in establishing what happened to the man Jeffery Anderson. The sands of the bush have buried all the clues. I have not one with which to start. No body, no false teeth, no bloodstained knife or revolver covered with fingerprints. But Sergeant, I have a brain, two eyes, an ability to reason, a contempt for time and red tape and discipline. These things are all I need. Now, please, go out and find what Wandin is doing. Spy on him. Don’t let him know you are spying on him if you can help it.”
The Sergeant was away for nearly five minutes and when he returned to the office he found Bony once again standing before the wall map.
“You found Wandin, probably in the place he occupies as a camp,” Bony said without turning his head. “He was squatted on his heels. His arms were crossed and resting on his knees. He appeared to be asleep. He was, of course, awake, but as you moved quietly he did not know of your approach.”
With light tread, Sergeant Blake walked to Bony’s side. His grey eyes bored steadily into the beaming blue eyes. For three seconds he stood there, staring, and then he said:
“How did you know that?”
“In a city drawing-room, a city office, on a city street, I am like a nervous child,” Bony began his reply, which was no reply to the policeman. “Here in bush townships I am a grown man. Out there in the bush I am an emperor. The bush is me: I am the bush: we are one.” And then Bony laughed, softly, to add: “There are moments when I feel a great pride in being the son of an aboriginal woman, because in many things it is the aboriginal who is the highly developed civilized being and the white man who is the savage. Perhaps your association with me on this case will make you believe that.”
Chapter Four
Old Lacy
Bony and Sergeant Blake stood beside the latter’s car at the edge of flat country half a mile north of Opal Town, country which had been cleared and levelled by Old Lacy’s men to make a landing ground for the Karwir plane. From this point the town was hidden by a range of low sand-dunes through which wound the little-used track.
“This Young Lacy,” Bony said, “is he a reliable flier?”
“Most. Holds his ‘B’ licence. When he failed to enter the Air Force he wanted to join the flying staff of a commercial company, but the old man persuaded him against it. I think the young fellow stays at home only because his father is growing old. The old man has a lot to commend him, you know. I think I can hear the plane coming now.”
“Yes, it’s coming. I can see it. By the way, give that tracker of yours his marching orders. He is too dangerous a man to have hanging round a police station.”
“Dangerous?” Blake echoed. “I’ve found him willing enough and reliable.”
“Perhaps Abie will consent to return,” suggested Bony. “Anyway, exchange Wandin for a much younger man. A young man won’t know so much about magic and uncomfortable things of that kind. Ah, quite a smart machine!”
The silver-painted aeroplane landed with hardly a bounce, and, with the propeller ticking over, it was expertly taxied to a halt within fifty yards of the car and facing the light wind coming from the west. Young Lacy jumped to the ground, ignoring the step inset in the fuselage immediately behind the near-side wing. Bony watched him striding towards them, noted the red hair when the airman snatched off his helmet, and instantly liked the open cheerful face. Before reaching them, Young Lacy shouted:
“Good day, Sergeant! How’s the spotted liver this afternoon? I’ve been sent to pick up Inspector Bonaparte.”
His clear hazel eyes gazed about and beyond Bony on whose face was painted a hint of a smile. It was obvious that Young Lacy was looking for a white man, and Sergeant Blake made a noise from way down in his throat.
“In the departmental records, Mr Lacy, I am listed as Inspector, Criminal Investigation Branch,” Bony said gravely. “Actually, of course, I am not a real policeman, but being a family man I have no hesitation in accepting the salary. My name is Napoleon Bonaparte.”
During this somewhat grandiose self-introduction Young Lacy’s eyes opened wide and the cheerful smile gradually gave place to an expression of bewilderment. Sergeant Blake offered an observation.
“Inspector Bonaparte’s reputation is to be envied, Mr Lacy,” he said stiffly. “He mayn’t be a real policeman, but he’s a real detective right enough.”
“Oh—all—yes, of course! Pleased to meet you, Inspector Bonaparte. Boorish of me to be so dense,” Young Lacy hastened to say. “I was expecting to see a bull-necked, flat-footed bird with jangling irons in his pocket. The old man will be disappointed.”
“Indeed! Why?”
“He’s waiting to receive the detective I was expecting to find waiting here. He’s dreaming dreams of taking him out into the bush and losing him. Still, I’m glad to meet you and not the other kind.”
“And I am most happy to make your acquaintance, Mr Lacy,” Bony said warmly. “I mean it more especially after having watched you fly that machine. I’m not air-minded, you see. The last time I went up was several years ago with Captain Loveacre.”
“Loveacre! You know Loveacre, eh! I last met him—why, red wine and laughing eyes! I remember Loveacre telling me about you and your Diamantina case. He called you Bony.”
“He would, Mr Lacy. Everyone does. I wish you would, too.”
“Bony it is, then. I’m Young Lacy to all hands. And now we are friends, what about getting home? The old man will be waiting with all his little sayings ready saved up.”
Young Lacy stowed the suitcase, assured himself that the second helmet was securely on Bony’s head and Bony himself safely strapped into the rear cockpit.
“So long, Blake!” he called when he had taken his position at the controls. “Don’t forget to remember me to Mrs Blake.”
The throttle was opened, the engine roared to drown the Sergeant’s reply and make him skip back to the car away from the dust. A short even run and the ground was slipping away from under, and into view sprang the township, to fall into the centre of a great green and brown disk. Bony saw the road to “outside” winding away to the eastern horizon, another road curving this way and that far to the north, and a third road lying like a snake’s track from the town to where the sun was destined to set. He wrote with a pencil on a spare envelope:
“Kindly follow the road to Karwir. I want to see Pine Hut on Meena. Fly low, please.”
He thrust the note over Young Lacy’s shoulder. The pilot took it, read it, and, glancing back, nodded. With the stick held between his knees, he also used the envelope to pencil a note:
“Will fly low, but it will be bumpy. Might make you sick.”
On seeing Bony shake his head and indicate with a hand his desire to be flown nearer the ground, the pilot sent the ship sharply down to follow the track snaking westward. The earth was painted with a crazy pattern of greens and browns, green scrub and brown sand-dunes. Only the road possessed continuity, now plainly marked by the shadows lying in the deep wheel-ruts on soft sand, now faintly limned by putty-coloured ribbons made by the wheels of motors crossing cement-hard claypans.
A wire fence rushed to meet them and passed under them. Bony knew, by his study of Blake’s wall map, that it was the Opal Town Common fence, and that now they were flying over Meena Station. It was quite a nice little property, though not to be compared with the big runs like Karwir. He would have to visit the Gordons, and Nero and his tribe, too. Nero would be sure to interest him, because, of course, by now Nero would have had word of his flying to Karwir.
At the average altitude of six hundred feet, Young Lacy sent the machine over the winding road. Little brown and white dots away to the north represented grazing cattle. The road was behaving erratically, falling away and swinging upward to them as the machine entered air pockets, passed through them, and rose again when propeller and wings bit into the air.