“You think he was contented to see his wife unfaithful to him?”
“He took a great pride in her attractiveness."
” And you are really suggesting that he enjoyed her infidelities? “
There are men like that. “Are you one of them ?”
I heard that gust of laughter.
“I wouldn’t endure it for a moment.”
Yet you feel it all right for others to? “
” Everyone has a right to act as he pleases. If people don’t like something they must find then own way of stopping it. “
“Do you think that’s what Ezra was trying to do?’
” I think Ezra was trying to stop someone’s taking his purse. “
“Or his wife?”
“What’s on your mind?”
Just that. “
“But it was his purse that was missing.”
That could have been taken as a blind. “
“You’re becoming quite a sleuth.”
“I should very much like to know who killed Ezra Bannock.”
“So should we all.”
I cried out passionately: “Shall we stop talking round this? I want to know the truth. Did you kill Ezra Bannock?”
“I? Why ever should I?”
There’s a perfectly good motive. You’re his wife’s lover. “
Then what good would his death be to me? I have a wife. I’m not free to marry Isa even if she’s free to marry. “
I didn’t answer. I was deeply shocked, for he had not denied being her lover.
I stood up.
“I’m going in. I find this conversation distasteful.”
He was beside me.
“And,” he said coldly, ‘so do I. “
I went to my room and sat at the dressing-table looking at my reflection without seeing it. He would marry Isa if he were free, I thought. But he is not free because he is married to me.
Then it was as though the room was full of warning shadows. Isa had not been free once, but she was now. He was not free at this moment but why should he not be at some time in the future?
Oh Ben, I thought, what have you done? How much did you really know your son ?
Proud as a peacock, he could not give up what he coveted. He wanted above all to be in control-of the Company, of the town, of everyone.
That was how he saw himself, the supreme director of us all. He had two passions in his life-opals and Isa, and it seemed that he was determined to lose neither of them.
But what of me?
I began to see very clearly that I stood in the way.
Several weeks passed. My nights were uneasy. Fears beset me me during my nights and they only disappear with the light of the day and when I went into the town I could push them to the back of my mind. I tried to forget my apprehension by concentrating more and more on the business and was able to take part in the discussions round the boardroom table and even make one or two suggestions not about the actual work, of course, but sometimes about the conditions of the workers. I was aware that my prestige was growing and that the deference shown to me was not only because I was Joss Madden’s wife and co-shareholder. I had the great good fortune one day, in that room where : the sorting was done, of selecting one piece about which I had what I can only call a hunch. I asked that it be worked on next because I just had a feeling that under the potch was something rather special.
I was humoured and some work was set aside that the merits of this particular piece might be explored. To my great joy-and I must admit to a crowing delight in the fact -the experts were more than a little astonished when it turned out that I had picked a winner. There, revealed by the facing wheel, was as fine a piece of opal as had been seen for many months.
“She’s got it!” cried Jeremy Dickson excitedly.
“Mrs. Madden, you’re a real opal woman.”
In my triumph I forgot my growing anxieties for a few hours.
But they were soon coming back to me. In the town was the Reward Notice to remind me. Fifty pounds for anyone who could give information regarding the killer of Ezra Bannock. Then I thought of Isa smiling secretly at Joss and the argument I had overheard and the fact that Ezra had ridden out from Peacocks to his death.
I had to know what was thought and being said in the town and whether there were suspicions that Joss was Ezra’s murderer. I made a habit of going into the Trams’ cook shop for a mid-morning cup of coffee. Ethel always left what she was doing to come and chat with me. She had clearly taken a fancy to me. Moreover she was a born gossip and had her finger on the pulse of the town. She would know what was being said and how people felt about everything. When Joss laughed at me for my regular visits I retorted that it was as well to know what people of the town were thinking and there was no better way than chatting with Ethel.
“I can see you’re going urmg a new company,” he said.
“Don’t you think that would be good ?” I asked.
“Let’s wait and see,” he parried, and I fancied I saw a shadow of concern on his face. Was he afraid of what I might learn about him? I wondered.
As I sat stirring my coffee and talking with Ethel the topic soon came round to the recent murder.
“I reckon Ezra has the Green Flash,” said Ethel.
“And I’m not the only one who thinks it. I reckon he stole it for his wife.”
“Surely you don’t think she has it now?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. There was a regular to-do when she first came out here. Came from Home, she did. An actress, they said. He’d seen her at some theatre and fallen madly in love with her.”
“Why do you think she came out here? To marry Ezra. She thought he was going to make a fortune. She was young then. There wasn’t a man around who wasn’t crazy about her. They hadn’t seen anything like Isa Bannock out here in the Bush. They were all ready to be her slaves. Even James’s eyes would glitter at the sight of her. That just suited her. Of course Ezra did’ well. He was one of the top men in the Company under Ben Henniker and your husband, of course. But he never got as far as she wanted him to. Now this Green Flash. Mr. Henniker had hidden it all the time. Ezra was in and out of Peacocks, and, well”
“I can’t believe that Ezra was a thief.”
“It’s not the same stealing the Green Flash. It makes its own spell, that stone. People can’t help themselves. It’s some evil spirit that takes them over. Possession, they call it.”
I thought of my father who had loved my mother and promised to many her. Then he had seen the Green Rash and was ready to forget everything for its sake. Possession! Yes, that was the word.
“I reckon he took it for Isa, and when it was his he got the bad luck it always brings. The bushranger was waiting for the first who came to Grover’s Gully and because his luck had turned, that one was Ezra Bannock. People are saying that the Green Flash ought to be found.”
She was eyeing me speculatively, and I felt there was more in her mind than she, gossip that she was, would tell me.
“All this mystery about its whereabouts makes talk,” she added.
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.
When I went back to the office. At the door I met Joss.
“Well,” he asked, ‘been feeling the public pulse ?"
"Yes,” I replied. There’s a lot of talk going on.”
“Naturally. There always is.”
This is about Ezra and the Green Flash. “
“I don’t see the connection.”
“People evidently think there is one.”
What have you discovered? “
“It’s being whispered that Ezra stole the Green Flash because Isa wanted it. It would have been his for a while and because of this the legendary bad luck sent him to Graver’s Gully at the precise moment when the bushranger was there.”
I saw the tightening of his lips and the steely look I dreaded come into his blue eyes.