Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (26 page)

‘I want you to come to the University on Sunday evening at seven,’ she said. ‘I want you to duplicate something you have already done. Bring all your paraphernalia. I will assist you. And as long as Joss Hart lives, Marrin, I will not interfere with you or allow others to do so; but if he dies, all bets are off. Is that clear?’

‘It is clear, Lady. But if Joss Hart lives and the papyrus is found, will you give it to me?’

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘It isn’t mine to give. Not unless the Goddess makes me, of course. But she said that she would show you, and goddesses keep their word. If not by the papyrus, by another path.’

‘That is true.’ Marrin bowed and Phryne saw him move through the rabble. He did not have to shove. People melted away before him and he passed through their midst like a cold wind.

Jack bobbed up at Phryne’s elbow and grabbed her by the shoulders. She repressed an urge to clip his ears.

‘Are you sure about that bet?’ he asked, shamelessly, grinding his groin into her stomach.

‘Perfectly so,’ she assured him. ‘And whilst I know that this hall is very crowded, if you push that thing into my belly again, I wouldn’t count on getting it back.’

Jack jumped as if he had been scalded, whined, ‘You’re no fun,’ and yielded his place to George, who held Phryne very carefully, as though she might bite.

It was never wise to grope a Goddess.

An hour later she reclaimed her cloak and stood at the head of the stairs again, smoking a gasper and waiting for Chas Nut-tall to swim back into view. The crowd was now definitely drunk and Phryne wanted to get out before any women were assaulted or fights broke out between rival clans. A sozzled clarinettist was attempting the difficult bit in ‘Easy Street’ and forgetting how many stops, or indeed, fingers, he was meant to use. Listening to him had a certain uncharitable appeal but it wore off quickly. Phryne could, of course, leave without Chas, but one of her firm principles was to always leave with the man who brought her to a function, no matter how many better offers had arisen during the evening and no matter how full her dance card was with addresses, assignations, and expressions of fervent adoration.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Phryne aloud, backing away to the outer door and dropping the gasper into a sand-filled ashtray. Principles were one thing but a punch in the nose was another, as she seemed to remember someone saying in Australian literature. Phryne was leaving, Chas Nuttall or no Chas Nuttall.

The fight was starting. It began with what was probably a minor altercation over against the Royal Box between two men who seemed to have a difference of opinion about with whom a woman in mauve satin and bunny ears ought to be dancing.

Man A swung a fist at Man B, who ducked. Man A thus found himself flattened by Man C, who additionally had had a dearly bought beer spilled down his shirt front to avenge. Man B, meanwhile, had retaliated by kicking the nearest pair of shins, which belonged to Man D, who resented this, and, aiming at Man B, struck Man E a sharp blow in the midriff, causing his partner (Miss F) to scream and bash Man G with a handbag which must have had a bottle in it, because Man G went down like a sand-filled sack and Man G’s partner, Miss H, tripped Man I and sat on his head.

From then on, Phryne knew, as inevitably as a Greek tragedy or an Australian batting collapse, the action would become general and she didn’t intend to be part of it. She slipped out of the door into the hot Sydney night. Outside there were only trams, cops, street singers, a few drunks yelling and the ceaseless tramp of feet, which was refreshingly serene after the inside of Centennial Hall. She hailed a cab and went home.

Edmund Brazell woke. A stab of pain went through all his misused muscles. Then a stab of delight went through some others. He opened his eyes into a dim light. Very classical, he thought. A naked nymph was inviting him to play.

S-Stoics, he thought, surrendering without a fight. What did they know?

Dot had prayed all the way through a corona of her rosary before either of Joss’ parents spoke again.

‘He’s grown into a fine young man,’ said Mrs Hart. The woman who looked twenty-five in a favourable light looked fully fifty in the harsh hospital illumination. She wore no make-up to fill her wrinkles. Dot had never seen anyone age so fast.

‘No thanks to you,’ snarled Vivian Hart.

‘You must have fed him well,’ said Mrs Hart, ignoring this comment.

‘He eats like a horse, comes home and just wolfs down whatever the housekeeper puts on the table,’ said Vivian Hart. ‘Big strong boy, Joss.’

‘You never married again?’ asked Mrs Hart tonelessly.

‘Never needed to,’ said Mr Hart. ‘Plenty of women around for a price.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Hart without rancour. ‘I’m one of them.’

There was a pause.

‘Could have divorced me easy enough,’ she prompted. Vivian Hart looked acutely uncomfortable. Mrs Hart laughed. ‘Of course, that would mean you’d have to tell a judge that your wife was a prostitute.’

‘Why…why did you go on the game, woman?’

‘I didn’t have a profession,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have a job. I married you when I was sixteen. By the time I left you I thought that was all I was worth. You told me I was a whore often enough,’ she said, quite flatly. ‘Not surprising that when you shut me out to freeze that last time I believed you.’

‘I…looked for you,’ confessed Vivian Hart. ‘But when I found you, it was too late.’

‘You mean, I’d lost my virtue? So you couldn’t ask me to come home and be tortured again? Wasn’t that lucky,’ said Mrs Hart, still in a flat voice. ‘I’ve made a success out of my profession, Viv. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to retire.’

‘Don’t talk about it!’ snarled Mr Hart, and Dot half rose, ready to summon help. Hart felt her movement and waved her irritably back to her chair.

‘Tell me about the boy, then,’ Mrs Hart said soothingly, and Hart mumbled, ‘Disappointed in him, to tell the truth. Didn’t want to go into the company, starting at the bottom, of course, like I did. Got a craze for university. I never went to university. Pack of pretty boys, spending all their time arguing about philosophy. Told him he was wasting his life.’

‘I bet you did,’ said Dolly Hart with the first trace of emotion in her voice. ‘Told him every day, if I know you. Every morning when he came down to breakfast there you’d be, reading the paper, and over his porridge you’d say, “Off to that place again, Joss?” and he’d say he was, and then you’d say, “Waste of bloody time, you’ll never amount to anything,” and then he’d go out.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Mr Hart, horrified.

‘Because you did it to me,’ said Dolly Hart, very firmly.

‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ protested Mr Hart with waning conviction. ‘It was only a joke in the end, Joss knew that. I thought he’d change his ways and come and join me, be Hart and Son.’

‘It was just like that, Viv, you know it was. It drove me away and it’ll drive him away. You haven’t changed a bit,’ said Dolly, with faint admiration under the loathing. ‘You haven’t learned a thing. Not in all these years.’

‘Bet
you
have,’ hissed her husband.

Mrs Hart was not perturbed by his tone and took it as a question. ‘No, not really. Most men are unimaginative. Easily pleased. You taught me all the tricks I needed for a life of vice and crime. I’ve been lucky. Never poxed. Never jailed. Never pregnant. The doctor reckoned that that last kicking you gave me to remember you by—recall the night, do you? Dinner wasn’t to your liking. I undercooked the broccoli, I think. Or maybe it was overcooked. When you felt like belting me you never lacked a reason, did you? Well, that finished my chances of ever having another baby. So this is the only one I’ve got, Mr Vivian Hart.’

‘Dolly…’ began Mr Hart.

‘Don’t you “Dolly” me, Vivian. Silly name. Girl’s name, I always thought. I blame myself,’ she mused, ignoring the bright red face close to her own, the angry vein pulsing in the temple. ‘I should have taken a saucepan and donged you the first time you slapped me. Only a few days after the wedding, it was. You’ve got the makings of a real man, you know, if you hadn’t been such a bastard.’

Mr Hart left the room abruptly. Dot looked at Mrs Hart. Then, at a sound, they both looked at the bed.

Joss had opened his eyes. He struggled to form words. Mrs Hart took the glass Dot handed to her and lifted his head so that he could drink. His hair was wet with sweat. Joss swallowed and managed to speak. Even a whisper conveyed his utter astonishment.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, pet, yes, precious, it’s Mummy. You’re in hospital, Lambkin.’ Her voice was the essence of all motherly voices, reassuring, calm, eternal.

‘You’re dead.’ Tears ran down the pale cheeks as Joss fought for breath. ‘I must be dying.’

‘No, love, I’m not dead, I’m as alive as you are.’ Mrs Hart leaned close. ‘Feel. I’m warm, you can feel my breath.’ She kissed his cheek.

‘Dad?’

‘I’ll get him,’ said Dot, and flung open the door to collide with Mr Hart’s returning breastbone. He took two steps to the bedside and grabbed Joss’ other hand.

‘Is Mum dead?’ Joss asked on a failing breath.

‘Answer him,’ said Mrs Hart, suddenly loud. ‘He thinks I’m dead so he thinks he’s dying. Tell the truth for the first time in your worthless life, you bastard! Get a move on!’

‘I lied,’ mumbled Vivian Hart. His wife poked him hard in the ribs. ‘I lied,’ he said, louder. ‘She ran away and I didn’t know how to explain to you, son, so I said she was dead…But she’s alive,’ said Hart, and sat down suddenly. ‘And you ain’t dying.’

‘Don’t want to die,’ murmured Joss, and sank back into a coma.

‘Jesus wept,’ said Dolly Hart. Dot crossed herself.

Vivian Hart put his head down onto the bedclothes and began to cry.

Dot took up the rosary again. The Five Sorrowful Mysteries. The Agony in the Garden. The Scourging. The Crowning with Thorns. The Carrying of the Cross. The Crucifixion. ‘Our Father, Who art in Heaven,’ murmured Dot.

Fourteen

I could not come back to cricket for a season or two [after the Great War] and I think cricket itself could not come back at once. It had been dismayed; it did not guess in the golden days at things like world wars, or that its score-books should be splashed with the blood of the quiet men its votaries
.

Edmund Blunden,
Cricket Country

P
hryne woke feeling marvellous, stretched, winced a little, and decided that she still felt wonderful. A little battered, but wonderful. Sleeping next to her was an Ancient Roman, looking now perhaps more Ancient Greek, for the curve of the lips was definitely as close as the twentieth century was going to get to an archaic smile.

‘Food,’ she whispered into the nearest ear.

‘Breakfast?’ asked Professor Brazell. ‘All of that, plus breakfast? I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I s-saw you burning your underclothes in that pit, Phryne, but now I’m s-sure of it.’

‘What shall I ask for? Bacon and eggs?’

‘Not idyllic enough. Nectar. Ambrosia. On s-second thought, I’m starving. Earthly food will have to do. Eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms. And toast. A bushel or s-so s-should do.’

‘And coffee,’ agreed Phryne. ‘We have a busy day ahead of us.’

‘Oh?’ Professor Brazell hoped that his powers would be equal to Miss Fisher’s demands.

‘We have to pay some Sunday calls,’ said Phryne; she would not say another word until they were dressed, fed, had read the newspaper and were out in the street, with the porter hailing a taxi. Phryne had a list of addresses in her hand.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To visit the faculty at home,’ Phryne replied.

‘Not, I would venture, an ideal way to s-spend S-Sunday afternoon,’ said Brazell.

‘Look on it as an exercise in anthropology,’ said Phryne.

She was dressed in neat, going-to-tea-with-a-maiden-aunt clothes: a dark blue linen suit of proper length as to skirt and looseness of cut and a subdued cloche decorated with a small bunch of velvet pansies.

Sydney looked very appealing in the clear, after-rain light. The high Gothic buildings of the city receded and the taxi, with only the expected number of screaming contests of right-of-way, bore them out of the central city and into the green suburbs.

‘First, we have Professor Kirkpatrick,’ said Phryne. ‘We should just catch him between lunch and afternoon service.’

‘S-Should we wish to do s-so,’ agreed Brazell. ‘Why
do
we wish to do s-so?’

‘To provide the answer to the rest of the riddle. I know who tried to kill Joss and I know who stole the papyrus and planted the exam papers in Harcourt’s desk,’ said Phryne seriously. ‘I’m sure that Joss nicked your hand axe and gave it to his father. But I don’t know about the other things.’

‘And you think that they are going to tell you?’ asked Edmund, as Rose Bay approached at speed.

‘No, I think their wives are going to tell me,’ said Phryne. The suspicion of a smug smile was hovering at the corners of her mouth. Professor Brazell decided, as others had before him, to just follow along in her wake and watch. It was, at least, going to be an interesting afternoon.