by Peter Watt
The fiery little missionary sat in Isaac’s office bristling with both discomfort for being in the presence of one of those who was responsible for the death of the Saviour and being in the presence of one of the damned Papists who slavishly followed the rule of the Antichrist in Rome. But the Presbyterian missionary had realised reluctantly that his mission required the legal services of a firm well and truly out of the grasp of the English establishment. Even his own Scottish legal firm was suspect when it came to prosecuting the powerful Donald Macintosh company that owned the Osprey – that black ship of Satan. Their zeal in establishing a case against the captain of the Osprey, Morrison Mort, might lack for real punch.
And so it was that John Macalister sat bristling in the presence of those with whom he never dreamt he would be associating in his lifetime. It was bad enough to have to put up with the French Marist missionaries poaching his island congregations for converts. It was an unholy pact he was entering into.
Daniel sat unobtrusively in the corner of Isaac’s office as an observer. Isaac was a handsome man who had presence whenever he entered a room. His thick dark hair was shot with grey although he was only thirty-five years old and the greyness gave him an appearance of wise maturity in the eyes of his clients. Gerald had no hair at all. He was the same age as Isaac.
The two lawyers had found common ground many years earlier in that they had both been spurned by the conservative English system. Jews and Irish were on a socially unacceptable par as far as the powerful Protestant ruling classes were concerned and it was not unheard of for the Catholic Church in the Australian colonies to rally behind the Jewish faith in secular matters, although the same tolerance might not extend to religious doctrine. In matters of professional partnership and religious tolerance, the Irishman and the Jewish lawyer were very close friends.
Daniel had been given the task of making notes for the meeting and he sat with a pencil poised over his notepad.
Neither partner had briefed Daniel about the case and he was amused to see that Gerald was getting a secretly perverse pleasure from watching Macalister squirm in the presence of so much heathenism.
Isaac ignored his partner’s smirk, which he guessed was aimed at the obvious fidgeting discomfiture of their client, and he tried to put the missionary at ease. He felt that if Macalister was able to explain why he had chosen them for his Synod’s case against Captain Mort he might feel better. A bit like how Catholics felt when they went to confess their sins to one of their priests, as Gerald had once explained to him over a bottle of good port.
Isaac Levi leant forward in his chair with his hands on his desk. ‘Tell me, Mister Macalister,’ he said, ‘why did you choose us to represent your Synod’s recommendation to prosecute the captain of the Osprey?’
Daniel froze and almost snapped the pencil in half. So that was it. Both partners knew of his unrelenting crusade for justice against the Macintosh family and Mort. He had long used his knowledge and contacts in law to try to find ways of bringing to justice the people who had done so much damage to his family, but to date he had nothing. Suddenly here was Mort being named for a prosecution of some kind. Maybe there was a god of justice after all!
Macalister shifted uneasily. ‘It’s not that I have anything against Jews and Papists personally, Mister Levi,’ he said self-consciously in his thick Scots brogue. ‘I would have preferred to have consulted my own kind but the Synod feels we should employ the services of a firm of solicitors with no vested interests in seeing Captain Mort is allowed to escape the wrath of God for what he has done in the islands to my people.’
‘I cannot speak for God’s wrath, Mister Macalister,’ Isaac said with just a hint of mirth. ‘But I hope I can speak for the wrath of British law against those who commit murder.’
Murder! So it was murder they were going after Mort for! Daniel almost forgot to take notes as the missionary explained the events of September and the raid on the helpless village. He explained how neighbouring Islanders had identified the Osprey working in the waters around the New Hebrides at the time of the killings and how a handful of survivors who had escaped the cordon of raiders could identify the devil with the pale blue eyes. The villagers who had escaped had watched helplessly from the surrounding jungle as the white man took away their friends and relatives. None of those taken away had been seen since except for the headless bodies floating in the lagoon.
Daniel listened to the gruesome and terrible story unfold. He knew his chances of proving Mort guilty of murdering his uncle and Old Billy were pretty slim. But it did not matter if they could get a conviction against him that eventually led to the gallows. The Osprey was currently moored in Sydney harbour and as far as the Scots missionary knew, the captain of the blackbirding barque did not suspect action was being taken against him.
Time was of the essence! They had to get the case together before the ship sailed again. God had sent Macalister to them, Daniel was sure.
After Macalister had finished his briefing, he gruffly bade his farewells. When the missionary had left the office, Isaac turned to Daniel, whose face was aglow with the savage joy of anticipated victory. Isaac smiled.
‘Well, Mister Duffy. What are your thoughts?’ he asked.
Daniel glanced at his notes before looking up.
‘The case will cause a storm around Sydney,’ the young lawyer replied. ‘We prepare a case against one of the blackbirding captains and we will have a lot of influential people against us. But we will also have a lot of people on our side who want to see the trade stopped. The trouble is they are generally not the people with the money and influence.’
Daniel knew very well the political implications of a prosecution of murder against a captain of a kanaka ship. The ramifications could undermine the foundation of the cotton and sugar plantations of Queensland in a time when the colony needed every penny it could get. Queensland was suffering badly from the crash of the English banks. But this was not merely a murder case. It was the indictment of powerful vested money and political interests in the kanaka trade.
Gerald scratched at the tip of his nose, which was an affectation Daniel would unconsciously learn from the Irish lawyer and use in years to come when he was in court considering a vital point of defence. He then removed the pince-nez spectacles he wore and said quietly, ‘To be sure it will give the British gentry in the colonies a bloody nose. They don’t like us God-fearing Irish – or you godless Jews – anyway. Ah, but it will be grand to see them quake with terror when we use their own law against them.’
Isaac grinned at his partner’s slur on his faith. He knew fully well that the rotund and jolly Irishman did not have a biased bone in his body – except against the British establishment.
‘We have a lot of work to do before we brief a suitable barrister,’ Isaac said, standing and stretching his tall frame. ‘We have an interesting case of murder committed outside the colony. It will not be easy in any way to prove jurisdiction. But I think we can.’ Gerald and Daniel nodded.
No, it would not be easy, Daniel thought, and he knew he would not sleep until he had prepared a brief as tight as a noose around a hanging man’s neck.
‘I think we have a need,’ Gerald said, ‘to move very quickly on this one. Christmas is not that far away and everything seems to come to an infernal stop around Sydney at this time of year. Damned clerks get careless about filing court papers and magistrates are hard to find outside public houses. I think we should employ a man to keep an eye on the movements of Captain Mort while he is in Sydney. Make sure he is not about to sail away and out of the grips of the courts.’
Isaac smiled. ‘No doubt I can leave that matter in your hands,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I suspect that you have someone in mind, knowing your rather colourful contacts in the world of vice and crime.’
The rotund little Irish solicitor turned to Daniel. ‘I was thinking that Mister Duffy could look after that side of things,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘His father owns one of the
finest and most salubrious social establishments in town where just the right man can be employed for such a mission.’
Daniel blinked, as he tore his thoughts away from an image of Mort dangling at the end of a rope in Darlinghurst Gaol.
‘I am sure my father will know the right man to employ,’ he replied. ‘He even has contacts in the police force.’
‘Not a big Irish trap by the name of Constable Francis Farrell perchance?’ Gerald said with a wink and Daniel appeared startled by his knowledge.
‘Er . . . yes. How . . .?’ But he did not continue his question as Sydney was a small town and the Irish community close-knit. He rose and followed the two senior partners from the office. There was much to arrange to ensure that justice was done.
THIRTY-SIX
‘Sir Donald and Lady Macintosh.’
The herald’s announcement turned only a few heads to witness the grand entry of the newly knighted Scottish land and ship owner and his attractive wife into the glittering and packed ballroom. Knights of the realm were not an uncommon item at the 1867 New Year’s Eve ball and their appearance hardly warranted the interruption of polite conversation. The guests of Sir John and Lady Susanna Merle continued to chat among themselves with hardly a glance towards the entrance while the regimental band played a medley of martial airs.
Candles, colour and elegance marked the evening. Colourful mess dress of the dashing regimental officers, both colonial and British; shiny dark dinner suits of the wealthy merchants and leading squatters. Their ladies with sweeping dresses of silk, satin and chiffon. Tiaras and precious stones caught and magnified the soft light of the many candles in the ballroom. The New Year’s Eve ball also attracted guests other than the colonial gentry; ambassadors and a sprinkling of foreign naval officers on attache duty to their respective embassies. Politicians and their wives. Or in one or two cases, their mistresses.
The grand entry of Sir Donald and Lady Enid was noticed by Granville White, who bent to whisper in his wife’s ear, bringing a rare smile to Fiona’s face. Granville took his wife’s arm to escort her over to greet her mother and father, who were making their way slowly through a gauntlet of old friends and acquaintances congratulating them both on Donald’s recent knighthood. The knighthood had been recommended by the New South Wales Government for Donald’s outstanding services to the colony and was couched in the words of praise reserved for men of influence.
Fiona appeared radiant, like a young girl rather than a woman with two daughters, and the pomp and ceremony suited because it gave her an opportunity to lose herself in the merriment and glitter of the occasion. Although she had barely spoken a word to her mother in recent years, she was still proud to see her appear so outstandingly elegant beside her gruff and burly father. She was even prepared to allow a short truce with her mother for her father’s sake.
Granville shook Sir Donald’s hand. ‘Good show, Sir Donald,’ he congratulated and Fiona gave her father a rather bold peck on the cheek, whispering, ‘Well done, Father. You look magnificent tonight!’ But she did not reserve the same warmth for her mother and they exchanged polite, but formal head nods, as recognition of each other’s presence.
Granville was distracted by an acquaintance in the shipping industry and Fiona was glad to have an excuse not to remain in the company of her mother. She was escorted by her husband to meet the boring shipping man and discuss new opportunities along the trade routes of the rapidly opening north of Australia.
Sir Donald might have been a Knight of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Order of the Thistle but he was now feeling more and more out of place in the present company of urban merchants and bankers. He had been so long on the frontier that he felt more at home with the stockmen who had replaced his shepherds than in the company of the glittering colonial elite at the ball. He was more at ease sitting on the verandah of the newly built homestead at Glen View than standing under the imported crystal chandeliers of Sir John’s ballroom. The dust of Glen View was in his blood as much as the memory of the purple thistle of his native land. He now found all the protocol and glitter of Sydney foreign, but he owed his wife his attendance at the ball, as her discreet lobbying and lunches had assisted in getting the knighthood for him.
Sir Donald cast desperate glances around the packed ballroom for any other Queensland squatters who might have been in town for the ball but he could see none and he resigned himself to a boring night being seen in the company of the colony’s rich and famous.
‘Jolly good show your knighthood, Donald,’ Sir Ian Smythe said as he intercepted the knighted squatter searching for a waiter with the champagne. ‘Well deserved, old chap.’
Sir Ian was not a squatter but he had interests in leases in Queensland and he was pleased to be able to discuss pastoral matters with a man of such considerable reputation as the Scot. Sir Donald’s capable management of Glen View was legendary in the south. ‘Heard you cleared Glen View of the darkies a few years back,’ Sir Ian said, striking up a conversation. ‘One of my managers informs me he is having a spot of trouble on Cristabel Downs with them. Says the damned government won’t deploy enough of those native troopers up his way.’
Sir Donald nodded his head sympathetically. At least here was someone he could talk to about the problems on the frontier. ‘It’s the damned liberals in the south who would like to see us humiliated,’ he answered as he procured a crystal flute of the imported champagne. ‘Always out to bring us down.’
The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Granville, as there was a matter of urgency to discuss and it could not wait. Fiona was left in the company of Charlotte Frost, David’s fiancée, to chat about the forthcoming wedding between her and David.
‘Sir Ian, I pray you are well,’ Granville inquired politely of the robust knight’s health. ‘Rather a warm night for the affair.’
‘Damned warm! But the champagne is cold,’ Sir Ian snorted. He could see from the expression on Granville’s face that he was impatient to talk to Sir Donald. Sir Ian blustered his excuses to collar an influential member of the legislature on matters of political significance affecting his business interests. When they were alone, Granville steered Sir Donald to a relatively quiet corner of the ballroom.
‘Well, Granville, what bad news do you have for me?’ Sir Donald asked gruffly. ‘I know it is bad news because I can tell from the look on your face.’ He would have preferred to stay with Sir Ian rather than talk to his son-in-law.
‘Some damned Presbyterian missionary by the name of Macalister arrived in Sydney about four weeks ago,’ Granville replied. ‘He’s lodged a complaint of murder against the captain of the Osprey. He . . .’
‘Mort!’ Sir Donald growled, cutting across his son-in-law. ‘Damned fool. ’Bout the kanaka business, is it?’
‘Well, yes,’ Granville continued. ‘But it could get worse. Mort has a suspicion that he is being followed and watched whenever he leaves his ship. He even fears that, if he sails, the navy will seize the Osprey.’
Sir Donald felt the beginnings of acid burn his stomach. The Royal Navy seizing the Osprey would bring an unwanted scandal to the Macintosh name and it would not look good in the newspapers that the newly knighted pastoralist was the owner of a ship whose captain was wanted for murder. He cursed himself silently for recommending the man to the job as skipper of the Osprey in the first place. But he knew with some guilt that he and the murderous captain were bound by the events of the dispersal years earlier. Mort knew enough to cause more than a scandal.
‘How far has this damned missionary got with his complaint?’ Sir Donald asked his son-in-law.
‘I’m afraid Macalister is drumming up support from the old anti-slavery movements and the newspapers. He’s launched a holy crusade against Mort and the Osprey,’ he answered.
‘This . . . on top of the troubles I am having in Queensland,’ Sir Donald growled. ‘I need this right now like I need a speargrass-infested flock of sheep.’
‘I hate to tell y
ou things could be worse . . . but they are,’ Granville said with a pained expression on his face. ‘Macalister is getting legal advice from the firm of solicitors Sullivan and Levi.’
‘Sullivan and Levi,’ Sir Donald growled irritably. ‘Never heard of them.’
‘They have one Mister Daniel Duffy working for them,’ Granville continued, ‘who has not tried to hide the fact that he is out to bring us all down.’
Sir Donald reacted to the Duffy name as Granville knew he would. Duffy! The damned name was still haunting him. The bloody Irish bred like rabbits and they were everywhere. But these were dangerous rabbits.
‘What relationship is this Daniel Duffy to that blasted Irishman who was killed at Glen View in ’62?’ he asked, hoping that Granville would say ‘no relationship’.
‘Nephew,’ Granville replied. ‘I’ve heard that Daniel Duffy is a man with a reputation for not losing cases.’
The band struck up a Scottish reel and Sir Donald turned away. He toyed with the champagne flute without drinking a drop and brooded on the cursed name of Duffy. Finally he placed the still-full glass on a silver tray carried by a passing waiter, as he knew that the sparkling wine would sour his stomach.
‘I think it is time we got back to the ladies,’ Sir Donald growled and walked away to join his wife, whom he could see across the ballroom chatting with their son David.
She was still a handsome woman, he mused proudly, as he made his way to her. Straight-backed with little sign of the years and their responsibilities marring her beautiful and serene face. Fiona was fortunate to have inherited her mother’s looks. But had she inherited Enid’s ruthlessness? The notion disturbed him. Ruthlessness was a weapon of destructive qualities when turned against family.