Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (17 page)

Phryne waited until the door was shut and locked before she took the last sandwich and pulled it apart.

‘Plaster your burns with this, Sasha, and listen. I think I’ve got our Mrs Andrews’ weak spot.’

Sasha obediently smeared his burns with butter and listened.

‘It will not work,’ he said at length.

‘It had better,’ replied Phryne. ‘Or do you fancy being pressure-cooked into Sasha Surprise? She’ll send one to each: Sanderson, and Dot, and Elizabeth. They can all look after themselves, I hope. That leaves her to us. Will you cooperate or not?’

‘I am not at my best,’ admitted Sasha, smoothing down his hair. ‘But I shall try.’

Phryne began to listen at the door.

‘You go to the Windsor, Bull, and obtain the letter which Miss Fisher told us of. She is in suite thirty-three. Don’t draw attention to yourself and don’t come back without it, or I shall be very cross. Mr Billings: you will break into the Queen Victoria Hospital, threaten the disagreeable woman with whatever occurs to you, and get the samples and the script, if there is one. Then you, may kill her, if you like. And then you shall have a whole ounce to yourself when you come back. James, you will tackle Mr Sanderson. I imagine that the letter is in his safe. Be careful, all of you. And if you fail . . .’ she giggled, ‘I shall be very cross indeed. You all remember what happened to Thomas, when he flouted me? I still have the very gun with which I shot him, and no one has missed him yet. Off you go,’ concluded Lydia.

‘I wonder,’ Phryne murmured in Sasha’s ear, ‘I wonder if she truly is a sapphic, or whether she just loathes the flesh? What do you think, moon of my delight?’

‘I do not think that she has any pleasures of the flesh,’ commented Sasha, his mouth against Phryne’s neck. ‘Is that shoe-polish which I can smell?’

‘Yes, I wanted to look unwashed. Not a sapphic, then?’

‘I do not think so. Her manner towards you is not . . . not confiding enough. She is more like a child, with a child’s will and the single mind. She does not touch you, or me—
quant à ça
, that would be a trial. She finds sex loathsome, that is plain. Dirty. Disgusting. Her husband has mistreated her; no woman is born icy . . . what is the word?’

‘Frigid. Then all this is a substitute?’

‘No,’ whispered Sasha. ‘It is power that she loves. Did you see her eyes when she spoke of murdering us? They glistened like those of a woman in love. It is power she loves.’

‘And sex she hates.’

‘And on her hatred and loathing of sex our only chance depends,
hein
?’

‘
Oui
.’ Agreed Phryne.

Dr MacMillan had had a hard struggle with the breech baby, and when that was safe, with the mother, who seemed obstinately set upon dying. It was nine o’clock before she was satisfied that they both intended to stay, and she could go upstairs for a bath, a cup of strong coffee and an hour’s sleep before the day’s work began. She had arisen from her bed and was dressed, combing her pepper-and-salt hair before the mirror, when a noise at the window attracted her attention. Someone was climbing the drainpipe. It was a lithe man, with a black silk scarf around his neck.

The doctor was used to the fact that any all-woman establishment attracts peeping Toms and perverts of all descriptions. She called to mind the hand-to-hand struggle she had once had with a drunken carter in Glasgow, and chuckled. Waiting until Cokey Billing’s head was crowning through the window, she struck him forcibly on the occiput with the washstand basin—which was of thick, white hospital china—and followed his downward course with a practised eye. She reckoned that a fall of two storeys would probably not kill him, and walked down to provide life-saving measures if necessary.

‘Waste of a good basin,’ muttered Dr MacMillan, regretfully.

The Bull found the Windsor without getting lost more than three or four times, and eyed the doorman sourly. He had been denied admittance with a fluency of language which he found wounding, and was now at a loss. If he couldn’t get in, how could he search suite thirty-three for this letter the boss wanted? Thinking always gave the Bull a headache. While waiting, he decided to have a drink at the nearby hostelry, where he could keep an eye on the door.

Gentleman Jim, stepping through the window of Dr Sanderson’s library, located the safe and rolled the tumblers between his fingers. His ears, trained to such work, found the first faint click that would begin to release the combination. He was only two numbers away from it when he was grabbed roughly by two policemen and handcuffed. Mr Sanderson had fitted his library window with the new telephone burglar alarm, which rang at Russell Street. As befitted a gentleman, he went quietly.

Dot became more and more alarmed as the clock ticked on. There had been no message from Phryne, but someone had inquired for her at the desk.

She had mended all the stockings, and was not com- fortable waiting with nothing to do. She was also very hungry, being unused to going without her breakfast since she had come into Phryne’s service.

It was ten o’clock in the morning.

Phryne laid herself out across Sasha’s knees as she heard the brisk clack of Lydia’s heels on the uncarpeted floor of the hall.

The door was unlocked, and Lydia, returning without companions, found a shocking spectacle to offend her eye. Phryne’s damaged dress was discarded and Sasha’s cut and bloodstained shirt lay on the floor. Phryne had ripped her camiknickers down to the crotch to allow free play for Sasha’s hands and was lying back, eyes glazed with desire.

Lydia stopped short and shrieked, ‘Stop that!’

The lovers paid her no heed. She flourished the gun, took another step, and shrieked again, spattering Sasha with spittle.

‘Let her alone!’ Her face distorted into a grimace. Teeth bared, she struck at Sasha with the gun, and at that moment Phryne flung the shirt over her head and seized the gun hand.

They rolled about the floor, Lydia grunting and attempting to bite while Phryne knelt astride her, bashing her hand hard down on the tiles at the edge of the swimming bath.

‘Help me, Sasha, she’s as strong as a horse!’ gasped Phryne, and the young man added his weight to Phryne’s.

Lydia released the gun, her hand being broken. Phryne rolled her over and tied her wrists with the remains of the mistreated dress. Lydia struggled silently and furiously until Sasha caught her ankles to tie her feet together, when she went as lax as a rag doll and whimpered.

‘What’s taken all the fight out of her?’ wondered Phryne, sucking a bitten finger.

Sasha shuddered. ‘She thought that I meant to rape her,’ he answered, his complexion greening.

‘You sit and watch her, Sasha, and don’t go any closer than that. Just watch—you don’t have to talk to her. I want a look around. I hope that the house is empty, but I don’t know. And you really have no talent for intrigue.’

Phryne opened the door carefully and listened. There was no one stirring. Overhead, she heard a slow thumping that indicated that Gerda was alive; she owed Gerda a favour. It had been she who had warned her of the Rose.

Phryne found some rope in the kitchen and looked out into the little yard. Seeing it in daylight, she shuddered to think that she had ever been near it.

‘A couple of cans of paraffin and a match would do that place a world of good,’ she muttered. She bolted the door, not wishing for any surprises from behind, and rejoined Sasha. Together they trussed Lydia Andrews as close as a Christmas turkey. Phryne recovered her tattered mantle and pulled it on.

‘I don’t understand it,’ murmured Lydia’s pale lips. ‘It was all going so well until you came along . . .’

‘And you know the cream of the jest, don’t you?’ chuckled Phryne. ‘Your father sent me, to find out if your husband was poisoning you. I only got into this snow business because it killed Sasha’s mother. Well, now you’ve found your King of Snow, Sasha, the man you swore to kill—do you still want to?’

Sasha flinched. ‘She is a monstrous woman,’ he said slowly. ‘A daughter of a dog, a servant of the anti-Christ, but I do not want to kill her.’

‘We’ve got company,’ said Phryne, repossessing herself of the gun as the front window shattered, and Bert leapt in, followed by Cec and several policemen.

‘We should have known, Cec,’ he exclaimed, disgusted, as he came to a full stop out of Phryne’s line of fire. ‘Rescuing? She don’t want rescuing. Not though it don’t look like she’s had a time of it,’ he added, observing Phryne’s elegant figure, most of which was evident through the rents in her garments. ‘I’ve brung a few coppers along, Miss, and I’ve been delayed because the lame-brains wouldn’t believe me. They had to gather in your little chemist and his girl, and comb the stock before they were convinced. Cops? Don’t talk to me about cops.’

An embarrassed policeman came forward to handcuff Lydia. She moved passively, but turned in their grip to spit full in Sasha’s face.

‘Manners,’ said the policeman reprovingly. ‘I’ve got a message for you from the detective-inspector, Miss Fisher. He’s got all the samples and he’d like to see you as soon as may be. Perhaps when you’re dressed,’ he added, averting his eyes.

‘How did Dot get her message through?’ asked Phryne. The policeman grinned.

‘She rang the inspector and asked him to fetch it. Simple, eh? And we picked up a bloke as he tried to waylay your maid when she came out with the inspector. The hotel clerk pointed her out to him. Huge big bloke. Took four of us to bring him down. I’ll be taking this one in, Miss.’

‘Show me your warrant card, please,’ asked Phryne, who had never put down her pistol. The policeman obligingly exhibited a card that identified him as Detective-constable Malleson, and Phryne lowered the gun.

‘I have a suspicious mind,’ she confessed. ‘There is also Gerda. She put me on to Mrs Andrews. Unfortunately I had to stab her and I’ve tied her to her bed. You’ll need a stretcher.’

Detective-constable Malleson nodded, gave some orders, and, accompanied by three constables, carried Lydia out, loaded her into a van and watched it drive away. Phryne flung her arms around Bert’s neck and kissed him on the mouth.

‘We did it!’ she cried. ‘Quick, let’s find a pub and celebrate. No, better still, you shall all come to lunch with me.’

‘Er . . . you goin’ to travel like that, Miss?’ asked Bert, smirking. Phryne pulled Sasha’s shirt on over her ruined undergarments and re-donned her mantle. She looked quite indescribable.

There was a burst of astounded German at the door, as Madame Breda, entering, encountered Gerda on her stretcher, leaving. Madame Breda’s healthy cheeks took on a cyclamen colour when she heard what Gerda called her.

‘No time to explain, Madame. Your establishment has been used for drug-dealing. Come to lunch and I’ll explain it all—or most of it. One o’clock, at the Windsor!’

Phryne spat out a stray feather and, embracing Sasha and Bert, danced down into the disreputable taxi, en route for the most exclusive hotel in Melbourne, dressed only in a shirt and a smile.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As his pure intellect applies its laws He moves not on his coppery keen claws

Wallace Stevens ‘The Bird with the Coppery Keen Claws’

The apparition of Miss Fisher, clad in rags, escorted up to the front door by a shirtless dancer and two grinning cab-drivers made a lasting impression on the doorman, who had previously been willing to bet that he had seen everything.

Dot was standing on the steps, weeping like a funeral, but the ebullient Miss Fisher kicked her bare legs in the air as she passed the doorman, and continued through the lobby and into the lift as though she did not present an appalling spectacle. The doorman’s world wavered on its axis.

Phryne embraced Dot in a close hug. ‘You did splendidly, Dot, splendidly—I’m proud of you. Now, order coffee for four, and find Sasha a shirt, for he must go home and fetch la Princesse and Elli. Yes, you must,’ she reproved, silencing Sasha with a kiss full on the mouth. ‘And I must have a bath, I’m putrid. At one o’clock, Sasha, in the luncheon-room. Ring down and order a table for ten, Dot. Come in, Bert, Cec—and excuse me.’

Phryne flew into the bathroom and planted herself under the showerbath. A puff of steam emerged and snatches of song could be heard. Dot handed Sasha a gentleman’s butcher-blue shirt which Phryne sometimes wore with a black skirt, and he left. Bert and Cec sat down gingerly in the midst of all this luxury and accepted coffee in small cups.

‘Is it all over?’ asked Dot in a small voice. Bert reached over and patted her soothingly.

‘Yair, the cocaine ring’s all smashed, and the leader’s in jail, as well as all the bad men. You can sleep safe in your bed tonight.’

Dot mopped her face and smiled for the first time in days.

‘Oh, the lunch table!’ she exclaimed, and rang up the
maître d’
with great aplomb. Bert was impressed.

‘I reckon,’ he said, taking another cup of coffee, ‘that she wasn’t scared at all. She must have been in deep trouble in that bath house, but she was cool as a cucumber. What a girl!’

Cec nodded agreement. Dot considered that their lang- uage was rather free, but was too tired to resent it. She poured herself some coffee, drank it with a grimace, and went to find Phryne a robe, lest she forget her company and burst naked out of the bathroom.

Phryne, meanwhile, was revelling in the heat of the water and the speed at which eau-de-Little Lon. was being replaced with ‘Le Fruit Deféndu’. She towelled her hair roughly and sat down in the bath to soak her hands and feet clean and remove the mud and dung from her numerous grazes. She hoped that she would not contract tetanus. She anointed them all with iodine, refusing to wince, and creamed her face with ‘Facial Youth’, a steal at a shilling a tube.

Dot entered with a robe as Phryne was examining her knees.

‘No Charleston for me for at least three weeks,’ she mourned. ‘But no worse than that. Thanks, Dot. Now, go put on your best dress. You’re coming to lunch, too. Yes, you are! And give Dr MacMillan, the nice Detective-inspector Robinson and WPC Jones a ring and ask them, too. Are Bert and Cec still here?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Good. I owe them fifty quid.’

Phryne put on the robe, a sober one in dark shades of gold, went out, and sat down on the couch next to Bert.

‘I haven’t thanked you for rescuing me,’ she observed, lighting one of her own cigarettes with great delight. ‘How did you get there so promptly?’

‘It would have been sooner, and maybe have saved that friend of yours a few burns on his chest, but I couldn’t get the thick-headed coppers to listen to me. I had to near drag one out to the chemist’s in Little Lon. and buy him one of the powders. It numbed his tongue, all right, so he sent for the others, and they raided the chemist’s first, despite us saying that you were in the front building. It wasn’t until morning that we got it through their heads that we were serious. Still, we got there at last.’

‘So you did, and I am very grateful. Here’s the price we agreed on. We might work together again,’ said Phryne, and to her astonishment, Cec replied, ‘Too right.’ It was the first opinion she had heard him express, unprompted.

Bert looked at his mate in surprise. ‘You reckon?’

‘Too right,’ said Cec again, just to show that it wasn’t a fluke. ‘Me and Bert have to go and check out some other business, but we’ll be in on the lunch. Wouldn’t miss it for quids.’

Phryne and Bert stared at Cec, then at each other. Never had they seen him so animated. Something was up, but neither knew what.

Bert and Cec took their leave, and Phryne and Dot prepared for lunch.

Phryne donned the undergarments and dress handed to her by Dot, who was arrayed in her embroidered linen. She brushed her hair vigorously and put on a small, blue hat with a pert brim. Dot was wearing a close-fitting cloche.

They surveyed themselves in the big mirror, slim young women in stylish clothes.

‘Are you giving your notice, Dot?’ asked Phryne of Dot’s reflection. ‘This has been a bit above and beyond the call of, you know.’

‘No, Miss!’ Dot’s reflection looked dismayed. ‘What, give this up when I’m just getting good at it?’

‘Alice, the lady doctor says that you can go home next week,’ Cec was sitting by Alice’s bed and holding her hand. She had small plump hands that were chillblained and red with washing. But almost all of the blemishes were gone. Enforced rest had given Alice the hands of a lady for the first time in her life. They were getting stronger, Cec thought, as he squeezed the hand, and Alice returned the squeeze. ‘What I mean to say is . . . Will you marry me? I’ve got a half-share in a taxi and a place to live and . . . I don’t mind about the hound who got you into trouble, though I’d break his neck if I knew him and . . . I think it would be a good idea . . .’ faltered Cec, blushing painfully.

Propped up, Alice looked at him. He was tall and lanky and devoted, and she loved him dearly. But Alice was not going to make a mistake this time around.

‘You’re sorry for me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to marry me just because you’re sorry for me.’

‘That’s not the reason I want to marry you,’ said Cec. Alice felt the strength of the grip on the white hospital coverlet and looked into his deep, brown eyes.

‘Give it six months,’ suggested Alice. ‘Till I’m better and in my own world again. Back with mum and dad. Ask me again in six months, Cec,’ said Alice, ‘and we’ll see.’

Cec smiled his peculiarly beautiful smile and patted her shoulder. ‘It’ll be apples,’ he said.

‘So, what did she say?’ asked Bert, who’d been waiting outside.

Cec grinned. ‘Six months, she said to ask again in six months.’

‘That ain’t so good,’ commented Bert.

‘It’s good enough for me!’ exulted Cec.

‘Aar, you’re stuck on that girl,’ snarled Bert, not at all pleased by this new turn of events. ‘Carm on, lover boy, this might be our only chance to have lunch at the Windsor.’

The Windsor’s dining-room was crowded, and a table for ten had only been obtained by the
maître d’hotel
rushing one party through their meal with amazing haste, seeing them off with a glittering, breathless smile, whipping off the cloth with his own hands and summoning five menials to re-lay the table in record time.

Miss Fisher’s guests were arriving. Dr MacMillan was refusing Veuve Clicquot and demanding a little whisky. Detective-inspector Robinson, leaving three sergeants in charge of counting and weighing
Chasseur et Cie
cocaine from Madame Breda’s Bath House, had brought Woman Police-Officer Jones with him as ordered. He did not really know what to say to her, out of uniform. She solved his problem by talking to Sasha, who had swept in with his sister and the old woman, and was staring hungrily at the hors d’oeuvres as though he had not eaten for a week. A loose artistic shirt covered his burns, and he was as attractive as ever. WPC Jones thought that he looked like a sheik, and hung on his every word.

Detective-inspector Robinson engaged Dr MacMillan in conversation.

‘How is that girl, the last victim of Butcher George?’

‘Oh, she will be fine. I believe that she will suffer no lasting ill-effects. A strong young woman. How is the monster taking his imprisonment?’

‘Not too well, I am glad to say. It seems that he can’t stand confined spaces. He confessed it all, you know, including the rapes and the murders, but said that they were all little tarts who deserved all that he did to them. But he isn’t mad,’ said Robinson, taking a cheesy thing from the tray of entrées. ‘Not legally mad. He’ll hang before spring, thank the Lord. And the world will be a safer place without him. And we’ve broken the coke ring. Even my chief has noticed.’

‘You mean Phryne broke the ring, and captured the criminals.’

‘That’s true.’

‘And without her you would not have got your Butcher George, either, would you?’

‘No. A wonderful girl. Pity we can’t have her in the detective force.’

‘A few years ago they were saying that women could not become doctors,’ retorted Dr MacMillian crushingly. Robinson called for more whisky.

Phryne, Dot, Bert and Cec came into the luncheon-room together. Their table began to applaud. Bert and Cec stood aghast. Phryne swept a full court curtsey, and Sasha led her to the head of the table, beating Cec by a short half-head to the seat on her right. The dancer possessed himself of her hand, and kissed it to general approbation.

She leaned accross the table to kiss his cheek and whispered, ‘I still won’t marry you, and I definitely won’t pay you!’

‘I am in your debt, for you have avenged me,’ Sasha said seriously. ‘Now there can be no repayment of what I owe you. And I never thought that you would marry me, which is sad. But do not tell the Princesse, or she will sell me elsewhere.’ Phryne kissed his other cheek, and then his mouth.

‘What has happened to Cec?’ asked Dr MacMillan. ‘He looks like he has won a lottery!’

‘Aah, makes a man sick,’ complained Bert. ‘That sheila we took to your place. Doctor, Cec has fallen for her like a ton of bricks. And just today it looks like she’s fallen for him, too. Turns a man’s stomach.’ Bert downed a glass of champagne, a drink which was new to him. He did not like the taste, but it clothed the world in a rosier glow and he was disposed to think more kindly, even of Alice, who was going to steal his mate away.

Phryne completed the confounding of Cec by giving him a congratulatory kiss as well. She was in a demonstrative mood.

‘I’ve seen your King, Miss Fisher,’ said Dectective-inspector Robinson, ‘She don’t look up to much.’

‘That’s not how she looked when she was going to cook me and Sasha into casserole in the Turkish bath.’

‘My Turkish bath!’ moaned Madame Breda, and was plied with champagne by Bert, though she protested that she never took wine.

‘Begin at the beginning, girl!’ admonished Dr MacMillan. ‘We want to hear the whole tale.’

The Detective-inspector, knowing that this was most irregular, was about to protest and withdraw when he caught the doctor’s eye, and decided not to. Soup was served, and Phryne began to talk.

As veal followed the soup and chicken ragoût the veal, and then cheeses and ices and coffee made their appearance, she ploughed through the story, omitting the delicate parts. Even the outline gave her hearers enough trouble. Fabergé brooches and the Russian Revolution, the Cryers and the chemist in Little Lon., the planted packets of powder turning up all through the story, sapphism and crime . . .

‘It’s an unbelievable tale,’ summed up Dr MacMillan. ‘The scheming bitch is in jail now, and all her associates captured. Cokey Billings is in hospital with a broken ankle and a dent in his head. What happened to the others?’

‘The Bull and Gentleman Jim are both lodged with me,’ said Robinson, with quiet satisfaction. ‘And the chemist, and the chemist’s girl, and Gerda. That was a nicely judged blow, Miss Fisher; another inch to the right and you’d have killed her.’

Phryne, sipping coffee, suppressed the intelligence that it had not been nice judgement but blind luck that had preserved Gerda’s life.

‘To Phryne Fisher,’ Dr MacMillan raised her glass. ‘May she continue to be an example to us all!’

All drank. Cec murmured, ‘Too right.’

Phryne drained her glass.

‘I seem to be established as an investigator,’ she mused, considering the thought gravely. ‘It could be most diverting. In the meantime, there’s champagne and Sasha. Cheers!’ she cried, holding up a refilled glass. Life was very good.