A Dangerous Language

by Sulari Gentill

  “She arrived on the early train.” Hancock gazed at the photo. “It were real cold. I was asking for a contribution yer know, I ain’t a beggar but if the good people should wish to contribute to my cause… The chief porter told me to clear off. He did. But she give me two shillings and told him not to be a bully. Can yer imagine that? Gawd I laughed.” He smiled with the memory. “And then she winked at me, like we was friends. Like we was old friends.”

  Rowland wanted to cheer. Finally. Headway. “Yes. That’s Ed. Was she with anyone?”

  “Yes. A fancy fella. I didn’t much like the look of him.”

  “Why?”

  Hancock shrugged. “Dunno. Just didn’t. Anyways she chuffed off with him, she did.”

  “How did they leave? Did they walk?”

  “No—they got into one of them motorised carriages.”

  “A motorcar? What kind?”

  Hancock shrugged again.

  “What colour was it?”

  “Green. It were green. It were.”

  “The man you say was accompanying her—do you know who he is?”

  “Naw. Never seen him here before.”

  Rowland took out his notebook and pencil. “Do you think you could describe him, Mr. Hancock?”

  Hancock removed his hat and rubbed his head as if he were massaging his brain in preparation for the task. “His face were long… like a horse…” For the next several minutes Rowland sketched and adjusted until Gus Hancock cried, “That be him!”

  The result was a drawing of a young man with fair, curly hair and a narrow face. There was something a little sinister about his features but it was hard to tell if that came through as a result of Hancock’s description or Rowland’s current state of mind. Even so, the face was familiar.

  “Are you sure this is who you saw, Mr. Hancock?” Rowland asked, concerned that he had biased the sketch somehow.

  “That’s him.” Hancock knew no doubt.

  Rowland thanked him and made a contribution.

  By then Milton and Clyde, having had no luck themselves, had returned. Rowland showed them the sketch. “Are you serious?” Clyde gawked at the drawing.

  “Middleton!” Milton cursed. “What’s he doing here?”

  Bertram Middleton was a journalist by trade and a novelist by aspiration. He had been in ardent pursuit of Edna’s affections for some years and so he was known to them all.

  “Doesn’t he live in Canberra now?” Clyde gave the notebook back to Rowland.

  “Last I heard.”

  “Why would Middleton abduct Ed?” Milton said angrily.

  “The chap who recognised Ed was of the opinion she left with him quite voluntarily.”

  “Without leaving a word for us?” Milton would not have it. “Bloody nonsense.”

  “Where the hell would he have taken her?” Rowland was aware that they didn’t know a great deal about the writer despite the fact that Middleton had courted Edna on and off for years. That was his fault. He had always borne the sculptress’ loves by ignoring them wherever possible, and perhaps Clyde and Milton had followed his lead.

  “We’d better let Delaney know.” Clyde calmed the conversation with practical action. “This is something at least.”

  “Just a moment.” Rowland caught sight of the platform guard and walked over to him. He showed him the drawing of the man they thought was Middleton. The guard looked at the picture and called over a colleague. They consulted for a while before returning to Rowland.

  “Middleton you say? Joe here reckons he may be the gentlemen that left his tennis racquet behind. He telephoned the station this morning to see if we had it in our lost property.”

  “It was left in the gentlemen’s rest room,” Joe said. “Is he a friend of yours, sir?”

  “Yes.” Rowland elected not to explain that he wasn’t actually interested in Middleton.

  “I only ask because if you are calling out to see him, we could give you the tennis racquet to return to him.”

  “I’d be happy to. Where is he staying?”

  The platform guard was more hesitant. “What did you say your name was, sir?”

  “Sinclair, Rowland Sinclair.” Rowland handed the man his card. “I’m staying at the Terminus.”

  The card, which listed Rowland’s residence as Woodlands House, Woollahra, below an embossed Sinclair crest did much to reassure the guard that Rowland wasn’t trying to steal the racquet. Middleton, it appeared, had given his details when he called so that return of his property could be arranged. When Rowland finally rejoined his friends, he had a tennis racquet and an address.

  Willowview, on the way to Howlong, was set well back from the road and so its grandeur was not visible until the Airflow was well down the elm-lined drive. The colonial mansion was secluded by tall pines. Its location, miles from town and well away from any other house, might have rendered it ominous if there were not more than a dozen vehicles parked on the grassy flat near the entrance stairs.

  Rowland brought the Airflow to a stop beside an Armstrong Siddeley and the three of them stepped out. Milton grabbed the tennis racquet from the back seat.

  A maid in a traditional black and white uniform answered the door. “Mr. Middleton is with other guests at the tennis courts. If you’ll wait here, sir, I’ll fetch him.”

  They waited on the doorstep for fifteen minutes. Still there was no sign of the maid’s return.

  “Sod this for a joke.” Milton rang the bell again.

  “She said he was at the tennis courts,” Clyde said. “Maybe we should just go round and find him.”

  “It might be more useful than standing here.” Rowland was frustrated. Though he knew that the body in the Albury Hospital morgue was not Edna, the murdered woman made the sculptress’ disappearance a terrifying thing.

  The tennis courts were not difficult to find once they’d made their way to the grounds behind the house. A long, linen-draped trestle table had been laid with a feast of cakes and lemonade. Servants with trays of cordials moved among guests in tennis attire.

  Rowland looked for Middleton, but it was Edna he spotted first. She stood encircled by young men observing the match at play. For a moment Rowland just watched her, too relieved to speak. She turned as if she sensed his gaze. She smiled, the natural enchanting smile that never failed to cause Rowland’s breath to catch though he knew it well. She pushed out of the circle and approached them with her arms outstretched.

  “Finally… where have you been? Did you forget about me?”

  Rowland nearly laughed, the idea was so absurd. He had thought of nothing else.

  “What do you mean?” Milton was cross. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. We were worried sick and you’ve been here doing God knows what!”

  “That’s not true!” Edna embraced each of them in turn regardless of Milton’s censure. “We left a message at the station.”

  “By we you mean you and Middleton?” Rowland asked.

  Edna looked at him. “Oh, Rowly, you’re not cross too, are you? I ran into Bertie on the train. When I got the telegram that you were delayed, he suggested I go with him. He needed a partner for mixed doubles and he was sure Maggie would have a spare tennis dress… He spoke to the station master to make sure you’d know where to find me.”

  “Where is Middleton?”

  “Right here, old chap!” Bertram Middleton emerged in tennis whites. “You got here, finally! Edna was beginning to think you’d abandoned her entirely. It’s a good job I was on hand to rescue the lady.”

  A slight wrinkle appeared in Edna’s forehead. “You did leave a message with the station master, didn’t you, Bertie?”

  “Of course.” He beamed at Rowland. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t passed on!”

  “It was not.” Clyde handed him the tennis racquet. “The station master had no knowledge of where Ed went, though he did receive the message regarding your flaming racquet.”

  “Good Lord, you don’t say.” Middleton practised a few
strokes. “Well, I’ll be having words with the station master’s superior whoever he is. Clearly the incompetent fool failed to pass on my first message!” He winked at Edna. “Still, all’s well that ends well. We’ve had a smashing time, haven’t we, Eddie.”

  Rowland resisted a vague urge to punch Middleton. It was a misunderstanding after all—the writer could not possibly know the panic Edna’s absence would cause.

  “Rowly, we should probably let the police know that Ed’s no longer missing.” Clyde spoke quietly but Edna overheard.

  “The police?” she said incredulously. “You called the police?”

  “I say, Sinclair, that’s a bit of an overreaction, isn’t it? Surely you didn’t expect poor Eddie to just wait around for your pleasure?”

  “We had no idea where you were, Ed.” Rowland ignored Middleton.

  “For pity’s sake, I’m a grown woman… and you were late.” Edna would not tolerate any attempts to constrain or control her. Not even those that were well intentioned.

  Middleton added fuel. “Good heavens, Sinclair, not being where you told her to be is hardly a crime. Did you expect to have Ed arrested?”

  Edna’s eyes flashed. “I hope the police had enough sense to tell you not to be silly.”

  “Actually the police think you’re dead,” Milton replied.

  “Did I hear someone mention the police? Surely we’re not that rowdy!” A sturdy gentleman, physically softened by middle age, joined them.

  Middleton introduced the Honourable Thomas Ley, who had apparently served in both the NSW and Federal parliaments. The erstwhile politician was only just returned from England.

  “These gentlemen are friends of Miss Higgins who were so concerned by her stepping out with me that they contacted the constabulary to keep her from my clutches,” Middleton declared, laughing.

  “How very chivalrous.” Ley gestured to a servant. “Do grab a lemonade, gentlemen, and allow me to introduce you around.”

  “We don’t wish to impose, Mr. Ley. We only came to find Miss Higgins and return Mr. Middleton’s tennis racquet.”

  “Nonsense, Miss Higgins and Mr. Middleton are playing in the finals this afternoon. It’d be a jolly shame to miss the match.”

  Middleton piped up. “It would indeed. We’re the favourites, you know. Don’t be such a wet blanket, Sinclair.”

  The blue of Rowland’s eyes darkened dangerously.

  Edna intervened. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bertie. It’s not Wimbledon.” She turned to Rowland, forgetting that she was piqued and declaring her allegiances. “There are any number of ladies who will play in my place if you want to go now. And I don’t mind. I want to hear what the three of you have been up to… aside from bothering the police.”

  Rowland glanced at Milton and Clyde. The former had somehow acquired a drink and a slice of cream sponge. Clyde shrugged; he was uneasy in the soirees of the well to do, but it did seem rude to demand Edna abandon the tournament.

  “I’m sure we can wait until you finish the match,” Rowland said finally. “But I will need to telephone Delaney to let him know you’ve been found.”

  “Why don’t I show you to the telephone while Miss Higgins and Mr. Middleton take the court,” Ley offered. He led Rowland into the house.

  “Is this your home, Mr. Ley?” Rowland asked.

  “Oh no… it belongs to dear friends who are holidaying in New Zealand of all places—they go every year. They very kindly invited Maggie and me to use it from time to time while we were in the country.”

  “And are you in Australia for long?” Rowland inquired more to make conversation than out of any real curiosity.

  “Well that depends. I’m considering standing for office again. If things go well, I may find myself residing in the Antipodes once more.”

  “I see.” They’d reached the library in which the telephone was located.

  “Retirement doesn’t suit me, I’m afraid. London is well and good but I am a man of the people and there is much to be done here.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Politics is a funny game.” Ley seemed to be in no hurry to bring the conversation to a close. “Now that Bruce is gone perhaps they’ll let bygones be bygones.”

  “Bruce?”

  “Stanley Melbourne… our venerable eighth prime minister. He decided I was not made of the right stuff for the Nationalist Party. Perhaps the United Australia Party will be more welcoming.”

  Rowland had become well acquainted with Stanley Bruce when he was in London the year before, and Lyons, the current prime minister, just recently. They were undeniably very different men. “Well, best of luck, Mr. Ley.”

  “Why thank you, my friend.” He gestured towards the phone. “Please be my guest. Do let the constabulary know that not only is Miss Higgins no longer missing but she has a deceptive drop shot and a capital serve.”

  5

  POLITICAL FALSE ALARM

  Mr. John Thomas Ley

  Since Dick Whittington started the fashion of aspiring to and actually managing to grab the crown of glory, despite the most humble and inauspicious beginning, he has had numerous disciples. One of the long list of ‘self-made’ men of to-day is Mr. John Thomas Ley, Minister for Justice in the Fuller alleged Government.

  Somewhere between ten and twelve years of age—a time when most nippers are concerned with kites, conundrums and copy-book cogitations—John Thomas ventured forth into the hard, cold world to wrest from it a living—and, incidentally, step on the lower rung of the ladder to fame. He found the world even colder than most, for he had to rise before dawn every day to take up his duties on a milk-cart. And, as in the case of the admiral in W.S. Gilbert’s ‘H.M.S. Pinafore,’ his success in such a mundane business as the transportation of lacteal fluid started him on the way to becoming a ruler. But Mr. John Thomas degenerated into politics. Of the law he knows quite a lot.

  The milk-ladler’s first great deed as a politician was to spur on proportional representation, by which means he topped the poll in St George. As Ley’s politics are not designed to provide the wage-earner with milk or honey, it is a tribute to the vote-milking properties of the new electoral system. Mr. John Thomas Ley’s ambition is unbounded. He has hitched his waggon to a star—possibly one of the Milky Way constellation. When defeated by Charlie Hoax for the job as right-hand man to Fuller, and the ‘king pin’ when Fuller gets full of the job, he turned his eyes on the leaderless prohibitionists and sectarians.

  The Legislative Council has poured a cold douche on the sectarian serpent, and Brother Hammond has ungratefully scowled on Ley’s schemes for removing the whisky-bottle and substituting the milk-jug. Further, at the impending elections there is an immense possibility that all Nationalists, including Minister Ley, will be asked not to minister for the next three years, and this despite an unblemished and milky white sheet bearing a record of Ley’s achievements — nothing! His ambition is likely to get a jar that will make it feel like a milk-shake.

  Hobby: Seeking votes on the ‘Ley-by’ system, or in other words pandering to the prejudice of sectarians.

  Vice: Threatening to resign, but declining.

  Truth, 19 October 1924

  When Rowland returned, Clyde and Milton had found deckchairs from which to watch Edna and Middleton’s final match.

  “Lemonade?” Rowland asked, nodding at the drinks they held.

  Milton opened his jacket to reveal a flask. “We may have flavoured it with a little something. Ley must be a Temperance Leaguer.”

  Rowland took the deckchair beside them.

  “You all right, Rowly?” Clyde asked.

  Rowland glanced at Edna who was warming up on the grass court. There had been a few seconds in the mortuary when he had thought the worst. Before he’d taken in enough detail to realise that the poor wretch on the table was not the sculptress. And many hours since then when he had feared the worst. “Yes. I am now.”

  “Do you think Middleton left a message at the station, or was it
all malarky?” Milton observed the journalist from a distance.

  Rowland said nothing. He was aware that he was unlikely to be truly fair to any man who sought Edna’s affections. Even so, Middleton was brasher than he remembered. Perhaps the writer was being more creative in his attempts to keep her attention.

  “What did Delaney say?” Clyde noted the angry glint in his friend’s dark blue eyes and elected to change the subject lest Rowland decide to deck Middleton.

  “He said he’d never been so glad to be wrong.”

  “Have they found out who that poor girl is?”

  Rowland shook his head. “Delaney said something about preserving the body.”

  “Why?”

  “So they can put it on display in the hope someone recognises her.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Clyde crossed himself. “Where on earth does Delaney expect to display her?”

  “I’m not quite sure. He wants me back in Albury so I can make a sketch of what her face might have looked like.”

  “Really? Are you keen?”

  “Not keen. But I’ll do it. Hopefully they’ll identify her before Delaney needs to turn her into a sideshow.” Rowland feared death was not to be the last outrage the unfortunate woman would suffer. She could not be buried until she was given a name.

  Aside from the distinct absence of alcohol, Ley’s hospitality could not be faulted. Hors d’oeuvres came out at regular intervals and there was lemonade aplenty. Their host was congenial and at pains to ensure they were appropriately introduced.

  It was during one of these introductions that Rowland Sinclair and Miss Jemima Fairweather were reacquainted.

  “Rowland Sinclair, I know you!” The stylish brunette reached up and kissed him quite passionately, and without any hesitation or warning. Rowland was too startled to resist.

  He hadn’t seen the lady in nearly fifteen years. But he hadn’t forgotten her kiss.

  “I was Rowly’s first love,” she announced to everybody in earshot. “We might have married if we hadn’t been children!”

  Rowland had been not quite fifteen years of age when American-born Jemima had come to spend the summer with her grandmother in Yass. She’d been a year or two older than him and he had been completely at her mercy. His memory of their association was one of awkward adolescent passions and utter bewilderment. She’d decided he was in love with her and demanded he act accordingly. He’d not been unwilling, but by the end of the summer she was gone. Still, the memory of her was not unpleasant and he was glad to see her again.