Murder Unmentioned (9781921997440)

by Gentill, Sulari

  Rowland winced. “I thought your mother was still hoping you’d join the church. Doesn’t she owe a son to God?”

  “My brother, Tom, is talking about the seminary,” Clyde replied resentfully. Clyde’s Catholicism was of the unobtrusive sort, more traditional than theological. But it seemed he’d come to rely on the expectation that he would eventually enter the priesthood as his protection against the expectation that he would marry.

  Milton placed a comforting hand on Clyde’s shoulder. “Chin up, mate. If we can save Rowly from the gallows, we should be able to save you too. You’ll just have to wait your turn.”

  Clearing of the scorched site of the fire was already well underway. Wilfred had retained an architect and a builder, both briefed to restore Oaklea as soon as possible. Edna Walling and her crew had also returned and their work in the gardens was proceeding with a renewed vigour.

  As Arthur Sinclair had now spoken with Colonel Bennett and obtained his blessing, Lucy remained in Sydney to celebrate the good news with her family. She did, however, promise Kate and her fiancé that she would visit Oaklea again as soon as she was able.

  Detectives Gilbey and Angel called by the day the family arrived back, to check that Rowland was indeed complying with the condition of his bail which stipulated that he live with Wilfred Sinclair. Rowland’s passport had been surrendered to the court, but it was understood that men of Wilfred Sinclair’s means and influence could obtain whatever paperwork they needed, and afford to lose the financial surety put up for bail.

  Kent, Beswick and Associates also called to discuss strategy and update their clients.

  In a dramatic demonstration of confidence in his brother’s innocence, Wilfred Sinclair offered a ten-thousand-guinea reward for anyone who provided the police with information leading to the apprehension and conviction of Henry Sinclair’s murderer. The move had perplexed Rowland at first until Delaney telephoned to report that the Criminal Investigation Bureau was being inundated with calls, letters, telegrams and witnesses all claiming to know who killed Henry Sinclair.

  “We had a bloke in here yesterday, dobbing in his mother for doing away with your old man,” the friendly detective said, laughing. “Gilbey and Angel will be working around the clock for months to follow up this lot!”

  Alice Kendall welcomed Rowland back with joy and tears and apology. He was forced to eat close upon an entire batch of her shortbread before she would believe that it was not anything she had said which led to his arrest.

  “You know I didn’t shoot Father, don’t you, Mrs. Kendall?” he asked when he’d finally calmed her.

  The old housekeeper clasped her hands to her heart. “It’s so good to hear you say that,” she gasped. “I always knew it in my soul, but sometimes I wondered.” She broke down again. “He could be such a cruel man. I wish I could have done more for you…”

  Rowland took her hand. “I know Mrs. Kendall—I knew then too.”

  “I wanted to say something, but if he’d sacked me you would have had no one at all. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you with that man.”

  “I know,” he said, rubbing her hand. “I’m glad you didn’t give him an excuse to take you away too.”

  He waited until she’d blown her nose. “Do you remember anything at all about that night? Could anyone else have been in the house?”

  “Oh Mr. Rowland,” she said, dabbing her eyes with the edge of her apron, “you know the kitchen door is always left open. It was then too. We kept a bigger staff in those days… people always coming and going. And then there were the gentlemen who came to see Mr. Sinclair.”

  “Wil?”

  “No, no… your father.”

  “Who?”

  “The accountants, the solicitors…” The housekeeper’s whole face furrowed as she tried to remember. “As for the rest, I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Rowland asked one more thing. “The guns, Mrs. Kendall. They used to be kept in the cupboard next to your pantry. Do you know if they were all accounted for after he died?”

  Mrs. Kendall smiled. “Your father was not as particular or careful as your brother about the guns. There were several missing the night he died. Mr. Sinclair was always taking them out for some reason or another, and then forgetting to put them back. The maids would regularly find loaded pistols about the place.” She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “It’s only since he died that there’s even been a lock on the cupboard.”

  “So anyone may have taken one?”

  “Anyone who knew where they were kept, or I suppose anyone who found one Mr. Sinclair had left about.”

  “And the gun Miss Walling found in the dam—do you remember when you last saw it in the cupboard?”

  “I’m so sorry… I’m so useless,” the old woman fretted now. “Until Mr. Sinclair was shot, we didn’t really pay any mind to what was or was not in the gun cupboard.”

  Rowland dusted the shortbread crumbs from his tie. “That’s probably as it should be, Mrs. Kendall.”

  Edna joined Milton and Clyde at the Mercedes. Clyde was bent under the bonnet checking oil or some such thing. He and Milton were deep in conversation. Edna caught the end of it.

  “Why else would he tell Rowly he was sorry?”

  “Wilfred wasn’t talking about shooting Henry Sinclair,” Edna said. “You know that.”

  “We weren’t talking about Wilfred,” Clyde said. “We were talking about Harry Simpson.”

  “Harry?”

  “He told Rowly he was sorry just before the police took us away,” Milton said, frowning. “It got me thinking.”

  “That’s ridiculous, why would Harry kill Henry Sinclair?”

  “Maybe he wanted Wilfred in charge.”

  “Why?”

  “Wilfred made Harry manager,” Milton reminded her.

  “Don’t be idiotic, Milt. Harry doesn’t care about that sort of thing,” Edna replied, cross.

  “It was thirteen years ago, Ed. Perhaps Harry was different back then,” Clyde ventured, though clearly the idea did not sit well. He liked the stockman, but still. “You know when Rowly first told him that his father’s gun had been found, Harry asked how, not where or when—how.”

  “And Harry was damned upset when Rowly was arrested,” Milton added.

  “Naturally.” Edna stared hard at the two men before her, wondering just how obtuse they were. “You do realise that Harry’s not just any stockman, don’t you?”

  Clyde shifted uncomfortably. “Rowly’s never… and Harry hasn’t either…”

  “Of course, he didn’t… they wouldn’t. It’s probably impolite.” Edna sighed. “But look at the way they are with each other. How could they not be?”

  “They grew up together, Ed.”

  “Rowly’s mother nearly fainted when she saw Harry.”

  “He’s Aboriginal, Ed. Just because Rowly takes a man as he finds him, doesn’t mean his mother does.”

  Milton interrupted. “It doesn’t matter whether Harry’s an ordinary stockman or Rowly’s… or not. In fact, if he isn’t, it’s probably more likely that he killed old Mr. Sinclair and Hayden.”

  “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this!” Edna said furiously.

  “I’m not suggesting anything, Ed,” the poet said firmly. “But we have to consider every possibility and Harry is definitely a possibility.”

  25

  “DEAR OLD FRUIT”

  MODERN MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

  Mr. A.E. Bell, a London solicitor, in a paper on “Is the Law an Ass?” at the Law Society’s conference at Eastbourne recently, declared that in these days marriage settlements were mere pamphlets.

  “Betrothed beings nowadays,” he said, “court by telephone and ‘marriage settlement’ each other by letter.” He gave an example of a super up-to-date marriage contract which read:

  “Dear Old Fruit,—Suppose we park ourselves at the altar together; you shall have the run of my rabbit warren and all its gadgets. You know that my jolly old life
has had something done to it; I mean to say that when old daddy time throws a monkey wrench into my works some giddy insurance company will hand you a cool thousand and you can have my bank overdraft and everything what’s over.

  All the best.”

  The Advertiser, 1928

  “Oh for the love of God!” Wilfred muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Rowland asked, wondering what Edna Walling had done now. He had accompanied his brother out into the dam paddock to inspect her progress. The works were significant: an arboretum was being planted on the open ground which sloped gently towards what would be a grand cobble-edged pond. The dam, which had been drained a few weeks before, had been partially refilled with soil. A massive mound of clay, which had once lined the dam, was awaiting use in sealing the new pond. A dozen men toiled with wheelbarrows and shovels and the garden designer directed proceedings from the midst of it all. It was none of this, however, that had prompted Wilfred’s outburst.

  Instead, it was the fact that Edna Higgins was on her knees beside the mound, sculpting figures with the clay lining of his pond. Her arms were caked with clay to the elbow, as were her feet and shins. Her shoes had been discarded on the grass a short distance away.

  Rowland stopped, entranced. Edna seemed, to him, to be drawing shapes out from the earth, conjuring form from the dirt. There was a glorious immersion about her focus that enchanted him. Like a child absorbed, she took complete, abandoned joy in what she was doing, forgetting any regard for clothes or propriety. To Rowland this was when she was at her most beautiful—the uninhibited, uncontainable sprite who’d enslaved him from the first.

  He reached inside his jacket for his notebook, determined to capture the moment, to record what he’d need to paint the sculptress like this. He found a tree stump just a few yards away, against which he settled. Accustomed to being Rowland’s model, Edna ignored him entirely, when she noticed him at all.

  Wilfred stared incredulously as his brother began to draw the woman playing with mud in his paddock. He threw his arms in the air and walked away.

  For a time nobody bothered either artist or sculptress, as work on the paddock continued.

  It was Jack Templeton who first wheeled his barrow up to Edna.

  “Miss Higgins,” he said, tipping his broad-brimmed hat.

  “Hello, Mr. Templeton,” Edna replied, brushing the hair from her face and smearing it with red clay in the process.

  “Can I ask what you’re doing there, Miss Higgins?”

  She smiled. Templeton stepped closer, drawn by her.

  “I saw people in the clay,” she said, running her hand over one of the smooth bodies now sculpted into the mound; rounded fluid figures that spoke of the earth in form and substance.

  “But Miss Walling said we have to use this clay to line the pond.” Templeton stared in awe at what Edna had created.

  “I know.”

  “But, this—it’ll all be destroyed.”

  “No, they’ll always be there in the clay. I’ve set them free now.”

  Templeton’s brow rose. “You’d be pulling my leg, Miss Higgins.”

  Edna laughed. “No, I’m not. Well, maybe a little. I only wanted to see what they looked like. They can go into the pond now.”

  “But they’ll be wrecked. No one will ever see them.” Templeton sounded genuinely distressed.

  “I’ve seen them,” Edna replied. “You’ve seen them, and I think Rowly may even have drawn them…”

  Rowland stood. “I don’t know Ed. I wasn’t really trying to capture your mud people.” He looked critically through his sketches. “I may have caught them in the background.”

  Templeton was clearly startled by the presence of Rowland who he’d apparently not noticed till then. One didn’t expect graziers to be lying about in paddocks. “Mr. Sinclair, sir, I didn’t see you there…”

  “Hello, Templeton. Did you enjoy a good Christmas?” Rowland closed his notebook, stepping over to inspect more closely what Edna had carved into the walls of the mound.

  “I did. I haven’t spent Christmas in Yass for some time.”

  “You’re from around here?” Rowland asked.

  “Born and bred, sir. I lived here as a boy. The place hasn’t changed all that much.”

  Rowland laughed. “Don’t let Wil hear you say that. He’s convinced that Yass is a shining example of progress and development. In fact, I’m sure he believes this is the real national capital.”

  Templeton grinned. “There are a few more people in town, I suppose, but the Sinclairs are still in charge.” He looked back at Edna’s sculptures. “I don’t feel right just shovelling this into the pond. It’s smashing.”

  Edna rescued her shoes from the grass. That smile again and both men caught their breath. “Why, thank you, Mr. Templeton. But it’s not going to last anyway. There are too many impurities in the clay to fire it, even if we could build a big enough pit. Don’t feel bad.”

  Templeton removed his hat and wiped his forehead, bewildered. “But then why did you—?”

  “I saw them there when I looked at the clay and I just couldn’t help myself—I had to dig them out,” Edna explained confusing Templeton further.

  Rowland understood. Edna often saw shapes that others could not—hints of form imprisoned within a medium. It was in her nature to liberate them.

  Templeton picked up his shovel. Then, placed it back in the wheelbarrow, shaking his head vehemently. “I can’t do it,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to Miss Walling.”

  “Oh dear,” Edna said as they watched him go. “I didn’t mean to make things difficult.”

  A laugh. Loud, deep and familiar. Harry Simpson strode across the paddock towards them. He stopped with his arms folded across his broad chest, gazing at the rotund figures protruding from the mound of clay, and chuckled. “Wil said Miss Higgins was playing in the mud. I had to come have a look.”

  “I’m so glad you did, Mr. Simpson,” Edna retorted brightly. “You can help Rowly and me shovel them into the pond.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Mr. Templeton feels bad breaking them up, and he shouldn’t. The pond needs to be lined and this was just an experiment.” She picked up a handful of the clay soil and showed the stockman its consistency. Harry Simpson nodded sagely as if he knew what she was talking about. “I really was just messing around. They won’t last,” she said earnestly.

  Simpson looked at Rowland, who was removing his jacket, resigned to the task ahead. “She does this kind of thing all the time, Harry. I don’t think there’s a cake of soap at Woodlands that Ed hasn’t whittled into some creature or other. Sculptors, you know.” He rolled up his sleeves. “We’d best get on with it before Arthur discovers there are naked mud people in the paddock!”

  It was late afternoon by the time they finished breaking up the sculpted mound and wheelbarrowing it into the pond. Indeed, the enterprise might have taken a good deal longer if Clyde and Milton had not come out to help.

  Alarmed both by the destruction of the sculptures and the fact that Rowland was shovelling dirt in a three-piece suit, Templeton returned with Victor Bates, who seemed as aghast as his workmate.

  Touched by their concern, Edna showed the gardeners Rowland’s sketchbook, in an attempt to explain that what she’d been doing was equivalent to an artist’s sketch—a whim or a notion rather than a fully conceived work.

  The burly workmen took in the contents of the notebook. Bates’ mouth fell open and Templeton turned a quite interesting shade of pink. Rowland smiled, very much doubting that his sketches were actually making the point Edna intended.

  Once the clay had been moved, they left the garden designer and her men to put it to the use for which it had been collected, and called by Simpson’s cottage to clean up a fraction before returning to the main house. The men were still in a reasonable state, but Edna looked rather like she should have been part of her own sculpture.

  Harry Simpson handed the muddy sculptress a towel
and a cake of Sunlight soap. “Now that’s to wash with, not to carve,” he warned, breaking into a grin.

  “I see Rowly’s been telling tales,” Edna replied, enjoying the sound of Simpson’s giggle. It was ridiculous on a man so large and strong and otherwise rugged. Uninhibited and contagious. She could not hear it without smiling.

  While Edna was inside the cottage trying to make herself presentable, the men waited on the verandah.

  Simpson settled himself in the old squatter’s chair and regarded Rowland sternly. “Why don’t you hurry up and marry that girl?” he asked.

  Both Clyde and Milton pulled up, startled. It was not that they were unaware of Rowland’s enduring torch for the sculptress, but that they had decided long ago it was a matter best left alone.

  Rowland looked at Simpson and responded plainly, if a little reluctantly. “I’m afraid she wouldn’t have me, Harry.”

  “Afraid? Have I taught you nothing Gagamin?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Don’t be smart, Rowly!” The stockman would not have it. “You’re not a bad catch. Aside from your current legal difficulties. You should ask her. Take flowers—no, chocolates. Take chocolates! And get down on one knee. I’m pretty sure that’s what Wil did.”

  Rowland laughed.

  “I’m serious, Rowly,” Simpson persisted. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Ed’s not…” Rowland struggled to explain.

  Clyde maintained a sympathetic silence, but Milton decided to help. “Ed’s a complicated girl, Harry,” he said. “She’s not the marrying kind.”

  “But if Rowly told her—”

  “It wouldn’t end well, believe you me! I’ve known her since we were knee-high.” Milton sighed, beckoning Simpson to lean closer, as he lowered his voice. “Ed’s mother was a Dickensian kind of mad. Raised Ed to never belong to a man.”

  “But surely she can see…”

  Milton shrugged. “Perhaps we’re all products of our parents regrets. Ed won’t settle down, Harry. Over the years, all the blokes daft enough to propose simply disappeared.”