Man of Two Tribes by Arthur W. Upfield

didn’t do it. I liked Igor Mitski ... for everything bar his voice.”
    Bony recalled the case of Igor Mitski, the displaced, the singer, serving his period of grace in Australia on a northwest station in New South Wales. Cultured, able to speak a little English, banished to live with strange people in a strange land. A Polish Jew who had suffered badly.
    The employer and his wife were kindly people. Instead of making Mitski a gardener, they appointed him music teacher to their little girl aged eight. Circumstances climbed high and smashed both Mitski and the child. Mitski still mentally wounded by the treatment received from the invaders of his country; the child spoiled and stubborn, as an only child can be. In a rage, Mitski hit her. Released on parole when having served twenty months of the sentence for manslaughter.
    Mitski! Bony had been in a far western town when Mitski was tried. He had arrived there on the last day of the trial and was in court when the prisoner was sentenced. A woman had run from the witnesses’ seat to the dock, and a man had quickly caught her in his arms and tried to pacify her. Bony hadn’t been in court officially, and the incident therefore had not been mentally docketed. He said now:
    â€œMitski slew a little child.”
    â€œThat was so, Inspector,” replied Doctor Havant. “All here know the history of everyone. We often discuss personal experiences, desires, ambitions, satisfactions. We are, actually, a very conservative body.” He chuckled in his dry humourless way, and taking the others into his range, he went on: “I suggest, gentlemen, that we nominate and accept the Inspector into our honoured Association. I have pleasure in putting forward the name of Inspector Bonaparte. I feel that he will do what in him lies to succour and encourage every member, that he will conduct himself worthily, and toil ever on behalf of the defenceless and the unfortunate. What say you?”
    â€œTaking a ruddy risk,” growled Riddell. “He don’t qualify.”
    â€œI propose Inspector Bonaparte,” chirped Clifford Maddoch.
    â€œI take pleasure in seconding the proposal, Mr. President,” drawled Brennan.
    Doctor Havant stood. He beamed on the assembly, and his chalky complexion appeared likely to fall off in flakes. The dark eyes regarding Bony recalled to him the eyes of the woman at Mount Singular. Then he remembered where he had seen her before, and the probability of this extraordinary development was like a star born in his mind. He heard the doctor say:
    â€œWelcome, Inspector Bonaparte, into our exclusive Association. I publicly announce your elevation to a Fellowship of the Released Murderers’ Institute.”

Chapter Eleven
A Body for Bony
    â€œI APPRECIATE the honour,” Bony said gravely. “I have many questions which must wait, and doubtless you have many to ask, but first things first. The body. Take me to it.”
    â€œBetter arrest this twirp,” offered Joseph Riddell. “He hated Igor Mitski ’cos his voice reminded him of his missus. Didn’t like Igor singing to us, an’ Igor was better than the blasted wireless singers too.” Maddoch again shouted his innocence, and when Riddell once more taunted him the girl broke in with:
    â€œThat will be all from you, Riddell. You’re taking a back seat from now on. You’ve no proof that Clifford killed Mitski, so keep your silly big mouth closed.”
    Bony swiftly intervened.
    â€œIt would seem that all of you are murderers, that all but one have been convicted and released on licence. Other than not having periodically reported, you are of no official interest to me. But you say you have a dead man on your hands, that he was killed, and you infer that one of you killed him. Where is the body of this man?”
    â€œJenks! The lamp,” said the doctor, adding to Bony: “Jenks is the custodian of the lamps and the oil,