by Robin Adair
‘I suppose I knew for certain he was tainted when he killed, or at least helped to kill, poor Dawks at the church.’
‘He killed him?’
‘Sure, with someone else, whose identity I will know and reveal soon.
‘But what gave him away?’
‘He wasn’t alone when I was in the Cat and Fiddle with Dawks. His companion must have overheard our conversation and felt a threat in the journalist’s ramblings…’ He broke off. ‘Or, perhaps Dawks wasn’t as drunk as he seemed to be, and he heard something, from Con’s table, and had to be silenced.’ He paused. ‘Of course! Up until then, the journalist had not known of the theft of Major Mitchell’s map case. That’s why he had to die. The two men lured him to the church.
‘Now remember, as we saw and heard at the fort only yesterday, Con did not own a watch; he always relied on public clocks, almost as a perverse matter of pride. Recall, too, that he volunteered that Dawks had just left him at the bar at noon, “only minutes ago”.
‘Inadvertently, he was telling us that he had been in sight of a public clock very recently. It couldn’t have been the only other one, far away at Hyde Park. But how could he have seen the church clock – and its peculiar timing – unless he had been there, though he said he had not followed Dawks from the Cat and Fiddle?
‘He and another killed Dawks in the church.’
‘Another? Who? And what of the other deaths?’
‘Patience again, Excellency. All will be revealed if I may ask you to host a luncheon tomorrow of interested parties.’ He passed over a sheet of notepaper. ‘I have this in mind.’
Darling read the message:
His Excellency the Governor,
Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling,
Requests the pleasure of the company of
….….….….…….
For an entertaining luncheon
At the
Barley Mow Hotel,
Park and Castlereagh Streets,
On ________, 1828
Dress Informal 12 noon for 1 p.m.
RSVP
‘I will have them printed and delivered,’ said the Patterer, ‘with your permission, of course. I take it tomorrow’s date will be suitable? Here is the guest list.’ He handed over another sheet. ‘Requests’, of course, meant ‘demands’.
His Excellency studied it and his gaze bored into the Patterer’s. He shrugged, then nodded. ‘Oh, and Dunne,’ he instructed, ‘no damned dago coffee, eh?’
Chapter Forty-seven
The sovereign’st thing that any man may have
Is little to say, and much 0to hear and see.
– John Skelton, The Bouge of Court (1499)
For what was left of that day and in the early hours of the following morning, Nicodemus Dunne made his final checks and adjusted the balances of the complex case – or, rather, cases.
With the murder of the castrato, Signor Bello, he had some loose ends to tie up – the exact ‘how’ if not the ‘why’ of it. On this score, Munito’s enthusiasm for his new human friend (perhaps he sensed he would be a guest at the Barley Mow) brought sartorial disaster and intellectual rigour, in equal parts. The excited dog leapt onto the fresh clothes laid out on the bed in readiness for the luncheon, smearing the trousers with muddy red ochre from the works at Brickfield, near the Bag o’ Nails.
‘Eureka!’ said the Patterer.
‘Arf!’ replied Munito, or, educated dog that he was, perhaps he had started to say, ‘Archimedes.’
A return visit to the Subscription Library in Pitt Street, near Sam Terry’s Angel, once more proved the value of the Patterer’s two-pound annual subscription. Then, it had provided details of the traditions and trappings of the Chinese calendar. Now, Dunne called for books about French expeditions sent to test out the colony. The Count de La Pérouse had actually sailed into the rejected Botany Bay on the very day that Captain Arthur Phillip was raising the British flag sixteen miles north, in the better Port Jackson. The Frenchman sailed away, to be lost at sea.
There was one remaining line of enquiry to pursue at the library – to test the relevance now of some words written 229 years earlier. Perhaps Josiah Bagley would speak, even if from the grave.
Dunne followed through on Bagley’s remarks about the Shakespearean quotation he had carried around in his journal for a decade but had been unable to explain.
Yes, here it was: As You Like It, Act III, Scene ii. Touchstone, the court jester, indeed says: ‘Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.’
Well, it seemed to agree with the soldier’s memory. The Patterer read it again, against the notes he had taken when he interviewed Bagley.
And the mystery was solved! The voice on the dock at St Helena that day in March 1818 had reversed the quotation. The ‘honourable retreat’ was made, as the taunt to Sir Hudson Lowe made quite clear, ‘with bag and baggage’. Napoleon Bonaparte had joined the Winchelsea earlier, in a box among the departing luggage.
But who had helped him? Mr Balcombe, his go-between; Mrs Balcombe, his ‘Josephine’; Betsy, his blooming ‘Rosebud’; Grenville or Thomas, his playmates; or the servant, whoever, and wherever, he was now?
One of them? Even all of them?
The Patterer took to Mr Potts at the ‘People’s Bank’ the small souvenirs from his imprisonment by John Macarthur and Samuel Marsden.
The banker examined them with great interest. ‘So, these are some of the famous 2000 sovereigns, eh?’ He tossed one in a palm. ‘A famous denomination in our coinage, Mr Dunne, one steeped in history. It has been around since 1489, you know, when King Henry VII first ordered the issue of such a splendid coin.
‘This? Well, it is a fine, modern example of the moneyer’s art. The relief of the head on the obverse side is finely wrought, both as a piece of artistic representation and in the production values executed.
‘It has a suitable security rim, to deter those who would “clip” or “shave” coins. Still, I will weigh it.’ He did so, on delicate scales, and pronounced, ‘Ah, just as I expected.
‘I am also impressed by the fine, tiny engraving of an uplifting motto, or exhortation. A long-standing example of such is the wording, “Posui Deum Adiutorem Meum”. How is your Latin?’
‘As I recall, that means “I have made God my helper.” ’
‘Yes, quite right. This sov of yours has a similar unambiguous lesson; the only difference is that here we have “Canis” instead of “Deum” – a small matter, is it not? And there’s nothing I can say now about the other offering that you do not already comprehend.’
The Patterer took back the glittering coin and was blunt: ‘Is it a forgery?’
‘Most certainly not,’ said Mr Potts firmly. ‘No “treason” here, a key word. A forgery may be a document created completely, or simply altered by one stroke of the pen. And the punishment is severe, but rarely draconian. Editor Halloran; our architect, Mr Francis Greenway; and Mr Joseph Lycett, the esteemed artist, are – or were – convicted forgers. They all fiddled papers; they all survived.
‘Coining is a different matter entirely, dangerous work. Even just having the tools to do it, the “intent”, can be enough to convict. That is why they often use sand moulds of true coins for their castings. Sydney sand, from the white southern beach dunes, is regarded so highly by English glassmakers that it is shipped back in ballast. Coiners there crave it, too! The bonus of a sand mould, hopefully, is it can be destroyed during a raid. Poof – no evidence!’
The Patterer nodded. ‘But if you are caught red-handed…’
‘Precisely,’ said Mr Potts. ‘It’s treason – indeed, high treason – to copy the king’s, or queen’s coinage, especially if it bears the royal likeness.’
Both men fell silent, sobered. The reward for an illegal coiner was hanging. Unless, of course, the culprit, even an accomplice, was a woman. Then the penalty was to be burnt at the stake. Some in the colony remembered t
he trial of Jeremiah Grace and Margaret Sullivan in London in 1788, the settlement’s birth year. The Recorder, an implacable judge named James Adair, hanged Grace and sent Sullivan to a public funeral pyre. A year later, another woman, nineteen-yearold Christian Murphy, followed her into the fire. Dunne did not believe there had been another, but…
Mr Potts broke the spell. ‘Do you know who these belong to?’
The Patterer nodded.
‘Well,’ said Mr Potts, returning the other coin, ‘you didn’t really need me, did you?’
‘Ah, Mr Dunne! Well met!’ Laurence Hynes Halloran bailed up the Patterer, who was passing The Gleaner with his mind in a whirl. ‘I have been thinking greatly about the interest you professed in the Battle of the Nile, at Aboukir Bay.’ And he proceeded to rattle off the names of the French fleet there and those of the opposing British men-of-war.
He cuts a rather sad figure now, thought his captive audience, but once he was a man of passion and violence. As a midshipman he had knifed and killed a man and gone to gaol for it. Dunne tried to sidle away, but there was no stopping the editor: ‘And, in the light of the mysterious murder of Signor Bello at the Angel Inn, something else has come to mind that might interest you.
‘Yes, sir, a Rear Admiral Pierre Charles Villeneuve was in charge of the after-guard of the French Fleet at Aboukir Bay. He escaped (and some said he shouldn’t have) the defeat there and lived to fight another day – in command of the French flagship against Nelson at Trafalgar. But his ship, Bucentaure, struck its colours to the British and Villeneuve became a prisoner-of-war in England.
‘He was repatriated a year later. Out of favour with Bonaparte, blamed – and blaming himself – for the crushing defeats, he locked himself in his chamber and stabbed himself to death. Don’t you see? The common link with Bello’s demise.
‘Poor fellow! Doubtless, he felt guilty about his judgements in both battles. He left a note that read: “How fortunate that I have no child to be loaded with the weight of my name as its awful inheritance”.’
‘Very sad, I’m sure, and very coincidental,’ said the Patterer. ‘But —’
‘No, no, no! That name of his ship comes up before us, again.’
‘The Bucentaure?’
‘Not that one. I refer to his command earlier at Aboukir Bay.’
And, when Halloran repeated one of the names he had rattled off only minutes earlier, Dunne’s eyes widened. What’s in a name? In this case, perhaps everything. A careless aside – only the second in ten years? – could close the case.
‘Everyone has to have a name that suits them,’ someone had said when they had all met in the Hope and Anchor, exchanging ideas. Of course, it had been William the Pieman.
But where were names kept? Well, there were rolls for convicts and strengths for soldiers. But what of the rest? Why, there’s the census, the colony’s first. It wouldn’t have ‘Indians’ on it, naturally, nor (for some odd reason) the garrison redcoats. But everyone else should be there by now.
He hurried to the office in the Chief Secretary’s building, where he was known as an authorised collector. It seemed a daunting task. The eight bulky ledgers contained 36 598 entries for the whole colony, 10 815 of them in the settlement of Sydney.
But he did not have to wade through all the Sydney names. His hunch meant that he was specifically looking for – exactly what? First, a name beginning in ‘Town’, because ‘Ville’ in French meant that. There were Townshends and even plain, unadorned Towns, one Townson. But none fitted the bill.
What about Josiah Bagley’s Shakespeare text, which had borne fruit when it was looked at the other way around? ‘Neuve’ became ‘New’. Put them together … Yes, there were a Newsome, a Newhart, some Newmans and one, because of a given name, who was his man. A Newton. And he had only his carelessness to blame that it had been overlooked until now. He simply had not asked the right questions.
The search for the other man was almost anticlimactic. Prosper Mendoza, the name of the St Helena suicide, stared up at him. And suddenly the other information given there made sense too. Dunne smiled; it bore out one word of wisdom passed to him by an older Runner: a man on the run may change his name, dye his hair, grow (or shave) a beard. But, invariably, he will still keep his birthday. This came down either to superstition or lack of confidence in remembering a fabrication.
Now the Patterer was almost ready to attend the luncheon with confidence that he had found the killer.
But first Dunne had some brief, unfinished business. He returned to that disreputable drinkery in The Rocks, the Sheer Hulk. There he encountered a sunburnt man whose pressing services had been recommended to him highly. He handed over five gold coins, which pleased the man greatly; usually this manner of business cost him money.
‘Have someone hang around the Bacchanal, at Brickfield,’ instructed the Patterer. ‘His name is Robinson.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said the ship’s captain.
As the Patterer left, he waved to a Hulk regular. ‘Don’t complain, Mr Robinson, don’t complain,’ he breathed. ‘For ten shillings it could be much worse.’ He saluted again Thomas Hughes, the hapless, hopeless hangman who thirsted for rum and who, for sixpence over the going rate, would perhaps stretch a man’s neck, if asked nicely.
Chapter Forty-eight
I will a round unvarnished tale deliver…
– William Shakespeare, Othello (1602–4)
The Barley Mow, with not a sheaf in sight, just the gradual greening of Hyde Park a block to its east, was a most suitable site for a day of reckoning. It had hangovers, with a vengeance. Before the tavern and its first glass were raised there, a public gallows had stood on the site and many a neck was stretched.
The gathering for the curious luncheon given by Governor Darling may have borne some resemblance to a hanging-day mob. The diners were variously nervous, ill at ease, cocksure and excited. But at least no one seemed bored.
As soon as the actual meal began there would be many, too many, uninvited guests. They were known only too well to everyone – as M. domestica and M. vetustissima: the common housefly and its bush sibling. To thwart them, Dunne had followed the common practice of colonial hosts; he had hired, again, a boy from the Carters Barracks, this time to fan away the flies. ‘It’s better than being buggered,’ said the boy; and better, thought the Patterer, than being hired as that lowest-of-the-low child labourer, the ‘pure’-gatherer, who wandered the streets with a bucket, collecting dog-droppings that would later be used in the tanning of fine leather.
It was a large party that came to table. Mine host of the Barley Mow had taken over the taproom and brought together half a dozen tables to seat the dozen and more diners. Dunne had told him to spare no reasonable expense: Government House would be paying the reckoning. He had not yet told Darling.
That elevated personage, and Captain Rossi, Mr Marsden, the Macarthurs and other important people, were seated prominently, but the Patterer scattered others where he wanted them. He made sure he had certain guests in pride of place beside him – Munito and his master, with Miss Susannah Hathaway to his right.
Servants began to bring in an array of dishes prepared for the occasion by a gentleman who had cooked for the King when he was Prince Regent. He had left Prinny’s household to come to Australia after an unfortunate episode in the royal kitchen involving a sous-chef, a live goat and goose grease. ‘Still,’ Rossi pronounced, ‘he cooks like an angel.’ Goat Island inhabitants were safe from this luncheon menu: the animal, demeaned as ‘Norfolk Island mutton’, was regarded as being fit only for convicts. The colony’s first lean years had faded. The poor now ate better than they would have done in Britain, the better off were exactly that, while the rich could pick and choose.
The Barley Mow diners, from all walks of life, picked and chose from five courses, with a dozen dishes, including chicken consommé, saffron rice, eggplants bursting with forcemeat, roast duck, kangaroo in curry, and artichokes vinaigrette. After a dish of
cockney bream, as infantile schnapper were known, poached in white wine, came baked ‘old man’ schnapper.
There were fruits of the day (no peaches yet from Bungaree’s northside orchard – and, Dunne noted, no oranges!), tarts and cheeses. The assembly drank Mr Squire’s amber ale, porter, light whites from the Cape, claret, muscatel and brandy. No rum. In honour of his canine companion, the Patterer drank one bumper of a popular concoction of gin, porter, sugar and nutmeg called ‘dog’s nose’. The real dog’s nose was, by now, happily snuffling at the latest delivery of duck dropped down to him.
Dunne rang his empty wine glass. As the company quietened, he motioned the hovering servant to refill it and any others similarly depleted. He then dismissed the man from the room, making sure that he went but the bottles remained. The guests would all need a drink, or many more, he was sure. Regrettably, the fly-boy had to go too.
‘So,’ he announced pleasantly, as if they were simply a party of old friends celebrating – perhaps an anniversary of some stripe. ‘One duty of mine now is to reveal the mastermind behind our great bank robbery. We have, of course, most of the underlings, and there are high hopes for the loot.
‘First, however, I must deal with four recent murders linked with the robbery. John Creighton, who was shot to death at Cockle Bay, had been one of the vault-breakers. He was killed simply because he was wrongly thought to have extracted from the spoils something of immense value – indeed, the true target at the bank. Ironically, as he died he did take another great treasure, from around the neck of his killer. If he had not done that, the whole plot would probably not have unravelled. But, more of that later.’
Dunne took a sip of wine. ‘The castrato, Signor Bello, was killed because he saw someone at the theatre who should not have been there – or anywhere, for that matter!’ He ignored the frowns at his last remark and went on: ‘The killer saw me with Bello and feared I would learn the singer’s secret.