Decline in Prophets (16 page)

E
dna pegged another print to the line above her head, inspecting the result in the red safe-light. They had converted the smallest room of the
Gainsborough Suite into a dark room so that she could develop the film shot on their travels. She had originally left Sydney with her father’s Box Brownie, determined to chronicle their
exile. Amused by her sudden enthusiasm for photography, Rowland bought her a Vollenda in Germany—the latest in photographic ingenuity. The camera was compact and less cumbersome than the
Brownie and importantly, it took roll film. Over the past months Edna had become increasingly fascinated with the medium, using it as an outlet for the creative energy she would have otherwise
expended in sculpture.

They had been on board more or less continuously, for over a month now. The
Aquitania
had docked briefly in Ceylon, and they had spent a couple of days on the tropical island. They had
stayed with some old friend of Rowland’s father— an exotic sojourn of heat and spices, imperial luxury under mosquito nets. Other than that, the trip had been unbroken. They found
themselves retreating to the improvised studio of the Gainsborough Suite more often as the days seemed to become increasingly similar. Pleasant, indulgent but repetitive all the same.

When not occupied in the studio, they still spent many hours playing cards, dining, dancing or being otherwise entertained. It was not a difficult existence. Hubert Van Hook joined them
regularly, and Isobel Hanrahan sought refuge in their company whenever she could escape the notice of her uncle.

Edna ran her eyes over the series of prints she’d just pegged up. She’d taken them in Ypres where they’d stayed for some weeks. The haunting rows of white military headstones
were sadly stark in the dim crimson light, the images poignant: Rowland, still on crutches, before the stone that bore his brother’s name; Clyde gazing out at the reality of the war that they
had been too young to join; Milton at the Menin Gate, reading the names of those whose remains were not recovered. She sighed, guiltily glad that the men she loved most had escaped the war.

She shuffled through the pile of prints from Germany. Was it because she’d just been looking at photographs of war graves? The pictures from Berlin seemed ominous. Milton larked for the
camera as he always did, but in the background the onlookers appeared hostile, contemptuous. Photographs on the Zeppelin. Rowland had insisted they go—she’d been terrified of the vast
and silent airship. Her new camera was the only thing that kept her mind from the fact that they were half a mile in the air, hanging beneath a bag of gas. There were several photographs taken in
the Zeppelin’s elegant passenger lounge. Even in these, there were brown-shirted officers seated behind them—they had been everywhere, watchful and arrogant.

She put the sheaf of prints down, thumbing through a selection she’d developed the previous evening—taken on board the
Aquitania
before they’d reached New York. There
was a picture of Rowland and Annie Besant, deep in discussion. Orville Urquhart smiled at the camera from a chair beside the old lady.

Edna remembered that Isobel Hanrahan had wanted a portrait of the Englishman for the locket he had stolen. She thought sadly of her locket. Rowland had given it to her—though she
couldn’t remember why. Men of Rowland’s means did not need occasions. He had dropped it casually into her hands and returned to drawing her. Perhaps he had just wanted to sketch her
delight. She had never before owned anything so fine. Still, Orville was dead and none of this was Isobel’s fault. She took the photo and slipped out of the blackened room.

Rowland and Clyde were both painting in the large parlour of the Gainsborough Suite. Milton sat in an armchair immersed in some supposedly celebrated book he’d picked up in New York, which
he claimed was about “a bloke who didn’t go to his own parties.”

Rowland was working on a portrait of Annie Besant. Edna had offered him numerous photographs of Theosophy’s World President, but he preferred to rely on his notebook and memory. Edna
glanced at the work.

“What do you think?” he asked noticing her gaze.

“You didn’t need my photographs,” Edna murmured. “Annie’s just magnificent isn’t she? Fierce and compassionate at the same time.”

“I thought so,” Rowland agreed.

Edna sighed. “I hope I matter like that one day.”

“Matter?”

“Like Annie. She’s changed the world, Rowly… imagine changing the world.”

Rowland rather liked the world the way it was, but he wasn’t going to risk starting a debate on equity and social justice. He was a Sinclair. It was not an argument he could win.

“What are you going to do with the background?” Edna asked, touching the bare canvas around Annie Besant’s likeness.

Rowland shrugged. “I’m not really sure.”

“Paint her aura,” Milton said, without looking up from his book.

Rowland laughed. “I’d consider it, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen an aura.”

“You need to be really drunk,” Milton advised sagely.

“What have you got, Ed?” Clyde asked emerging from behind his easel.

“Oh this.” Edna handed Clyde a photograph. “I developed it this morning. That’s Orville standing by Annie… I thought Isobel might like to have it.”

Milton laughed. Rowland returned to his painting.

Clyde grinned as he handed the photograph back. “I think you’ll find Isobel’s no longer grieving for Orville.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

Clyde looked at Rowland. Rowland kept painting.

“Isobel Hanrahan seems to have set her cap for our Rowly,” Milton informed Edna. “All that Art can add to love, yet still I love thee without Art.”

“Wilmot,” Rowland sighed, “and a trifle melodramatic.”

Edna dropped into the chaise lounge. “Really,” she said. She smiled delightedly at Rowland. “How lovely.”

“Yes, quite,” he muttered uncomfortably. He did not object to Isobel’s interest. She was a beautiful woman, charming and inexplicably eager. Rowland Sinclair was not an
insecure man, but he found the young woman’s sudden passion, a little unusual. He couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it.

Milton and Edna were now gossiping about Isobel’s infatuation as if he were not in the room. In truth he was a little irritated that the sculptress was so personally indifferent to the
overtures of the bishop’s niece. He hadn’t really expected her to be jealous—he just wished she was not so enthusiastic. He ignored them and continued to work.

The scream took them all unawares. A cry of pure terror, repeated. Rowland put down his brush and stepped without delay into the hallway. He could see a door open a few rooms down—the
epicentre of the shrieking. He knew that room. He walked towards it, Clyde at his shoulder and Milton and Edna just behind. Other doors were opening along the corridor. Rowland grabbed the handle
and pushed the door wide.

All they saw at first was the maid’s back, hunched and clenched. She was facing into the room, screaming hysterically, fresh towels dropped at her feet. Rowland sidestepped past the woman
and he saw what caused her panic. Francesca Waterman was hanging by her neck from the baggage shelf. Her eyes were open, bulging from their sockets, her mouth twisted in agony, her tongue swollen
and protruding from blue lips. Her hands were stiff and clawed. She swung on the end of a rope, her feet just a few inches from the plush piled carpet, swaying with the gentle rock of the ship.

“Ed, don’t…,” Rowland started, but too late. She stood in the room, staring, her eyes large.

“Ed…”

Edna pulled her gaze from Francesca Waterman and turned instead to the maid who was still a siren of distress. She put her arm around the distraught woman. “Come on, let’s get you
out of here, shall we? Are you all right?”

The maid began to sob.

“Let’s find you a cup of tea, shall we? Rowly will take care of Mrs. Waterman.” Soothingly, she coaxed the woman from the room.

More people were gathering around the door. Rowland wondered where Richard Waterman was.

“Rowly,” Milton whispered. “Shouldn’t we cut her down?”

“I don’t know—it’s too late to save her… where the hell is Madding?”

Even as he spoke, the captain walked in. Yates, the ship’s doctor, was in tow. Madding gave directions immediately to disperse the passengers outside the stateroom and to close the
door.

He looked silently at the corpse suspended from the baggage rail. “Cut her down,” he commanded, his voice heavy.

The Australians stood back as the crewmen cut the rope and placed Francesca Waterman on the bed.

“What happened, Sinclair?” Madding turned to them.

Rowland shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “We heard the maid screaming and found this.”

“Where is the maid?”

“Ed—Miss Higgins—took her out. She was understandably distressed.”

“We’d better find Richard Waterman.” Madding sighed. He sent a man to do so.

“Do you think she could have topped herself?” Milton asked Yates.

The poet’s bluntness made him cringe, but Rowland had been wondering the same.

Yates glanced at Madding and then shook his head. “It seems unlikely,” he said gravely. “There’s no chair.” He went over to the baggage shelf. “See these
grooves in the paint—looks like the rope was placed around her neck and then she was hoisted up—she seems to have struggled a fair bit. Not a particularly nice way to go.”

Madding exhaled. “Is it too much to ask for one trip without the passengers killing each other…” He gave instructions for Mrs. Waterman’s body.

“We must find Mr. Waterman,” he said, impatiently stroking his beard. The men he sent to find the surgeon had not yet returned. “We’re still a week from
Sydney—we’ll have to deal with this matter carefully.”

Rowland nodded. He wondered whether Madding wanted to offer Waterman his condolences or arrest him.

“I have an idea where he is,” Clyde volunteered

Madding turned to Clyde. “The sooner we find him the better.”

“It’s Sunday and there is one place he would go without his wife.”

“I can think of several places a man would go without a wife,” Milton interrupted.

“I think Mr. Waterman may be at Mass,” Clyde went on ignoring Milton. “I noticed him that day Rowly made me go to Mass—he was on his own.”

“Waterman’s Catholic?” Madding was surprised. “I thought they were Theosophists?”

“Mrs. Waterman brought him into the movement,” Rowland said, recalling his conversation with Cartwright. “He might have left the Catholic Church for her.”

“One never leaves the Catholic Church,” Clyde observed. “It has a way of clawing you back.”

14

C
lyde scrutinised Rowland Sinclair carefully. He was reasonably sure his friend was bluffing, but it was hard to be certain. It was not that
Rowland didn’t have any tells, but that he was aware of them. It made it hard to trust the momentary twitch of his brow or the way he ran his hand through his hair. Clyde cursed under his
breath—Rowland was a bloody fine poker player—it was a good thing he never collected his winnings.

Edna wasn’t playing on this occasion, curled instead on the sofa, eating Belgian chocolate.

“I thought those were gifts for your father,” Milton reminded her, as he waited impatiently for Clyde to make his play.

“Papa will understand,” Edna replied as she continued to soothe herself with the dark sweetness.

“Are you all right, Ed?” Clyde asked, glancing up at her. She always fed distress.

“That poor woman,” the sculptress said pulling her knees up towards her. “What do you think the captain is telling Mr. Waterman?” She shuddered. “At least he
didn’t have to see her hanging there…”

“Presuming he didn’t kill her,” Milton muttered.

Clyde finally called.

Rowland grinned—he hadn’t been bluffing. Clyde groaned.

“Do you really think he killed her?” Edna’s voice was shocked.

“He may have, Ed.” Rowland dealt again. “I told you about their argument—maybe he’d had enough.”

“But to kill her… he’s a surgeon.”

“And a Catholic,” Clyde added.

Milton snorted. “Hardly a defence.”

“Say, Rowly,” Clyde said thoughtfully, “you don’t suppose your Theosophist killer got back on board?”

“It’s possible, I guess.” Rowland shrugged. “Mrs. Waterman may have been killed for her Theosophical connections… but then again it may have just been because she
was jolly unpleasant.”