continued working at Lake Otway? Assuming so, then the reason for sticking to his job must indeed be extremely powerful.
Yes, questions here and now would be out of order. A prodding perhaps, a good deal of listening and working out sums, plus the aid of the old ally, Time, would provide a break soon or late. His role was to be unobtrusive, subtly diplomatic, acceptable to all seven suspects.
Seven suspects! The overseer, Martyr, was run-of-the-mill. Public school education ... apprentice jackaroo ... sub-overseer ... undermanager. Next step up, manager. But that final step a very long step, indeed. Martyr knew how to handle men and, according to Mr Wallace, he was proficient in handling sheep and cattle. He was introspective, imaginative and ambitious.
There was Bob Lester, uninhibited, nervy, earth-bound, with a wonderful memory for sporting details. MacLennon was restrained yet virile, slightly morose, determined, and could be dangerous. Carney was young, fearless, imaginative, well read, and not as well educated as he claimed to be. Barby was something of a mystery, conforming to no type. Well read, quietly observant, careful with his money and ambitious to make more.
The women had to be considered, for either could have raided Gillen’s suitcase. The mother was still young and attractive, man-hungry and avid for conquest. Not the type to stay put for so long. The daughter was alluring and knew it. Bring her in contact with a good-looking and daring young man and a bush fire could start in the centre of Lake Otway. Or would the flame be kindled by twelve thousand pounds?
It was after five in the afternoon that Bony actually came in contact with the hands, for they and Martyr had been engaged in moving several of the huge flocks of sheep from the back of the run to those paddocks around Sandy Well. Even Lester, the rouseabout, was called on to assist, so that during the day Bony was the only man about the place. He suffered but one hardship: to keep track of the lies he told, for the way of the liar is, indeed, hard.
As is the custom, one of the women would tap the triangle with a bar to call him to morning smoko-tea and again in the afternoon. Lunch, which he took with them, was more formal. He was amused to find both mother and daughter piqued because he failed to progress according to their assessment of him.
At morning and afternoon “smoko” they talked intelligently of everything excepting Ray Gillen, to whom he never referred, but as the days slipped by their interest in the falling level of Lake Otway sharpened. At the close of that first week of Bony’s employment, the Lake fell by four inches.
The men’s interest in the Lake was just as marked. Often they returned to the yards with only a few minutes in hand to wash before the dinner gong was struck, but always they scanned Lake Otway to note the imperceptible changes taking place. At this time of day, Bony was usually sitting in a broken arm-chair on the veranda of the quarters overlooking the Lake.
Then came that late afternoon when the first sign of volcanic emotion surged above surface. Bony sensed that the beginning occurred before the men returned from work, before they came trudging across from the horse yards where they had freed their mounts to roll on the sand and take their fill at the trough.
“I’m going in for breaking,” remarked Harry Carney when passing to his room. He was cheerful of voice, but anger lurked in his eyes.
“Yair, better’n stock-ridin’, anyhow,” agreed Lester, and sniffled. “You just hypnotizes a youngster for an hour or two each morning, and then lays off all afternoon in a comfortable chair well in the shade, with a book or addin’ up the dough you’ve earned. Wonderful job.”
MacLennon, stocky and powerful, said nothing. He stood at the end of the veranda looking down at the Lake, now as placid as a road puddle. Overseer Martyr appeared on the house veranda, also obviously interested in the Lake.
“Been hot today,” Bony remarked. “Mrs Fowler said at lunch it was a hundred and two in the pepper-tree shade.”
“Four hundred and two in the sun,” rumbled MacLennon. “I hate these windless days. Makes the flies real vicious.”
He passed off to the shower, and the Swede came and laughed at Bony and asked how it felt to be a “cap’list feller”—asked with the usual roar of laughter. Witlow merely grinned and went in for his towel.
Presently Carney reappeared, cleaned and his fair hair slicked with water. He stood by Bony’s chair and rolled a smoke.
“No mail out, I suppose?” he asked, gazing down at the Lake. Bony shook his head, and Carney added: “’Bout time someone brought it. Hell! The Lake looks like someone’s poured gold into it.”
The gong thrummed through the heated evening air, and Bony took his old and tattered Charles Garvice to his room. On coming out, he found Lester looking at Lake Otway, as Carney and MacLennon had done, and he called: “It will be still there after dinner.”
“Yair, that’s so, Bony.” Lester joined him and they walked after the other two men. “Going down fast, though. Another four weeks will see her out.”
“A pity.”
“Yair. She was beaut up to last Christmas, and when she was full there was no need to go down to the seaside for a cool-off beer. Given a good wind the waves would come curling in a white surf, and at night you could hear it miles away. It never seemed hot in the paddocks, when you could come home to it.”
“Have you seen this place when there’s no water?”
“Too right. Just a flat all over, covered with bush rubbish. Blasted heat trap, too. Water comes into her every seventeen to twenty years, and then stays only for three years at most.”
They ate without sustained conversation, what there was of it being carried on by Witlow and the Swede. They were, of course, tired from the heat and the burning sun and the pestiferous flies, but they seemed taciturn when a normal gang could have tossed chaff at each other. Only towards the end of the meal did one address Bony, and he was Lester, who inquired of his progress with a brown gelding. Bony was making his progress report when Joan Fowler came to the door leading to the kitchen and waved to Bony, saying:
“Cards?”
Bony rose and bowed.
“At eight?” he said, smilingly.
The girl laughed and disappeared. Bony sat down conscious of the hostility in MacLennon and Harry Carney. Witlow, the bow-legged, whimsical Witlow, dryly chuckled, and his apparent friend, the Swede, jibed:
“You tink Bony been pawing the ground whiles we’s been working all day?”
“Could of been,” conceded Witlow. “You can never trust these horse-breakers, Kurt.”
“What you reckon?” asked the Swede, grinning at Bony. “Better for us to sit in on cards, too—just to make sure he keep all right?”
“Yair, better,” Lester put in. “Bony isn’t old enough to play cards with grown wimmen. He’d be fleeced for a monty.”
“Perhaps I shall need a little support,” Bony laughingly agreed.
MacLennon crashed his eating utensils down on his plate, got up and left. In the silence, Lester sniffled, and Carney drawled:
“You can cut out the fleecing idea, Bob. Sounds bad.”
His round face was flushed and his eyes were void of the usual good humour. The Swede leered wickedly, opened his mouth to say something and shut it in pain when Witlow kicked his ankle under the table.
That was that, and it fell out that Bony and Witlow were the last to leave the annexe. When crossing back to the quarters, the little man murmured:
“Keep your hair on, Bony. That Bitch likes to make trouble. You might be able to use yourself, but Mac’s an ex-ring champ.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll tread lightly,” Bony said, and added: “There wouldn’t be anything in treading on other people’s toes here.”
“Wise feller. They’re a funny mob. Best to let ’em cook in