The Battling Prophet. Arthur W. Upfield
Bony novels by Arthur W. Upfield:
1 The Barrakee Mystery / The Lure of the Bush
2 The Sands of Windee
3 Wings Above the Diamantina
4 Mr Jelly’s Business/ Murder Down Under
5 Winds of Evil
6 The Bone is Pointed
7 The Mystery of Swordfish Reef
8 Bushranger of the Skies / No Footprints in the Bush
9 Death of a Swagman
10 The Devil’s Steps
11 An Author Bites the Dust
12 The Mountains Have a Secret
13 The Widows of Broome
14 The Bachelors of Broken Hill
15 The New Shoe
16 Venom House
17 Murder Must Wait
18 Death of a Lake
19 The Cake in the Hat Box / Sinister Stones
20 The Battling Prophet
21 Man of Two Tribes
22 Bony Buys a Woman / The Bushman Who Came Back
23 Bony and the Mouse / Journey to the Hangman
24 Bony and the Black Virgin / The Torn Branch
25 Bony and the Kelly Gang / Valley of Smugglers
26 Bony and the White Savage
27 The Will of the Tribe
28 Madman’s Bend /The Body at Madman's Bend
29 The Lake Frome Monster
This corrected edition published in 2020 by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay
ETT IMPRINT & www.arthurupfield.com
PO Box R1906,
Royal Exchange
NSW 1225 Australia
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers
First published 1956
First electronic edition 2013
This edition published 2020
Copyright William Upfield 2013, 2020
ISBN 978-1-922384-21-8 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-922384-22-5 (ebook)
Digital distribution by Ebook Alchemy
Chapter One
A Regrettable Death
The coach captain was young, smart in the grey uniform of the company, and a facile talker. It was obvious that his female passengers found him disturbing; that he was being mentally seduced by those in whom hope was waning and those whose husbands had exhausted their repertoire.
The voice from the amplifier was pleasing, and grammatical errors easy to condone. There was little of the bored tones of the guide, and more often than not the man spoke as though to close friends, as, indeed, the majority of the passengers had become, for they had left Sydney ten days before on this tour to Adelaide and now were on the return journey. Only one man had joined them at Adelaide.
“We are now approaching Murray Bridge,” announced the captain. “As you all know, we are returning to Melbourne via the Princes Highway, and here at Murray Bridge we halt for morning tea. I know you understand how we must keep strictly to schedule, so please don’t go wandering down the street.”
“Not unless you go with me, Captain,” said a middle-aged woman who was good for a solid tip at the end of the tour.
Again on the road a man remarked:
“Country looks terribly dry even this far south.” And the amplified voice said:
“Droughtiest year for the last seventeen. All across South Australia and Victoria, and high into New South Wales, the man on the land is being hard hit.”
“Old Ben Wickham was right again,” a woman said, and her travelling companion added:
“He’s been right for years, but this time all the farmers believed him. Pity he died.”
Both before and after leaving Border Town the effect of the drought was apparent. There was no new fallow; the grass paddocks were burned brown and patchily bare; there were no green crops. It was as though this were the end of summer and all the thirsty land awaited the autumn rains. But it was early spring, when all the world should have been bursting with vigorous life. Brown was the universal colouring, broken only by the dark of pine plantations and the barbered gardens of neat homesteads. The district was almost denuded of stock. Of human activity there was none to be seen.
Mount Gambier was ever a thriving town, and important as a police administrative centre. The passenger who had joined the coach at Adelaide changed here to an old bus that connected Mount Gambier with the small fishing village called Cowdry. The way ran over the low hills and climbed to the famed Blue Lake, into which, so said the cynical driver, the Mount Gambier people emptied tons of washing blue every six months. Beyond this serene pool the road crossed bare uplands where even the occasional tree seemed lifeless.
“Depressing, isn’t it,” observed the man from Adelaide, who was seated immediately behind the local driver.
“Yair, looks grim all right,” agreed the driver. “Still, there’s no argument. Old Wickham predicted the drought, and them who wouldn’t believe him deserved what they’re getting. There’s lots of people who howled him down for crying drought, and lots who’ve been on his side. Would have cheered him up if he’d lived.”
“His home was down this way, I understand,” said the Adelaide passenger.
“Yair. Place about twenty thousand acres called Mount Mario. You can see it ahead just right of that line of pines. They took his body to Adelaide for cremation, and flew the ashes back and scattered ’em over Mount Mario. Nice-lookin’ place from the road. I’ll pull up and let you take a peep at it. You’re staying with John Luton, you said. You get off at the bridge.”
“Thanks. Yes, Mr. Luton invited me down for a few days’ fishing. The kingfish are in, he tells me.”
“Coming around. Bit early this year. Where you from?”
To this frank question the passenger proffered a lie, as the driver’s curiosity was due to habit. They came to the line of pines bordering the road and offering a magnificent windbreak to the pasture-lands beyond. Then into the line of trees grew the white sandstone pillars of a gateway, where the bus stopped.
From this point the plebs could get an eyeful of Mount Mario. The wrought-iron gates were swung wide; the driveway ran straight between wide borders of flowing daffodils all the way to the large house crowning a low hillock. There were people on the wide patio, and the oblique rays of the sun gleamed on the chromium of several cars standing against a green wall of lambertianas. To the right of the house of Colonial architecture squatted an observatory as though denying all interest in the heavens, and still farther to the right was a long building flanked by rows of white boxes on stands and white-painted cylinders elevated like mortar barrels.
There had lived and worked Ben Wickham, who had had many enemies and many followers; a famous meteorologist whose death terminated a stormy career marked by professional jealousy, governmental stupidity, and by fierce opposition from commercial