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Authors: Sulari Gentill

Decline in Prophets

BOOK: Decline in Prophets
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A note from the publisher

Dear Reader,

If you enjoy riveting stories with engaging characters and strong writing, as I do, you’ll love
A Decline in Prophets.
Historical crime fiction at its best, Sulari
Gentill brings together art, money, crime, religion and… murder in an extraordinary tale set in 1932 on the luxury cruise liner
RMS Aquitania.
The second book in the Rowland Sinclair
Series, it’s the sequel to
A Few Right Thinking Men.
She had me hooked from her very first page, and I couldn’t put the story down.

If you haven’t picked up a
Pantera Press
book before, you should know that simply by enjoying our books, you’ll also be contributing to our unique approach:
good books doing good things
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The Smith Family.

Simply buying this book will help us support these kids. Thank you.

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Please enjoy
A Decline in Prophets.

And for news about our other books, sample chapters, author interviews and much more, please visit our website: www.PanteraPress.com

Happy reading,

Alison Green

 

First published in 2011 by Pantera Press Pty Limited
www.PanteraPress.com

Text Copyright © Sulari Gentill, 2011
Sulari Gentill has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

Design and Typography Copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2011
PanteraPress, three-slashes colophon device, and
good books doing good things
are trademarks of Pantera Press Pty Limited

This book is copyright, and all rights are reserved.
We welcome your support of the author’s rights, so please only buy authorised editions.

This is a work of fiction, though it is based on some real events. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, firms, events or locales is coincidental.

Without the publisher’s prior written permission, and without limiting the rights reserved under copyright, none of this book may be scanned, reproduced, stored in,
uploaded to or introduced into a retrieval or distribution system, including the internet, or transmitted, copied or made available in any form or by any means (including digital, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, sound or audio recording, and text-to-voice). This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent recipient.

Please send all permission queries to:
Pantera Press, P.O. Box 1989 Neutral Bay. NSW Australia 2089 or
[email protected]

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 978-0-9807418-9-6
eBook ISBN 978-1-9219970-1-3

Cover and internal design: Luke Causby, Blue Cork
Front cover image: © Getty Images, Hulton Archive [#JE2886-001]
Back cover image: © Getty Images, Hulton Archive [#JC8953-001]
Typesetting by Kirby Jones
Printed and bound in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
Author Photo by J.C. Henry, Lime Photography

Pantera Press policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes
are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

 

To all the prophets and profiteers I have known.

 

CONTENTS

Prologue
DEATH WORE A DINNER SUIT

1
RMS
AQUITANIA

2
TERRORISM

3
TUTANKHAMEN

4
THE CORONATION OATH

5
KRISHNAMURTI

6
RMS
AQUITANIA

7
THEOSOPHISTS IN CHICAGO

8
MOVIE REVIEW

9
Speech by Houdini, the great Mystifier

10
Houdini’s Death

11
CRIME IN NEW YORK

12
RMS
AQUITANIA

13
GIANT AIRSHIPS

14
WOMEN WANT “SPICY” FILMS

15
PARENTS TO BLAME

16
FOR THE BRIDE

17
REGISTERING A CHILD

18
SYDNEY WELOMES THE RMS
AQUITANIA

19
PASSING NOTES

20
A GAY AND FESTIVE CHRISTMAS

21
CHURCH COLLEGE

22
POLO

23
SOUTHERN CROSS

24
CRITICAL WOOL POSITION

25
A PLEASANT DINNER PARTY

26
INTERVIEW WITH COLONEL OLCOTT

27
BRADMAN’S DUCK

28
The Book of Constitutions of the Ancient Grand Lodge of England

29
THE ROOKWOOD TRAGEDY

30
THE ENGLISH MAIL NEWS

31
SHOOTING AFFRAY

32
A NORMAN LINDSAY FANTASY

33
LEGACY FOR LEADBEATER

34
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

35
EXPENSIVE CARS

36
OLD MAN PLATYPUS

37
SUSPECT AT LARGE

38
THE CONFESSION

39
POISONING SPARROWS

40
YOUNG WOMAN’S SUICIDE

41
RESOURCEFUL MOTHER

Epilogue
NOT A THEOSOPHIST

Acknowledgements

 

Prologue

DEATH WORE A DINNER SUIT

H
is manners were perfect. Murder made sophisticated conversation while dancing the quickstep. He was light on his feet.

Annie Besant shuddered and closed her eyes. How clearly she saw the spreading crimson stain on the starched white dress shirt. That much was revealed… but no more. She surveyed the room.
So many immaculately tailored men—all dashing, some charming, at least one was dangerous.

An old woman now, her celebrated clairvoyance was not what it once had been. The foresight was vague, useless for anything but tormenting her with a premonition of violence. The feeling was
furtive, an occasional glimpse of a deep predatory darkness that lurked amongst the gaiety and cultured frivolity of the floating palace. A cold creeping certainty that one of the elegant gentlemen
who gathered to dine, intended to kill.

 

1

RMS
AQUITANIA

The RMS
Aquitania
is like an English country house. Its great rooms are perfect replicas of the fine salons and handsome apartments that one finds in the best of
old English manor halls. The decorations are too restrained ever to be oppressive in their magnificence. There is no effort to create an atmosphere of feverish gaiety by means of ornate and
colourful furnishings. The ship breathes an air of elegance that is very gratifying to the type of people that are her passengers.

The Cunard Steam Ship Company Ltd

I
t was undeniably a civilised way to travel… particularly for fugitives.

Overhead, crystal chandeliers moved almost imperceptibly with the gentle sway of the ship. If the scene over which they hung had been silent, one may have noticed the faint tinkle of the
hand-cut prisms as they made contact. As it was, however, the Louis XVI Restaurant was busy, ringing with polite repartee and refined laughter as the orchestra played an unobtrusive score from the
upper balcony.

The tables in the dining room were round, laid with crisp white linen and a full array of cutlery in polished silver. Each sat twelve, the parties carefully chosen from amongst the first class
passengers of the transatlantic liner. Waiters wove efficiently and subtly through the hall. Though neither as large nor as fast as the newer ships in the Cunard Line, the RMS
Aquitania
boasted a luxury and opulence that was unsurpassed. Her passengers cared less about arriving first than they did about doing so in the most elegant manner possible.

BOOK: Decline in Prophets
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