The Holiday Murders

by Robert Gott

  ‘There don’t seem to be any more in this room.’

  ‘There is this, though,’ Titus said, pulling another magazine from the drawer. Joe moved to where he could see what Titus was holding. There was a photograph on the cover of five people: four women — two of them barely into their teens — and a man. They were standing outside a tent, smiling, and at studied ease. The remarkable thing about this family, if they were a family (that was certainly the idea being conveyed), was that they were completely naked, and there’d been no attempt made to blur or hide their private parts. Above them was the name of the magazine: Menschen in der Sonne.

  ‘What do you make of this, Sergeant?’

  Joe took the magazine and flicked through it. Inside there were twelve colour plates of men, women, and children, all in robust good health, in poses that varied from gymnastic to the more mundane.

  ‘It’s a German nudist magazine,’ Joe said. ‘At least, I presume that’s what it is. I don’t read German, but the pictures rather speak for themselves.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s exactly what it is. The question is, what’s it doing in the drawer of a religious fanatic?’

  ‘Well, sir, religious fanatics are prone to unusual sexual outlets.’

  Titus nodded.

  ‘Yes. This seems a bit tame, though, don’t you think?’

  ‘It might have been enough for Xavier Quinn. It’s dated 1935, so he’s had it a long time.’

  ‘I doubt it’s been in his possession since 1935. He’d only have been twelve then, and where would a twelve-year-old boy get hold of a magazine like this?’

  After a few more minutes of searching the room, Titus had seen enough, ‘All right. The scientific boys can do a more thorough search here. We need to see John Quinn’s room.’

  Quinn’s bedroom was a large, beautifully proportioned space. It retained certain feminine touches that he must have kept in deference to his late wife. The room wasn’t crowded with furniture, but the few pieces it contained were ostentatiously the best of their kind — although neither Titus nor Joe could have identified the period or the craftsmen involved. There was a crucifix above the bed, and on the wall opposite was an arrestingly gorgeous portrait of a woman. Titus presumed it was Mrs Quinn. If he’d checked the signature, he would have seen that the artist was Hugh Ramsay. It was Joe who crossed to it immediately, and whistled. Australian and European art were something of a hobby for him. The name meant nothing to Titus.

  ‘I presume this is expensive good taste,’ Titus said.

  It took only a few minutes for them to find a cache of copies of The Publicist. There were several bound volumes, and many unbound copies. There were also other magazines similar to the German one in Xavier’s bedroom. Some of them were in German — Licht-Land, Die Neue Zeit, and FKK in der Schweiz — and there were a few copies of an English magazine called Health and Efficiency. The German magazines were brazen in their cover displays of naked men and women. Joe, who didn’t consider himself a prude, was nonetheless shocked by the clarity of the genitalia. He felt himself responding to the photographs sexually, even though no one in them was engaged in any activity that was remotely erotic. Health and Efficiency featured young naked women on its covers, but their nakedness was coy and seemed deliberately reminiscent of Victorian paintings. Breasts were de rigueur, but nothing else was, and there wasn’t a man or boy in sight — at least not on the covers.

  ‘It looks like fascism and naturism were family affairs,’ Titus said. ‘I wonder if Mary Quinn shares her father’s politics and his … hobby.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a connection between these magazines and the deaths?’

  ‘We need to know who the associates of both men were. I’m afraid we’re going to have to disturb Mary Quinn — or, rather, I’m afraid you’re going to have to disturb Miss Quinn. She must be able to give us some names. If she’s reluctant to do so, that in itself will be of interest. I’d suggest you interview Miss Quinn without Miss Draper there. I’m sure she’ll understand.’

  ‘Miss Draper seemed like a very sensible young woman to me, sir.’

  ‘Good. She may be of great help to us. Mary Quinn is an actress; keep that in mind. I think she might be prone to performing emotions, even when they’re real. She may not be aware she’s doing it. It makes her difficult to read.’

  Joe Sable nodded. Despite the ghastliness of the situation, he could barely contain an incipient smile of satisfaction at this expression of trust in his abilities.

  -4-

  The man stripped and stood looking at himself in the grimy wardrobe mirror. His body was lean and hard, more expressive of brutal self-denial and self-discipline than of healthy exercise. He dabbed at the raw tattoo with carbolic, refusing to wince, even in the privacy of his mean, bare bedroom. The misplaced ‘e’ had cost that old bastard his life, but Ptolemy Jones — for that was the man’s name — had already found a way to accommodate the misspelling. When the National Socialists gained power in Australia, as they inevitably would, ‘arguement’ would become the standard spelling. Jones would see to that.

  Before anything else, though, he would have to take control of the rump of Australia First. All that remained of the organisation was a handful of unimpressive freaks. This, at any rate, was Jones’s assessment of them. They were weak, and lazy, and full of talk, but that’s all it was. What they had going for them was money and property, and Jones needed both. He had been to some of their meetings back in 1942, and although he’d been careful to stay in the background, he’d noted who the movers and shakers were. One of them was a man named Mitchell Magill. Jones had thought he was soft. He’d said some good stuff about the Jews, but they were just words. Magill seemed to be a good organiser, and that was a skill which Jones could exploit.

  The time had come to do just that. Jones ran his hand one more time over ‘Arguement 7’, and decided to make contact with Magill. He knew someone who’d have Magill’s telephone number. Jones considered his reflection from head to toe. ‘Destiny,’ he said to it.

  Sheila Draper rented two rooms in a boarding house that had once been a rather grand private home. When Joe arrived to question Mary Quinn, Sheila discreetly left them alone. The room in which they now sat may once have been handsome, but a succession of boarders had exhausted it. Mary perched on the edge of an armchair, looking as if she thought it would soil her clothes if she sank back into it.

  ‘I’ve already told the other policeman how I found my father and brother,’ she told Joe.

  ‘Yes, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask some more questions.’

  ‘You’re going to ask me if I know why all this has happened. Well, I don’t.’

  ‘We’re not sure yet what exactly happened, Miss Quinn. That will take some time.’

  ‘I don’t believe my father killed himself. I did at first, but that was shock, I think.’

  ‘Miss Draper said he was a religious man.’

  ‘He was quietly religious, Sergeant. My brother, on the other hand, was a fanatic. He wanted to be Francis of Assisi and Teresa of Avila at the same time.’

  ‘I’m not a Catholic, Miss Quinn. I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.’

  Joe immediately felt a small, unpleasantly familiar stab of something like guilt. Why hadn’t he simply said that he was a Jew? Several times, he’d seen posters on lamp posts and on walls, declaring, ‘Jewish Refugees — Public Enemy No. 1.’ They’d troubled him not greatly at first, but lately more and more. Perhaps he was becoming wary of the anti-Semitism of strangers — or, worse, perhaps he was afraid of it. Such thoughts had begun to slip unbidden into his daily life, and they were starting to unnerve him.

  ‘They’re saints who had ecstatic visions,’ Mary said. ‘Xavier saw himself as a sort of visionary-in-training. He was a strange man. I loved him, of course, but I can’t pretend he wasn’t difficult,
and odd. He was very odd. He fully expected to gain the stigmata — they’re the wounds of Christ, Sergeant. Especially holy people find themselves bleeding all over the place. It must be hell on their furniture.’

  ‘You didn’t share your brother’s faith?’

  ‘Frankly, no. I used to go to Mass every Sunday with my father and mother, but I did it for them, not because I was a strong believer. I lost my faith completely when my mother died. She was in agony. Cancer. If that’s the merciful hand of God at work, I want none of it. I stopped going to Mass, which didn’t endear me to my father.’

  ‘What do you know about a magazine called The Publicist?’

  ‘The Publicist?’ Mary Quinn shrugged. ‘I’ve never heard of it. Should I have?’

  ‘Your father and brother read it. There were copies in both their rooms.’

  ‘What sort of magazine is it?’

  ‘Political.’

  ‘Political? Xavier’s never had a political thought in his life.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘He’s always been a Labor man. Is it a Labor magazine?’

  ‘No. Have you heard of Australia First?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘It was the organisation that published The Publicist.’ Joe didn’t elaborate.

  ‘I’ve never heard of Australia First, and I’ve never seen a copy of that magazine in the house. If my father read it, he kept it out of sight. Perhaps he thought it contained material unsuitable for a young gal’s eyes. He was very prudish.’

  ‘There were other magazines in his room, Miss Quinn, and they’re not the sort of magazines you’d expect to find in a prudish man’s possession.’

  Mary Quinn seemed genuinely surprised.

  ‘What sort of magazines? You can’t mean pornographic magazines, surely? How would my father get copies of such things?’

  ‘No, not pornographic magazines, not strictly speaking — although I’m sure the ones we found in his room can’t be bought legally here. They’re naturist magazines. Mostly German.’

  ‘Naturist?’

  ‘Naturists are people who like to live most of their lives … naked.’

  ‘Do you think when my father came home each night, he stripped off his clothes and walked around the house naked, in front of his children?’

  ‘Did he?’

  Mary Quinn gave a barking sort of laugh.

  ‘Oh, did we all do that? Is that what you mean? That is what you mean, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I have to ask …’

  ‘No, Sergeant. I’ve never seen my father naked, or my brother — until this afternoon. I can’t explain what those magazines were doing there. They can’t possibly be my father’s. He’d have been disgusted and appalled by them. Whoever did these terrible things must have put them there. God knows why.’

  Joe felt that the mention of the magazines had almost derailed the interview, and he tried to re-steady it.

  ‘Did you know any of your father’s friends?’

  ‘They were lawyers, mostly. He was a solicitor, but I suppose you know that already.’

  ‘We’d like to talk to them.’

  ‘People hardly ever came to the house, but Daddy was a member of the Savage Club, so you won’t have any trouble finding people to talk to. I’m afraid I don’t know any names. You could talk to Archbishop Mannix — he knew Daddy — oh, and a priest named Father McGrath. Daddy would always chat to him after Mass, and he came to the house once or twice. I thought he was a bore.’

  ‘And Xavier? Did he have many friends?’

  ‘Xavier had no friends, Sergeant, or none that I knew about. That goes for enemies as well. You must think we’re a strange family.’

  ‘All families are strange, Miss Quinn. I don’t suppose yours is any stranger than most.’

  ‘I’d like to agree with you, but I have to say that we weren’t a happy family. We didn’t talk much. We all lived in the same house, but we might as well have lived in different suburbs. Apart from the morning ritual of breakfast, we hardly saw each other, and breakfast was mostly conducted in silence. I think I may have given the other policeman the impression that we were a lot happier than we really were. It was the shock. I told him that we were all going to listen to my radio play together this evening. That wasn’t true. We didn’t do anything together, and Daddy wouldn’t listen to 3UZ in a fit. I’m sorry if I misled that inspector, but when something like this happens, you automatically elevate people to a saintliness they never had. I was actually going to listen to it with the cast. There’s a sort of party tonight in the producer’s flat. I won’t be going now, obviously.’

  Was there the faintest hint of peevishness in her tone? Joe wondered. Surely not.

  ‘When you entered the house, did you hear anything? Even a small sound?’

  ‘No. The house was quiet. Do you think whoever did this might still have been there?’ Her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened.

  ‘I’m afraid that is a possibility. I’m sorry to be blunt.’

  Joe realised that he’d made an error of judgement in mentioning this. There was a strong risk that it would now become the focus of her thinking and that she would lose the ability to recall minor details which might be telling.

  ‘The thought that some monster was lurking there gives me chills.’

  ‘May I be frank with you, Miss Quinn?’

  ‘I think we’re well past the point of polite reticence, Sergeant. The sight of my brother’s body, defiled like that, has pushed me beyond the capacity to be shocked by words.’

  Inspector Lambert’s earlier remark about Mary Quinn’s being an actress came to his mind when she said this. Her words sounded to Joe like they’d been scripted.

  ‘We believe your father and brother were both murdered. The attempt to make your father’s death look like suicide was as carefully managed as your brother’s death, but it didn’t fool us for very long. Clearly, this is not the work of someone who was disturbed in the act of burglary. This person knew enough about your brother, for example, to mock his religious beliefs.’

  Mary Quinn nodded, indicating that she realised the implications of what Joe was saying.

  ‘So whoever it was must have known that there was enough tension between Xavier and Daddy to at least make the possibility of murder/suicide plausible — although if he really knew my father, he’d have known that it was out of the question.’

  ‘Do you know anyone, Miss Quinn, anyone at all, however remotely, who …?’

  ‘No. No one. Perhaps it was a disgruntled client of my father’s, but he’s been retired for several years now. I presume you searched their rooms thoroughly. Did you find anything, apart from those magazines?’ Her mouth formed a little moue of distaste.

  ‘I can’t discuss that with you, Miss Quinn.’

  ‘Yes, I see. But if the rooms hadn’t been ransacked, what does that say about this person’s motive? Had they been ransacked?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t …’

  ‘This was deeply personal, wasn’t it? They missed one member of the family, though. They missed me. I’m the only one left.’

  Up until this point, Joe Sable had been astonished by Mary Quinn’s self-control. He’d begun to think that the sang-froid of her questioning of him was slightly odd, although he’d had enough experience to understand that people expressed grief and shock in unexpected ways. Now, though, he saw that her self-control was wavering. Her face tightened, and she began breathing quickly.

  ‘I’m the only one left,’ she said again, and her voice rose hysterically. ‘I’m next, aren’t I? Aren’t I?’ she screamed, and Sheila Draper rushed into the room. Mary Quinn stood, but as soon as she was on her feet, she became rigid. She stared at Joe Sable, but her eyes were unfocussed, as if she we
re staring through him, and her face began to contort. Sheila Draper gasped. Mary Quinn shuddered, and, for the second time that day, dropped to the floor, insensible.

  Titus Lambert lay beside his wife, sweating. The sweat was not the result of pleasant exertion. It was hot. The bedroom window was open and had admitted a single mosquito. Titus was naked — he never dressed for bed — but the mosquito, despite the invitation of all that flesh, chose to harass Maude instead, who was wearing the silk pyjamas that Titus had given her in 1939. He was telling her, without censoring even the most gruesome details, what he’d found at Clarendon Street. Early in their marriage, he had shielded her from aspects of the worst cases he had to deal with, and she had been furious when she realised this. He had pointed out that, strictly speaking, he ought not tell her anything, but Maude was incandescent with anger. Did he think, she had asked, did he really think that she would be content just to cook his dinner and bring him his slippers at the end of the day?

  Gradually, Titus began to tell Maude all that he had seen each day. She would take notes, which was disconcerting at first, but eventually he had come to rely on her questions and theories as much as he relied on those of his colleagues. She had an uncanny ability to make connections missed by those whose job it was to make them.

  ‘Tell me more about Mary Quinn. She’s quite good, you know, in that new serial on 3UZ.’

  ‘So she’s a good actress?’

  ‘I thought so. The script is awful, of course — patriotic poppycock — but she was very good. She plays Lady Something-or-Other. Very English, very proper, but she’s talented. ’

  ‘Sable said she was distressed when he left her. Terrified, in fact. He must have lost control of the interview.’

  ‘She thinks she’s next? Do you think she is?’

  ‘That has to be a possibility. I wish she was a less accomplished actress. I didn’t warm to her.’

  ‘You think she’s involved somehow?’

  ‘No, I don’t think that. At least I don’t think I think that. I’m just not convinced by her displays of grief.’