A Murder Unmentioned (3 page)

Neither had Rowland let the matter rest. Indeed they’d all embarked to Germany just months before because he was determined to foil Campbell’s plans to forge alliances with the Germans and prevent him bringing Nazism to Australia. They had thought they’d succeeded.

“I suppose standing for election is better than organising a coup d’état.”

Rowland frowned. “We can’t be sure he’s not.”

Edna put down the paper and fell into the wing-backed armchair in which she often posed for Rowland. The leather was softened with age and marked in places where even Mary Brown had been unable to remove a careless splash of paint.

A life-sized portrait of the late Henry Sinclair, sitting in that same chair, glared down at the sculptress from the wall opposite. Edna tilted her head to study Rowland against that imposing, disapproving image of his father. Aside from the distinctive blue, which characterised the eyes of all the Sinclair men, Rowland and his father seemed to have had little physically in common.

“Who painted that portrait, Rowly?” she asked as he sat down again.

Rowland glanced back at the painting. “That’s a William McInnes.” He smiled. “Father didn’t have much time for him… thought him too young to paint well.”

Edna laughed. McInnes had won the Archibald Prize six times already and was one of the country’s most acclaimed portrait artists. Still, he would have been in his early twenties when he’d painted Henry Sinclair. “It’s such a fierce painting. Is it a good likeness?”

“Yes.”

“Did he like it… your father?”

“It used to hang in his study at
Oaklea
, so I presume he did.”

“At
Oaklea
? Then what’s it doing here?” Edna asked, surprised. She’d assumed that Rowland kept the portrait in his studio amongst all his own work because it had always hung there. It intrigued her that he would install it himself.

Rowland’s smile was brief. “My father always liked to keep an eye on me.”

Edna wondered if she had misjudged Henry Sinclair. Rowland rarely spoke of his father but that need not, of itself, mean their relationship had been strained. Perhaps it was a silence born of loss. Perhaps, beneath the outward severity, Henry Sinclair’s was an artistic soul. Rowland’s talent, Edna reasoned, must have come from somewhere. “It’s a shame he didn’t live to see your work, Rowly,” she said quietly.

Rowland frowned, his jaw tightened. “It’s not a shame at all, Ed.” He retrieved the jacket he had thrown over the back of his chair.

“Where are you going?” Edna asked uneasily.

“I have an appointment in the city.”

“Rowly, I’m sorry if I—”

Rowland stopped, realising that she believed she’d offended him somehow, that he’d been unintentionally abrupt. He moved to sit directly opposite Edna and answered the question she’d not yet asked. “My father would not have approved of my work, Ed. He would not have tolerated it.”

“But you didn’t paint when he was alive.”

“No, I was only fifteen when Father died. Still, I did plenty of other things he disapproved of.”

Edna glanced up at the portrait. “You don’t take after him at all?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“I’m glad.”

“To be honest, I am too.” He checked his watch. “Now, I really am late.”

“Who are you going to see?”

“Eric Campbell.”

“Campbell? Rowly, I don’t think that’s such a—”

“It’s not a private audience, Ed. He’s delivering another one of his stirring speeches,” Rowland replied dryly.

“Even so,” Edna persisted, convinced that Rowland’s determination to personally foil Campbell at every turn was ill advised. “He’s a dangerous man, Rowly.”

Rowland nodded. “Yes, I believe he is. And I don’t think he’s finished. I just want to know what he’s thinking.”

“They won’t let you—”

“I’ll be a face in the crowd, Ed. It’s been nearly two years since I crossed the New Guard… de Groot and half the executive have resigned or been expelled—no one will notice me.”

Edna studied him for a moment, and then she stood. “Well, we’d better get going then.”

“I didn’t mean…”

Edna retrieved her gloves from the sideboard. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than listening to Mr. Campbell give a speech,” she said grimacing. A thought occurred to her and she glanced down at her simple cotton dress. It was a little faded and a couple of seasons out of style. “Where is Mr. Campbell giving this speech, Rowly… should I change?”

Rowland contemplated the sculptress. He had seen her nearly every day for almost three years. She lived in his house, was his model and his muse. Yet even now, just looking at her took his breath. “No, don’t change.”

3

SUED LEADER OF NEW GUARD

£401 5/8 FOR ALLEGED LEGAL EXPENSES

SYDNEY, Sept 21

The case in which John Francis Dynon had sued Eric Campbell, leader of the New Guard, for £401 5/8, alleged to have been expenses incurred in the defence of the plaintiff and other members of the New Guard who were convicted at the Central Court of having assaulted Alderman J. Garden in May of last year, was brought to an end by the announcement of Mr. Justice Halse Rogers in the Supreme Court today that the matter had been settled out of court. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Kalgoorlie Miner, 1933

T
he barrel-chested men who guarded the entrance to the hall were noticeably uniformed by their lack of jackets and the coloured armbands which stood out against the crisp white of exposed shirtsleeves. They stopped Rowland and Edna, silently cutting them out of the crowd of New Guardsmen and curious citizens streaming into the hall.

Rowland cursed under his breath, grabbing Edna’s hand and turning to leave.

“Sinclair!” One of the jacketless guardsmen smiled broadly as he barred Rowland’s way.

“Hodges,” Rowland replied pulling Edna behind him. The guardsman was one of many Rowland had met when he’d infiltrated the New Guard. His cover was, of course, no longer intact and the New Guard knew well that Rowland Sinclair had been a spy in their midst. Many believed he had tried to assassinate their leader.

Hodges conferred quietly with a couple of his colleagues.

“You’d better come with me,” he said curtly.

“I don’t think so,” Rowland replied. “We might just be on our way.”

Hodges’ eyes narrowed. “There are three thousand right thinking men here… what do you suppose would happen if they knew who you were, that you were the Red mongrel who tried to kill the commander?”

Rowland said nothing, furious with himself for so carelessly bringing Edna into danger. Campbell’s men were not adverse to violence.

“Very well,” he said slowly. “But allow Miss Higgins to leave first.”

“No, I think I’ll stay,” Edna was defiant.

“Ed—”

“We’re not going to let your young lady go just yet,” Hodges interrupted. “If you make us drag you, she could get hurt.”

Rowland flared. “Touch her and I’ll—”

“Ten seconds and I’ll announce who you are and leave you to it,” Hodges threatened.

“Rowly…” Edna glanced back into the hall at the packed assembly of guardsmen all chanting for Campbell.

Rowland squeezed her hand. The sculptress was right. They would have to take their chances with Hodges.

A dozen guardsmen escorted them to an anteroom adjoining the hall. Hodges entered first, and after a brief interval Rowland and Edna were ushered in. Eric Campbell stood before a full-length mirror, grooming his moustache.

“Sinclair,” he said coldly, regarding them first in the mirror. He turned. “And your charming fiancée… or has Miss Higgins become Mrs. Rowland Sinclair since we last had the pleasure?”

“No,” Rowland said curtly. He was fairly sure Campbell knew that Edna had never been his fiancée. “What do you want, Campbell?”

“I could ask the same thing of you,” Campbell said turning back to the mirror to adjust his tie. He didn’t wait for Rowland to respond. “This is a day of significance Sinclair, an historic day. Today we will take the first step towards smashing the corrupt machine of party politics from within. Democracy has had its chance. Australians deserve a better system.”

“This won’t work,” Rowland said. “Not here.”

“I met some gentlemen in Germany who might disagree,” Campbell replied. “Mr. Hitler’s government worked within the system to deliver the change the German people wanted… I see no reason why the Centre Party supported by the New Guard can’t do the same here.”

“You can’t seriously be looking to emulate the Nazis!” Rowland said angrily. “For God’s sake, man, Hitler is—”

Hodges pushed him back. “Shut your Red trap, Sinclair.”

Rowland might have thrown a punch then and there if Edna was not still holding onto his hand.

“You’ll find, Sinclair,” Campbell said, with restraining grip on Hodges’ shoulder, “that there’ll be no receptive ear for your Bolshevik slander here.”

Edna tried. “Mr. Campbell, you don’t understand. We were in Germany…”

“So was I, Miss Higgins. And let me tell you I was impressed. In orderliness and cleanliness, the Germans have no equal! They are happy and content and prosperous.”

“And what about the German Jews, Mr. Campbell—are they happy and content?” Edna asked.

Campbell’s reply was smooth, practised. “The only Jews I saw were eating in restaurants… fat, well-dressed people who scoffed at notions that they were persecuted in any way!”

Rowland shook his head. “Don’t bother, Ed. The man is an idiot, too vain to recognise what’s in front of his nose.”

Campbell’s face hardened. “What’s in front of my nose, Sinclair, is a spoiled Red sympathiser, a traitor!” He took a step towards Rowland. “You are not welcome here amongst the noble and decent men of the New Guard,
comrade
. Go back to your shirking Commie mates and wait for the judgement day that’s coming to you!”

“I won’t be waiting quietly, Campbell,” Rowland’s voice was thick with contempt. “You go ahead and follow Mr. Hitler’s plan, copy his every move, but you’ll find it won’t work in Australia!”

Campbell smiled. “You might care to watch yourself. Some of the lads quite earnestly believe you got off too lightly last time we crossed paths. They may decide to deal the justice that most loyal, right thinking men believe you deserve.”

“Rowly, let’s just go,” Edna said before he could respond. She grabbed his arm. “Rowly!”

Rowland nodded slowly. They’d already pushed their luck.

Four guardsmen, including Hodges, escorted them out of the anteroom, accompanying them down the street, well away from the crowds gathered around the hall in which Eric Campbell’s parliamentary ambitions would be launched.

“Right, Sinclair,” Hodges snarled. “Get lost!” He half turned away and then changed his mind.

“Rowly!” Edna screamed as the guardsman swivelled and swung.

Rowland ducked, pushing Edna back with his left arm whilst he led with his right. Of course, there were four New Guardsmen, and they closed in.

“Oi!” A shout from behind them.

“Harry!” Edna responded as she recognised the first of the two burly men now charging the affray. Harcourt Garden would help them.

With the odds now almost equal, the guardsmen pulled back and the confrontation turned into a heated skirmish of words, and even that was curbed in profanity by the presence of Edna.

After a sufficiency of threats had been duly exchanged, the guardsmen departed, telling themselves and each other that they had put the fear of God into Rowland Sinclair.

Harcourt Garden slapped Rowland on the back and introduced him to his companion, Paul Bremner, a solid swarthy Union man with a Communist badge pinned to his flat cap. “This is the bloke who tried to shoot that Fascist bastard Eric Campbell a couple of years ago… before old Jock got worked over by the bloody Boo Guard!” he told Bremner proudly. Harcourt’s father, Jock Garden, was a founder of the Communist Party of Australia and a vocal proponent of the Left. He’d been brutally ambushed outside his own home by a group of hooded vigilantes whose connection to Campbell and the New Guard was widely known, if never proved.

“I didn’t shoot anyone,” Rowland corrected the record as he shook hands with Harcourt Garden’s mate.

“We’ve given you points for trying,” Garden said, slinging his arm around Rowland’s shoulders.

“What happened? Did ya miss?” Bremner asked, grinning.

“No. I got shot,” Rowland said wearily.

Edna looked at him in horror. “I can’t believe you’re bringing that up again!”

Rowland smiled. Edna hated being reminded that she’d shot him. “I should buy you gentlemen a drink, I suspect,” he said, judiciously changing the subject.

The task of so thanking their saviours was, however, complicated by Edna whose presence, and refusal to sit by herself in the ladies’ bar, precluded a simple stop at the nearest pub. It was Bremner who suggested the wine bar not far from Trades Hall. The décor was on the sparse side of rudimentary, but the venue was full. Men and women gathered about the small round tables in conspiratorial groups. Whether or not they were actually conspiring was hard to tell—they could well have been discussing the cricket—but in the smoke filled haze of the Communist haunt it was not hard to imagine that the odd plot was being hatched. Rowland Sinclair’s party shared a bottle of McWilliams red while they talked of Campbell’s political aspirations. Garden and Bremner were inclined to dismiss them as a joke. Rowland, less so. He told Garden of the persecution of trade unionists and dissidents they had seen in Germany, of Dachau and the men forced into hiding. Garden ranted his outrage, Bremner smouldered quietly. And so the morning was passed.