The Frightened Man
BONY slept for six hours, despite the stealthy March flies and a few inquisitive ants, waking when the sun was setting in a hot sky and the birds by the whispering creek were expressing satisfaction with their day. Having made a smokeless fire and placed thereon his billy for a brew of tea, he shaved and then stripped and bathed in the creek, returning to his cooking fire refreshed physically and mentally and tempted to whistle to express his satisfaction with his day.
Shannon loomed as prominently in his mind as Carl Benson. His liking for the American was begotten in the main by the sentimental streak in his make-up, played upon by the romance of a young ex-soldier setting out alone across the world to prove what had happened to his sweetheart. Beyond the sentimentality of that, Bony, the police officer, could not approve of “private wars” and civilian citizens “mooching” around, when loaded heavily with pistols and throwing knives. The knives displayed in the hotel and the pistol with its ungainly silencer attachment more recently displayed caused him to be thankful that Shannon was not on the warpath against him.
That Shannon had not been sufficiently close to overhear the conversation between Simpson and Carl Benson, if, indeed, he had actually witnessed the burning of the body, was cause for satisfaction. Like all official investigators of crime, Bony felt aversion to amateur detectives.
A greater problem than Shannon, however, was O’Brien’s skeleton buried in the cooling ashes of Simpson’s fire. On the morrow Simpson would remove the remains and pound them to dust in a prospector’s dolly-pot, a utensil shaped like a gun shell, in which stone is reduced to dust and then washed to ascertain its gold content. Once the licensee had done that with the old man’s bones, evidence of the crime would be merely circumstantial, resting on the word of two witnesses, plus the possible salvage of clothes buttons and the metal eyelets from the victim’s canvas shoes.
The result of moving the dead man’s remains from the ashes was obvious. Simpson would report the removal to Carl Benson. They would know that the crime had been discovered, and whatever it was which motivated them would be destroyed, rehidden, or otherwise placed far from them. Bony decided that to remove the remains from the ashes would be a mistake, but just how serious he could not estimate. On the other hand, to leave them for Simpson to destroy might also be a mistake subsequently to be regretted. The issue was decided by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s advice: “When in doubt, do nothing.”
That Simpson had murdered the old yardman without the knowledge of Carl Benson, that Benson was an accessory after the fact, and that Simpson was so controlled by Benson as to obey that order to disinter the body and burn it had been made perfectly clear during their meeting at the pyre. And, finally, what actuated a man like Carl Benson to be implicated in murder must be unique in motives. The Carl Bensons of this world and time do not become accessories after the fact-of murder-unless governed by an extremely powerful motive.
It was when rolling his swag that sight of the brandy decided Bony to call on old Simpson and endeavour to extract from him further information concerning the owner of Baden Park, and when he seated himself with his back against that tree which Shannon had employed for a knife-throwing target, the world was dark beneath a sky still containing a little light.
It was twenty minutes after eight when Simpson passed in his car on the way to spend the evening at Baden Park, and it was nine o’clock when Bony circled the hotel, mystified because it was entirely empty of illumination.
As the Buick had passed him he had observed Simpson at the wheel, light from the instrument panel bringing his face into sharp relief. He had not seen passengers, but Mrs. Simpson and Ferris could have been in the rear seat. That they had retired to bed and were asleep thus early could not be assumed.
Quite without sound Bony mounted the front veranda steps, and he was proceeding soundlessly along the veranda when the cockatoo said sleepily, but distinctly:
“Get to hellouta here!”
On reaching the corner, Bony waited, listening, one hand resting against the roof support. He remained there for five minutes, hearing not a sound to indicate movement within the house, the night itself containing only the croaking of frogs along the creek.
Soundlessly, he left the veranda corner and moved to the openfrench window of old Simpson’s bedroom. On the threshold he halted, listening and hearing nothing within, not even the old man’s breathing. He took one step into the room. He raised his right foot to take the second step when he was stopped by a thin scream of terror, which faded into a struggle for articulation.
“No-not now, Jim! Not now, Jim! Leave your old father be. I done nothing wrong, son. I said nothing, Jim, not a word, not even a whisper. Don’t stand there like that. I can see you, Jim, standing against the windows. I been asleep, Jim. I been-”
The voice from the bed was cut off, and Bony knew that air was being taken into the old lungs to be again expelled in the scream. In that moment of silence he said as he strode to the foot of the bed:
“Stop it! It’s John Parkes. It’s all right. Jim’s gone to Baden Park.”
The old man began to sob, and his sobbing was almost as bad as his screaming. Bony returned to thefrench windows, to stand there listening for sounds of human movement without and beyond the bedroom door. When the sobbing stopped, the silence was a weight.
On returning to the bed, Bony asked the whereabouts of the invalid’s wife and daughter, and when the old man replied terror haunted his quavering voice.
“They’re away,” he said tremulously. “They went offyestiddy. Jim sent ’emtoMelbun for a week. Hey! You sure you’re John Parkes? You-you’re not Jim, are you? Go on, talk. Let me hear your voice.”
“No one else in the house bar you?” Bony asked, as he passed to the side of the bed and sat down. He felt a groping hand touch his arm, slide down to the wrist, become clamped about his hand. The old man sighed with relief, attempted to speak, failed, tried again, and mastered his terror.
“It’s John Parkes, all right,” he said. “What you doing here?”
“Anyone else in the house?”
“No. Did you bring a drink?”
“Thought you might like one. Why aren’t you asleep?”
“Sleep! I daren’t sleep. Gimme a drink-quick. Can’t you tell I’m all in, lyin ’ herewaitin ’-waitin’-waitin’ for-”
“Waitin’ for what?” prompted Bony.
“Oh, nuthin ’ much. Me imagination’s bad tonight. You know, bein ’ all alone in this big house. Gimme a steadier, John Parkes, and tell me what you beendoin ’ and all.”
Bony felt about the bedside table, found a tumbler with a little water in it, added brandy to the water, and passed the glass to the eager hand. Pity stirred within him when he heard the ecstasy which followed.
“Didn’t you take your sleeping-tablets tonight?” he asked, and the old man tittered and was silent for a space. When he spoke the fear was back in his voice.
“Jim sent the women away. Musta made up his mind sort of sudden. Took ’emto Stawell earlyyestiddy afternoon. I got to thinking about that time they went away when Ted O’Brien was found drunk in the spirit store. This time there wasn’t no Ted O’Brien. There wasn’t no Glen Shannon, either. There was no one. Only me.”
“Well, he could look after you,” Bony observed. “Why worry?”
“Yes. Jim can always look after me. Too right. Jim can look after me. Cooked me a good dinner tonight, he did. Gimme a drink afterwards, too. Let me sit on the veranda till dark, and it was when it was getting dark that I started to think things, wondering, sort of, why hegimme that drink. After he had put me to bed he says I have to take me tablets, as he can tell I’m going to have a bad night if I don’t. So I keeps the tablets under me tongue andswallers the water. And then he put the bottle of tablets on the table side of the empty glass, and out he goes with the light. The tablets I spit out and put in me ’jamas’ pocket.”
“Well, what was wrong with all that?” Bony asked.
“Nuthin’, I ’speck. Only that drink, the first one he’s given me in years, andleavin ’ the bottle of tablets on that there little table. He never done that since that time I took two extra to the two Ferrisgimme. I wassorta bad that time. They had to get the doctor to me. I thought-I thought-”
“What did you think? Just you tell your old pal.”
“I thought- When I heard that ruddy fowl say: ‘Get to hellouta here.’ I thought it was Jim comesneakin ’ home-leavin’ his car back on the road a bit, like he’s donemore’n once. Then I seen you at the winder, and I thought you was ’im. I thought-”
“Well, go on, tell me what you thought.”
“I thought he had come back to sneak in on me to see if I’d take any extra tablets.”
Bony ignored the implication, saying:
“Pass me your glass. Have another drink. Your nerves are on edge.”
“On edge!” echoed the old man. “I’m all in, John Parkes, all in, I tell you, lying here in the dark andthinkin ’ things and wondering what Jim was doing with that dray. I heard it-in the dark this morning-going away into the scrub. I got to thinking things-how he took the dray into the scrub that morning he said he sacked old Ted O’Brien. Didn’t bring it back till high noon, either. You won’t tell Jim I tell you things, will you?”
“Hang Jim!” Bony exclaimed somewhat appositely. “Don’t worry about me saying anything to him. D’you know why he sent your wife and Ferris to Melbourne?”
“No, but I think things.”
“What things?”
“He wants the coast clear to do something or other. Him and Carl Benson. That Carl Benson has made Jim what he is, with his flash cars and flash visitors, and all his brass. Too high and mighty to call in to pass the time of day with me and the old woman. Not like his father. Hey! What about getting a coupler bottles from the spirit store? I got a key. Let’s drink and drink, eh?”
“Plenty in this bottle. Did Jim take the women all the way to Melbourne?”
“Took ’emto the railway at Stawell. I heard ’emarguing about not going. They didn’t want to go. He made ’em. He makes all of us do what he wants-like he’s a sort of officer or something. Gets it from Carl Benson, I says. And from theflashies he takes over to Baden Park at times.”
“Rich men, I suppose?”
“Might be. Come here in good cars. Sleeps here most times. Funny about them?”
“What’s funny about them?”
“Can’t hardly tell. They’re different from the ordinary run, what comes to spend the Christmas and Easter. Some of ’emare foreigners too. Cocky lot. Throws out their chests as though they own the Grampians.”
“And Jim takes them over to Baden Park. How often do these parties arrive?”
“Not often, but often enough for me. You find out anything about Ted O’Brien?”
“No. D’you think he ever left here?”
The old man caught his breath and then snarled:
“What youwanta ask me that for? How do I know that one?”
“Now don’t get off your horse,” Bony commanded. “Have another sip. Remember telling me about a man named Bertram, who played the fiddle, with Jim on the organ?”
“Yes. Been here lots of times.”
“Did Jim ever take him over to Baden Park?”
“Every time he come. Went over there to play the fiddle to ’em, I suppose. But what’s all this got to do with Ted O’Brien?
“Ted O’Brien may have gone over there to work.”
“Eh!” exclaimed the old man, and fell silent. Then: “No. No, he wouldn’t have gone to Baden Park. Didn’t like the present man. But he might have. Cora Benson was always singing out for kitchen help. Servants wouldn’t stay account of being too far from the pitcher shows and things.”
The invalid fell silent again, and presently Bony asked:
“Is this the only road to Baden Park?”
“The only road now,” replied Simpson. “The present man’s father drove a track out to the south. Linked up with a track fromMoorella to Dunkeld, but avalanches kept blocking it. The present Benson made the road out through here. Spent a lot of money on it too. Done it all back in ’45-same year he built that vermin-proof fence.”
“Built the road to run that expensive Rolls-Royce on it, eh?”
“No, he did not. He brought that motor-car back with him when they went to Europe end of ’38. Bought them two organs as well, that time, he did. Thousand pounds each he give for ’em. Kurt died in ’22, and-”
“Kurt! Who was Kurt?”
“The present man’s father, of course. When he died it was found he wasn’t as rich as people thought. The present man got going and he made money enough to get himself through the depression, and after that he made it pretty fast. Him and his sister went to Europe in-lemmesee-yes, in ’35. Then again in ’38. Got back just in time to escape the war. Crikey! Him and his sistermusta spent a power of brass on traipsing around. Ah! Thanks, my boy. Goo’ luck!”
Bony said nothing to interrupt the flow of memory.
“Then the war come and they went quiet. Went on improving the strain of their sheep. After the war they had that there fence put round Baden Park. Ain’t never seen it, but I’m told it ’udkeep everything out from an ant to an elephant. They lived quiet, exceptin ’ for them parties of visitors from the city. Flashies, that’s what I say they are. And Jim’s like ’emtoo. Old Kurt Benson was all right. Nothin ’ flash about him.”
“Good friend to you when you first came here, wasn’t he?”
“Terrible good, he was. Hadn’t been long in Victoria, either.”
“When did he settle in Baden Park?”
“Five years afore me. In ’07. Come down from New South Wales. Inherited from his father. His father was a vintner, as well as a vineyardist. Name of Schoor.”
“Oh! He changed his name, did he?”
“No, his son did-the present man’s father changed it to Benson. Old Schoor was a foreigner, if you get me. Swiss or Austrian, I don’t know which.”
“The present man didn’t marry, eh?”
“No, he never married. Neither did his sister, Cora. Got no time for her, John, no ruddy time at all. Times have changed and the new generation’s got highfalutin ideas. All they thinks on is getting brass without working for it. What about a drink?”
“There’s just one more in the bottle. How are you feeling?”
“Fine, John-oh, fine. Me pains have gone away.”
“Think you will sleep now?”
“Why? Youleavin ’ me? Youain’t leaving me-not now, are you?”
“Well, I want to have some shut-eye, too, you know.”
“But-Jim-he might come back afore daylight.”
“If he doesn’t he should do,” Bony argued. “Now you have this last drink and settle down to sleep.”
“Where yougoin ’ to sleep?”
There was wild urgency in his voice, and Bony told him he had made camp in the scrub off the clearing and everything would be all right. That old Simpson was fearful of his son was pathetically evident.
“You bide there, John, just for a little while,” pleaded the old man. “Bide there till I sleeps. Iain’t feared when you’re sitting there in the dark.”
“Settle down,” Bony said softly. “I’ll stay with you.”
The invalid sighed, and presently his breathing told of peace. The ethics of giving him drink was not debated by the man who continued to sit on his bed, who sat there until the sound of the Buick reached him. Even then he withdrew only to the fruit trees beyond the veranda, waiting there until assured that James Simpson had gone to his own room.