Sasoon picked up the telephone, and called for Bunbury 10. Matt heard him say:
“Senior Constable Sasoon asking if Inspector Hudson’s available. All right. Please. Sasoon here, sir. Reference your memo 1761–143. I have grounds to believe that the person has entered this district. He was seen with the bookmaker’s lucky charm pinned to his beret. Yes. That’s correct, sir. Yes, he must have doubled back. Very well, sir, I’ll be here.”
Sasoon replaced the receiver and stared at Matt, and Matt stared back and waited, silently.
“Did you bring Emma to town?” asked the policeman, and Matt shook his head.
Sasoon again lifted the receiver and this time asked for Timbertown 189. Now Matt frowned because this was his own house number. Then he was hearing:
“ ’Day, Emma! Nice day, eh! Good to hear your voice. Too right, it’s your old friend. Now listen and no gossip. Of course, Else is O.K. Yes, I know that. Look, is Karl handy? Good! Bring him to the phone, will you?”
No sound other than the constable in the outer office using the typewriter, until Sasoon spoke again.
“Yeh, it’s me, Karl. Been having a few words with Matt here. Now listen and name no names. That night you camped the other side of the mill, remember? Where d’you reckon he’d turn off from your course? Oh, then he’d cross Rhudder’s Creek. How’s she running? Pretty low, eh? Muddy both sides? Well now, there could be a lot in what you dreamed that night, see? You stick around with Emma till Matt gets home. Yes, just stick around. Matt won’t be long.”
Sasoon replaced the instrument. Again he meditated, then he said with grit in his voice:
“Wait! Breckoff!”
The constable entered, a robust rather good-looking young man.
“Tom, run out to Lew’s camp, and see if he can hunt up a couple of trackers. Don’t bring ’em in. Have them standing by at short call. Lew’ll understand we have a job for them. Tell him we want the best.”
“All right, Senior.”
“And, Breckoff, the boss will be down here this afternoon. You know what he’s like about tunics, and dress in general.”
“I haven’t forgotten what he said last time, Senior,” and with a faint grin Breckoff departed. Sasoon waited until the door was shut.
“Well, that’s that,” he said to Matt Jukes. “Eight days that swine’s been home and you tell me now. All the police in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales are looking for him, and he’s right under our noses. You didn’t go down to the house asking for him, did you?”
“No. I watched for him from the Ridge, as I said.”
“You didn’t see him through the glasses?”
“Not a glimpse. I told you we couldn’t be sure about him coming back. If I had been sure, I’d have gunned for him.”
“I can believe that, Matt.” Sasoon stood, towering over the seated grazier. “Matt, you’ve been tried pretty sorely, but what’s past has got to be kept past. Now you know me and I know you. I know that once you promise anything you’ll abide by it. You promise me you won’t go gunning for him.”
The policeman stared down into the wide dark eyes now aflame with hot rage and, because he himself could seldom retain anger for longer than a quarter-hour, he marvelled that Matt could continue to hate for thirteen years. Matt Jukes had in him the stuff of long and vicious feuds.
“Well,” Sasoon insisted. “You promise to keep the peace, or I’ll lock you up.”
Matt Jukes bounced to his feet and, because he was a foot shorter, glared upward at the policeman.
“You’d lock me up?” he yelled. “You?”
“Yair, me. And if I couldn’t do it all by myself I’d call on Emma and Else to help me. They’d help me quick and lively.” Sasoon sat again, and motioned Matt to do likewise. “Now look, Matt, this business is bigger than you got any idea of. The Law is goin’ to give you and me and Emma all the satisfaction we’ve ever wanted from Marvin Rhudder. Yes, the Law is going to do the gunning. You seen Luke Rhudder?”
“He came home five days ago. Didn’t call in, but I seen him from the Ridge.”
“Calling the Legions to Rome, Matt. Now what I’m going to tell you, you keep under the hat. Marvin has made a fatal mistake. He raped a woman and murdered a bookmaker. Now we know that in New South Wales, where’s he’s been operating for thirteen years, rape is thought to be the naughty ebullience of the teenager, and murder is considered the impulsive act of a sick man. But, Matt, Marvin committed his last criminal assault on a woman and his first murder in the State of South Australia, where murderers are hanged.”
“So what?” queried Matt Jukes.
“No matter where he’s picked up. Marvin gets extradited to South Australia.”
“If he’s picked up,” argued Matt. “If you think all you got to do is run down to the homestead and arrest Marvin with no more trouble than serving a summons, you’ll think nothing. He’s not lying on the couch in the lounge or sleeping in the best bedroom. He’s holed up in a cave, and you know there’s more holes and caves to every mile of coast than there’s stars in the sky. The only chance to pick him up, as you call it, is to pick him off with a rifle fitted with telescopic sights. A ruddy army of police couldn’t pick him up.”
“You talk sense, Matt,” admitted Sasoon. “It’s going to be a problem, but it is a police problem. Eight days he’s been home, that is if he stayed at home eight days. Might have stayed home only one night, and now where could he be? As you point out, we don’t raid the Rhudder homestead like a two-up school in a city.”
“You sent for the abos,” Matt said, adding, with regained calm: “That’s something.”
“Routine, Matt. By now every station in W.A. will be given the good oil about Marvin. Now you go home and stay close. No more going off to the Ridge and watching. You watch out for Emma.”
“Emma’s all right. She’s afraid of no man.”
“Man,” echoed Sasoon. “Marvin Rhudder isn’t a man. He’s a throw-back to a prehistoric monster.”
Chapter Three
Bony Takes Charge
It was Monday evening and a quiet night in Timbertown, and having inspected the few passengers who had left the train from Perth, Sam Sasoon was taking his ease in the front room of the Police Quarters, reading a novel whilst his wife sewed and the large black cat purred. The window was wide open, and there entered the normal sounds of a quiet town until footsteps sounded on the concrete path from the front gate.
“Could be him,” Sasoon said, and put aside his book.
“Funny time to arrive,” observed Elsie Sasoon, glancing at the mantel clock. She was stout, blonde, age difficult to assess. “Now, don’t worry, Sam. You did everything possible; you know you did.”
Sam rose to answer the knocking on the door, and in the passage he could see, beyond the fly-screen, the man revealed by the outside light. He was slim, and he was wearing a cool-looking grey suit.
“Senior Constable Sasoon?” he asked, his voice softly distinct and without accent. “The name is Bonnar, Nathaniel Bonnar.”
“Been expecting you,” Sasoon said. “Please come in.”
He led the way to the sitting-room and his wife rose to meet the visitor. Her first impression was of a man from a tropical film. Her second improved the first. Then she felt pleasure when he bowed to her, and wonderment when she found herself caught in the net of his startling blue eyes.
“I am Nat Bonnar, pro tem.,” she was informed. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting