Death of a Swagman Other Titles by Arthur W. Upfield: N=qĩẫ=_~ờờ~õẫẫ=júởớẫờú= O=qĩẫ=p~ồầở=ỗẹ=tỏồầẫẫ= P=tỏồệở=^ỗợẫ=ớĩẫ=aỏ~ó~ồớỏồ~= Q=jờK=gẫọọúở=_ỡởỏồẫởở= R=tỏồầở=ỗẹ=bợỏọ= S=qĩẫ=_ỗồẫ=ỏở=mỗỏồớẫầ= T=qĩẫ=júởớẫờú=ỗẹ=pùỗờầẹỏởĩ=oẫẫẹ= U=_ỡởĩờ~ồệẫờ=ỗẹ=ớĩẫ=põỏẫở= V=aẫ~ớĩ=ỗẹ=~=pù~ệó~ồ= NM=qĩẫ=aẫợỏọ ở=pớẫộở= NN=^ồ=^ỡớĩỗờ=_ỏớẫở=ớĩẫ=aỡởớ= NO=qĩẫ=jỗỡồớ~ỏồở=e~ợẫ=~=pẫờẫớ= NP=qĩẫ=tỏầỗùở=ỗẹ=_ờỗỗóẫ= NQ=qĩẫ=_~ĩẫọỗờở=ỗẹ=_ờỗõẫồ=eỏọọ= NR=qĩẫ=kẫù=pĩỗẫ= NS=sẫồỗó=eỗỡởẫ= NT=jỡờầẫờ=jỡởớ=t~ỏớ= NU=aẫ~ớĩ=ỗẹ=~=i~õẫ= NV=qĩẫ=`~õẫ=ỏồ=ớĩẫ=e~ớ=_ỗủ= OM=qĩẫ=_~ớớọỏồệ=mờỗộĩẫớ= ON=j~ồ=ỗẹ=qùỗ=qờỏẫở= OO=_ỗồú=_ỡúở=~=tỗó~ồ= OP=_ỗồú=~ồầ=ớĩẫ=jỗỡởẫ= OQ=_ỗồú=~ồầ=ớĩẫ=_ọ~õ=sỏờệỏồ= OR=_ỗồú=~ồầ=ớĩẫ=hẫọọú=d~ồệ= OS=_ỗồú=~ồầ=ớĩẫ=tĩỏớẫ=p~ợ~ệẫ= OT=qĩẫ=tỏọọ=ỗẹ=ớĩẫ=qờỏẫ= OU=j~ầó~ồở=_ẫồầ= OV=qĩẫ=i~õẫ=cờỗóẫ=jỗồởớẫờ= ARTHUR W. UPFIELD Death of a Swagman EDEN PAPERBACKS All characters in this book are entirely fictitious, and no reference is intended to any living person. EDEN PAPERBACKS an imprint of Angus & Robertson Publishers Unit Q, Eden Park, PN Waterloo Road, North Ryde, NSW, Australia ONNP, and NS Golden Square, London WIR 4BN, United Kingdom This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers. First published NVQR Arkon paperback edition NVUM This Eden paperback edition NVUT Copyright Bonaparte Holdings Pty Ltd NVQR= ISBN 0 207 15792 8 Printed in Australia by The Book Printer Chapter One Merino and Rose Marie kç Ö~åÖë of yellow men carrying earth and rubble in baskets, no human chains of men and women, and even children, carrying stones in their lacerated arms, built these Walls of China. No Emperor ChÛin Shih Huang Ti directed over a million men to raise this extraordinary barrier lying athwart the bushlands in the south-west corner of the state of New South Wales. The colour of the country is reddish-brown, and upon this reddish-brown land the soft fingers of the wind built a wall of snow-white sand some twelve miles long, three- quarters of a mile wide, and several hundred feet high. No one knows when the wind laboured so mightily to build the barrier, and no one knows who named it the Walls of China. On the morning of October twelfth, in an isolated hut lying within the sunrise shadow of the Walls of China, the body of a stockman named George Kendall was found in circumstances plainly indicating the act of homicide. Following the discovery, Detective Sergeant Redman arrived at Merino, a township three miles westward of the hut and the Walls of China. With him in the car were an official photographer and a fingerprint expert. They were driven to the police station in the view of the excited inhabitants, and in the course of the investigations questioned and cross- questioned all and sundry, took pictures of the scene of the crime, and reproduced fingerprints left on objects within the hut. The arrival of Detective Inspector Bonaparte, alias Bony to his friends, was in marked contrast. His interest had been cap- tured by the statements and documents compiled by Detective 1 Sergeant Redman, and he drifted into Merino six weeks later in the guise of a stockman seeking a job. At the only hotel he drank a couple of deep-nosers with the licensee, then parked himself on the bench on the hotel veranda and proceeded to smoke his atrociously made cigarettes. Merino is not markedly dissimilar to any of a dozen town- ships in the western half of New South Wales. Its houses, its shops and government buildings are all constructed with wood, iron, and tin, the only effort to beautify the place having been the planting of pepper-trees along the borders of the one formed street. Some eighty people only, including children, were living in Merino when Bony visited the place to look into the death of George Kendall. What had induced the early settlers to found this township puzzled even Bony, who was interested in such matters. Its site was on the eastern slope of a vast land swell. The track from Mildura came over the broad summit and down the gentle slope for more than a mile, to pass the two large dams which supplied the township with water and the windmill which pro- vided water for travelling stock. Then it continued for another mile until it reached the western and upper end of the main street. Passing through the township, it flowed gently down the slope for two miles, where it turned sharply to the north as though aware that it could never flow up and over the great rampart of snow-white sand known as the Walls of China. The hotel was the first abode to welcome the traveller from Mildura. From its veranda Bony was able to gaze down the street, between the twin lines of pepper-trees, and to view the huge range of sand humped and peaked in snowy whiteness in this land of red-brown earth. Opposite the hotel stood the corrugated iron garage owned, as announced by red lettering on a white board above the open front, by an Alfred Jason who also was a wheelwright and a funeral director. His house stood next to the garage and farther back from the street, and then came the compound in which was the police station, the stables and the 2 small lockup, and a small building which had done service as the morgue. Still lower down the street could be seen the fronts of shops and, on Bony’s side, the school and the church. The afternoon was warm, and he had walked far this day, so he composed his body full length along the bench, his swag for a headrest, and fell asleep before deciding whether to make himself known to the senior police officer or to work incognito on what he was sure was going to be an interesting investiga- tion. He was awakened by a hard voice asking: “What’s your name?” Like that of his maternal progenitors, Bony’s mind became fully active the instant he awoke, but he opened only one eye to observe a uniformed policeman looking down at him with disapproval writ plainly on his large, weather-tinted face. “Hey! You! What’s your name?” “Robert Burns,” replied Bony languidly, before yawning. “Go away.” The request to depart was less irritating than the yawn to the policeman, who ranked as sergeant. The irritation was ex- cusable, because Sergeant Marshall had never become accus- tomed to being yawned at by stockmen who slept during day- light hours on benches outside licensed premises. The front of Bony’s shirt was gathered into a huge fist and he was lifted bodily to his feet. The sergeant’s bulk dwarfed him. With the upper part of his left arm held in a human vise, Bony was urged across the street to the police station. In the office a mounted constable, minus his tunic, was pounding on a typewriter. “Keep your eye on this bird of passage, Gleeson,” ordered the sergeant. The constable rose to stand beside the prisoner. His superior sat down at his own desk and wrote rapidly on an official form. Then he said: “You are charged with (a) giving fictitious answers to lawful questions put to you by a police officer, (b) being 3 insolent to a police officer in the execution of his duty, (c) having no visible means of support, and (d) loitering outside a licensed premises. Lock him up, Gleeson.” “There is an (e) within brackets but I had better not men- tion it,” Bony could not resist pointing out, and then another human vise became clamped about his upper arm and he was conducted to one of two whitewashed cells in a building at the rear of the station. The constable heard him laughing as he walked back to his typewriter. Bony sat down on the broad bench which was to serve him as a bed. His clear blue eyes were bright and twinkling with mirth whilst his long slim fingers made a cigarette with the usual hump in the middle. Often had he been threatened with arrest by policemen who knew him only as a station hand, but this was the first time he had been jailed. His cell was clean but too warm for comfort beneath its iron roof, the air being admitted only through a barred opening in the roof and a small iron grille in the door. Philosophically he placed his swag of blankets and personal gear as a pillow for his head and laid himself along the bench and smoked whilst pondering on the advisability or otherwise of presenting his credentials to Sergeant Marshall. Eventually he would have to do so, but there were certain advantages to be gained by remaining incognito for a week or so. He had been there for probably an hour when he heard movement outside the door as though a box or case was being placed against it. A moment later he saw a pair of large dark grey eyes gazing steadily at him through the grille. He swung his feet off the bench and sat up. “Good afternoon,” he said politely. The steady appraisal continued, inquiring, assessing. Bony stood, whereupon a sweetly childish voice ordered: “Stay where you are or I’ll go away.” “Very well,” he said, and sat down. “Now that you have looked me over carefully enough, what do you think of me?” 4 [...]... “There was also present George Kendall, a stockman employed on Wattle Creek Station, riding from a hut at a place 13 called Sandy Flat, which is three miles due east of Merino and close against the Walls of China “Nothing much of Kendall’s history is known He came east from the Darling River stations about a year ago, and got the job on Wattle Creek Station He was unmarried and apparently had no relatives... the fuller cadences of the white man used to authority Already Sergeant Marshall was becoming aware of his own mental inferiority Bony was saying: “Men like you who have gained valuable administrative ability are often the forgotten men of our state’s police force You see, I have so often worked pleasurably with men of your type You rule over an area of thousands of square miles, efficiently and without... I was taken when abandoned as a baby I passed from a state school to a high school, thence to the Brisbane University, where I won my Master of Arts degree, and so proved once again, if proof is necessary, that the Australian half-caste is not a kind of kangaroo But I had to conquer greater obstacles than social prejudice I had to conquer, and still have to conquer, the almost irresistible power of. .. dark eyes now directed towards 26 Sergeant Marshall, emphasized the pallor of his face, an oddity in this part of Australia Marshall concluded his evidence and waited The magistrate transferred his gaze to Bony, the black eyes solemnly regarding the prisoner in a fixed stare For a man whose hands bore the marks of manual labour, his voice was astonishingly full and rich when, speaking with deliberation,... supper all the children left and the dancing began It was when Gleeson was having a dance that Kendall said something to young Jason and they went quietly out and fought in an adjacent allotment Result: Kendall won and Jason wasn’t seen again that night “The following morning when the hotel yardman went to the stables he found that Kendall’s horse had been taken away, and the maid found that Kendall’s... is a lazy good-fornothing dreamer, and Mrs James is a slave to him That’s what Mother says Someday I am going to ask Mr James what he dreams about Have you any brothers and sisters? I haven’t I heard Mrs James tell Mrs Lacey one day it was a shame that I didn’t have a brother or a sister.” Bony shook his head He was conscious that his table manners were being studied, and hoped they were being approved... superiors often argue about my attitude, and speak of discipline and matters which fail to interest me Sometimes they threaten to sack me, and that interests me even less Look at me You see—what? Come, tell me.” Marshall hesitated, and Bony continued: “You see a half-caste, a detective inspector in a state police department I was given the chance of a good education by a saint, the matron of a mission station... stand naked before it and to recognize it as my lord and master.” There followed a period of silence which Marshall did not find to his liking His long career as a policeman in the interior of Australia had made him au fait with the growing problem of the half-caste and the half-caste’s problems He knew that they were invariably intelligent, and that it was their white fathers who were degraded and... still as they surveyed that narrow section of the Book of the Bush over which he passed And when almost opposite the gate, he read a sentence on this page of the book which immediately aroused his interest As has been stated, the hut faced towards the east across three miles of open country falling gently to the foot of the Walls of China Here and there were giant red claypans, hard as cement and separated... that, young Jason, the son of the garage proprietor, walked up to Kendall, put a hammer lock on him, and marched him from the hall There might have been a fight outside had not Gleeson been there, and to Gleeson, Kendall explained that what had happened was an accident Young Jason went back inside, and after Gleeson had a few words with him Kendall went in “At half past nine they served supper, and after . cadences of the white man used to authority. Already Sergeant Marshall was becoming aware of his own mental inferiority. Bony was saying: “Men like you who have gained valuable administrative. minister and his wife. Mr James is a lazy good-for- nothing dreamer, and Mrs James is a slave to him. That’s what Mother says. Someday I am going to ask Mr James what he dreams about. Have you any. essence of a broken-down actor, and that young Mr Jason had given her the name of Rose Marie because he loved her and was going to marry her some day, and that Detective Sergeant Redman who had