6

SUNDAY, CHRISTMAS DAY

THREE DAYS BEFORE THE MURDER

REVEREND WILLIAM ‘CALIFORNIA’ TAYLOR stood tall in the pulpit and held out his arms in a grand gesture of greeting to the early-morning congregation. The murmur died away and, save for sporadic coughs, the crowded church was silent. From a pew at the rear, Maggie Stuart looked up at the preacher, standing there in his black vestment, his bearded head held high, waiting, as if for a sign from his maker that it was time to begin. She felt the gentle squeeze of her husband’s hand around hers. There was such expectation in George’s face, in all the faces around her. And so many people were there, and not just the Wesleyans. George had said on the way in that it was for all people that the Yankee evangelist had come, to save them from the profanity, immorality, and drunkenness that had taken such pernicious hold in the goldfields these past years.

Still the minister waited. He waited while, outside, cockatoos screeched, even more as a horse cantered by, and yet more as men greeted each other raucously across the road. Only when the faces before him began to turn to one another did he speak, in the rich and resonant baritone one might have expected.

‘Twelve murders in twelve years,’ he said. He shook his head and let his chin drop to his chest, as if he had known each and every one of the poor victims as a dear friend. He looked up, and in the gravest cadences, completed the pairing of the awful fact with its starkest interpretation. ‘Friends, you don’t need me to come across the vastness of the great Pacific Ocean to tell you that something is terribly wrong in this beautiful little town.’

And so began a sermon like no other Maggie had heard. Sermons had always been so dour, incomprehensible, removed from experience. It was for the singing that Maggie came to church. How she loved the singing! Sermons were boiled cabbage; hymns were pudding. But this Christmas Day, this visitor, with his voice, his great gestures, his striding up and down, his vehemence — his charisma — simply insisted that she listen. And believe.

‘WE WILL GO TO hell, I think.’

‘Then hurry up and climb in here with me, my beautiful Latin lover. You know Lawrence will be home soon, bellowing for his Christmas lunch.’

‘And I don’t want to be on the menu!’

‘No, but you’re on mine. Now let me at you!’

Serafino Bonetti had been fornicating with the ample, libidinous, and neglected Mrs Lawrence Telford every other day since the day he first met her. That put their affair at a fortnight — the most exhilarating two weeks she’d had since arriving in the town as the dissatisfied wife of a dour country police sergeant. Serafino was young, attentive, and priapic, and conveniently and fortuitously building the extension to the police cottage, where the sergeant lived. They’d had to be careful, with the cottage immediately adjacent to the police camp, though not so careful as to kill the frisson that the risk of discovery brought to their lovemaking. Still, by now there were times that Penelope wouldn’t have minded her husband finding out, if only so she might show herself as a woman of spirit and independence, and not the dutiful, unquestioning accessory he assumed she was.

‘Can you sing?’ she asked her man. The timing puzzled him.

‘What, now?’

Mrs Telford chuckled. ‘If you like, though I’d rather you keep your mouth free! No, I mean, do you like to sing? Because if you do, you could join the Philharmonic Society — we’re rehearsing The Messiah for our opening night in March. At the Theatre Royal. It would be fun!’

Serafino smiled. ‘I will think about it.’

MARIA MOLESWORTH HAD WORKED at Pitman’s Refreshment Room for more than a year now, on her way, she hoped, to greater things; specifically, a husband and a house. And children, too, of course. But she was nearing thirty, and lately a creeping dread that her dream would never be realised was sinking her into bouts of melancholy. In these troughs, she would dwell on her unchanged circumstances: she was no respectable wife keeping house, but a tart at a goldfields grog shanty. Then sober self-examination would pull her back from the lip of despair, and she would find comfort in acknowledging that at least Pitman’s presented her with a steady stream of prospects, and fixed though her lot seemed, her world could change with the very next customer. And until it did, she had room and board, and was safe. She earned good money, too; no one knew better than she how to pout and preen a way into a punter’s purse.

Christmas Day was a busy day for Pitman’s, and to cater for the holiday patronage, the house standards of beer and whiskey had been augmented with grog of a more eclectic taste, such as absinthe, champagne, claret, and sherry. Yet, with limited kitchen facilities, the menu kept to its standard offerings of meats, bread, and cheese — the kind of tucker most amenable to the palate of the drunkard. And indeed the west end of Albert Street was the haunt of the drunkard, with Pitman’s on the West Street corner, the Union Hotel a few doors along, and the West of England Hotel across the road. These establishments didn’t so much compete as collude for trade in their luring of clientele from other drinking precincts of the town. Cut-price liquor and pretty young women with a willing disposition were the chief enticements of this informal cartel.

Nonetheless, as a self-interested businessman, Pitman strove always to give his modest premises an edge on his larger neighbours, and so he invested in women he fancied were a little more willing, if not prettier, than those next door or across the road. For this Christmas season, he’d secured the services of Ellen and Susannah. The girls arrived mid-morning from Castlemaine, saucy-dressed and painted. Pitman did the introductions.

‘This is Maria,’ he said. ‘Our grande dame. Ain’t that so, Maria?’

Maria stretched her mouth to approximate a smile. For her boss, it was adequate. He turned back to the recruits.

‘Any questions?’

They shook their heads, but Pitman was already gesturing to Maria that the girls were in her hands.

WITH HIS CHRISTMAS LUNCH eaten, his wife out, and his afternoon entirely at his disposal, Sergeant Lawrence Telford sat himself on a chair at the front of his residence, the police cottage, and searched through The Argus of the 22nd. There was something of the poking at an aching tooth about this, he knew, but he wasn’t going to take on faith the report of ‘brilliant detective work in Melbourne’ that Tandy was going on about. Tandy was barely a constable and barely knew Otto Berliner, much less how pompous and difficult an officer he’d been in the few years he’d endured at Daylesford. It was the cold that Berliner said his health couldn’t abide. Ha! Some detective. And there was never a hair out of place; that said enough. Telford scanned the newsprint, muttering, ‘Forgery … forgery …’ He found it.

‘Apprehension of a Forger of Bank Notes,’ the headline read. ‘Patrick Lennan was charged with committing forgeries on the Bank of New South Wales to the amount of £10,000 …’ Telford swallowed, resentful in anticipation of what was sure to follow:

Detective Otto Berliner … stated that for two months he had been keeping watch over Lennan, who had been accustomed to change his residence every seven or eight days, and his style of dress — sometimes in blue shirt and trousers, or in a suit of black.

There was nothing brilliant about basic surveillance. Telford felt the tension within him ease a little, and read on:

Lennan had approached engraver Troedl of Collins Street, to make engraved plates for the forging of £5 notes. When Troedl informed the police, Berliner conceived to work in a disguise of wig, whiskers, and spectacles as assistant to Mr Troedl. Under Berliner’s direction, Troedl completed the plates and handed them, with two thousand forged notes, to Lennan, with Berliner witness to the whole transaction. It is supposed that Lennan intended to take the spurious notes up the country and buy gold with them. It will thus be seen that Detective Berliner has saved a great number of people from being victims of a most impudent fraud, and it is satisfactory to know that the accused was not able to get rid of any of the notes, for the detectives have not lost an hour in watching him since they were put upon the scent. Detective Berliner has actually been in his company several times, and this circumstance induced him to adopt the clever disguise …

Telford folded the paper, placed it on the adjacent seat, and decided that an aching tooth really ought to be left be.