Man of Two Tribes by Arthur W. Upfield Page A

which is in short supply.”
    The ex-sailor struck a match and applied it to the wick of a hurricane lamp. The doctor took it from him and led the way into the tunnel. They could walk upright, and the floor was level. They passed on the left a branch tunnel from which issued a faint moaning sound. The main tunnel entered a chamber, the limits of which the power of the lamp failed to reach. Bony was conducted past a huge boulder which hadfallen from the roof, and over a clear space. Havant stopped, and his lamp revealed a man lying on his chest, and a narrow stream of blood extending into the darkness. He was dressed in working clothes, rough and durable.
    â€œHe hasn’t been moved?” he asked the doctor.
    â€œNo. I lifted his head by the hair. The frontal bone has been crushed. Death was obvious, and before I could examine him further, my attention was distracted by the arrival of your dog.”
    â€œTurn him over, someone.”
    Jenks did so, and the woman cried out.
    Bony estimated that the dead man was close to six feet in height. The body was reasonably well nourished, the face clean-shaven, and the iron-grey hair clipped short.
    â€œWith what was he killed?” asked Bony.
    â€œWe don’t know,” the girl answered. “Probably with a piece of stone.”
    â€œWe haven’t looked for the weapon yet,” volunteered Brennan.
    â€œBring more lights, if you have them. We’ll look for it now.”
    Jenks departed, and Bony watched his departing figure in the tunnel against the daylight at its far end. He asked who found the body, and Mark Brennan said he had found it about half an hour before they discovered the arrival of Bony. When asked under what circumstances, he went on:
    â€œI was with Myra looking for her scarf in the passage leading to the air shaft. We heard Igor shout out something like ‘Do not! Do not!’ Then he shouted once, ‘Help!’ I left Myra and ran with our lamp to see what was wrong. I collided with Doctor Havant just as I reached the main passage, and he said he’d been in what we call the hall, so Igor wasn’t there. We came here, and met Riddell carrying a lamp and Maddoch was with him.”
    â€œLeaves Jenks. What about Jenks?”
    â€œJenks just turned up to hunt for Mitski with us,” replied Brennan. “We looked around here, and I happened to find the body. It’s a pretty large place as you can see.”
    Bony couldn’t see until Jenks arrived with three hurricane lamps. The four lamps standing on the boulder enabled him then to see the extremities of this cavern.
    â€œIt is obvious, Inspector, that one of us is a murderer,” tritely observed Dr. Havant.
    â€œAny other passages leading off this place?”
    â€œOne that ends in a cul-de-sac. Another goes down to what we call the Jeweller’s Shop, and from there on to what I named Fiddler’s Leap.”
    â€œOther than those present, there are no more of you?”
    â€œNo. One of us killed Mitski with a rock.”
    â€œHow d’you know it was a rock?”
    â€œBecause he was killed with a blunt instrument. We have no blunt instruments other than rocks ranging from small pebbles to the size of this boulder. We have knives, table knives. Mitski wasn’t killed with a table knife.”
    â€œIn your opinion, Doctor, would the blunt instrument have blood on it?”
    â€œThe answer is difficult, Inspector. Probably not if only the one blow was struck; most likely if more than one blow.”
    Bony bade them stand back, and he spent several minutes looking for the weapon. The floor was entirely clean of debris, and on his mentioning it, he was informed that all debris had long since been removed to the short passage which ended in a cul-de-sac.
    â€œWe will return to the place where we met,” he said, and the obliging Doctor Havant explained that that had been named the hall.
    The return to ‘the hall’