Give the Devil His Due (47 page)

“That didn't happen,” Edna said quietly. “No.” But she wanted to scream. That stupid car. Why did it do that?

Milton grabbed her hand. He looked strange, she thought… green. “Ed?”

“No,” she said.

“I've got to go find him.”

“Who?” she said vaguely.

“Rowly.”

She nodded. That was right. They should find Rowly.

Clyde was on his knees. He'd missed something. My God, he'd missed something. It was Joan Richmond who reached him first. She grabbed him by the shoulders, looked into his eyes and spoke slowly. “Come on, old bean. We'll go around the outside.”

He wasn't sure what she meant, but he went with her. She drove him out of the bowl. The particular section of the speedway where the Mercedes had gone over was built up by a sand dune. Though most of the spectators had been seated in the infield several hundred had chosen to avoid admission and picnic on the dune instead. Clyde felt sick. The worst thing suddenly became even worse. They ran up to the light pole, to the smashed hulk of the yellow Mercedes that Rowland had so cherished.

There was a crowd gathered there already. Joan asked. No spectators had been hurt. The light pole in question had claimed the life of the great Phil Garlick in a similar accident years ago—it was given a wide berth out of respect and superstition.

Clyde steeled himself to the task of retrieving his friend's body. He needed desperately to get Rowland out of the twisted chassis. The Mercedes had clipped the pole and wrapped around it. The passenger side of the cabin was crushed, the driver's side empty.

“Where the bloody hell is Rowly?” Clyde demanded, forgetting himself in his horror and grief.

“His body must have been thrown out,” Joan's voice caught.

The search began. By then thousands of spectators had climbed up to the accident site as well as officials with megaphones, the inevitable media and an ambulance. The sheer number of people hampered rather than helped the hunt for Rowland Sinclair, with false sightings and hysteria.

It was a child who found him, at least forty feet away in the scrub that dotted the dune. Of course everybody surged to see. Someone began to sing The Lord is my Shepherd and soon other well-meaning voices joined the impromptu requiem.

“Why the hell are they singing hymns?” Milton muttered angrily as he and Edna fought to get through the crowd. “He'll be all right. There's no call for hymns.”

Edna said nothing. She was pale with fury and fear. Of all the things that Rowland stood for, of all the people and noble causes for which he was willing to fight, for which he had fought, he could not die in a stupid car race. The sculptress' heart clenched, resisting the knowledge that would break it. He could not be dead.

Officials with megaphones instructed the crowds to stay back. But they allowed Wilfred Sinclair through. Clyde and Joan were already bent over the crumpled body. Wilfred dropped to his knees beside his brother trying to ignore the resurgent familiarity that threatened to engulf him. The Great War was over and Rowland was not Aubrey, however much they looked alike… bloodied and so very still. This grief had its own ache, this loss its own abyss.

When Clyde declared that Rowland Sinclair was not dead, they thought that it was the grief which spoke and they tried to calm him, to comfort him.

“No!” Clyde turned to Wilfred for help. “I can feel a pulse, I'm sure it's a pulse.”

Wilfred had no hope when he took Rowland's wrist from Clyde. Silently, he removed his glasses and placed the lens on Rowland's lips. Mist.

He roared for a doctor, for the ambulance, for help.

Public Health Department,
Perth (W.A.)
CONVALESCENCE

It is important that a cheerful attitude be maintained, as convalescent patients are apt to feel very depressed, and this feeling reacts against them. This, however, does not mean that the sickroom should be noisy, with a large number of friends and relatives. On the contrary, friends should be admitted with caution, and should never be allowed to stay longer than from 15 to 20 minutes, and only two friends at the most on one day, because it cannot be stressed too strongly that a person recovering from an illness has but feeble strength, and noise and excitement as well as depression steal it away. Everything surrounding the patient should be restful, happy, and cheerful. All worries and irritations should be kept away, and the room made attractive with bright flowers—sunny and fresh-looking— not overburdened with furniture and knick knacks.

The Australasian, 1934

____________________________________

R
owland Sinclair did not regain consciousness for two days. In that time it was widely reported that he had died. Certainly it did not seem possible that he could survive so terrible an accident. In their haste to secure the scoop, perhaps the reporters had not bothered to check the ultimate accuracy of their stories on the latest speedway tragedy. Whatever the case, Rowland was quite movingly eulogised as a talented, if sometimes controversial artist, cut down in his prime.

Strangely, however, while Rowland's injuries were not trivial, they were not catastrophic. A dislocated shoulder, some fractured ribs, a collapsed lung and severe grazing. Painful, certainly, but considering what had happened, he had escaped lightly. He should have been dead. The newspapers all said he was, and his doctors were at a loss to explain why he wasn't. They speculated that the sand dune had cushioned the impact after he was thrown from the motorcar. It seemed the only explanation.

After regaining consciousness it was another day before Rowland could clearly comprehend what his brother and friends were able to tell him. After an initial panicked agitation, Clyde had reassured him that no one else had been injured or killed despite the fact that the Mercedes had flown off the edge into the crowd. Later they would tell him that the race was continued once he'd been taken to hospital. Indeed, Joan Richmond's team had won in a result that was popular with the crowds and disastrous for bookmakers.

Edna hadn't said a great deal in those first days though he was aware of her presence. Her rose perfume had been the first familiar thing to penetrate the fog, and then, the pressure of her hand in his. And when pain swamped his senses, her hand had still been there.

Wilfred Sinclair had made arrangements with the hospital to allow the sculptress to stay with his brother, irrespective of visiting hours. It was irregular and highly improper, but in this instance Wilfred was willing to sacrifice propriety. While Rowland was in danger, Edna rarely left his bedside.

In the time before Rowland revived, Milton Isaacs was arrested for the murder of Crispin White. At Wilfred's insistence that fact was kept from Rowland until the poet's release on bail had been secured. Even so, the news, as Wilfred had anticipated, was not conducive to Rowland's state of mind, nor to the bed rest which had been prescribed.

“Rowly! What on earth are you doing out of bed?” Edna demanded as she came into the hospital room. Rowland was on his feet though he leaned heavily on the iron foot of the cot. Milton stood beside him, Clyde by the door.

The poet shook his head. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Ed.”

“I'm going home,” Rowland said, smiling determinedly.

“Rowly, the doctor said you were to stay in bed.”

“I can do that at
Woodlands
.” Milton grabbed him as he released the bed.

“I'll call Johnston to bring the car,” he gasped. A cold sweat was beaded on his forehead and it was only Milton who kept him upright.

“We'll talk to your doctors.” Edna slipped under his arm and gave him her shoulder for support. “But you can't just walk out of here in your pyjamas.”

“I was going to get dressed first.” Rowland inhaled sharply, trying not to lean too heavily on Edna.

“Into what?” she asked. “We haven't brought you in any clothes, so unless you were planning to steal a nurse's uniform…”

Milton grinned. “Now that would be worth seeing.”

With help, Rowland made it back into the bed. “I forgot about that,” he admitted, wincing. God, how could a few steps be so exhausting?

Edna pulled up the bedclothes and adjusted the pillows. Clyde poured him a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table. “How do you feel, mate?”

“Like a motorcar fell on me.” He glanced at Clyde. “I don't suppose…” he began hopefully. He'd been avoiding asking about the state of the Mercedes because he feared the answer. And nobody had raised the subject to date.

His friends glanced at one another and said nothing.

He groaned. “How bad is it?”

“I'm sorry, mate,” Clyde said. “I don't think even the good Lord himself could fix her now. The fact that you survived is miracle enough.”

“Are you sure we couldn't—”

“Not a chance, Rowly. She's gone, I'm afraid.” Clyde delivered this blow honestly but with compassion. “I'm sorry, mate. I know she meant a lot to you.”

“Oh.” Rowland took the glass of water Clyde had poured, as the fact settled. “Damn.” He drank a silent toast to his automobile, chastising himself even as he did so for feeling the loss so acutely when there were more important things to worry about. But he did feel it. “Hartley is not going to be looking for anybody else now that he's arrested Milt,” he said forcing his thoughts away. “If he ever did.”

“You don't need to worry about that now, Rowly,” Milton said firmly. “We're still getting used to the fact that you're not dead.”

Rowland shook his head, slowly, because sudden movements hurt. “I remembered something just now… before the accident…” His memory from the day of the accident was fragmented and so he hesitated. “I think Stuart Jones said Lesley Bocquet was a bookmaker.”

Clyde nodded. “You're right. He did say something to you about a chap called Bocquet. Who is he?”

“Bocquet claims to be the rightful owner of White's horseshoe tiepin.” Rowland rubbed his shoulder. The bones had been put back into place while he was still unconscious, but the traumatised joint ached like the blazes. “He and his wife have a place in Lindfield. They both deny knowing Crispin White.”

“But you don't believe them?”

“No, I don't.”

“So he's a bookie, living respectably?” Clyde asked.

“Well, appearing to do so anyway.”

“And you think he might have killed White?”

“Stuart Jones called him a street rat. A razor's probably his weapon of choice,” Rowland replied.

“But how would he have got into Magdalene's and lured White there?”

“Perhaps we should try to talk to Mrs. Bocquet—on her own.” Milton suggested. “There was something about the way she reacted when we asked about Crispin White. Perhaps he'd been up to his old tricks again. And it's possible that she borrowed her husband's razor.”

“Frances,” Rowland said suddenly. “The maid. If they knew she didn't steal the tiepin, why did they sack her? Perhaps she knows something.”

“You're right,” Milton said thoughtfully. “But how are we going to find her? What did Delaney say her name was?”

“Frances Webb, I believe.”

“Well, that's a start.” Edna adjusted the pillows on the bed. “We'll find Frances. You need to rest, Rowly.” She placed her hand on his forehead. “You're a little warm, my darling.”

“If I just discharge myself, I could—”

“You'll do nothing of the sort!” Edna's tone was firm, her lips soft as she kissed his brow. “We do miss you, Rowly. But we've all made deals with the devil for your life. Let's not tempt him to renege.”