Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (12 page)

‘How about Brazell, was that his name, the anthropologist?’

‘Spends most of his life wandering around observing the beastly customs of the heathen.’ Professor Bretherton laughed quietly. ‘That’s why he’s so well-mannered. Says one gets that way if the penalty for lack of decorum at dinner is likely to be a thorough spearing. Charming feller, funny he’s never married. No money, of course. He has a permanent feud with Ayers the archaeologist, he’s a fanatic about Egypt. Ayers says that there are more things to be discovered, not at the Valley of the Kings, but at a village nearby where the artificers lived. He’s petitioning for funds to excavate. Brazell wants the money spent on Aboriginal remains, middens and so on. He says we should learn about our own country before we start digging up other people’s. Ayers isn’t at all interested in Stone Age cultures and finds that the Egyptian climate agrees with him.’

‘The climate or the people?’ asked Phryne, observing a glint in the professorial eye.

‘Ah, well, you see, people with Ayers’ tendencies in Australia have to travel. I mean, they can’t just pop over to Tangier to find…’

‘…Complaisant company?’ hazarded Phryne. ‘So he likes Egypt’s beautiful girls?’

‘Not precisely.’ Professor Bretherton paused until Phryne got the hint. ‘But a dear good chap after all. I like both of them. Ayers is very funny about foreign customs, and Brazell has a pretty wit. They can even beguile a faculty meeting.’

‘So Ayers wants to head off to Cairo with a copy of André Gide’s latest in his pocket and Brazell wants to go back to his desert,’ Phryne mused. ‘I can’t see a lot of common ground between them. Who’s winning?’

‘It’s hard to say. The project is in the Dean’s gift. He hasn’t made up his mind. Gorman always says things like, “I will give you my decision on Thursday at eleven am,” and he does, on Thursday at eleven am and not a minute before. He thinks that is being decisive. In fact he makes up his mind at ten fifty-nine am on the Thursday largely based on which side his mental coin lands. It works as well as any other method, I expect. Dreadful fellow, that Gorman. Juvenal would recognise him instantly. He wants clients, you see. He would love to have poor scholars and relations clustering around his door every morning for their dole. But he’s got nowhere with me and most of the other chaps ignore his nasty insinuations. Don’t know how much longer poor Sykes will last, though. And it’s funny about chaps like Sykes. A nervous wreck most of the time and then one day they up and do something very unlikely.’

‘Such as emptying the safe?’ asked Phryne.

‘Slaughtering the Dean, is what I was going to say. Banish Sykes from your mind, Miss Fisher. Although put him on your list if Gorman is found with an axe in his head. Even worms turn in the end. Well, then, this is refreshing. I seldom get a chance to gossip about the faculty with—excuse me—an outsider, especially a brilliant one who happens also to be one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. Who’s left to suspect?’

‘You,’ said Phryne.

Professor Bretherton smiled a smile which Juvenal would also have recognised.

‘Of course. Well, I am married as happily as most chaps, have a private income, no particular vices, and I’ve employed you to find my papyrus for me.’

‘Happily married men don’t dine with vamps like me, I know nothing about your private income, which might be strained, ditto about your vices which might be curious—I note that you knew a lot about concealing lovers in cupboards—and you might have asked me to help as a way of diverting suspicion,’ replied

Phryne composedly, lighting a cigarette as the waiter brought coffee.

Professor Bretherton passed a hand over his white hair and laughed.

‘All true, my dear young lady,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid that what I said was true and I want that papyrus back very badly.’

‘I’ll see what I can contrive.’ Miss Fisher blew a smoke ring, the picture of an idle flapper. John Bretherton seized her free hand.

‘Please, I need that papyrus,’ he urged, squeezing her wrist. ‘Please.’

There was a slight flurry as Phryne freed herself from this unexpected clasp. Professor Bretherton rubbed his hand, wondering how she had managed to make his fingers open.

‘All right, you’re in earnest,’ said Phryne sharply. ‘Now, you will tell me about the papyrus. What is this curse? Is there anything on the document which does not appear in your translation?’

He stared at her, taken aback. Then to Phryne’s amazement, he rose and bowed slightly, dropping a banknote on the table.

‘I’m afraid I must bid you good evening,’ he said quietly, and left.

‘Well,’ said Phryne to the waiter, handing him the banknote, ‘it seems my escort has left me, so you might as well keep the change.’

‘Madame will easily find another with better taste,’ said the young man, calculating that he had gained almost a week’s wages in one tip and wishing to mollify the beautiful lady.

‘Without doubt,’ replied Phryne, wishing that Lin Chung was with her. This investigation was more difficult than it looked, and she was beginning to wish also that she had stayed home. Sydney was more strange than Paris or London, being both familiar and odd.

‘Dot, I’ve been abandoned,’ she announced, sweeping into her suite and flinging her cloche at the hat stand. It hit the peg and hung limply.

‘Usually are,’ said Dot stoutly. ‘That cop reckons he’ll search all the hospitals and places for Joan, but he says he thinks she might be Darlo Annie and I don’t know what to do.’

‘Tell me about your sister,’ said Phryne gently, sitting down on the Empire sofa and taking off her shoes. Dot stopped pacing and sat down, ordering her thoughts. Phryne looked at her. Dot was plain, as she never denied, but she was well made and honest and the shadowy, leaf patterned, bark-coloured dress she was wearing made her look like a strong-minded dryad speaking out of her parent tree. Phryne smiled a little at the fancy. She had been reading Ovid recently and he was colouring her imagination.

‘Well, Joan, she was the one with culture. Read a lot of books, Joanie did, Mum says she has Pretensions. She used to dance like an angel and she was always trying to keep the kids in line, you know, about using a fork to eat peas and tipping the soup plate away to sup the last bit. It was a bit of a surprise that she married Jim Thompson at all, he being a rough sort of bloke. It was all right after she had little Dottie, she seemed happy enough, though the baby came early. She didn’t want to go to Sydney, so far away from home, though of course she had to follow her husband’s business. He inherited his ironmongery business from his brother. Joan said he was a good provider though he used to get on the booze every Saturday night and I think he used to hit her. But a lot of husbands are like that and their wives don’t run away to be…to be…’

‘Dot, don’t cry. We don’t know that your sister is a lady of light repute, we don’t even know if she is Darlo Annie. Dammit, Dot, I am astray in a foreign place! If this was Melbourne I’d know someone who knew someone who could find out for me exactly who Darlo Annie is, and that would solve one problem. Now, take comfort. We’ve reported your sister’s disappearance to the proper authorities and they’ll be looking for her too. And if she has taken an unusual path, you think about this, Dorothy Williams. You’ve got a drunken husband who beats you, you’ve got two children under five who are crying with hunger, and you’re a thousand miles from any help. You can make money by turning whore, or you can watch your children starve, your husband turn into a brute, and all of you thrown out into the street to sleep under the bridge. Moral scruples are one thing, survival is another.’

‘Yes, miss.’ Dot blew her nose. ‘She was always a determined girl, my sister Joan. She might have done it if it meant that the children would be fed—she was fierce about the children. But how could she have left them like that? That’s what I can’t understand.’

‘Neither can I. Now, Joss and Clarence are coming to escort me to Theo’s. Did they leave anything for me?’

‘Yes, Miss, it’s on the table. I’ll order some tea, shall I?’

‘Tea for you, black coffee for me. And find something showy for me to wear tonight. I want to be noticed. How have you gone with the amulet?’

Dot produced it; she was rather proud of her work. Phryne turned it over in her hands. It was a purple silk pouch embroidered with Solomon’s seal in silver thread, suspended from a white silk cord. It crunched slightly in the hand and smelt strongly of herbs. There was something hard in the amulet and Phryne asked, ‘What have you added?’

‘Well, Miss,’ explained Dot earnestly, ‘you said it was to protect against magical attack, and I expect that means demons, so I bought a medal of Saint Michael. He was the angel who fought Lucifer and won,’ she added kindly, for Phryne’s benefit. She was not sure how much Anglicans knew about religion. ‘I dipped it in holy water at St Mary’s cathedral when I went in to say a prayer for my sister, in case the poor young man really is threatened, not just scared. So that it isn’t just a fraud and he can rely on it.’

Phryne kissed Dot, unexpectedly.

‘You are a very compassionate young woman,’ she told her. ‘Thank you. I’m sure that it will be most effective.’

Phryne opened the package on her table. In it was a large book marked ‘Not to be removed from the Research Collection’. A slip of paper marked a page.

‘The Oxyrrinchus papyrus number 666, translated by

Professor John Bretherton of the University of Sydney’, she read. A plate showed her an undecorated papyrus with lines of demotic script, not the hieroglyphics she had vaguely expected. Of course, he said they were all in Greek. She could not see any other markings on the paper, apart from the writing which was clear and flowing, arranged like a verse.

The snake be against him on land,

The crocodile against him in water,

He shall be cursed in eating, in drinking

In love-making, in excreting, in urinating,

In laughing and in crying,

In sailing, in walking

In sleeping, in waking.

He shall have no offering

No bread and no beer

No wine and no oil

No earth shall be dug for him

No remembrance carved for him

When he dies,

When he dies.

‘One thing about the Egyptians, they were thorough,’ she remarked to Dot. ‘The person who receives this is cursed in doing absolutely everything, and finally when he dies he will have no tomb. I wonder what behaviour triggered the curse? Do we have any learned notes?’

Dot said, ‘I think if you wear the purple silk and the loose patterned jacket which belongs to the black dress, you’ll look showy enough, Miss. The colours clash something dreadful. The young gentlemen didn’t give me any notes, Miss. Just the parcel.’

Phryne smiled—Dot was definitely distracted—and turned to the beginning of the volume. ‘Notes by Professor Bretherton’: aha.

This document shows no signs of being posted or affixed to a door or, perhaps, a wall, but the presumption can be made that it was meant to defend either a tomb against robbery or a monument against some defacement. Similar curses, though not as extensive, have been found in the 12th Dynasty tombs and one is carved on the Stele of Hatshepsut (18th Dynasty) at Karnak. It shows a surprising sophistication, which may reveal a Hellenic influence.

Not a lot of use, thought Phryne. But at least she had now seen the curse which the Professor had refused to disclose. A nice, strong-minded, comprehensive curse, thought Phryne as she stretched out on her bed for a small nap before her escorts arrived. Nothing that she could see about it would apply to the modern world, so what had driven Professor Bretherton so unceremoniously away?

She fell asleep wondering about him. Good looking, about sixty, white hair and those disconcerting dark eyes. Shouldn’t have any trouble attracting female company if he wanted it.

What was he afraid of?

Seven

The gallows from which he is suspended forms a Tau cross while the figure…forms a fylfot cross…it should be noted that 1) the tree of sacrifice is of living wood…2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; 3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death. It is a card of profound significance, out that significance is veiled
.

A.E. Waite,
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot

T
heo’s
was
more interesting late at night, Phryne considered. A promising argument about Symbolism was flaring amongst the poets; the names of Baudelaire and Mallarmé were being freely bandied about. Christopher Brennan was bellowing at a woman in a turban.

‘“Mad is the Egyptian race; they are cursed! In war they are not sated. I say what you know. Dark ships, heavily armed; they sailed and they bring an army possessed by anger!” Aeschylus knew what he was talking about, Madame. Why do you bother me with these Egyptians? Nothing good ever came out of Egypt. You need to study the Greeks if you want civilisation.’

‘Civilisation is outmoded!’ yelled the woman in the turban, flushed with rage. ‘We need a new heaven and a new earth.’

‘Adolescent Nietzscheism,’ sneered Brennan.