Bony and the Kelly Gang. Arthur W. Upfield

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      Bony novels by Arthur W. Upfield:

      1 The Barrakee Mystery / The Lure of the Bush

      2 The Sands of Windee

      3 Wings Above the Diamantina

      4 Mr Jelly’s Business/ Murder Down Under

      5 Winds of Evil

      6 The Bone is Pointed

      7 The Mystery of Swordfish Reef

      8 Bushranger of the Skies / No Footprints in the Bush

      9 Death of a Swagman

      10 The Devil’s Steps

      11 An Author Bites the Dust

      12 The Mountains Have a Secret

      13 The Widows of Broome

      14 The Bachelors of Broken Hill

      15 The New Shoe

      16 Venom House

      17 Murder Must Wait

      18 Death of a Lake

      19 Cake in the Hat Box / Sinister Stones

      20 The Battling Prophet

      21 Man of Two Tribes

      22 Bony Buys a Woman / The Bushman Who Came Back

      23 Bony and the Mouse / Journey to the Hangman

      24 Bony and the Black Virgin / The Torn Branch

      25 Bony and the Kelly Gang / Valley of Smugglers

      26 Bony and the White Savage

      27 The Will of the Tribe

      28 Madman’s Bend /The Body at Madman's Bend

      29 The Lake Frome Monster

      This corrected edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2020.

      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.

      ETT IMPRINT & www.arthurupfield.com

      PO Box R1906,

      Royal Exchange

      NSW 1225 Australia

      First published 1960 in the UK as Bony and the Kelly Gang.

      First published in 1960 in the USA as Valley of Smugglers.

      First electronic edition published by ETT Imprint 2013.

      Copyright William Upfield 2013, 2020

      ISBN 978-1-922384-62-1 (pbk)

      ISBN 978-1-922384-63-8 (ebk)

      Digital distribution by Ebook Alchemy

      Chapter One

      Where Foxes Lived with Rabbits

      The secondary road was ruler-straight across the narrow coastal lowlands to the base of the Southern Mountains of New South Wales. It was bituminised, and on either side extended paddocks of grass, green with life and studded with fat cattle. Behind the man walking this road was the highway from Sydney, and beyond it lazed the Pacific. Before him rose tree-covered slopes to support the granite faces of the uplands high to three thousand feet above sea level.

      This was certainly not Inspector Bonaparte’s country of mulga forest, rolling sand dunes and saltbush plains, of barren residuals and ironstone ridges. This country was no less beautiful, no less mysterious, but it wasn’t his own. The faces of the mountains frowned at him.

      Superintendent Casement had said, turning from a wall map to his littered desk:

      “I remember when I was a small kid on the farm at home, and had to leave for a city boarding-school. The problem was what to do with my three ferrets. The old man couldn’t be bothered, and my mother disliked having anything to do with them. The night before I left, I took them to the largest rabbit burrow on the place and let ’em loose, knowing they wouldn’t starve for rabbits. And next morning I ran out to say goodbye to them, and found them all dead on the roof of the burrow. You see, I didn’t count on foxes living with the rabbits.”

      Inspector Bonaparte remembered glancing up from his long brown fingers which were rolling a cigarette, and saying:

      “And your two-legged ferrets have been found dead on or near a burrow in the Southern Highlands.”

      “One dead and several badly mangled. The burrow is near this cross I’ve just made on the map. Perhaps I should say the burrow is thought to be near the cross.”

      Bonaparte recalled lighting the cigarette and being elated by the challenge in the Superintendent’s small brown eyes. That was the moment of decision, and he had made it, with complete knowledge of the official data in mind, and all details of that wall map as clear as when he had turned from it to roll his cigarette.

      This was certainly not his country, with its wide grass paddocks ending against walls of rock thrown up probably a million years ago. Take an aborigine from this country and put him down in the ‘Back of Beyond’, and he would die of thirst if he didn’t die of fright. Reverse the transfer, and the Outbacker would thrust his head into a wombat hole and howl with cold misery. Everything is relative with the aborigines, even with Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, now travelling under the name of Nathaniel Bonnay.

      Now and then a car overtook him, but he made no effort to thumb a ride. He was waiting for a truck bearing the registration plates 101-PXA, and knew that somewhere behind it a police car would be keeping discreetly out of the driver’s rear-vision mirror. Travelling by truck to the suspected burrow would be preferable to walking all the way, and even when he did reach it there were sporting odds that it would house no foxes.

      Much preparation had been done prior to putting Nat Bonnay on this road to the Southern Highlands, and much detailed work had gone into the plan to introduce him to Cork Valley where its people had long been suspected of unlawful activities. Superintendent Casement’s allegorical rabbit burrow was probably no larger than a six-room house, but the Cork Valley locale was something like four square miles in area.

      It was now early April; the sun was pleasantly warm and the maples and other ornamental trees about the occasional homestead were beginning to be coloured by autumn. The usually nattily dressed Inspector Bonaparte was walking with a loping spring, but nothing else remained of him in the character of Nat Bonnay. His clothes were old and far from neat. His boots were elastic-sided riding boots. His trousers were of rough gaberdine, tight about the thighs and full in the seat. The jacket was made of a cheaper cloth, and the blue shirt collar was frayed slightly and dirty. He carried a small battered suitcase, and with his felt hat he waved away the occasional fly.

      The truck crept up behind him like a stalking fox, and Bony sprang guiltily back when he saw it two hundred yards behind him. He started to run off the road, stopped indecisively, turned as though seeking cover, finally stood and raised a hand for a lift.

      It was a three-ton truck, with gleaming bumper bars and newly painted red cabin. The driver slowed down slightly, then accelerated as though he didn’t like the look of the wayfarer. But he stopped the truck fifty yards on, obviously still uneasy in his mind when Bony settled himself on the seat beside him.

      Neither spoke for sixty seconds. During this time the truck driver became conscious of the other’s interest in his rear-vision mirror.

      “Thanks,” said the wayfarer. “Good sort of day.”

      “Last of the summer,” agreed the driver. “Where are you headed?”