Bony went back to the clay-pan and seated himself midway between the almost invisible wheel-tracks, with the low bank for a comfortable back-rest, and at his side one of the black ants’ nests; and there he rolled a cigarette and settled himself comfortably to enjoy it after he had carefully deposited the used match in a pocket. He had not been there three seconds when a piece of living black and white fluff settled on one of his sheepskin sandals and began an eternal dance. To this fairy bird Bony addressed his thoughts in a low voice:

“Quite a number of people in this very wicked world scoff at luck. They jeer also at coincidence. Yet both luck andcoincidence play a most important part in human history. Without a mixture of both, life would be of no interest to me, for the lines of human destiny would be so clearly laid down that there would be no little surprises, no freshness, no-yes, no gamble in life.

“Now it was quite a piece of luck that I saw Sergeant Morris’s snapshot, and quite a coincidence that I happened to be in Sydney to see it. Through both luck and coincidence I’m here this warm afternoon engaged on what promises to be an unusual case.

“Mr Marks leaves Windee at two-thirty alone in the car he drives, and is slightly intoxicated. Did he, however, reach the road junction alone in his car? There is a probability that he did not go to sleep at the wheel, that he was stopped between the homestead and the junction, where he was incapacitated and brought to this identical spot to be disposed of. The sign states that he was killed here. If he was killed anywhere else the sign would not be just where it is.

“Presently I must go into the matter of the business about which Marks went to see Mr Stanton-I should have said Jeff Stanton. Everything in its order. Let us first decide, if possible, whether Marks was killed by a white man aided by a blackfellow, or observed by a blackfellow unobserved by him, or if he was killed by a blackfellow or fellows who left that sign to warn their countrymen.