‘Maybe he can only replay what’s happened to him before.’ Cassie patted Froggy’s shoulder, trying to comfort him. ‘But he’ll come back. He always has before.’
‘If he doesn’t, I’m in trouble.’
‘Why?’
‘It means if we want the treasure, I’ll have to swim out to the cave.’ Froggy felt the hair prickle up the back of his neck, felt shivers run down his spine. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.
‘You certainly can’t if Tad’s not here to show you where to find it.’ Cassie’s tone was determinedly cheerful as she continued: ‘But it may not be necessary, Froggy. We’ve already found out heaps of stuff. I reckon we should take what we know to the authorities, those lawyer people. Let’s tell them everything we’ve found out. They can do the rest. The treasure will still belong to you.’
But the treasure didn’t seem important to Froggy any more. ‘I wish Tad would come back,’ he muttered, looking around. ‘I mean, he only went in because I told him that we’d save him if he got into trouble.’ He stared bleakly at Cassie. ‘We let him down. I let him down. I broke my promise, Cassie.’
‘But you did your best. I know how hard you tried.’ Cassie put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry about him, Froggy. He’ll come back when he wants to, you’ll see.’
‘I dunno.’ Froggy shook his head sadly as he slowly led the way up the rocky path until they reached the ledge where Tad had met them before.
No-one was there. They sat down to wait for Tad, waited until the shadows had taken all the colour from the earth and the air was chill. But there was no sign of Tad at all.
Froggy was surprised how much he missed him.
13
‘Why don’t we go in and see those lawyers, tell them all we know?’ Cassie suggested as they trailed home dejectedly.
‘Tad threw the news clipping away. I don’t even know who to contact.’ Froggy tried to visualise the piece of paper, jagged at the edges where he’d torn it, the black headline: ‘Hunt for missing heir moves to Australia’. He’d read it a hundred times, and the words that followed: ‘Lawyers from the firm …’
‘Baseball!’ he said, pleased with himself.
‘Eh?’ Cassie looked surprised. ‘Not now, Froggy. We’ve got more important things to think about.’
‘Sshh!’ Froggy held up a warning hand. ‘Baseball and Hats? Caps? Heads? Headingley? Baseball and Headingley?’
Cassie was shaking her head. It was obvious she thought he’d finally flipped.
‘Hattingley!’ Froggy cried triumphantly.
‘Baseball and Hattingley?’
‘No, that doesn’t sound right. But it’s something like that.’
‘Froggy, what are you on about?’
‘The lawyers! The people who’ve come out to trace Tad. Only I don’t think I’ve got their name right yet.’
Cassie’s steps slowed as she thought about it. ‘We could look them up in the yellow pages,’ she suggested, ever practical.
‘They won’t be there. They’re from England.’
‘Do they have an office in Sydney maybe? Sometimes those big law firms have offices all over the world.’
Froggy shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘I’ll ask my father.’ Cassie started walking.
‘I’ll ask mine, too,’ said Froggy, determined not to be outdone.
His chance came early the next morning during breakfast. His mother had left with her usual flurry of last minute instructions and Froggy’s father had picked up the paper.
‘Dad? Remember that story of the missing heir from England?’
‘The Dearborne case?’ His father was scanning through the paper, hardly listening.
Froggy nodded. ‘Who were the lawyers, do you remember?’
His father shook his head. ‘No, I don’t. Why?’
‘No reason.’ Froggy tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Just wondering how to find out.’
‘Why?’ his father asked again, adding teasingly: ‘Don’t tell me you’ve found the heir! Are you going to claim a reward, Fred?’
‘No.’ Froggy wished he could tell his father the truth, give him something to look forward to. But not yet. It was still too early.
He had a flash of inspiration. ‘Cassie’s doing a project on the Quarantine Station and I’m helping her. I told her about the Dearborne case and as she has to research something, we thought we’d try the Dearbornes. So I wondered who the lawyers were, that’s all,’ he finished lamely.
His father laughed. ‘I hardly think Cassie will succeed where the lawyers have failed,’ he said, adding drily, ‘but the state archives are the place to start if you want to look at old records.’
‘The state archives?’ Froggy wished he’d known that before they’d broken into the Quarantine Station.
‘Or maybe the health department. Quarantine was probably a health matter. But whatever you do, don’t go bothering the lawyers, Fred.’ His father’s voice was bitter as he warned: ‘They charge for their time, you know, and with my case and everything, we’re already up to our ears in legal expenses.’ His attention went back to the paper as he turned the page with a loud crackle.
‘Oh!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’d better tell Cassie to research someone else!’ And he held the page out to Froggy. ‘See?’
Froggy read the small news item: ‘Dead tycoon leaves no heirs. Lawyers from the firm Basewell and Hattingley have admitted defeat in their hunt for possible descendants of the wealthy Dearborne family. Despite several promising leads, it seems the estate will now go to the crown.’
‘Does that mean the lawyers are going back to England?’ Froggy stared at his father anxiously.
‘If they haven’t already gone.’ Froggy’s father looked up from the paper just in time to see Froggy disappearing out of the kitchen. He looked after him in astonishment.
‘You haven’t finished your …’ The front door slammed, cutting off the rest of his sentence.
Froggy raced towards the small group of shops near the bus stop. ‘Basewell and Hattingley,’ he muttered. ‘Basewell and Hattingley.’ There had to be a Basewell and Hattingley in Sydney, or wouldn’t the paper have given a contact number?
‘Your phone!’ He panted into the nearest shop. It was dark and cool, lit by mounds of glowing oranges and fuzzy yellow peaches, golden bananas, dusky plums and ripe green grapes.
‘Please can I use your phone? It’s an emergency!’ And he stared appealingly at the owner, a large and cheerful looking Italian.
‘Sure. Help yourself.’ He nodded towards the back of the shop and turned to serve a customer.
Froggy snatched up one of the telephone directories and, with shaking fingers, searched through its pages. Then he dialled.
‘Can I speak to someone about the Dearborne case? I have important information!’ he gasped to the startled receptionist.
‘I’ll put you through,’ she said, and Froggy’s heartbeat settled to its normal rate as he heard himself making an appointment. What if it cost heaps, as his father had warned? I’m doing them a favour, Froggy told himself firmly. The estate can pay!
He dialled Cassie’s number next, hoping he’d be in time to catch her before she left for school. But the phone rang and rang long after it should have been answered. Froggy listened anyway, reluctant to break the connection with Cassie, waiting for the phone to disconnect automatically, making excuses all the while. Maybe she was in the bathroom and couldn’t hear. Maybe she was just walking down the path as it started to ring and she had to unlock the door and …
‘Answer the phone, Cassie!’
‘Hello?’
Froggy sagged with relief. ‘I’ve talked to the lawyers, Cassie. They’re about to leave the country, but if we go right now, they say they’ll give us ten minutes. Will you come with me?’
‘Of course.’ The answer came immediately. ‘This is better than school any day!’
‘But how will we get in there?’ Froggy had been too wound up to consider this question befo
re.
‘Mum can take us to the ferry. She’s waiting outside in the car. She was just going to drop me off at school when I heard the phone ring. Lucky I answered it, hey?’
Froggy could hear the smile in Cassie’s voice and wished he felt so cheerful. ‘She won’t let you wag school.’
‘I’ll think of something.’ Cassie considered for a moment. ‘I’ll do my best. Stay where you are, Froggy. Where are you, anyway?’
Froggy told her.
Luckily Cassie’s mother was in too much of a hurry to get to work to argue for long. But she was grumpy as she dropped them off at the wharf. ‘If I find you kids have been lying to me about the combined schools concert at the Opera House, I’ll …’
‘We have to go, Mum!’ Cassie jumped out and slammed the door.
Her mother stuck her head out of the window. ‘How come you never mentioned it before?’ she yelled at her disappearing daughter.
‘I forgot. Lucky Froggy phoned and reminded me, hey?’
Froggy grinned to himself, wishing he was as practised a liar as Cassie. He ran after her. ‘You going into politics when you grow up?’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’ And they rushed across the gangplank just as the deckhand untied the ropes.
Froggy hadn’t often been to the city before, but Cassie knew her way around from visiting her father on construction sites. She navigated their way to Phillip Street, through the revolving doors and across the marble floor of the tower block housing the Australian branch of the firm Basewell and Hattingley.
‘We’d better not mention Tad,’ Cassie murmured in the lift. ‘I don’t think they’d be real keen on ghosts.’
Froggy left Cassie to do the talking, glancing about him as the receptionist led the way, past cubbyholes full of people bent over their computers, towards an office in the furthest corner.
They were introduced to two people. A tall man with thin legs, a long neck and a way of jerking his head forward so that he looked like a stork, was the London connection. He peered at them over the black rims of his glasses and then looked pointedly at his watch. The woman with him was short and dumpy, with flyaway hair and a friendly smile.
‘Hi there!’ she said, dragging up two chairs for them to sit down. ‘We’re really interested in what you have to tell us, but it’ll have to be quick. George has a plane to catch.’
‘My name’s Mr Davis.’ He gave the woman a disapproving stare. ‘Ms Stockwell’s helping us with our enquiries. I believe you have some information for us.’
It was clear from his tone that he’d already made up his mind they were wasting his time, and as Froggy launched into his explanation of what they’d found in the records at the Quarantine Station, the man’s expression confirmed it.
‘Here, I’ve got it all written down.’ Froggy fished into his pocket, grateful that he’d thought to snatch the sheets of paper from his school bag on the way out.
Mr Davis smoothed them out and scanned them quickly, edging away from Ms Stockwell as she tried to read over his shoulder.
‘And you copied these names down exactly as they were written?’ she asked, taking the pages from him, concentrating on the names in front of her.
Froggy nodded. ‘Yes,’ Cassie confirmed. ‘Exactly.’
‘And you say there’s an engraving there, with Charles, Mary-Anne, Joseph and Thaddeus Dearborne on it? And the date June 1881?’
Froggy nodded again.
‘You’re sure Thaddeus was on it too?’
‘We saw it!’ said Cassie.
‘There’s no such thing!’ the stork snorted. ‘The authorities would have shown it to us.’
‘We found it. It was hidden in thick bush.’
‘The date’s right,’ Ms Stockwell pointed out.
‘It was all written up in the papers. They haven’t told us anything new.’
‘I think perhaps we should …’
‘Waste of time!’ the stork interrupted, throwing Froggy’s papers onto the desk.
‘But they have told us something new. There do seem to be discrepancies in the records.’ Ms Stockwell stood her ground, looking like a small but tenacious pugdog.
‘Place was in a mess, we know that. Smallpox epidemic and all that. Easy to make a mistake over names,’ stork snorted.
‘Perhaps. But not about ages.’
Froggy’s heart sank. She’d noticed that the dead baby was the same age as Joseph when he was buried then.
‘How can Joseph Dearborne aged two years, suddenly die aged two months? And how can George Davidson, aged two months, suddenly become Joseph Davidson aged two years?’ Ms Stockwell asked unexpectedly.
‘How do you know that? I mean, how can you tell?’ Froggy asked excitedly, wondering how she’d managed to work it out without Tad to tell her.
‘From the records. You sure you copied these entries exactly in order?’ She spread the sheets of paper side by side.
‘Positive.’
‘Then look. Here are the arrivals.’ Her finger traced across the paper, stabbing at the entries. ‘Joseph Dearborne, aged two years. George Davidson, aged two months. Now, here’s the death register. It shows Joseph Dearborne died aged two months.’
‘But that says two years, only it’s wrong,’ said Froggy.
‘No, what it actually says is two, with a ditto mark.’ Ms Stockwell’s fingers traced two blips in the air. ‘Those marks mean that it’s the same as the entry that came before.’
‘Alice Reynolds.’ Froggy read the line above. ‘Died eight months.’
‘Eight months. That’s right. So we know Joseph Dearborne died, aged two months. At least …’ as Froggy started to protest, ‘according to the register, that is. And yet George Davidson, aged two months, left three months later as Joseph Davidson, aged two years.’ Ms Stockwell slapped a triumphant hand onto the third list which showed who had been released from the Quarantine Station.
‘That’s fantastic! You’ve really proved it!’ Froggy shouted excitedly.
‘I thought you’d come here to prove something to us!’ The stork’s eyes were hostile and suspicious. ‘But whatever the records say, it’s Thaddeus Dearborne we’re interested in, not Joseph. Joseph was illegitimate. Thaddeus is the true heir.’ The words grated harshly as he thrust his face forward at Froggy.
‘He was at the Quarantine Station too, I told you!’ Froggy said quickly. ‘But he’s listed under a different name because his father didn’t want his mother to know where he was. That’s why they called him Thaddeus Fisher. See? Same age and everything.’
Ms Stockwell gave Froggy a puzzled glance. The stork looked disbelieving.
‘But he drowned!’ Froggy said desperately. ‘That’s why he’s not on the records. Thaddeus Dearborne drowned, but Joseph Dearborne survived as Joseph Davidson. I’m a Davidson, too. Joseph Dearborne was my great-great-grandfather.’ And he lifted his chin and stared at them defiantly.
‘How do you know all this?’ Ms Stockwell asked quietly.
‘I …’ Froggy floundered.
‘Had a vision,’ Cassie said quickly.
Two pairs of eyes swivelled incredulously.
‘Well, not exactly.’ Froggy swallowed hard. ‘I … that is, Tad …’
‘Who’s Tad?’
‘A friend,’ said Cassie.
‘What does he know about it? Where can we contact him?’ Ms Stockwell was also consulting her watch. She looked worried.
‘You can’t,’ Froggy admitted.
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ The stork was walking towards the door now.
‘There is one way we’d know if Frederick was the heir,’ Ms Stockwell said quickly. ‘By his …’
‘That’s not to be made public!’ the stork interrupted.
‘Take off your shoes!’ Ms Stockwell said urgently.
With a grin, Froggy obeyed her.
‘See!’ It seemed Ms Stockwell was on their side. She sounded delighted.
‘Absolute coincidence! There mus
t be thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in the world with this particular aberration.’ The stork’s thin lips curled in disgust as he looked down at Froggy’s scuffed shoes and smelly socks.
‘I’m going to be late. I have to go. I still have to fetch my luggage from the hotel.’ He bent down, picked up a briefcase and started to walk out the door.
‘Hold on a moment! I’ll come with you!’ Ms Stockwell rolled her eyes upwards as she followed him. Froggy was only slightly encouraged to see the thumbs up she gave behind her back, but his brief confidence fled as he listened to their conversation fading into the distance.
‘Australia’s full of bloody fortune-hunters!’
‘Those kids aren’t fortune-hunters. They’re too young. Anyway, I think their story’s interesting, worth looking into. Why not postpone your flight a little long …’
‘Waste of time!’
They had given their addresses as well as their names at reception. Froggy wondered if they were going to be sent a large bill for wasting the stork’s time. How much would it be? And where would the money come from to pay it?
Froggy started to sweat as he thought through the options. He couldn’t ask Cassie’s parents to pay. This wasn’t their problem. Nor could he ask his own parents. All their savings had gone into the compensation case. No, he’d have to get a part-time job and pay off the account by the week. It would probably take forever, but he didn’t have much choice. He wished he’d taken his father’s advice. How had they ever thought they could persuade the lawyers? It had been a dumb thing to do!
And then Froggy had an idea.
14
‘I’m going back to Tad,’ Froggy told Cassie, as they left the ferry at Manly wharf, pushing their way through the crowds who idled along looking at the souvenir shops.
‘What … now?’
Froggy nodded determinedly. ‘I’m going to get the treasure,’ he said.
‘It’s too dangerous!’ Cassie gasped. ‘You saw what happened to Tad!’
‘I’m going to get the treasure,’ Froggy said again, not wanting to tell her about the lawyer’s bill and that his family wouldn’t be able to pay it.
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