“This is Edison,” repeated Mawson.“Situation very healthy. People just like people of other towns, having the same virtues and vices. One pub, two churches, three banks. The bank managers don’t associate with the publican, who could buy up the banks, and thepublican don’t associate with the parsons. Usual women’s leagues and such-like. Average number of drunks, till-ticklers, scandal-mongers and snobs.”

And yet, Bony found Edison in advance of “other towns”. When the track became a macadamized road, the policeman’s car began to work up a long slope. The road entered the town, and Main Street continued the slope upward. They passed a bank, some shops and the Shire Hall. They stopped beside the service car halted outside a dilapidated tin shed, from which Mike Falla emerged to transfer Bony’s case. They proceeded up Main Street, passing the police station on one side and the home ofThe Edison News on the other. Bony caught a glimpse of the butcher’s shop, other banks, a church either side the street.

The hotel was of red brick, a modern monstrosity and a travesty in this street of weatherboard and cement sheet and corrugated iron. Then Bony was looking at a neat little villa at the very top end of the street, guarded by two poplars and a white-painted picket fence. He was given a momentary vision of wide spaces in which lay folds of tree-covered hills, long white sand dunes, a wide arc of vivid blue sea. The light abruptly dimmed, and he found himself in a small hall furnished with a hat-stand, two chairs and a telephone on a small table. He heard Constable Mawson say:

“My sister, Mrs Nash. Inspector Bonaparte, Jean. Like to put up here for a bit.”

He bowed to a gaunt, grey-haired woman in her early forties. He was not charmed, for her face was wrecked by recent illness, and her dark eyes were without expression. One second that impression lasted. The next second she was smiling at him. The dark eyes were alive. The lips were parted in a smile of welcome, and swiftly-drawn lines brushed away all the hardness.