Give the Devil His Due (21 page)

Milton shrugged. “Some may have, but there were some here this morning. To interview Rowly about the crash at Maroubra, I expect.”

“We'll follow that up,” Delaney assured them. “Perhaps the shooter entered the grounds under the guise of a reporter, or perhaps one of them saw something.” He pointed at Rowland. “There's no point having gates if they're not secured, Rowly. Do something about it!”

Rowland grimaced. The gates at
Woodlands House
were rarely locked, but given recent events, it was probably time to improve security—at least for the moment.

“I'll station some constables here for the moment,” Delaney went on, “but I'll need them back in a day or two. Until we find out why the shot was fired, we must assume someone is trying to kill you.”

Rowland protested. The assumption seemed to him somewhat hysterical.

Delaney pulled him aside to press his point.

“Rowly, your mother lives here now, not to mention your less genteel companions. You don't want to be too cavalier about danger.”

“You're right, of course,” Rowland said, chastened. “I'll see to it, Colin. You have my word.”

“Good man.” Delaney offered him something in return. “White's tiepin might have been stolen,” he said.

“Yes, I gathered that from the fact it wasn't on the body.”

“No, I mean it was stolen before it fell into White's hands.” Delaney flipped back a page or two in his notebook. “A twenty-four carat gold tiepin, a bar with two interlocking horseshoes in the middle and set with a half carat diamond was reported stolen by a Mr. Lesley Bocquet, from his premises in Lindfield a couple of weeks ago.”

“That does sound like it,” Rowland replied thoughtfully. “I don't suppose there might have been two?”

“Possible… but unlikely, I would think. My instincts tell me it's too much of a coincidence that the first is stolen just before the second turns up on the soon-to-be victim of murder.”

“Have you spoken to Mr. Bocquet?”

“Yes, briefly. He's never heard of White.” Delaney shook his head. “To be honest, I'm not sure the tiepin will lead anywhere. A flashy piece like that would probably have been difficult for any murderer to resist.”

“I suppose. But one does wonder how the tiepin came to be on White's tie. He was rather too portly to be a cat burglar.”

“We're making enquiries at all the local pawn shops,” Delaney said. “My guess is that he, or perhaps this unknown woman that Miss Higgins is convinced he's been seeing, came by it after it had been fenced. Of course, getting a pawnbroker to admit he'd accepted stolen goods might be a trifle challenging.”

“No doubt.” Rowland hesitated. “I don't suppose you'd consider allowing me to have a chat with Bocquet?”

“Out of the question!” Delaney said as he wrote a note and then tore the page from his notebook. “You are not a policeman, Rowly. You cannot go about questioning suspects!” He slipped the folded page into Rowland's hand. “It would be highly improper!”

Rowland opened the page: an address in Lindfield in Delaney's loose scrawl.

“So, did you leave the painting?” Milton whispered to Edna once Delaney had departed.

Edna nodded. “Rosalina was out, so we left it with her aunt. I think it was easier for Clyde that way, and hopefully she'll appreciate the gesture.”

“What charm can soothe her melancholy?” Milton said shaking his head. “What art can wash her guilt away?”

“Goldsmith,” Rowland made the attribution reflexively. The verse was apt. He hoped possession of the evidence that she had modelled nude would assuage whatever shame Rosalina Martinelli felt. “How is Clyde, do you think, Ed?” Rowland asked quietly.

Edna wrinkled her nose as she contemplated the question. “He's sad, but I sense some part of him is relieved it's over.”

“As are we all,” Milton muttered.

“Milt!” Edna said, appalled.

Rowland did not wholly disagree with Milton, though it was not a sentiment he was willing to voice. As a sweetheart, Rosalina Martinelli had required an extraordinary amount of maintenance. She had made no secret of the fact that she did not like Clyde's friends in general and Rowland Sinclair in particular. It seemed the reformed model had never forgiven him for the manner in which he'd painted her.

Rowland decided to take Lenin for another walk around the grounds. However, having already been taken for his customary constitutional, the hound was noticeably reluctant.

“Leave Len be.” Edna tucked her hair under her hat. “I'll come for a stroll with you.”

“Where are you going?” Milton asked.

“To see if the police missed anything,” Edna replied.

“You're searching for clues?” Milton rose from the armchair.

“Well, not exactly.” Rowland tried to moderate the poet's enthusiasm.

“I'd better assist. Come on then Sherlock and Watson.”

“Where?” Clyde asked striding into the conservatory wiping the grease from his hands with a towel. He'd been working on Rowland's car, practising timely wheel changes, windscreen cleaning and the like.

“To search for clues of the bloke who tried to shoot Rowly.” Milton grabbed a magnifying glass from the secretaire and held it to his eye.

“Haven't the police already searched the grounds?”

“I suspect the constables were paying more attention to Ed's statues,” Milton replied, slipping the magnifying glass into his pocket. “I heard Delaney bellowing at them to keep their eyes on the ground and off the garden ornaments. I'm afraid Colin has the sensual understanding of a Methodist preacher.”

“Why don't we all go, then?” Clyde suggested. “It's a shame Len is a greyhound rather than a bloodhound.”

“I think the jury's still out on greyhound,” Milton muttered, bending to pat the ugly misshapen dog.

“Len's all right,” Rowland laughed. He liked dogs. He loved Lenin in spite of, or perhaps because of, the hound's obvious lack of breeding.

Delaney had stationed two hard-chested constables at the gate to the property, who watched the four as they strolled through the trees and over the expansive lawns in search of anything out of place. It was more a ramble in the gentle warmth of the autumn sun, not quite a lark, but not an earnest investigation either.

Rowland stood behind the claret ash which grew closest to the house and surveyed the bay windows of his studio. A glazier and his young apprentice were already at work installing a new pane of glass, but Rowland could see easily into the room. Still, the shooter must have been a reasonable marksman. The ground at the base of the tree was hard enough to preclude footprints.

He found himself becoming increasingly angry as he contemplated the attempt on his life. While it was not the first time someone had tried to kill him, this attack had taken place at his studio, his sanctuary. From where he stood, he could also see the wing-backed armchair in which Edna often posed for him. The possibilities did nothing to placate him.

“And watching with eternal lids apart, like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite. You're reckon he stood here?” Milton stopped beside him.

Rowland nodded. “Keats. It seems likely.” He looked back towards the gate. “I'm just not sure how he could have slipped in without one of the reporters seeing him.”

“Perhaps one did,” Milton mused. “Delaney hasn't questioned them yet.”

“Or perhaps he slipped in before the reporters arrived, and waited.” Clyde shaded his eyes as he followed Rowland's line of vision.

“The reporters were here at dawn.” Edna pushed back an auburn tress which had escaped the confines of her hat.

“How do you know that?” Milton asked.

“I'm working on a sculpture of Eos, the goddess of dawn, so I got up to watch daybreak from the verandah. I saw the reporters arrive.”

Clyde scratched his head. “He may have waited all night for all we know.”

Milton pulled at his goatee as he walked around the claret ash. “He must have come after Rowly went to bed last night, or he could have shot him then. When did you finish in the studio last night, comrade?”

“About one in the morning,” Rowland replied.

“So, maybe he slipped in between one o'clock and dawn and waited.” Milton sighed. “It's not much but it's something.”

Edna rubbed her bare arms. “It's a little unnerving to think of him out here, just waiting.”

Rowland removed his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. “Yes, it is,” he said, his face darkening as he thought of Edna alone on the verandah with a gunman in the garden.

“Where did you take Lenin for a walk this morning?” Clyde asked, wondering why Rowland had not spotted the intruder.

“I didn't walk him on the grounds,” Rowland replied. “I had Johnston drive us to Watson's Bay in the Rolls Royce and walked him there. The reporters were watching for the Mercedes, they didn't pay a great deal of attention to the Rolls Royce. I expect they assumed it was Mother, off somewhere.”

“Well, it's a good thing you didn't walk Lenin here.” Edna entwined her arm in his. “He might have shot you then.”

Clyde sighed. “Perhaps that was his plan all along. Rowly, who would know you'd be walking Len this morning?”

Rowland shook his head. “No one, Clyde. It's not like I do it every morning.”

“But you do walk him often, and usually in the morning. Who'd know that?”

“You, Ed, Milt… the staff, I suppose.”

Milton grinned wickedly. “It was Mary Brown. All this nonsense about visiting her sister… she finally figured that shooting you was the only way to get undesirables out of the house!”

“My housekeeper is not trying to kill me,” Rowland said calmly.

Milton sighed. “You're right. Why would she shoot at you when she could so easily poison you instead? Still, perhaps you should have Clyde taste your food.”

The attempted shooting at
Woodlands House
was reported widely. The fact that the gunman was still at large, having mysteriously disappeared from the scene of the crime, was almost as newsworthy as if he had not missed.

In any case, the near thing was enough to rekindle rumours that Maroubra's “Killer Track” was cursed. Rowland refused to talk to the media on the basis that they had become ridiculous. He was most frustrated by the fact that the constant presence of reporters in his wake made it impossible to visit the address that Delaney had given him with any semblance of discretion. The note remained in his pocket and the question of White's murderer in his thoughts.

The Honourable Charlotte Linklater publicly vowed that she would beat Rowland Sinclair on the track, to avenge her late brother. The controversy was a marketing boon for the Red Cross with interest in the race increasing in all quarters.

When the speedway was reopened a couple of days later, Joan Richmond was careful to ensure Rowland's practice schedule did not coincide with Charlotte's. She rode with him when he first resumed the track, ensuring he would not flinch.

“Don't worry,” she said quietly, as they lined up against Bartlett. “Hope is a better driver than Linklater was. He won't cock things up so royally.”

Rowland regarded his captain warmly. It was the seventh time that day that Joan had not so subtly pointed out that the accident had been Linklater's fault and not his. He appreciated the effort, and while Rowland still felt sick when he thought of what had happened to the Englishman, he had more or less accepted that he had done nothing to force the disaster that followed.

He and Clyde were preparing to head home after the session on the track when they were approached by a gentleman clad in a fashionable double-breasted suit. His hair was slicked back, with a sheen which rivalled the duco of the lovingly polished Mercedes. It had been a couple of years since Rowland had last seen him. Their association had been brief and not one Rowland would seek to revive.