The Woman In the Green Dress

by Téa Cooper

  Hundreds of pieces of disintegrating green paper and neatly packed brown bottles filled the box.

  Pulling one out, she held it up to the beam of lantern light and peered at the label.

  Tonic

  The Great Health and Strength Restorer.

  Cures all manner of ailments by restoring the blood.

  Are you weary of brain and body?

  Rely on Atterton’s Tonic. Available only from The Curio Shop of Wonders.

  She wrenched a cork free and sniffed. The strange metallic odour filled her nostrils, clogging her mouth, making her gag. Blowing out her cheeks she corked the bottle and rocked back on her heels.

  Taxidermied specimens, fashionable furs and feathers, opals and now medicinal tonics. What else had the Curio Shop offered?

  By waving the lantern from side to side Fleur began to make sense of the narrow cavity; not much further and she would reach the front wall of the house.

  The knees of her stockings snagged and small stones bit into her hand as she crawled forwards until the rough surface of the sandstone blocks confirmed she’d reached the furthest wall. Careful to guard the flame of the candle, she sat up, flinching as her head brushed the sloped roof.

  The musty odour of the undisturbed air coated her nostrils and she gulped down a short breath before brushing aside a film of cobwebs. A large rectangular trunk with a curved lid filled the shadowed corner.

  Easing onto her knees, she ran her fingers along the edge. A small bolt sunk into the wood surrounded by a flat circular pull held the lid shut. She slipped her fingers around the metal and tugged.

  The lid sprang open.

  Air, thick and heavy, billowed out. Bile rose in her throat, the acid making her gag. With her mouth covered against the fetid stink, she lifted the lantern high and peered inside.

  An obscene splash of emerald green.

  She leant closer, a cold sensation seeping from under her breastbone. A dusty cloak cradled the remains of a body. Copper-coloured hair spread from beneath the hood. Gnarled hands lay crossed and bound with a red satin ribbon tied with the utmost care. Patches of yellow mould spotted the green material but the woman’s facial features were still discernible. High forehead, sharp cheekbones, an arrogant nose. All remarkably preserved.

  Unable to control the sense of panicked suffocation, she slammed the lid closed and fled, the sound of her pulse hammering in her ears.

  When she reached the top of the stairs she couldn’t contain the scream building in her chest. It ripped from her, shattering the stillness of the Curio Shop. She brought her hand up to her face, found it damp with tears.

  The stench lingered at the back of her throat, making her gag. Her stomach heaved.

  Gasping to steady her breathing, time skewed, she stood rooted to the spot. Was her mind playing tricks? Was it some crazy dream brought about by the confusion swirling in her head, her shattered dreams, her longing for Hugh?

  A knock sounded and the front door opened bringing a flood of sunshine, but she couldn’t move.

  Dear God. Let it be Kip.

  A discreet cough and the tap of a stick on the timber floor pierced her stupor and she turned.

  ‘I hope I’m not intruding.’

  In front of her stood the old man from Mogo Creek, his face flushed, holding out a large white handkerchief.

  She took it and scrubbed at her face. ‘Yes. No. Well, maybe.’ For goodness sake, what was she supposed to say? Admit to the fact that she’d found a disintegrating corpse in the cellar? She slammed her lips closed.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down and take a minute.’ He nodded to the old leather sofa against the wall and lowered himself into the swivel chair then propped his walking stick against the desk. With a sense of familiarity, his fingers smoothed the timber on the arm rests and he peered down at the ledgers.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. Pull them away and slam them closed? She slumped onto the sofa. He took matters into his own hands and, with a look of regret, slowly closed them. ‘It was a good business while it lasted. Made us all a tidy sum.’

  Us? ‘Who are you? I didn’t ask at Mogo.’

  ‘No, you didn’t and I didn’t tell you. Have you found it yet?’

  Heavens above! Each and every one of the hairs at the base of her skull prickled. Did he know what was in the cellar?

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Perhaps you should start by telling me your name.’ Her words came out sounding as though she was in control. She wasn’t sure how she managed it because the inside of her head was a mixture of soggy cotton wool, scraps of green velvet and strange fizzing flashes.

  ‘The name’s Burless. Just call me Bert.’

  ‘Kip’s grandfather?’

  ‘Not that he or my daughter are over keen on publicising the association.’

  The ledgers! She jumped to her feet and opened the top one. She blinked twice to bring the names into focus, confirm she wasn’t mistaken. 1914 Burless, seven thousand pounds. ‘This Burless?’ She stabbed at the first column.

  ‘That’d be the one.’

  Fleur picked up one of the earlier ledgers. 1885. ‘And this one?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘So you do know Hugh’s family.’

  He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. A cold finger trickled down her spine and snatched her breath away. More to the point, he might know who was downstairs in the trunk.

  ‘Better than I knew meself.’

  ‘And the shop?’ She shuddered, her eyes drifting to the cellar stairs.

  His eyebrows almost met as he peered at her. ‘You all right, love?’

  She licked her dry lips, tried for a yes but couldn’t force out the word out.

  ‘Your face is bone white.’

  Fleur pushed the image of the withered fingers to the back of her mind. She didn’t know why or how but the kindly look on his face broke her resolve. ‘I’ve found something. Someone in the cellar.’ Who else could she turn to? Not Kip, he’d vanished, certainly not Vera. She’d throw her hands up in horror and give that nasty little screech, then call the police. She wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  ‘You better show me.’

  Every muscle in her body told her not to step down into the cellar again but she led the way, arms wrapped tightly around her body, steeling herself for the sight and the stench of the woman in the green dress.

  Thirty-Five

  Sydney, NSW, 1919

  Fleur hadn’t expected to sleep but she drank the glass of brandy Sladdin had thrust into her shaking hand and crawled to her room. She’d drifted into an empty black space where there were no dreams, no memories and no feelings. And now it was morning and she had to face Bert, the police and all that the entire debacle entailed.

  By the time she’d dressed and made her way downstairs, Bert was settled in the dining room surrounded by a silver coffee service and the biggest plate of food she’d ever seen, something that involved black bread, hard cheese and strange sausage. It didn’t look, or smell, very appetising. ‘Good morning, Bert.’

  He swallowed his mouthful, half rose and poured her a cup of strong black coffee.

  She turned and looked over her shoulder for the waitress. ‘I’d rather have tea if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Try the coffee. Wurst and Käse—best breakfast in the world. Want some?’

  She slid the cup closer and took a sip. ‘Bert? Are you going to tell me?’

  He shot her a sudden bright-eyed glance, so like Kip it snatched her breath away.

  ‘What’s to tell?’

  ‘The woman in the trunk. You know who she is, don’t you?’

  ‘Wait and see what the police say. Can’t be sure.’

  ‘Yes, you can. And you know how she got there. Why won’t you tell me?’

  ‘Better let the past rest.’ He huffed out a sigh and concentrated on the cheese, cutting it into the finest slices.

  ‘I need to know and you’re the only one who can tell me. How can I unravel
the tangle of Hugh’s inheritance if I don’t know where it came from?’

  ‘It all came from Noble Opals. The biggest opal business in the world at the time.

  ‘It was when we found the White Cliffs fields—that’s when things took off proper. Sold the stuff all over the world. Never thought I’d find myself in Paris and New York. Whole thing went down the drain once the war broke out.’

  ‘But what’s all this got to do with the woman in the trunk?’

  ‘Ah. That depends on whether you believe in fairy stories.’

  ‘Fairy stories?’ Fleur took a sip of the strong black coffee. It did nothing to cure the swirling confusion in her mind. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her name’s Cordelia, Cordelia Atterton.’

  The owner of the Curio Shop, the initials in the ledger CA. Fleur took a bigger sip of coffee and her heart began to hammer.

  ‘First trip the Capt’n and me took, he told me about this opal. He’d been asked to collect it.’

  ‘Just a minute. Stop. Who is this Captain?’

  Bert rolled his eyes and rested his chin in his hand. ‘Stefan. Captain Stefan von Richter. Hugh’s grandfather.’

  Hugh’s grandfather! She’d found a Della von Richter in the ledgers, and Hugh’s brothers and someone called Otto, but no Stefan.

  ‘He told me people believed opals were unlucky. Some story about a princess who strayed from the straight and narrow and paid the price. Went up in a puff of smoke. I always thought there was some truth in it; every time we thought we’d tracked the opal down, the owner had met an untimely death and it passed to someone else.’

  ‘Cordelia owned the opal?’

  ‘For a while, she did. Then she disappeared.’

  ‘But she didn’t disappear. Someone must have murdered her. She wouldn’t lock herself in a trunk and tie her hands with a red ribbon.’ The wretched hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle again. ‘Was it the Captain?’

  Bert gave a rough bark of laughter, then caught his breath.

  She thumped him on the back and waited impatiently for his breathing to settle.

  ‘You know what happened to her, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know but I can make an educated guess.’ He gave another splutter. ‘Never thought I’d use that word in a sentence talking about meself. I didn’t have an education. Not one you’d call legitimate. The Capt’n gave me that. Great bloke. A true gentleman. He took a punt on a dirty little guttersnipe. Without him I wouldn’t be where I am now.’

  ‘I still don’t understand.’ A shudder shook her. ‘If it wasn’t the Captain, then who was it?’ She studied his weathered face. ‘Who killed Cordelia?’

  ‘Doubt we’d ever prove it. Better to let sleeping dogs dream.’ He stretched back in the seat and rummaged in his jacket pocket. ‘But this as good as tells me who it was.’ He pulled out a long red ribbon and laid it on the table with a degree of reverence.

  Her stomach gave a lurch, threatening to bring the coffee back. ‘That’s the ribbon that was tied around Cordelia’s hands. What will the police say? I told them no one had touched the body.’

  ‘What the cops don’t know won’t worry them. Nothing they can do about it now. Let her sleep, I reckon.’

  She reached out and took the slippery satin ribbon and ran it through her fingers. ‘Who does it belong to?’

  ‘Charity. After Cordelia vanished, Charity ran the Curio Shop for Della, though it didn’t last long. She upped and married and before long the shop was boarded up.’

  ‘And you think she killed Cordelia? Why would she do that?’

  ‘No thinking about it. I know she did. It all makes sense now.’

  Not to Fleur it didn’t. ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘Not much to tell really. She and Cordelia knew each other from London, came out here on the same transport.’

  ‘They were convicts?’

  ‘The pair of them. See, Cordelia had everything Charity wanted. Coveted is the word, I reckon.’

  ‘How can you be sure that the ribbon belongs to her? Anyone could have tied Cordelia’s hands with a ribbon.’

  ‘Not this one. You see here. The little row of pearls sewn onto the ends?’

  She peered at the hemline on the end of the ribbon. Tiny pearls used to stop the fraying.

  ‘Me memory’s not too hot now, except for the past. I can remember that day clear as the sound of Della’s laughter. We’d had a run-in with a couple of no ’opers. The Capt’n had taken a fall and the rain was bucketing down. Ended up sleeping in a cave. When the sun came up we took off again, came across the farm.’

  ‘The farm? At Mogo Creek?’

  ‘Want to hear this or not?’ Bert scowled across the table at her. ‘I was so hungry I thought me throat had been cut. Charity flounced along the verandah with this piping hot damper and golden yellow butter. Think I would’ve been interested in the food but I couldn’t take me eyes off the long braid of her hair, black as night and shiny as a raven’s wing, straight as a die down her spine, the ribbon threaded through her hair, these pearls dancing in the sunlight. Bloody near fell flat on me face.’ His cheeks coloured a little and he gazed past her into the distance. ‘A man never forgets the first time his body stirs. The first awakening.’

  Fleur let the silence lie for a while. She didn’t know what to say.

  He rolled the ribbon up and stuffed it back in his top pocket and patted it.

  ‘You loved her?’

  ‘No. Lust, not love. The memory’s just an old man’s foolishness.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She married, course she did. She’d only got eyes for one. That’s who she was after right from the very beginning. Bloody Sladdin. Though I can’t understand why. Nasty little lickspittle he was. Had Cordelia and Charity wrapped around his bony finger.’

  ‘Mr Sladdin? That’s the name of the clerk here, at the hotel.’

  ‘One and the same.’

  And he’d told her his grandfather and his father had both been clerks at the hotel and it was a family tradition. ‘His father?’

  ‘Nope, grandfather.’

  ‘So he and Charity …’ she couldn’t bring herself to say murdered ‘… put Cordelia in the trunk?’

  ‘Nah. I don’t reckon Sladdin had anything to do with it. He was Cordelia’s fancy man. Those were the very words Charity used. He wouldn’t have done it. Had too much to lose. What Charity didn’t let on was that she was as jealous as all get-out. Wanted Sladdin for herself, always had.’

  ‘I think you should tell the police.’

  ‘Why?’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘What good is it going to do? Leave it be, I say. Can’t make a man pay for the sins of his grandparents. Whole country would grind to a halt. More to the point, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Me?’ She knew she’d have to answer this question eventually. All the searching and still she didn’t know what to do about Hugh’s inheritance. All she’d found was a maze of mystery and intrigue. ‘I think you deserve Hugh’s legacy more than I do. You’ve been with the family from the very beginning.’

  ‘No good to me, love. I ain’t going to be around much longer.’

  ‘What about your daughter? What about Kip?’

  ‘They’ll be taken care of. Always have been though they didn’t know it. I didn’t spend me time hanging around the opal business letting the daisies grow. It’s what Hugh wanted. He wouldn’t have notified Lyttleton of your marriage otherwise.’

  ‘That first time we met, at Mogo …’

  ‘Wondered if you’d get around to that.’

  ‘You asked me if I had something for you. You said a family heirloom.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’ll know when you find it. You have to hand it over, of your own free will and all that.’

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. There are the investments, deeds to the shop and the property at Mogo, properties on the continent, at Br
oken Hill and Wilcannia ...’ Her mind still spiralled out of control every time she thought about it.

  ‘Della always loved the place at Wilcannia, beautiful house on the river. That’s where the boys were born. Hugh and his brothers.’

  More money than she could spend in a lifetime. And Bert had already said it wasn’t money he was after. ‘I have Hugh’s personal belongings. I couldn’t bring myself to open them until I had more answers.’ There had to be something there Bert wanted. ‘I asked Mr Sladdin to put everything in the strong box.’ Perhaps the time had come. ‘Bert, will you stay while I open them.’

  ‘Nope. That’s your business. Yours and Hugh’s. Besides someone’s got to have a word with the police. They want to know about the arsenic. Reckon it’s preserved the body. I’ll meet you by the steps in Macquarie Street, the ones that run down to the quay, say four o’clock?’ With little more than a nod, he crossed the dining room and disappeared through the doors into the foyer.

  Fleur poured herself another cup of coffee, savouring the aroma. She rather liked it; she’d turned her nose up at it when Hugh had ordered it from the coffee stands along the Embankment. Said she’d take tea any day, now she wasn’t so sure. It seemed to clear her head, make it easier to face the inevitable. She left the table and went in search of Mr Sladdin.

  As always he stood waiting, as though in some telepathic way he knew when he’d be needed. Bred into him, no doubt, through generations of service. She could see nothing in his face to indicate the police had questioned him. Why would they? Unless Bert changed his mind and told them about Charity, she doubted that.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Sladdin. I was wondering if I could have my items from the strong box.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’ He bustled into the office behind the desk.

  When he reappeared, he handed the small package over with a degree of hesitancy. As she studied his face, she couldn’t get over the thought that his grandmother might have had a hand in Cordelia’s death.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sladdin.’ She restrained herself from snatching the package, just held out her hand. With a long drawn-out sigh, he relinquished it. Throwing him a brief smile, she made her way up the stairs trying to convince herself it was the two cups of black coffee that had caused her pounding heartbeat and not the prospect of finally confirming Hugh’s death.