Miss Matilda Hayward and the Freak Show (Miss Matilda Hayward series Book 1)

by Helen Goltz

  A knock at the door made both men turn sharply to the intruder.

  ‘Ah, don’t bother taking off your coat, Harry, you’ve got a body, a dead one,’ the crusty desk sergeant clarified and handed him a slip of paper. ‘That’s the address, the coroner said he’d meet you there.’

  ‘Thanks, John,’ Harry said taking the paper as Thomas rose and wrapped his sandwich.

  ‘I’ll finish this on the way.’ He grabbed his hat and coat and followed his partner down the hallway.

  ‘Well, that was a short-lived reprieve from crime,’ Harry sighed.

  ‘Where’s the body?’ Thomas asked as he caught up and they descended the office stairs into Roma Street to fetch a hansom cab.

  Harry looked at the note with the victim’s name, address, and a few scribblings of explanation on it. ‘Just across the river. Oh, there’s a coincidence,’ Harry said. ‘The deceased is an artist. Maybe your artist?’

  ‘His works weren’t good but not bad enough to bump him off surely,’ Thomas said and Harry chuckled.

  A hansom cab pulled to a stop in front of them and Harry gave the driver the address.

  ‘What was your artist’s name again?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Marlon Dominey.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Harry shook his head as they stepped in the carriage and seated themselves. ‘He couldn’t have a normal name like Fred, could he?’

  ‘That would be most unartistic,’ Thomas agreed. ‘So, is it him then?’

  ‘No, we’re off to the studio of Benjamin Bannon,’ Harry said pocketing the slip of paper. ‘I wonder what the poor bloke did to deserve a visit from the grim reaper.’

  ‘A disgruntled customer, an unhappy lover, a muse misrepresented,’ Thomas guessed and finished the last bite of his sandwich, pronouncing it excellent as he balled the waxed paper.

  ‘A jealous rival with a bad review in today’s paper,’ Harry added and got a look of interest from his partner.

  The hansom took the Victoria Bridge across the river to South Brisbane and exiting at their destination, Harry settled the fee with the driver. ‘Not short of a dollar then,’ Harry said taking in the area. ‘This is the studio and residence, I believe.’

  Two young police officers stood at the entrance to the small terrace house and already neighbours and interested parties were hovering around outside.

  ‘No reporters yet,’ Thomas said, relieved.

  ‘That’ll be short-lived,’ Harry agreed. ‘What do we have, lads?’ he asked the young constables.

  The senior of the two policemen spoke up.

  ‘Sirs, the dead man is an artist who lives on the right of the terrace house, his studio is on the left. The housekeeper who comes early every morning to prepare his breakfast could not find him when she went to announce his breakfast was ready. She did not enter his room when she saw his bathroom door closed but called us immediately after not being able to get a response.’

  ‘How did she even know he was home?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘They had a system, Sir,’ the younger constable answered. ‘He left his keys and hat at the entrance when in but she was not to disturb him until breakfast was ready. If she arrived and they were not there, she cleaned and left.’

  ‘Righto.’ Harry nodded. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s next door with a neighbour, Sir, having a cup of tea.’

  ‘Where’s the body?’ Thomas asked, cutting to the chase. His partner always looked after the matters of the heart where others were concerned.

  ‘We found it in the bathroom, Sir, in a most unusual pose, but we haven’t touched anything,’ he assured the detectives.

  ‘Good work, men, thank you,’ Thomas said and, with a nod to the two constables, he entered the building with Harry on his heels. They took the stairs to the top floor as advised. The building was beautifully outfitted, rooms to the right of the staircase, and a large room that appeared to be the studio to the left.

  ‘Strange,’ Harry muttered on first sight from the doorway. The room was pristine, not their usual death scene. The white and cream embossed wallpaper was amplified by the light streaming in through the windows.

  ‘Good light for an artist I imagine,’ Harry said.

  The body was not in sight from the living area, and Harry entered the room tentatively while Thomas remained in the doorway studying the room. Nothing was out of place – the desk was neat, the paintings were straight, the curtains tied back, the ornaments and lamps upright and intact, and not a mark on the flooring.

  ‘Ready?’ Harry asked after a few minutes and Thomas nodded. They made their way to the bathroom and Harry pushed the door open wider. The room was large, adorned with glossy white bricks and gold fittings.

  Both men’s eyes widened with surprise. Sitting in a large green enamel claw-footed bathtub was the victim, the artist Benjamin Bannon. He sat as if alive, perfectly still and looking forward, his hands placed on either side of the bathtub. The detectives moved closer to find there was no water in the bathtub and the artist was naked or appeared to be from the waist up. His lower body and well over a quarter of the tub was filled with leaves, Autumn leaves of every colour.

  ‘Well, that’s one of our better death scenes. Perhaps you’d expect that from an artist or his murderer,’ Harry said, thinking aloud. ‘No obvious sign of death unless we burrow through those leaves,’ he added reluctantly.

  Thomas studied the tub, sniffed, and moved a few handfuls of leaves.

  ‘There’s no obvious wound or blood evident. He has got a strange tint to his skin, don’t you think? He might have been poisoned,’ Thomas suggested, studying the stiff, pale body of the victim.

  ‘Detectives?’ A voice called from the other room and Thomas stuck his head out of the bathroom to find the coroner had arrived. Dr Patrick Nevins entered, his cane tapping lightly on the parquetry flooring.

  The men greeted each other.

  ‘The stairs give you hell, Patrick?’ Harry asked the coroner, who was ten years younger than Harry but looked of the same vintage with his grey mop of hair, glasses and a limp courtesy of a childhood accident.

  ‘Always,’ he sighed, ‘I just wish they’d all die on the ground floor.’

  The men chuckled.

  ‘Well,’ Dr Nevins said, pausing in the bathroom doorway. ‘A most considerate death scene, so clean.’

  ‘Indeed, even artistic, one might say,’ Thomas agreed.

  Dr Nevins tapped his way over to the bathtub and looked in. He nodded and smiled.

  ‘What? What does that expression mean?’ Harry asked him.

  ‘I understand this is the artist Bannon… Benjamin Bannon?’

  ‘Correct,’ Thomas said.

  ‘I think you will find this is a self-portrait, emulated.’

  Thomas snapped to look at the doctor, his breath hitching. ‘Where is it now, the portrait?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dr Nevins said with a shrug, ‘but Bannon’s manager or agent may know.’

  Harry spoke up. ‘The Hayward brother who manages the gallery…’

  ‘Yes, Gideon Hayward,’ Thomas said, ‘he could find it for us. One moment, Doctor, please.’

  Dr Nevins nodded and stepped back; Thomas explained.

  ‘I just need to take in the scene now that it has a different interpretation.’

  Harry and the doctor exchanged looks, well used to Thomas’s quirky traits. After a few moments, Thomas stood straighter, exhaled and looked at the two men.

  ‘Thank you, I’m done if you are Harry?’

  ‘I’m finished,’ Harry agreed.

  Dr Nevins began his observation of the body. ‘The portrait, it’s called something like An Artist Bathing in the Season or similar. Quite lovely, I saw it and some of his other work when he was on tour last year.’

  Thomas began to pace. ‘An artist killed in a style emulating his own successful work.’

  ‘I’ll have a time and cause of death to you later t
his afternoon,’ Dr Nevins said, as he began to move the leaves from the body. A small, red puncture wound in the lower leg was obvious and he made a knowing sound. ‘Looks like he might have been injected with a substance.’

  The two men glanced over the edge of the tub at the mark, and then left him to his work and went to question the housekeeper and neighbours.

  ‘I wish all our death scenes were as gentle,’ Harry said.

  ‘It’s odd,’ Thomas said. ‘No clothes lying around, perfectly positioned, no evidence of a struggle, and someone knew his work. Why that painting?’ He continued to mutter as he went down the stairs.

  ‘The timing on the back of Marlon Dominey’s exhibition and bad review is interesting,’ Harry added.

  ‘Indeed,’ Thomas agreed. ‘I just hope Matilda and the ladies of the Women’s Journal don’t feel the need to report this crime.’

  His eyes scanned the small group waiting outside and, on this occasion, he was relieved not to see the woman who filled his thoughts every waking moment.

  Continue reading Miss Matilda Hayward and the Artist’s Muse now. Available from Amazon or free in Kindle Unlimited.

  About the Author:

  After studying English Literature and Communications at universities in Queensland, Australia, Helen Goltz has worked as a journalist, producer and marketer in print, TV, radio and public relations. She was born in Toowoomba and has made her home in Brisbane.

  Visit her website at: www.helengoltz.com

  Or Facebook at: www.facebook.com/HelenGoltz.Author

  Follow on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/HelenGwriter