The Ink Stain Page 17

  Dr Merrick stood as Monsarrat entered, but made no attempt to greet him or wave him to a chair.

  ‘Colonel Duchamp approved my visit, doctor,’ Monsarrat said.

  ‘Fine,’ said Merrick, ‘but I’m not sure how much I can tell you. Cause of death is fairly obvious. Have you ever seen a pie that has been dropped on the ground? That’s what Hallward’s forehead looked like.’

  ‘I see. And did you extract the projectile?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Monsarrat waited a moment for Merrick to supply the information the man must know he was after, but the doctor had already started shuffling papers on his desk. Monsarrat cleared his throat. ‘And the projectile was from – what? A rifle? A musket?’

  ‘How am I to know that, man? Do I look like a soldier?’

  You look like someone who doesn’t want to answer my question, Monsarrat thought.

  ‘And may I see it, this projectile?’

  Merrick sighed. ‘If you must, but I doubt it has become any more probative for having sat in a cupboard.’ He brushed past Monsarrat, opened the door which led from his office, and leaned around it. ‘Ainsley! Fetch the Hallward ball.’

  Monsarrat heard a mumbled acknowledgement and receding footsteps.

  Merrick went back to his desk, sat down and picked up some papers, shuffling them and peering through his wire bifocals as Monsarrat watched. He had the uncomfortable feeling that something was rising inside him, something that cared nothing for propriety and convention.

  After a moment, Merrick looked up. ‘I am tolerating you because you tell me you have the colonel’s blessing. Although blessing is probably too strong a word – I rather have the impression he resents your presence here.’

  ‘Your resentment, or his, are of no consequence,’ said Monsarrat, remembering belatedly to take the heat out of the words with a slight bow. ‘All due respect, of course.’

  ‘You are a former convict, yes? Twice over, from what I understand. Oh, don’t you worry, I have my friends in the Colonial Secretary’s Office. Files can be found in very short order, if people are motivated. So, given your history, I doubt you have much familiarity with the concept of respect.’

  Monsarrat clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to stop one of them from balling into a fist and aiming at the doctor. ‘You are right, I am one of the fallen – as are most people here. But those who fall can rise.’

  ‘A convenient fiction, something we tell our wives and children so they don’t gibber with terror at the prospect of living among you. But I’m a man of science, Mr Monsarrat, and phrenology is an interest of mine. I suppose you don’t know what that is.’

  ‘The notion that the shape of one’s skull provides insight into one’s character,’ said Monsarrat. ‘You talk of fiction, you should start with phrenology.’

  ‘You fancy yourself an educated man,’ the doctor said, going back to his papers. ‘I can tell. The accent, for example – no doubt deliberately acquired, rather than conferred by the circumstances of your birth. I wonder what you sounded like as a child? Dropped consonants must have littered your nursery floor.’ He chuckled quietly, no doubt congratulating himself on his wit. ‘If you were truly educated, you would not question what is proven science. Particularly when you’re lucky enough to hear about it from the lips of one of your betters.’

  ‘Am I to understand,’ said Monsarrat, ‘that there is some sort of link between phrenology and my permanently fallen status?’

  ‘Criminals like yourself tend to have certain similarities in the shape of their skulls. I wonder, for instance, if you have a saddle-like depression at the top of your head. That’s the area, you see, which governs morality. If it is undeveloped in your brain, your skull will tell the story. You can possess the world’s greatest intellect, or the most extraordinary artistic ability, and still be condemned by your cerebral physiology to be a criminal.’ He looked up again. ‘Not your fault, really. You were simply born defective. I wonder, actually … Would you consent to an examination?’

  Monsarrat opened his mouth but had no idea what to say. Although expletives crowded in his throat, he had no intention of releasing them – that would support the man’s point. He was grateful to the orderly for choosing that moment to knock on the office door. ‘Come,’ said Merrick. The man who entered looked oddly familiar: a broken nose, bald and burnt head, and a face brutalised by the sun. It wasn’t until he spoke in a dry, rasping voice, though, that Monsarrat recognised the merchant he had seen in the streets near the Flyer’s offices.

  ‘Begging your pardon, doctor,’ the man said. ‘The ball that killed Hallward … I’m afraid it seems to have disappeared.’

  Monsarrat had never been a gambler, but he was willing to bet that Dr Merrick’s orderly Ainsley was a former convict. If he’d worked for the man for any length of time, Ainsley couldn’t have helped overhearing some of Merrick’s views on the nature of criminality. Perhaps he’d even allowed Merrick to palpate his cranium.

  Some convicts, Monsarrat knew, had been hollowed out by days of casual abuse and nights keening for loved ones across the seas, wondering if wives or husbands had remarried, if children still lived. They entered a fog from which they never again emerged, where remembered horrors were amplified within their skulls but present terrors couldn’t penetrate. These convicts, he knew, would simply stare at the ground or, at the most, nod if someone told them they had been born deficient. Someone with enough guile to sell goods of dubious origin by the side of the road, though, had probably not sunk too deeply into the mist.

  Monsarrat waited until close to dusk before getting to The Rocks, by which time he knew Ainsley would have been dismissed from Merrick’s rooms, and would have had time to set up his other means of earning a living.

  Ainsley’s wares, judging by his shouting, had changed a little. ‘Fine lace collars! Fans! Ivory curios!’

  Monsarrat had no idea what the citizens of this part of Sydney would do with an ivory curio. ‘I was after something a little more martial,’ he said, as he strolled up to the man’s stall.

  Ainsley started talking before he looked up. ‘You’ll have to be more specific, sir, and I’m sure we can … You were in the office today?’

  ‘I was,’ said Monsarrat. ‘I doubt I will be admitted again.’

  ‘Looking for the bullet which killed himself in the gaol.’

  ‘Indeed. Seems it didn’t stop moving when it hit him, though, as it’s left your custody.’

  Ainsley looked to the side. ‘That it has.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t have had anything to do with that? Only, I did hear you a few days ago, talking about your wares. And you weren’t mentioning fans or ivory.’

  ‘What you heard is no concern of mine,’ said Ainsley.

  ‘Let me make one thing very clear,’ said Monsarrat. ‘I am not interested in informing on you for any activities which might be, shall we say, legally questionable. I simply wish to know what happened to the slug.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘If you say so. Do you know what? Perhaps if I gave all of my superiors gifts, they might be more inclined to reward me with their credibility. Fans for their wives and daughters, of course, and lace collars. And what gentleman would not want an ivory curio sitting on his desk? Dr Merrick, for example, seems the kind of man who’d appreciate such a thing. Although I imagine he would check against the register of possessions of the recently deceased, those who had come under his knife.’

  Ainsley rolled his lips together, his eyes darting up and down the street. ‘It’s not as though they miss them.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Monsarrat. ‘No harm done. And if a particular item happened to be inside a victim, it’s not as though you’re stealing it. He never owned it in the first place.’

  ‘Ammunition is expensive,’ said Ainsley. ‘It’s a public service, so it is.’

  ‘Quite. So the ball that was found in Hallward’s brain – it was among those you were selling
last week?’

  Ainsley was silent.

  ‘Look, all I want to know is what Merrick dug out of Henry Hallward’s skull,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Was it a bullet? From a rifle, a Baker rifle perhaps?’

  ‘Not from any rifle. It was a ball. The kind you’d find in a pistol.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘Not the sort of weapon you’d normally choose. Not if you want accuracy and range,’ Monsarrat said.

  ‘It’s an odd choice, there’s no doubt. But at least we know more about the murder weapon now. Now, is it safe to defy Duchamp, do you think?’

  ‘Probably not, but I don’t see an alternative,’ Monsarrat said, trying to quash his nerves. He had picked up the newspaper several times this morning, reading a sentence or two, laying it down and immediately forgetting what he had read. ‘Anyway, if they’re going to treat me like some sort of scientific specimen, I certainly won’t be following orders about avoiding gaols – they think I belong there anyway. And I won’t be staying away from the Colonial Secretary’s Office, either.’

  ‘Neither should you, Mr Monsarrat. We need to be sure that Bancroft really owns that house,’ said Mrs Mulrooney.

  ‘Though he’s far from our only prospect, of course. There has to be a reason Henrietta lied about where she was when Hallward was shot.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s some connection? Henrietta’s maid was bringing food to that house Bancroft supposedly owns.’

  ‘Yes, that’s certainly interesting. They don’t seem to socialise, except at dos like the garden party, and Henrietta is vastly disapproving of the recital hall. It’s …’

  ‘Wrinkly?’

  ‘Wrinkly in the extreme, Mr Monsarrat.’

  As the two of them mulled on this, there was a knock at the door. Mrs Mulrooney hurried to answer it and found Cullen standing there, the morning sun shining on his face, the grooves in his weathered skin serving as conduits for tears to run from his eyes and splash onto the ground. ‘Begging your pardon for bothering you, Mr Monsarrat,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Missus. But it’s Peter. He’s been taken, and I’ve not the first idea where to.’

  If ever there was a time for strong tea, this was it. Hannah tried to be quiet, but Miss Douglas had the ears of a bat; the discreet clatter of a cup on a saucer was enough to draw her into the kitchen. ‘We have had this conversation before, Mrs Mulrooney. The kitchen is off limits to my guests.’

  Hannah tried to draw her mouth into a sheepish smile. Miss Douglas’s other strict rule was that no guests were to entertain anyone – and in the parlour, a rough-looking Cullen was noisily emptying the contents of his nose into one of Mr Monsarrat’s handkerchiefs.

  ‘So you did, Miss Douglas,’ Hannah said, ‘and I do apologise for disturbing you. I wanted to avoid that. But my nephew – he is on the governor’s staff, I may have mentioned – has a very important job, and requires tea to settle his mind before he starts the day. With your permission I’d like to make some for him, as I know just how he likes it.’

  Miss Douglas stared at her for another long moment, then nodded. ‘See to it that you clean up after yourself.’

  ‘I will ensure you find it as you left it,’ said Hannah. Better, actually. She would never have allowed dust to colonise the corner of the sideboard the way this woman had.

  After Miss Douglas had minced back to her quarters, Hannah carried a tea tray into the parlour.

  ‘You gentlemen need to be quiet,’ she said, ‘or we risk a dragon invasion.’

  Monsarrat nodded. He knew better than to start asking for details without her, and it was clear that he’d been sitting in silence, keeping Cullen company as he dried his tears.

  ‘Peter has been taken, you say,’ she said to Cullen. ‘By whom?’

  ‘The constables. They pounded on the door about an hour ago. I pretended not to be there, and I didn’t know whether Peter was – he comes and goes. But then they broke down the door, you see. I thought they were going to arrest me, but they pushed right past me, went into the yard. When I followed them I saw they had Peter. One on each side of him, dragging him by the arms – as though he was a six-foot-tall navvy, not a skinny little boy.’

  ‘Did they say anything?’

  ‘Only that they were arresting him for distributing pamphlets. And thieving. They wouldn’t tell me where he was to be taken.’

  Hannah put a hand on Cullen’s arm. ‘I must ask,’ she said, ‘could there be any truth in what they said about thieving? I’m not saying it’s right to drag a lad away like that, but he wouldn’t be the first boy to pick up an unattended apple from a cart.’

  Cullen shook his head vigorously. ‘He’s a good lad, and I’ve done everything I can to make sure he stays that way – I know, missus, what can happen to boys like him. The government expects them to live on air, and then gets surprised when they’re found with a stolen crust of bread. But I take my meals at the Chronicle and make sure he gets half so he doesn’t need to thieve. And he’s seen what happens to them that do. A smart lad.’

  ‘And the pamphlets?’ Hannah asked.

  Cullen nodded. ‘I warned him against it, but he said it might help Mr Hallward’s soul rest. And he’s rather taken with Ca … with Vindex.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Monsarrat. He slapped the table. ‘Mrs Mulrooney, you have my permission to flay me with that fan of yours. I am, as you continually say, an idiot of a man!’

  ‘Well, yes. Is there any particular idiocy you’re thinking of?’

  ‘I know who Vindex is! Something about a German phrase I was told she uses.’ He turned to Cullen. ‘It is Carolina Albrecht, is it not?’

  Cullen nodded hesitantly.

  ‘But that’s wonderful!’ Hannah said. ‘If Peter was arrested on her behalf, perhaps she would be willing to speak for him.’

  ‘Whether or not the authorities know who Vindex is, it wouldn’t take much imagination for them to suspect the pamphlets are being printed from the Chronicle’s offices. Yet I am unmolested, and none of the others who hand them out have been arrested, as far as I’ve heard,’ Cullen said.

  ‘Is there another reason why, then?’ said Monsarrat. ‘From what I know of constables, they’re not in the habit of breaking down a door at the crack of dawn in pursuit of a crust of bread that is already being digested.’

  ‘No,’ said Cullen. ‘They’ve far better things to do, particularly in that part of town. I do have a notion of why they have taken him. But I pray that I’m wrong.’

  Hannah shivered. She too had an inkling of what might be behind the arrest and if she was right, she feared Peter would become another lost boy whose face would haunt her.

  ‘No one seems to know what Mr Hallward was working on when he was killed,’ she said. ‘But I imagine some are anxious to find out.’

  ‘What if,’ Cullen said, ‘someone believes that Peter was able to collect the story before Hallward was murdered?’

  ‘Then we must find him,’ said Hannah. ‘Because if someone believes he knows where the story is, he is in a very great deal of peril.’

  The schoolroom was at the back of the baker’s shop, and given the scrawny appearance of most of the children, the smell must have driven them insane with hunger.

  The baker grunted and indicated the back of the shop with his head when Monsarrat enquired. ‘Crawling with currency children,’ he said.

  This, Monsarrat knew, was not intended as a compliment. The currency lads and lasses, born in this place impossibly distant from the birthplace of their parents, had been nicknamed after the pound currency used in Sydney; this, in the view of the ruling classes, was far inferior to the pound sterling used in the mother country, though most of those in Donnelly’s schoolroom would have been overjoyed to see a pound of either description.

  The youngest of the children sitting at the indifferently constructed wooden desks was about five years old; the oldest perhaps twelve. But they were all learning the same thing – today it was the alphabet. Donnelly stood at the front,
inscribing letters onto a slate, holding them up and asking the children to copy, which they did with varying levels of skill.

  Monsarrat envied Donnelly for – well, just about everything. The ability the man had to speak his mind without having a ticket of leave to lose. The schoolroom with children bent over their slates. Monsarrat had no idea whether they liked their schoolmaster, but what mattered was that they learned from him; even the youngest were frowning in concentration, trying to form the letters that would separate them from work-gang louts.

  Donnelly was guiding the hand of a young boy, helping him form an H, when Monsarrat cleared his throat. ‘Continue,’ he said to the class, walking to the door and shaking Monsarrat’s hand. ‘I’m afraid I can’t spare you much time, Mr Monsarrat. As you can see …’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from your class, Mr Donnelly, but I have some urgent news.’

  Even after Donnelly pulled the door closed behind them, Monsarrat could hear the whispering of the children, sounds that reverberated off the corridor walls as though they had soaked into the ground and were now blooming.

  ‘There’s a boy – Peter. He works as a copyboy at the Chronicle, or did.’

  ‘Ah, Peter FitzGerald. I taught him to read, at Henry’s request. He wanted to give the boy a job, and it would have been difficult for him to deliver parcels without being able to read the addresses.’

  ‘And do you know anything of his current whereabouts?’

  ‘At the Chronicle, I imagine. I believe he is in the care of old Cullen, who is refusing to vacate the offices. He’ll have to eventually, of course. It’s kind of you to be concerned for Peter, but I assure you that if the opportunity presents itself, I’ll do what I can to find him a position. I’d hate to see him steal food and end up in gaol.’