Murder Unmentioned (9781921997440)

by Gentill, Sulari

  “What happened to them?” Simpson asked sceptically.

  “Don’t know. Some of them were barely more than boys—poor souls. Just know we never saw them again.”

  Rowland smiled. “I’m sure she didn’t devour them, Harry.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Milton muttered.

  In an attempt to deflect the discussion, Rowland told Simpson about his and Milton’s stint at Long Bay, and his rather elucidating conversation with Wilfred.

  Simpson cursed, standing up. “You didn’t shoot him? It wasn’t you?” he said, incredulous. “Bloody oath!”

  “You thought it was me, too?” Rowland groaned.

  “Why do you reckon I threw the gun into the dam?”

  Milton glanced at Clyde.

  “I didn’t know that you had, Harry. What were you doing at the house?”

  “Wil sent one of the Kendall boys to fetch me—I got there just as Wil’s mate left.”

  “What mate?”

  “Some chap he was meeting with.”

  “Menzies—he was at the house?”

  “Don’t know his name, Rowly. Wil didn’t exactly introduce me.” Simpson rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Wil told me what had happened, well, what he thought had happened. He gave me the gun, a silver candlestick and some other odds and ends to make it look like a robbery, and told me to get rid of the lot.”

  “And you threw it into the dam?” Milton asked.

  “Yes. That dam’s never run dry so I thought it would be safe at the bottom of it.” Simpson leaned on the verandah rail, his shoulder up against Rowland’s. “I’m sorry, Gagamin. We should have known you’d never…”

  “Don’t be too sorry, Harry,” Rowland said. “I thought about it, I just didn’t get the chance.”

  Simpson sighed. “You might need a better defence than that, mate.”

  “When Rowly was arrested,” Milton asked carefully. “You said you were sorry. Why?”

  Simpson glanced at Rowland. “That wasn’t anything to do with the arrest,” he said. “I was sorry I’d upset Mrs. Sinclair, is all. I know she isn’t well anymore.”

  Rowland stared out towards the homestead. “She’s forgotten me completely, but you, she remembers, even after all these years.”

  “As I said, Rowly,” Simpson replied quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  Rowland found his brother in the library. Wilfred studied him disapprovingly as he poured them both a drink. “You decided to assist Miss Higgins, then?” he said, nodding disdainfully at the smears of clay and dirt on his brother’s suit. “I suppose Kate’s pond has been replaced with some monstrosity made of mud and sticks.”

  Rowland grinned. “No, your clay has been safely returned to the ignominy of being pond lining.”

  Wilfred shook his head, exasperated.

  “Wil… I was just talking to Harry about the night Father died.”

  Wilfred looked up sharply.

  “The chap you were meeting that night… Menzies. You brought him back here?”

  Wilfred nodded. “Yes, that turned out to be rather a mistake.”

  “He was a business associate then?”

  Wilfred said nothing for a moment. He stood up and closed the library door. “Bob Menzies and I were, at the time, vying for the hand of the same young woman.”

  Rowland choked on his gin. “What! Really?”

  “We had both been pursuing a Melbourne girl—Miss Pattie Leckie—with some vigour. For pity’s sake Rowly, stop looking so stunned! Did you suppose I was in a monastery before I married Kate?”

  “No, I just didn’t expect… Sorry, go on.”

  “Miss Leckie had at that stage accepted neither of us.”

  Rowland tried to follow. “So why exactly were you meeting with your rival for the young lady’s affections?”

  “To decide the question of Miss Leckie.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We met to resolve the issue of Miss Leckie’s hand. Obviously we couldn’t both prevail.”

  “You’re not serious,” Rowland said unable to mask his astonishment.

  Wilfred rolled his eyes. “It was 1920, Rowly. We’d moved past pistols at dawn.”

  “So I assume you resolved to stand aside.”

  “It became clear that Mr. Menzies was much more committed to the proposition than I. He was desperate for Miss Leckie to accept him.”

  “And you conceded—just like that?” Rowland pressed, finding it difficult to believe his brother had walked away so easily.

  “It was more of a negotiation,” Wilfred said carefully. “I had business priorities, and Menzies felt his only chance lay with me stepping aside gracefully.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, aside from the obvious, Bob Menzies didn’t serve.” Wilfred’s tone made his disapproval clear. “He assumed I’d use the D.S.O. to unfair advantage, had some notion that Miss Leckie would be won with war medals.”

  “And what did he offer you in this negotiation?”

  Wilfred scowled. “Not a great deal, if truth be told. He begged. It was bloody awkward. Embarrassing for all concerned.”

  “I see.” Rowland tried not to smile. “So why did you bring him here?”

  “He was so flaming grateful he insisted on dropping me back. I felt obliged to invite him in for a drink. We came in through the conservatory.” Wilfred frowned, sipping his whisky sullenly. “Mrs. Kendall called me aside. She was in rather a state. I told Menzies to make himself comfortable in the drawing room, and went to Father’s study.”

  “Harry saw him leave much later,” Rowland said, “after Father had been shot. He must have been in the drawing room for hours.”

  Wilfred shrugged. “I’m not sure why he stayed, Rowly. To be honest, I forgot about him entirely.” He swirled the whisky in his glass. “When I came back down, he was still there. God knows what he heard, or what he was doing. I apologised, he said he understood, I poured him another drink and then we heard the gunshot.”

  “He was with you when Father was shot? My God, Wil, why didn’t you tell the police?”

  Wilfred frowned. “I left him in the drawing room whilst I went to the study. I saw you… thought it was you… I was worried that Bob might have seen you too. I just wanted to get him out of there.”

  “And he was happy to simply go?”

  “Bob Menzies was a barrister, Rowly. He was leading an important constitutional case before the High Court—his first, I believe. He couldn’t be associated with any sort of scandal, however peripherally.”

  “And you’ve never spoken about it?” Rowland asked, not entirely unaware of the irony of the question.

  “I was a guest at his wedding later that year. By that time the official version was that Father had been killed during a robbery by a person or persons unknown. He expressed his condolences. I congratulated him on his marriage.”

  “We should speak to him, Wil. Perhaps he saw something. At the very least he could alibi you.”

  Wilfred grimaced. “Menzies is the current Deputy Premier of Victoria, Rowly. And I very much doubt he’ll want to be associated with scandal now any more than he did then.” He pressed his fingers together pensively. “In any case, it’s you who’s been charged.”

  “Thus far,” Rowland countered. He told his brother of the anonymous informant who insisted that it was Wilfred Sinclair that the police should be charging. “The only reason the police are not taking it seriously is that I was clearly not disinherited.”

  “Clearly.”

  “But they may yet come back to the theory, Wil.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Rowly.” Wilfred Sinclair’s eyes darkened. “Did Detective Delaney have any idea who this informant was?”

  “No, he just assumed it was some disgruntled business associate of yours.”

  Wilfred sighed. “I’ll telephone Bob Menzies. To be honest, I’m now rather curious as to what he was doing all evening.”

  Rowland stood to leave. “I’d b
etter wash up.” He stopped, somehow compelled to ask. “If you’d had a rival for Kate’s hand, would you have—”

  “Negotiated?” Wilfred looked hard at him over the top of his spectacles. The barest hint of a smile played about his lips. “No. For Katie, it was always pistols at dawn.”

  Rowland nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Rowly,” Wilfred said as his brother reached for the door handle, “I’ve not mentioned Miss Leckie to Kate.”

  “I see.”

  “Be a good chap and keep this conversation strictly between you and me.”

  “Menzies can alibi you, Wil.”

  “We’ll deal with that if it becomes necessary. Right now I want nothing else to upset my wife, so let this be on the square.”

  26

  SYDNEY WOOL SALES

  Prices Again Firmer

  SYDNEY, Tuesday

  Prices showed a farther hardening tendency on yesterday’s improved rates at the wool sale to-day. The market was very animated, competition being well distributed. The buying on German account was again a prominent feature.

  Greasy merino fleece sold to 35d. for five bales from Rylstone, and five bales from Yass. The offerings totalled 11,482 bales, of which 11,386 were sold at auction, while an additional 1296 were disposed of privately.

  The Canberra Times, 10 January 1934

  Henry Sinclair’s study had been unused since the night he died nearly fourteen years before. Wilfred had bypassed his father’s throne room, for a study nearer the library and further from Henry’s shadow. The oak-panelled chamber was dusted weekly, but otherwise it remained untouched. Until now, Rowland had not set foot in it since the shooting. He drew the drapes allowing in the soft light of a wet summer’s day.

  Standing before his father’s desk again felt strange. The perspective was different—he was taller now. The wall behind the desk was bare. It had once held the portrait of Henry which currently hung in the drawing room at Woodlands.

  Rowland exhaled slowly. He was tense, there was an odd metallic taste in his mouth. He was suddenly glad that Wilfred would not hear of Communists rifling through their father’s papers, and had insisted that any search be conducted without them.

  The study was spacious, incorporating its own library and a sitting area where Henry would occasionally entertain business associates, and which was large enough to allow his manager to swing a leather strap against his son. The walls were decorated with photographs of prize-winning rams and the bookshelves burdened with trophies and ribbons from the Royal Easter Show. An inscribed five iron, which had been presented to Henry Sinclair by the Royal Sydney Golf Club, was mounted on the far wall beside various other commemorations of the gentleman’s civic philanthropy.

  Rowland loosened his tie. He didn’t like being here, even now with his father long dead. As much as he tried to forget it, to never think of it, this part of his memory was still too clear.

  He composed himself and began to go through the desk, not entirely sure what he expected to find.

  In the beginning he searched carefully, putting everything back as it had been. But then he found his father’s bible in the second drawer and something snapped. Cursing Henry Sinclair, Rowland pulled the drawer out and upturned it unceremoniously on the desk. He rummaged through the contents, discarding documents and calling cards onto the floor. He upended the next drawer, and the next, until the desk was buried in papers, massive ledgers and old inkwells.

  The diary was in the bottom drawer, leather bound, embossed with the Sinclair crest.

  Rowland flicked through to the Monday his father had died. Several meetings were entered in Henry’s florid hand, including a large block of time marked simply “Rowland”.

  He stared at the page, his chest tightening. His father had made an appointment for him. Knowing what he intended to do to his son, Henry Sinclair had scheduled enough time to do the job properly.

  Rowland slammed the diary shut and flung it across the room. For several minutes he could do nothing but seethe and swear. He racked his brain for some forgotten recollection. Was there something from that evening he’d forgotten, some clue as to who else was in the house? Parts of that night seemed vivid whilst others were confused. He was no longer sure how accurate his memories were.

  He moved to the door and, turning back, determined where exactly he’d seen his father’s body, and in what position. The Axminster carpet had been removed so there was no longer any indication that a man had bled and died on that spot. Assuming Wilfred had not moved the body, it seemed to him that the murderer must have been quite close to the door to the adjoining hallway when he fired the fatal shot. Henry Sinclair had died in front of the desk not behind it. Did that mean he was stepping forward to greet his attacker?

  Rowland retrieved the diary from the floor, and, taking a steadying breath, turned back to the relevant page. The entries made for earlier the day Henry died were recorded in more detail. Rowland’s eye caught on a notation for midday. “Mullins. Execution.”

  The door squeaked open and Ernest Sinclair peered timidly in. He stared agog at the papers and books strewn about the study, the empty drawers stacked on the desk in a precarious tower.

  “Hello Ernie—what are you doing here?”

  “I heard thumping. I thought it was the ghost.”

  “The ghost?”

  Ernest walked in, Lenin padding contentedly behind him. “Nobody’s allowed in this room, Uncle Rowly,” he said gravely. He beckoned Rowland down and whispered. “Someone died in here. It’s haunted.”

  “Haunted? Who told you that, mate?”

  “It is, Uncle Rowly. Sometimes you can hear someone crying in here.”

  Rowland hesitated, unsure what to say. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Ernie.”

  “Yes there is!” Ernest declared. “I’ve heard it.” He took his uncle’s hand. “I’m not scared, though.”

  “Does your father know about this ghost?”

  “Daddy said I was never to go in here.”

  “Because of the ghost?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Perhaps we should talk to him,” Rowland said, deciding that it was really up to Wilfred how much he told his son. He reached up with his free hand and took the golf club from its mounting.

  “He might be cross,” Ernest warned. “Nobody’s allowed in this room.”

  Maintenance work in the holding yards at Wainwright’s came to a momentary stop when the yellow Mercedes pulled up. Three men alighted. Most of the workers recognised the giant indigenous man with blue eyes. The man who slipped out from behind the steering wheel was a stranger, but looked like he may easily have been one of Simpson’s stockmen. It was the third man who caused them to stop and look again.

  For his part, Milton Isaacs considered the green velvet jacket and striped waistcoat a smart and fetching ensemble given a rural flair by the red kerchief he wore in place of his usual cravat.

  Simpson led them up the steps onto the loading stage and into the shearing shed just as the rain began. Though neither as large nor as well-equipped as Oaklea, Wainwright’s still boasted a substantial shed of some twelve stands. Of course, the shearing was done, and the shed was currently empty, but for a single man undertaking maintenance on the mechanised stands and holding pens.

  John Barrett looked up as the men from Oaklea came into his shed.

  Harry Simpson nodded. “John. How would you be?”

  Barrett shook his hand. “Fit as a Mallee bull, Harry. Heard you’ve had a bit of strife at Oaklea.”

  “Could say that.” Simpson introduced Milton Isaacs and Clyde Watson Jones, explaining that they were Rowland’s friends from the city.

  Barrett glanced at Milton and nodded as if that explained a few things.

  Then Simpson and Barrett talked about the weather for a while.

  Clyde and Milton waited, allowing Simpson to lead them through whatever parochial protocol was necessary. Finally Simpson raised the matter for which
they’d come. “You know Charlie Hayden’s body was found at Emoh Ruo.”

  Barrett sighed. “I heard. Bad business, but can’t say I’m mourning. Been expecting the police to come talk to me.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cos I didn’t like the bugger… after that day in the shed. Wasn’t no secret.”

  “What exactly happened, Mr. Barrett?” Clyde ventured. “We’ve heard Hayden’s side of it.” Perhaps Barrett would not think to be defensive if they asked about Charles Hayden instead.

  “What’s it to you?” Barrett was suspicious nevertheless.

  “The police are looking at Rowly for it,” Clyde replied, carefully omitting the fact that Rowland had already been arrested and charged.

  Barrett frowned. “I don’t know if what I could tell you would help him.” He leant back against the stall and, taking out a tin of tobacco and some papers, rolled a cigarette. “The boy was back on holidays from that posh school they sent him to. Half me men had enlisted and we were trying to get the clip in. Rowland seemed a bit lost, used to watch. He had nothing better to do, I suppose.” Barrett shrugged. “He was a good lad, quiet. Didn’t try to throw his weight around like some of the graziers’ boys do. We’d stopped for smoko, and I thought I’d teach him to shear, just for a lark. The kid surprised me—he might have made a shearer. Hayden told us to get back to work, I told him to bugger off. We still had fifteen minutes. He strode back with Mr. Sinclair in tow. Bloody coward!”

  Barrett cupped his hands, lit up and drew deeply. He coughed and picked a few moist strands of tobacco from his cigarette. “Old Mr. Sinclair sacked me right out. Got Hayden to flog the boy then and there so that none of the other blokes would ever think ’bout talking to the boss’s son again… for his sake, if not theirs.” He shook his head. “Poor bloody kid. That bastard made sure the boy was too bloomin’ humiliated to ever show his face in the shed again. There were a few of us who talked about killing Hayden then.”

  “What about Mr. Sinclair?”