56

Lundi 21 Mars 1910

Au revoir Plumpton.

I am to depart this place with the wind and heat and flies and canvas for a roof. I will accompany the Voisin in boxes to the Sydney racecourse where there must be lodgings finer than I have found in this paddock. The Magic Man will fly again in Sydney. But he no longer needs to fly. He has the Australian record he chased. He soon grows tired of things.

Ralfbanks will not travel to Sydney. I will leave with him the Diamond recording about his mother. He can have it just as Mr H. was rewarded with the trophy with the eagle wings and no mention of the mechanic. If he never owns a Champion, the recording can be his Plumpton souvenir.

Ralfbanks has asked why I did not sign the last witness statement.

In truth I was ready to sign before attending to the Voisin machine. Protecting it from too many people.

I have the pen. Also the paper, prepared by Rickards the fat man.

Then I see a spectator passing by. Tall. With a moustache, like me, wearing too many clothes. The hotel manager with the spectacles is directing him to an automobile.

I look at the tall man and something is familiar. I think of opera programmes and posters and M. Bleriot talking of fine music. I touch the rim of my hat and nod. Because I have Rickards’ pen, the tall man believes I request his autograph. Takes the pen and only then sees the document I am holding. He takes a moment to read it then hesitates before signing with a grand flourish:

‘A. Bindo Serani, Consul for the Italian Touring Club’.

When Mr Serani returns the pen he touches a finger to his lips, as if requesting silence.

There are confidences a gentleman must keep.

So this is a mystery. Not something that can be tightened with a spanner.

In five years, when I have retired to my apartment on the Boulevard Chantilly, or fifty years or one hundred years nobody will know precisely what happened in the paddock.

Or who was there.