‘I’m going outside,’ I shouted against the din. Topaz just nodded, but I felt his eyes on the back of my head as I reached the door and left the hall. On the lawn outside, lightning bugs of inhaled cigarettes flickered here and there. The moon was strong, and white teeth glowed amid the laughter and the shouts of recognition as friends met.
I felt a hand fall heavily on my shoulder. The fingers curled into a painful clutch, which I ducked out of, and I turned to see who had had the temerity to grab at me. It was Fred Drummond. He was in uniform and he was drunk — bloody-minded drunk. Breath hissed from behind his teeth, his rage so raw it was beyond language. He stood there, like a Neanderthal, arms hanging by his side, air rushing up from his lungs. There were people all around us, some of them noticing that a confrontation might be about to begin. I did not want to end up wrestling Fred Drummond before a live audience. Quite apart from anything else, I was fairly confident of his ability to turn my face into a piece of raw beef. He grabbed my shirt-front, and I heard buttons pop.
‘Where is she?’ he said, and before I could even take in what he was saying he screamed the question again.
‘Where is she!!!???’
I was aware that the chattering and laughter around us had stopped.
‘Get your hands off me!’ I said, with a fierceness borrowed from my repertoire of stage emotions. I felt anything but fierce. Fred Drummond was a quivering, unpredictable mass of sinew and psychosis, and the moonlight glancing off the whites of his eyes made him appear truly demented. He let go of my shirt and, as I foolishly attempted to tuck it back into my trousers, he landed a punch with full force to my right eye. My head snapped round and pulled my body after it so that I sprawled on the ground, landing heavily on my left shoulder. All sound had been sucked out of the world except for a small gasp which may have come from a person near me, or from my own mouth. I turned, numb with shock, and saw Fred Drummond standing at my feet, both fists clenched and his lips drawn back ferally over his teeth.
Suddenly a figure moved in front of Drummond, and another figure moved close behind him. I couldn’t see clearly, but it seemed as if the man behind Drummond wrapped his arms around him. The man with his back to me delivered two sharp, ferocious punches to Drummond’s belly, and he doubled over, released now from the grip that had pinned his arms to his sides. The man who had punched him looked down at me before moving off into the night. I recognised him as the cyclist who had given Polly a message about money that Fred owed him. Fred was gasping, supporting himself with one hand on the ground and clutching his stomach with the other. I almost felt sorry for him, until he vomited — most of it splashing onto my right trouser leg and seeping into my shoe. The last few bars of ‘In the Mood’ leaked from the hall, followed by muted applause. This was my cue, and I knew that after the next number I was expected to run the raffle and tell a few jokes. This was, after all, advertised as a ‘jollification’, a state I felt some distance from at that moment.
I was helped to my feet by an airman who thought I ‘should stay off the grog, mate.’ I didn’t bother to correct him, anxious as I was to put some distance between me and the temporarily discommoded Fred Drummond. I squelched my way towards the door. The show must go on, and there’s no show without Punch, or in this case, Punched. I ran that raffle as though nothing had happened, feeling all the while my eye swelling and a creek of blood dribbling down my face. Naturally, my appearance excited comment, and the whispers and giggles echoed weirdly in my ears until suddenly they seemed to come from very far away. My nostrils were assaulted by the foul odour of the contents of Fred Drummond’s stomach. The warm metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. All eyes were upon me, and someone was pointing at me. Her mouth was moving, but I could not make out what she was saying. The only sound that reached my ears was the sound of my own breathing, and it was noisily expressive of panic. I had experienced this sensation before, and I knew that it was a prelude to passing out.
I tried to make it into the wings, but the steps I took led me to the edge of the stage where I swayed precariously for a moment before falling forward into darkness. It’s quite a drop from the stage to the floor of the auditorium in the Maryborough Town Hall. I was unconscious when I hit the boards, so I neither heard nor felt the nauseating crack of my arm breaking. I floated in and out of consciousness, my body having been presented with a few very good reasons for going into shock. A montage of faces peered at me. Someone may have said, ‘Give him air.’ Someone certainly said, ‘He stinks of sick.’ It sounded like Annie Hudson. A stretcher was produced from somewhere, and I closed my eyes and willed myself back into the anaesthetised safety of unconsciousness.
I woke in a hospital bed. Peter Topaz was standing at the end of it.
‘Why is it that whenever I open my eyes, you’re there staring at me?’
‘It must be love.’
I propped myself up, groggily, and discovered that my left arm was encased in plaster.
‘Great dance,’ said Topaz. ‘Absolutely first-class entertainment. When I asked you to emcee, though, I don’t recall suggesting that you do it three sheets to the wind.’
‘Hey, I was
not
drunk. I passed out, that’s all, and it was just a delayed reaction to being punched in the eye by that lunatic Drummond. I hope he’s locked up.’
‘We did have reports of a drunken brawl between the two of you.’
‘He was drunk. I was sober. He was screaming something at me about his sister.’
Topaz pulled a notebook from his crisply ironed top pocket and flicked through it.
‘“Where is she?”’ he read. ‘Are those the words he used?’
‘You have been busy, haven’t you? Yes. Those are the words he used. Only a lot louder and a lot more deranged.’
‘And?’ He scratched at his chest through his shirt.
‘And what?’
‘And where is she?’
‘Is that a serious question?’
‘I’m not suggesting that you have her stashed away in some cosy little love nest. I’m afraid it’s worse than that. I’m pretty sure she’s been murdered.’
He was watching my reaction very closely, although the swollen state of my face would have made interpreting any little flicker difficult. As it was, I had no interest in disguising my reaction. I was frankly horrified, not just at the notion that Polly Drummond had been murdered, but that Peter Topaz might actually believe that I had had something to do with it.
‘Are you accusing me of murder?’ I said. My voice was shaking, and not just with indignation, but also fear. I felt helpless to defend myself.
‘I’m just making inquiries. You were one of the last people to see her alive.’
‘You don’t know yet that she isn’t still alive.’
‘That’s true,’ he said, and smiled at me. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. It’s probably the last thing you need right now. That eye looks pretty bad. Fred must have landed a solid one.’
It was only when Topaz drew attention to my eyes that I realised that I had been looking at him through only one of them. The injured one had closed over.
A robust woman with red, chapped hands and large, impressive breasts came into the room, and in a business-like manner took my unplastered wrist and timed my pulse. She was the matron of this establishment.
‘You’ve been in the wars,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why people drink, really I don’t.’
‘I was not drinking,’ I said testily.
‘Of course not. You come in here covered in your own sick, and you’ve obviously been in a drunken fight, but you weren’t drinking. Really, Mr Power. I didn’t come down in the last shower.’
‘No,’ I countered. ‘I imagine there have been many showers since you first came down in one.’
‘You can go home today,’ she said haughtily. ‘Your clothes are in a bag at the end of the bed. They haven’t been cleaned.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Peter Topaz. ‘I took the liberty of getting you a clean change of clothes. Arthur — is that his name? — went into your room and collected them for me. He was going to come along, to see how you were, but I said there was no need, I’d have you back at the George before lunchtime.’
‘Why are you being so kind to me?’
‘Well, Will, it’s like this: I think that you murdered Polly Drummond, and I want to keep an eye on you.’
The smile that spread across his face when he said this was not the smile of a man who wished it to be known that he was only joking. It was a smile which eloquently expressed the certainty that he had found his man and that all he had to do now was wait for the evidence against me to mount up.
‘I think,’ I said, ‘that I’m going to be sick.’
‘Of course,’ he said, and I threw up all over the bed sheets.
If I had been expecting a sympathetic welcome back at the George, I would have been disappointed. The whole company was gathered in the kitchen, helping prepare for the following night’s dinner. The George did not serve dinner on a Sunday night. Vegetables were being chopped into tiny dice, and bones were being roasted for stock. Tibald said that I looked like shit, and that he hoped my unfortunate introduction to the people of Maryborough wouldn’t put them off coming to his dining room. Adrian snidely muttered something about the inadvisability of getting mixed up with rough trade. Bill Henty said that if I’d been fitter I might have been able to look after myself better. I said that I was going up to my room and that I didn’t want to be disturbed. Peter Topaz, who was hanging around to consolidate his attachment to Annie, no doubt, said that he hoped I felt better soon. I gave him what I calculated to be a withering look, but it is difficult to be withering with only one eye at one’s disposal.
‘Sergeant Topaz thinks that I murdered Polly Drummond,’ I announced. I had hoped that this statement would arouse a chorus of outrage and disapproval, and that Topaz would be embarrassed and obliged to defend his absurd accusation before a hostile audience. Instead, my words were met with silence. It was not the silence of the recently appalled, but the silence of those who have just had a suspicion satisfactorily confirmed. Annie Hudson was the first to speak.
‘And did you?’
I could easily have wrung her neck at that point and been sent down for life a happy man. I hadn’t expected Annie to turn on me.
‘Thanks very much,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your loyalty and support.’
‘There’s no need to get all hot and bothered,’ said Adrian. ‘It’s a natural question.’
‘Well, pardon me, Adrian, if I seem a little upset to discover that my own company thinks that I might actually be capable of killing someone.’
Tibald took a noisy sip from a spoon dipped into a steaming pot on the Aga.
‘Given the right set of circumstances,’ he said, ‘we are all capable of murder. This is delicious.’
‘Relax,’ said Annie. ‘I don’t think any of us believe you’ve got the balls to commit a murder.’
‘You have an offensive remark for every situation,’ I said, and left the room. I was furious with all of them. Only Arthur unequivocally and inoffensively came to my defence. He said that it was perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain that I did not have the killer instinct. His loyalty was reassuring, and reaffirmed that, of all the members of my troupe, he was the one on whom I could most depend. The cast on my arm felt heavy, and a dull ache began to insinuate itself into my consciousness. I ran a bath but didn’t enjoy it. The effort required to keep the cast dry made me sit uncomfortably. I decided that the next day I would have to confront Fred Drummond. The vehemence of his attack on me made me think that perhaps he was as innocent of wrongdoing as I was. If I could reason with him when he was sober, perhaps we could piece together Polly’s movements that night. Perhaps, too, I could convince him that I had nothing to do with his sister’s disappearance. I was anxious to avoid any further public confrontations with him, and I was sure that unless I got him on side he was capable of inflicting far more damage than a swollen, discoloured eye.
The next day I borrowed Augie’s bicycle. It was awkward manipulating it with one arm in a sling, but I managed quite well. I rode down Lennox Street towards the airfield, where I assumed Fred Drummond would be training. Trying his house first was out of the question. I wanted to meet him in a place where he would be reluctant to attack me on sight. If he wasn’t at the airfield I would wait until he turned up.
When I arrived at the aerodrome I was told that I would not be able to enter the wireless air-gunner training area without authorisation. I was not willing to give up, not after having ridden this distance perilously balanced on an ancient bicycle. I pushed it around the perimeter fence until I reached a place from which I could observe the buildings that constituted the training facility. After only a few minutes a man in a RAAF uniform came across to where I was standing, wanting to know what business I had there. I introduced myself.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I was there the other night when you came a cropper. Too much turps, eh?’
‘No,’ I answered patiently. ‘I was sober.’
‘Oh, I see. Just feeling unwell.’
‘I’m after Fred Drummond,’ I said, allowing him his limp facetiousness. ‘I believe he trains here.’
‘He does,’ he said. ‘He’s up at the moment.’
‘Up?’
‘Flying.’