“Neither did Redman. But I did. It is why I am here.”

“But what…?”

“One day I’ll show you the evidence in that picture, without which I would not have consented to undertake this investigation. You see. Sergeant. I have never permitted myself to stultify my brain with common murders. I pick and choose my cases, not for their simplicity but for unusual circumstances governing them. My 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 to which 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 the Australian bush over those who belong to it.

“You have been in the bush long enough to have felt that power yourself, and you are a white man. A similar power is exercised over seafaring men by the sea, but it is notso strong as this power of the bush. The only counter-power preventing me from surrendering to it is pride, with a capital P, and faith inmyself. Without pride in my scholastic attainments and pride in my success as a crime investigator, the bush would have had its way with me. My record is unblemished by failure, and that is behind the faith in myself. Once I fail to solve a crime mystery, such as this Kendall case, I lose that faith in myself which holds me up with head high, and the great Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte becomes Bony the half-caste nomad.