by Peter Corris
The King A. Hartwell Clinic was a big white stucco building, three or four storeys with two wings. At a guess, as an architect’s husband who lived with books full of pictures of buildings, I’d say the place was put up around the time of the First World War, when Heathcote was really out in the sticks. The clinic, therefore, was a little island of freehold or leasehold on the edge of a very big chunk of crown land. Interesting. The grounds looked to run to about five acres, well watered with plenty of lawns, flower beds and trees. Healthful and restful. I wouldn’t have minded a short stay there myself, judging from outside appearances.
I drove through two imposing gateposts, one of which carried a big brass plaque bearing the name of the clinic, and up a curving gravel drive. I parked where a sign said Visitors. I was the only one. There were a dozen or so cars, ordinary Holdens, Fords, VWs and a couple of sleek, well-polished jobs, parked in another space signposted Staff. I did up a few buttons on my sports shirt, tugged at it to reduce the wrinkles and stuck my briefcase under my arm. I closed the windows and locked the car. A few people strolling in the grounds looked up at the noise of the slamming door. The place was extraordinarily quiet. The strollers strolled on and I walked towards the sandstone steps leading up to a heavy door standing wide open.
The lobby was cool and quiet. Behind a reception desk a woman wearing a stylised version of a nurse’s cap was working at an electric typewriter that was almost noiseless. The place had more the feel of a hotel than a hospital. There were pigeon holes with keys hanging from them, some with mail tucked inside. The pictures on the walls were bright, landscapes mostly, and there was a big, three-dimensional model of the clinic and its grounds set out in a glass case. A wide cedar staircase ascended from the lobby and the entrance to the ground level was through a set of double doors. When I felt I’d absorbed everything useful, I coughed to announce my arrival.
The woman looked up and favoured me with a smile. Maybe I’d smile more if I had teeth like hers. ‘Can I help you, sir?’
I approached the desk, unzipping my briefcase and letting the edges of the papers show. I took out a Menzies card and handed it to her. She was standing now, a tall, slim woman wearing a white dress with a blue belt and a touch of blue at the neck and sleeves—nurse-like. She looked at the card and then at me.
‘Mr Menzies …’
‘No, no. My name is Vernon Morris. I’m an associate of Mr Menzies. I’d like to have a word with Mr Richard Maxwell, if I may. Legal matter. Won’t take a minute.’
She frowned. ‘You should have telephoned.’
‘I did. On Friday. There should be a note of it. It’s a bit off the beaten track here, isn’t it? And this was the best time for someone from our office to come. I’m on my way back from my batch in Maianbar, you see, so it wasn’t too far out of the way. I was assured …’
She searched through the bits and pieces on the desk, opening and closing folders and slapping at piles of paper. A cork board with notices pinned to it, positioned handy to the telephone, yielded nothing. I craned forward, peering at the pigeon holes. They were tagged with initials. There was an RM all right, but the letters weren’t unusual. Who knows? It could have been Roger Miller.
‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing here.’
I plucked at the papers. ‘It’ll only take a minute. Perhaps you could ask Mr Maxwell?’
A new look came over her face—sceptical, defensive. She appeared to be a person whose natural bent was cooperation but who had learned to act differently, and I could see her registering and assessing details now—the battered nose, the creased clothes. ‘I’m not confirming that there is anyone of that name here,’ she said. ‘Do you understand?’
‘No, I don’t understand.’
It was only a slight movement and she did it well, but I knew what it meant and I looked automatically towards the double doors. Sure enough, they opened and a very big man in a white overall came out. A tailored overall, with zippers and well-cut trousers. He was well-cut and well-groomed himself with a body-builder’s chest and shoulders and that tapering look they have. In my experience, they taper both ways—physically from the thighs down and mentally from the mouth up. This one had the conventional bleached-blonde good looks marred by a bad case of adolescent acne-scarring. He probably wore pancake make-up when he competed.
‘Yes, Mrs Tomlinson?’ he said.
So far he was well within his field of competence.
‘This gentleman has no appointment and refuses to leave, Mr Matthews.’
‘I’m here on legitimate business,’ I said.
Matthews wore white tennis shoes and he came forward quickly and quietly. So far, no voices had been raised, no discordant sounds made. The King A. Hartwell Clinic was very big on quiet.
‘I think you should leave,’ Matthews said. He covered the last stretch very quickly and his big hand was on my shoulder, gripping hard.
‘I want to see someone in authority here.’
A quick nod from Mrs Tomlinson and Matthews went into action. He was good. He spun me around 180 degrees, literally. A well-balanced, very strong man can do that to a lighter one. Before I knew it, I was being marched through the door and down the steps. Matthews was an expert man-handler. He changed his grip, altered the pressure, kept me guessing as to where the force would be applied next. To someone with no experience of hand-to-hand fighting it would have been totally intimidating. I trotted along, pretending to be just such a person. My dust-streaked Falcon stood alone in the Visitors space like a UFO and Matthews steered me unerringly towards it.
He was enjoying himself. Some men are happy with pumping up their muscles, flexing them for admiring audiences, striving for yet more definition. Not Matthews. He wanted to use his strength against less strong men. A nasty trait, compensating for something. I let him frog-march me around to the driver’s side, so that the car body was between us and the clinic. I fumbled in the briefcase as if searching for the ignition key. Matthews’ wide blue eyes went even wider when I brought the Smith & Wesson out and jammed the muzzle up into his left nostril. For intimidation, the great advantage of a revolver is that you can cock it one-handed with the trigger action. Click. click. Sheer terror.
I felt the big man’s strength ebb away as he looked into my face. ‘You’ve had your fun, Matthews,’ I said. ‘Now prop yourself back against the car and be very careful. I don’t like gymnasium cowboys heavying me.’
‘Just doing my job,’ he said. He moved back. All the force had gone out of him. We both knew he could do things quickly but not quicker than a finger can pull a trigger.
‘Your job’s changed. You’re going to have to show a bit of initiative.’
‘How … how do you mean?’
I kept the .38 nestled inside his nose and reached back for my credentials. ‘I’m a private investigator. My name’s Hardy. I want to talk to Dick Maxwell. Just talk. Let your eyes wander over this.’
I showed him the licence inside its perspex cover. Apparently he could read, but he didn’t say anything.
‘You can remember your routines, can’t you? Press this, snatch that, repetitions, all that shit?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay. I want you to remember a few things. Tell Maxwell I found out where he was through Ernie Glass. Got that, Ernie Glass?’
‘Ernie Glass.’
‘Good. I don’t have any aggro with him that I know of. My client is Virginia Shaw. Who?’
‘Virginia Shaw.’
‘Right.’ I took the gun away and Matthews started to relax. I moved back a step, released the breech, and spilled the shells slowly into my hand. Matthews stared at me as if I was mad. I handed him the bullets and put the gun on the bonnet of the car. I flicked the breech closed and had a solid weapon in my hand, not a deadly one, but Matthews knew what it could do to his classic profile. He looked down at the bullets clustered in his big, callused paw.
‘Tell Maxwell I want to talk. That’s all. You’ve got the shells. I can’t harm hi
m. I’ll wait here for ten minutes. If he doesn’t show I’ll leave, but tell him this: if I go away without seeing him the news of where he is travels all over Sydney, starting from when I get to a phone. Have you got that?’
Matthews nodded. He turned and walked towards the clinic. I knew he wanted to get things back on the old basis between us, with him grabbing and twisting things, but he was bright enough to understand that this wasn’t a matter of pecs and lats and half-nelsons.
14
I leaned back against the car, keeping well clear of the revolver, and rolled a cigarette. Everything felt wrong about the King A. Hartwell Clinic. Summoning the muscle when I’d done nothing more than be a bit insistent was an over-reaction. And Matthews wasn’t there to lift drunks in and out of bed. I studied the place as I smoked, keeping an eye out for flanking movements. The people walking in the gardens could well have been dipsomaniacs drying out. They walked slowly as if they had a lot of time, too much time, which is a feeling that oppresses alcoholics when they’re not drinking. So I’ve been told. The couple of women could have been visiting wives, except that there were no cars in the visitors’ space except mine.
Through a tall stand of trees I caught a glint that could have been a swimming pool. Nothing inappropriate about that. Hydrotherapy. The place looked perfect. It just felt wrong. I finished the cigarette and was beginning to think my tactic hadn’t worked, when I saw a man coming down the steps from the south wing. He wore a cream suit and, as soon as he reached ground level and stepped out into the sun, he carefully placed a Panama hat on his head. Then he put on sunglasses. Then he took out a gold cigarette case and lit up. I waited for him to wipe his face with a silk handkerchief and shoot his cuffs, but he didn’t. He strolled towards me, one hand holding his cigarette, the other in his jacket pocket.
Not that there was much doubt about it, but the ginger bristle on his top lip confirmed his identity. He stopped about twenty feet away and took a small automatic from his pocket. His big pink hand, with a large signet ring on one finger, concealed most of the gun which he pointed at my middle shirt button.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Tall, dark and not very handsome. What the fuck do you want?’
‘You can put the gun away, Dick. I just want to talk.’
He smiled. His teeth were tobacco stained and uneven. He had a blotchy damp-looking complexion. ‘I dislike the word “dick” except as an affectionate term for the male organ.’
His accent was BBC English grown a little lazy. He lifted his cigarette and puffed stagily. His gun hand was fairly steady but he was beginning to find the pose, or standing in the sun, a strain. I was under strain myself. I’ve had too much to do with guns to like them, and I particularly don’t care to have them pointed at me. I eased away slowly from the car and looked around. There was a bench under a tree twenty yards away.
I pointed. ‘We could go over there and sit in the shade. This sun can’t be good for a man in your condition.’
He licked his thin lips. He had a cold sore, cracked and angry looking, just below the moustache on the left side. ‘You’re absolutely right, dear boy. You toddle over first and don’t you dare go near that pistol.’
‘It’s empty.’
‘So you say.’
We walked into the patch of shade. I sat down at one end of the bench and put the briefcase on the grass beside me. Maxwell undid his double-breasted jacket and fanned himself with his hat before he sat at the other end. He was almost completely bald and, with the jacket open, I could see his belly straining at the band of his trousers. He wore a tailored shirt with a long peaked collar and a paisley cravat. He’d finished his cigarette. He still had the gun. ‘Show me your miserable credentials.’
I passed them across. He glanced down, sniffed and threw the folder back. ‘A licence to starve or prosper, depending on how you use it.’
‘I haven’t been at it long.’
‘You say you know Ernest Glass?’
‘I know him well. He told me you were here. He said he stumbled on the information by accident. I gather you don’t want people to know. That’s why you’re talking to me now.’
‘Very acute.’ He probed with his tongue at the cold sore. Suddenly, he put the gun away and took off his sunglasses. His eyes were red and he rubbed them redder. Then he lit another cigarette and drew on it deeply. He coughed.
‘Is this really a drying-out tank?’ I asked.
‘It performs other functions. A bolt-hole, you might call it. But yes, goddamnit. I’m taking the cure. Tea, fruit juice and coffee. Coffee, fruit juice and tea. It’s making me ill. My body chemistry’s all awry.’
‘Why’re you really here, Maxwell? What are you afraid of? What’s your involvement with Virginia Shaw?’
He threw back his head and laughed. It was a rich, melodious sound but practised rather than genuine. I was beginning to doubt Ernie’s assessment of Maxwell’s intelligence—he seemed like a set of poses and mannerisms with nothing behind them. ‘You do like to ask the right questions, don’t you, Hardy?’
‘Saves time,’ I said. ‘You know about Charles Meadowbank getting shot, I assume. Did you know a woman who worked for Andrew Perkins was killed, too? Someone also took a shot at me. I’m thought to know things I don’t know.’
‘Better you shouldn’t.’
‘Wrong. Better I should. The police are looking to use me as a bait, or a beater or whatever the hell you pheasant-shooters want to call it.’
Maxwell laughed again, but this time with a less stagey note. ‘That’s all an act, dear boy. I’m from South London. Pick any gutter you like. I’ve lived on this accent and my wits for forty years.’
‘Ernie Glass said you were smart. I must say I can’t see much sign of it—holing up in a drunk tank, dry as a day-old dog turd and jumping at shadows.’
‘Glass is all right. I’m alarmed that he knows I’m here, though.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I improvised. ‘I’ll hear from him if anyone else inquires. And I’ve asked him to keep quiet about where you are.’
‘Good, good.’ Maxwell took off his hat and fanned himself again. He made it look natural but I was ready for something like that. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matthews pull back from a position he’d moved to about fifty yards away.
‘If I seem a little slow-witted, Hardy, it’s because this enforced abstinence is causing my brain to seize up. You’re quite right, of course. I’m in hiding here. I …’
I opened the briefcase, took out the gin bottle and unscrewed the cap. ‘It’s warm and there’s no tonic, ice or slices of lemon.’
He eyed the bottle like a desert traveller stumbling across an oasis. ‘You’re utterly unscrupulous. I have been trying.’
‘I don’t give a shit,’ I said. ‘Your weaknesses are your problem. I want information because my life’s in danger and I believe this one’s all I’ve got. Oil your brains and talk to me. Maybe I can even help you.’
The last remark tipped the balance. Maybe it just enabled him to rationalise his action. He grabbed the bottle, swivelled a little to shield himself from view and tilted it to his mouth. He swallowed deeply twice before I took it away from him.
‘Oh my God, that’s better. Christ, I wish I could be sure I could trust you.’
‘If you were sure it wouldn’t be trust. It’d be something else.’
He shot me a surprised look. ‘Having a drink yourself?’
Warm neat gin wasn’t my drink of choice, even if the lip of the bottle hadn’t touched his cold sore. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Tell me what’s going on and you can take the rest back to your cell.’
He looked glum. ‘They search you when you’ve been in contact with a civilian. I’ll have to drink it here and smoke like mad and chew gum leaves. Give me another tot, and I’ll tell you what I can. I don’t know everything, not by a long chalk, and I don’t want to.’
I handed him the bottle. He took a long pull and used his hat again to signal to Matthews. He didn’t bother to c
onceal the action this time. Out came the cigarette case and lighter and he got himself set. He told me that some prominent Sydney identities were involved in a conspiracy to get themselves trouble-free, reputation-saving divorces. Charles Meadowbank was one and he named two others—Bruce Redding, who was a member of Parliament, and a surgeon named Molesworth. He said there were more, possibly bigger people, whose names he didn’t know.
‘My belief is,’ he said, ‘that a certain amount of wife-swapping has been going on in high places. Now these people want to make the swaps permanent, but they don’t want fuss or the precious names of their various intendeds to be sullied.’
I said it sounded like a difficult thing to organise. He agreed but said it had been done through the agency of several lawyers like Perkins, a number of women like Virginia Shaw and several private investigators like himself.
‘Perkins claimed to know nothing about the Meadowbank killing. It looked as if this woman who worked for him had some involvement. She’s the one who was killed.’
‘He probably used her as a front and she exceeded her instructions. This whole thing has got out of hand.’
‘He seemed genuinely shocked when he learned of her murder.’
Maxwell shrugged and put his cigarette stub under the heel of his pale suede shoe. He glanced at the outline of the bottle in my bag, then looked away. ‘Like me, he probably had some involvement, but hadn’t expected things to take the turn they did.’
‘What exactly was your involvement?’
‘I helped to set up the women to be corespondents in the Redding and Molesworth matters. There was a sort of pool of money, a fighting fund established from these lucrative clients, and I was well paid. I’m using those funds here now. There was a promise of more when the divorces all went through.’
That dried him out and I had to give him another go at the bottle to get the flow started. ‘Don’t get pissed on me,’ I said. ‘It won’t work.’
‘There’s not enough here to do that. I had an enormous lunch out of sheer boredom. My stomach is well lined.’