Decline in Prophets

by Sulari Gentill

  “Oh, Hu—I’ve been meaning to call him.” Rowland put down his tea. Wilfred had spent at least an hour ranting at him that morning. Rowland did not blame the housekeeper for not wanting to disturb them.

  “He would like you to meet him at The Manor at noon, sir. He believes that he may be able to help you sort out the matter with Mr. Leadbeater.”

  “Thank you, Mary.” Fleetingly, Rowland wondered what Mary Brown and the staff thought of recent events. He checked his watch. It was half past eleven. “I had better get moving… I’ll call Delaney when I get back.”

  Clyde and Milton stood. The poet picked up the paper, pointedly. “We’d better come, don’t you think Rowly?”

  “We’re still not sure if Hu was involved with what happened to you at Rookwood,” Clyde added.

  “We’ll all go,” Edna decided. “We’ll be back after lunch with good news.”

  Rowland wasn’t sure that turning up at The Manor en masse was the best idea, but Edna had already donned her hat and gloves and was heading out the door. “Hurry up, Rowly, we’ll be late.”

  “Mary, would you let Mr. Sinclair know we won’t be in for lunch?” he asked, as he collected his own hat and retrieved his jacket from where he had last discarded it. He had no doubt that the housekeeper would inform Wilfred where they were going. Outside Woodlands, Mary Brown was the soul of discretion, but her loyalty lay with Wilfred. He didn’t really mind but he was aware of it.

  The pack of reporters and photographers outside the gates of The Manor had grown if anything. Rowland and his friends were admitted without question once again. The servant who answered the door was apologetic.

  “Mr. Leadbeater is meditating in the gazebo, sir. He does not like to be disturbed.”

  “Is Mr. Van Hook here yet?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir.”

  “Perhaps we should wake Leadbeater up,” Milton suggested.

  “I can assure you, sir, Mr. Leadbeater is not asleep,” the woman protested sharply. “He is meditating. He may not even be in his body.”

  “Well, surely he’ll return for the World Prophet?” Milton persisted. “Rowly’s got a golden aura, you know.”

  Being the only person present not accustomed to ignoring the poet, the servant seemed confused. “Well… I…”

  “What say we wander up to the gazebo to see if Mr. Leadbeater has finished?” Rowland offered.

  “Mr. Leadbeater does not like to be disturbed.” The woman remained adamant.

  “We’ll ensure he’s back in his body before we talk to him,” Rowland said firmly. He didn’t have time for this nonsense.

  The grounds at the back of The Manor were lined with trees and hedges, and so the gazebo was not immediately visible from the house. Rowland walked a little ahead of his friends who allowed him to take the lead. He was, after all, Leadbeater’s beloved prophet.

  The gazebo was a large structure fashioned in the style of an Eastern pagoda, painted in the bright colours of the subcontinent rather than the whitewash of traditional British garden houses. It was surrounded by a tall hedge of camellias, which created an appropriate feeling of solitude. Rowland ran up the steps, feeling a slight twinge in his leg for the first time in days.

  Leadbeater was sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor. He was slumped forward. Rowland stopped. Perhaps the old man had projected out of his body. The others clattered noisily up the stairs behind him but Leadbeater did not stir. Odd, but then everything about Leadbeater was odd.

  Rowland approached cautiously and then he noticed the red in the folds of the man’s voluminous smock. Blood.

  He reacted quickly, moving to Leadbeater’s side. “He’s bleeding… Clyde call for…”

  The shot was muffled, and it was only because the post in front of him splintered with the bullet’s impact that he realised they were under fire.

  “Get down!”

  34

  THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

  Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society entertained the delegates who gathered from all parts of Australia for the annual convention. Greetings from overseas sections were brought by Miss Mary K. Neff (India) and Miss Clara Codd (USA). After the reception several scenes from “As You Like It” were performed by a group of talented pupils from the Garden School, Mosman directed by Mr. Norman F. Clarke. In the afternoon Bishop Leadbeater received members of the Society at The Manor. Bishop Leadbeater also broadcast from The Manor, through Station 2GB, a contribution to the Symposium on Theosophy as a bridge-builder between the seen and the unseen.

  The Sydney Morning Herald

  The second shot would have killed him if he’d still been standing. Edna screamed. Rowland pulled her under him as another bullet hit the pagoda and splints of wood flew in all directions.

  Milton swore.

  Clyde tried to look for the source of the bullets. A fourth shot and then a fifth. He got back down. A sixth shot hit the trellised doorway, and then, nothing.

  They did not move for several minutes.

  “I think he’s gone,” Rowland said finally.

  “Or he’s reloading.”

  Rowland looked towards Leadbeater. “We’ve got to get help.”

  “Is he dead?” Clyde asked.

  “I didn’t have time to find out before the shooting started. If he isn’t he’ll bleed to death soon.” He raised his head cautiously. “I’ll go—you lot stay down just in case.”

  Clyde shook his head. “No, I’ll go. It’s more likely you he was shooting at, mate.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “This is the second time you’ve been shot at, Rowly. Not to mention what happened at Rookwood.”

  “Don’t go, Rowly,” Edna whispered still under the protection of his arm.

  She was trembling. He could feel it. He didn’t argue and he held her tighter.

  “Be careful,” Milton warned as Clyde made ready to go. “If you hear anything at all, get down. He’s probably somewhere behind the hedges.”

  Keeping his head and shoulders down Clyde crawled out of the gazebo and ran for the house. They watched him go, breath held, waiting for the shooting to start again. It didn’t.

  When it was clear that Clyde had reached the house, Rowland looked down at Edna.

  “Ed, are you all right? You’re not hurt are you?”

  She let go of him. “I’m sorry. I panicked. I don’t like guns.”

  He smiled. “It’s the bullets I have a problem with. I’m going to go check on Leadbeater now, okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine.”

  He moved guardedly towards the Theosophist’s body. He found the man’s mouth buried in the hairy grey mass of his beard and put his ear to Leadbeater’s lips. He couldn’t hear anything.

  “Is he dead?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  Edna dug into her handbag and produced a compact. She tossed it to Rowland. “Hold the mirror up against his mouth,” she said.

  Rowland did so. A very faint mist fogged the glass. Rowland closed the compact and handed it back. “He’s alive.”

  He and Milton worked to move Leadbeater into a more comfortable position, without standing themselves. By the time they had laid the man prone and applied pressure to the bleeding wound in his back, the sirens were audible.

  Soon the grounds of The Manor were teeming with police. Charles Leadbeater was stretchered into an ambulance whilst officers forced reporters and photographers back. Clyde dragged them into the house out of reach of the cameras. Rowland and Milton were now splattered with Leadbeater’s blood. It would not make a good picture.

  Edna found the kitchen and made tea whilst they answered a barrage of questions from junior officers. And then Delaney arrived.

  He sent the other constables to search the grounds for evidence and sat down. He shook his head. “You’re determined to get yourself killed then, Rowly.”

  “One doesn’t normally expect a gunfight in Mosman,” Rowland muttered.

  “I was
talking about what your brother’s going to do,” Delaney replied. “… oh, that bad already?” he asked, when Rowland failed to smile.

  “Poor Rowly’s had a rather trying week,” Edna confided. “He’s a little grumpy.”

  “I see.” Colin Delaney loosened his tie. “How about you tell me what’s been happening since we spoke last… other than being named a messiah, of course.”

  Rowland remained unamused. He started with Rookwood and what had happened in the gardens of the Chapel of St Michael the Archangel.

  “So this kid,” Delaney wrote furiously in his notebook, “she saw someone hit you with an angel?”

  “I believe she said God hit me with an angel.”

  “I think the Good Lord may have an alibi, so let’s just assume she was mistaken about that bit,” Delaney said, frowning. “Who could she have mistaken for God?”

  “I don’t know,” Rowland shrugged. “What does he look like?”

  “Protestants!” Clyde shook his head. “Don’t you people ever go to church? He’s a big old bloke with a long, grey beard… isn’t he Colin?”

  Delaney nodded. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Bloody hell… Leadbeater… had to be!” Milton made the improbable leap.

  By now, even Rowland was smiling.

  “All right, let’s forget about the description,” Delaney decided. “You said the perpetrator shouted at you before he slugged you with this statue?”

  “Someone shouted at me.”

  “What did they shout?”

  “Just ‘Sinclair’.”

  “And you thought you recognised the voice? From just one word?” Delaney was dubious.

  “It was the accent. I thought it was Van Hook… but I may be remembering incorrectly… it was just before someone tried to crack my skull.”

  “Fair enough,” Delaney said thoughtfully. “Tell me about today. What were you doing here?”

  “Hubert Van Hook phoned—wanted me to meet him here.”

  “And you were willing to meet him, despite what happened at Rookwood?”

  “I’m not sure what happened at Rookwood, and he said he would help me talk to Leadbeater.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “No—he rang while I was being lambasted by Wil. My housekeeper took the message.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “That he would meet me at The Manor at noon and we would deal with Mr. Leadbeater together.”

  “And what is Mr. Van Hook’s relationship with Mr. Leadbeater?”

  Rowland thought uneasily of Van Hook’s open hostility to Charles Leadbeater. “Hu grew up in the Theosophical movement. I think Annie Besant sent him to check on the old man—Hu didn’t seem to like him particularly.”

  “Rowly,” Clyde reminded him. “What about Waterman? He was here.”

  Rowland had forgotten. He told Delaney of the conversation they’d overheard the day before between Richard Waterman and Charles Leadbeater.

  “Well, that is interesting,” Delaney mused. He tapped his fingers on the table.

  “The first murder,” he said suddenly, flicking back through his notebook to find the name. “Orville Urquhart. Tell me what you know about him again.”

  “Raised in the movement, like Hu,” Rowland replied.

  “How did Van Hook get on with him.”

  “I gathered they were not friends.”

  “Urquhart was involved with Isobel Hanrahan,” Milton volunteered, apparently unsure of whether Rowland’s good manners would keep him from mentioning this.

  “Was he the father of…?”

  “I guess only Isobel really knew.” Edna answered as the men beside her were clearly uncomfortable with the subject. “But I don’t think she’d known him for long enough. My guess is that she was in trouble before she ever boarded the Aquitania.”

  “This is where Father Murphy may be our man,” nodded Delaney. Rowland had called him previously with what they had discovered of Murphy’s past connection with Isobel Hanrahan. “The coroner estimates that Isobel Hanrahan was at least three-and-a-half months pregnant when she died. It can’t have been anyone she met on the boat.” Delaney looked directly at Rowland here.

  Rowland did not respond. To his mind the matter had been concluded beyond any sort of public speculation with Isobel’s confession that he could not have been the father.

  “Have you determined what happened to Father Murphy, Detective Delaney?” Edna asked.

  Delaney shrugged. “Well, he didn’t slip.” He rubbed his nose. “Van Hook and the girl—did they know each other?”

  “I don’t think so.” Rowland was intrigued by the question. “Why?”

  “It’s the only thing that doesn’t fit with Van Hook… but I suppose we could be looking at two different murderers.”

  “You think Hu killed the Theosophists?”

  Delaney pulled a folder from the briefcase at his feet. “We’ve been checking backgrounds since I spoke to you prior to Christmas… we had to send abroad which held things up—but we found some interesting things about your Mr. Van Hook.” He opened the folder and pulled out a photograph. “This was taken before the war.”

  Rowland looked carefully at the picture. A younger Charles Leadbeater stood at its centre with a number of boys about him. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Rowland spent so much time studying and painting faces, he might not have recognised the youthful visages. As it was, he thought he could pick Orville Urquhart. Even as a child there was something arrogant about his face, the way he posed in front the bespectacled boy beside him. A couple of the other faces seemed familiar too, but most of all he recognised the young Hubert Van Hook, standing with Leadbeater’s hands on his shoulders.

  “That boy there,” Delaney pointed at Van Hook, “is the child Leadbeater first declared as the World Prophet.”

  “But that’s Hu.” Clyde took the photo from Rowland and examined it closely.

  “It seems that Leadbeater’s identification of her son as prophet convinced Mrs. Van Hook to leave Mr. Van Hook and take the boy to India for training,” Delaney said shaking his head. “And then of course, Leadbeater changed his mind.”

  “So it was Hu, not Krishnamurti, who accused Leadbeater of indecency,” Rowland pondered.

  “It seems,” Delaney pulled out various reports on the matter. “Said Leadbeater misused him. Leadbeater was cleared—apparently young Orville Urquhart spoke in his defence. Essentially, he called Van Hook a liar.”

  “That explains why Hu hated Urquhart, I guess.” Rowland was reluctant. Despite everything, he liked Hubert Van Hook.

  “Why would Hu want to kill Rowly?” Edna asked.

  “Dunno.” Delaney looked at Rowland. “Did he have a problem with you?”

  “I don’t think so. I can’t see him…”

  “Perhaps he wanted to be World Prophet again,” Clyde suggested. “Maybe that’s his gripe with you, mate.”

  Rowland shook his head. “I still can’t believe…”

  “Well, where is he?” Milton demanded. “He arranged for you to be here, Rowly.”

  “We’re looking for him,” Delaney assured them. “My guess is he’s on the run—but we’ll flush him out.”

  “And till then?”

  “You should be careful, Sinclair. Don’t agree to any more meetings.”

  Rowland leant back in his chair casually. “If it was Hu, he’s a bloody awful shot. In at least ten shots he’s only managed to get Leadbeater.”

  Delaney checked his watch. “I’d better get back to headquarters.”

  “What about Leadbeater?” Milton asked. “Is he going to pull through?”

  “I’ll keep you posted.” Delaney stood. “You folks go home and keep a low profile. I’ll increase the patrols near your house.”

  Detective Constable Delaney walked them out to the Mercedes. “I’ll have the boys clear out the reporters so you can get out without being front page again.”

  Rowland shook his hand. �
��Thank you, Colin—you know where to reach me.”

  “Of course.” Delaney smiled faintly. “Technically speaking, you’re still a suspect.”

  35

  EXPENSIVE CARS

  The most expensive chassis on the British market is the 45-50 h.p. Rolls-Royce and the 50 h.p. double-six Daimler, the prices of both of which range from £1850. Complete cars, of course, vary in price according to the coachwork fitted, but one of the standard models of the 50 h.p. Daimler is an enclosed drive model with a fixed head, listed at prices ranging from £2500. Special coachwork jobs cost as much as £1200 to £1300 on other chassis, bringing the total price up to £3000 or more. There are also, of course, Continental chassis which sell at the same price, but the Import duty partly accounts for their high prices. These include the 45 h.p. Hispano-Suiza chassis (£1950), and Isotta Frasbin sports (£1850); super sports, (£1950). Another expensive English chassis is the 40 h.p. Lancaster (£1800).

  The Argus

  “God, Rowly!” Wilfred slammed his fist on the desk in frustration. “How can a grown man stumble from one compromising situation to another?”

  “I’m not particularly happy about it either, Wil.”

  “You’re not happy about it! You don’t intend it! And yet you carry on moving around in the midst of your own personal crime wave!”

  Rowland rubbed his forehead. His head throbbed again. He really just wanted to shower and change. His waistcoat was still spattered with Leadbeater’s blood.

  “Kate’s upset, the Bairds are about to declare war, I’ve spent the entire morning trying to keep you from being blackballed from every respectable establishment in the state; and now, it looks like it’s just going to get worse!”

  “I’m sorry,” Rowland said quietly. He was sorry. He felt bad for Kate.

  Wilfred leant back in his chair. “Damn it, Rowly, if Father were alive, he would have had you committed by now!”

  Despite himself, Rowland smiled. Wilfred was right. Their father would not have been nearly so understanding. Henry Sinclair might well have sought a clinical solution for the behaviour of his youngest son.

  “What would you have me do, Wil?”

  “Nothing! I don’t want you to do anything at all!” Wilfred sat forward. He spoke slowly, uncompromisingly. “Until we’ve got through this christening, I don’t want you to leave the house. If you can’t step out of the door without getting into some sort of trouble, well then you can bloody well stay here!”