Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (13 page)

‘And what does Mother James do?’ asked Phryne. ‘Is it a brothel?’

‘No, Miss, not exactly. She sells coffee and tea and soup and bangers and mash and sly grog on the side. And pies, if you’re silly enough to buy ’em.’

‘She sounds like a remarkable woman,’ said Phryne politely and implacably, and Bert recognised a determined woman when he met one.

‘All right, Miss, what do you want me and Cec for?’

‘Guides and bodyguards,’ said Phryne, as Dot brought out the dessert, a pudding made with raspberries.

‘Miss, me and Cec ain’t got no quarrel but with the capitalists.’

‘Have some pudding. There’s tea in this flask. Think. I must go to this place, and I can’t ask Dot to accompany me—she’s a good girl. It’s a dangerous place, as you’ve just explained. I’ll give you enough to buy a new car. I need your help, gentlemen.’

‘Thanks, but no deal,’ said Bert. Cec said nothing.

‘Think of this, then. Cocaine is nasty. You can get addicted in three or four doses, and then must take ever increasing amounts. It rots the brain and damages the eyes and throat if you sniff it. Withdrawal from it is terrible—you yawn and sweat and convulse and cramp and cry with pain, and you start seeing things and then you start to itch, and rip your skin to rags if you’re not stopped. It’s an evil thing. And somewhere, in a lovely house in a leafy suburb, far away from the noise and the screaming, there’s a fat man with a cigar, raking in the profits and laughing at the world. A capitalist, rolling in cocaine money, with a chauffeur and three housemaids and a sable coat.

‘Also, you want me to do something for you. One good turn, eh Bert?’

Phryne poured a cup of tea, which she felt she had deserved. Cec looked at Bert. Bert looked at the ground for a long moment. Dot filled his cup. He stared down into the steaming depths and fought a battle between his communist principles and his deep instinct for self-preservation.

‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘Me and Cec is on.’

‘Good. I’ll meet you at midnight at the same place as today. Now, back to the business at hand. I have decided on the Footscray Post Office because it is an automatic exchange. We don’t want to have to explain our business to an operator. How many numbers have you got?’

‘Three,’ said Bert, producing a matchbox with writing on the back.

‘And I’ve got one,’ volunteered Dot. ‘Muriel said that it was a nurse, though.’

‘Good work. You shall see that I keep my side of the bargain, Bert. We shall find this Butcher George. Anyone got any pennies?’

Cec grinned, reached into his pocket, and poured pennies into Phryne’s hand.

The two cars made short work of the road to the post office. Phryne parked the Hispano-Suiza and disembarked, leaving Dot in charge.

‘Hoot the horn if you want help,’ she informed her nervous maid, and folded herself, the matchbox and the pennies into the red telephone booth.

The next ten minutes were most trying. The first number rang twelve times before a guarded female voice answered.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m in trouble,’ whispered Phryne in her best Australian accent. There was a silence at the other end.

‘I’ve just moved into this house,’ said the woman. ‘Are you looking for Mrs Smith?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne. ‘She had a nursing home.’

‘That’s right. I’m afraid she’s gone. She didn’t leave a forwarding address. Sorry.’ She hung up. Phryne dialled again.

‘Yes?’ another woman.

Phryne repeated herself. ‘I’m in trouble.’

The voice became sympathetic.

‘Are you dear? Well, we shall have to do something about that. How far gone are you?’

‘Two months.’

‘It will be twenty pounds. Doctor does them here every Tuesday. All nice and clean, dear, ether and all.’

‘A doctor?’ asked Phryne. The voice became brisk.

‘Certainly, dear, we don’t want any complications, do we? Nothing to eat for twenty-four hours beforehand. Will you take down the address?’

‘No, I’ll have to think about it,’ faltered Phryne. This was not Butcher George’s establishment.

‘All right, dear, but don’t leave it too long, will you? Doctor won’t do them after three months.’

‘Thank you,’ said Phryne, and hung up.

Somewhat shaken, she tried the last number on the matchbox. A man answered. Phryne repeated her whimper.

‘I’m in trouble.’

‘And what business is that of mine?’ snarled the voice. Phryne had a stab at a password.

‘I’m looking for George.’

‘Oh, are yer? Should have said so at once. You’ll be met under the clocks tomorrow at three. Wear a red flower. Bring ten quid. What’s yer name, girl?’

‘Joan Barnard,’ said Phryne, and the voice became unctuous.

‘See yer temorrer, Joanie.’

He hung up. Phryne felt sick. She drew in a deep breath, and pushed another penny into the coin receiver.

‘This is Phryne Fisher. Can you call Dr MacMillan? Yes, it is important. Yes, I will wait.’ She gave a thumbs-up signal through the glass to Bert and Cec. Bert grinned. She returned her attention to the telephone.

‘Elizabeth, I’ve set up a meeting with your abortionist. What was your nice policeman’s name again? Robinson, that was it. I’ll call him. Of course I’ll be careful. Goodbye.’ She lit a gasper and used the last of Cec’s coins to call Russell Street.

After some argument, she obtained the detective- inspector’s ear.

‘If a policewoman wearing a red flower waits under the clocks tomorrow at three, she will be picked up by your Butcher George. I have set this up by phone. The name I gave was Joan Barnard. Is that clear?’

She listened impatiently to his expostulation, and cut in crisply, ‘I used my common sense. You could have done the same. I can’t imagine why you didn’t. Except that you do not use the talents God gave to geese. If you want to know more, you can call me at the Windsor. But this is your best chance of catching him. By the way, it costs ten pounds,’ she added, and rang off.

She extracted herself from the telephone booth and ex- plained the arrangement to Bert and Cec.

‘It was your number, Bert, do you remember where you got it?’ asked Phryne. Bert looked at the ground. Phryne sighed.

‘Well, tell your source that the number is now U.P.’

Bert laughed. ‘When do you want to go to Little Lon., Miss?’

‘Why, tomorrow night, of course. I am dining with an MP tonight. I don’t want to miss the Melba Gala.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Bert. ‘The Melba Gala.’

Detective-inspector Robinson bellowed out of his office, ‘Sergeant! Who’s on duty tomorrow? Women?’

‘Only WPC Jones, sir.’

‘Send her in,’ he grunted, and the sergeant called up WPC Jones and wondered what had got his chief into such a snit.

‘Jones, I want you to come in tomorrow in plain clothes. You want to look poor and as though you’re expecting. We’re out to catch that George who murdered them girls.’

‘Butcher George, sir? You’ve got a lead on him at last?’ asked Jones eagerly. Women were just tolerated in the force, made necessary only by the number of abandoned children and prostitutes who came to the attention of the Victoria Police. She knew that she would never become an officer and that her pay remained lower than that of a clerk, but this might be her chance for promotion. They couldn’t send a male officer to catch an abortionist. Jones loathed this George. She had dealt with the outraged and mutilated body of Lil Marchent. Prostitute or no prostitute, she haunted Jones, and Butcher George would not find her such easy prey.

Her boss, however, did not seem as happy as she would have thought about the prospect of bringing in a notorious murderer.

‘We’ll have a car following the van,’ said the detective-inspector, ‘and a few men on foot. All you have to do is look miserable and pay him the money. Ten quid. Take note of anything he says,’ he added, ‘and be careful. If it looks dangerous, bail out.’

‘I will, sir. How did you get the lead?’

‘Information received,’ sighed the detective-inspector resignedly. ‘Information received, Jones.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I do not know which to prefer The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes. The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

Wallace Stevens ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’

Phyrne had many things to do, and sorted her priorities briskly as she slid the big car into top gear along Footscray Road. Dot closed her eyes initially, but allowed herself to peep through her fingers. Eventually, she thought, I may get used to this. In about a hundred years. The wind tore at her hair. The old cab was left far behind, toiling along ant-like in Phryne’s wake.

‘I’ll have to go shopping first. Dot, where’s the cheapest place to buy clothes in the city?’

‘Paynes,’ yelled Dot. ‘Cheap and nasty. Not something you could wear, Miss!’

‘We shall see. Then I must dash off to Toorak and visit Lydia, and then I am bidden to dinner and a gala by Mr Sanderson. And after that—home and to sleep.’

She slung the car around the corner of Spring Street and drew up outside the hotel, tossed the keys to the doorman and was halfway up the steps before she noticed that she was talking to herself.

‘Dot,’ she called, ‘you can open your eyes now!’

Dot blushed and clambered out of the Hispano-Suiza with more haste than grace and ran to join Phryne.

‘Now for Paynes and a really outrageous dress,’ her errant mistress said. ‘Come with me, Dot, I want your opinion.’

So it was that Phryne acquired a skimpy costume of Fugi cotton, with fringes, in a blinding shade of pink known colloquially as ‘baby’s bottom’, a pair of near-kid boots with two-inch heels, an evening bag fringed and beaded to within an inch of complete inutility, stockings in peach, and a dreadful cloche hat with a drunken brim in electric blue plush.

Her method in choosing these garments was simple. Anything at which Dot exclaimed, ‘Oh, no, Miss!’ she bought. She also purchased a pink wrap with pockets, trimmed with maribou which looked ragged even when new. She dropped in at Woolworth’s and collected two rings, a six-foot length of beads that could not possibly have come from Venice, and jazz garters. She equipped herself with cheap undergarments from the same shop.

Laden with parcels, she returned to the Windsor and gave Dot the oddest instructions she had yet received.

‘Dress up in all that tatty finery, Dot, and wear it in for me. I haven’t time.’

‘Wear it in, Miss?’

‘Yes. Tread over the heels, roll around the floor a bit, spill something down the dress and wash it off, but not too well, rip the hem a little and mend it. This stuff has got to look well-worn. Break some of the feathers, too. Bash that appalling hat in and out. You get the idea?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ sighed Dot, and took all the parcels into her own room.

Phryne reclaimed the car and was soon travelling fast down Punt Road, and recalling to mind the matter on which she had been sent to Australia.

I wonder if Lydia is addicted; I really can’t see that oaf John poisoning anyone—he wouldn’t have the imagination. Strangling, yes, beating of the head with the nearest blunt instrument, certainly, but poisoning? No. On the other hand, if one wished to be rid of a husband like that—and who wouldn’t?—then self-administration of something relatively harmless . . . oh, wait a minute . . . what was it that Lydia wrote?
I’m ill, but Johnnie just goes to his club
.

She was so preoccupied with the sudden insight which had flashed over her that she had to brake hard to avoid a tram. Fortunately, racing cars have excellent brakes. She eased off her speed to the legal limit down Toorak Road to give herself time to think.

‘If I’m right, it is relatively easy to prove,’ she thought. ‘I need only suborn a maid . . . and I don’t think she treats her maids well . . .’

The Irish maid, nervous and voluble, babbled, ‘Oh, Miss Fisher, it’s you. Mistress is ill and abed, but she sent word that you was to be let in if you came. This way, Miss.’

Phryne followed the young woman and took her arm. ‘Not so fast. Tell me about Mrs Andrews’ illness. Does it come on her suddenly?’

‘Yes, Miss, she was well enough last night, and then this terrible vomiting—and the doctor doesn’t know what it is. Nothing seems to work.’

‘How long do these attacks usually last?’

‘One day, or two days, not longer, but she’s that weary after them. Takes her a week to recover.’

‘And Mr Andrews, is he ill too?’

‘No, Miss, that’s what’s got ’em all puzzled. Otherwise they’d think it was something she ate. But they eat the same, Miss, and we finish it up in the kitchen, and we ain’t sick. It’s a mystery,’ concluded the maid, stopping outside a pink door. ‘Here we are.’

‘Wait another moment. What’s your name?’

‘Maureen, Miss.’

‘Maureen, I’m trying to find out what causes this illness, and I need some help. I’m sent by Mrs Andrews’ family in England. There is some information I need.’

She held out a ten shilling note. Maureen’s fingers closed on it, savouring the feel of the paper.

‘First, where is Mr Andrews?’

‘At his club, Miss. He used to stay home when she was sick, but lately he seems to have lost interest.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Oh, Miss!’ protested the maid, squirming. Phryne waited. Finally the answer came, in a tense whisper.

‘No. I dislikes both of ’em. She’s soft and cruel, seems all sweet and hard as a rock, and he’s all hands. I’m leaving as soon as I can get a job in the factory. Better wages and hours and company, too.’

‘Good. I thought as much. How do they get along?’

‘Badly, Miss. They quarrel all the time; it used to be about his little bits on the side. Now they fight about money, mostly. She says that he’s wasting all his fortune on lunatic schemes thought up by that Hon. Matthews. He says she’s got no courage. Then she cries and he storms out.’

‘How long has the money argument been going on?’

‘Years, Miss—but it’s much worse ever since he met up with that Hon.’

‘You have been very helpful. There’s something more. Do you get on with her personal maid?’

‘I ought to, she’s me sister Brigit.’

‘Good. Here’s what I want you to do, and there’s ten quid in it for both of you.’

Phryne told Maureen what she wanted. The girl nodded.

‘We can manage that,’ she agreed. ‘But why?’

‘Never mind. Deliver the stuff to Dr MacMillan at the Queen Victoria Hospital, and tell her I sent you. And if you get caught and sacked, come and see me at the Windsor. But I’d advise you not to get caught,’ she added, suddenly struck with the knowledge that she might be endangering this girl’s safety.

Maureen smiled. ‘Brigit and me have done harder things than that,’ she said softly. ‘And now I’ll announce you, Miss.’

‘Very well. If you’re questioned, just say I wanted gossip.’

‘And so ye did,’ agreed Maureen, and opened the pink door.

‘Miss Fisher, Mrs Andrews,’ she announced in her clear Donegal voice, and Phryne went in.

The room was pinker than anything else Phryne had ever seen. In deference to modern tastes in decorating, it was not frilled and hung with tulle or muslin, and neither was there a four-poster bed. But the walls were papered with pink-and-pink flowers, there was a pink Morris-designed carpet on the floor, and two standard lamps and a bedside light all with pink frames, bases and shades. Phryne, in charcoal and green, felt that she clashed badly.

Lydia was reposing on a chaise-longue covered with pink velvet, and she was herself attired in an expensive silk robe of blinding pinkness. Phryne felt as if she had stepped into a nightmare. Lydia looked just like a doll—the curly blonde hair, the delicate porcelain skin, the soft plump little hands . . . Phryne sat down on the end of the sofa and asked, she hoped sympathetically, ‘How are you, Lydia?’

The little-girl voice whined as high as a gnat. ‘I’m not at all well, and no one’s come to see me, and I sent for you hours ago, and I’ve been waiting all this time!’

‘I’m sorry, Lydia, but I was not in when your message arrived. I came as soon as I could. Has the doctor been?’

‘Yes, and he can’t find anything wrong with me. But there is something wrong with me. It’s not fair. John eats the same as I do, and he’s not ill. And he’s not here. He’s so cruel!’

‘Is there nothing that you eat that he doesn’t eat?’ asked Phryne. Lydia’s smooth forehead wrinkled.

‘Only chocolates. He doesn’t like chocolates.’

‘Poor Lydia. Can I order something for you? A cup of beef tea? Some soup?’

‘No, I couldn’t eat anything,’ declared Lydia, flinging herself back into the embrace of her pillows. Phryne, fighting her instincts, took the small hand in her own. It was hot.

‘Lydia, have you ever thought that you might be poisoned?’ she asked as gently as she could. There did not seem to be an acceptably euphemistic way of putting the question. Lydia gave a dramatic wail of terror and hid her face.

‘Come, you have thought of it, haven’t you?’ Lydia sobbed aloud, but Phryne, bending close, made out, ‘John . . . so cruel . . .’

‘Well, I suppose that he must be chief suspect. How do you get your chocolates?’

‘Why, John buys them . . . he always has . . .’ The china-blue eyes opened wide. ‘The chocolates! I’ve always been ill after eating chocolates! And he bought them! It must be him!’

‘Calm yourself, Lydia. Come now, this isn’t the first time the idea had occurred to you, is it?’

From out of the depths of the pillows came a muffled, ‘No.’

‘Have you never said anything to him about it?’

‘No, Phryne, how could I?’ The white face emerged, hair tousled attractively.

‘Why don’t you let me speak to him?’ asked Phryne, and was immediately clutched hard by surprisingly strong fingers.

‘No!’ The voice was a scream. ‘No, you mustn’t! Phryne you must swear—you must promise not to say anything to him! I couldn’t bear it!’

‘Why not?’ asked Phryne in a reasonable tone. ‘If he’s trying to kill you, he should be warned that we’re onto him. One warning should be enough.’

‘No! Promise!’ and Phryne relented.

‘There, there, I shan’t say anything. I promise. I swear. But you see that we can’t leave it at that, Lydia.’

‘Yes, we can,’ announced Lydia with hysterics threatening in her voice. ‘I won’t eat anything that he doesn’t eat, and then I’ll be safe.’

‘Very well, I must go now, Lydia, I’ve got to dress; I’m going to the Melba Gala tonight. Shall I call your maid?’

‘No, I’m all right,’ said Lydia. ‘But come and see me again soon?’ she pleaded, and Phryne found her own way out, deeply thoughtful and not a little disgusted.

She drove back to the Windsor, finding Dot in her own garments again, placidly mending stockings and listening to the wireless. A sugary arrangement of Strauss waltzes offended Phryne’s ears and she hurtled into the bedroom to rummage through the clothes.

‘Do turn that off, Dot, I’m oversweetened for one day, and run me a bath. How did you get on with the garments?’

‘They’re still crumpling nicely, Miss,’ said Dot, pointing out a bundle of pink cloth which had been damped and screwed into a ball. ‘By tomorrow midnight they’ll be dry and such as no good girl would think of wearing. I’ve scuffed the shoes and the hat will never be the same again,’ she added.

‘Good girl. Now what am I to wear to the Gala? The gold? No, too obvious. Perhaps the peacock-blue . . . yes. Dot! Find my sapphire earrings and black underthings. The black shoes and sables.’

Phryne stripped off her charcoal and green costume, and rang for Turkish coffee. She wanted, if possible, to remain alert.