After Mason left, Old Masters attended to the business which his secretary was anxious to have completed, and at half-past five, the old man was standing before the lofty windows beyond which was his famous roof garden. He stood with his hands behind his back, bushy white brows contracted, mouth set in an iron grimness.
Abruptly there arose in the outer office an uproar. Old Masters could hear his secretary’s voice raised in protest: the deeper growl of men’s voices, and one voice high-pitched and determined. Even as Old Masters turned, preparatory to walking to his desk and thumping his heel thereon, the door burst open and there surged into this solemn sanctuary a veritable flood of men.
‘Silence! Damn you all—silence!’ he roared in tones which drowned the vocal cacophony: ‘What is the meaning of all this?’
‘I got to ’ave a word with you, Mr. Masters, and these water-drinking owls try to stop me,’ gasped Tom Pink, to add to a burly shop detective: ‘Let go, you, or I’ll chew yer face.’
‘Sims—ring for the police,’ Old Masters instructed the secretary.
‘That’s right! Ring for the police, you fool, and spoil everythink. I’m telling you I’m Tom Pink, Mr. Roy’s jockey.’
‘Sims—you will not ring for the police. You others, get out. Sims—brandy and soda. Good God, man! What have you been doing?’
‘No booze, thanks. Bring me a cupper tea,’ Tom said unsteadily.
‘And a doctor,’ added Old Masters.
‘Doctor, me foot! Make the cupper tea a pot of tea and plenty of sugar. Say, you are Mr. Roy’s father, ain’t you?’
Old Masters inclined his head. The spectacle which Tom Pink presented was amazing. His soiled clothes were in rags. His face, neck and bald head were reddened by grime and blood—but his grey eyes were clear and living, and his mouth was stretched by a wide and terrible leer.
‘Yes, I am Mr. Masters. You appear to have been in the wars.’
‘Too right,’ Tom agreed. ‘But you ought to see the other bloke. Say—gimme one of them cigars to smoke whiles the tea is coming, will you. I got somethink important to say when I gits me breath.’
‘Sit down in that chair and help yourself,’ Old Masters invited.
‘Thanks,’ Tom Pink almost fell into the chair, reached for and look one of the Duplex Havanas, bit off the end—which made Old Masters shiver at the sacrilege—and put one hand into a trousers pocket for a match.
‘Cripes, that’s funny!’ he said. When he withdrew his hand the fingers held a hairy object. This the jockey set down on the spotless desk. Then he chuckled.
‘Why, in the ’eat of the moment, like, I musta put a bit of the Scorpion’s scalp in me pocket’
‘Indeed! And who is the Scorpion?’
‘’E was the bloke I ’ad the argument with. ’E’s in tow with them one, two, three and four over four fellers.’
‘Oh—’
‘Oh, yes—I’ve ’ad a great time, although you wouldn’t think it to look at me,’ Tom explained, drawing at the cigar, and actually inhaling deeply. ‘Thank ’eavens, ’er’s the tea.’ Then to the secretary when he set the tray on the desk: ‘Of course you would bring a thimble for a cup, wouldn’t you? Never mind. I’ll manage.’
‘Shall I not bring bandages, sir?’ Sims asked Old Masters. ‘Are they knife wounds?'
‘Oh—no. That’s only scratches from other blokes’ fingernails and teeth. But you oughter see ’em. It’d do your sore eyes good.’
‘That will be all, Sims,’ Old Masters ordered. Then, when the secretary had gone; ‘Now, Pink, what have you been doing since you disappeared?’
In his inimitable racy speech, Tom Pink began with his meeting with Larry the Fly, his payment of fifty pounds for information, his borrowing of that amount from Diana Ross, and his arrival in Larry the Fly’s company at Old Mother Hubbard’s establishment. Then followed a horrific description of an attempt to torture him with scorpions, an attempt which failed when the insects refused to sting his bared chest.
‘You see, one night last March I got drunk in Louth, on the river Darling,’ he further explained. ‘It was a ’ot night and it was beginning to rain. Not that I cared if it snowed. But I fell down asleep against the pub wood ’eap, and that wood ’eap was alive with scorpions and centipedes. The rain brought ’em orl out, and when I woke up about dawn I was covered with ’em.
‘I thought they was non-living ants and started to brush ’em off me, and before I knoo what was what I got stung by three scorpions and about seven ’undred centipedes. Cripes! I was in a mess! It was the whisky and the brandy still in me wot saved the situation. All the same, I ’ad to be rushed to ’orspital at Wentworth about a ’undred miles south. An’ the quack there told me I was lucky to be alive, and, also, that I would be immune from scorpion stings for about three years.
‘An’ I am, too. So when the Scorpion dumps ’is breeders—’E breeds ’em to fight bull-ants for the Chows, you know—on me chest they all refused to do their stuff, just like the Wentworth quack said they would.
‘The Scorpion—that’s a bit of ’im on the desk there—’E put ’is friends back to their box and goes off for a darning needle to heat in the lamp, and while ’e’s gorn, I gets out of the rope I’m trussed with, ’im having loosed it when he wanted to bare me chest.
‘Back he comes with the darning needle. I ’ad moved the lamp and the table and the scorpions into the corner so’s we’d ’ave a fair go. An’ we ’ad it, too. ’E fought well, did the Scorpion. Why, we musta bin at it for about ’alf an hour, but I’m blessed if I remember putting nigh ’alf ’is scalp in me pocket. Funny, ain’t it, a bloke don’t remember things ’e does when ’e’s orl ’otted up.
‘Any’ow, to make a long story short, I got ’im trussed on the bed like I ’ad been trussed. To the bed I brought the table with the lamp and the box of scorpions on it. The chair, too. Then I starts ’unting for information.
‘Oh, no! The scorpions never actually stung the bloke. You see I chucked a bit of cloth over the Scorpion’s face, and when he was obstinate I got out his beautiful Java Queen; pressed on her sting with the end of the darning needle, and then when she was ’anging on to the Scorpion’s chest with her nippers, I pricked ’im with the darning needle.
‘’E didn’t want no more persuading when I took off the cloth and let ’im see the Orstralian specimen wriggling over his nose between the forceps.’
‘And what did he tell you?’ Old Masters asked impatiently, when Tom ceased talking to drink another ‘thimble’ of tea.
‘Why, that he was one of the gang run by a bloke named Hellburg. Hellburg’s lootenants go by number, One of Four up to Four of Four. They doped Olary Boy at Caulfield and Pieface at Wodonga, but they never ’ad nothink to do with killing the ’orses in the Melbourne Cup.
‘The Melbourne Cup poisoners knocked ’em rotten. They ’ad a last minute stunt all readied but wasn’t able to put it on. It was Alverey ’oo dooked ’em in the first place, and it was Alverey they thinks done the job scientific like when they failed. Four of Four is a qualified quack an’ ’e got mad to know ’ow Alverey worked it.
‘An’ there’s more. I got outer the Scorpion the names of them numbered blokes, but ’oo Hellburg is the Scorpion didn’t know. ’E knows, however, that the numbered blokes don’t know Hellburg either. When they sees Hellburg, orl they sees is a bloke wearin’ a white hood over ’is dial.
‘Anyway, just when I finishes with the Scorpion, two of the gang cum in, and there was further argument. I tells ’em I was trying to make the Scorpion tork and couldn’t, and the Scorpion backs me up knowing they’d snuff us both if they knoo ’e ’ad told me wot ’e ’ad done.
‘I gits shoved into a ’ole for a long time. Must a been days. Orl they gimme was bread and cheese an’ water. An’ then the Scorpion sneaks in and puts the acid on me to promise ’im two ’undred quid if ’e gets me clear. I thinks of Mr. Cusack and Mr. Roy. I swears blind I’ll get ’im the money, trustin’ Mr. Cusack and M
r. Roy will back me work.
‘Then it comes out that Hellburg ’as given orders that I am not to be snuffed; keeping me fer somethink like the nigs kept the missionary, I suppose. The gang is gettin’ windy. They’ve got Alverey, seems like, but just where I couldn’t find out. The Scorpion—’e’s on the make, but ’e’s as nervous as a cat, an’ with reason.
‘I fixed a deal with ’im. Two hundred quid to let me out, and another two ’undred to be paid when ’e parts up with the information when and where to snaffle the bloomin’ lot—without ’im, of course.
‘I got away late this morning, and I ’ad to ’ide up ’ere and there, and get ’ere in kind of stages, with about a million crooks orl hotted up about me. And then more arguments getting to Mr. Roy’s office, to find ’im out, and more arguments still gettin’ up ’ere to you.’
‘Hug-hum! Four hundred pounds is a lot of money,’ Old Masters objected.
‘Orl right!’ Tom said, standing up. ‘I’ll get the doin’s off Mr. Roy.’
‘Sit down, Pink. Of course, I’ll find the money.’
28
In Grave Danger
At about eleven o’clock on the Saturday morning, Roy emerged from the Collins Street branch of one of the great banks, where he had been on his own business. And almost the first person he saw among the passing people was Dick Cusack.
‘Hullo, Dick, why the gloom?’ he asked, laying a restraining hand on his friend’s arm.
‘I wish tomorrow would come quicker,’ Dick said with a wry smile.
‘So do I. I wish Diana had told us in the tea-shop the other day which of us she loved and put the other beyond suspense. Do you think she loves you, old man?’
Dick slowed in his walk, and before replying edged them both close to a hatter’s window which they came to face without having interest in the stock.
‘Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t,’ he said.
‘And that is how I feel about it,’ Roy admitted. ‘Anyway, the lucky one must insist on an early marriage so that he can take her right away from all the mystery and trouble.’
‘You bet. And I’ll be feeling bad if it is you, and yet glad that it is you. Irish, isn’t it?’
‘Very. It is the way it’s with me, Dick. We’ve played fair and that’s something to our credit. We—’
Standing semi-inclined to each other, their heads but eighteen inches apart, both caught the flash of some silver object as it passed between them. A tinkling note as it struck the plate-glass window was followed by another at their feet. Both looked down—and saw on the pavement the tiny sewing needle.
Simultaneously both swung round to face the crowd. The morning being fresh, they saw the usual bevy of men wearing overcoats and of women in costumes and furs. But not a face which could be recognised.
Dick stooped and carefully retrieved the needle.
The eye-hole was filled with a dull white substance.
‘Well—and that’s that?’ Dick said slowly, and paused for a moment before emptying the contents of his matchbox and placing the needle therein. ‘Question is—how many more needles has that swine got on him right now?’
‘And another question, Dick. Whom did he aim at?’
‘At us, of course.’
‘Yes, I know. But which one?’
‘Search me. What are we going to do about it?’
‘I vote we go along to the old Dad right away.’
‘Come on, then.’
‘I wonder why they are picking us?’ Roy said, as they shot skywards in one of the lifts two minutes later.
‘Ask me another. Why did they pick on poor old Harrison?’
On the top floor, when they stepped from the lift, they found four people waiting to descend. Roy walked by them, but Dick raised his hat to a fashionably dressed girl.
‘Didn’t you recognise her?’ Dick asked whilst they walked the corridor to Old Masters’s office.
‘No. Who?’
‘One of Tindale’s maids. My word! She was dressed smartly. Wouldn’t take her for a maid; although why I should think maids are not smartly dressed, I don’t know.
‘Mr. Masters engaged?’ Roy asked the much abused Sims.
‘Not at the moment, Mr. Roy.’
‘Come on in, Dick.’
Old Masters they found walking to and fro across his huge room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
‘Hullo, Dick!’ he said, grimly smiling.
‘Morning, Mr. Masters,’ Dick responded. ‘I met Roy coming out of the bank. For a moment or so we stood facing a shop window whilst we talked. And then this needle passed between our heads, struck the window and fell to the pavement.’
Old Masters almost leapt the distance between himself and the matchbox held out in Dick’s hand.
‘Let me see it!’ he commanded sharply.
He took it to the big desk, seated himself there before opening the box. With a reading glass he studied the needle of death. Second after second went by. Unheeded, Roy and Dick seated themselves, to start with quite excusable fear at the sight of the old man now holding the needle against the desk electric with a pair of tweezers.
‘Just imagine a devil like that walking around Melbourne,’ Dick said quietly. ‘I’d—I’d like to get my hands on him!’
‘Hum! You have got no idea which one he aimed at?’
Dick shook his head.
‘None whatever, Dad,’ Roy confessed, marking the significance of the old man’s question.
‘I wonder—’ Old Masters paused to reflect. Then: ‘I wonder if he carries more than one prepared needle when he goes on the murder path? I wonder if, having fired his vile bolt, he has to return to his home to prepare another one.’
‘Doubtful. He killed two horses in the same five minutes.’
‘What beats me is that no one saw him fire at Harrison—not even that street pest who was sitting on the seat beside him. And evidently no one saw anything remarkable in the actions of the swine when he fired at us.’
‘You are correct there, Dick. Now, let me think.’
They watched Old Masters, leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, on his grim face a strange admixture of fatigue, strength and determination. He wanted to think, did Old Masters, and, watching him, his son was tempted to put a dozen questions. Why did Old Masters want to think? Did that brain hold secrets relative to all this criminal activity?
Such a terrifically active brain, too. The litter on the giant desk indicated a hundred and one interests—a small model of an aeroplane, a doll’s house complete with furniture, a vase of orchids, an onion—used as a paper weight—resting on a stack of documents. When finally the faded hazel eyes opened, their gaze rested first on Dick Cusack, and then on the face of his son.
‘Obviously both you boys are in grave danger,’ he said. ‘That devil with the blow-pipe, or whatever it is he fires the needle with, will try again. That is certain. I wish I knew which of you he wants out of the way. But that I’ll find out shortly. Now we have to evolve methods assuring absolute immunity from a future attack. You both must go to my house and stay there.’
‘Why your house, Dad? It would only direct his attention to you,’ Roy pointed out.
‘Where else can you go? Why, you must not walk openly in the street! Come—I know what we’ll do.’
Favouring Old Masters’ plan in lieu of anything better, Roy and Dick accompanied the old man down to the lift and to the ground floor. He then led them to the packing room and the ramp, from which a fleet of vans rushed goods to railway stations and to all the suburbs. Pausing beside one of the enclosed vans, he said:
‘This one will do. Get in.’
‘Get—whatever for?’
‘Get in,’ roared Old Masters. ‘The thickness of the van’s sides will stop a needle.’
‘All right! Come on, Dick,’ the astonished Roy exclaimed, seeing the urgency of this mode of transport, yet angry and a little humiliated.
Old Masters himself locked the double do
ors of the van. They heard him gruffly instruct the driver to proceed direct to the house near St. Kilda beach.
They were passing along Swanston Street, when Old Masters was ringing up Mr. Tindale’s house. They were crossing over Princes Bridge whilst Old Masters was asking Diana, as a very great favour, to leave at once to call on him.
At the gate to the old man’s spacious home, the driver opened the double doors of the van, it was a little comfort that there was no one then in the road to observe them inelegantly getting out. Joyce admitted them at once.
‘Mr. Masters has just rung through, sir,’ he announced. ‘I am to say, sir, that neither of you is to go outside, even into the garden, before he arrives for lunch.’
‘Very well, Joyce.’
‘Any whisky in the sideboard?’ asked Dick.
‘Yes, Mr. Cusack.’
‘Then I’m having a gargle, Roy,’ Dick said earnestly. ‘I am badly in need of it.’
‘You will find Mr. Pink in the dining room,’ Joyce informed them.
‘Pink! Tom Pink! Why, has he turned up?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hurriedly, both men dashed for the dining room.
On the floor sitting on a space covered with newspaper, Tom Pink sat diligently working on a hefty mallee root with a carving knife.
29
The Scorpion
The mallee root was not exceptionally big, and, with the carving knife, Tom Pink had removed all the spiked and jagged splinters. At the business end it was no longer than an emu egg, and tapering sharply for two feet it now appeared as one of those schoolboy dreams much enlarged—a toffee-dipped apple stuck on a stick.
‘I’ve got a date tonight, and, as I haven’t been able to lay me ’ands on me ole shillelagh, I bin puttin’ in time on this root.’
‘The carving knife, sir!’ exclaimed the scandalised valet-butler-slave.
‘Don’t worry. I got a file, and I’ll sharpen her up when I’ve done. Meet me friend and enemy, gentlemen—Mr. Ivor Stanhope, otherwise the Scorpion.’
The Great Melbourne Cup Mystery Page 14
