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Bony smiled, and Larkin glared.
Constable Evans said, ‘Keep your hands on the table, Larkin.’
‘You know, Larkin, you murderers often make me tired,’ Bony went on. ‘You think up a good idea, and then fall down executing it.
‘You thought up a good one by dollying the bones and sieving the ashes for the metal objects on a man’s clothes and in his boots, and then – why go and spoil it by shooting a calf and burning the carcase on the same fire site? It wasn’t necessary. Having pounded Reynolds’ bones to ash and scattered the ash to the four corners, and having retrieved from the ashes the remaining evidence that a human body had been destroyed, there was no necessity to burn a carcase. It wouldn’t have mattered how suspicious anyone became. Your biggest mistake was burning that calf. That act co
‘Yes, well, what of it?’ Larkin almost snarled. ‘I got a bit lonely livin’ here alone for months, and one day I sorta got fed up. I seen the calf, and I up with me rifle and took a pot shot at it.’
‘It won’t do,’ Bony said, shaking his head. ‘Having taken a pot shot at the calf, accidentally killing it, why take a dolly pot to the place where you burned the carcase? You did carry a dolly pot, the one in the blacksmith’s shop, to the scene of the fire, for the imprint of the dolly pot on the ground is still plain in two places.’
‘Pretty good tale, I must say,’ said Larkin. ‘You still can’t prove that Bill Reynolds is dead.’
‘No?’ Bony’s dark face registered a bland smile, but his eyes were like blue opals. ‘When I found a wisp of brown wool attached to the boundary fence, I was confident that Reynolds had climbed it, merely because I was sure his body was not on his side of the fence. You made him walk to the place where you shot him, and then you saw the calf and the other cattle in the distance, and you shot the calf and carried it to the fire.
‘I have enough to put you in the dock, Larkin – and one other little thing which is going to make certain you’ll hang. Reynolds was in the Army during the war. He was discharged following a head wound. The surgeon who operated on Reynolds was a specialist in trepa
‘It wasn’t in the ashes,’ gasped Larkin, and then realized his slip.
‘No, it wasn’t in the ashes, Larkin,’ Bony agreed. ‘You see, when you shot him at close quarters, probably through the forehead, the expanding bullet took away a portion of the poor fellow’s head – and the trepa
Larkin glared across the table at Bony, his eyes freezing as he realized that the trap had indeed sprung on him. Bony was again smiling. He said, as though comfortingly, ‘Don’t fret, Larkin. If you had not made all those silly mistakes, you would have made others equally fatal. Strangely enough, the act of homicide always throws a man off balance. If it were not so, I would find life rather boring.’
A. E. MARTIN
The 1930s and 1940s were times of great opportunity for Australian writers. Magazines and newspapers published original fiction, publishers clamoured to sign new names, particularly in the mystery field, and for those capable of mastering the exacting art of scriptwriting, radio beckoned with almost non-stop work.
One of the more interesting talents of the time was Archibald Edward Martin. Born in Adelaide in 1885, Martin worked in a variety of fields including boxing promoter, showman, theatrical press agent for such groups as J.C. Williamson, film importer, travel agent, and sometimes journalist. In this latter role, he assisted C.J. De
In 1912 he travelled to Europe, signing acts for a variety circus that toured Australia the following year. The people he met in this endeavour, and throughout the next few decades in the theatre world, provided the basis for many of his future stories.
In 1942 he won the £1,000 first prize in a literary competition organised by The Australian Women’s Weekly. The novel, Common People, was published by Consolidated Press in 1944. With a circus background, this mystery had as its central character, a personable spruiker and con-man by the name of Pel Pelham.
Pelham made a return in a later Martin mystery, The Chinese Bed Mysteries (London, Max Reinhardt, 1955), which also used a circus backdrop. Among his many superior thrillers is the notable Si
Martin’s short fiction was widely published in Australia and in such celebrated overseas publications as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post. Three Martin stories also appeared in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. ‘The Power of the Leaf, ‘The Scarecrow Murders’ and ‘The Flying Corpse.’ The last, another with a circus background, won third prize in the magazine’s 1947 International Mystery Competition. He adapted Si
Martin died in 1955, soon after the publication of The Chinese Bed Mysteries. His last novel, The Hive of Glass, was completed by his son, Jim Martin. Interestingly, Martin’s last novel, just like his first, won a competition organised by an Australian publisher. It was released by Rigby in 1963.
The Power of the Leaf undoubtedly ranks among Martin’s finest stories. After it appeared in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine it was included in an anthology, The Queen’s Awards (London, Gollancz, 1950).
The Power of the Leaf
In the year 1847 Ooloo of the Narranyeri, busy with his boomerangs and wresting by violence a living from territory where, as yet, no man had planted seed, was delighted when the headman put the message stick in his hand and sent him on a peaceable mission to the neighbouring Munamulla tribe. He took no arms with him but his boomerang and the throwing-stick carved for him by his young son, now grievously dead, and pointed with a barb made from a spike taken from a sting ray.
Ooloo was old now and greyer than he had been a month ago when his son had been brought to him tossing his head, frothing at the mouth, and flailing his arms. It was all too evident, as the medicine man had said, that someone had pointed a stick at Young Oo-omal – a stick with several sharp, twisted prongs – and that the stick had entered the lad’s body attached to an invisible string upon which some unseen enemy had pulled and thus brought about the painful quivering.
The medicine man had watched his patient for an hour, crouching before the writhing form, and then, leaping abruptly, had succeeded in seizing and cutting the unseen string. Shuddering and moaning himself, he had sucked the place of pain, extracting for all to see broken pieces of the barbed stick. Gradually, Oo-omal’s convulsions had subsided and it was plain to everyone that he had no more agony – plainest of all to his stricken father who knew he was dead.
As he tramped through the bush, his eye wary lest he be attacked before he could produce his symbol of peace, Ooloo thought much of the unknown enemy who had struck down his son. The medicine man had been vague. The lad would have lived, he asserted, had he been brought to him a few moments earlier. The enemy? One of great power, living at a distance. He waved in a general direction and promised he would keep an eye open.