“They left the house Miss Janet found for them for a better one Edward Carlow bought. There was new furniture, too, and Alfred was sent to finish his schooling in Brisbane. The business certainly flourished.”

Constable Mawson paused to light his pipe and hesitated to proceed. Receiving no comment from Bony, he went on:

“A little more than three years ago, a farmer reported the loss of steers. Then another man reported that the number of his sheep was down by thirty. While I was making enquiries about the sheep, they were found on virgin country, and there’s a lot of it in spots. Finding these sheep sort of put a question to the loss of the steers, for they also could have taken to the scrub and remained lost.

“One day I was over towards Manton delivering a summons when I chanced to meet the Forest Ranger. As it was near midday, we boiled the billy and had lunch together, and during the yabber he mentioned that several farmers and one or two sheepmen had asked him about stock which had got away.

“That made me thinka bit. You know how it is in a district like this. The local butcher is alwayssuspect when stock goes missing, and more often than not isn’t to blame. I began to look at Edward Carlow. By now he was softer than when he’d been on the farm. He was drinking at the pub, and doing a bit of betting.

“So we come to June of this winter. The Forest Ranger reported that he’d found evidence of possums having been trapped. As you know, this year’s fur prices have been very high. Also, possums are protected. The Ranger had his eye on a timber cutter named Henry Foster, and we agreed that Henry Foster could be the illegal trapper and that Edward Carlow could be the skin buyer from Foster. Could be, mind you. We had no proof.

“My ideas about Carlow’s prosperity were firmed a lot when his empty van was found parked in the scrub near that old logging stage where you met me and Miss Answerth this afternoon. How come that that van was concealed by the scrub when Carlow’s body was a mile away in Answerth’s Folly?