FROM FASCIST BLACKSHIRTS “PROUD OF RECORD”

LONDON, June 12

The Black shirts offer no apology, declared Sir Edward Moseley, at a Fascist meeting in Shrewsbury, regarding the allegations of brutality by eye-witnesses attending the British Fascists meeting at Olympia. Moseley declares that the allegations are evidently of corrupt alliance and are the frame up of a case against the new movement, threatening them with political destruction. Moseley adds: “We are proud of our record in restoring free speech in the face of red terror.” He continued: “I challenge half a dozen Cabinet Ministers who attacked me to debate with me on a public platform instead of running about carefully picketing our meetings and lying about Fascism.”

Albany Advertiser, 1934

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By morning there was a bevy of reporters at the gates of Woodlands House. The daily papers carried lurid accounts of the accident. Both The Sun and Smith’s Weekly made much of the involvement of Rowland Sinclair and his German car in the accident.

The Honourable Charlotte Linklater, youngest daughter of Lord Chancy, champion horsewoman and game hunter, spoke to the Herald, and although she refrained from accusing Rowland Sinclair directly, she did address the aggressive driving which she felt caused her brother’s death.

“Hold on,” Milton said, looking closely at the article. “The Honourable Charles Linklater was a Blackshirt.”

“It doesn’t say that!” Clyde muttered, taking the paper from the poet. Milton pointed. “Miss Linklater says she’s received a telegram from Oswald Mosley, who was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of his old friend and compatriot.”

“Well, the papers might have to decide whether Rowly’s a Nazi or a Communist if they want to accuse him of something,” Clyde muttered. He was wearing his best suit—one of those purchased on Rowland Sinclair’s account before they last went abroad masquerading as well-to-do art dealers. Psyche by the Styx had been carefully wrapped in brown paper.

“Where is Rowly?” Edna asked, pouring tea. Rowland was usually the first of them to come down to breakfast.

“He took Lenin for a walk to get him away from your cats,” Milton replied.

“Rowly doesn’t mind the kittens,” Edna declared, poking the poet.

“He’s concerned that Len has started to purr,” Milton replied.

Clyde looked at his watch. The anxiety was plain on his weathered face. “I’d better go get this over with.”

“Are you taking Rowly’s car?”

“Struth, no, I’ve booked a taxi. I don’t want to announce my arrival until it’s necessary, and the Mercedes is not a subtle automobile.”

“Would you like some company, mate?” Milton offered. “Considering what happened last time, you might need a second.”

Clyde shook his head. “I’m just going to leave the painting and a note with her landlady.”

“Enclose the receipt or they might fear it’s stolen,” Milton advised.

Clyde nodded glumly.

Edna embraced him. “Poor darling, Clyde. I’m so sorry it worked out this way.”

Clyde sighed. “It’s probably for the best. Rosie seemed quite impressed with this Antonio chap.”

“Did she indeed?” Edna’s words were terse. As much as the sculptress’ own loves were fleeting she had never promised anyone anything else. She could not bear the thought of Clyde alone and heartbroken as he called on Rosalina this one last time. “I’m going with you,” she said.

“Ed, I don’t—”

“I’m coming.” Edna put down her tea and began looking for her bag and gloves. “Milt, would you tell Errol when he calls that I’ve stepped out with Clyde for a moment and won’t be able to go sailing with him today?” She paused and turned back to the poet. “You should go if he still wants company.”

“Me?”

“Yes, I rather think you and Errol would rub along beautifully.”

“I can’t swim, remember.”

“That won’t matter unless he’s a particularly bad sailor which I’m sure he isn’t,” she said sweetly.

Milton groaned. “Go,” he said. “I’ll keep Errol occupied.”

Woodlands House was almost empty when Rowland and Lenin returned. Mary Brown was visiting family in Burwood, leaving Bessie, as the most senior downstairs maid, to attend to the running of the house in her absence.

“Mrs. Bainbridge collected Mrs. Sinclair for luncheon and matinée, sir,” she said, when Rowland enquired after his mother.

“Thank you, Bessie.” Rowland removed his jacket and loosened his tie. His Aunt Mildred, Mrs. Bainbridge, was his father’s sister. Rowland had always thought her an old dragon, but she was fond of his mother and had been kind since Elisabeth Sinclair had moved back to Sydney.

Lenin followed Bessie back to the kitchen in search of his kittens, and Rowland proceeded into his studio, shutting the door behind him before discarding his jacket on the couch.

His easel held a completed painting of Edna asleep in the armchair, curled up like a child with her head pillowed by her hands. Her lashes were dark against the natural rose of her cheek. He stared at it for a while and then removed the painting, replacing it with the canvas he should have been working on the night before.

The sun had risen high enough that the light in the bay window was neither direct nor harsh. Rowland set out his palette and began. The painting was finally finding a rhythm with each brushstroke inviting the next, making sense with the next. He painted Röhm as a portly grinning figure, strutting proudly as his men burned books and declared ideas enemies of the state. Somehow the banality of the image was more chilling than any traditional monster. In the background, the silhouettes of Brownshirts going about their thuggish work as men cowered on the ground.

Engrossed in the detail of Röhm’s bloated, scarred face, Rowland teased out the shadows cast by the firelight. He needed a finer brush and he turned away to find one.

An explosion of glass.

A solitary bullet shattered a pane of the bay window and pierced the canvas from behind. A second earlier, the shot might have proved fatal. As it was, Rowland felt the breeze it created as he dropped to the floor. He waited, his heart pounding, his ears ringing.

The door to the studio moved.

“No!” Rowland shouted, still expecting a second shot. “Don’t come in!”

He crept away from the window, and sat pressed against the wall. Still nothing. Carefully he stood and peered out the window. The grounds were, as far as he could tell, empty.

A knocking at the studio door. “Mr. Sinclair, are you all right sir?”

“I’m fine, Bessie, but don’t come in. I’ll come out.”

Rowland moved to the door doing his level best to stay out of any line of sight from the garden. He closed the door behind him as he stepped into the entrance hall.

Bessie gaped at him, a pudgy hand clasped over what Rowland presumed was an open mouth. “What happened, sir?”

“I’m afraid someone’s fired a shot through the studio window.”

“Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, oh my Lord,” the maid chanted, turning in an erratic circle while Rowland tried to calm her.

“I’m sure he’s gone now, Bessie.”

“How do you know, sir? Perhaps he was trying to get into the house.” She stared at the studio door. “Lord, he might just walk through the broken window.”

“Do you have Mary Brown’s keys?” Rowland asked.

She pulled a large ring of keys from the chatelaine around her waist. Rowland found the key to his studio quickly and locked the door.

“There,” he told the distressed maid. “I might just telephone the police now.”

Rowland made the call with Bessie hovering anxiously beside him.

“Come into the library and I’ll pour you a medicinal brandy, Bessie,” Rowland said as he re-cradled the receiver. The maid looked as though she could do with a stiff drink.

Bessie shook her head so hard that her cap came loose. “There’re windows in the library, Mr. Sinclair, and he could still be out there.”

“Oh… I see.” Rowland tried to recall a part of the house not made vulnerable by windows. “Why don’t you stay here for just a moment?” he suggested. “I’ll duck into the library and bring you a glass of brandy.”

“What if you get shot and killed, Mr. Sinclair?”

“You have the keys, Bessie. Go upstairs and lock yourself in somewhere. The police will be here soon.”

Bessie nodded, sniffling tearfully.

“Is there anybody else in the house?” Rowland asked.

The maid shook her head. “No, sir, we all usually have a half day off today. I’m only here because Miss Brown wanted to visit her sister.”

“Good, I won’t be a moment.” Rowland walked into the library and grabbed the decanter of brandy and two tumblers from the silver tray on the mantel.

When the police knocked on the front door, Rowland and the maid were seated on one of the lower steps of the grand staircase which swept up from the tiled foyer. Lenin had padded out of the kitchen to investigate briefly and then returned to his kittens.

Rowland answered the knock. He was a little surprised to see Delaney at the head of the small force on his doorstep. “Colin… what are you doing here?” He shook the detective’s hand.

“I have the desk sergeant call me whenever you get into trouble. It saves time.”

“I see.”

Delaney winked as he signalled his constables to make a search of the grounds. “I’m no longer investigating the White case as you know, but there’s no reason to believe this is related. It’s not the first time someone’s tried to shoot you, after all.” Delaney removed his hat and stepped into the house. “We’d best have a look at where the bullet came in.”

The decanter crashed onto the tiles as Bessie stood. She cried out in dismay before descending into frantic apologies.

“Excuse me a moment.” Rowland diverted momentarily to the staircase to reassure the servant and suggest she make herself a cup of tea while he spoke to the detective.

Bessie sobbed and apologised again about the decanter. “Miss Brown will take it out of my wages, sir,” she lamented.

“It was my fault entirely for leaving it on the step,” Rowland said, handing her his handkerchief. “We’ll clean it up before Miss Brown gets back, and she need never know.”

At this suggestion poor Bessie gasped, for fear Rowland intended to participate in the cleaning somehow. The horror shook her out of her anxiety. She made it clear that she would see to the broken decanter directly and under no circumstances must he touch a broom.

So chastised, Rowland returned to Delaney, opening the door to the studio and observing the damage. The floor below the bay window was strewn with shattered glass. The easel hadn’t moved and the canvas he’d been painting was still clamped in place. The bullet had come through what should have been Ernst Röhm’s mouth. Rowland considered the result while Delaney searched for the bullet.

“So, Rowly, did you see anyone… anything?” Delaney asked, as he delicately pried the bullet out of the wood panelling on the opposite wall.

“No,” Rowland said, poking a finger through the hole in his canvas. “But I was painting. I wasn’t really watching anything else.”

Delaney came round to peer at the canvas. He cursed. “How he missed you beggars belief.”

“I suspect I turned away at an opportune time,” Rowland said uncertainly.

“You might just be the luckiest man alive, Rowly.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“Who wants to kill you at the moment?”

“No one, as far as I know.”

“Where is everybody?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Bessie might know.”

Delaney sent a constable to fetch the maid. Bessie rattled off the whereabouts of the household as best she could. “Miss Higgins went with Mr. Watson Jones to deliver a painting, sir, and Mr. Isaacs has stepped out with Mr. Flynn.”

“Milt left with Flynn?” Rowland asked, surprised.

“I believe they went sailing, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Who’s this Flynn?” Delaney asked.

“An actor, I’m told. He’s driving for my team in the Maroubra Invitational.”

“It’s not been cancelled?” Delaney asked. “I thought with the crash and all…”

Rowland shrugged. “Apparently not.”

“Where was your mother this morning, Rowly?” Delaney tried to sound casual.

“My mother did not try to shoot me,” Rowland said, bristling. “Whatever may have happened in the past… What happened to my father was…”

“I have to ask.”

“She’s out with my Aunt Mildred.”

“Good.” Delaney looked out the now glassless window to the grounds.

“What are you looking for?” Rowland asked.

“Places where our mystery shooter might have stood so that he would have a clear line of sight and not be easily seen.”

“As I said, I wouldn’t have noticed anyone.”

Delaney held up a finger. “Yes, that’s right. But he would only have known that if he knew you.” He paced, pleased with the revelation. “If we can establish where the shooter actually stood, we’ll at least be able to ascertain whether he was likely to have known you well or not.”

Rowland conceded. There was an undeniable logic to Delaney’s reasoning. “Will we be able to work out where he stood?”

“Could you place your easel in the exact position in which it stood before the shooting?”

Rowland gingerly cleared the shattered glass with his shoe and manoeuvred the H-frame easel so that it was parallel with the outer wall of the bay, using the paint splatters on the polished floorboards to guide him. “This would be about right,” he said, standing back for perspective. “So how will this help?”

Delaney pointed to the oak panelling from which he had just dug out the bullet. “Bullets fly in a straight line, more or less. We know where it ended up and where it went through your painting. If we simply follow that trajectory, it should give us an idea of where the bullet originated.”

“Good Lord, you’ve been reading Conan Doyle.”

“Hand me your longest paintbrush, Rowly,” Delaney said, ignoring the jibe.

Rowland did so. Delaney poked the brush through the hole in the painting from behind, lining the wooden end up with where the bullet had embedded. He signalled Rowland to grab the brush from the other side of the canvas and hold it absolutely motionless, before he stepped away. “Right, it’s a bit rough and ready, but the brush should point to the general area from where the bullet came.”

The paintbrush directed them towards the shaded driveway, lined with claret ash.

“Perhaps he used the trees as cover,” Delaney mused. “I’ll have the area searched in case he left anything behind.”