Read The Secret Fate of Mary Watson for Free Online

sly-grog shops, three opium dens, ten joss houses, countless gee fah and pak-a-pu shanties. And then there’s greed, holding both pockets closed while simultaneously trying to pick someone else’s. If all else fails: the wet season squatting over the chamber pot of the town is reason enough for a punch-up.
    Charley Boule’s garlic breath drags me back to the present, plants me firmly on the hard seat in a wide room brittle with the girls’ lacquered laughter. He’s apparently noticed my spirited playing. ‘Pianissimo,’ he murmurs in my ear.
    As usual, my suave French employer wears his too-tight waistcoat. It’s a vanity he won’t relinquish despite the sultry weather and the risk of torsion in his vital organs. A swollen swamp of cognac and rich sauces gurgles in the cauldron beneath the material.
    ‘What does it matter if I thump the keys?’ I ask. ‘No one’s listening anyway.’
    The blood’s sunk from the diggers’ eardrums to what’s between their legs. And the girls’ attention is in the same general area: just a little left of centre, in the pocket where the nuggets are.
    Charley clicks his tongue. ‘Subtleties of culture, chérie . They escape you entirely.’
    ‘Not entirely.’ I look sideways at him. ‘Not much escapes me, Charley. What will happen to that prospector? The one your two standover men dragged outside half an hour ago?’
    ‘They are my friends and protectors,’ he says mildly, inspecting his fingernails. ‘Name-calling is not nice. Did your mother never teach you that?’
    He places a damp hand on my arm. I look down to a garish gold ring. Nails clipped on a perfect horizontal; the ugly knobs of knuckles half an inchworm’s length away. I shake him off.
    ‘So that’s why you threw him out, because he was calling you names? Let me see. French sack of bilgewater was one, wasn’t it? And what was it he said he would do after he’d run you through with a knife? Feed scraps of your Froggy hide into the stamping machine you sent him out to the goldfields with.’
    He sighs. ‘Efficient, those little ears of yours. A pity they do not work for me.’ He smoothes his moustachio on one side and then the other.
    Percy was right. Charley is persistent, and patient. I’ve been testing a theory over the last few weeks; amplifying my insolence with every night that passes. He accepts it all, showing remarkably little irritation. He wants something from me, all right, and he’s prepared to wait for it.
    ‘You have my fingers,’ I say, a delicate injury in my voice. ‘Why would you need my ears?’
    He looks down at my big hands. ‘Ah, yes, your fingers. Alas, they appear the most useless part of the animal, if your playing is anything to go by. Do not gossip about the prospector, chérie . A slight misunderstanding, that is all. Charley Boule, in his generosity, tries to help those less fortunate. Such charity always backfires on the selfless.’
    ‘Of course.’ I nod, as though a curtain has parted. ‘It’s a translation problem! Now that you’ve pointed it out, it seems so obvious. You see, what you call charity in France, we call loansharking here in Australia.’
    His face goes an unflattering shade of pink, but he doesn’t explode. ‘I do not understand your ridiculous expression. Stop pounding those keys like a wounded kangaroo. This is a salon, not a dance hall.’
    ‘Yes, Charley.’
    I obediently slow the pace, turn my eyes back to the piano, so that he’ll walk away. My little experiment in stretching a Frenchman until he snaps has been interrupted by something more important. I’ve just seen one of Percy’s contacts in the periphery of my gaze. A crewman who almost certainly has a note for me.
    Charley waddles off. The gaunt-looking sailor approaches the piano. Nothing untoward in that. Many do, requesting a favourite tune. I keep playing as though I haven’t noticed him. Wait for his words.
    ‘Do you know the William Tell Overture , Miss Oxnam?’
    ‘Yes,