My plan is to skim through once and see if anything jumps out, then go back for a closer read. Two lines in I realise this stuff is too interesting to skip over. I start reading again.
***
The newspaper accounts of the murder investigation and inquest had mentioned Adam Graham, a family friend of the Deans, but Daphne’s notes give much more detail. Adam and his family – mother, brother and sister – had boarded with the Deans in 1921, when they’d first emigrated from Scotland. The Grahams moved out after two years and the two families had remained close until there was a falling out. But somehow, Adam had re-established a place for himself in the Dean household. He spent time talking cars and machines with Molly’s brother, Ralph, but his relationship with Molly and her mother Ethel was rather more complex. According to Ralph, his mother had hoped to set Molly and Adam up as a couple, despite the fact Adam was quite a bit older. Ralph said Molly had laughed in Adam’s face when he’d invited her out, but oddly claimed that afterwards it was all perfectly amicable and the two were quite happy to sit at the table together whenever Adam came round for dinner.
Adam Graham claimed he’d never been interested in Molly and had only asked her out to please Molly’s mother. A strange claim to make when Ethel Dean confessed she and Graham had a sexual relationship that had been going on for a number of years leading up to the time of Molly’s death. Graham, for his part, first admitted to, then later denied, the relationship with Ethel, a woman at least twenty years his senior. He claimed police had tricked him into admitting to the affair using questions laden with innuendo and veiled references, which he took to mean a close friendship. Unfortunately for him, other people also knew what he and Ethel Dean were up to, including Molly. It was when Molly confronted her mother about the relationship that Ethel Dean pulled a knife on her daughter.
I realise I’m leaning forward on the edge of the chair and sit back. Just one page in and the whole Molly Dean story is even more screwed up than I’d imagined. This family makes a Days of Our Lives saga look positively tame by comparison.
I keep reading as the shadows grow longer and the pool of light around my chair becomes more defined. At 5.40 Hogarth yawns, rolls himself over the edge of the couch so he ends up in a standing position, then saunters over and shoves his head in front of my face, obscuring the pages with his shaggy noggin. Canine dinner time is generally 5.45 and Hogarth has the best tummy alarm in the business. I stand up, feeling my stiff joints pop and creak. The notes are temporarily abandoned as I head to the kitchen, Hogarth close on my heels.
I turn on the lights over the island bench and pull Hogarth’s meat and veg from the fridge. As I mix things together in his bowl, I think over what I’ve read so far about Adam Graham. Anyone prepared to try to date the daughter while sleeping with the mother is clearly a creep of the first order, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. Perhaps if I make a list of the key points about Graham that were reported in the news, I can cross reference with Daphne’s notes and see if that tells me anything more about this man. I put Hogarth’s dish down and open the fridge again, trying and failing to get excited about cooking something for myself. Molly is calling; I want to get back to work.
In the study, I sift through the heap of articles I printed off at the library, searching for Graham’s name among the fuzzy print. This whittles my pile down considerably, and I discard a couple more pages when I realise they are syndicated articles; the one I printed from The Argus is the same as the one in the Ballarat Advertiser.
The coroner’s inquest was held in late January 1931, about two months after Molly’s murder. Technically it was an open court, but there were so many witnesses and media that the general public were turned away. The murder of Molly Dean enthralled the populace because of the violence of her death and a wider concern a maniac might be on the loose. The press were happy to pander to this thirst for knowledge, and the testimonies of the key witnesses were reported virtually word for word in the major metropolitan newspapers. I open my notebook and start a list of information relating to Adam Graham as told to the court by Ethel Dean, Ralph Dean, Percy Lambell, Graham’s sister and mother, and the man himself.
Other than the relationship with Ethel Dean, there were a lot of odd things about Adam Graham and his story. I flip from article to article, noting down the other key points that count against him. I’m so engrossed in the task, it takes a moment before I realise the phone is ringing. At this time in the evening that means only one thing.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Alex dear, I thought you were going to call me today.’
‘Ummm, was I supposed to?’
‘No, but it’s always nice to phone your mother from time to time – or even take her out for lunch – and I haven’t spoken to you for a few days, so I just felt that today must be the day.’
‘Oh. Well thanks for taking the initiative. I’ve kind of gotten caught up with work. I bought this painting and –’
‘Alex, you don’t have deadlines or office hours.’
‘Mum, before we launch into a lively yet at the same time enervating discussion about the detour on my career path to professorial tenure at Melbourne Uni, I want to tell you about this painting.’
‘I wasn’t going to –’
‘Of course you were. It’s a mother’s job to harangue her daughter about these things. But just listen, tell me what you think, and you can berate me to your heart’s content when I take you to lunch next week.’
She laughs. ‘Tell me about this painting then.’
I give Mum a full account, from when I first spotted the portrait at Lane’s through the whole research thing to Daphne and her story. She is silent the entire time, so I know I’ve piqued her interest. ‘It’s great that you called because, given how your mind works, I could use your opinion on some of the details about Adam Graham’s story.’
‘Are you implying I have a nefarious bent?’
‘Of course not, Mummy dearest.’
‘Watch it, kid.’
‘I just meant you read a lot of crime books, so I thought if I told you some of the odd things about Adam Graham, you could tell me if you think they really are screwy or conversely, if I’m just off in my own little fantasy land.’
‘Well, I’m definitely good at the latter. Okay, let’s have it.’
‘First, Adam Graham had no solid alibi for the time of Molly’s murder. In fact, his mother and sister told conflicting stories about the time he returned home and where he slept. His mother said he was home and tucked up in bed in his room by midnight. The sister said that first thing in the morning she took him a cup of tea in bed, only this was the camp bed in the sleep-out, a place where he often dossed when he came home late, as no one could hear him come in. Under questioning on the stand, the sister changed her story and said she’d just been confused, what with the shock of it all. The trouble was, she’d told the police the same story several times.’
Mum butts in. ‘Well the mother lied to protect Adam and no one thought to tell the poor honest sister before she was questioned. Now mother’s instinct aside, if her darling boy had nothing to hide, why lie? Makes me far more suspicious than if she’s just said she had no idea when he got home or where he slept.’
‘Oh and they lived in Gordon Avenue, just one block from Molly’s home.’
‘I have my eyebrows raised here, Alex. What else?’
‘There were a few blood stains on his suit, but they sound like fairly small marks.’
‘Hmm. I’m not sure what to make of that. You said there was a lot of blood at the crime scene, which makes me think a couple of little spots would be unlikely. You’d expect great big splatters. Unless he was wearing overalls of course.’
‘Hey! That makes a lot of sense, given he was a mechanic.’
‘Of course, in 1930 there was no blood type or DNA testing, so maybe he’d
just cut himself shaving.’
‘Right, so inconclusive on the blood. Well, then there were the witnesses who saw Molly Dean walking home and reported a man with a distinctive gait following her. After they’d seen Graham outside court, each witness independently confirmed that not only did Graham have the same height and build as the mystery man, but he moved in the same way.’
‘Walks like a duck – literally in this case – has to be him then.’
‘And Graham admitted to following Molly on other occasions, but claimed it was only because Ethel Dean asked him to.’
‘Refer previous comment. The man had form as a stalker. Everyone knows the next step up from common-or-garden stalking is a violent attack.’
‘I actually did not know that, Mum.’
‘It’s a logical progression when you stop to think about it.’
‘See, this is why I needed your input.’
‘Is there more?’
‘Just one last thing. Molly’s mother refused to give the police Adam Graham’s details, telling them, “He knows nothing. You do not want to go bothering him.”’
‘Uh-huh. Nothing suspicious there. The bastard did it.’
‘I made a few more notes, but it looks as if those were the main points to come out at the inquest. There are a couple of reports that Adam Graham said police treated him badly, but he didn’t cry police brutality. Anyway, even if the police were a bit rough, nothing he said to them was particularly incriminating by itself. It was his statement combined with the evidence of other witnesses that put him in the spotlight as a key suspect. The only problem is, even though the coroner committed Adam Graham for trial, he was never prosecuted. All the charges were dropped on the day the trial was due to start.’
‘What? That’s crazy! So the poor girl never got any justice?’ Mum stops and sighs. ‘Alex, much as I’d like to take this opportunity to fulfil my maternal duty and tell you to get a proper job, I have to admit you’re on to something. Not only is it interesting, but it seems like a story that should be told.’
‘Thanks Mum. And thanks for hearing me out.’
‘I still reserve the right to nag you if I think it’s warranted.’
‘I wouldn’t expect anything else.’
We talk a bit more before hanging up and I decide to go and grab Daphne’s notes and finish reading while everything is fresh in my head. I push the chair back from the desk and hear a crunch. A wheel is caught on a piece of paper; one of the printed articles had fallen from the stack and I hadn’t noticed. Picking it up, I see it’s from the Adelaide News and dated 30 January, the last day of the inquest. I scan the first few lines and realise this is not syndicated from a Melbourne daily. Molly’s murder was so sensational, the interstate newspapers had sent their own pressmen. A couple of paragraphs in there’s a new piece of information, something I hadn’t seen in any of the other articles. A young Elwood woman named Gladys Healey had spoken to police about Adam Graham. She’d known him for over a year because he looked after her car and had been working on it the week before Molly’s murder. All well and good, Graham was a mechanic after all and he probably did the same sort of thing for a few people. The thing is, Gladys kept her car garaged and naturally enough, Graham worked on the car in Gladys’s garage. A garage that happened to be located in the very same lane where Molly Dean was found.
I grab Daphne’s notes again, wondering what else there is to learn about Adam Graham, although I’m starting to think it doesn’t really matter: the cops clearly liked him as the murderer. There’s only another half page to read and it seems to confirm Adam Graham was in a relationship with Ethel Dean. Apparently, he was in the habit of parking his car under the streetlight in front of the Dean’s house, claiming it was safer there. But why leave your car a block away from your own home, unless you were spending time in a different bed?
Then I read Daphne’s final paragraph and now I’m even more certain of Adam Graham’s guilt. On the night of Molly’s murder, when detectives Lambell and O’Keeffe first went to tell Ethel Dean what had happened, Graham’s car was parked under the streetlight tightly covered. But when Lambell returned several hours later, the cover was gone. Either Adam Graham’s mother lied and he wasn’t asleep in bed at midnight, or he went out again. As Molly Dean lay in hospital, dying, the man with a history of following her was out in his car.
Of course, that still leaves me with a pressing question: why did the trial never happen?
1930
It was late by the time Molly swung back in the direction of Milton Street, but Saturday night meant the streets of St Kilda and Elwood were anything but quiet. A fitful wind had started blowing in from the west, whipping up whitecaps on the bay and snatching at the hats of unsuspecting pleasure-seekers. When she and Sarah left Luna Park, they linked arms to forge a path through the crowd streaming out of the Palais Pictures. A full house had spent the evening transfixed by two full-length films, and now nearly 3000 movie-goers swept across the St Kilda triangle. Some charted a course for home but others, determined to extract every last ounce of pleasure from the night, made their way toward the Palais de Dance or toward the coffee shops and soda fountains of Acland Street. Along the Esplanade, men still wrapped in distinctive red, white and black scarves, high on the combined effects of a win at the footy and a celebratory evening of sly grog, stumbled among the more smartly dressed Saturday night crowd.
Molly saw Sarah onto the South Yarra tram before turning for home, still smiling, even though her tired legs were telling her it was time for bed. She watched people as they passed, measuring their clothes and voices, picturing their lives, seeing some of them as characters in her soon-to-be-written novel. The crowds fell away as she moved into the residential streets, but the lights behind numerous curtains signalled that Molly was not the only one unwilling to surrender to sleep. Somewhere, a gramophone played, jazz spilling through the night. Molly kicked a heel up behind her as she recognised Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra playing ‘Happy Feet’, quickly glancing about to see if anyone had witnessed her impromptu Charleston step. The song carried her around the corner into Milton Street.
Her hand was on the gate, when from the other side of the road came the distinctive scrape and hiss of a match. She turned. A man stood in the shadowed gateway of the house across the street. His hands were cupped around the flame, the glowing tip of a cigarette flaring as he inhaled, briefly illuminating his face. Molly’s hand flew to her chest.
‘Adam Graham! You gave me the fright of my life. What on earth are you doing out here?’
‘Evenin’ Mary. Been visiting your ma and she sent me out to see if you were coming. Thought I’d have a fag and wait awhile, but here you are, large as life.’ Adam stepped from the darkness and walked slowly across the road toward Molly, a slight swagger in his step. As he passed through the sulphurous light of the street lamp, Adam’s stocky frame was thrown into stark relief, his shadow stretching away behind him, as though reluctant to leave the gloom. He veered away from her at the last moment and leaned against the fence, a few feet between them.
Molly’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him, at his large hand dwarfing the glowing cigarette. She realised he was wearing his homburg. ‘You haven’t been following me again, have you?’
Adam spread his arms wide. ‘I was just standing here and you came along.’ The cigarette tip bobbed and dipped like a firefly as he spoke, but his features were cast in shadow.
‘Why should I believe you? After last time? Besides, who wears a jacket and hat to step out for a smoko?’
There was silence except for the harsh rasp as Adam drew deep on his cigarette, then a sigh as he exhaled a steady stream of smoke that coiled up, thinned and dissipated into the night.
‘You were following me.’ Molly reached back and grabbed the iron spike of the fence, gripping it hard.
‘Your mother worries a
bout you.’
‘That’s rubbish and you know it. What I don’t understand is what you get out of it. Or is her bed part of the bargain?’ Molly’s voice was harsh.
Adam came up off the fence, fast, his hand raised.
‘You wouldn’t dare.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Not unless she asked you to, anyway.’
Adam lowered his hand and seemed to relax, slouching back against the fence and bending one leg to brace his foot on the railing. ‘Does it matter if I followed you? I didn’t bother you, just making sure you were safe.’
‘Stop it. I know you report back to her, tell her who I’m seeing and where I go.’
‘Look Mary, I like you.’ He paused as Molly sniffed derisively. ‘You know I like you and I thought we had a chance, but you’re for better things, aren’t you? Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Your brother doesn’t have a problem with me and your ma certainly don’t.’ Adam’s lips pursed around the cigarette.
‘Don’t.’ Molly’s eyes filled with tears. All the energy and joy of the evening were gone. ‘Don’t talk to me, don’t come near me, and don’t ever, ever follow me, no matter what she says. Lie to her if you have to but leave me alone. Once I’m gone, you can marry her and move in, or go back to Scotland and take her with you – I don’t care – but I want nothing to do with you. Ever.’ Molly half turned and unlatched the gate but stopped when she heard the sound of low laughter.
‘You ought to be thanking me, Mary Dean. Thanking me for looking out for you, because you know what happens when yer ma decides to follow you herself. Remember what happened that time at the university? Be a shame for your arty pals to hear Ethel carrying on like that now, wouldn’t it?’ Adam pushed himself off the fence and in two bounding steps was looming over her, hand on the gate, stopping Molly from opening it. He drew hard on the remains of his cigarette then flicked the butt away into the gutter where it glowed bright for a moment before it spluttered and died. ‘Just remember who your real friends are Mary, that’s all I’m sayin’.’
The Portrait of Molly Dean Page 10
