A Dangerous Language

by Sulari Gentill

  He got dressed, though the doctors advised him against leaving and the police guard prevented him from doing so. He waited in the private room to which he’d been confined in a suit still splattered with Alcott’s blood and his own. Wilfred Sinclair found him there. “How are you holding up, Rowly?”

  Rowland looked up, surprised. He hadn’t expected those to be Wilfred’s first words. “I don’t know. I just feel a bit… I don’t know.”

  Wilfred nodded. “It’s not easy to watch a man die.”

  Fleetingly, Rowland wondered how many men Wilfred had watched die. His brother had been a soldier. Perhaps this feeling was why Wilfred never talked of the war. “I didn’t kill him, Wil. I didn’t intend—”

  “I know that.” Wilfred sighed. “Not that anyone, most of all me, would have blamed you for defending yourself. I’m sorry it came to this. Henry was quite a nice chap before the war. He and Aubrey were great chums.”

  Rowland swallowed. “He thought I was Aubrey in the end.”

  “It might have given him some comfort. You do look like Aubrey, or what he would have looked like if he’d lived to be your age.”

  They sat in silence for a while, both dwelling on the brother they’d lost, the absence they still felt keenly.

  “The matron tells me that you’re insisting on going home as soon as the police are finished with you.”

  “Yes. I wish they’d hurry up.” Rowland glanced down at his bloodstained clothes. “I’d really like to change.”

  “Mr. Ley came to see me in Melbourne,” Wilfred said suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “On behalf of his client.”

  “Jemima?”

  “No. The lady’s husband, Mr. Oswald Roche.”

  “What?” Rowland knew this wouldn’t be good.

  “He informed me that Roche intends to sue you for seducing his wife and consequently destroying his marriage.”

  For a moment Rowland was speechless. “And Jemima?”

  “She has apparently lodged proceedings for divorce, naming you, which of course substantiates his case.”

  Rowland cursed. His part in this had been so neatly engineered. “So why did Ley come to you and not me?”

  “I believe he was hoping for a substantial out of court settlement. He assumed, quite correctly, that I would be more concerned about your reputation than you might.”

  Rowland groaned. Jemima seemed to wreak havoc without ever meaning to… or perhaps she was as complicit in this as she had been in everything else. “Did you pay him?” he asked wearily.

  Wilfred took off his spectacles and met his brother’s eye. “No. We spoke frankly. In the end, Mr. Ley decided to return to England quite urgently. He embarked the day before yesterday. Oswald Roche may decide to press his claims through another solicitor, but Mr. Ley is no longer acting for either him or Jemima Roche nee Fairweather.”

  “Ley’s gone?”

  “Unless, of course, he chose to leap from the ship while it was in port… yes, he’s gone.”

  Rowland rubbed his face. “Look, Wil, this business with Egon, I’m sorry—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Rowly. Take your friends and go home. I’ll do what I can to make sure your part in this latest mess does not appear in the papers.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I do. You’re a Sinclair, Rowly. Whatever you choose to do, I will not have you disgrace us publicly again.”

  “Egon—” Rowland began wearily. He couldn’t just leave his friend in prison.

  “He’s where he belongs, Rowly.”

  “When Germany wanted to put me in prison, Egon got me out of there, Wil. He’s injured. I’ve been in those cells… they are no place for an injured man. He should be in a hospital.”

  Wilfred used his handkerchief to polish his spectacles. He replaced them before he spoke. “Perhaps.”

  The courtroom was crowded for the bail hearing, with all the benches taken and people standing, pressed shoulder to shoulder at the back. Rowland squeezed in beside his companions after relaying a last minute message to the accused from his barrister. “This is a bail hearing—make it clear that you are unlikely to escape.”

  Having been suddenly transferred from prison to hospital the night before, Egon Kisch was carried into the court in his pyjamas and set down in the prison dock. In moments, he collapsed.

  To gasps of horror and cries of “shame”, the injured journalist was then placed on the floor in front of the bench. He was pale and did not seem lucid. His lip trembled and he suppressed a groan from time to time.

  “What the hell did they do to him in the hospital?” Clyde muttered. “He was in better shape when he left the prison.”

  Piddington, K.C., a barrister of the most distinguished and ancient kind, began his oration, outlining that his client had been illegally denied entry in Fremantle, and again in Melbourne where he was attacked and forcibly taken on board a ship, and then when the High Court released him in Sydney, he was kidnapped again and a murderous attack made on his lawyer.

  All this while the accused lay in fevered agony on the floor.

  The prosecution argued that the only question was whether the accused had passed the dictation test.

  Mr. Piddington claimed the test was illegal, demanded an adjournment, and that his client be released on bail.

  Immediately the prosecution rose in protest. “The accused is a dangerous agitator and his audacious leap from the liner only demonstrates the great risk of his escaping.”

  The accused whimpered weakly.

  “What?” The judge, a practical jurist by the name of May, interrupted. “You can’t tell me that a man with a broken leg is going to run away!” He set the bail at £100 and adjourned the proceedings for a week.

  Now, finally free, Egon Kisch jumped up from what had appeared his death bed and hobbled like a resurrected messiah to the door. For a moment onlookers gaped at the miracle and then laughter broke out, followed closely by cheers.

  And so Egon Kisch was unleashed upon the innocent citizens of the Commonwealth, but first he was required to return to the Sydney Hospital to be formally discharged. There he spoke with the four young people who had fought so hard to bring him onto Australian soil.

  “Thank you, comrades and Mr. Sinclair, who is not a comrade but nevertheless a friend.” Egon shook their hands and kissed Edna’s. “I know what you have risked for me and I am humbly grateful.”

  “How are you, Herr Kisch?” Edna asked, glancing at his elevated and plastered leg.

  Egon smiled. “My English is broken, my leg is broken, but my heart is not. It is full of the friendship shown to me, and buoyed by the fact that I will fulfil the task entrusted me by the anti-Fascists of Europe. I will speak to the people of Australia.” He shrugged. “They can arrest me again after that. I will have told my story, spoken the words Mr. Menzies believes so dangerous.”

  “Well we’re glad you’re here,” Edna said. “And when you’re not rousing the masses, you must come to Woodlands.”

  “I will come, Miss Higgins, I will leap from a dozen ships to do so!”

  “Or I can send the car,” Rowland offered.

  Clyde laughed. “We’ll be at the Domain tomorrow to hear you speak.”

  “How is Miss Jollie Smith? Have you heard?” Egon asked.

  “I saw her,” Rowland replied. “She is on the mend. Mr. Piddington expects her back to prepare your case against the dictation test tomorrow.”

  “And the man who attacked her?”

  “He is in prison.”

  Egon sighed. “Perhaps we will meet there, if the dictation test prevails.”

  All too soon, other visitors demanded their time with the great man, and Rowland and his companions made their farewells. They returned to Woodlands House from which they had all been mostly absent for months. There they found Elisabeth Sinclair waiting for them behind a selection of the day’s papers from which she was taking notes and making cuttings.


  “It seems the girl from Shanghai is alive and well,” she informed them, as she cut through a picture of Egon Kisch to save the article on the other side of the page. One of Edna’s cats had settled atop the stack of papers, and protested as Elisabeth pulled another publication from the pile.

  “What girl from Shanghai, Mrs. Sinclair?” Clyde asked.

  “The one they thought was that poor girl in pyjamas,” Elisabeth replied. “Good gracious, Aubrey, do you and your friends not follow current events?”

  Rowland glanced at her cuttings. “I see. I take it they’re no closer to identifying her?”

  “No. I suppose they’ve been busy dealing with that fellow from the ship.” Elisabeth Sinclair gathered her notes. “I must change for dinner.” She smoothed down her son’s lapel, frowning as she noticed a small spot of yellow paint. “You might consider doing the same, Aubrey. You’re not in Tourist anymore!”

  “I too have been concerned about slipping standards,” Milton added gravely, his dark eyes glinting.

  “If only Aubrey had your sense of style, Mr. Isaacs.” Elisabeth gazed admiringly at the poet’s pristine if eccentric attire.

  “It’s unfair to compare… Mrs. Sinclair.” The poet’s smile grew with the realisation of each accidental rhyme. “I’m sure he does his best.”

  “Oh God!” Clyde groaned.

  “It’s his at least,” Rowland muttered.

  “More’s the pity.”

  With a typically theatrical show of offence, Milton called them philistines, offered Elisabeth his arm, and escorted Rowland’s mother to her private wing.

  Edna pulled out the remaining newspapers from under her cat and read out the articles on Kisch. “Egon has made quite the entrance.”

  Rowland removed his jacket, hanging it on an easel before loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves in a way that might have driven Elisabeth Sinclair to despair had she seen it. He set a new canvas on the easel and squeezed sepia pigment onto his palette. God, how he loved the smell of oils and turpentine, the promise of a blank canvas.

  “Sit for me, Ed,” he asked. “Please.”

  “Now?” she said, surprised. “I believe your mother wants us dressed for dinner.” Rarely did Rowland paint her as anything but a nude.

  He laughed. “Just as you are.”

  Edna obliged, making herself comfortable in the yellow leather armchair in which she often modelled for Rowland, and curling her legs up onto the ample seat. She rested her head in a crooked elbow.

  “Look at me, Ed.” Rowland was already shadowing her form on the canvas with broad, loose strokes and dilute colour.

  She raised her eyes and fixed them on his face, smiling gently as she watched the intensity with which he worked, applying paint with such vigour that it occasionally seemed the canvas might buckle.

  Clyde settled back on the couch, and Lenin joined him, resting his long, one-eared head on his old friend’s chest. Shortly after Milton returned, Mary Brown brought Colin Delaney to the door of Rowland’s studio. She announced the detective with a pointed reminder that dinner would be served in an hour.

  “I won’t be long.” Delaney glanced at the servant apologetically.

  “Be as long as you like,” Rowland grinned as he observed the ease with which his housekeeper made a detective sergeant cower. “Why don’t you join us for dinner?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Delaney said tentatively.

  Mary Brown’s sigh was more the kind of exhalation one would expect from a charging bull, but she said nothing, nodding curtly and returning to her duties. To her mind, Rowland’s propensity to entertain policemen at the house would only lead to idle speculation as to why the constabulary needed to call on Woodlands so regularly. But the young master seemed to have no idea or concern for how things should be done. Mary shook her head. If Mr. Wilfred Sinclair was not relying on her to keep an eye on his brother she would have found a more respectable situation years ago.

  “I’ve just heard unofficially from Canberra,” Delaney began.

  “So Alcott and his mates were responsible for the murder of Jim Kelly?” Milton handed the detective a glass of gin.

  “They’ve accrued quite a few charges between them.” Delaney took a seat as he explained. “It appears they were all members of some group called the Commonwealth Legion… comprised of several old boys of the Fascist Legion, the Riverina Movement, the White Guard and various veterans’ leagues. They’ve been targeting Communists. There have been a number of reported assaults. Jim Kelly’s was the first murder.” Delaney glanced at Rowland. “Lamb claims Kelly was ‘tried and sentenced by the Legion’.”

  “Sentenced to death?”

  Delaney nodded. “Their man, Smith, and the peace officer assigned to the security detail around Parliament House are, as you suspected, one and the same. It appears the Legion had identified Kelly as an operative and, after attempting to undermine him, they executed the poor bloke. When Milt arrived on the scene, Smith had to act quickly.”

  Rowland changed his brush. “So he handcuffed Milt and went into Parliament House purportedly to telephone for help, but primarily to dispose of the murder weapon in the Lamson tube.”

  Delaney agreed. “Perhaps he intended to retrieve it before Lyons returned to find it.”

  “You’re lucky they didn’t just kill you too,” Clyde said to Milton.

  “They tried to rectify that omission with a Ford Tudor,” the poet replied tersely. “But you’re right. I wonder why they didn’t.”

  Delaney shrugged. “Possibly there were other people around by then, or Smith panicked or it just didn’t occur to him.”

  Edna spoke without disturbing her pose. “And the gentlemen in Queanbeyan?”

  Rowland recalled the disgruntled husbands of Queanbeyan. “They may well have wanted to kill Kelly, but I don’t think they were involved.”

  “Major Jones has looked into Sunshine Studios,” Delaney said. “Fellow called Banks confessed to selling photographs of certain clients to a man with a distinct scar on his face.”

  “Alcott?”

  “Possibly. He certainly fits the description.”

  “He used those photographs to turn Kelly’s comrades against him,” Milton said disgustedly. It seemed a low trick, but then these were murderers not gentlemen.

  “So the Communist badges they pinned on their victims were to identify them as Communist?” Clyde asked.

  “They wanted the ‘executions’ to act as a deterrent to others who might work for the Party, to expose Communists in our midst.”

  “Did they attack Rowly too?” Edna asked.

  “According to Lamb and Smith, Alcott had a special interest in you, Rowly.” Delaney patted Lenin who it seemed had become bored of Clyde and was seeking attention elsewhere. “Apparently, the Commonwealth Legion had a spy in this anti-war group that brought out Kisch. They had always intended to stop him landing but when Alcott learned that you were involved, he thought it an opportunity to teach you a lesson too.”

  “A lesson?”

  “You had a very lethal enemy in Alcott, Rowly.”

  “But now Mr. Alcott is dead, so Rowly has nothing to worry about,” Edna said more hopefully than confidently.

  Delaney frowned. “We don’t know how large the Commonwealth Legion is, Miss Higgins. We might have carved the heart out of it, we might only have severed a limb.”

  “Every man has enemies, Ed,” Rowland said quietly, inspecting the soft image already coming to life on his canvas. “To be honest, I’m quite proud of which men consider me theirs.”

  Epilogue

  KISCH ENGLISH

  All shades of Left-wing opinion, from pale pink to the deeper vermilion, were represented at the dinner given to Herr Egon Kisch by the Writers’ League in Melbourne. Interest, in the main, was centred on discovering some of the benefits, alleged or actual, to be derived from affiliation with the Writers’ International to which, according to Herr Kisch, every literary man of European repute bel
ongs. The only literary men of any importance in Europe, he said, held Left-wing or Socialist views (says the “Age”). There were few, if any, writers of international fame who were not members of the Writers’ International. Ludwig Rehn and several German Left-wing authors were in prison. Hans Faliada was the only Nazi author of any repute, and even the Nazis looked down on him since they were more interested in military than literary matters. Australian authors were unknown in Europe, or, if they enjoyed any repute, they were estimated as British writers. Herr Kisch displayed a lively sense of humour in his attitude towards the amount of “nursing” he has had from the Commonwealth authorities. He apologised for the occasionally halting phrases of his speech, asking the audience not to discriminate too closely between “Kisch English and King’s English.” Two of his books, “Secret China” and “No Admittance,” are to be translated into English and published by a London house. The latter title, he declared, had nothing to do with Australia.

  Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 6 March 1935

  On 19 December, 1934, the full bench of the High Court of Australia ruled that the dictation test used to exclude Egon Kisch from Australia was invalid because, among other things, the constable who administered the test did not have himself a sufficient knowledge of Gaelic. A second declaration under the Immigration Restriction Act overcame the technical difficulty the court found with the first and Egon Kisch was convicted by the Central Sydney Police Court of being a prohibited immigrant and sentenced to three months with hard labour. This was again appealed to the High Court which released Kisch on bail pending a hearing of the full bench.

  During this legal to and fro, Kisch travelled the country addressing rallies and crowds in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, spreading his message against Fascism and the excesses of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Government.

  In desperation to rid themselves of the “Raging Reporter” the Commonwealth Government offered to remit Kisch’s sentence, abandon legal proceedings, and pay all the Czechoslovak’s legal costs if he would leave by 11 March, 1935. Having achieved an audience and notoriety far greater than the Movement Against War and Fascism ever hoped, he agreed.