A Murder Unmentioned (9 page)

“It’s quite frightening to think that a man was murdered in this very house.” Lucy shuddered. “I’m quite sure I won’t sleep at all tonight.”

“Well, perhaps we should talk of a more pleasant subject.” Wilfred’s tone was not that of mere suggestion.

“Oh yes, let’s,” Kate said. “Miss Walling you must tell us more about your work. How exactly does one construct a dry rock wall?”

Rowland stepped out onto the verandah. The night air was perfumed with the heady scent of his brother’s prized roses. Closest to the house the blooms were red. Wilfred had planted them for Kate.

Rowland smiled as he pondered the remontant tribute. It was hard to believe stern, pragmatic Wilfred Sinclair was capable of so romantic a gesture.

After dinner the ladies had retired to the drawing room leaving the men at the dining table with their brandy and cigarettes. Rowland alone did not smoke. Perhaps it was the cigarette fumes, but he’d felt a sudden need for fresh air. And so he’d excused himself.

“Rowland.” Lucy Bennett stepped out after him.

He was as startled by her use of his Christian name as by her emergence. “Miss Bennett.”

“We’re alone, my darling. Finally.” Lucy closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “I’m not going to cry, I promise.” She moved towards him. “Oh, Rowland, what are we going to do?”

“Do?”

“About Pater… his opposition to us.” She ran her hand over the silk of his lapel.

For some moments, Rowland could think of nothing which would help him. And then he pulled himself together. “He’s your father, Miss Bennett. We have to respect his wishes.”

She smiled, fluttering her eyelids in a manner Rowland had once assumed an involuntary twitch, but had since discovered was intended to be flirtatious. “You wouldn’t have organised this tryst if you intended to respect his wishes, my darling.”

“I can assure you I didn’t—”

“You don’t need to deny it, Rowland. Knowing you’d defy Pater for us only makes me love you more.”

A voice from the darkness, a timely intrusion. “Rowly, is that you?”

“Clyde!” Rowland responded with an unmistakeable note of “thank God” in his voice. “Miss Bennett and I were just taking some air. I say, why don’t you join us?”

It was not so dark that Rowland couldn’t see Clyde’s grin.

“I’d best get back to the ladies before they wonder what has become of me,” Lucy said casting a resentful glance Clyde’s way. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Well?” Clyde asked when she was gone.

“Miss Bennett seems to believe that it’s only her father keeping us apart.”

“Oh… sorry.”

Rowland leaned back against a verandah post. “She has consequently concluded that the two of us happening to be here at the same time is some sort of illicit tryst!”

Clyde rubbed his brow , his lips pursed as he tried not to laugh. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m hoping Wil will feel honour-bound to inform Colonel Bennett that I’m here.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Rowland shrugged. “I’ll tell Miss Bennett that I’m Catholic.”

Rowland and Clyde were just setting out to complete the repairs to the
Rule Britannia
when the telephone call came through. Wilfred signalled them to wait.

“What’s wrong?” Rowland asked as Wilfred slammed down the receiver.

“Detectives Gilbey and Angel are on their way.”

“Here?”

“Yes. They’ve been despatched from Sydney to deal with Father’s murder.”

“What do they want? I’ve already—”

“Someone has apparently come forward.”

“Who? And what the hell have they come forward with?”

“I presume we’ll know soon enough,” Wilfred replied calmly.

Rowland cursed.

Wilfred ignored him. “I think it may be prudent to have Arthur sit in.”

“Arthur?”

“He’s a solicitor, Rowly.”

Gilbey and Angel were not alone. Clyde had been about to join the ladies when all the policemen were shown into the library—the detectives, two uniformed constables and one other, a large, barrel-chested man who had gone to seed. He was perhaps sixty, his suit as worn as his countenance. His hands trembled slightly and the veins at his temples seemed to visibly pulse. Clyde saw Rowland tense, he noticed his friend’s face. And so he stayed.

Detective Angel introduced the fifth man. “I believe you may know Mr. Charles Hayden.”

“Whoa, Rowly!” Clyde grabbed Rowland as he launched himself at Hayden. The constables moved quickly to protect their informant and restrain his attacker.

“What the hell is this man doing on my property?” Wilfred turned on Gilbey.

“Perhaps we should have conducted these enquiries at the station,” Gilbey said, standing his ground. “Mr. Hayden has made a statement. We hoped we might gauge your reactions to his story.” Gilbey looked at Rowland. “I suppose we have already, but I had thought you’d like to hear what he had to say first.”

Wilfred’s face was stony. “You had no business bringing this man into my house. Be assured that I will be speaking to the commissioner, if not the premier, about this outrage.”

“Wilfred.” Arthur Sinclair intervened to soothe his cousin. He spoke quietly. “If this chap’s made a statement, it may be in our interests to hear him out. If he’s lying or just making mischief we can establish that before matters get out of hand.”

“I can warrant that he will be making mischief!” Wilfred replied.

“Even so, Wil, you’ll not be giving him a hearing that he hasn’t already had. Let’s deal with the scoundrel now and then this investigation, such as it is, can resume without distraction.” Arthur plied his persuasion firmly.

Eventually Wilfred conceded. “Very well—”

“Wil—no!” There was a palpable dismay in Rowland’s voice, a wounded rage in his eyes.

“Arthur may be right, Rowly,” Wilfred said. “The sooner we deal with this mongrel, the sooner we can despatch him.” He addressed the policemen coldly. “You can unhand my brother now.”

The constables who held Rowland looked to Gilbey for his approval. He nodded cautiously. “You should understand, however, Mr. Sinclair, that this man is under the protection of the New South Wales Police Department.” He turned to Wilfred. “Perhaps we should sit down.”

Wilfred directed them to the long polished meeting table which ran parallel to the south wall of the library, and around which, at one time or another, had sat the most powerful men in the country.

The Sinclairs sat on one side, the two detectives and Hayden on the other.

Unsure of his place in this, but unwilling to leave Rowland to it, Clyde remained, standing unobtrusively with the constables. He’d never before seen Rowland look quite like this—it wasn’t so much anger as unbridled loathing.

“Perhaps if Mr. Hayden was to begin by reiterating the statement he gave to Detective Angel last evening.”

Wilfred snorted, but otherwise did not object.

Hayden fidgeted with the brim of the hat he clutched in his lap. He did not look at Rowland.

“Could you tell us how you knew the deceased, the late Mr. Henry Sinclair, who died on or about the thirteenth of March 1920, Mr. Hayden?” Angel prompted.

Hayden straightened. He focussed on the detective. “I was in the employ of the late Mr. Henry Sinclair for sixteen years, as the manager here at
Oaklea
. Mr. Sinclair engaged my services in 1904, before Rowland Sinclair was born.”

“Are we in agreement thus far?” Gilbey asked Wilfred.

“Yes.”

“And what were your duties, Mr. Hayden?” Angel prompted again.

Hayden recited a long list of managerial responsibilities, including crop and breeding programs, at pains to point out his contribution, Henry Sinclair’s reliance on him and his loyalty to the family.

“And did you have any duties of a more personal nature, Mr. Hayden?”

Hayden nodded. “You’ve gotta understand Henry Sinclair was not a young man. He’d always been strict with his boys but Master Rowland was a lot younger than his brothers… and the boy was a handful.”

The constables took a precautionary step closer to Rowland at this point.

“What was it Henry Sinclair required of you in relation to his son?”

“This wasn’t until after the Great War had started, mind,” Hayden said licking his lips. “Mr. Sinclair would call me in to discipline the boy.”

“Discipline how?”

“With a belt.”

“Would you be more specific, Mr. Hayden?”

Hayden tilted his head to one side. “About two, maybe three inches wide… long enough to go around a girth of a stock horse…”

Gilbey cleared his throat. “Could you be more specific about how exactly this arrangement worked,” he corrected.

“Oh. Mr. Sinclair would send word that I was needed at the house. I knew what he meant. I’d go to the tack shed and pull a surcingle from one of the stock saddles and then report to Mr. Sinclair’s study. The boy would take his shirt off, brace himself against the armchair, and I would give him a thrashing.” He looked at Rowland. “I was just doing my job. Mr. Sinclair would’ve sacked me if I refused.”

“Was it always in the study?”

“Mostly. Once in the shearing shed.”

“Why the shearing shed?”

“One of the shearers, bloke called Barrett—gun shearer—had been teaching the boy to shear, for a lark. Mr. Sinclair didn’t like it. He sacked the man and had me thrash the boy right there in front of the gang.” He shuddered. “If it hadn’t been such a big shed, those blokes might have strung me up for what Mr. Sinclair had me do. As it was, what happened to the boy reminded them of their place.”

Clyde was unsure if it was the past injury or the humiliation of having this all aired now that made Rowland look so murderously at Hayden. Wilfred’s hand moved to his brother’s shoulder, a gesture of solidarity, perhaps restraint.

“And what would Henry Sinclair do while you disciplined his son?”

“He’d read from the bible, until he’d decided it was enough.”

“Did you never have pity on the boy, Mr. Hayden?”

Hayden looked around at the library and snorted. His lip curled. “Hard to pity a boy who’d eventually come into all this. Besides it weren’t my place to feel sorry for Rowland. I was only doing what Mr. Sinclair wanted.”

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with—” Wilfred began.

“If you’ll bear with us, Mr. Sinclair, you’ll soon see,” Gilbey said.

“Did Henry Sinclair call you to his study the evening he died?”

“Yes, sir. I’m not sure what the boy had done, but Mr. Sinclair was livid.” Hayden twisted the brim of his hat and licked his lips. “He didn’t want me to stop. I told him twice that I thought the boy had had enough but he ordered me to keep going, to keep laying on cut after cut.” He rubbed his face. “I was just doing my job.”

“Can you tell us what happened next, Mr. Hayden?”

“I was about to stop no matter what he said, I was, when Mr. Sinclair—Wilfred Sinclair—came in.”

“And what did he do?”

“He walked in and belted me fair in the face. Nearly broke my nose. I was just doing my job.”

“And then?”

“He picked up his brother.”

“Picked up?”

“The boy had collapsed. Mr. Sinclair had to help him stand. He was in a pretty bad way… shaking, crying like a baby.”

Rowland stood. “That’s enough.”