There were three driveways out the front and the office was on the right with the windows painted over in white and Nise Brothers Mechanical Engineering and Body Shop painted across the front in black. Mick pulled up in the middle driveway behind a silver Holden ute with the back jacked up, and got out of the van. Inside, the garage was the usual clutter of cars and commercial vehicles under repair, spread around three hoists. A radio was playing above a long bench at the back covered in tools; girlie calendars and posters clung to the walls and a grease-stained doorway in a corner on the right led to the lunchroom and toilet. You couldn’t miss Mick’s yellow Buick at the very end of the garage on the left. Jimmy, his four mechanics, two panelbeaters and the two apprentices were gathered around the Maxwell which was already standing with the front jacked up two cars back from the lunchroom. There was no sign of Neville. Mick walked over to a chorus of greetings from the staff:
‘Great car, Mick.’
‘Where did you get hold of this?’
‘How much’d cost you?’
‘Bloody genius, Mick.’
Mick acknowledged their compliments with a friendly grin.
Then Jimmy’s voice rose above the others. ‘I got some good news for you, Mick,’ he said casually.
‘Yeah?’
Jimmy nodded. ‘The pressure plates are compatible.’
‘Fair dinkum? Un-bloody-real,’ replied Mick. ‘I got some good news too.’ He held up the leather tab. ‘The old girl had the keys.’
‘Ah-hah!’ said Jimmy. ‘Now that’ll make things a lot easier.’
‘You don’t think the battery might need a charge, do you, Mick?’ cackled one of the apprentices, a redhead with a faceful of acne.
Jimmy gave him and the rest of the staff a sour look. ‘Okay, girls,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen enough. Come on back to work. This is a garage. Not a sheltered bloody workshop.’
There were a few muted words mixed with smiles for Mick and the staff trooped off. In seconds the garage was once again a cacophany of hammering and spraying over the top of Ben Lee’s ‘Catch My Disease’ playing on the radio.
‘I got some more good news for you too, Mick,’ said Jimmy.
‘You have?’ said Mick.
‘Yeah. Neville knows a Nomad who’s got a Harley chopper shop on the Gold Coast. And he’s a genius welder. There’s a good chance he can weld your other pressure plate back together.’
‘Fair dinkum!’ Mick gave Jimmy a pat on the shoulder. ‘That’s fantastic.’
‘Anything for you, Mick,’ Jimmy said patronisingly. ‘You know that.’
‘So how long will that take?’ asked Mick.
‘Ooohh. He’s a busy man. By the time we get it up there and all that. Around three weeks.’
‘And how long to get the Maxwell going?’
‘This?’ said Jimmy, giving the old car a slap on the roof. ‘Christ! We’ll have to pull the engine and gearbox apart. Flush all the lines. Check the wiring. Shit! Who knows what we’ll find wrong. And have a look around you. I’ve got work stacked up to my Goolwah.’ Jimmy shook his head. ‘Months.’
And how long to switch the pressure plate with the Buick?’
‘We can have it back on the road tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Okay,’ said Mick. ‘Get the Buick going.’
Suddenly the phone rang in the office. Jimmy turned and started to walk off. ‘See me in the office,’ he said.
‘Righto.’
Mick started going over the Maxwell in the bright lights of the workshop. It was in better condition than he thought, and although thick mud was still caked around the mudguards and running board, the duco was good and a decent buff, polish and detail would bring the old car up like new. He opened the door, got behind the wheel and tried the pedals. They were tight and the gearshift was stiff, but that was nothing. The glove box was empty and there was nothing pushed down behind the seats. Mick put the bigger key in the ignition, turned it on and pressed the starter. Yes, he smiled, I think the apprentice was right. The battery probably could do with a charge. He removed the key from the ignition and pondered what the second key was for. The glove box didn’t lock, there was no boot, and it wasn’t a key for the petrol cap. Mick swivelled around and looked in the back. Beneath the passenger seat were two wooden compartments with a keyhole in the centre. Leaving the driver’s side door open, he got out and reached into the rear.
Mick smiled when the key fitted the lock perfectly. He opened the first compartment, but apart from an old piece of rag it was empty. Mick closed the compartment then walked around and opened the other one. This time Mick got a surprise when he found two briefcases. He took them out and placed them on the back seat. After making sure there was nothing else in the second compartment, Mick locked it, put the keys in his pocket and examined the two briefcases.
They were both beautifully crafted leather, one black, the other brown. Embossed on the brown one were the initials L.O. On the black one were the initials N.T. Mick gave both briefcases a shake. Inside were what sounded like papers and there was something heavier in the black one. Mick went to open them then had a quick look around and stopped. No, he told himself, I don’t think this is the place. Mick picked up the two briefcases, shut the car door and, feeling like a thief, snuck everything out to his van and put it in the back. Everybody in the garage had been too busy working to notice him. Mick locked the door and walked around to the office.
Jimmy was seated at a desk full of greasy papers writing something in a ledger when Mick
walked in. He put the Biro down and looked up impassively.
‘So what’s the story, Mick?’ he said. ‘You want the Buick done, right?’
‘Yeah,’ replied Mick. ‘What time tomorrow do you reckon?’
Jimmy thought for a moment. ‘It’ll be after four.’
‘Okay,’ said Mick.
The phone rang and Jimmy picked it up. Mick placed the keys to the Maxwell on Jimmy’s desk.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ said Mick.
Jimmy nodded over the phone and Mick left the office for his van. Mick was halfway home before he realised that in all the excitement he’d forgotten to take a look at his Buick.
Before long, the van was in the driveway and Mick was back in the kitchen making a mug of coffee with the two briefcases sitting on the kitchen bench. He took a sip of coffee and decided to open the brown one first. Expecting he’d have to force the locks, Mick grinned when they flicked straight open.
As Mick guessed, there were papers inside, including the first four pages of the
Newcastle Herald and Miners Advocate
dated 15 November 1925. There was also a letter in an opened
envelope addressed to Mr Preston Oldfield, 27 Jubilee Road, Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. On the back it said,
From Mr L. Oldfield, care of The Grand Hotel, Scone, New South Wales
. On the bottom were several handwritten paysheets with a list of men’s names and the hours they had worked. Mick had a quick look at the names and details and noticed the men mostly had Anglo-Saxon names like Tom Bennett, Harold Green, Arthur McDeed, etc. And their wages were twelve pounds ten shillings a week with two pounds ten accumulated in overtime. Except Arthur McDeed got fifteen pounds a week, and three pounds five shillings in overtime. Mick put the paysheets aside and picked up the pages out of the newspaper.
The front page was mostly classified ads and sales. At the Hustlers in the city, you could get a lady’s check zephyr frock for two and eleven pence ha’penny. And ladies’ corsets were one shilling a pair. You could also rent a three-bedroom cottage on the water at Toronto for thirty-two shillings and sixpence a week. On the second page A.A. Co. were offering twenty-five choice home sites in the garden suburb of Hamilton. No prices mentioned, but only fifteen per cent deposit required. And the Perpetual
Trustee had sixteen exceptionally fine residential sites going under the hammer in Mayfield. The third page was a bit of local gossip and ads for Clements Tonic, Bonds Sylk-Arto hose and Seigals Syrup: ‘Tones Up Stomach and Liver In A Remarkable Manner.’ Also, Rudolph Valentino was starring in
Monsieur Beaucaire
at the Lyric Theatre. And two big stars, Ben Lyon and Viola Dana, were on stage in
The Necessary Evil
at the Theatre Royal. Page four was much more interesting. Next to the headlines
MOSUL QUESTION, TURKEY’S WARLIKE STEPS and MOROCCO WAR, SPANISH SUCCESS, ADJER IN FLAMES
, was another headline:
TWO MEN SHOT IN DARING
MUSWELLBROOK BANK ROBBERY
At around closing time yesterday, a daring thief held up the Muswellbrook branch of the Australian Federated Bank and made off with over three thousand pounds in a car belonging to mining engineer Mr Lander Oldfield. Mr Oldfield was shot in the hand during the robbery and bank teller Mr Horace Stockall was shot in the arm. Police were engaged at an arson attempt some distance away when the robbery took place,
but praised gallant bank manager Mr Ewing Birkett who fired several shots at the stolen vehicle as it sped off towards Maitland. Bank staff were too distressed to comment and Mr Oldfield’s gentleman companion, Mr Klaus Slate, declined to be interviewed. However, both injured men are reported to be in a stable condition. The bandit is described as six feet two inches tall and quite powerfully built. The stolen car is a dark blue Maxwell sedan, registration number 17–432. Police have invited the public to help them find the culprit responsible for this heinous crime.
‘Dark blue Maxwell sedan!’ exclaimed Mick.
He stared at the newspaper pages for a moment before carefully folding them and replacing them in the briefcase. Just as carefully, he took the letter out of the envelope. The writing was the same as on the paysheets, solid and straight up and down—possibly written by somebody who was left-handed. The letter began:
Dear Preston
,How are you? And how is your fine wife and family? All well, I hope. Well, excellent
news, the project is finally finished. And in only seven months, one month ahead of schedule. I daresay this was because of Mr Slate’s generosity with pay and bonuses. He gave each man one hundred pounds on completion and as well as the new car I received one thousand pounds. I was quite taken aback, I can tell you. I know I have been somewhat reticent about this project, but Mr Slate swore us all to secrecy and I respect his wishes. But I will say this: despite my finding Mr Slate to be both a most intelligent person and a gentleman whose integrity is absolutely beyond reproach, at times the man could be quite odd. For example, he was a very serious man, not prone to laughter. Yet one morning, Mr Slate and I overheard one of the workmen say, ‘Mr Slate would make a good mad scientist in a horror film.’ Instead of being offended by what I considered a somewhat distasteful remark, Mr Slate fell about laughing for a considerable period of time. The gentleman carries a most beautiful leather briefcase with him. Yet, when I innocently queried him about the initials N.T. on the front, he claimed the briefcase
was on loan from a friend. Why would a man of such obvious wealth and taste need to borrow a friend’s briefcase? The project site has the biggest deposit of copper ore I have ever seen. It is almost pure copper. Millions of pounds worth on the current market. Naturally, I pointed this out to Mr Slate, who simply shrugged it off saying he would look into it some other time. There are numerous other idiosyncrasies, too many to put into a letter. But I promise to tell you more when I visit you at Christmas and Mr Slate is back in America. I will finish now, Preston, because tomorrow I am driving Mr Slate into Muswellbrook to finalise his activities with the bank before he leaves and I wish to get this into the post. I must say though, these last months have been both the most amazing and lucrative of my life
.Until I see you and your family, Preston
,
I remain, your loving brother
.Lander
.
Mick stared at the name on the letter. Lander. Preston Oldfield’s brother. The initials on the key tab he’d left with Jimmy Nise back at the garage
were L.O. Mick put the letter back in the brown briefcase, clicked it shut and turned to the black one with the initials N.T.
The black briefcase was even more beautifully crafted than the brown one, and the attachments weren’t brass, they were gold. Mick pushed the locks and grinned again when they clicked straight open. Inside was a long, narrow leather bag with a foldover at one end, a black leatherbound diary dated 1925, and a number of sheets of foolscap paper with sketches and notes on them. Mick picked up the leather bag and felt something heavy. He decided to open the bag first.
It contained two thick Allen keys each ten centimetres long. Only instead of being L-shaped, the ends were formed into rings. Mick felt the weight of the Allen keys in his hand, then put them back in their bag and picked up some of the papers. The sketches were technical and like nothing Mick had ever seen, and the writing was almost indecipherable. But Mick managed to make out
Electro-Dynamic Induction Tube, Disruptive Discharge Coil
and
Earth Wide Oscillating Vibrator Mounting
. Mick shook his head, replaced the papers and picked up the diary.
The pages up to May 9th were blank. Then, in the same spidery handwriting, it started with a brief summary of the weather on top of the page.
Sunny. Cool. South-west wind
.Finally arrived in Newcastle, Australia. Now I can start my diary. Possibly I was being overcautious, but this is absolutely imperative and I still believe the first mate was a little too nosy for my liking. I would not have been the least bit surprised if he had friends in the FBI
.Newcastle is colder than I imagined, but nothing compared to winter in New York. Mr Oldfield was waiting on the wharf when the
Margarita
docked and I found Lander to be a thorough gentleman, exactly as Schuyler Brunton described him. He is also well-versed in his profession and quite keen to begin work. Already he has organised the twenty men I will need, and everyone accepts I am here to pioneer a new method of mineral exploration and they agree to my desire for secrecy
.Lander and I had an excellent fish lunch at a waterfront café, then I spent a pleasant afternoon while he drove me around Newcastle. Not that there was much to see apart from a fine harbour and some delightful
coastline. Fashion has not caught up here, either. I will stay on the ship tonight then find suitable lodgings in Newcastle until we leave for Muswellbrook. I will also buy Mr Oldfield a more desirable vehicle. Earlier I made note of a Maxwell dealer near the city
.Relaxed and read in my cabin then had dinner with the captain. Played a few rubbers of bridge. Read for a while. Retired, nine-thirty
.