Clockwork Gold

by Jenny Schwartz

  Interesting. Sergeant Poole was displaying his influence. This was his town.

  The prostitutes’ gowns aped the evening wear of upper class women. The men’s clothes ran the gamut from dirty working clothes to an undertaker’s mourning suit. A cartoonist could lampoon the scene as a travesty of polite society. It wasn’t. This was the reality of a frontier town struggling to establish itself.

  Sergeant Poole was benefiting from the struggle. He wouldn’t want the unruly element eradicated, only bent to his will.

  It was the lawyer who cut through the casual conversation with a sly lure concerning the recent financial losses of some of the big mining companies.

  The journalist cocked an interested eyebrow. “I heard the telegraph wires were humming with their rage. Seems someone is selling secrets.”

  Nathan was aware of Sergeant Poole saying nothing, but watching him.

  “I wouldn’t mind the chap’s sources of information,” the journalist continued, pushing for a reaction. “If it is a chap.”

  “You think it could be a woman?” Nathan kept his eyes on the sergeant.

  “There are rumours.” The lawyer wriggled with his eagerness to re-join the conversation.

  The banker leaned back a fraction in his chair.

  At least one of the four had working instincts, Nathan thought savagely. They were definitely intending to stitch Becky up for this one, and they wanted to know if he guessed, and if he did, what he intended to do.

  Gutting the lot of them appealed.

  He forced his gaze to leave the sergeant and travel the room. “Do you think the prostitutes are getting the information from pillow talk? Which madam would have the brains to make use of the information?”

  The journalist’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t anticipated his lure being taken and pulled in that direction.

  Nathan smiled thinly. “It never pays to underestimate a woman.”

  “I don’t intend to,” Sergeant Poole said. “There’s a lot of pressure on me to stop the leaks though. Pressure from the highest quarters. Some very important people have lost a lot of money. Can’t have people selling secrets. I won’t have it in my town. People trust me to uphold the law, and that’s what I’ll do—without fear or favour.”

  Nathan raised a hand, calling over a barman. “Another round. My shout.”

  The others at the table stirred. They hadn’t expected his response. Nor had he. But he wanted more time to listen to them. He needed to confirm his judgement. As much as Sergeant Poole intended to pin the selling of commercial information onto Becky, the motivation didn’t seem to be to hide his own responsibility for it. Another player existed in this game, someone no one had considered. Someone with a network to rival Becky’s and the sergeant’s.

  After a third pint, Nathan was sure of his conclusion: Sergeant Poole was an effective bully, but he wasn’t clever enough to organise a financial coup.

  The sergeant replaced his hat on his head. “Time I was heading home. The missus will be waiting.”

  “Let her wait,” the journalist slurred. He wasn’t a cheap drunk. He’d been helping along his beer with additions from a hip flask.

  “I’ve an early start in the morning, and you’d best get to bed.” Sergeant Poole directed a look at the lawyer, who nodded. He’d see the journalist wasn’t left to spill drunken secrets to Nathan.

  “Where are you off to?” Nathan lounged in his chair.

  They were still suspicious of his tie to Becky, but they were no longer nervous of him as an agent of the Crown. There was a faint trace of contempt in Sergeant Poole’s eyes, as if he saw Nathan as another upper class fool.

  “Germantown.”

  “Some town.” The journalist drained his beer. “A ramshackle of shacks on the edge of bleedin’ nowhere.”

  “They still need to know I’m keeping an eye on them. They’re on my claim.” Sergeant Poole laughed at his own wit. “Night, gentlemen.”

  Nathan saluted him with his mug of beer.

  The lawyer watched Sergeant Poole depart, then met Nathan’s eyes. “He’s smarter than you think.” And with that cryptic comment, he hauled the journalist up and left.

  Nathan gave them a couple of minutes to depart, then got up to walk around the town and clear his head.

  He’d returned to Western Australia because his old friend, Patrick Murphy, had written that Becky was suspected of trading in secrets. More than that, of being a spy for Germany. The idea ought to be laughable, but Sergeant Poole had the slyness of a fox. He saw people’s fears and used them. He needed to discredit Becky before people took her accusations against him seriously. If he didn’t get her on the financial damages and espionage charges, then he’d find some other way to silence her.

  So Sergeant Poole had to be silenced. De-fanged.

  Nathan rolled his shoulders. The man had proven one point: here in Kalgoorlie, he had power. Could he really have that much influence and not know who was responsible for selling the financial secrets of the mining companies?

  Rebecca rolled over in her hammock, always an action to be undertaken with caution. Her pillow slipped. She caught it and shoved it back into place with a muttered complaint. She’d landed the Blue Wren beside an isolated clump of trees and made camp for the night. She had water enough on-board that she didn’t have to stay by a waterhole. This way she had solitude—and she was in the mood to appreciate it.

  She’d have an early start in the morning. She knew the bend in the track where she wanted to accost Sergeant Poole. Not that “accost” was the right word. He would be travelling alone to Germantown, and she intended to present him with an opportunity he’d find irresistible.

  He would find her alone, stranded, the Blue Wren apparently out of commission. The bully wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to attack her, one of the few people who saw through his bluff and criticised him.

  She’d checked her phonograph and camera. Both were dust-free and ready to go.

  Tension urged her to shift again in the hammock, but she held still. The Blue Wren’s defences were all working perfectly, but she’d check them again in the morning, after landing at the bend in the track.

  On the eve of her plan, of justice for Annie, her heart was beating too fast. She wished Nathan was with her. She wished…

  She said the words out loud, just to hear them. “I think I love him.”

  Nathan woke up to the crash of breaking crockery. He lay on the narrow hotel bed and listened to the scolding a maid—he could hear her low voice and tearful apologies—was receiving from an irate older woman. Probably the housekeeper.

  Apparently the Dickens Hotel served early morning tea to those who knew to request it. He stretched out an arm and picked up his watch. Half past seven. Not so early. That matched the daylight streaming through the thin curtains.

  He collected his shaving gear and queued for the shared bathroom at the end of the corridor. Shaving was almost like meditation. Thoughts swam slowly through the brain while a man concentrated on important things, like not nicking himself on that tricky bit beneath the nose.

  His hand jerked, but he hadn’t cut himself.

  A thought had just surfaced, slicing through his slow-waking complacency like a shark through a school of herring.

  Sergeant Poole was on his way to Germantown. Alone.

  Becky knew that.

  Becky had wanted to strand him, Nathan, in town today—and he’d given her that opportunity on a platter.

  She wouldn’t tackle Sergeant Poole on her own, would she?

  He cursed and wiped the towel over his face.

  Of course she would.

  “I need a horse.”

  Chapter Ten

  Everything was in readiness. The Blue Wren squatted awkwardly on the ground, its usual elegance destroyed by an apparently broken leg; mute evidence of a crash landing. Rebecca had discarded her hat and her hair was dishevelled. She stood in the cabin with a telescope and watched the horizon for Sergeant Poole. He�
�d have no reason to notice her through the curve of the land and the tangle of wandoos and other gum trees.

  Any time now, he ought to appear. He was already half an hour later than she’d anticipated. He must have left town later than usual. Or else there’d been a change of plans.

  Disappointment and a shaming sense of relief warred within her.

  There! Movement. She brought the telescope back to her eye and glimpsed the sergeant. He rode one of the solid grey horses he preferred. He had three of them. No packhorse, which was fair enough. Germantown was only a long day’s ride from Kalgoorlie.

  She put the telescope away and swung down from the listing deck of the Blue Wren. Her tool chest was already open on the ground, tools scattered as if in frustration. She resisted the urge to check again the phonograph and camera. She had a long-playing wax cylinder to record the sergeant’s assault. When he hailed her, then she’d switch it on. She’d have to encourage him not to waste time in attacking her.

  Ugh. Her stomach tightened and her skin prickled in atavistic warning.

  The camera would be the most difficult bit. She had to make sure she stayed close enough to the airship to trigger it—and to benefit from the Blue Wren’s defences.

  She touched the modified belt buckle at her waist. It was one of Mrs Ayesha Dam’s personal protection items. Wrenched open, the inside contained a sponge saturated in chloroform. If she could hold that over the Sergeant’s nose, he’d be helpless. But it would be risky. His physical strength was superior. No. Better to count on the Blue Wren’s defences that she’d designed herself.

  She shrugged off her jacket and tore the top two buttons of her shirt open. She hated playing up her own femininity to such a brute, but there would be an ironic rightness if it lead to his ruin. The trick would be to incite him with her own apparent vulnerability.

  It went against all her instincts to turn her back to the track and bend over the engine of the Blue Wren. She would have no warning. Having stuffed cotton wool in her ears, a noise would have to be loud or close for her to hear it. Nonetheless, she found herself straining to hear hoof steps or the creak of saddle leather. The damn sand muffled everything even without the cotton wool.

  “Well, now, Miss Jones. Looks like you’re in a bit of trouble.”

  A question at the stables—keep it casual, don’t look worried—won Nathan the information that Sergeant Poole had left nearly two hours earlier. But the sergeant wouldn’t be hurrying. He’d be pacing his horse to make a day’s journey.

  Nathan didn’t care about pacing his horse. He swung into the saddle of a powerful bay stallion.

  The stable boy, older than Nathan by about thirty years, approved of his style. He chewed a bit of hay. “Them flying ships are all very well for those who like them. Me? Give me a good horse any day. Enjoy your camping trip, sir.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Nathan kept the horse to a steady trot through the town, then let it stretch its legs into a canter. The track to Germantown was easy enough to find and follow, but it was rough, seldom travelled, and he couldn’t allow his attention to wander without risking the horse and himself. Occasionally, though, he dared a glance skyward, hoping to see the Blue Wren safely in the air.

  But only a lone eagle circled, soaring on the air currents.

  Becky had imagination as well as a passion for defending underdogs. He tried to think what sort of plot she might come up with to tackle Sergeant Poole. She’d rely on her engineering skills. Some sort of technological ploy. But if she put herself in reach of the man, she’d be in danger.

  The loneliness of the Australian bush closed around him. Out here, bodies could be lost, excruciating deaths hidden, and victims’ screams unheard.

  Fear that she’d underestimate Sergeant Poole drove him on. The man was a thug. To have risen to his position of power, he had to be a sly, relentless thug. One miscalculation, one mishap in the plot she’d undoubtedly evolved, and the sergeant would kill Becky painfully.

  It was the height of stupidity for her to tackle him alone.

  Nathan gritted his teeth. She should have told him her plans. She should have trusted him.

  He rode on. From the air, the Goldfields looked flat. Riding over it, you encountered the contours of the land. The track curved around low ridges and clumps of mulga trees, wandoos and mallees. The sun crept higher, growing hotter, and shadows retreated.

  “Whoa.” Light glinted off metal, just visible through a gap in the trees. The stallion stopped, grateful to rest. Nathan leaned forward, one hand on the horse’s sweating neck, and squinted into the distance. It was the Blue Wren and it looked like a crash landing. A horse and rider pulled up near it and the rider dismounted. “Sergeant Poole.” Even at a distance, the uniform was unmistakeable.

  Relief rushed through Nathan. He was in time. He gathered up the reins to urge the stallion on.

  A hand gripped his ankle. “Leave the horse.”

  A second man materialised from the trees and took the stallion’s bridle.

  Nathan recognised Scott Campbell and his younger brother, Mack, and swung down. “What are you doing here?” He’d been so sure Becky intended to tackle Sergeant Poole alone. A wave of embarrassment, anger and regret flooded over him. He’d ridden to her rescue, but she had her back-up in place. She trusted these men—not him.

  Scott kept his voice low as he half-ran through the trees, leading Nathan closer, but staying out of sight of the Blue Wren. “Sue, my wife, figured Rebecca was planning something. There were too many questions about Sergeant Poole and his plans. Rebecca isn’t usually one for questions. Mack and I scouted the track to Germantown.”

  “Did the Blue Wren crash?”

  “Nah. She set it up last night.”

  “Does Becky know you’re here?”

  Scott turned his head to look back. He grinned. “Nah. We’re not spoiling her game.”

  But if something went wrong, Scott, like himself, would be there to save Becky. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Works both ways.”

  Then they both went silent, coming close enough to hear as well as see Becky’s encounter with Sergeant Poole.

  The sergeant had just completed a circuit of the seemingly stricken Blue Wren and now paced too close to Becky. A gentleman didn’t lean in to intimidate. But then, the man was no gentleman.

  Becky looked scared.

  Nathan had to fight his instincts. He wanted to charge in there. Scott had gotten them surprisingly close to the airship, using the cover of the scrubland. It would take only a few seconds to sprint the remaining distance.

  Except Becky would never forgive him. If she was showing fear to a predator—and Sergeant Poole was as vicious and sly as any fox—then it had to be part of her plan. She was luring him in. Closer, closer.

  He slapped her. And open-handed blow to the face that snapped her head sideways.

  Scott gripped Nathan’s shoulder. “Wait.”

  “Not so high and mighty without your friends or your famous dirigible.”

  Becky put a hand to the side of her face, even as her free hand fumbled behind her. Sergeant Poole couldn’t see it, hidden by her body, but a sand-coloured string tugged a lever. She staggered as he hit her a second time, then fell.

  He raised a heavy boot and kicked her.

  She cried out and a blinding flash of light erupted from the side of the Blue Wren.

  Sergeant Poole put a hand to shade his eyes, blinking.

  Becky rolled, hooked her foot around his ankle and toppled him. She scrambled for the airship.

  The sergeant was quick for his size, though. He gripped the hem of her skirt. A rough jerk brought her to her knees. He was roaring, foul epithets filling the air as he cursed her and lunged forwards.

  Nathan’s self-control broke. He sprinted for the airship, determined to kill the man. He reached Becky just as an ear-splitting siren caused Sergeant Poole to release her and slam both hands over his ears.

  “Nathan.” He saw rather
than heard Becky say his name.

  He grimaced at the ongoing punishment of the siren. It was high and shrill, unnatural and incapacitating.

  “Just a tick,” Becky mouthed. She climbed up a rope ladder hanging over the side of the listing airship. A few painful seconds passed, then the siren cut off.

  Nathan strode over to the sergeant, and as the other man straightened, hit him on the jaw.

  Unprepared, Sergeant Poole fell backwards.

  A coil of rope landed beside him. “Tie him up.”

  Nathan heard the words through the ringing in his ears. A minute later, she stood beside him and they contemplated their captive. “I should kill him.” He turned and gently touched the side of her face. There would be bad bruising, perhaps even a black eye. “I should have kept you safe.”

  “It’s a small price to pay. This’ll be the end of Sergeant Poole. I have proof now that he’s a villain.”

  “Some people will say you faked the bruising.”

  “They can try. Ouch.” She winced as her grin hurt her face. Yet satisfaction gleamed in her eyes. “I have a phonographic recording of him abusing me. His language was awful and his threats.”

  “I heard them,” Nathan said grimly. For those threats alone, Poole deserved to die. No woman should ever suffer such terror.

  “And I got a photo of him kicking me. I know an editor who’ll run that on the front page of his newspaper. Not here, but back in the city. The authorities won’t be able to ignore that.”

  “You set me up, you cow.”

  “I let you show your true nature. You’re a vicious bully. Do you remember Annie?” Becky was on the warpath.

  Nathan glanced beyond Poole and saw Scott beckoning before slipping out of sight behind the Blue Wren. He left Poole to his lecture and caught up with Becky’s friend.

  “Better if he doesn’t know I was here.”

  “I won’t tell him.” Nathan knew the bigotry that could burst into violence. Poole’s cronies would be looking for revenge, and the Nyungars could become targets.