“Mr. Casey hated my story,” she said, moving to rest her head on his chest.
Ernest put his arm around her surprised. He had read May’s article the night before. A story that started with the latest fashion in outer garments, and went on to consider those who shivered in threadbare mantels, long discarded by the stylish, and finished with the poignancy of the coats which washed up on the beach. Ernest had thought it clever and moving…the best of May’s writing.
“Mr. Casey said I was getting above myself.”
“Casey’s an idiot.” Ernest felt the warmth of her tears on his chest. She felt his arm tighten about her.
“He said they paid me to cover parties and frocks…that people didn’t read the social pages to be preached at. Oh, Ernest…in front of everybody…it was so humiliating….”
“I might have a word with Casey….”
“You will not!” May pulled up and looked him in the face. “He’s my boss.”
“He doesn’t have to be. Marry me.”
May smiled. “That’s three.”
It was the rules, her rules. Ernest was permitted to ask her to marry him three times in a single day, but no more. She could not bear to refuse him more than three times a day.
“I’ll just have to show Mr. Casey and the others,” she said pressing her naked body against his, seducing him all over again. “This could be my big break. I’m going to find out what happened to the poor souls who owned those coats.”
Ernest drew her into his arms, silently marvelling at the vibrant softness of her. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
***
John O’Reilly sighed. “As I explained to Miss Clarke this morning, I’m afraid there’s not a great deal I can tell you, Mr. Alden. We’ve not been able to either identify the rightful owners of the garments in question, or establish how those garments might have ended up in the sea.”
“There was a name stitched into the child’s coat…Anna Rosenbaum.”
“We haven’t been able to locate anyone by that name. Certainly no child of that name has been reported missing.”
Ernest rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you think the coats are connected to the deaths on Manly Beach, Constable?”
Despite the fact that May’s article had been scorned and rejected, other journalists were speculating on the coats. The Truth had gone as far as to suggest that each coat had a body which would wash up on Sydney beaches in the coming days.
O’Reilly shrugged. “I really couldn’t say, Mr. Alden. There is nothing to connect the two. In my opinion the war’s left folks jumpy…we’re seeing murder in something that’s just a damn shame.”
***
May stood on the beach, her coat pulled tight and her arms folded against the wind. The midwinter evening had descended quickly, the shadows reaching out to join and merge. May shifted her weight, jiggling to keep warm. Ernest was usually waiting by the time she got away from work. They’d stroll along the sand and have dinner somewhere before they parted. He’d deliver her quite properly to her door by ten, tip his hat to Mrs. Rooney, who seemed always to be sweeping the neighbouring doorstep, and return chastely to his boardinghouse in Edgecliff.
The beach was now all but empty. May’s mind returned to the coats, and the people who might have been in them. She needed this story. It was only by virtue of the fact that she wrote for the society pages that she’d not lost her position as the men returned. John Casey did not like her…thought her too bold and impertinent with inappropriate ambitions. He’d said as much as he slashed her work to remove everything but the description of dresses.
The glow of a cigarette on the jetty—the silhouette of a man. May turned away—Ernest didn’t smoke. She wished he’d hurry.
She’d dug up all the newspaper reports about the couple found on Manly Beach. The man had been married, a bookkeeper and devoted father. The woman, much younger, an apprentice milliner who lived with her grandmother. Both had been completely dressed but for coats—indeed the journalist who’d reported the story had covered their attire in such detail that May wondered if he’d learned his trade on the social pages. It gave her hope.
There was no glow now, the cigarette stubbed or the smoker gone home. What could be keeping Ernest?
A flash as a match was struck. A face cast into momentary clarity as a cigarette was lit just yards away. Where was Ernest?
Suddenly the beach seemed very dark, and deserted. May decided to move back toward the road and the streetlights. She walked with controlled calm. The smoker paused only a moment before he followed.
May quickened her pace. Her shoes filled with sand as care gave way to haste. The smoker coughed and kept up. May allowed panic to creep upon her with images of bodies and sodden empty coats. She broke into a run slipping in the looser sand.
“Miss,” the smoker rasped breathing heavily now.
May screamed, scrambling blindly away from the voice.
“May!”
The chest suddenly before her was familiar, a broad, breathing sanctuary.
“What’s the matter, darling?” Ernest asked as she clutched his lapel, shaking.
“There’s a man…”
At the moment the smoker caught up, wheezing and gulping air into his laboured lungs.
Ernest tensed, moving May behind him. “Who the hell are—?”
“Percy McRae.” The smoker mopped his brow with a large handkerchief. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Miss,” he panted. “I noticed you were waiting alone…I thought I’d hang about and make sure you were right. Not a good idea for a young lady such as yourself to be waiting alone after dark…I didn’t want to bother you, just to make sure you were right.”
May swallowed. “Oh, I thought—”
“I should have realised….”
May smiled, feeling a little silly now. “Thank you, Mr. McRae…it was very kind of you.”
Ernest shook McRae’s hand and thanked him too. “It was my fault entirely,” he said. “I’m late.”
McRae bade them a good evening.
“Where were you?” May said angrily when the chivalrous smoker had departed. She caught the hint of whisky on Ernest’s breath. “You’ve been drinking!” she accused.
“I’m sorry,” he said trying to take her hand. She shook him off. “Some of the chaps insisted…I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“You stood me up to go drinking! I might have been—” They passed under a streetlight then, and May saw his face. She stopped. “What’s happened?”
He shrugged. “I got the sack today.”
“The sack? But why?”
“One of the machines on the floor jammed. It rattled like…it sounded like…anyway I went a bit queer.”
“They sacked you for that?” May said, outraged, her anger at him forgotten.
“Not for that…the boss laughed at me and I hit him a few times. Then he sacked me.”
“Oh, darling.” May had seen the war come unexpectedly upon him before, the way it took his breath. She embraced him tightly, desperate to comfort him, to stand between him and hurt. “You don’t want to work for that horrible man anyway.”
Ernest said nothing. They both knew he needed to work.
***
“I spoke to that constable this morning,” Ernest murmured when May lay again in his arms. “They don’t seem to have had any luck finding the owners of our coats.”
May smiled, noting that he’d said our coats. “I know,” she said, “but I’ve an idea.”
He kissed her. “Tell me then.”
“We’ll place a notice in the paper asking anyone who has information on Anna Rosenbaum to contact us.”
Ernest’s brow rose.
“Someone must know her…or have known her,” May insisted.
“Fair enough,” Ernest conceded, though he was
not entirely convinced. He could only hope that placing the notice would not be too expensive.
“Hey,” May said softly, “you haven’t asked me to marry you today.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t even have a job anymore—”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Are you saying you’ve changed your mind?”
May stretched out on top of him, placing her cheek against the rise and fall his chest. She could hear his heart. “No,” she said, “I haven’t. But I don’t want you to stop asking.”
***
The notice appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald. The sub-editor in charge of the classifieds had given May a professional discount. The notice read: Seeking information on Anna Rosenbaum or anyone who might know her. Reward. Please contact May Clarke, Flat 3, 42 Bidwell Avenue, Rushcutters Bay.
The reward was an impulse they could ill afford.
Ernest searched for work without a reference from his last employer, and a disposition too honest to fabricate one. The market was flooded with demobbed servicemen and young women for whom the war had opened vocational doors and who would now not see them closed.
They did not meet on the beach anymore. Ernest would call at the paper’s offices and walk May home. They ate in her flat, cooking simple meals on the primus as they shared news and made plans for one day. If Ernest was ever prone to brood, May would not permit it, demanding he make love to her then and there. She’d not allow him to be ashamed, banishing his doubts with her unmitigated belief in him, her undiminished desire for him. Even so, at ten o’clock or soon thereafter, Ernest would quite respectably depart for his own lodgings, in full knowledge that his comings and goings were being observed and noted by the ever-vigilant Mrs. Rooney and her broom.
Nearly a week after the notice had been placed, a letter arrived. Slipped under the door sometime during the day, they found it when they came in. It was written in a precise, neat hand. “I knew Anna Rosenbaum.” It gave an address in Darlinghurst. “I will be there between ten and midnight.”
“It says knew,” May said. “Something terrible has happened to the poor little mite. I’m not going to let them get away with it.”
“Them?”
“Whoever killed her.”
“We don’t know that anyone killed her.” He studied the note. “We should probably call the police?”
“No—not until I talk to him.”
“It’s too dangerous—”
“You’ll be with me, won’t you?”
“Always,” he said.
May’s eyes softened. “Then what could happen?”
It was after nine when they set out on foot. Darlinghurst was not so far a walk. The clubs were full and the streets of the Cross and Darlinghurst were teeming with those who stepped out at night, who sought and served vice, and who’d chosen this place as theirs. May was not surprised by the choice.
The address to which the note summoned them was near Darlinghurst Gaol, a dilapidated building by an alleyway.
Ernest knocked.
“Are you Clarke?” The voice came from behind them. An old man emerged from the alley.
“Ernest Alden. This is Miss Clarke, Mr.…?”
“You call me Rueben. You come about Anna?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rueben gestured toward the alley. “Come…there is a fire here,” he said rubbing his arms against the cold. “We will talk.”
Ernest took May’s hand and they followed. A fire glowed red in the iron confines of a dented drum, casting a weak light into the damp darkness of the alley. Rueben motioned them in to stand around this makeshift fireplace and took his time warming his hands.
“So,” he said. “You search for Anna—Anna Rosenbaum?”
May nodded emphatically. “Yes, it’s very important that we find out what became of her.”
Ernest noticed the momentary movement of the old man’s eyes, but too late. They were upon him as he turned. May screamed. A large hand came down across her face, another around her waist. She was turned away from the fight, and so she could only hear the thud of fist against flesh as they subdued Ernest.
May wrenched her face free. “There’s money in my purse,” she said. “Take it all…just please don’t…”
The men beating Ernest stopped. May could see him again now. On his knees, bloodied and gasping.
“Search him,” Rueben instructed.
“You can have our money,” May sobbed as they dragged Ernest to his feet and went through his pockets.
“Who sent you?” Rueben demanded. “Who uses my granddaughter to find me?”
“Your granddaughter?” May stuttered, trying in vain to reach Ernest. “My God, you’ve really hurt him.”
Rueben lifted Ernest’s chin and methodically scrutinised his face. He pushed up the young man’s sleeves to inspect his forearms. “You are no Jew,” Rueben said quietly. “Who is it you work for? Why do you involve yourself in this?”
“I don’t work for anybody,” Ernest muttered. “Not anymore. Is your granddaughter alive?”
Grabbing his collar, Rueben shook him furiously. “Who are you to ask? What mischief do you make? There are no Rosenbaums anymore.” He raised his arm to strike.
“Stop,” May begged. “Please, stop. We found Anna’s coat on the beach. We just wanted to help her…to find out what happened to her.”
Rueben stared at Ernest and then at May. He recoiled and dropped his face into his hands. “God forgive me.” For a moment there was silence and then the old man spoke to his companions in some language which neither Ernest nor May could understand. They argued, the younger men clearly unhappy. Finally Rueben spoke in English once more. “Bring them to the house.”
May’s captor responded by heaving her into his arms, entirely indifferent to her resistance, her writhing, clawing demands for release.
“Let her go, you mongrel!” Ernest lunged toward them in an attempt to protect May. But he was hopelessly outnumbered. They took him forcibly, too, but it was a more careful restraint than before, more resolute than brutal.
They were taken to a mouldering terrace, externally as decrepit and neglected as any tenement in Darlinghurst. The walls were stained and the ironwork rusted and peeling. Within, however, it was clean and neat though sparsely furnished and as cold as it was outside. A small fire in the grate gave almost no heat. Several people—mainly women and children—admitted them in an uproar of questions, demands, and scolding, all in a foreign tongue. May was allowed finally to go to Ernest.
“Oh, God…” She reached up to touch the split brow above his right eye.
“I’m all right,” he whispered as he put his arm around her. “Do you know what—?”
She shook her head. “Maybe they killed Anna.”
A woman with a child clinging to her skirt brought Ernest a soaked cloth, folded into a compress of sorts and indicated that he should apply it to his face. They brought him a stool, and then a glass of brandy.
Another woman, older and thin, spoke to them first.
“Will you go to the police?” she asked. “Will you tell them what these fools have done?”
Ernest glanced at May, unsure what answer was the least dangerous.
“We…we don’t know,” May said. “Are you going to let us go?”
Rueben picked up a little girl. “This is my granddaughter, Annie,” he said. “Annie Rosewood. In Poland she was Anna Rosenbaum, but for two months she has been Annie.”
May was relieved, but no less confused. “I don’t understand.” She glanced at the blood on Ernest’s shirt.
Rueben sighed. “Before the war, I was a wealthy man, respected. When the Nazis came I was elected to the Judenrat.”
Ernest nodded. He’d heard of the Judenrat when he was serving—the councils of Jews who administered the ghettos, who came to be as
reviled by their own people as they had been by the Nazis. Some said they collaborated in exchange for small favours, saved their own families at the expense of others.
“We did our best,” Rueben shouted as if he could read Ernest’s thoughts. “Annie’s parents, her uncles and her brothers are all dead. The Judenrat were scapegoats, as subject to slaughter as any other goat!”
“Uncle!” one of the younger women warned. “He did not accuse you.”
Rueben stopped. He shook his head. “Yes…you are right, of course. I apologise again, Mr. Alden.” He attempted to explain. “We tried, but one cannot administer evil fairly. When first you begin to bargain with lives, you are lost. We saved nothing, no one. After the war, I found my granddaughter, my niece, two nephews…I had so much family at the beginning of the war, and we were all that were left. We came to this country to join my sister and her husband.”
“But why change Anna’s name?” May ventured hesitantly.
“There are some Jews who hate the name Rosenbaum, who remember the Judenrat only as an instrument of the Nazis. They do not understand that we tried and would not welcome the family of Rueben Rosenbaum or allow us to build a new life free of the past.”
“So that’s why you threw Annie’s coat into the sea? Because it had Anna Rosenbaum’s name on it?”
The woman who had asked them whether they intended to go to the police made a clicking sound and slapped her forehead. “No, that was because my brother is a romantic fool!”
Now Rueben looked sheepish. “On the boat they told us, you see, about the wonders of this country. The streets were not paved with gold but bathed in it, because the sunshine here was endless and snow and sleet unknown. A sun-soaked paradise.” He looked at his granddaughter as he spoke and they smiled at each other. “As the ship came through the heads we stood out on the deck looking with joy upon our new home”—he danced with the little girl in his arms to demonstrate their elation—“…and in our celebration we threw our overcoats overboard…because we wouldn’t need them, you see…”
“And now, now, you are cold!” Rueben’s sister spat, arms folded in frustration. “Now you shiver through the winter!”
Bound by Mystery Page 33
