourteen days without the op, so’s you can get the jail whitewashed without paying the award rates. Wot I wants to know is, when yourflamin ’ jail wants whitewashing again?”

“Not for another three months, Blair. But what I want to know is, where-”

“Never mind what you want to know,” interjected the little fury. “What I want to know is whether the next time I come to Wilcannia, and the jail don’t want whitewashing, you’ll let me alone to have a quiet drink in peace.”

“We’ll have to wait till the next time. Where were you last evening?”

“Like to know, wouldn’t you?”

“I want to know,” the policeman said at last impatiently.

Blair suddenly leaned forward with twinkling blue eyes.

“As a matter of fact, Sergeant, I met the black fellow last night and asked him for a match. He cursed me for a police pimp. Me! Me, Sergeant, a police pimp! So I ran up to the house, grabbed the maids’ step-ladder, took it down to the black, made him stand still beside it, climbed to the top to get level with his head, and then hit him with a cucumber I pinched from the garden.” Then, turning to the squatter, he added: “You see, Mr Thornton, being a small bloke, I couldn’t reach thenig’s head without them steps. But I took ’emback and put ’emwhere I got ’em.”

Both men were obliged to laugh. Blair, however, remained perfectly serious.

“But, look here, Blair. Honestly, now, where were you about eight-thirty last night?” persisted the sergeant.

“I told you,” Blair returned. “I murdered the nig by ’itting’imon the ’eadwith a rotten cucumber. I own to it. You arrest me, Sergeant-and see ’owyou get on. Two ofyous! Why, I could crawl over you.”

“Not in the office, Blair. You’d smash the furniture,” Thornton murmured.

“All right, Blair. You had better go,” the policeman said resignedly.

Blair rose slowly to his feet, the goatee now at its normal right-angle with the bottom of his chin. Slowly he walked to the door, as though reluctant. At the door he turned, a man bursting with some hidden withheld information. The sergeant was at once hopeful; Blair slowly returned to the desk and, leaning forward, whispered:

“Say, are you quite sure you don’t want to arrest me, Sergeant?”

“Quite sure. When I do, I’ll arrest you.”

“My oath! You, with yourbloomin ’ speelers to lend a hand.”Blair almost cried with disappointment. Then, appealingly: “But ’avea’eart, Sergeant! Don’t bung me in next time to whitewash the jail. Igoes to Wilcannia and gets drunk like a respectablewowzer, not to whitewash jails. That’s a bit thick.”

With a regretful nod, Blair left them.

“What do you make of Blair?” asked the squatter, chuckling.

“Blair is a fighter, not a murderer,” replied Sergeant Knowles, grinning. “The two don’t mix outside a drunken brawl, and this murder was not the result of a drunken brawl. How many house servants have you got?”

“Three. Martha the cook, Alice the maid, and Mabel the laundry girl.”

“Humph!” the sergeant re-read his notes carefully. Then, looking up, he added: “I’ll have a look at the corpse. Then we’ll look at the scene of the killing. Then I’ll examine the blacks in that camp up-river. As far as your people are concerned, I am not satisfied with Clair. I’ll send Trooper Dowling with him to see if he did set traps last night. Also, Mr Thornton, Frank Dugdale did see someone in the lightning.”