'That hit the spot, eh, mate?'
'Too right.'
The pub was filling rapidly as the temperature outside climbed. The Albion was a spacious pub, built in the days when a public house with any pretensions to gentility had to have fourteen foot ceilings, brass taps and a polished wooden bar you could skate down. It had no floor coverings, but the black and white tiles were cool in the heat. Bert, in his reflective moments, considered that if heaven didn't have a well-appointed pub where a man could sit down over a beer for a yarn with the other angels, then he didn't want to go there.
'Mate,' Cec nudged him. 'Looks like trouble.'
Even in Arcadia, thought Bert resignedly, and looked where Cec indicated. A bulky middle-aged man was raising his voice to carry over the hum of peaceful voices. His dark face was flushed with beer. He had been in the pub for a while. Five empty glasses were on his table and his ashtray was full of butts. The fact that these had not been cleared away spoke volumes of the Management's desire not to retain him as a customer.
'What I mean to say is the rotten cow shouldn't ha' sacked me just like that,' declared the drinker, sharing his grievance with the pub at large. 'Just because I lost his flamin' dustcoat. It was an old rag anyway. It's going against the dignity of the working man to make him wear a dustcoat.'
'That was six months ago,' said the barman resignedly. 'You gotta get over this, Jack.'
'I ain't had a job that lasted more than a few days since,' complained Jack. 'This country's going down the gurgler, that's where it's going. Things ain't been the same since the war—that's what done for us fighting men.'
'You weren't in the Great War,' said a nearby drinker. 'You spent your whole time in the bloody pay corps while we was sweatin' blood at Pozieres.'
'About now,' said Bert to Cec, and ordered another beer.
'How will it go?' asked Cec. Bert was never wrong about the progress of a fight.
'He'll scream at the digger that he was too in the fighting,' predicted Bert.
'I fought all right!' yelled Jack.
'Then some other coot will put his oar in ...' said Bert.
'No, you bloody wasn't. Anyway, Alderton, what's happened to all that money you was flashing around? Lost it on the gees?' asked another drinker, evidently devoid of the sense of self-preservation so essential in tete-a-tetes in Australian hotels, or else fancying his chances.
'Then Alderton will stand up and offer to fight everyone ...' said Bert.
'I'll fight any man in this pub!' howled Black Jack Alderton, pulling off his coat.
'And then someone will king-hit him,' said Bert.
The soldier from Pozieres rose to the challenge. He was small, with a gamecock walk and big hands, so pale that the inexperienced might have thought that he was afraid. But Bert knew that he was flooded with cold rage. His dad had always told him that the red-faced were blusterers, not to be taken seriously. 'But if you see a bloke who's pale and shaking, son,' Bert's father had instructed, 'then run like blazes, because he might flamin' kill you.' Bert watched with interest, hoping that he would not have to interfere.
Without any preparation or parley, the soldier walked up to the big man and hit him matter-of-factly on the point of the chin. A beautiful punch, thought Bert. Perfectly placed, delivered with just the right amount of force and exactly what was needed to restore the peace of the Albion. Mr Alderton was jarred off his heels and went down with a crash.
'Silly coot,' someone remarked.
'That's our man,' said Bert to Cec.
'What do you want to do?'
'I reckon that the barman is about to assist Mr Alderton into the street. Perhaps we can do it for him,' said Bert.
No one commented as they shouldered through the crowd, lifted Mr Alderton by the heels and shoulders, and carried him out. The barman opened the door for them.
'What are you goin' ter do with him?' he asked, curiously.
'Sell him to the white slave trade,' grunted Bert, manoeuvring the body down the worn front steps.
'Well, I hope you get a good price for damaged goods,' said the barman. 'Don't bring him back, will yer?' he added, and closed the door.
Bert and Cec placed Mr Alderton gently on the cobbles of the lane next to the hotel. The man was already beginning to stir and groan. Bert knew that he was also about to throw up. This looked like a good place to do it in—the lane had a suitable gutter running down the middle of it and water was available from a nearby tap.
'We want you to answer some questions,' he said.
'Jus' go away and let me die,' groaned the patient.
'Not yet,' said Bert. 'You get to die later. There might be a quid in it,' he hinted. One bloodshot eye peeled open.
'How much?'
An unpleasant interlude followed. The ex-driver was in such a bad way that Cec was forced to go into the pub and buy a hip flask of brandy to bring Black Jack up to his usual operating level, which was not very high.
'Now go over it for us,' said Bert patiently.
'More brandy.'
'Not yet, you'll be seein' snakes, and I want you with us. Do you remember delivering a box to the bookshop in the Eastern Market last Thursday?'
'No,' said Black Jack.
'Then you're no use to us,' said Bert, getting up and brushing the knees of his trousers. 'Or anyone else,' he added, looking down at the disgusting figure now sitting on the cobbles.
'No, wait,' said Alderton, grasping at Bert's knees. 'I didn't deliver it myself. But I know about it.'
'Yair?' asked Cec with strong disbelief. He had no time for drunks. 'What d'ya know?'
'I used to work for Gibson, but he sold up and moved out. I ain't found a decent job since then. But when I put on my driver's coat to take this box to the market, from Ballarat it was, bloody heavy.' Black Jack stopped, having lost his thread.
'You put on your driver's coat,' prompted Bert.
'Yair, I put it on and found that I had a pad of Gibson's old waybills in the pocket. I hadn't worn the coat for a while. I got to the market and I was unloading in the underneath part, you know, where the trucks go. See, the boss had just sacked me, that box was my last delivery, then I was goin' to be out on the street again, so long, son. I was crook on it.'
'Yair, life is tough for the working man,' agreed Bert. For the first time in his life, he was sympathizing with a capitalist. 'What happened in the undercroft?'
'This bloke came up to me, see, and said he was playing a joke on a friend. He wanted to borrow my dispatch book and my dustcoat and cap and gloves. He said he'd deliver the box. Well, what's a man to do when he's got a coot offerin' a pound for a simple little joke? I didn't see no harm in it. He scribbled a name on my own dispatch note, so the bloody boss couldn't say I was half-inchin' his delivery.'
'So what happened then?' asked Bert. He was revolted. He had no difficulty with or moral objection to most crime—some of his best friends were criminals, and property was theft after all—but he hated liars, and Black Jack Alderton wasn't even a very good liar. Didn't see any harm in it, indeed. Bert wondered if his dive into the bottle had anything to do with the murderous implications of this simple little joke.
'Why didn't he just take your dispatch book, then?'
'Dunno.' Mr Alderton's face creased. Cec wondered how many brain cells he had left. He was reaching a working estimate—about six—when Bert asked, 'What did this bloke who liked expensive jokes look like?'
'Didn't see him clear,' replied Alderton. 'He had to be about the same size as me, I reckon, or me coat wouldn't have fitted him. I thought he talked sort of funny. I'd had a few,' he admitted. 'That's why the boss threw me out. They're always out to do down the honest man.'
'Yair,' said Bert. Cec was impressed with how much scorn Bert could pack into one syllable. 'Here's your quid,' he added, dropping it into Mr Alderton's spattered lap. 'Don't drink it all at once.'
Phryne dropped Miss Lee at her own house. Dot, possessed of fellow feeling, insisted on the bath being the best available, and the best bath in Melbourne was certainly Miss Fisher's. The ex-prisoner's reserve was showing
