“They call me… out of my hearing… Ramrod. I got that appellation years ago when I was a recruit instructor.”

Bony’s slim fingers again became employed making one of his amazing cigarettes.

“Well, now, let’s get down to your two murders. If I interrupt, don’t mind, and don’t be thrown off the mental scent. Go right ahead.”

Inspector Walters nodded to Sawtell, and the sergeant cleared his throat.

“Five miles out of town there’s a permanent water-hole on the Cuvier Creek, and on the bank of this water-hole stands Dampier’s Hotel. The place is a favourite picnic ground for people from Broome.”

“Reputation?” asked Bony.

“Good. A man named George Cotton was licensee for fifteen years. He was a great footballer down south and did a bit of ring work in his time. There was never any trouble so far as we were concerned. He married after he gained the licence, and when he was killed his wife was a young woman, and their only child, a boy, was eight years old.

“Cotton was accidentally shot one afternoon when duck-shooting up the creek. There was nothing whatever suspicious about that. After he died, his wife took over the licence. That was three years ago. She boarded the boy at Cave Hill College and engaged a man, known all over the North-West at Black Mark, as her barman and under-manager.

“Last April, on the night of the 12th, the hotel had been very busy all afternoon as there were several picnic parties out from the town. The evening was busy, too, but Mrs. Cotton had early told Black Mark that she had a bad headache and would go to bed. The bedrooms for single men are built along one side of the yard, and a man making his way from the back door of the pub to his room fell over a body in the yard. It was a dark night, and he was partially drunk. He thought the person he fell over was also drunk.

“That would be about half-past eleven. The drunk managed to strike a match to see who had tripped him, and what he saw sobered him enough to make him rush back to the hotel bar and announce that Mrs. Cotton lay naked in the middle of the hotel yard.