Away With The Fairies (10 page)

‘Whereas you’re not sad, are you? You’re cross. That’s why you scream,’ said Phryne, wishing to squash any further familial revelations.

‘Mmm,’ agreed Wendy, a little disconcerted.

‘You’ll get better results if you don’t scream,’ Phryne suggested. Wendy shook her head.

‘Oh. Yes, of course. Unless you scream no one notices you, do they?’

Phryne had no idea of how much, if any, of this conversation Wendy understood. Possibly most of it. She was what Mrs Butler would call an uncanny child.

‘Come along,’ she said.

Wendy dug in her heels. ‘Want to stay here with you,’ she said mutinously.

‘Sorry. You can’t always get what you want by screaming. And if you wish to scream, go ahead. But I am going back, and so are you,’ said Phryne quietly.

Blue eyes met green ones. Steely will met steely will. But Phryne had had twenty more years of being determined. The child took her hand. Not defeated. Momentarily outclassed.

Back at the office Wendy, her raging addiction satisfied for the time being, sat down with Miss Phillips’s collection of waste paper and began to draw peacefully. Mrs Opie gave up trying to decipher her script and dictated her piece on ‘Your Child’ extempore. Phryne watched Miss Prout laying out pages for the printer.

It was most interesting. The typed text was cut into pieces and glued to the layout page, which was the size of the finished product.

‘See, we use demi folio with a one-inch margin,’ said Miss Prout, scissoring around a sketch and gluing it firmly in place. The printer uses this as his guide, so it has to be right. No wobbly edges, no unruled headings, and never—horror of horrors—any unused space. Just down here I’m going to put the Laurel kerosene ad. It makes a perfect margin. Useful stuff, kerosene. Australians employ it for everything from cleaning off oil stains to treating tonsillitis.’

‘That would certainly cure one of ever wanting to have tonsillitis again,’ said Phryne. The page grew under Miss Prout’s expert touch.

‘And Laurel have been great supporters. We need the advertising fees to fund the day-to-day running of the magazine. The subscribers pay for the production and distribution and sometimes we even have a little over. Feel like taking an advert, Miss Fisher?’

‘Not today, thank you,’ said Phryne, trying to watch everyone in the office at once. How would they react to the revelation of Phryne’s trade which was about to be made by the loquacious Miss Prout?

‘Why would Miss Fisher want an advert?’ asked Miss Phillips. ‘That’s really very good, Wendy. What is it?’

‘A horse,’ replied Wendy with deep scorn.

‘Oh yes, so it is.’

‘You’re holding it upside down!’ cried the child. Phryne looked at her. She subsided. This woman held ice cream or no ice cream in the palm of her powerful hand. Wendy had discovered religious awe and was silent in the presence of the goddess.

‘Why, she’s a private detective, she’s the famous Phryne Fisher who retrieved the Spanish Ambassador’s son’s kitten, and broke the cocaine ring, and found the kidnapped child of that lottery winner,’ said Miss Prout loudly.

‘It was nothing, really,’ murmured Phryne modestly.

Interesting. Miss Phillips looked mildly intrigued, Mrs Opie was staggered, Miss Grigg likewise and Miss Gallagher, who in any case, having gathered her scorned savouries, had retired to the kitchen to sulk. Miss Herbert was fascinated. But Mrs McAlpin, returning from the cathedral, looked amazed and Miss Nelson dropped the tripod she was carrying with a crash.

‘You really are a clumsy creature,’ observed Mrs McAlpin evenly. ‘Pick it up, do, and lay it against the wall where no one can trip over it. You’re a private detective, Miss Fisher? How on earth did you become so?’

‘Largely chance,’ Phryne told her. ‘I found out I had a talent for solving puzzles. That kitten, for instance, had merely followed its nose into a fishmarket and had been locked in. I just had to find the nearest source of fish and there it was. Cold, of course, and covered in scales, but perfectly all right. Just a matter of understanding human nature—or feline nature, in that case. How did the photography go?’

‘I shall know when I get to my darkroom. I’ve taken six plates, that should be enough. But it was an experiment. I varied the shutter speed. Such a luxury.’

‘What’s a luxury?’ asked Phryne.

‘There we are, Miss Nelson, you can take that down to the printer. Are you all right?’ asked Miss Prout. Miss Nelson was flushed and shaking.

‘Oh, I’m all right, just the stairs are a bit steep. Give me your layout, Miss Prout, I’ll take it right away,’ said the girl breathlessly. She grabbed the rolled sheet and vanished.

There goes a guilty conscience, thought Phryne. I wonder what she’s guilty about? Nothing worse than nicking more than her share of coconut macaroons, perhaps? Or something more?

‘The luxury is having as many plates as I need to get the photograph I envisage. They’re very expensive. Not as many plates as I want, of course. No photographer ever has as many plates as she wants. But as many as I need.’

‘Paid for by
Women’s Choice
?’ asked Phryne.

‘Yes, dear, of course. I’m the photographer. If I’ve got the perfect shot for the mag’s purposes, I can use the rest on what I want to take.’

‘You’re very good,’ said Phryne. ‘I’ve been looking at your work.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mrs McAlpin, as though she had been complimented on the brilliance of her Harvest Festival flower arrangement. She sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

‘You are about to ask me how I became a photographer,’ she said placidly. ‘Fair enough, since I asked you a personal question first. Well, there were all these photographic magazines in the attic at my father’s manse, you see, and because I was often a bad child I used to be shut in the attic and told not to come out until I was ready to be good.’

‘Ah, the child-rearing practices of yesteryear,’ said Mrs Opie. ‘Two m’s in commendable, Miss Herbert, if you please. Responsible for so many neuroses.’

‘Possibly,’ agreed Mrs McAlpin dryly. ‘But in this case, I was so fascinated by the photography magazines that I often didn’t come down at all and had to be fetched and forgiven. My father, God rest his soul, thought that I was truly penitent. I’m not sure that I didn’t manufacture naughtinesses so as to be banished to the attic, either. Anyway, I read all I could, and then I needed a camera. Fortunately, my brother had bought one and most of the equipment but had lost interest when he found out how difficult it was. Those old cameras were so slow—the exposures were three and four seconds—which accounts for the strained look on the faces of most of the portraits. I scrimped and scrimped from my dress allowance and bought plates and chemicals.’

‘Didn’t your family disapprove?’

‘Not really, dear, they weren’t really interested. They thought it was just a fad and I’d get over it when I married, as gels were supposed to do in those days. Ladies, you know, used to paint in watercolours and do poker-work and make fire-screens with tapestry depictions of Landseer dogs on them—terrible, time-wasting, time-killing rubbish. All their descendants flung the stuff on the bonfire as soon as they were safely dead. I wasn’t going to fritter away my time on making bobbin-lace which no one would wear. My mother was furious when she found out how the acids stain the hands, but Father just smiled and said that I had to have something to amuse myself with, so she made me wear gloves on all social occasions. My first real photograph was of an oak tree. I still recall the thrill as I saw it develop in the rocker.’

‘Perhaps photography has more rewards than painting,’ Phryne observed. ‘More immediate.’

‘As a medium it is instant,’ said Mrs McAlpin. ‘One can spend hours setting up the shot, fussing about the angle, messing about with the focus. Then just as one whips the shutter open, the light changes, or some idiot walks in front of the lens. Anything can go wrong, even a wobble in the tripod. And, of course, one doesn’t know how it is going to look until it is developed, and then it is never what one has actually seen. This theory that the camera never lies is false. The picture is never what a human eye sees, what a human mind interprets. And, of course, if it is ruined, one cannot do it again. The moment has gone.’

‘Frustrating,’ commented Phryne.

‘Yes, but fascinating,’ Mrs McAlpin smiled. ‘The very first magazine had an article which began, “Now we can paint pictures with light”. The phrase took my fancy.’

‘And do you find your art improves with experience?’ asked Phryne.

‘Oh yes, dear, the best photographers are old ones. The equipment is improving all the time, the shutter speeds are faster, the plates more reliable, the cameras themselves are smaller and lighter. But beginning on those old, heavy, slow cameras was a great apprenticeship,’ said Mrs McAlpin. ‘They taught patience.’

‘And Mother must never forget that Baby does not understand how she is feeling,’ dictated Mrs Opie. ‘I said, “Mother must never forget”, Miss Herbert, not “always forget”. Can’t you try to get it right?’

‘And patience,’ said Mrs McAlpin, ‘is a virtue.’

The day moved on to its close. Typewriters were covered. Ashtrays were emptied. Miss Nelson returned, collected her bag, and left, creeping down the steps like a mouse. Miss Grigg completed her rewiring, attached the machine to a small electric construction, and grinned as the machine whirred into life. Miss Herbert abandoned Mrs Opie’s piece when it appeared that she would have to find the last page, having brought along a sheet of instructions on how to prepare banana fool instead of ‘Your Child’. Mrs Charlesworth emerged in a smart hat and bade the office go home and come back tomorrow bright and early.

‘Really must go, ladies,’ said Phryne. ‘Until tomorrow.’

She breezed out. As soon as she emerged onto the street she was immediately placed in a ‘come along o’ me’ grip by a worried policeman.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Wei Yi intimates progress and success. We see a
young fox that has nearly crossed the stream when
its tail gets immersed.

Hexagram 64: Wei Yi
The I Ching Book of Changes

‘Hello, Jack, dear! Are you arresting me?’ asked Phryne, casting a significant glance at the hand closed on her upper arm. Robinson removed it.

‘Sorry. We’ve just got the results on that postmortem,’ he said, his unexceptionable face lined with worry. ‘It’s murder, all right, though I can’t imagine how it was done. Or rather, there are far too many ways it could have been done.’

‘What sort of unnatural death got meted out to the fairy lady?’ asked Phryne patiently.

‘Poison,’ said Robinson. ‘Prussic acid.’

‘Ah, yes, that would explain the blue face,’ said Phryne. ‘So it’s a murder investigation, now?’

‘Yes, and thanks to that blasted doctor being so slow on the uptake, all the evidence has got mucked up and the scene of the crime’s been trampled over by half the inhabitants of Melbourne.’ Robinson pulled bitterly at his hat brim.

‘Never mind, Jack, dear. When we find out how, we may well know who. Was the prussic acid ingested?’

‘Or inhaled. It dissipates rapidly in the bloodstream. I wish old Keats hadn’t retired. This new young bloke isn’t half as clever as he thinks he is.’

‘You’ve collected all the food, plates, glasses, toothpaste, gin and so on from Wee Nooke?’ asked Phryne.

‘Of course. They’re still being tested.’

‘That’s a good start. Now, I’ve been talking all day with the main actors in this little domestic drama. So far I haven’t managed to bring the conversation around to Miss Lavender. I’ll try tomorrow. But the editress, Mrs Charlesworth, asked me to ask you if she can have a box of letters which might belong to the magazine.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Jack.

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘You suppose not. You turn all constabulary and Tribune of the People on me and tell me firmly that everything found at the scene of the crime is evidence and she can’t have them.
Répétez, s’il vous plait
.’

‘I’m afraid that everything at the scene of a crime is evidence and cannot be released,’ said Jack Robinson obediently.

‘
Bon!
And a determined lady editress of a women’s magazine won’t change your mind?’ asked Phryne sweetly.

Jack quailed a little but said, ‘Sorry, madam. It’s the law.’

‘Very good. Stick to that like a good ’un.’

‘Why?’ asked Robinson. ‘What’s in the letters?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Phryne. ‘But I mean to spend this evening finding out.’

‘We’ve got statements from all the people in the house,’ said Robinson. ‘But they don’t say much. Nice lady, kept to herself, pity about her mania for fairies but each to his own, etc. Now we’ll have to find out all about Miss Lavender—who she knew, where she came from, where she went …’

‘And who hated her enough to kill her. Well, there is a fine selection of suspects in
Women’s Choice
, though, as I said, I haven’t talked about Miss Lavender yet.’

‘You’ve been there a whole day,’ said Robinson. ‘What’ve you been doing?’

‘Teaching them about style,’ said Miss Fisher.

‘You’d know,’ agreed Robinson. ‘But see if you can get something out of them tomorrow. My chief ’s going crook. Reckons if we can’t come up with something soon the press’ll get hold of it and there’ll be hell to pay. I’ve got a young constable finding out all the usual details, birth certificate, that sort of thing.’

‘All right, Jack, dear, I’ll see what I can do.’

Phryne refrained from patting the Detective Inspector on the cheek in deference to the
Public Order Act
1912, and took herself home on the tram.

Which one of the people in the house or the magazine would make a good murderer?

Access to the house was easy. One could just walk along the tunnel from the tennis court and emerge into the garden. From there one could infiltrate the house and spike any strongly flavoured comestible with prussic acid, which dissolved readily. It tasted and smelt of bitter almonds, but in Miss Lavender’s highly scented house an almond smell wouldn’t make a dent. In fact, it would just intensify the general aroma, because she used sweet almond oil in those lamp sleeves.