The Pride of the Peacock

11. DISCOVERY AT GROVER’S GULLY

Rumours regarding Ezra’s disappearance grew as the days passed. Some of the stories were quite horrific. He had tempted fate in some way.

He had always been a man who had laughed at legend. He had never minded going past Grover’s Gully after sundown. He had been heard to say that Grover was an old fool and should have taken better care of his money.

The favourite story was that he was the one who had stolen the Green Flash, because in spite of Joss’s desire to keep the theft secret the news of it had spread like news of a lucky strike. It was dear, said rumour, that Ezra had found it and stolen it and the bad luck of the stone was pursuing him.

Anything could, therefore, have happened to him.

Joss did not express his usual anger at the revival of the stories about the ill luck of the opal. He seemed very subdued. I supposed he could only think of what this meant to Isa.

Search parties had gone out in all directions, but there was no sign of Ezra. Some people said he had made off with the Green Flash and left that wife of his who was not all she should be.

Three days passed while there was talk of nothing but Ezra’s disappearance.

I rode out on my own one late afternoon and as usual Wattle turned her face towards the gap in the hills leading to Graver’s Gully and the road to the Bannock homestead.

It was a hot day and the wind was blowing from the north. It grew stronger and started stirring up dust. It would be very uncomfortable later, but at the moment it was not unpleasant hot, dry, and smelling of the desert.

I rode through the gap and looked about me uneasily. The place looked desolate. Little eddies of dust swirled just above the ground, and I thought: The wind is certainly rising; I’d better get back soon.

“Let’s go home. Wattle,” I said.

Then Wattle behaved in a most extraordinary manner. I urged her to turn so that we could go back through the gap in the hills but she had grown suddenly stubborn and refused to do what I wanted.

What’s wrong. Wattle? ” I asked. She started to move then towards the mine.

“No, Wattle, not that way.”

What had happened to her? She was not going my way but hers.

I pulled on her reins and then Wattle did something which she had never done before. She showed me that I rode her so easily because it was her wish that I should do so. When she changed her mind and decided not to go along with me, I must give way to her. It was a startling discovery.

She began to move forward.

“Wattle!” I cried in a dismayed tone. She ignored me and at that moment I heard two kookaburras laughing. They always seemed to be at hand to witness my discomfiture, but perhaps at other times I heard them without noticing them.

I felt a tingling horror in my spine and that I was in the presence of something uncanny which was quite beyond my powers of understanding.

Very resolutely Wattle was making her way forward.

“Wattle, Wattle,” I coaxed in vain for I could sense her indifference to me. She seemed, indeed, to have forgotten that she carried me on her back. I tried coaxing again and then a little anger; it was no use. She was in control.

What was she going to do? I asked myself. Never before had I been so conscious of the fact that I was a novice with horses. I could ride well enough when all was well, but when this was not so, I was incapable-as Joss had hinted-and at that moment I was at the mercy of Wattle, and I knew that she was aware of something of which I was ignorant. Wasn’t it said that horses and dogs had an extra sense, higher powers of perception in matters which were beyond our comprehension?

I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I should not have been surprised to see the spectre of old Grover rise up from the mine to beckon to Wattle.

I had never been so frightened.

Wattle stopped suddenly; she pawed the ground and started to whinny.

Then she turned from the mine and made her way to the right where the ground was very sandy and a ragged mulga bush was growing.

She pricked up her ears and began wildly pawing at the sand. Then she gave a sudden snort. It was obviously one of distress.

“What’s wrong. Wattle?” I asked.

Then I saw that she had uncovered something. I leaned forward.

“Oh God!” I whispered in horror, for I saw that what she had uncovered was what was left of Ezra Bannock.

He had been shot through the head and someone had thought it safe to bury him there under the mulga bush not far from the mine, where, but for Wattle who had loved him, he might never have been discovered.

There was consternation throughout the community when they brought him in. He was taken to the homestead and the : blacksmith made a coffin for him. Then he was laid to rest in the graveyard on the edge of the town and there was a full day’s holiday so that all might go to the funeral and pay their respects to Ezra.

Joss held a meeting in the Company’s offices which I attended. It was to discuss what had happened and what was to be done about it.

Ezra Bannock had been murdered and his murderer must be discovered.

Crimes of violence must not go unpunished. In a community such as this, certain laws of conduct had to be rigorously observed, so every effort must be made to bring the murderer to justice.

Notices would be printed offering a reward of fifty pounds to anyone who could give information about the murderer. Everyone who had seen Ezra on the day he disappeared was questioned.

It was disclosed that he had ridden over to Peacocks during the morning of that day and he and Joss had been together for an hour or so. Then he had ridden off, presumably to go home. Joss had gone into the town some time later.

A terrible suspicion had come into my mind, for it occurred to me that when Ezra had come over to Peacocks he and Joss might have been quarrelling about Isa. I asked myself whether the true cause of that disagreement they had had some days before in the Company’s offices was indeed about housing one of the gougers and his family. Was it really about Isa and was Ezra putting his foot down at last and saying he would have no more of it? And if so. No, I would not continue with such thoughts. I wished I could stop thinking of Joss and Isa together. I had no doubt that they were lovers. Hadn’t he given her the Harlequin Opal? If she had not been married to Ezra she would have married Joss, and then there would have been no question of his marrying me. They must both have regretted that. Had they decided to do something about it? Isa was free now . but Joss was not. Where were my thoughts leading me?

At the funeral Isa was swathed in black, which became her well. Indeed her widowhood seemed to have added an extra dimension to her charms.

She was mysterious and, I thought, not entirely desolate. Her eyes gleamed like topaz through a fine veil and her tawny hair seemed brighter than ever.

Several of us rode back to the homestead afterwards where ham sandwiches and ale had been prepared by her servants.

I found her beside me. She said she hoped I would come and see her some time. It was comforting to have a woman in the neighbourhood not so far distant I said I would call.

“Poor Ezra. Who would have thought this could happen to him? Who could have done it?”

I shook my head.

“I know so little of what goes on,” I said.

“I’m such a newcomer.”

“He can't nave any enemies, everyone liked him.”

“You don’t think he quarrelled with someone?” I saw the speculative light in her eyes.

“It … could have been,” she admitted.

The most likely theory is that a bushranger took his purse and shot him. “

“His purse was missing,” said Isa.

“And it was full of sovereigns. He liked to carry a good deal of money around with him. He said it made him feel rich and he used to fill his purse every morning. It was one of those leather ones with a ring over the top. You know the kind .. red leather.”

“And that’s missing? It clearly must have been a thief.”

“So he died for a few pounds. Poor Ezra! But perhaps that’s too easy a solution and it was someone who wanted him out of the way.”

“Who could?” I asked.

There might have been someone . ” I could not fathom the expression in her eyes.

“Perhaps,” she went on, ‘you’ll come soon. I want to show you my collection. “

“You have shown me, remember ?”

“I didn’t show you everything. Some day I will.”

Joss came up and she immediately turned from me to him. I heard him tell her that if she needed any help she was to call on him.

No, Isa had not become less attractive because she was a widow.

Joss and I rode back to Peacocks together. Absentmindedly we made our way past the peacocks on the lawn. Later we sat on the terrace to take advantage of the cooler evening air.

“What is your theory ?” I asked tentatively.

“Robbery,” he said.

“What else?”

Things are not always what they seem. Poor Ezra’s was not a very happy existence. “

“On the contrary, I rarely saw a man more pleased with his lot.”

“You think he was contented to see his wife unfaithful to him?”

“He took a great pride in her attractiveness."

” And you are really suggesting that he enjoyed her infidelities? “

There are men like that. “Are you one of them ?”

I heard that gust of laughter.

“I wouldn’t endure it for a moment.”

Yet you feel it all right for others to? “

” Everyone has a right to act as he pleases. If people don’t like something they must find then own way of stopping it. “

“Do you think that’s what Ezra was trying to do?’

” I think Ezra was trying to stop someone’s taking his purse. “

“Or his wife?”

“What’s on your mind?”

Just that. “

“But it was his purse that was missing.”

That could have been taken as a blind. “

“You’re becoming quite a sleuth.”

“I should very much like to know who killed Ezra Bannock.”

“So should we all.”

I cried out passionately: “Shall we stop talking round this? I want to know the truth. Did you kill Ezra Bannock?”

“I? Why ever should I?”

There’s a perfectly good motive. You’re his wife’s lover. “

Then what good would his death be to me? I have a wife. I’m not free to marry Isa even if she’s free to marry. “

I didn’t answer. I was deeply shocked, for he had not denied being her lover.

I stood up.

“I’m going in. I find this conversation distasteful.”

He was beside me.

“And,” he said coldly, ‘so do I. “

I went to my room and sat at the dressing-table looking at my reflection without seeing it. He would marry Isa if he were free, I thought. But he is not free because he is married to me.

Then it was as though the room was full of warning shadows. Isa had not been free once, but she was now. He was not free at this moment but why should he not be at some time in the future?

Oh Ben, I thought, what have you done? How much did you really know your son ?

Proud as a peacock, he could not give up what he coveted. He wanted above all to be in control-of the Company, of the town, of everyone.

That was how he saw himself, the supreme director of us all. He had two passions in his life-opals and Isa, and it seemed that he was determined to lose neither of them.

But what of me?

I began to see very clearly that I stood in the way.

Several weeks passed. My nights were uneasy. Fears beset me me during my nights and they only disappear with the light of the day and when I went into the town I could push them to the back of my mind. I tried to forget my apprehension by concentrating more and more on the business and was able to take part in the discussions round the boardroom table and even make one or two suggestions not about the actual work, of course, but sometimes about the conditions of the workers. I was aware that my prestige was growing and that the deference shown to me was not only because I was Joss Madden’s wife and co-shareholder. I had the great good fortune one day, in that room where : the sorting was done, of selecting one piece about which I had what I can only call a hunch. I asked that it be worked on next because I just had a feeling that under the potch was something rather special.

I was humoured and some work was set aside that the merits of this particular piece might be explored. To my great joy-and I must admit to a crowing delight in the fact -the experts were more than a little astonished when it turned out that I had picked a winner. There, revealed by the facing wheel, was as fine a piece of opal as had been seen for many months.

“She’s got it!” cried Jeremy Dickson excitedly.

“Mrs. Madden, you’re a real opal woman.”

In my triumph I forgot my growing anxieties for a few hours.

But they were soon coming back to me. In the town was the Reward Notice to remind me. Fifty pounds for anyone who could give information regarding the killer of Ezra Bannock. Then I thought of Isa smiling secretly at Joss and the argument I had overheard and the fact that Ezra had ridden out from Peacocks to his death.

I had to know what was thought and being said in the town and whether there were suspicions that Joss was Ezra’s murderer. I made a habit of going into the Trams’ cook shop for a mid-morning cup of coffee. Ethel always left what she was doing to come and chat with me. She had clearly taken a fancy to me. Moreover she was a born gossip and had her finger on the pulse of the town. She would know what was being said and how people felt about everything. When Joss laughed at me for my regular visits I retorted that it was as well to know what people of the town were thinking and there was no better way than chatting with Ethel.

“I can see you’re going urmg a new company,” he said.

“Don’t you think that would be good ?” I asked.

“Let’s wait and see,” he parried, and I fancied I saw a shadow of concern on his face. Was he afraid of what I might learn about him? I wondered.

As I sat stirring my coffee and talking with Ethel the topic soon came round to the recent murder.

“I reckon Ezra has the Green Flash,” said Ethel.

“And I’m not the only one who thinks it. I reckon he stole it for his wife.”

“Surely you don’t think she has it now?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. There was a regular to-do when she first came out here. Came from Home, she did. An actress, they said. He’d seen her at some theatre and fallen madly in love with her.”

“Why do you think she came out here? To marry Ezra. She thought he was going to make a fortune. She was young then. There wasn’t a man around who wasn’t crazy about her. They hadn’t seen anything like Isa Bannock out here in the Bush. They were all ready to be her slaves. Even James’s eyes would glitter at the sight of her. That just suited her. Of course Ezra did’ well. He was one of the top men in the Company under Ben Henniker and your husband, of course. But he never got as far as she wanted him to. Now this Green Flash. Mr. Henniker had hidden it all the time. Ezra was in and out of Peacocks, and, well”

“I can’t believe that Ezra was a thief.”

“It’s not the same stealing the Green Flash. It makes its own spell, that stone. People can’t help themselves. It’s some evil spirit that takes them over. Possession, they call it.”

I thought of my father who had loved my mother and promised to many her. Then he had seen the Green Rash and was ready to forget everything for its sake. Possession! Yes, that was the word.

“I reckon he took it for Isa, and when it was his he got the bad luck it always brings. The bushranger was waiting for the first who came to Grover’s Gully and because his luck had turned, that one was Ezra Bannock. People are saying that the Green Flash ought to be found.”

She was eyeing me speculatively, and I felt there was more in her mind than she, gossip that she was, would tell me.

“All this mystery about its whereabouts makes talk,” she added.

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.

When I went back to the office. At the door I met Joss.

“Well,” he asked, ‘been feeling the public pulse ?"

"Yes,” I replied. There’s a lot of talk going on.”

“Naturally. There always is.”

This is about Ezra and the Green Flash. “

“I don’t see the connection.”

“People evidently think there is one.”

What have you discovered? “

“It’s being whispered that Ezra stole the Green Flash because Isa wanted it. It would have been his for a while and because of this the legendary bad luck sent him to Graver’s Gully at the precise moment when the bushranger was there.”

I saw the tightening of his lips and the steely look I dreaded come into his blue eyes.

“Nonsense,” he said.

“Absolute nonsense.”

“At least,” I went on, looking straight at him, that’s one theory. “

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently and I thought: How far is he involved? Was he the one who had taken the Green Flash from its hiding place that he might give it to his mistress ? How far had his infatuation led him ?

I felt sick and afraid.

I sat on the terrace as I often did when I returned from town and Mrs. Laud and Lilias would bring me out a drink. It was usually Lilias’s homemade lemonade.

On this day Mrs. Laud brought it.

‘you look disturbed,” she said.

“Has anything upset you?”

“No, not really. But I wish we could solve this mystery of Ezra Bannock. He was such a genial man.”

“Is there really a mystery? Wasn’t it a bushranger? His purse was stolen after all.”

"Yes, I know. “

‘you don’t seem to think that’s what happened. “

“It appears obvious, of course.”

"You’re worried. You mustn’t let all this upset you, Mrs. Madden. I get quite concerned about you.“

"You’re always so kind and helpful, Mrs. Laud. You have been ever since I came out here. “

“Well, why not? And you the mistress of the house. I think you should put all this out of your mind. That would be the best way.”

“I can’t. Did you know that some people have an idea that the murder has something with Green Flash?"

” Whoever thought that ? “

There’s talk in the town. “But what could Mr. Bannock’s death possibly have to do with the Green Flash? It’s missing, isn’t it? Mr. Henniker put it somewhere and it’s been stolen.”

That’s the point-and perhaps we ought to do something about finding it.”

“How, Mrs. Madden?”

“Make every effort. The Green Flash was stolen from this house. We should find out how and when it was taken. Mr. Madden’s against it. He doesn’t want enquiries about the Green Flash and old legends revived.

He doesn’t want people to think that opals are unlucky, which they always do when the Green Flash is talked of. “

“He’s right. Jimson says that sort of talk is bad for business.”

“We needn’t stress whether it’s lucky or unlucky. What I want is to find out the truth. I must know what’s happened to it.”

“What will you do, Mrs. Madden?”

“I’m not quite sure, but I’m going to start ferreting around.”

“By yourself?"

” If I can get help, I will. You might be able to help, Mrs. Laud. “

You can be sure I’ll do all I can. “

You know who came to the house. “

“Well, you saw at the treasure hunt-there are hundreds of them. People are in and out of Peacocks all the time.”

The fact; remains, Mrs. Laud, that someone came into this house, found the hiding place, and took the Green Flash. “

“You really think it could have been Mr. Bannock!”

“I find it hard to believe that of him. I liked him very much although I had known him such a short time. He seemed such a happy man. It doesn’t seem possible that he could have anything on his conscience.”

“Yes, that’s very hard to believe. So you’re going to start making enquiries."

” Discreetly, not openly-because Mr. Madden doesn’t want it. “

"No, I see he wouldn’t. ” She stopped suddenly as though she had said more than she had intended to.

Why? ” I asked sharply.

“He … er … wouldn’t want enquiries …” She looked a little distressed.

‘It's all about talk about opals being unlucky,” I said firmly.

“Oh yes, of course. That’s the sole reason. That’s what I meant, of course.”

She was protesting too much. I thought I understood what was in her mind. She knew of Joss’s infatuation for Isa. Isa was like one of those princesses in the fairy-tales of my youth. To win my favours you must bring me the . ” and then would follow the seemingly impossible task which the prince always accomplished in the end.

It was becoming obvious. She loved opals.

“I want my collection to be the finest in the world ..” How could it be if it lacked the peer of them all? "You must find it for me, bring it to me and then . my hand in marriage . ” Wasn’t that how it went in the fairy-tales?

But they had not been free for marriage. Isa was free now, though.

Joss wasn’t. not yet “You’re shivering suddenly,” said Mrs. Laud.

“Are you cold?”

“It’s nothing … someone walking over my grave, as they say at Home.”

She smiled at me strangely, enigmatically. I asked myself then: Are we thinking the same thing?