Introduction to Drowning

LIKETHEHOTELS, Australian trains are not what they ought to be, and Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte was glad to leave the bone-shaker at the four-pub town called Manton where he was to take the service car to Edison-Edison being a one-pub town on the coast south of Brisbane.

The youth guarding the station exit accepted his ticket with native indifference, and languidly informed him that the service car would be parked outside the Post Office.

The one point in favour of the service car was that it did have four wheels. It must have come from somewhere, and could be expected to go, if only for a yard or two. The driver was tall and lanky and young. He wore an English cloth cap back to front, hung a burnt-out fag to the corner of his mouth, and evidently preferred his shirt tails outside his drill trousers. The single redeeming feature was a pair of grey eyes which actually laughed.

“She’s all right,” he assured the prospective passenger. “Get you anywhere any time.”

“I want to go to Edison.”

“Then yougets to Edison when she gets there. You Inspector Bonaparte?”

“I am Inspector Bonaparte.”

The grey eyes took in the carefully-groomed passenger: his smart grey suit, light grey felt, brilliantly polished shoes. They also noted the dark complexion, the straight nose, the firm mouth, the eyes which recalled the blue of the sea.

“Well, we’re all set,” the driver asserted, tossing Bony’s suit-case upon the back seat already crowded with parcels, spare tubes and tools. “Hop in the front gallery, Inspector. No other passengers this trip. Old Mawson said to look out for you. Sorta busy, and couldn’t come himself.”

Bony almost committed Mr Pickwick’s injudicious error of asking the age of the cab horse. The alleged automobile complained when accepting hisweight, and it shuddered when the driver started the engine by tickling something under the rusty bonnet and then leaping to the steering-wheel before the effect of the tickling could die in a convulsion. The gate-change gears were slammed into first and the journey begun with flying-saucer acceleration.