A man or woman murdered ceases to be an entity, the same with the murderer, they are names or a column in the news. It is difficult to fasten motives and passions to these that legal inquiry has stripped and print depersonalized. You are finished with the human element. Ernest Moriarty, school-teacher, forty-four, murdered his wife, Victoria Mabel Moriarty, thirty-five, at Happy Valley, and subsequently died of heart-failure on the Moorang road. That is all. Eustace Wing, commercial traveller, propped his paper up against a bottle of tomato sauce in the Narrabri station refreshment room, hoped that his indigestion, hoped he would catch his train. In Sturt Street, Broken Hill, Mrs Euphemia Richardson cut up her Sydney Evening Moon, with a view to the earth closet, into conventional squares. There was a picture of Victoria Moriarty in her wedding dress. At Newcastle in the tram Herbert Kennedy,
coal-miner, going home with a pound of brisket, read from the parcel that William Chambers, twenty-three, mailman and lorry driver, had given complicating evidence.
On the night of the 23rd, said William Chambers, I was in the lane back of Moriartys’ when Hagan came out of the house. He seemed kind of upset. You could see. Just one minute, said Mr E. G. Filey. You could see. But surely it was dark? Well, yes, it was dark. But you could kind of see, you could see Hagan was looking queer. I ask you, said Mr Filey, is this the kind of evidence the jury can respect?
The jury, composed of Antonio Lopez, fruiterer, Arnold Winterbottom, publican, James Thripp, grazier, Stanley Merritt, horse-dealer, and various others, was inclined to laugh. They knew, Winterbottom at least, that William Chambers, they called him Chuffy out at Happy Valley, was not right in the head, though driving the lorry, a sober boy, and his mother told Mrs Winterbottom herself, poor Chuffy, she said, he’s simple, but he’s good, and that you could see in the box, his head was a size too big. I saw Hagan come out of the house, Chuffy Chambers said. His lip was a size too big, trembling, and confused. You saw him come out how many times? asked Mr E. G. Filey in the act of blowing his nose. Everybody laughed.
And the man Hagan, this name? Gertrude Ansell, seventeen, employed by Mrs Moriarty as general servant, twisted her hands, they were very red, and played with a wart on her left wrist. Mr Hagan came to see Mrs Moriarty on and off, Gertrude Ansell said. What did she mean by on and off? Twice a week. She thought they were friends. What did she mean by friends? Well, she did not know. Gertrude
Ansell went red. Anyway, Mrs Moriarty sometimes had sandwiches cut, and glasses put in the sitting-room, and Mr Hagan brought chocolates, and sometimes they went to a dance. There was nothing else that the witness had seen? Not exactly, said Gertrude Ansell, feeling herself perspire.
Mr Filey complained that his client was being needlessly involved. He would like to draw the attention of the jury to statements already made by Miss Emily Porter, matron of the Moorang Hospital and president of the Philatelists’ Club, and by Clarence Westrupp, bartender at the Crown. On the night of the 23rd, Miss Porter said, Moriarty read a paper on perforations, seemed nervy and preoccupied, and after the discussion went away refusing a second cup of coffee. His hand was shaking, she said. Clarence Westrupp stated that Moriarty looked like death when, in the bar-room of the Crown, he went right out to it, and fell flat on the floor. They threw water on his face. When he came to he spoke kind of queer, said he would go home, they got him a lift in Collins’s truck.
The novelty wearing thin, Antonio Lopez, fruiterer, felt his collar pinch, James Thripp, grazier, was conscious of Winterbottom’s breath. Was twelve o’clock, was that grey monotone the official voice stating that Moriarty was a mild man, sober in his habits and respected by authority. Was only seven minutes past. Yet Moriarty had been subject to fits of unaccountable anger, as parents of children attending the Happy Valley school were able to testify. There was, however, the evidence of William Chambers, not without a snort from Mr Filey, and of Gertrude Ansell to be taken into account.
Winterbottom knew that cove Hagan, that big skite lounging over the bar between stories and sometimes breaking a glass, knew how much to expect, whether Mrs Moriarty or not, had pinched the missus, she said, her behind, and now stood in a funk, you could see, as if he’d got something in his throat.
Clement Hagan, thirty-one, overseer at Glen Marsh, denied that he had been in Moriarty’s house on the night of the 23rd. Chuffy Chambers trembled, inarticulate on his bench. Well, Mr Hagan perhaps could give some idea of his whereabouts? The silence is a clock, is a cough, that foot rasping on the floor. Miss Emily Porter sneezed. Clement Hagan looked at air and said he was at Glen Marsh. And in support of that statement could Mr Hagan provide? Mr E. G. Filey swept with a rustle of papers through the silence and said that Mr Hagan could.
To read the case in the papers, which was without particular point for Eustace Wing at Narrabri, for Herbert Kennedy of Newcastle, or for Mrs Euphemia Richardson in Broken Hill, made Mr Furlow uncomfortably conscious of an element that all his life he had tried to avoid. For reality is not a parcel of the mind of such as Mr Furlow, who reads his paper ordinarily in the office after lunch, halfway between the furniture and sleep, finds that something has occurred in another hemisphere, finds that a fly, his face, his nothing, because by this time Mr Furlow is asleep. But now the news has a fresh and alarming significance, rounding a known face, and encroaching on Mr Furlow’s own exclusive territory. Because you had to see if, to read, then Miss Sidney Furlow was called, even if the stomach
queasily protested against this reconstruction and the eye wanted to reject what it had seen.
Because Mr Furlow had gone into Moorang for the case. I can’t face it, Stan, Mrs Furlow said, with unusual access of affection that made her husband uncomfortable. Then Miss Sidney Furlow was called. You sat and looked at the floor, or a face, or the floor. Miss Furlow, said Mr Filey, with the unction of a conjurer about to introduce to his public the most infallible trick in his hitherto shaky repertoire. Mr Furlow, touching the seat, it was pine, you could feel the grain, heard the voice, the account for the whereabouts, the splinter prick, on the night of the 23rd, before the silence lifted up his face to look.
Yes, said Miss Furlow, I can. Stung the air, the faces raised, James Thripp and Stanley Merritt, because this was expectation, and Miss Furlow of Glen Marsh, and you waited for the breaking, the wood crack. Mr Furlow watched a wrist, without diamonds, tauten against a bag. Miss Sidney Furlow said that on the night of the 23rd, no equivocation in this, Hagan was in her room. The pencil frayed, Leonard Woodbridge of the Moorang Advocate already worked up mentally a good connection with Truth. And could Miss Furlow’s family vouch for the statement she had just made? Miss Emily Porter felt a tingle in her spine. And what did old Furlow over there, looking at the floor, say when the light went out? The jury sat up straight. In the circumstances, said Miss Furlow, no. Arnold Winterbottom bit his nails, because—well, well…Could Miss Furlow explain just a little more clearly perhaps? The splinter pricked in the hand, the voice, darling, I haven’t a
bean, the face on shoulder was Sidney’s face. Hagan is my lover, Miss Furlow said, I can’t explain more clearly than that. Leonard Woodbridge, toying with possible headlines for Truth, decided on Wealthy Grazier’s Daughter Risks Fortune and Honour for Love. Slim, pale Sidney Furlow, popular member of Moorang and Sydney’s younger sets, spoke up courageously to defend her man. Mr Furlow’s hand relaxed on the bench. This is Sidney, he said.
In the street even if dinner was late was worth it and didn’t she have a nerve a girl a man could admire and what was that Chambers boy almost throwing a fit and anyway it was always established that Moriarty done it himself wrecking the room and all the police had it fixed only what the Chambers said was what you called a legal formality having Hagan in court a half-witted boy like that but what price Furlows now the Glen Marsh bloody Stud come on Gertie I was that scared you was brave she done up her face look if she hasn’t a cheek and what’ll happen now.
They drove back to Glen Marsh, Sidney and Mr Furlow. They did not speak.
Hearing her go about the house, Mr Furlow assured himself if was over, though reading papers you wondered if it was. Don’t be sick, darling, she said, it had to happen like this, and when we’re married we’ll go away. If not already gone, this strange person that he could not altogether connect with a figment perched on soda-fountain stools, that made up her face when she said I am now eighteen, or stood against the buff panelling, it was pine, in the Moorang court house when Miss Sidney Furlow was called, was reported in the papers, connection with the
Happy Valley murder, it made Furlow pick up the paper again because things had always happened outside a certain radius, a strike in Sydney or a financial crisis or even beyond the seas, in Europe a war, which was safe, but never in Mr Furlow’s immediate environment that he defended with tradition, a bank balance, and so many acres of land, only these were no longer a defence, the papers indicated, and a firm step walking about the house, these were negative assets after this. Mr Furlow was without protection. Sitting in the office reading the papers, facts were no longer news, but swelled out into full dimensional forms, you could feel the immanence of these. Mr Furlow said, I am sixty-five.
Marched about the house that step linking room to room in a state of preparation. I shall be Sidney Hagan now, she said, in the glass her face that was slightly supercilious, because Hagan was my lover or husband or whatever you like. Whatever it was already consummated if not in fact, she felt this, the words spoken, felt it die down the room with all those faces above a bench, dropping into a silence the old emotions, almost as if his body had touched her in the court room in at Moorang, could she explain, she could, for the benefit of the law if not for herself.
Sidney Furlow did not try to explain to herself. She looked through drawers wondering what she would take. They would go to Java for their honeymoon. But her mind was apathetic where an explanation was concerned, much as if a fever had released the mind from a turning and twisting in hot sheets, the past year like a twist of clinging sheets that she had cast off, her body now accepted the future with tranquillity. And Hagan, loving Hagan? Her
face was supercilious in the glass. This man was afraid in the box, on the night of the 23rd I was at Glen Marsh, he said, waiting, and she stepped up, Hagan in my room, she said. She saw his eyes.
Sidney Furlow went outside. A red cock, sad-combed, pecked at the hard ground in the yard, because it was a stiff winter and the earth did not thaw even in the middle of the day. She went across to the stables, where Hagan was saddling a horse. There was a scent of dung and the ammoniac stable smells. She watched him fasten a buckle against the belly of the horse.
Clem, she said.
Watched him turn.
Hello, he said, with the bewilderment of one not yet used to a situation that had formed without any effort of his.
Hagan was not sure of himself. This girl you had wanted, falling into your hand like a pear not yet ripe, those breasts you had scarcely touched, and it made you wonder what, made you a bit afraid. On the night of the 23rd I was at Glen Marsh, you said, and it wasn’t exactly funk, but something, twitching under your waistcoat pocket, because why should she speak up, what you could not understand, Vic and the others, but not this. So Hagan was puzzled. His hands fumbled with the buckle of a girth, or with his hat in the office, she said, Father wants to talk to you, Clem, now don’t be a fool, he won’t eat, you’ve left all the rest to me, so why won’t you leave this, we’ll go to Java, we’ll have a place up north. But sitting in the office had fumbled with his hat, watched it roll on the floor, and old
Furlow speaking, you could hear his breath wheeze, it was an effort to say, well, Hagan, well, whatever happens we must think of Sidney’s happiness. Then he stopped short with the hat. They both sat and looked at the hat that was also something else. Because I want Sidney to be happy, he said, whatever she takes it into her head to do, even if I can’t quite understand, not that he said, but you saw, and you did not understand yourself, anyway it had happened, and you weren’t such a bloody fool to turn down a good thing. I know of a place up near Scone, he said, Sidney fancies the north, and yes, sir, you said, there was nothing else that you could, and the old coot, it made you feel sorry, did not want to mention anything that might, it made you feel uncomfortable sitting on your chair and listening to old Furlow speak. It’s nice country round Scone, you said. Yes, he said, good country for cattle, and I want to make Sidney happy, like a wheezy old parrot that you taught a couple of words that it couldn’t forget. It made you glad to get outside, when the door banged, and she said, she was waiting, well, it didn’t kill you, she said, and in the passage you wondered what she wanted, or wanted now.
I thought I’d come over and see what you were up to, she said.
I’m going to ride the Ferndale fence.
She stood looking at him. He could not see her face. The horse shifted its weight.
Well? he said. Anything else?
Because he felt awkward, to know what she wanted, to touch her or what.
Come here, she said.
It was queer, Sidney Furlow, and you touched her mouth, and you touched her mouth, and you wondered if this was Sidney Furlow that you really touched. But you weren’t such a bloody fool to turn down a good thing when it was put right into your hand. You had always wanted this, to kiss Sidney Furlow, to…
She felt his body. She was holding him. She felt a certain bewilderment in his mouth.
I can’t understand, he said.
What?
What you’ve done. In there at Moorang. You were crazy, he said.
She laughed. It sounded clear and remote in the stable, beating off the stones.
I always get what I want, she said.
Then he kissed her again, she made him mad, couldn’t get hold of her, only her mouth, and you wondered what she thought.