Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-time Husband

by Barbara Toner

  Adelaide handed it to Pearl who said, ‘It’s the key to everything.’

  In many respects it was. Jimmy Worthington, it seemed, confronted by his own regiment’s need for horses to replace those killed at the Front, had spotted a way to make money for his impoverished wife back home. He would bypass the usual channels. He knew about horses, he knew what was needed, and someone, it seemed, knew where to find them. The lieutenant couldn’t pay until the horses were safely delivered but he would put up his house as security. That was the contract he signed, for 200 battle-fit Walers to be shipped as agreed. There was his signature. The scrawled autograph beneath it bore no resemblance to the name Archie Stokes. In fact it bore no resemblance to anything other than a scrawl but it vouched for the war worthiness of the animals and a delivery date.

  Maggie took the contract into the light and stared at it. ‘Let me have a closer look,’ she said. She stared and she stared. Then she put her hand to her mouth. She passed the document to Pearl. ‘It’s clear enough when you get the first few letters. Jimmy Worthington did the deal with his own sister. She’s the blackmailer.’

  It was a bad time one way or another for Larry Murdoch to bang on the shop doors and demand admittance. ‘You don’t usually close for stock-taking,’ he said when Pearl admitted him. ‘Everything all right, Adelaide? Marcus home yet?’

  ‘Marcus has gone to Melbourne. Remember?’ How calm she was. Not even slightly fazed by a man with a smile as friendly as the blade of a breadknife. ‘He needed to get away. His nerves aren’t as good as they used to be.’ How brave she was with Pearl and Maggie standing shoulder to shoulder with her, no longer tiptoeing nervously around the subject of her husband’s weakened health and frail temper. Not even slightly betraying the knowledge she had of his treacherous wife. ‘Now what can we do for you?’

  ‘The audit.’ Larry Murdoch produced a large envelope with a flourish. ‘You’ll be delighted with it. Not a penny out of place. Not a tin unaccounted for. Everything as it should be.’

  ‘Which ledgers were you working from, Mr Murdoch?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Well if it’s any of your business, young lady, those provided by the shop manager. That’s how it usually works.’

  ‘Thank you, Larry,’ said Adelaide. ‘I’ll read it with pleasure. Please give my regards to Baby. It was lovely to see her looking so well.’

  ‘And what’s going on here?’ asked Mr Murdoch, eagle-eyed suddenly and reaching for the pile of documents on the counter. ‘Having a clear out?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Adelaide, sweeping everything beyond his reach and onto the floor. ‘Maggie’s about to gather up the lot and put it in the bonfire we’re going to have out the back.’

  ‘Good thing too,’ said Larry Murdoch. ‘Now where’s Mr Stokes? On holiday as well?’

  ‘He’s left,’ said Adelaide. ‘He resigned. Didn’t you know? You must be the last person to hear. He’s been gone two days.’ As she was speaking she was walking him to the door, which she opened to edge him out.

  ‘Two days?’ Larry Murdoch repeated. ‘Two days? I can’t believe my wife didn’t know. Surely she knew.’

  ‘I don’t know what Baby knows or doesn’t know,’ said Adelaide. ‘All I know is he’s gone and we’re stock-taking.’ It sounded more defiant than it should have. She closed the door behind him and leaned against it looking from Pearl to Maggie with the same anxious gaze they had fixed on her.

  ‘He’s up to his eyes in it,’ said Maggie. ‘He and his wife are in it together with Mr Stokes. Whoever QM is, he’s not a bona fide supplier. I’d better hide some of this paperwork in case they come back to get it. He didn’t believe for a single minute that we’d burn anything.’

  ‘We’ll give it to the Fletchers,’ said Adelaide. ‘Don’t you think, Miss McCleary? Can you run in those shoes?’

  ‘Maybe you should go,’ said Pearl. ‘I always go.’

  ‘Of course you always go. You know how to explain things.’ Adelaide was standing no nonsense. ‘Maggie and I will be all right here. The boys should be in from school any minute. Off you go.’

  So Pearl went, knowing that she could explain things well and that any explanation would need to be calm and concise because matters were urgent and action needed to be taken. There could be no blushing or stammering or sulking or carrying on like a silly young thing, just the telling of cold hard facts. ‘Lock yourselves in,’ she said as she arranged her hat to best effect. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

  Chapter Fifty-one

  It was to be on the safe side that Maggie decided to separate the most critical pieces of evidence against Mr Stokes and place them into a large shopping bag to be removed from the shop for safe-keeping. There were the papers from the file marked J Worthington, assorted ledger notes for mysterious deliveries, most especially those labelled QM, sheets of Maggie’s own calculations with red circles to mark discrepancies, Mr Murdoch’s audit and, dropped in at the last minute, the file marked BLUETT V O’CONNELL LAND DISPUTE (FINAL!). ‘Don’t let go of it,’ she said, handing the bag to Pearl. ‘Don’t stop for anyone.’

  Pearl found Joe Fletcher in his yard, unloading timber fencing from the cart. He put down his load as she approached. ‘You again?’

  ‘Evidence,’ she said, patting the shopping bag. ‘The Murdochs are in it up to their eyeballs. Mr Murdoch came to the shop. He’s …’ But before she could say exactly what Mr Murdoch was, Joe Fletcher interrupted.

  ‘You need to tell Harry,’ he said. They took the cart, jolting fast along the very bumpy track from the homestead to the shack in the distance whose chimney was now blasting smoke at a furious rate. ‘Be prepared for a shock,’ was all he said.

  He hurried ahead of her, calling, ‘Harry! Here’s Miss McCleary. Murdoch’s on the move.’

  Harry Fletcher didn’t greet Pearl. He rose quickly from a table in the far corner of the small dark room filling the entire space. ‘When did you last see him?’ He looked to Pearl for an answer.

  ‘Half an hour ago. He came to the shop. He didn’t know Mr Stokes had gone. He came to give Mrs Nightingale his audit. It’s a load of baloney. And we’ve found the contract that proves Mrs Murdoch is Louisa’s blackmailer.’ She handed him the shopping bag, which he placed on the table.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he asked.

  ‘Ledgers, letters, a key, some folders … proof that Stokes was robbing the shop blind and Larry Murdoch knew. Proof that Archie Stokes knew Mrs Murdoch was blackmailing Mrs Worthington –’

  ‘I think we’ll grab ’em all now,’ Harry Fletcher said to his brother. He reached for his hat.

  ‘Not without me,’ said Captain Nightingale, emerging from a room beyond. ‘Hello, Miss McCleary.’

  ‘Captain Nightingale,’ said Pearl in alarm. ‘Not in Melbourne. In good health, I hope.’ She might have said, Not dead? Not drunk? Any saner than you left us? But she was the housekeeper, not his wife, and the man appeared more composed than she might have expected.

  ‘Not in Melbourne. Held up on the way. And better than I was, thanks to these men.’ His nod included a third figure, who appeared in the doorway and paused, causing Pearl to grip the back of the chair closest to her.

  ‘It’s all right, Pearl,’ said Daniel Flannagan, limping towards her. ‘I’m not a ghost.’

  If all colour had left her face, if her mouth had dried and her body chilled, Pearl struggled to disguise it. Daniel was not the man she’d described to Martin Duffy. He might still have been in the order of five feet nine inches but he was thin and his face was grey and the look in his eye was careworn. He might have been a ghost.

  It seemed, for a fraction of a second, that he might try to embrace her but the coolness of her greeting seemed to stop him in his tracks. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said. ‘You need to be with Beattie. She’s ill.’

  ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘Harry has told me. I’ll go home as soon as I’ve finished here.’

  ‘And when will that be?’


  ‘No time soon unless we get a move on,’ said Harry Fletcher, heading to the door.

  She should have kissed her fiancé, on the cheek at least. She should have hugged him and said she was pleased to see him. But she couldn’t, paralysed as she was by the shock of seeing him in the flesh in the presence of another’s flesh she believed she valued more. She chose instead to act as if this were a man who meant nothing more to her than the next returned soldier and whose appearance safe, if not precisely sound, was a matter of relief more than unbridled joy. Her head was as full of questions and recriminations and concern as it should have been, but her tongue had no access to them. She said to the Fletchers, ‘I’m coming back into town with you.’

  ‘No, Pearl, please don’t go,’ said Daniel. ‘This is men’s business. Stay here. We have a lot to say to each other.’

  ‘We have, Daniel. But not now, I have my own business to attend to. It’s neither men’s nor women’s.’

  If the Fletcher brothers, or even Captain Nightingale, felt inclined to offer an opinion, they didn’t. They looked everywhere but at Daniel and Pearl, and Pearl, in any case, was halfway out the door. ‘If everyone’s ready, I most certainly am. I need to get back the shop quickly. I will see you soon, Daniel. I’m pleased to have found you.’ They were on their way before Daniel even had time to ask after Beattie.

  The sad truth was that Pearl’s thoughts were less with Beattie, Annie or Daniel than they were with Maggie and Adelaide. She had no real reason to fear for them – nothing in his manner suggested Larry Murdoch was a violent man – but fear she did.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  At the shop, Maggie and Adelaide were less fearful but jumpy nonetheless. The shop’s front doors were locked and the shutters were down but everything was under control, with the possible exception of Ed O’Connell’s hunger, which was constant.

  While Maggie continued to sort and file records and Adelaide continued to itemise the contents of the shelves, Ed prowled. He looked for food from behind the counter, in the storeroom and for any scraps that other people might have left behind, but Maggie would say only, ‘Ed, I’ve given you bread and butter. You can wait until we get home for your dinner. This is not our food to take as we like.’

  No one noticed him wander into the delivery yard. No one heard his intake of breath at the sight of a figure in a dark coat with a hat pulled low, letting himself into the shed to which there was no key. Even Ed knew there was no key because he’d looked for it. Mrs Nightingale had told him no one had the key and the shed was probably empty. But the figure had a key and this figure, although not the build of Mr Stokes, was easily as big a wrong’un as Mr Stokes. Ed deduced this much in a heartbeat.

  Thinking of nothing but justice, he called out, ‘Hey, what are you doing there? This is private property.’

  At which point, Baby Worthington turned and raised a rifle, which she pointed straight at his head.

  Since Ed’s experience of shooting was aiming and missing, he underestimated the nature of the threat and headed back into the delivery bay yelling, ‘Take cover, everyone! There’s a man out here with a gun!’ And he might have slammed the door on Baby Worthington had she not fired, causing him to hurl himself into the delivery bay.

  Adelaide, who’d been in the storeroom when he called, grabbed his arm and dragged him into the shop and then into the office where Maggie was placing herself between little Freddie and danger, yelling at Al to get in here quick. She thought he had. She thought he was under the desk with Ed so she pulled the office door closed and locked it.

  ‘Open this door, Adelaide,’ called Baby Worthington. ‘There’s no need to be frightened. I just need to talk to you.’

  ‘Don’t open it,’ called stupid Al from his hiding place, not under the desk but ten feet from danger under the smallgoods counter. ‘He’s got a gun and it’s aimed right at you.’

  ‘Now it’s aimed right at you, sonny,’ said Baby Worthington. ‘So get on your feet and walk out here where I can see you. Hear that, Adelaide? My gun is pointing at the boy so open the door.’ In the silence that fell Maggie’s mouth opened to give vent to horror but Adelaide put her finger to her lips. Baby’s tone subsided into wheedling. ‘I just need to collect a couple of items Mr Stokes left behind which he says are personal.’

  ‘You don’t need a gun for that, Baby,’ called Adelaide.

  ‘No, I don’t. I thought the boy was a burglar. I’ve put the gun down.’

  ‘He hasn’t,’ reported Al, believing himself too young to die.

  ‘Baby, what on earth has Mr Stokes got to do with you?’ asked Adelaide. ‘What’s it matter to you what he has or hasn’t left?’

  ‘Not much,’ agreed Baby laughing drily. ‘Except Mr Stokes dislikes you almost as much as I do and hatred is a powerful bond.’

  ‘I don’t hate you, Baby. I never have. I thought we were friends. We were very good friends, remember?’ There was silence.

  ‘Baby?’

  ‘I remember, Adelaide. I loved you once. You know that. I told you I loved you. Now I hate you.’ Another silence. ‘To be honest, I don’t care for anyone Beyond The Arch. That’s the point, Adelaide. That is the point. Now open the door and give me the key. If you’re going to be locked in, I’ll be the one doing the locking.’

  ‘Ow,’ yelled Al. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Let the boy go, for God’s sake,’ called Adelaide. ‘He’s got nothing to do with you, me or Mr Stokes.’

  ‘She’s pulling my hair. She hasn’t shot me,’ called Al. But then the gun did go off and Al fell silent.

  ‘Open the door!’ ordered Baby Worthington.

  So Adelaide did and Maggie rushed through it to take her rash young brother into her arms because all that had shut him up was fright.

  How odd it should have come to this. Who was to blame? Everyone and no one, you could argue. Love is offered, love is rejected, love grows, love dies, husbands go or don’t go to war, husbands fail to be the heroes or not the heroes their wives hoped they might be, parents prefer a son to a daughter. You could argue that, but not very well. Baby Worthington was to blame. She might have been full of pain but her intention was to inflict even more.

  She lined up her hostages against the tinned goods, she pulled up a stool, and she spat venomous fury at them all one at a time, starting with Adelaide, who’d firstly spurned her love and secondly married Marcus Nightingale to whom she was so clearly unsuited. It had obliged her to marry Larry Murdoch, the clown. Did Adelaide have any idea of the pain that had caused? Of course she didn’t. But she was about to find out.

  She’d had her revenge and she was about to have more. ‘See all this?’ She waved her arms over her head embracing in her gesture the entire shop, its rafters and its contents. ‘It’s made me a fortune.’ She’d been running Nightingales for years by remote control with the help of the greedy Mr Stokes. She’d been stocking it with stolen goods cunningly appropriated from Army supplies and all along the plan had been to pull the plug on it when the time was right. The time appeared to be now. The shop’s reputation, the family’s reputation, so painstakingly built during the war, would be as worthless as the naked shelves, and they would be naked, Adelaide. Stark naked. Baby Worthington hooted at the horror on the faces arrayed opposite her.

  And where was Louisa? Deceitful, grasping, ugly Louisa who’d always looked down on her. Baby was grateful to Louisa. Louisa had been so whining and pathetic. Without Louisa it would never has been as easy to trap her Jimmy into a debt she’d known he would never repay. Now she’d get the house. It was the house she’d wanted all along. Louisa was welcome to Larry. She wished he had run off with her then she’d have been rid of them both.

  On and on she went, sometimes on the verge of tears, sometimes laughing like a hyena, and all the while she was waving the gun about or training it at one or another of them.

  ‘And look at you, Miss O’Connell, with your books and your figures, thinking you can outsmart me. You’ll be smirking on the other
side of your face when you have nowhere to live. What, didn’t you know?’ She had Maggie’s property firmly within her grasp. It would be hers any day now, along with Somerset Station, because she had the paperwork. Of course it wasn’t missing. It never had been. It was hers. Her husband had some uses and sliding court papers into unmarked folders was one of them. He’d been paid good money to make them disappear and the Mayor had been happy to turn a blind eye.

  Was she raving? Maybe, but her cunning was plain as day. The extent of her plotting took their breath away. She wanted them all to be homeless for reasons that were barely coherent. Louisa had been so stuck up, Adelaide had been so spiteful, Maggie had been so … Catholic.

  Al, who’d long ago stopped listening, was imagining what might happen if he charged. He had no idea what he was charging, man or woman – man, he was pretty sure – but he reckoned if he threw himself at his legs, he’d send him sprawling. He wasn’t so big. On the other hand, help would arrive any minute. Someone would come. Miss McCleary had gone to get them.

  But the someones, the Fletchers in particular, were miles away, staring up into a tree at the entrance to Upsand Downs Station, where young Ginger, in the employment of Sergeant Fletcher since Saturday, was describing the state of play.

  ‘Mrs Murdoch’s gone but Mr Stokes and Mr Murdoch are in the house. Listen to them.’ In a wide open space surrounded by low hills, shouting of any sort can be heard for miles. This shouting was ugly and threatening, though who was getting the better of it was impossible to tell. What was clear was that Mr Murdoch had had no idea Mr Stokes was on the premises but more importantly, he didn’t want him there. Without further comment, the Fletcher brothers dismounted. Walking their horses in opposite directions, they each took a wide arc around the property so one could approach from the front, the other from the rear. ‘Here we go,’ said Ginger to himself.

  Pearl and Marcus were all the help that was on its way to the beleaguered shop. They’d taken Joe Fletcher’s cart and left it outside the pub, where Captain Nightingale, believing something had to be said, confided his remorse. ‘Who’d have thought it of Mr Stokes? He’ll soon be under lock and key.’ Pearl wondered at his calm, then worried about it. She had no faith in it. As they neared the shop he said, ‘We’ll go round the back,’ and he led the way only to stop abruptly at the gates.