The Portrait of Molly Dean

by Katherine Kovacic

I reach the workbench and lean over John’s shoulder as he scooches to one side. It’s a largish envelope, about A5 size and a rich cream colour. It looks like quite a heavy sort of bonded paper and the flap, which is facing us, has been stuck down. The envelope bulges slightly, hinting at a secret larger than a single page could bear. The lower edge of the envelope has been tucked between the canvas and the stretcher. Not shoved down so far that the bulk of the envelope would push into the canvas, but enough to hold it in place, although without the paper covering the back of the painting, it would have flopped around. I pick up the piece of paper John has just removed and look at the framer’s label again. The work was done by a venerable Melbourne firm, popular with the leading artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I give the label a tap.

  ‘That address and phone number puts it pre-1933, so the envelope must have gone in when the painting was first framed.’

  ‘Unless that’s what someone wants you to think. You could get an old label from somewhere and just paste it on …’ John trails off as I give him a dirty look. ‘Maybe I am getting a bit carried away.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘So shall we see?’

  ‘It’s probably just a bunch of exhibition reviews or I don’t know, a copy of the catalogue?’

  ‘Okay, I may be getting carried away, but you’re just pissing in the wind now. What artist ever stuffed their reviews in the back of a painting? C’mon Alex.’

  ‘So open it.’ I bat my good hand irritably between John’s face and the envelope.

  He gives it a gentle tug and the canvas releases it with a sigh.

  ***

  John holds the envelope for a moment, rubbing the paper between his thumb and index finger. ‘High gsm. Personal stationery maybe? If it’s office letterhead it’s got to be from somewhere important, government or maybe an upmarket hotel.’ He flips the envelope over, but the front is blank, the smoothness marred only by a faint brown line where the paper had been trapped.

  ‘For God’s sake, now we’re a forensics team? Are we going to trace the pack of paper and hope the stationer has a record of purchases for the 1930s? Perhaps we should check the flap for a saliva sample or even dust for prints?’

  John’s eyes glint and I’m sure he’s considering the possibility.

  ‘Just so we’re clear, I was being facetious,’ I say. ‘If we’re really lucky it might be some letters or notes relating to Colahan. A packet of previously unknown source documents would be nice, but we both know that whatever is in the envelope, it will not contain the phrase, “If you are reading this, it means that I’ve been murdered.”’

  ‘Stranger things.’ John’s words hang in the air as he turns the envelope again, exposing the flap. ‘You want to do the honours?’

  I shake my head. John gently wiggles a finger under the top edge of the flap, then applies a bit of experimental pressure. The gum must have deteriorated with age, because the corner yields instantly, leaving a streak of yellow on the underlying paper. As he continues to ease his way along the stuck edge with conservatorial care, I pick up Molly’s portrait and return it to the easel, leaving the workbench clear for whatever the envelope may contain.

  Now the flap is completely free and John uses both hands to part the sides of the envelope and extract the contents, which he passes to me. It’s a sheaf of onion-skin papers. They’re folded in on themselves, but I can see through the translucent cockled surface of the outer sheet that they’re covered with closely written text.

  ‘Looks like someone had a lot to say.’

  I unfold the papers. The creases are sharp and the pages crackle underneath my fumbling hands. I look at the top sheet but my eyes aren’t taking it in. Or my brain isn’t processing what my eyes are seeing. I’m not sure but there’s a glitch in the circuitry somewhere. Instead, I start to lay the papers out on the workbench, starting with page one in the top left corner and moving across three before starting a new row. There is no reason for this to be anything momentous, but that’s how it feels: like the beginning of something huge, or the ending. I finish a third line and John shuffles everything a bit so I can fit pages ten and eleven on the near edge of the desk. I scan my eyes across them, working in the same sequence, left to right, row by row. It’s all one document. There are a few dates breaking up the bulk of the text, but that’s all. No signatures grace the bottom of any of the pages, except for the last.

  John reaches out two fingers and angles the final page to face him directly, then sits for a moment, hunched forward, hand sort of hanging off the edge of the table, as though he might suddenly drag that paper away and cast it to the floor. Instead, he carefully realigns it with the other pages and leans back leaving his hand caught in midair, a pianist about to strike the opening note. Suddenly he pulls his hand back and clasps it around the opposite fist.

  We look at each other.

  ‘She was a writer. It’s probably a story outline or a draft chapter.’ It sounds thin even as I say it.

  ‘Which she hid in the back of her portrait, painted by her lover.’

  ‘Something she didn’t want her mother to find?’

  ‘Why not just leave that with Colin or one of her friends?’

  ‘You’re not helping.’

  ‘If it’s nothing important, no problem. If it’s juicy details of her relationship with Colahan, no problem, in fact, art history gold. If it’s what got her killed, then fantastic! You will have found the missing piece of Molly’s story.’

  ‘Do you think that’s it? The answer? Is that why I got attacked and Rob was threatened?’

  John spread his hands wide and shrugged. ‘Could be, but I don’t see how anyone could know about this. We agree that whatever this is, it’s been there since the painting was framed – since before Molly was killed.’

  I nod. ‘You’ve freaked me out with all your conspiracy theories. And then last night …’

  ‘Read it. Then you’ll know. I’ll bung the kettle on and dig out the Iced VoVos.’

  ‘Not the Iced VoVos!’ It’s a lame running joke of ours, but it breaks the tension.

  John gets up and I take his place at the bench, stretching forward to pick up the first page. I start to read. Behind me, I am vaguely aware of him moving about, a murmur as he talks to Hogarth, the clink of cups, then after a few moments the smell of coffee, fruity and chocolatey, washes over me. I glance up as John places a mug next to my elbow.

  ‘All out of Iced VoVos, but there’s shortbread if you want it.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘I’ll start cleaning her up then.’ He turns toward the easel.

  Soon the coffee smell is replaced by the petroleum tang of mineral spirits, and after a while I hear faint music. John has put on some jazz and I fleetingly register the opening bars of ‘Song for My Father’ before the pages grab me again. I take a sip of coffee but it’s already cold. I pick up another page and keep reading. When I get to the end, I stare at Molly’s signature for a few moments, then pick up the first page and start reading again.

  ***

  ‘Alex?’

  I’m staring out the window with the pages stacked neatly in front of me, but at the soft sound of John’s voice I blink and turn.

  ‘You’ve been sitting like that forever and I’m dying to know what it says.’

  ‘It’s notes for a story, but not the sort of story we were thinking about.’

  John rubs his hands on a piece of rag, then grabs a chair, dragging it over to me and sitting close. Hogarth pads across to see what we’re doing and lays his head in my lap. I reach out a hand and start absently stroking his fur, comforted by the touch as much as I am by John’s presence.

  ‘Do you remember me telling you about her last phone calls to Colin? What she wanted to talk about?’

  ‘She wanted to di
tch her teaching job and get into journalism,’ John nods. ‘There was talk she’d been offered a trial, but I don’t recall who’d made the offer or what the publication was.’

  ‘Well, these seem to be the notes for an article. It’s an exposé, and all the details are here.’

  ‘An exposé of what?’

  ‘Actually, of whom. A man, but Molly doesn’t identify him. It sounds as though it started out as a sort of society piece, a bio. I think she took her research to extremes and came up with the story of a lifetime. There’s sly grog, gambling, standover men and dodgy shipments, although she seems a bit unsure about that.’ I take a deep breath. ‘She also mentions police bribes.’

  ‘And then she ended up dead.’

  ‘And then she ended up dead.’

  1930

  Before telephoning Donald Raeburn, Molly decided to take a walk along St Kilda Road one afternoon and have a look at his house. Many of the old mansions that lined the leafy boulevard were now being subdivided into bijoux apartments and she thought if Donald lived in one of those buildings it would be a relatively easy matter to catch him coming or going, or even leave a message with the concierge, making her whole approach seem much more relaxed. If she could keep him from putting his guard up, Molly reasoned, he’d be far more loquacious and forthcoming with the sort of information she needed. She mentally ticked off the house numbers as she walked, planning her approach so her first sight of his home would be from the opposite side of the street. The last thing she wanted was to come face to face with Donald before she was ready.

  Now she stared across St Kilda Road at the white facade of a mansion built in the Classical style. Slender fluted columns capped with scrolls and acanthus leaves flanked the glossy black front door and were mirrored by smaller faux columns on the two upper floors. The symmetry of the windows and the intricate egg-and-dart design of the cornice crowning the building combined to give an impression of elegant good taste and considerable wealth. A brass plaque affixed to the rather forbidding wrought-iron gate announced that the building – an edifice too grand to be considered merely a house, Molly thought – was called Conniston. Molly felt a momentary flutter of anxiety, which she quickly suppressed. That Conniston was a far cry from the chic bachelor’s residence she had been hoping for was no reason for alarm, in fact it said something quite definite about the man who chose to live there. As if to prove this notion to herself, Molly took out her notebook and jotted down her impressions of the mansion. It made her even more determined to find out who Donald Raeburn really was. Despite all the little snippets she had so carefully collated from the papers, Molly realised the face Raeburn presented to the world was just as smooth and impregnable as the exterior of his home. One was left with the feeling that on the other side of the wall there was an entirely different and unexpected story, and without the right key, you would be forever on the outside, trying and failing to get in.

  Molly crossed the wide road, moving quickly from the dappled light of one elm-leafed canopy into full sun, then under the spreading branches of the trees on the opposite side that stretched toward their counterparts. Traffic was relatively light, but she still had to dodge between cars and carts, narrowly avoiding a disastrous fall when one of her Louis heels caught in the tram tracks. She arrived in front of Conniston’s fence like a shipwreck survivor washed up on an exotic shore and had to take a moment to catch her breath and straighten her hat.

  Now that she was here, it seemed silly not to knock and see if Mr Raeburn was at home and receiving visitors. Molly squared her shoulders and lifted the latch on the gate, marvelling at how such a heavy-looking barricade could swing so smoothly at the lightest touch. She mounted the six steps to the front door, which seemed far larger now she was standing right in front of it. There was both a bell press and a heavy bronze knocker, fashioned in the form of a heroic-looking Neptune flanked by two chimeric seahorses, their equine heads and forelimbs tapering off into exotic, scaled fish tails. Deciding the knocker looked too valuable to hammer with any authority, Molly settled for pushing her finger firmly on the bell. She was rewarded with a loud trilling sound that seemed to reverberate inside for several seconds after she’d pulled her hand away.

  Then there was silence. Molly thought she heard a door close somewhere deep within the house, but silence settled once more. Just as she was about to turn away, the door swung open revealing an older, dark-haired man in a sober black suit. His appearance didn’t tally with what she’d gleaned of Donald Raeburn’s looks, so Molly assumed this man must be some sort of assistant or even a valet. Molly glanced at his shoes, wondering why she hadn’t heard his approach, then swiftly refocused on her goal.

  ‘Good afternoon. I wonder if Mr Raeburn might be at home please.’ She tried to keep her voice calm and even, not sound as though she was pleading.

  ‘Whom shall I say wishes to see him and in what regard, madam?’

  Molly thought she detected an almost imperceptible pause before he uttered the word ‘madam’, and immediately felt more determined than ever to get over the threshold.

  ‘Miss Mary Dean.’ It was her turn to pause. ‘I wish to speak with Mr Raeburn on a private matter.’ It wasn’t strictly true, but she thought it might have the desired response.

  ‘One moment, madam.’

  Molly suddenly found herself staring at King Neptune again, cast adrift in a sea of gloss enamel paint, as the door was shut quietly but firmly in her face. She felt her cheeks start to burn but willed herself to calm down. It seemed incredibly rude to leave her standing on the front mat but then again, she reasoned, the man had no idea who she was and even though she was attired quite smartly, her voile dress was more Foy & Gibson than Block Arcade boutique. She adjusted her low belt so the buckle sat neatly on her left hip, directly under the jabot that fell from the collarless neck. She’d particularly chosen to wear it today because of the fashionable cut and shade, but now wondered if it somehow betrayed its off-the-rack origins. Molly made a conscious effort not to look at her watch, in case she was under observation from within the house, but she felt very aware of the passage of time. After a few minutes that seemed like half an hour, she was beginning to wonder whether she should ring again or cut her losses and leave.

  Caught up in her own thoughts, Molly began to pace up and down the length of porch, giving herself a pep talk that began as a murmur but was rapidly rising in volume. ‘You can do this. Do not give up, you can do this!’ She spun around at one extreme of her march to find the door had reopened and a different man was regarding her with some amusement.

  She pulled up abruptly with a gasp of surprise. This man was taller than the first, with sandy brown hair smoothed back from a wide forehead. One lock of hair refused to be tamed and fell boyishly across green-brown eyes, as deep and impenetrable as a silent billabong. He lounged in the doorway with a loose-limbed insouciance that spoke of confidence and entitlement. As she looked at him, one eyebrow lazily elevated itself, mirrored by the opposite corner of his mouth.

  ‘Miss Dean, I gather.’ The voice was as languid as the rest of him. ‘Apologies for Dickie. He’s very protective of me and, alas, that doesn’t always translate into good manners. I shall have words with him about leaving pretty girls standing on my doorstep.’ He pushed himself off the doorframe and extended a hand. ‘I’m Donald Raeburn. Perhaps if you come in and tell me how I can help you.’

  Molly shook the proffered hand, which was smooth and dry, and was drawn gently but firmly into Conniston’s cool interior.

  ***

  Raeburn closed the door behind her, shutting out the sun and forcing Molly to blink rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. She was standing on a polished marble floor in a rounded vestibule. In front of her, a wide staircase led up to a landing, then branched left and right, continuing on to the higher levels. Tilting her head back, she could see a gallery running around the perimeter of
the first floor, with marble pillars echoing those on the front of the house. High above, a domed ceiling with a small central glass panel was decorated as though it belonged inside a chapel, a host of winged cherubs gambolling among fluffy white clouds and cupid pointing his bow and arrow toward the oblivious humans far below. Molly brought her attention back down to earth, to find a pair of eyes watching her intently.

  ‘It’s a bit overly sweet for my taste, but too much of a bore to send a chap up there to paint over it.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, Dickie mentioned a personal matter, but,’ Donald’s gaze travelled from Molly’s face to her toes and back up again, ‘I’d remember if we’d met before and you don’t look angry, so I assume you’re not here on behalf of a friend.’ He laughed at the expression on her face. ‘Sorry, it’s just that a man in my position, well, you’d be surprised at how many women there are whom I’ve never met but have supposedly wronged in some way!’

  Molly forced herself to smile. She’d met men like Donald Raeburn before and normally had a smart comeback at the ready, but she knew she needed to play this differently. She couldn’t afford to get him offside. ‘Oh goodness, it’s nothing like that at all, Mr Raeburn!’ Molly put a suggestion of girlish giggle into her voice and mentally thanked all the coquettish little actresses she’d met and dismissed at Colin’s parties.

  ‘Don, please! Well now you have me intrigued. We’d best go through to the drawing room and you can reveal all.’ One side of his mouth curled into a cocky grin. He held out an arm, inviting her to precede him across the vestibule. ‘Second on the left. Just go on in.’ He tucked his hands in his trouser pockets and strolled after her.

  The drawing room made Molly stop short when she entered. Unlike the elegant front and entrance to the house, it was decorated along the latest Modernist lines. The fireplace and plaster mouldings were still original, but the colour scheme and low-slung furniture looked as though they’d been dropped into place from another world. The floor was covered in wall-to-wall moss-green marbled carpet and the pale gold walls were relatively bare, except for a large silver-edged mirror opposite the windows and a wildly modern painting over the mantel. A canary-yellow couch, all sharp angles and open at one end, dominated the centre of the room. It faced a dark green club chair, while between the two sat a round coffee table in royal blue, a book and some sort of plant arranged artfully on its surface. The colour of the table was picked up by blue scatter cushions on the couch and chair, and by the L-shaped sofa table that wrapped around the back and one end of the couch, providing the surface for a chrome lamp and a few books that looked as though their spines had never been cracked. A blue telephone table looking more like a giant shadow box squatted in the far corner.