of course they all get frightened, except for the real murderous monsters, but this little bung held out a bit, kept his silence. At the beginning, I just wanted to hear what he could tell me about Hoyt, confirm he was picking those pockets on Hoyt’s orders to pay for the circus. I threatened him with long prison terms, which I might have been able to secure, depending on how many people came forward with complaints of larceny. But your Mr. Caldwell still kept quiet. Did Hoyt tell him to steal? Nothing. I described his life in prison to him. Nothing. I say the judge can decide to sentence him to the Army for his role in this lurk, and off he can go to help fight the Kaiser in a far-off field of France, have his head blown open for his trouble, and how did that sound to him? Nothing. ‘You been doing it with Hoyt’s wife, then? Because Mr. Hoyt, he’s a very angry old man. Hates you. Tells me you’re the rapist of his wife as well as a thief.’ But our Paul’s not reacting, not even whingeing, until very slowly, he turns to me and he says, ‘Can you send me to the Army if I help you?’ and I have to say I didn’t see what he meant, but clear as day he wanted something. So now our negotiations begin in earnest, I’m sure you can understand, Mr. Ferrell. We begin to speak in highly removed hypotheticals. What would I be able to arrange for him if he could tell me something extraordinary? Just what would he be able to tell me if I were to know a man who might be able to deliver such a solution? ‘So let’s see the merchandise, young Mr. Caldwell, and make it ace,’ I say. First, Paul says yes, Hoyt trained him to steal, forced him to steal, Paul kept only a small percentage of the take and the rest of the loot paid for the circus, fed the tigers. ‘Hoyt told me to do it, Hoyt took all of the money, and Hoyt’s the one who taught me how to pick a pocket and Hoyt Hoyt Hoyt.’ Interesting, I say, but not enough for the deal you’re asking for. All right, then, he says, and thinks silently for a minute. How about this: did I remember the Zipping Zivkovics? Two visiting star acrobats killed in a horrible accident during a performance of Hoyt’s circus last year? Well, what if Paul could prove that they had been murdered by Hoyt in order to inflate circus attendance, since people always came in droves when there was a chance of seeing accidental death? More interesting, I admitted, but still not enough to secure him the very special package he requested. He sat and looked at his feet for a long while. I wondered if he was asleep, with his head hanging like that, or discouraged, or working up a whopper. But I waited, and I watched. Five minutes, ten minutes, I knew that every minute I kept quiet I was going to get a good one, if it wasn’t just fairy tales. I could see his lips moving, he’s thinking through something. And then he lifts his head and he looks me in the eye and says, cool as anything, ‘Would you do it for a conspiracy of violent Communist plotters in the heart of Sydney?’ Well, Mr. Ferrell, now he had my attention.
“The agreement he wanted took some time to guarantee. It was a heavy order, but if what he said was true, it was worth it. I said I’m a man of my word, but this would take some time to explore, and he said, I remember it well, he said, ‘Take your time. World revolution and the destruction of all police power certainly isn’t worth hurrying for.’ And he laughed in my face.”
The deal, Macy, was simple in principle, if a little complicated to execute. Paul wanted to be sent to join the Australian Imperial Force in Egypt, and he wanted it guaranteed that he would stay in Egypt for as long as the AIF was there. No Gallipoli, thanks, no Luxembourg, thanks. He would do his time in the AIF in Egypt and nowhere else. He told Dahlquist he could read Egyptian and knew the geography of the country as well as any Australian, and he’d learnt to ride a horse at Hoyt’s place. In exchange, well, the Barrys and their friends. Of course, he held on to those names a bit longer. He talked very generally of the things Dahlquist would find, until