Give the Devil His Due (38 page)

SYDNEY, Thursday

The Commissioner of Police this morning detailed a senior detective to investigate the charges of corruption in connection with starting price betting made by Mr. McDicken in the Legislative Assembly yesterday.

Northern Star, 1932

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E
dna heard the deep murmur of men in conversation before she opened her eyes. For a while she didn't interrupt them, until she heard Rowland say quite plainly, “I'm going to kill him!”

“Don't you dare plot murder without me,” she said, sitting up.

They rushed to her bedside and she screamed. “Clyde! What happened to your face?”

Lenin leapt off the bed, collecting his master in exuberant midflight. Rowland staggered back. “Settle down, Len. I've only been gone a day,” he said, trying vainly to calm the dog.

Horrified, Edna reached up to touch Clyde's swollen and blackened eyes. “Oh, does it hurt? I really will kill Reggie for this!”

“This wasn't the doc or any of his mates, Ed,” Clyde confessed.

“Perhaps you and Rowly could enlighten us as to what exactly happened to you, Mr. Watson Jones.” Wilfred stood at the door unwilling to enter a lady's bedroom without invitation, even in a house that was technically his.

“Mr. Sinclair,” Edna said. “Please come in.”

Wilfred nodded and stepped into the room. “Thank you, Miss Higgins. I trust you're feeling better?”

“I am, Mr. Sinclair, thanks to Mr. Maguire. Is he still here? Clyde appears to be in pressing need of him and Rowly's really not much better.” The sculptress knelt on the bed to scrutinise their faces. “What on earth happened?”

Clyde told them, adding humiliation to all the other injuries of the past days.

“They thought you were trying to blackmail them?” Edna said, aghast.

“It was all a dreadful misunderstanding,” Clyde said glumly.

Wilfred walked towards the door, and then changed his mind and came back. He poked his brother in the chest. “How many times have I told you that your insistence on painting these poor women in such a disgraceful state of undress would catch up with you? If she'd been my daughter… For the love of God, Rowly!”

“It really wasn't Rowly's—” Clyde began in defence of his friend, but Wilfred wouldn't hear it.

“I'll tell Maguire to expect you down in a couple of minutes,” he said, stalking out of the room in disgust.

For several moments there was silence in Wilfred's wake.

Then Milton laughed. “I'm sorry mate,” he said to Clyde. “I feel for you, I really do. But blackmail…”

“I'm sorry about Wilfred, Rowly.” Clyde sighed.

Rowland wrinkled his nose. “Don't let it concern you. Wil's happiest when he has something to berate me about.”

Edna took his hand and Clyde's in each of hers. “I'd hug you both but I'm afraid I might hurt you,” she said biting her lower lip as she considered them. “You go and see Mr. Maguire… get him to patch you up. You mustn't worry about me; I'm well on the mend.”

Rowland pressed her hand to his lips. “We won't be long. And then we shall plot that murder.” With that promise, they left to deal with their injuries.

The Sinclair brothers argued while Maguire finished examining Clyde to ensure that the artist's eyes had not sustained any permanent damage. Rowland took his brother's displeasure in his stride. He'd grown accustomed to Wilfred's disapprobation, learned to judge its level. Wilfred was more exasperated than truly angry. It was not as if Rowland's interest in painting from life was a recent passion. Wilfred knew what his brother did.

Wilfred wanted to inform the police and have the Martinelli men arrested en masse. Clyde was reluctant, and Rowland indifferent enough to defer to the feelings of his jilted friend.

“They dropped us near a road outside Leura, Wil. I believe they were trying to frighten more than really hurt us.”

“I beg to differ,” Maguire murmured. “While your face isn't nearly as damaged as Mr. Watson Jones', you're both black and blue.” He stepped back and considered Clyde thoughtfully. “It's as if Mr. Watson Jones' face offended them particularly.”

“I think it's more to do with the fact that I'm taller.” Rowland spoke as a past pugilist. “It's easier to hit me in the body than to leave yourself open reaching for my head. You'd hardly need to raise your arm at all to punch Clyde in the eye.”

“Fair go,” Clyde muttered, straightening.

But Maguire nodded. “Yes, I can see how that would happen. I take it these hoodlums weren't particularly tall?”

“The police will measure them when they're processed,” Wilfred said curtly.

“If this goes to court,” Clyde said desperately, “the fact that Rosie modelled for the painting will come out. She'll be humiliated, ruined. I'm not sure her new fiancé even knows I exist.”

“I don't know how things are done in Italy, but they can't go about abducting and assaulting innocent citizens here!” Wilfred declared angrily.

“To be fair, they didn't know we were innocent citizens,” Rowland offered. “They thought we were blackmailers attempting to destroy the good name of their sister and daughter. Milt tells us they even returned my pocketbook.”

“You want to let this matter go?” Wilfred asked, clearly unhappy with the mere idea.

“It might be the gentlemanly thing to do, all things considered.” Rowland resorted to what he knew was Wilfred's quite earnest and entrenched sense of chivalry.

Wilfred stared at them both. “They may have been behind the shooting!”

“The timing isn't right,” Rowland argued. “Clyde had just left the painting with Miss Martinelli's landlady when the shot was fired. They hadn't had time to want me dead.”

“What if this isn't the end of it?”

“It will be,” Clyde said. “There was only one painting.”

Wilfred closed his eyes. “Lord, give me patience. Very well, we won't involve the police, though I'm sure it won't be long before you give them cause to call again!”

They gathered that night in Edna's bedroom, dragging their chairs around her bed as she sat cross-legged amongst the rumpled bedclothes. In lieu of supper, and on Rowland's request, Mary Brown had sent up a tray of bread, a dish of butter, a silver pot of some new hot chocolate drink and a decanter of brandy, which Milton insisted upon for its medicinal properties.

“I'll telephone Joan tomorrow and tell her I'm pulling out of the race,” Rowland said determinedly.

“What?” Edna gasped. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“I'm not putting you in any further danger, Ed.”

“Don't be daft, Rowly. I'm not in any danger.”

“That blasted coward tried to kill you! God, if he'd succeeded, I would never have—”

Edna reached out and placed her hand on his. “He didn't Rowly. And even if he had, it wouldn't have been because you were driving in some silly charity race.”

“How do you surmise that?” Milton asked.

“There were men meeting with him at the Lido when I arrived. I interrupted them. I think that was what panicked him.”

“And who were these gentlemen?” Rowland asked.

“I think one of them was Detective Hartley.”

“The bloke in charge of the investigation into White's murder?” Clyde asked incredulously.

“Yes, I'm almost certain of it.”

“Almost?”

“It's all still a little confused… but I remember now that Reggie and I argued about Detective Hartley… Reggie didn't want me to talk to him.”

Milton poured himself a cup of frothing milky chocolate from the silver pot and took a sip. “What is this stuff?”

“It's called Milo,” Edna said. “It came in my sample bag. They launched it at the show this year.”

Milton tilted his head as he considered the taste, and then added a liberal splash of brandy to what was remaining in his cup. “It's a bit odd that Mackay came to interview Edna himself, don't you think? One would have thought he had superintendent-type activities to occupy his time… and why was that fool Hartley here?”

“Perhaps he wanted to be on hand if Ed revealed he was at the Lido.” Rowland loosened his tie.

“What about Mackay?” Clyde placed the plate of bread he'd just toasted in the fireplace on the bed in front of Edna.

“I got the distinct impression that he was there to referee between Hartley and Delaney,” Milton said on reflection.

Edna buttered a slice for Lenin who was watching the proceedings with liquid-brown begging eyes. “Since Reggie didn't abduct you two,” she said thoughtfully, “there must have been some other reason he panicked like that. Perhaps it was to do with Hartley.”

Rowland took the thick toast that Edna handed him. He met her eye sternly. “Ed, please don't do anything like that again.”

“Like what?” she asked innocently, allocating toast to Milton and Clyde and handing a loaded toasting fork to the latter.

“Like setting out to confront a dangerous criminal on your own.”

She smiled. “I would have taken you along, Rowly, but you had very carelessly got yourself abducted!”

“I'm serious, Ed.”

“Well don't be, it doesn't suit you.” Edna pulled her knees up and clasped her hands around them.

“Ed, please…” Rowland shook his head. “You should have waited for Milt.”

Edna's face softened but there was an edge to her words. “I made a mistake with Reggie, I admit it. But I'm not made of glass and I'm not nearly as reckless as you and Milt, or even Clyde.”

Rowland hesitated. He'd caught the warning in the sculptress' voice. Edna would not be told what to do, however well the direction was meant. She would not tolerate any attempt to contain her. But his instinct was to protect her.

“Well you were bloody lucky that Flynn and I turned up when we did.” Milton was less circumspect about Edna's independence. “The police seem inclined to believe Stuart Jones' cock and bull story even with you around to deny it. He'd have had no trouble getting away with this if you'd died of an overdose of ether.” Milton swigged his brandy bitterly. “He may yet get away with it.” The poet recounted his interview with the police—Hartley's apparent reluctance to believe that Edna had not gone to see Stuart Jones as a patient. “It all makes sense if the bastard is trying to cover up something.”

“Reggie's cleverer than I thought,” Edna said quietly.

Rowland was silent now, angry and unnerved. He considered Delaney his friend.

Edna saw. “Rowly, I wasn't—”

“God, I know that, Ed,” he said quickly. “I just want to kill Stuart Jones for even touching you. Whatever he was trying to do, he might have killed you, sweetheart.”

“Yes, I know.” The sculptress' face lost its bravado only fleetingly before she straightened her shoulders again. “I'm sick of talking about Reggie. The police have it in hand. I want to know exactly what happened to the two of you.”

They told her.

“And you've decided to do nothing and let them get away with nearly killing you?” Edna demanded, aghast.

“They didn't nearly kill us,” Rowland protested. “Just roughed us up somewhat.”

“Look at Clyde's face!” Edna said.

“There's no permanent damage, Ed,” Clyde said, blowing on a piece of toast that had caught alight. “And what's more, I was never a handsome man.” He pulled the burnt slice off the fork and dropped it onto the plate. “Better butter that one for Len.”

“I think you're handsome!” Edna said with such fierce protective conviction that Clyde blushed, Milton laughed and Rowland loved her all the more.

“The Martinellis did nothing to Clyde and Rowly that we aren't going to do to bloody Reginald Stuart Jones,” Milton promised quietly.

Colin Delaney arrived so early that Rowland alone was awake and about.