Seated at her corner desk with pencil and foolscap, Grace prepares to take minutes. So far there is nothing to write.
While waiting for someone to open his beak, she draws a noose and gibbet.
Seated at the head of the table, Mr Crombie stares into space with eyes that are like the wet black pebbles you see on the beach at low tide. His pipe is clenched so hard between his teeth that Grace wouldn’t be surprised if he bit the stem in two, and by the way he drinks from his water glass, she shouldn’t be surprised if it contained something other than water.
As for Mr Beaven and Mr Munn, their faces have become wrinkled and diminished, like partially deflated gourds. Beneath Munn’s eyes are what look to be purple hammocks. Beaven’s teeth have turned yellow from chain smoking.
The silence goes on and on, not a word spoken, all three staring at the table as though it might contain a hidden message.
The suspense in the air is almost as thick as the smoke by the time Bertram Bliss slips through the door, holding a rolled-up copy of The Evening Star in his fist. And his expression has soured—no hail-fellow-well-met smile pasted beneath his waxed moustache.
He slaps the newspaper down on the table the way a teacher will use the strap for emphasis: “Gentlemen, we are in crisis.”
The three board members look back at him like patients about to receive the bad news. Grace’s hand has begun to tremble with excitement; she only hopes she will be able to read her shorthand later.
Hands clasped behind his back, Mr Bliss leans forward so that he hovers over the table like a man looking down a well. “Gentlemen, the Attorney General’s office, in fact the government as a whole, is faced with a spot of hellish bloody bother that, I regret to say, originates with the Liquor Control Board.”
As he speaks, the three men seated at the table seem to shrink into themselves, like cuttlefish.
“You, gentlemen, are not suspects at present, but I think all of you bloody well know that the individual came from this very table, and that his name is Clyde Taggart.”
Three sets of shoulders ease, somewhat.
“To say that the Attorney General is deeply disappointed would be an understatement. This individual has chosen to put sensitive, privileged information into the hands of none other than Victor Newson, who has already sworn to bring down the government. Just think of it—an embittered former appointee revealed party secrets to an enemy of his own party. There are countries in Europe where such an act would justify a charge of high treason.”
“Indeed, the guilty cur should hang for it,” Mr Crombie says, relieved at having been been exculpated.
“I say amen to that,” Mr Munn agrees.
“Hear! hear!” Mr Beaven says, before breaking into a fit of coughing.
“For the present, the damage is done. Before the next sitting of the Legislature, we can be jolly well certain of a steady barrage of damaging dirt in Newson’s bloody scandal sheet, meted out in droplets like Oriental water torture.
“Gentlemen, the Attorney General initiated a crusade. Now we must prepare for battle.”
Even writing in shorthand, Grace is put to the test trying to keep up.
“Of course it goes without saying that the accusations made by Newson’s paper are false from beginning to end. Expert opinion has it that the documents cited are forgeries.
“Gentlemen, that is our strategy on the first scrum. Our second line is that documents exist from trusted sources implicating Conservative Party operatives, who may or may not be holding Clyde Taggart hostage, and may have extracted these falsehoods through beatings—or worse.
“It would be an irony—bloody reporters love irony—if we were to rescue Mr Taggart unharmed and secure his co-operation in time to set the record straight before the election.”
Inside the door they share a hug and a kiss—a gesture not of passion but of mutual understanding. Mildred reminds herself that it shouldn’t come as a disappointment. It isn’t as though one might marry (apart from the obvious issue, she has no intention of marrying anyone); yet all the same, one must expect to undergo a period of heartsickness at the end of an affair.
Without speaking, they sit side by side on the floor beneath the window, because the bed doesn’t seem right for the conversation they are about to undertake.
More silence, while each wonders how and where to begin.
On Mildred’s bureau are some items Holly gave her: the sharpened metal comb for wounding, the one-inch iron ball wrapped in hemp cord for cracking skulls, the lock-picking apparatus, the old-fashioned hat pin that could skewer a man like a brochette. Not the sort of gifts a girl expects from a swain, but appreciated nonetheless.
And the experience has rescued her from boredom for a while, which may be the best one can hope for. She will hang herself rather than become a schoolmarm or nurse. Which leaves the other profession, if only she weren’t so fussy about men’s body odour and bad breath.
For Holly, the situation is surely simple and clear. She is not about to leave her profession or her country for anyone—unlike Mildred, who has already done both and would rather not do so again.
With this in mind, she decides to begin with a legal quip: “So my love, are we an open-and-shut case?”
Holly takes a deep breath, then nods. “Oh honey, I declare you’re close to the nub of it.”
“In the sense of ‘close, but no cigar’?”
Not a laugh, but at least a smile: “You know I don’t hold with your cigarettes.”
“Would you prefer that I smoked a pipe?”
Holly grins with her American teeth: “When you’re older, maybe. My mam in Boonville smoked a pipe.”
Mildred reaches over to take Holly’s strong hand, places it in her lap and holds on. “How long, do you think?”
Holly’s brow furrows. “D’you mean, how long have we got? Or d’you mean, how much longer ’fore we close the case?”
“Both, I suppose. It’s the same timetable, isn’t it?”
She nods. “I reckon the operation is coming to a head. I expect that, by rights, we should have the suspect on her way back home within a week.”
“So we might have a week left.”
“That appears so, honey. ’less you hanker to become an American.”
“Not to second-guess a Pinkerton’s man, but why can’t you just arrest her now and get it over with?”
“Well dang, there’s the bugger of it. Daisy has flown the coop. She hasn’t taken to the woods, and her Packard hasn’t been seen crossing the border. But your Sergeant Hook is more fit than others I met. I reckon we’ll track her down pretty quick.”
“How can you be so certain? She’s a cunning one—we must respect that.”
“That’s so, but never in her born days did Daisy lift a finger ’cept for money. Follow the money, and there you’ll find her.”
“I must mention this to Eddie.”
“You do that.”
Silence—not a pause, but the end of anything to say.
When something is over, Mildred prefers it to be over. She can bear the humiliation of being left, but will not have her nose rubbed in it.
“Darling, did I mention? I have made plans for a short journey. I want to call on a friend in Victoria. I shall tell my supervisor that I have a touch of the flu—nobody will check. They’re afraid it’s that flu. These days, people worry they’ll catch it over the telephone.”
“And your pal in Victoria—is it male or female?”
“We were cabin-mates during the voyage. Gracie is like my adoring younger sister.”
“That sounds plenty good. Makes me feel better too.”
“So, you won’t have to move. You can stay here if you like. I shall speak to the matron, and you’ll find the keys under the mat.”
“No need. I can let myself in.”