Swan Hill, on the Murray. Sheep. Having my annual away from the wife. You married?”
“Aye.”
Another silence. The step to step was almost military in precision.
“That, apparently, is not a revolving Light?” Bony presently remarked.
“That’s so. Sheep, you said. What class of sheep?”
“Corriedale strain, mostly. You farm sheep?”
“Coupla hundred. Not much of a place, Split Point, for a holiday at this time of year. Better over at Lorne. More life. There’s fishin’ if you like it. None hereabouts. Nothing here for visitors in the winter.”
“I’ve never been to Lorne,” Bony admitted. “Fashionable, I understand ... in the season.”
“And out of season. More there to occupy your time. How big’s your place?”
“Hundred thousand acres. On the road to Balranald.”
“Out from Swan Hill! How far out?”
Bony named a small station and its position owned by a relative of Bolt’s whose name he had adopted. There appeared to be purpose behind this garrulous questioning. It was like being vetted for a Security Service job, and as they began to mount the long curve to the first of the road lights, Bony’s companion asked:
“How do they call you, Mister?”
“Rawlings. What’s your name?”
“Rawlings,” repeated the man slowly. “Rawlings, on the Balranald road out from Swan Hill. Dammit! I’ve passed my turn-off.”
Halting abruptly, without further word he dropped back and vanished. Bony went on ... listening for the other’s footsteps beneath the noise of his own. He heard nothing.
Having passed down this road and upwards to return from the headland, he knew there was no turn-off save one at the edge of the marshland a full half-mile back.
But the first of the road lights was a bare hundred yards ahead, and the voice of his walking companion was the voice of the man who had watched him at the edge of the cliff where another had wrestled with a woman.
Chapter Three
The Craftsman
On the plea of being tired, Bony did not long remain in the cosy bar lounge, and, having mastered the contents of the Official Summary, he fell asleep with the thought that this investigation would really extend him.
He awoke at seven ... one hour before the breakfast gong would be struck ... and went out to the front veranda overlooking the lawn and gazed through the shelter trees at Split Point headland and the Lighthouse gleaming white in the early sunlight. The air was frostily still. A blackbird probed lustily for worms, and somewhere a calf bellowed at a rooster whose crowing sounded like splintering glass.
To wait inactive one hour for a cup of tea was unthinkable ... and Mrs Washfold did look approachable. Bony walked round the outside of the building to the kitchen door, where he was met by a shaggy brown-and-white dog, a hen and a pet sheep. Within, he saw the licensee eating breakfast.
“Good morning,” Bony greeted him from outside the fly-wire door. “A king once shouted ‘My kingdom for a horse’; you hear me shout: ‘My wife for a cup of tea!’”
Washfold turned and grinned a welcome.
“No deal,” he said. “One woman around this joint’s enough for me. Come and get it.”
Bony drew open the fly-wire door and went in. The door jambed open and the dog followed him. The dog was followed by the pet sheep, and over the large round face of Bert Washfold spread alarm. He was in time to prevent the hen entering the kitchen, and in time to shoo out the sheep and the dog, before Mrs Washfold appeared.
“Cup of tea! Of course, Mr Rawlings. You can get a cup of tea here any time of day or night ... in the off season. Goin’ to be a nice day. What’s the matter with that dog, Bert?”
“Gotta flea up his nose, I suppose. Lie down, Stug. Sugar?”
“Thanks.” Bony sugared his tea and drank it.
“Heavens! You’ll scald your throat out,” exclaimed Mrs Washfold. “Another cup?”
“Ah! That’s better. Yes, if you please.”
“And what would you like for breakfast? Cereal or porridge? And bacon and eggs or a nice fillet steak with eggs or tomatoes?”
Shafts of sunlight barred his sky-blue dressing gown, and his sleek black hair reflected the light from the door. Looking at him, the Washfolds noted the straight and slim nose, the white teeth and the blue eyes, the face barely stained with the betraying colour of his ancestry ... and later disagreed over the ancestry. Bony bowed to Mrs Washfold.
“Madam!” he said. “Am I in a hotel or am I at home?”
“Home,” replied the licensee. “We’re all at home ... in the off season. You try out the bacon. Cured it meself. Recommend it.”
“The fillet steak is also juicy,” added his wife, persuasively.
“And I’ve been urged to go and stay at Lorne,” protested Bony.
“Oh! Who said that?” demanded Washfold.
“Man I met yesterday. Well-built man about fifty or so. Greying brown hair. Grey eyes. Speaks with a faint country accent. He was wearing old clothes and old boots, and he said he owns a couple of hundred sheep.”
Over the cup, Bony blandly watched these two pleasant people.
“Sounds like Tom Owen,” softly stated Mrs Washfold.
“Did he have whiskers sprouting from the bridge of his nose?” asked the large man.
“Yes,” agreed Bony, and Mrs Washfold rose to take air.
“The idea! I’ll give that Tom Owen a tongue-lashin’ when I see him. Lorne! Lorne’s all right for the boys and girls to loll around half-naked in summer time, but not all of us have figures like film stars, although you ...” She blushed like a milkmaid. “Not meaning anything, Mr Rawlings. But you know what I mean.”
“Of course. And don’t think I’m likely to go on to Lorne. Why, with such a breakfast as you promise me, I would be foolish. Well, I must dress.”
“And you get about the chores, Bert. Look at the time!”
Later, Bony followed the highway down to the Inlet. The Inlet was like the grass-covered bottom of a fisherman’s creel and on it the creek lay like a silver eel. Beyond the Inlet, the blue sea kissed the land rising to dark-green hills. The meeting of the sea with the land extended in giant curves from headland to headland all the way to Cape Otway.
Bony was satisfied with himself and with this world. There would be no rushing about for him. As he had eaten his breakfast, so would he investigate this murder ... without an attack of indigestion. He was wholly satisfied with his preliminary moves which had brought him as a pastoralist on holiday, and having New South Wales number plates to the car he had borrowed from the Chief of the Victorian Criminal Investigation Branch, he would be able to draw nearer to backgrounds and “sense” influences withheld from known police investigators.
At the bottom of the hill, he turned along a track skirting the Inlet and promising to take him far into the tree-covered mountains of the hinterland.
Passing a house being constructed, he was greeted cheerily by two men tiling the roof. He met a boy driving half a dozen cows, and presently came to a neat little cottage having a low hedge guarding the small front garden. Onward he strolled to a large shed-like building of wood-slab walls and wood-slat roof. It was set back off the road, and against the front wall leaned rusting wagon tyres. The large door was open, and just within a man was industriously planing a board on a bench. His clothes were neat.