by Geoff Lawson
hung in the hall and I had taken a particular interest in his. He
didn’t seem to have changed much either. He impressed as
being the same dandified arrogant ass that I remembered from
that scuffle outside the Rutland Hotel. He was also a
Lieutenant and that meant he must have bought a commission
in the Army, for he had no military experience and wouldn’t
have had a clue what to do with a revolver like the one he was
now wearing.
An hour later we were on the move. The last of the Boer
equipment had been reduced to mounds of smoking ash; a few
wagon axles and the charred stumps of spokes were all that
were now identifiable. Then, the long trek back to camp began;
the New Zealanders and the Australians forming two parallel
mounted columns while the prisoners walked in between. We
had threatened that we would make them walk in bare feet if
they tried any funny business, so they gave no trouble.
We were wild men – deprived of sleep and hollow eyed,
we would tolerate no resistance. We were unshaven these last
few days and our uniforms were ragged and stained. I think
the sight of us frightened them, for there were none of the civil
qualities that were the usual hallmark of the British Army.
Perhaps they thought we would shoot them and who knows,
when men are pushed to their physical limits tempers can flare
– had they provoked us, we may have done.
I looked around to check the column and Devereaux was
less than a hundred yards away, riding stiffly, trying to look
perfect although he was not a good horseman. I looked again,
seemingly taking everything in while really concentrating on
him. It was him – Albert Purdue, in spite of what he now called
himself.
The big question was, what was his game? There had to be
one. He was supposed to be doing a law degree at Canterbury
University, so what was he doing here? He had joined the
armed services of another country, which was more-or-less the
Australasian equivalent of the French Foreign Legion; a
heaven-sent opportunity for people who sought refuge from
the law. Was that what he was doing? Hiding? But why would
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he want to do that? Anyone that serious about vanishing must
have a compelling reason for doing so. Whatever it was, it
must have been serious. I doubt that he’d have the gall to rob a
bank, but if he had, then he had picked the perfect way to
disappear.
No-one in a million years was ever going to track him
down, being as he was in the service of another country, under
an assumed name and serving in yet another foreign country
halfway around the world. He would have vanished from the
face of the earth like a proverbial puff of smoke.
Unfortunately, I had to admit that this was really
speculation and I could be wrong about everything, but
regardless there was something very queer about it. I would
keep my eye on this Albert Purdue, alias Lieutenant
Devereaux, and see what could be made of that.
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Chapter Twenty-three
WHANGANUI New Zealand. January 1900
Dorothy knocked and opened Alistair’s office door.
“Sorry sir, a rather severe looking gentleman has just left a
note for you. He said it was very urgent and important that I
give this to you straight away. Then he walked out.”
Intrigued, Alistair took the note and when Dorothy had
closed the door he broke the seal.
Your son has skipped and owes me money, which I intend
that you should pay. To ensure that you do, your daughter is
currently my guest. To discuss this I would like you to meet me
in the upstairs lounge at the Rutland Hotel in no less than half
an hour, I will be in a corner and wearing a grey pinstripe suit.
It would be unwise to mention any of this to the police.
Alistair dropped the note. Was this some sick joke? What
did ‘your daughter is currently my guest’ mean? Panic spurred
him into motion; he glanced at the clock – Rachel should now
be at work. He leapt to his feet, grabbed his hat and jacket
from the rack and headed for the lift as fast as decorum would
allow. Once in the street he set off down the Avenue and upon
reaching the Rutland Hotel, he went left around the corner and
sprinted to the doorway that led upstairs to the office where
Rachel worked.
“Where is Rachel?” he rasped to the receptionist, puffing
despite himself. She blinked and looked surprised. His face
bore a look that suggested something was considerably less
than right.
“I don’t know sir, she didn’t appear today. No one has seen
her as far as I know.”
Alistair’s face blanched – this was not supposed to happen.
The receptionist knew then that something was definitely
wrong and her smile vanished even faster than she had risen to
her feet.
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“I will check her desk if you like and ask the others if
anyone knows where she is.”
“Yes, yes, please do.” Alistair could feel his mouth going
dry, his feelings go slowly numb. Dread rose like bile in his
gut. The receptionist disappeared through a doorway, only to
return a minute later with an apologetic look and the
unwelcome news that no one had seen Rachel or knew of her
whereabouts.
He walked down the stairs in a daze and back onto the
street. Nearly twenty minutes had gone by and the half hour
would soon be up. Therefore there was nothing else for it. He
would go to the Rutland and seek this person out.
The room was a modest size with deep red mats on the
polished, hardwood floor, while the bar had a mahogany top.
Large, comfortable chairs in the regency style were
strategically placed around mahogany tables and the windows
were flanked by burgundy drapes. The room was devoid of
patrons at this time of day, with the notable exception of a tall,
solitary figure of about forty years of age. He had a long,
solemn face and was dressed in a grey pinstripe suit. Both
hands were extended and resting on a silver mounted walking
cane.
Alistair sat down slowly in an opposite chair, neither
greeting the man nor offering his hand. The man stared back
impassively through shrewd, steely eyes.
“What do you want?” Alistair was conscious of the need to
moderate his voice.
“What is owed to me and that is all,” replied the stranger,
without blinking.
“What have you done with my daughter?”
“I regret any inconvenience to her, however, she is safe
enough and will be returned unharmed once I have what is due
to me.”
Alistair’s eyes bulged with fury. “You bounder! What kind
of heinous crook are you that you would kidnap an innocent
young woman and hold her against her will? Do you have any
idea just how serious a crime this is? Do you not realise how
severe the law is on those who kidnap women?”
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The stranger flashed Alistair a dark look. “Hush your
voice, you fool. Do you want the whole damn town to know?”
His tone then moderated. “I am aware of the potential
consequences, but I’ve not come all this way to receive no for
an answer.”
Alistair checked himself, sinking back into his chair with
his mouth shut and his face muscles twitching, realising the
need to restrain himself.
The stranger reached into an inside coat pocket and
produced a slip of paper. “This is an IOU signed by your son
for two hundred pounds to cover his gambling debts. The day
after he signed this he disappeared and my sources tell me that
not even the police can find him. Then of course, there’s my
expenses in recovering this debt and my usual penalty for non-
payment, which means that altogether I want four hundred
pounds. If you leave for the bank and get the cash now, I can
have your daughter outside your house in an hour, so an
exchange can take place. Firstly though, I will accompany you
to the bank and see that you have withdrawn the money.
Agreed?”
Alistair picked up the IOU and examined the signature and
the date. It was Albert’s handwriting all right; he could throttle
the little sod. The date also matched the police assessment of
when Albert had vanished. He knew that in fairness to Rachel
there was little else he could do but go along with the man’s
demands.
After a short silence, they rose and walked without
speaking to the Bank of New South Wales, where Alistair
withdrew the money. Once outside, the stranger climbed into a
taxi, which within minutes had crossed the town bridge and
disappeared in the direction of Putiki. Alistair just stood and
watched, until it could no longer be seen. There had to be more
than one of them to pull this off and God help them if Rachel
was harmed – he would buy a gun and shoot the lot of them,
even if he had to follow them all the way back to Christchurch
to do it.
He sighed. What was he thinking? He knew that was
hollow. He wouldn’t know what to do with a gun. The only
one who would know was Richard and he was halfway around
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the world. Alistair understood that he was on his own – if
anything were to be done about this gang, he would have to
initiate it himself.
He agonized. Was it right that he allowed this insidious and
unprincipled hoodlum to feed on the weaknesses of the
desperate? Should he allow this bounder to blatantly get away
with a crime? There was Rachel to consider of course, and his
own good name. Would the rumour machine think more kindly
of him if it got out that he had allowed this bounder to get
away with what was nothing less than abduction and extortion?
To hell with it! He spun on his heels and began to walk in a
hurry in the direction of the police station.
Alistair arrived home on a police bicycle, peddling like the
Devil was in pursuit. The seat was mounted a tad too high,
causing him no small amount of discomfort. He leapt off the
bike and opened the gate before sprinting up the slope towards
the house. By now, he was almost breathless.
“Emily! Emily, where are you?” Emily appeared, looking
just a little surprised until Alistair explained the mornings
events.
“Rachel kidnapped? That’s unbelievable! Where will it all
end?”
“And don’t forget the four hundred pounds, my dear,”
rasped Alistair. “That’s enough to buy a house and two acres of
land.” His eyes bulged with the stress of physical exercise and
continued emotional outrage.
He had to calm down; the kidnappers would be arriving
soon. He sat, his elbows resting on the kitchen table while his
forehead reclined in his hands. He closed his eyes for a
moment and reopened them, then looked wearily at Emily. She
sat at the other end of the table and looked defeated. He stared
for a moment, then slowly stood and walked around behind
her, where he put his hands lightly on her shoulders and kissed
the top of her head.
“Don’t worry my dear. Soon it must all work out.”
The door to the bunkroom closed, accompanied by the
sound of the door bolt being shoved home. Still dismayed,
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Rachel sat on the bed and surveyed her surroundings again,
before moving to the window to check if it could be opened.
On the outside, there were batons which ensured that it would
not. She also checked the hinges on the door – she had once
seen a maintenance man remove a shed door at home by
tapping out the hinge pins. The door here also swung inwards
and the hinges were of the cheap, outdoors type, so it was
feasible that it could be done.
There was a snag though. She needed a punch or a nail to
tap them out. She searched the room, but there was no nail to
be found. Perplexed, she sat down again only to have another
thought. Maybe she could use a hairclip. She removed a long
wire clip from her hair – it might just do, but now she needed a
hammer as well. Off came a shoe. The wooden heel might just
be able to do it.
Holding the head of the hairclip against the bottom of the
top pin, she tapped the other end with the shoe. The hinge pin
moved, spurring her hopes. It wasn’t easy though. The hairclip
tended to spring and the wooden heel dug into the sharp ends
of the clip. She reversed the hairclip and tried again. This time
it worked a bit better and the hinge pin moved even more. She
took another uphill swing with the shoe, conscious of the need
to do this quietly, when the shoe slid from the head of the
hairclip and caught her fingers.
She stopped and listened for any sound of her captors
approaching, but all was quiet. She decided to switch her
attention to the lower hinge for it was much easier to reach, but
almost immediately another problem appeared – because the
bottom of the hinge was low to the floor, she couldn’t swing
the shoe upwards with enough force to even budge the pin. She
tried, but to no avail; it was apparent that she may as well give
up.
She flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. This
was outrageous and it was all Albert’s fault; she recalled that
he had always been a shit. She bit on a fingernail,
remembering; remembering when he had attended Marist
Brothers School in Dublin Street. He was always in some sort
of trouble with the Brothers; they were strict disciplinarians
and always had some complaint.
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One night, a knock on the door had revealed a distraught
woman on their doorstep, clutching the only school uniform of
her son in her hands; the same son that Albert had waited in
ambush for with a bucket of cow dung slurry that he had
prepared in advance. The woman had scrimped and saved for
months to pay for that uniform and now it was
ruined, the
cream boater hat and white shirt were cow-crap green. She had
boiled them for days and repeatedly rewashed them, but no
amount of washboard rubbing would ever remove the stains.
Father was furious. This was a catastrophe for a struggling
family and could not be looked upon lightly. Taking pity on the
distressed woman, he bought her two new uniforms in the days
that followed, with shoes to match. As for Albert, he was
lectured far worse than usual and whopped more thoroughly
with the razor strop.
Then there was the time that Albert had gone up the zigzag
path at the bottom of St John’s Hill and thrown stones on the
Chinese gardener’s house. He had done this many times in the
past, but this time he was caught by a policeman who had
noticed that stones were bouncing from the Chinaman’s roof.
While the gardener had stood his ground and yelled in
Cantonese, the policeman had quietly circled around behind
and Albert was nabbed in the act. The policeman walked him
home, pulling him by the ear, all of which earned him another
good whopping with the razor strop.
Then Albert really excelled himself. He offended one of the
Brothers, who with strap in hand, had called him to the front of
the class. Albert wasn’t having any of that. He leaped over
tables and upturned chairs to gain the door, then legged it out
the school gate for the freedom of the street, running several
blocks before stopping to catch his breath.
Unfortunately, there was a problem he had not foreseen –
this Brother was not about to let him get away with it. Within
minutes, all the boys in the class were deputized and mobilized
in pursuit. Some, no doubt having old scores to settle, would
have found chasing Albert far more entertaining than being
stuck in class and went after him with a will, rallying those
with less enthusiasm and pointing the way. Like hounds after
217
the fox, they streamed out of the school gate where they
divided into groups and began to stalk their quarry.
Meanwhile, Albert had another problem – he couldn’t go
straight home as it was far too early. Mother would
immediately suspect something and would ask questions for
which he had no direct or convincing answers, so he headed
for the train tracks along London Street and the adjacent bush
clad hill. There he could hang out for a couple of hours without