Give the Devil His Due

by Sulari Gentill

  “Why didn’t he?” Edna asked as she sipped her tea.

  “Milt volunteered to drive him home… he was rather insistent.”

  “I thought Milt didn’t like him.”

  “I assumed that was why he didn’t want White staying overnight.” He shrugged. “Perhaps White was a burglar when Milt last knew him.”

  Edna sighed. “Milt may now have no choice but to be a little more forthcoming.”

  Detective Colin Delaney arrived at Woodlands House only a couple of minutes after its master and the sculptress had returned. The downstairs maid admitted him without any consternation. The detective was a familiar guest, dropping by every now and then, though it was unusual for him to visit too early to be offered a drink.

  Rowland received him in his studio. “Ed’s just gone to check on her kittens,” he said. “She shouldn’t be long.”

  “Kittens?”

  “Some strays she rescued.”

  “I thought that was your hobby.” Delaney took the armchair and waited for Rowland to sit. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? How do you know Crispin White, Rowly?”

  “White was employed by Smith’s Weekly. They sent him to interview me for their coverage of this charity motor race at Maroubra.”

  “Oh yes… I forgot you were involved in that. What time did he leave here?”

  “About ten.”

  “And Mr. Isaacs drove him home?”

  “Yes… I’d had a brandy too many. Milt dropped him off at his lodgings.”

  “His lodgings?” Delaney frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “I believe that’s what Milt said.”

  “You saw where he was found.”

  Rowland nodded. “The appropriately named House of the Macabre. Bloody hell! Why would White choose to visit a waxworks at that time of night?”

  “I had hoped you might be able to shed some light on that.”

  Rowland shrugged. “We were barely acquainted. He called at Woodlands to interview me and stayed for dinner. Aside from being a journalist, he didn’t seem like a bad chap.”

  “Did he mention anything that might—?”

  “No. He seemed to be looking for a sensational angle for his story, but he didn’t really reveal too much about himself.”

  “Colin!” Edna came into the room. She smiled at the detective. “Will you be staying for breakfast?”

  Both Rowland and Delaney stood.

  “I don’t suppose you recall anything Mr. White might have said last night,” Delaney said scratching his head wearily.

  “Nothing that made me suspect he was in any danger.” Edna’s head tilted sideways as she tried to recall the details of their conversations. “He was rather… intrigued by the imagery on the dining room walls. I’m afraid he thought it was a little sacrilegious. Poor, poor Crispin.”

  Delaney didn’t ask what adorned the dining room walls. He had been a guest at Woodlands often enough to be familiar with the room’s current Bacchanalian splendour and though he could understand White’s concern, he did not believe Rowland Sinclair or any of his companions were interested enough in religion to be sacrilegious by design.

  “Do you know who killed him yet, Detective Delaney?” Edna asked.

  “That’s why I’m here, Miss Higgins. As far as we can ascertain, Mr. Isaacs might have been the last person to have seen the deceased alive.”

  “Aside from the person who killed him, of course,” Edna corrected sharply.

  “Of course… I wasn’t suggesting—”

  Rowland intervened. “Milt or Clyde could well remember something useful.”

  “They’re eating breakfast,” Edna said. “I haven’t had a chance to tell them…”

  They made their way to the dining room where, from behind The Sydney Morning Herald, Milton cheerily issued the detective another invitation to breakfast in a style that was characteristically erudite. “The very bacon shows its feeling, swinging from the smoky ceiling! A steaming bowl, a blazing fire, what greater good can the heart desire?”

  “Wordsworth,” Rowland murmured. “But yes, you should stay for breakfast, Colin.”

  “Unless, of course, you’re here to arrest Rowly again,” Clyde added in equally good humour. “That would be somewhat uncivil.”

  Perhaps it was the poetic eloquence of Milton’s solicitation, the fact that Delaney had no thought of arresting Rowland Sinclair, or the aromas emanating from the silver warming trays upon the sideboard, but the detective decided that a cup of coffee and some eggs would not be too great a dereliction of duty. He confessed the reason for his visit, as he took a seat at the French polished table.

  “They cut his throat?” Clyde said, shocked.

  “Nearly took off his head,” Delaney replied, wrinkling his nose as he recalled the characteristic smell of blood. “The manager mistook him for a new exhibit, initially.”

  “He what?”

  “He was found in Magdalene’s House of the Macabre at Macleay Street in Kings Cross—a waxworks specialising in ghouls and whatnot.” Delaney shook his head. Clearly he could not understand the attraction.

  “I’ve been to the House of the Macabre a few times,” Milton volunteered. “It’s not Madame Tussaud’s but it’s quite well put together for the sixpence entry fee.”

  “A few times? Whatever for?”

  “It’s a surprisingly romantic spot.”

  “God help us,” Clyde muttered.

  “Where precisely did you leave Mr. White?” Delaney asked Milton.

  “Some bookshop in Mcleay Street. He lives… lived above it. It’s not far from Magdalene’s.” Milton declared the proximity before Delaney could.

  “What time was that?”

  “About midnight.”

  Delaney flicked back a page of his notebook. “But Rowly says you left here about ten.”

  “Yes.”

  “What took you so long?”

  “Traffic.”

  “For pity’s sake, man…”

  “Crispin White and I knew each other once,” Milton said irritably. “We were catching up.”

  “And where exactly did you catch up?”

  “In the car, parked outside the bookshop. After a while we were entirely caught up, he said goodnight and went into his flat.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  “This and that… I don’t remember really.”

  “Was this horror museum—Magdalene’s—open after midnight?” Rowland interrupted in an attempt to divert Delaney’s attention from the fact that Milton’s answers seemed to be intentionally evasive.

  “No, not according to the manager,” Delaney replied, his eyes still on Milton.

  “So Crispin broke in?” Edna poured the detective a cup of coffee.

  “Someone must have, it seems. Either White or whomever admitted him.”

  “Had he been robbed?” Rowland asked.

  “His purse was still in his jacket’s breast pocket,” Delaney said sighing.

  “What about his notebook?”

  “What notebook?”

  “He had a notebook… wrote in it incessantly.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t have it with him.”

  Rowland shook his head. “I doubt it.” He, too, was in the habit of carrying a notebook, to capture moments in line and shade, to pin down ideas for later works, or simply to pass the time. The notebook sat always in his breast pocket.

  “We’ll look for it,” Delaney assured him. He glanced once more at Milton. “It may provide a clue as to who would want to kill him.”

  GERMANY ACCLAIMS PACT

  BERLIN, January 28

  The newspapers pay glowing tributes to the pact, with Poland as a manifestation of Herr Hitler’s desire for peace. They suggest that he will go down in history as the “peace-making Chancellor”, and will, perhaps, receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

  The “Allgemeine Zeitung” considers that the pact will create the confidence which is lacking throughout the world, despite the Leagu
e of Nations, the Locarno Pact, and the Disarmament Conference.

  The “Berliner Tageblatt” emphasises that the pact significantly does not mention Geneva, whose methods have been abandoned. Herr Hitler, it says, by leaving the poisonous atmosphere and international diplomacy has enabled a new European policy to win its first success.

  The Courier Mail, 1934

  ____________________________________

  “What on earth went on between you and Crispin White?” Edna demanded once the detective was safely away. Milton groaned. “I can’t say. I promised.”

  “Colin Delaney is not a fool. He knows you’re hiding something.”

  Milton shrugged.

  Rowland said nothing. He was loath to pry, though he feared Edna was right. Milton was known to the police—Rowland had never asked him for what exactly.

  For several minutes the poet and sculptress argued. Edna was persistent. “Milt, whatever it is, we’ll help. You know that,” she said in the end.

  “It’s not something you can help with, Ed.”

  “I’m going to keep asking. So will the police.”

  Milton glanced at the ceiling and sighed heavily. “You’re a fishwife,

  Edna Higgins,” he said. Then, slowly, wearily, “Do you remember my cousin Miriam?”

  Edna nodded. “Not very well, but yes.”

  “She was a brilliant girl… quiet. Her parents were very strict, traditional people. Miriam met Crispin Weissen when she was seventeen. He was about twenty then—determined to be the next Dostoyevsky. She fell in love with him.” The poet shook his head.

  “And her parents objected?” Edna pre-empted.

  “They didn’t really have a chance,” Milton replied. “Miriam confided in me but she kept it from them… poor wretch was delirious about Weissen and, because he was Jewish too, she thought…” He stood, pacing now. “My aunt and uncle kept such a close eye on her, God knows how they managed it, but he got her in trouble.”

  Rowland flinched. It was unlikely this story was going to end well.

  “Miriam came to me distraught, hysterical—God, she was terrified. She’d not heard from Weissen since she told him.”

  “The mongrel!” Clyde blurted in disgust.

  “I hunted the swine down. At first he said he didn’t want to marry a Jewish girl, work for her father and have his life decided for him. He thought he had some great literary destiny. I belted the… I wanted to kill him then, to be honest, but he talked me round…”

  “Talked you round to what?” Edna asked softly.

  “He broke down… cried like a child. Amongst all the blubbering he convinced me that I had convinced him. I was such a bloody fool!” Milton rubbed his face, still angry with himself. “Weissen said that he loved Miriam and that he was deeply ashamed of the way he’d behaved. He said he’d speak to her father the next day, asked me to tell Miriam that he would do right by her. I believed him. I went home and told Miriam to start organising her glory box. The following morning the police arrested me for assaulting Crispin Weissen and by the time they’d figured out he wasn’t going to pursue the complaint and released me, the bastard had disappeared completely.”

  “But what about Miriam…?” Edna asked, horrified. Though she often seemed indifferent to the expectations and restrictions of society, Edna was perfectly aware of what its judgement could mean.

  “What did you do?”

  “What could I do, Ed? She’s my cousin, or I would have married her myself. She found a doctor who was willing to—”

  “No!” Clyde interjected. “You didn’t let her?”

  “I was afraid she’d harm herself!” Milton flared immediately. “She was going to be condemned by moral hypocrites no matter what she did!”

  Clyde bit his lip. “I’m sorry, Milt. I just…”

  “I helped her keep it from her parents… from everybody,” Milton continued without looking at Clyde. “For a long time, I thought it would destroy her completely. The family thought she was pining because Weissen had lost interest. They talked of committing her to a sanatorium.”

  “But they didn’t?” Edna’s voice was tentative, hopeful.

  “No… now she’s married, has four children. She’s happy and thoroughly respectable. I don’t want the fact that Weissen—or whatever he’s calling himself now—has gotten himself killed to raise it all again. It just wouldn’t be fair.”

  For a moment there was nothing as they absorbed the weight of what Milton had told them.

  “If you’re arrested for this, she’ll find out,” Edna said gently.

  “And if I tell Delaney exactly why I know White, it’s not going to make me any less a suspect.”

  “What were you and White talking about for so long?” Clyde asked.

  Milton shrugged. “Miriam. And what happened. He cried again. In the end he said that he was young and he panicked and he’d been regretting it ever since. He wanted to write to her, to apologise. I said no.”

  “In the end? What did he say in the beginning?” Edna was adept at recognising when Milton was omitting something.

  “We may have gone at it a bit first,” Milton confessed. “Until I realised he was too drunk to put up a fight. Don’t worry Rowly, we weren’t in your motorcar at the time,” Milton added, as if the fact would matter to Rowland, which it didn’t.

  “Oh Milt,” Edna said. “This doesn’t look good.”

  “Who else knows about this?” Rowland asked. “Other than the four of us.”

  “Now that Crispin is dead, just Miriam.”

  “Bloody oath, mate, that sounds like a motive,” Clyde groaned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but perhaps it’s best that you don’t tell Delaney the whole story.”

  “He’s suspicious,” Edna said. “He’ll find out eventually. Presumably there’s a police record of the fact that White accused you of assault.”

  “Hopefully the real killer will have presented himself by then,” Rowland said, uneasily. He understood Milton’s need to protect his cousin. He would respect it. But Edna was right. It didn’t look good.

  “And if he hasn’t presented himself?” Clyde asked.

  Rowland contemplated that inconvenient possibility. “We might have to find him ourselves,” he said.

  “Rowly, aren’t you ready yet? Oh—” Edna screamed and ducked as the lavish stroke of Rowland’s brush splattered ochre paint in her direction.

  “Ed…” He grimaced as they both looked at her now speckled evening gown. “Oh blast… I’m so sorry. You have something else you can wear, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said crossly. “But I had wanted to wear this!”

  Rowland apologised again. “You look smashing by the way,” he added sheepishly.

  Edna sighed. “I ought to know, by now, not to surprise you while you’re painting, I suppose… What are you working on?” She peered around his easel at the large wet canvas. The painting was still in its very early stages but she recognised the Königplatz in Munich. Rowland had blocked in the square, somehow rendering the buildings recognisable with only a few brushed details. There was the shape of a crowd and, in the foreground, the Brownshirts against a background of flames. Edna knew immediately the scene he was painting—the book burning they’d witnessed in the square. She frowned. She had hoped that Rowland was finished with the dark images with which he had left Germany. “Why are you painting this, Rowly?”

  He put down his brush and handed Edna his handkerchief, pointing to the drop of paint on her nose, before he answered her question. “I’m contemplating an exhibition. Inspired by Germany. I’ve been trying to tell people what we saw with no effect… it occurred to me that words are probably not my best medium. Perhaps they just need to see what we saw.”

  Edna studied the canvas. Already there was a menace in the composition, a kind of hard manic energy in the figures. Even now, nowhere near finished, it was disturbing. She stood back, shivering suddenly.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, moving
to close the windows.

  “No, it isn’t that,” Edna said beckoning him back. She took a seat on the settee and, reaching out for his hand, she pulled him down beside her. “You’ve had such a beastly year, Rowly—Germany, then England, not to mention that terrible business in Yass. Would it be such a bad idea to give yourself a chance to recover?”

  “Recover? I’m fighting fit, Ed. Really.”

  “It doesn’t mean you have to fight again straight away. Even in boxing the players get to rest between sets.”

  “Fighters return to their corners between rounds,” Rowland said smiling.

  “You just seem a little lost, lately.”

  Rowland blinked, surprised, first by the observation, and then by the realisation that it wasn’t entirely unwarranted.

  “We all understand how you feel about what happened… what’s happening in Germany,” Edna went on gently, her eyes searching as they fixed on his.

  Rowland looked down at her hand still in his own. It wasn’t so much what he felt about Germany and the Nazis as what he should do about it. He tried to explain. “Clyde and Milt know what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re Communists, they’re organised—on some level, anyway. Thanks to Marx, they know exactly how they ought to be fighting. I’m not a Communist, Ed… I’m not sure what I should be doing but I can’t escape the feeling that I should be doing something.”

  “Are you saying you want to join the Australian Communist Party?”

  “No, not at all.” He tried to make sense of the restlessness, to articulate the nagging disquiet. “A couple of years ago, I didn’t care at all about politics… I just wanted to paint.”

  “Well, there isn’t anything wrong with that.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s true, anymore. What was it Burke said about evil triumphing when good men do nothing?”

  “We could ask Milt,” Edna suggested wryly. “He’ll remember word for word, though he’ll claim he said it first.”

  “Doubtless.” Rowland paused. “I do care now, Ed. But, as much as Milt and Clyde are two of the best men I’ve ever known, I’m not a Communist.”

  “You’re going to join the Country Party?” Edna asked a little fearfully.

  Rowland made a face. “Good Lord, no! I’d sooner join the circus.”