The Rider of Waroona Part 3

But Eustace was too unnerved to render any a.s.sistance, and it was Harding who, single-handed, drafted and coded a brief message reporting what had been discovered. Not until this message was handed to him did Eustace move.

"That's my death warrant," he said gloomily as he signed it.

Harding took the message and left the office. The township boasted only one street, the bank being at one end, the post office at the other.

Midway between the two was the police-station, where the one constable responsible for the maintenance of law and order within the district resided.

"Get over to the bank, will you, Brennan?" Harding said as he entered the station. "You'll have your hands full this time. There's been a robbery during the night, and all the cash cleared out."

"What's that, Mr. Harding? The bank robbed? You don't mean it!"

"Go and ask Eustace; he'll give you all the details. It's floored him.

Hurry over, there's a good chap. I'm on my way to the post office to wire to the head office; I can't stay now."

Ten minutes later the news was known from one end of the township to the other, and was travelling in every direction through the bush to the outlying stations and selections.

The farther it travelled the more astounding it became, and yet the form in which Brennan telegraphed it to his Inspector showed it to be sufficiently startling and mysterious.

When the reports had been wired away, Eustace recalled an incident he had forgotten in the excitement of the initial discovery.

During the evening, soon after sunset, a stranger called at the bank. He came to the private entrance where he was seen by Eustace, who described him as a well-built man of medium height, with sandy hair and beard and, by appearance, an ordinary bushman. He said he had come in from a distant station with a cheque he wanted to cash, but as the bank was closed for the day, Eustace told him he would have to come again in the morning. He had gone, mounting his horse and riding away in the direction of the hotel where stockmen usually congregated.

Brennan went to the hotel in search of him, but no one knew anything about him there, nor had anyone else seen him either in or out of the township.

"But he must have been seen," Eustace exclaimed impatiently, when Brennan returned to the bank with the news. "He must have been seen. He could not have vanished."

"Did anyone else see him besides you when he called?" Brennan asked.

"No, I was pa.s.sing the front door at the moment he came. No one else saw him, so far as I know. But he must have been seen in the township. He must have gone to the hotel."

They were standing in the bank office, Brennan on one side of the counter, Harding and Eustace on the other.

"You didn't see him?" Brennan asked, looking at Harding.

"No, I didn't see him," Harding answered.

"But you heard me speak to someone--I came into the dining-room and told you it was a man who wanted a cheque cashed," Eustace exclaimed.

"That's right," Harding said quietly, "I was going to say so when you interrupted me."

There was a hum of voices outside and half a dozen men came into the office--Allnut, the largest storekeeper in the town; Soden, the hotelkeeper; Gale, the local auctioneer; Johnson, the postmaster, and two men who were strangers.

"Here, Soden," Eustace cried, as soon as he caught sight of the hotelkeeper. "Do you mean to say that the man I told Brennan about never came to your house last night?"

Soden, a slow-witted, heavy-built man, shook his head.

"Not a sign of him, Mr. Eustace," he answered. "But these two men came in just now. They've got something to say," he added, turning to Brennan.

One of the two men stepped forward.

"We didn't think much of it in a general way," he said, "leastways not until we heard at the pub about the robbery. You see, me and my mate camped last night about five miles out on the road. As near as we can say, it was somewhere about midnight when Bill--my mate," he added as he waved his hand towards his companion, "looked out of the tent. 'Hullo, Jim,' he says, 'what's this? Here, come and look, quick.' You see, from where our camp was we could get a view half a mile down the road. Well, when I looked out I saw, coming along the road at racing speed, a pair-horse buggy with two men in it. The chap who was driving had the horses at full gallop as they pa.s.sed the camp, but it wasn't him so much that I noticed as the horses. You see, they were both white--white as milk. The moon was up and they showed real pretty."

"White?" Brennan exclaimed.

"White as milk," the man replied. "That's what made Bill call out. We didn't know there was a white horse in the whole of Waroona, let alone two of them."

"Was that on the main road?" Brennan asked.

"On the main road--just about five miles out."

"I know every horse in the district, and there's not a white one among them," Gale said.

"These were white--white as milk," the man repeated. "It was what made us look."

"If the horses were galloping the tracks would still show in the road,"

Gale said to Brennan. "Shall I ride out and have a look?"

"If you've got a buggy, me and my mate will come too and show them to you," Jim exclaimed resentfully.

"That would be better," Brennan said.

"Come along then," Gale exclaimed, and left the bank with the two men.

As soon as they were gone Brennan turned to Johnson.

"Two white horses can't go far in this district without being noticed.

Will you wire round to the different telegraph offices and ask if anything of the kind has been seen or heard of?"

"They cannot have gone more than a hundred miles since midnight, can they?" Johnson asked.

"A hundred? No, not fifty," Allnut exclaimed.

"Well, we'll say a hundred. I'll wire to every telegraph office within a hundred miles. I'll send or bring you word within half an hour."

"Supposing there is any truth in the yarn," Soden remarked slowly, "how is it going to help? I brought the men along, not because I believed their yarn, but because it seemed to me they might know more about the robbery than they would care to have known."

"There's no harm in sending off those telegrams, anyway. I'll get away and put them through," Johnson said as he went to the door.

He stood for a moment looking out along the road.

"I fancy that's Mrs. Burke coming," he called back over his shoulder to Eustace.

Soden, Allnut, and Brennan, at the mention of the name, moved towards the door, and Harding came round the counter to join them.

"You had better see her, Harding," Eustace said under his breath. "Tell her everything will be all right so far as she is concerned. We cannot say more until we hear from head office."

The other three men were already out on the footpath in front of the bank entrance. Eustace slipped into the little ante-room that served as the manager's private office, as the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside the bank reached him.