Death by Water (34 page)

Scragger had seldom been kissed on the nose by a beautiful lady, but he didn’t seem to mind. He sat enthroned on Phryne’s silken bed and blinked benevolently as the prisoners were removed. Scragger, like most cats, understood as much English as he needed to. The future, if he understood Miss Fisher correctly, would contain fish. A lot of fish and perhaps even lobster. That was good enough for Scragger.

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It wasn’t until they were out in the corridor again that Mrs West started to scream. Phryne collected her bag, the sapphire, a surgical instrument and her key and went with the party. Her endgame had been staggeringly successful. Perhaps she should take up chess, after all.

Henry Tolhurst

Fitzgerald, Georgia

Dear Hank

She sure is a mighty fine ship, this one. We’re moving like a running
horse. The rep from the company is on board and I reckon he’s
making the Cap try the ship’s paces. I’m longing to get home and
smell the magnolias. They ought to be blooming in every tree by
now. Remember me to your Mama and Papa and that fine woman
your sister Josie. I’ll post this at Cherbourg.

Your friend

Roy

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CHAPTER TWENTY

But busy, busy, still art thou,

To bind the loveless joyless vow

The heart from pleasure to delude,

To join the gentle to the rude.

J Thomson

‘Fortune’

The meeting was in the captain’s ready room, a charming place with navigational instruments and charts, terribly nautical. In it, the pyjama-clad Phryne and the black-clad Mr West rather stood out. Now provided with handcuffs, the prisoners sat sullenly in their chairs, and Phryne was free to roam, accept drinks, and expound. Pierre had broken out the Veuve Clicquot for the occasion and the captain did not even seem to notice.

‘I became suspicious of the Wests because they didn’t seem to enjoy cruises,’ said Phryne. ‘Mr West is very jealous and Mrs West spends a lot of time flirting. So why bring her—repeat-edly—into a place where she has an endless supply of young men to flirt with? Seemed strange. All of the others are on the ship because they really like it; the professor and her beloved
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Maoris, Mr Aubrey and his perpetual travelling, Miss Lemmon who is having a wonderful time. The Cahills are here because she can’t walk like she did and he can’t drive, and both of them need to stay away from their property to give their sons a chance to run it alone. The Singers, well, we know about the Singers. Mr Forrester has an endless supply of the female form divine, his passion. But the Wests were uncomfortable and unhappy—so I wondered, why would they spend all this money in order to be uncomfortable and unhappy?’

‘Reasonable question,’ grunted the captain.

Captain Bishop was profoundly disturbed. Miss Fisher had suggested to his officers that she could extract everyone from out of the soup. He hoped it was true. She looked far too much like a Dutch doll for his complete confidence. Her delivery of her investigational report, however, was as crisp as one of his own officers reporting on navigational conditions. There might be hope for the
Hinemoa
yet.

‘I examined all the other thefts carefully, thanks to the excellent briefing notes made by your navigation officer,’ said Phryne. Mr Green bowed politely. ‘There were two sorts of theft; the one from the lady’s actual cabin, as in the case of La Paloma and her ruby and Berengaria Reynolds and the Attenbury emeralds. They occupied the same suite that I am staying in. Sealed room mysteries are well explained in John Dickson Carr, and one of his solutions to a sealed room mystery is that it is not entirely sealed. That is, there is some sort of trapdoor or secret passage, the roof lifts off, and so on.

‘I did wonder how the admirable Scragger was able to wander into my suite whenever his heart desired. But in each case, he might have come in with someone. It wasn’t until I found the hole in the wall under my bed that I realised it was a John Dickson Carr solution. The occupant never stirred
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because either Mrs West (in my case) or Maggie (in the case of my companion) had stirred a solid dose of laudanum into their supper. I guessed about the mask because a small girl, who nearly had her teddy bear stolen by that man, said that he had no face. No, don’t say anything yet, Mr West. You may hear something to your advantage.’

West’s eyes were fixed on Phryne. His gambler’s instinct told him that somewhere in this quiet woman’s words there was a ghost of a chance of some sort of escape.

‘The other gems, Mrs West’s pearls—they were stolen to divert suspicion from this unlovely couple—were stolen by means of a trick. I wondered how it could be done, some sort of magnet, a hook, perhaps? Then I realised that in their per-ambulations into the doctor’s surgery they had picked up one of these.’

The captain examined it. It was a pair of long steel pincers with two blunt-ended blades and some sort of screw arrangement.

‘What’s this thing?’

‘Used to extract bullets and so on,’ said Phryne. ‘For the Wests’ purposes, however, note that it has very sharp blades.

Mrs West just danced close enough, and then inserted a blade under the fastening. Snip, it parted, and the necklace was caught by the hook.’

‘But we searched everyone!’ cried Theodore Green. ‘No one left the salon!’

Phryne held out her glass to be refilled and laughed.

‘You were aware, were you not, that Lizbet the trumpet player always parks a huge lump of her revolting chewing gum behind one of the Tiffany panels while she is playing? And what could be simpler than to just stick the glittering prize on the chewing gum? It’s quite strong enough, and no one would
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see the jewels through that multifaceted, gorgeous, semi-opaque border.’

‘And then reclaim them once the room is searched. Very clever, Miss Fisher.’

‘Thank you. The question remains, however, what are we going to do with the Wests? Do we want a huge scandal, in which both the
Hinemoa
and her officers are plunged into ruin? Or have we an easier solution?’

‘Miss Fisher,’ said Detective Inspector Minton, ‘are you leading me into temptation?’

‘Not precisely,’ said Phryne, smiling at this dutiful minion of the law. ‘Now, consider. We cannot prove the previous thefts.

They are past and gone and insurance has been paid for them.

All of the people in question have been compensated for their losses. Right?’

‘Yes,’ said the captain. Light was beginning to dawn, even though it lacked some hours to sunrise. He felt hope stir in his heart.

‘The Wests would doubtless strenuously resist any attempt to charge them with the previous thefts, wouldn’t they?’ she asked. West was quick on the uptake. He had been waiting for an opportunity and took it.

‘Strenuously,’ he said. Jonquil West, who seemed entirely stunned, nodded.

‘But they would probably accept a plea of guilty on the attempted theft of my sapphire. Ought not to cost you both too many years in the clink, Mr West. Or perhaps you would like to think about an attempted murder charge? You could have drowned me. And it’s no use saying that you had an alibi.

All you had to do to fool that poor blindfolded Jack Mason was to alter his clock. He was calculating the time by its chimes.

Shall we talk about drugging my companion?’

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‘No,’ said West. ‘You’ve got your guilty plea.’

‘And an undertaking of silence, of course, and on the understanding that if either of you show your noses on a P&O

vessel again, the captain has firm instructions to have you keel-hauled.’

‘Actually, I don’t believe that we keel-haul people anymore

. . .’ began Mr Green. His captain glared at him.

‘For these two, we could revive an immemorial custom of the sea,’ he growled. ‘Well, West? Do you agree?’

‘But,’ said Mr West, thinking quickly. This was a very good deal. Such a good deal that he began to wonder what else Miss Fisher was hiding. Phryne caught him calculating and said, very sweetly, ‘Yes or no, and you can’t change your mind. We are playing, as the children say, for keeps.’

‘Yes,’ said West. ‘Yes, for both of us.’

‘Well, that’s it,’ said the captain. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish. How about it, Detective Inspector? You’ve got your criminals and my ship won’t be compromised.’

‘Well . . .’ said Detective Inspector Minton.

Sergeant Peace stared wide eyed. He had never seen his chief at a loss before.

‘Come along,’ coaxed Phryne, now well flown on expensive champagne, rhetoric and adrenalin. ‘I only promised you one solution. Now you’ve got two for the price of one. You can get off the ship in Christchurch, take them all back to Dunedin, and I bet your chief will be pleased with you.’

‘Lay on a tender,’ offered Captain Bishop. ‘No need to waste time. Get you back to Dunedin by sea much quicker. You can take Singer and the Wests.’

‘All right,’ said Detective Inspector Minton slowly. He was aware of undercurrents so strong that they were almost over-currents, but it was another good pinch. ‘You give me a set of
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sworn depositions, so I don’t need you in court, and I reckon we can do it.’

‘I can swear the depositions,’ said the captain. ‘Now, how about a glass of wine? I see that Pierre has been so good as to open the Roederer. It’ll only go to waste now the bottle is open.’

‘Done,’ said Detective Inspector Minton, and smiled.

Two Days Later

When the
Hinemoa
arrived in Picton, Phryne Fisher, decked out in all of her diamonds and a wisp of gauze, was reclining on Mr Forrester’s bed while he fussed about the position of her feet. Sitting in a good light near the window was Dot, embroidering boronia onto her tea cloth. Dot was coming round to the conclusion that Miss Fisher had been right about being an artist’s model. It was not compromising. But it was tedious.

Miss Fisher’s visits to Mr Forrester’s cabin were thereafter assumed to be in connection with his photography, and no mention was made of them. Mr Forrester’s afternoons had suddenly become filled with interest and excitement.

On Charleston Thursday, the prize was won by the unexpected team of Miss Fisher and Navigation Officer Green, who danced to the tune of ‘Roll ’em, Girls, Roll ’em’ and ‘Varsity Rag’ with what was judged to be superior enthusiasm and dash. Green thought it worthwhile, even though he had to wear surgical bindings on his mistreated ankles for two days thereafter.

Five slow and languorous days since the arrests, Phryne and table three had returned from a visit to a hot spring, where they had been massaged and soaked and boiled until Phryne began to feel a gentle pity for lobsters. Phryne, Mr Aubrey,
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Professor Applegate and Mr Forrester were seated in the Palm Court, repairing their strength with iced lemonade. Jack Mason and Margery Lemmon had gone to play deck tennis with the doctor, who had quite recovered his nerve.

‘But you mustn’t try anything like it again,’ said Phryne carefully to the table at large. ‘I only managed to keep you all out of it by making a shameless deal with the Wests.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked the professor, sharply.

‘The doctor betrayed himself at once,’ said Phryne, study-ing the sprig of mint in her glass. ‘Being a nice young man he was naturally pie for such a woman as Mrs West. She seduced him and blackmailed him into letting her repellent husband get into my suite through Scragger’s entrance. He was easy.

Poor idiot even wiped the boathook because he thought West had killed Thomas. But, I wondered, why did the Wests keep at this jewel theft caper? It was hugely risky. Surely one of those gems was worth enough to make retirement sound good? And then I thought, yes, they might just be amazingly greedy, but what if they managed to steal the gems, and somehow didn’t manage to keep them? What, in fact, if they were still as poor as they had been?’

‘An interesting theory,’ said Mr Forrester, alertly.

‘I thought so. And then I recalled that each one of the people who lost jewels had left someone in need. La Paloma’s child. Miss Reynold’s companion. The young man Mr West ruined. And I wondered if some public-minded people might not feel that keeping the jewel, selling it in a suitable port, and sending the money to the afflicted one might not be rather poetic justice. Minus, of course, ten percent for handling fees.’

‘A charming idea,’ said Mr Forrester. ‘Very Raffles.’

‘I thought so,’ said Phryne. ‘But now the Wests are gone, to languish for some time in a Dunedin jail—at least Mrs West
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won’t have anyone to flirt with there—it can’t continue, however good the cause.’

‘No, under those circumstances, of course it could not continue,’ said Mr Aubrey. ‘Speaking hypothetically, you understand.’

‘And, speaking hypothetically again,’ said the professor,

‘how did you come to these conclusions, Miss Fisher?’

‘Call me Phryne,’ said Phryne. ‘You had an auditor. I worked it out from a sequence of coincidences in choice of song. By some freak of acoustics, the Melody Makers could hear every word said at this table.’

Phryne had her answer. Everyone at the table changed colour, jumped, or began a course of advanced fingernail study.

‘They gave us away?’ asked Mr Forrester.

‘They didn’t say a word,’ said Phryne. ‘I understand that the Wests gave you the jewels just because you could have put them in jail. But they will be punished and I don’t think it’s an unhappy ending. And was it the Professor who sprang my mousetrap?’