The Magnet and the Filing

SITUATED on the barren, inhospitable coast of the north-west of Australia, Broome’s only excuse for existence is pearl shell. Before Japanese aircraft put a stop to the industry some ten million pounds’ worth of the finest-quality shell had been raised from a thousand miles of shell beds, pearls of exquisite lustre and size being the plums which attracted adventurers from all parts of the world. Following the drastic restrictions imposed by war and its resultant economic conditions, millions upon millions of dollars’-worth of shell is now maturing and just waiting to be picked up and despatched to hungry markets.

Prior to the events which attracted Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte to Broome, the majority of the people walked with somnambulistic tread and day-dreamed of the glorious past when booze was cheap, when money was as plentiful as the dust, and when ribs were tickled with knives and craniums caressed with sandbags… over the rape of pearls.

The first of two murders having several points of similarity mildly stirred the people of Broome. The second crime, however, inoculated them with an energy serum. They waited expectantly for the police to produce the murderer, but nothing happened. They stared at the homicide squad flown up from Perth, and became really annoyed when still nothing happened. Actually, the people of Broome should have been proud that one among them was alert enough, and clever enough, to commit two murders without leaving a clue indicating eitherhimself or the motive.

The senior police officer stationed at Broome was an administrator, not a detective. His job was keeping general law and order over a land area of about a third of a million square miles, not tracking down an intelligent murderer. He was assisted by juniors-one of whom was an expert in the bush and the handling of trackers-and when they failed to uncover the murderer of the first victim, and met with no quick success following the murder of the second, he washed his hands and called for the C.I.B.