The Phar Lap Mystery

by Sophie Masson

  Because of the money he’s been paid, he was able to pay Miss O’Brien in advance for the flat this time, so that’s sorted out too, which is good. Miss O’Brien is very interested in what he’s doing and wants to help, but Dad is keeping his cards close to his chest.

  May 15

  A nice surprise today—I got a package from Mrs Bellini: a letter and a box filled with some of her pasta (dried this time) and a jar of homemade tomato sauce! She’s just so nice. Miss O’Brien was there when I opened the package (it was delivered to her letterbox, of course) and she kept exclaiming over it, saying what a lovely thought, and what was Mrs Bellini like, what sort of age was she? I told her a bit about her and Mr Bellini and she smiled and said, ‘Well, they sound very nice, I’m glad you were so well looked after in Melbourne.’ She eyed the pasta and said, ‘I’ve tried some once in an Italian restaurant in the city, and it was great, but I’ve got no idea how you’d cook it.’

  I said, ‘I know how to cook it, Mrs Bellini showed me. Why don’t you come and eat it with us?’ So she’s coming to dinner tonight to eat the pasta and tomato sauce. I’m going to fry some onions too, and grate some cheese. Dad doesn’t seem to mind that I’ve invited her, he’s a lot more relaxed these days and less liable to fly off the handle.

  I better go and put the onions on in a minute. Just going to paste Mrs Bellini’s letter in.

  May 16

  The pasta night went very well, I cooked everything properly and didn’t burn anything! Miss O’Brien said it was absolutely delicious! She said to send her compliments to Mrs Bellini.

  Oh yes, Dad was very interested to learn about Jack Hardy being maybe that man’s name, he says it’s a useful lead.

  May 20

  I wrote back to Mrs Bellini yesterday and thanked her for her letter and the pasta and the sauce. I told her how well the pasta night had gone, and how Miss O’Brien was so complimentary. I said I was very pleased for Billy and to say g’day back. I didn’t mention about sending a postcard, because it seems a strange sort of idea to me—I mean we weren’t exactly friends. But then grown-ups do have the strangest ideas!

  I also told her about school and about Brian’s gobstopper and lots of other things. But I didn’t tell her how I overheard Dad saying to Miss O’Brien that he’d found out there was indeed a Jack Hardy who used to work for that Melbourne gangster and who—

  He didn’t say any more because he caught me listening. He got cranky with me and said, ‘Sally, I don’t want you to worry about this business any more. I don’t want you involved, do you understand?’

  It’s not fair. He told Miss O’Brien and she hasn’t even met Phar Lap like me! I am involved! I want to know who has it in for Bobby so that I can hate them with all my might. Lizzie says she’s heard of people who make dolls of their enemies and stick pins in them and wish they’d get sick and then the real people get sick. I’d like to do that to the person who could even think of hurting that dear beautiful horse.

  I can feel Dad is getting closer to the truth and that it won’t be too long before he can go back to Mr Kane and give his client the answer he needs. I want to help, so I’ve done something naughty: I’ve snooped in his notes while he’s out in the garden talking with Miss O’Brien, and I’m going to copy down as much of it as I can in this diary. It’s good I’m a fast writer! I won’t write down all of it, of course, cos there are pages and pages and pages, but I’ll picked out the most important bits, about that Jack Hardy fellow and the stuff at the Motor Registry. At least I’ll have a few more clues!

  DAD’S NOTES

  Jack Hardy: Small-time Melbourne crook, imprisoned for two years in 1922 for unlawful possession of firearm. No convictions since then, but suspected of criminal activity. Thought to be working for illegal bookie as part of network of agents placing bets for others, including gangster Squizzy Taylor (now deceased). Left Melbourne 1928, moved to Sydney, suspected of similar activities here. Knows punter named Sam Freeman, used-car dealer with dodgy connections. In the past Hardy has used aliases: Jim Murphy, John Bell, Jake Thorne (note—always J).

  Motor Registry connection: None with Hardy. S. Freeman, however, likely knows someone in transport division of police (see later). The Studebaker used in shooting could have gone to his yard, no-one looking for it in Sydney. (No vehicle of that description now, checked—but disposed of, surely.) Freeman is reputed to be a gambler, though a fairly small-time one. Suspected criminal connections, including Hardy.

  Connection to police: My contact in the police thinks Freeman might possibly be police informer. Someone may have supplied old numbers of cars as a favour, or Freeman may have bought them from a bent transport cop, or concocted some excuse to get at them.

  Interview with S. Freeman inconclusive. Very slippery customer. Denied knowledge of Hardy under any alias, but also denied being in Melbourne last November (when I had not even asked). Could Hardy and Freeman be shooter and driver? But working for themselves, or others? Latter most likely—these are small-time blokes.

  May 24

  There was a nice article about Phar Lap in one of the newspapers today, it said he was going to have his portrait painted! The artist is going to go out to Underbank and paint him there, and Tommy Woodcock’s going to be in the picture too—well he has to be, because otherwise, the paper said, ‘Big Red might not feel at ease.’

  Miss O’Brien said it was a bit much to paint a horse’s portrait as though he were an important person, it just showed how far the hysteria around Phar Lap had gone. Dad was quite snappy about that, he said that Phar Lap was more deserving of having his portrait painted than some jumped-up jackanapes who had their ugly mugs immortalised just because they’d been politicians or what have you. Miss O’Brien looked quite surprised, and so was I, because only a few weeks ago Dad would have thought the same as her. But now he’s met Phar Lap, of course, and he feels differently about it.

  I don’t think he noticed that I snooped in his notes, but I haven’t dared to go back and look at some more. I don’t know if he’s found any more evidence pointing to those men, but I don’t think so. He is looking harassed again.

  May 26

  Dad is going to Melbourne again, he says the trail has gone cold in Sydney and he needs to run Hardy down to ground. But thank goodness I won’t have to go to Nan and Pop’s. Dad’s only going to be away a week or so, so I’m going to stay at Lizzie’s place!

  It was Mrs Walters’s idea, she is such a nice lady. She had heard from Lizzie that I was worried about Dad packing me off to Newcastle, and when she saw Dad in the street, she suggested to him I might stay with them. Dad made a bit of a fuss at first, he said that in these hard times he didn’t want to give her an extra mouth to feed, but Mrs Walters said, ‘Bless you, Charlie, our girls are best friends, and you’re a good neighbour, and if friends and neighbours can’t help each other out, then it’s a poor world indeed, and not in money terms either. And your landlady Miss O’Brien is very nice, but she’s a career lady and works very hard and can’t look after Sal. What is more, your poor wife’s parents are old and at sixes and sevens themselves, so all in all this is by far the best solution, don’t you think?’

  And Dad agreed! Hurrah! He leaves by train in the morning, so I’m to go over to the Walters’ place tomorrow after school. I can’t wait! It’s going to be so much fun!

  May 30

  Today was Saturday so we went to the cheap matinee show at the cinema. Mrs Walters said it was her treat, but we had to take Lizzie’s seven-year-old twin brothers Joe and Jim and five-year-old sister Tilly too. But though Tilly stuck to us like glue, the boys soon found their own friends and we didn’t see them at all during the movies. There was a Charlie Chaplin movie and a cowboy movie and some Mickey Mouse cartoons, so it was really good! But afterwards we couldn’t find Joe and Jim, and we were really worried because of what Mrs Walters would say if we came back without them. When we got back though they were already there. The little pests had just run home without even bot
hering to wait and were already filling their faces with toast and cheese!

  It’s so different at Lizzie’s place, because at home there’s only Dad and me (and Miss O’Brien in the big house) so it’s pretty quiet most of the time. But the twins and Tilly make a lot of noise (and Lizzie too sometimes!). Mr Walters has a big voice too, but he doesn’t shout, he just talks loudly and roars with laughter and sings when he’s working at repairing saddles and bridles and things. There’s a lot of singing in their house in fact—they like to get together of a Saturday evening around the piano (which Mrs Walters plays) and everyone gets to sing a song of their choice—I even had to do one the other day. I chose Dad’s favourite, which is a song about Ned Kelly. I forgot some of the verses and had to go tum-tee-tum a lot, but it was so much fun, we were falling about laughing. Then the radio’s often going, with music or the races or programmes Mrs Walters likes to listen to when she’s washing or ironing. It’s a very noisy house, but a cheerful and lively one, and I like being here a lot.

  The twins and Tilly can be sweet, but they can be really annoying too, the twins especially. They love to play tricks on us, like this afternoon. Tilly, though, just wants to tag along with us and be a big girl, as her mum says. Lizzie gets really fed up with her, but I don’t mind so much. I’d quite like to have a little sister in some ways. Sometimes Mrs Walters asks us to look after them after school while she does the shopping, and it can be really tiring. I don’t know how Mrs Walters does it every day! But she hardly ever gets cranky with them, though yesterday I did see her go after the boys with the broom after they kept trying to nibble bits off the dough Mrs Walters was making. When we’re not at school and we don’t have to look after the littlies, Lizzie and I read and draw and talk. Lizzie is fascinated by the Phar Lap mystery. I told her my secret about snooping in Dad’s notebooks and showed her what I’d written, and she thinks I have so many clues written down in my diary that maybe I could solve the case myself! I don’t think Dad would be impressed if I tried to do that, though!

  Lizzie is like me, she loves reading mysteries, but unlike me she’s not going to write made-up ones when she grows up—she dreams of professionally solving real ones. She wants to be either a policewoman or a private detective like Dad. Probably a private detective, she says, because she’s never heard of a female police detective, but she’s read lots of stories in which there are female private detectives. We make plans about what we could do. We could share a house and rent two offices in the city, side by side, one with ‘Walters Private Investigations’ written on it in gold on the door, and the other with ‘Sally Fielding, Famous Author’. In her office she’d have big steel filing cabinets and framed testimonials from famous clients. In mine I’d have a brand-new typewriter and reams of paper and a shelf full of lots of my books.

  We could help each other. ‘I could give you ideas for plots,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘And I could give you a writer’s-eye view,’ I said.

  We would be written about in the newspapers as the ‘Dames of Detection’ or the ‘Sleuthing Sisters’ or something like that. We’d each have our signature style, Lizzie said—she’d have the fresh-faced girl-next-door look, with a dark bob and pretty print dresses (because then criminals would be taken off their guard and never suspect her of having a razor-sharp mind) and I would have blond waves and wear fox fur and slinky dresses, because mystery writers should be glamorous, like film stars, according to Lizzie. I’m not altogether sure about that, but I do like the idea of looking like Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. It would have to be peroxide, because my hair isn’t naturally blond. It could be described as fair if you’re being kind or mousy if you’re not. It’s a nothing sort of colour. But Lizzie has beautiful glossy dark hair, so that’s why she’d go for the brunette bob.

  Dad phoned yesterday at the shop. I wasn’t there, but Mr Walters said he’d said everything was going well and that he was hoping to be back in Sydney within a week. He didn’t say whether he’d tracked down Jack Hardy, but did mention that he’d interviewed Mr Davis, the owner of Phar Lap (with Mr Telford). Mr Davis didn’t have much more to add, he said. He had originally posted a hundred-pound reward for information leading to the identification of the criminals, which is quite a lot of money, but there had been a lot of lying people who claimed they had information, none which led anywhere, so he’d withdrawn the offer.

  Dad also said that the Bellinis sent their love to me. Nothing much had changed, the Foxes were still at Sorrento but the Quinns’ place had been taken by a cousin of Mrs Bellini’s down from the country with her family. And Billy has been helping out on Saturdays at a blacksmith’s out at Caulfield, till his apprenticeship starts. He loves it there, because the blacksmith once made shoes for Phar Lap and he has lots of stories about Big Red!

  June 3

  Got sick on Monday from some tummy problem, threw up all night, felt like death warmed up the next morning. The doctor came and said it was gastric flu and that I could not go to school for a week. He also warned Mrs Walters to keep everyone else away, as it is very contagious. ‘Shutting the stable door after horse has bolted,’ Mrs Walters grumbled, ‘she shares a room with Lizzie anyway.’ But she agreed to isolate me. Lizzie didn’t come down with it, amazingly enough—she reckons she has a cast-iron stomach! Mr Walters and Jim didn’t catch it either, but Joe and Tilly did, and Mrs Walters herself was off-colour. But nobody got it as bad as me and they all recovered within a day or two.

  The first day I didn’t care about anything because I felt too awful, but the next day I started enjoying being an invalid and having chicken soup made for me and Mrs Walters letting me have the radio in the afternoon. Yesterday I enjoyed staying in bed reading Seven Little Australians (which I’ve read before) and also The Hound of the Baskervilles (which I haven’t read before, though I’ve read a lot of Sherlock Holmes adventures. It was really scary but enjoyable!). But today I am really bored and fed up. I’m up and sitting on the couch with a blanket and a pillow and another pile of books, but I just can’t settle. Lizzie and the twins are at school all day, and Mrs Walters doesn’t let Tilly come in and ‘bother’ me (I’d love to be bothered right now!) so I’m pretty much on my own most of the time. Mrs Walters says I’m looking better and can go back to school in a day or two. I never thought I’d be pleased to hear the word ‘school’ mentioned!

  Dad comes back tomorrow. I’m looking forward to hearing what he’s found out!

  June 4

  I’m so scared. Such an awful thing has happened. Dad was supposed to come home this morning on the overnight train from Melbourne, but he never arrived. I didn’t know till this afternoon when I came home from school with Lizzie and the twins. Dad was supposed to meet me there and we were going to have tea with the Walters and then go back to our place, but there was no sign of him and Mrs Walters was looking pale and worried and Mr Walters was looking grim. He had managed to find the Bellinis’ phone number and had called to ask them if Dad had changed his mind. But they said no, he’d had supper with them at Sorrento and then left to catch his train. They were alarmed to find out that he hadn’t arrived. Mr Bellini said he’d go with Mr Fox right away to speak to the station staff and find out if they’d seen or heard anything. And if they didn’t know anything, they were all going to go looking for Dad in every place they could think of, including hospitals.

  It’s been hours and he still hasn’t rung back. I think of that awful Weasel Face and the Bruiser and I feel sick all over again, really, really sick. And I’m saying every prayer I can think of. Please, God, keep my dad safe! Please, please look after him, bring him safely back to us. Please, God. Please.

  June 5

  I couldn’t sleep last night, or hardly. No news yet. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it. Mrs Walters sent me and Lizzie to school. She said it was no good us moping around the house, it wouldn’t help Dad. But I could not concentrate on anything and I just felt like bursting into tears all the time, and in the end Mrs Bennett let me go h
ome, with Lizzie to ‘take care of’ me.

  We rushed back, but nothing had changed. Mrs Bellini rang, but she had no news, except that they had reported Dad as missing. The police are looking for him, but so far they have had no luck. Mr Fox and Billy and Mr Bellini and lots of other people are also looking for him.

  Please, God, please, please, please.

  June 6

  Thank you, God, thank you so much, thank you!

  YES! DAD HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE! Mr Bellini said on the phone it was Billy who found him, in a hospital ward they hadn’t checked before! He’s not too badly hurt, but was concussed from where he was hit on the back of the head. Nobody knew who he was or anything, as he had been robbed of everything—his wallet, his bag with all his clothes and papers and his watch. He was found in an alley a long way from the station by a night-watchman who rang for an ambulance. Nobody knows who did it, nobody saw anything, it must have happened before he even reached the railway station.