Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Or old dependency of day and night Or island solitude, unsponsered, free Of that wide water, inescapable.

Wallace Stevens ‘Sunday Morning’

Phryne leaned on the ship’s rail, listening to the seagulls announcing that land was near, and watched for the first hint of sunrise. She had put on her lounging robe, of a dramatic oriental pattern of green and gold, an outfit not to be sprung suddenly on invalids or those of nervous tendencies—and she was rather glad that there was no one on deck to be astonished. It was five o’clock in the morning.

There was a faint gleam on the horizon; Phryne was waiting for the green flash, which she had never seen. She fumbled in her pocket for cigarettes, her holder, and a match. She lit the gasper and dropped the match over the side. The brief flare had unsighted her; she blinked, and ran a hand over her short black cap of hair.

‘I wonder what I want to do?’ Phryne asked of herself. ‘It has all been quite interesting up until now, but I can’t dance and game my life away. I suppose I could try for the air race record in the new Avro—or join Miss May Cunliffe in the road-trials of the new Lagonda—or learn Abyssinian—or take to gin—or breed horses—I don’t know, it all seems very flat.’

‘Well, I shall try being a perfect Lady Detective in Melbourne—that ought to be difficult enough—and perhaps something will suggest itself. If not, I can still catch the ski season. It may prove amusing, after all.’

At that moment there came a fast, unrepeatable grass-green flash before the gold and rose of sunrise coloured the sky. Phryne blew the sun a kiss, and returned to her cabin.

Still wrapped in her robe, she nibbled a little thin toast and contemplated her wardrobe, which was spread out like a picnic over all available surfaces. She poured a cup of China tea and surveyed her costumes with a jaundiced eye.

The weather reports promised clear, mild conditions, and Phryne briefly considered a Chanel knitted silk suit, in beige, and a rather daring coat and skirt in bright red wool, but finally selected a fetching sailor suit in dark blue with white piping and a pique collar. The waist dropped below her hips leaving five inches of pleated skirt, which even the parochial taste of Melbourne could not find offensive.

She dressed quickly and soon stood up in camiknickers and silk stockings which were gartered above the knee, and dark-blue leather shoes with a Louis heel. She examined her face in the fixed mirror as she brushed ruthlessly at her per- fectly black, perfectly straight hair, which fell into a neat and shiny cap leaving the nape of her neck and most of her forehead bare. She pulled on a soft dark-blue cloche, and with dexterity born of long practice, sketched her eyebrows, out- lined her green-grey eyes with a thin kohl pencil, and added a dab of rouge and a flourish of powder.

She was pouring out her final cup of tea when a tap at the door caused her to dive back into the folds of the robe.

‘Come in,’ she called, wondering if this was to be another visit from the First Officer, who had conceived a desperate passion for Phryne, a passion which, she was convinced, would last for all of ten minutes once the
Orient
docked. But the answer reassured her.

‘Elizabeth,’ announced the caller, and Phryne opened the door and Dr MacMillan came in and seated herself on the stateroom’s best chair, the only one free of Phryne’s clothes.

‘Well, child, we dock in three hours, so that affected young Purser told me,’ she said. ‘Can you spare the rest of that toast? That blighted woman in steerage produced her brat this morning at three of the clock—babies seem to demand to be born at benighted hours, usually in a thunderstorm—there’s something elemental about babies, I find.’

Phryne passed over the tray—which still bore a plate of bacon and eggs and more toast than Phryne could possibly eat after a long day’s famine—and surveyed Dr MacMillan affectionately.

She was forty-five if a day, and having had the formidable determination to follow Dr Garret Anderson and struggle to become a doctor, she had had no time for anything else. She was as broad and as strong as a labourer, with the same weatherbeaten complexion and rough, calloused hands. Her hair was pepper-and-salt, cut ruthlessly into a short Eton crop. For convenience, she wore men’s clothes, and in them she had a certain rather rugged style.

‘Come up, Phryne, and watch for the harbour,’ said Dr MacMillan. Phryne slipped the sailor suit on and joined her in the climb to the deck.

Phryne leaned on the rail to watch Melbourne appear as the
Orient
steamed steadily in through the heads and turned in its course to find the river and Station Pier.

The city was visible, the flag on Government House announcing that the governor was at home. It appeared to be a much larger city than Phryne remembered, though admittedly she had not been in any position to see it clearly when she had clung to the rail on the way out. Dr MacMillan, at her side, threw a foul cigar overboard and remarked, ‘It seems to be a fine big city, well-built stone and steeple.’

‘What did you expect? Wattle-and-daub? They aren’t savages, you know, Elizabeth! You’ll find it much like Edinburgh. Possibly quieter.’

‘Ah well, that will be a change,’ agreed the doctor. ‘Are your trunks packed, Phryne?’

Phryne smiled, conscious of three cabin trunks, two suitcases, a shopping bag and a purse in her cabin, and seven large trunks in the hold, no doubt under a lot of sheep. Her dangerous imports into her native land included a small lady’s handgun and a box of bullets for it, plus certain devices of Dr Stopes’s which were wrapped in her underwear under an open packet of Ladies’ Travelling Necessities to discourage any over-zealous customs official.

They leaned companionably into the wind, watching the city come nearer. The little book in the cabin had informed Phryne that Melbourne was a modern city. Most of it was sewered, had water and in some cases electricity laid on, and there was public transport in the form of trains and trams. Industry was booming, and cars, trucks and motorcycles outnumbered horse transport thirty to one. Most streets were macadamised and the city was well served with a university, several hospitals, a cricket ground, the Athenaeum Club, and a Royal Arcade. Visitors were urged to attend the Flemington races or the football. (Collingwood were last year’s premiers, the pamphlet claimed, to Phryne’s complete bemusement.) Ladies would appreciate a stroll around the Block Arcade, the shopping highlight of the city, and would admire Walter Burley Griffin’s interesting addition to Collins House. The Menzies, Scott’s, or the Windsor Hotel were recommended for first-class passengers. Phryne wondered where the steerage passengers were advised to stay. ‘Elevator House, I expect,’ she said to herself. ‘You can always rely on the Salvation Army.’

‘Eh? Yes, splendid people,’ agreed Dr MacMillan absently, and Phryne realised that she had spoken aloud. Had she been at all used to blushing, she would have blushed, but she wasn’t, so she didn’t.

Clearing customs required less expenditure of charm than Phryne had feared, and within an hour she and her mountain of baggage were through into the street and waiting for a taxi. Dr MacMillan, lightly encumbered with a gladstone bag full of clothes and a tea-chest of books, hailed vigorously, and a motor swerved and halted abruptly before them.

The driver got out, surveyed the pile of impedimenta, and remarked laconically. ‘Y’need another cab.’ He then yelled across the road to a mate, Cec, who was lounging against a convenient wall. Cec vanished with a turn of speed which belied his appearance, and returned in charge of a battered truck which had evidently once belonged to a grocer. ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’ still decorated the flaking sides.

So these are the natives, thought Phryne. Cec was tall and lanky, blond with brown eyes, young and ferociously taciturn. The other driver, who was apparently called Bert, was short, dark and older. Both were strikingly attractive. I believe they call it ‘hybrid vigour’, Phryne mused.

‘Load up,’ said Bert, and three porters obeyed him. Phryne observed with amazement that at no time had the hand-rolled cigarette moved from its place on the driver’s lower lip. Phryne distributed tips with a liberal hand and took her place in the taxi. With a jerk they started off for Melbourne.

It was a fine, warm autumn day. She doffed her moire coat and lit a gasper, as they left the wharf area with a great smoking and roaring of engine and proceeded to take a series of corners at alarming speed.

The driver, Bert, was examining Phryne with the same detached interest as she was examining him. He was also keeping an eye on the traffic, and the following grocer’s van driven by Cec. Phryne wondered if she would ever see her expensive baggage again.

‘Where we goin’ first?’ yelled Bert. Phryne screamed back over the noise of the labouring engine, ‘First to the Queen Victoria Hospital, then to the Windsor Hotel, and we aren’t in a particular hurry.’

‘Nurses, are you?’ asked Bert. Dr MacMillan looked resigned.

‘No, this is Dr MacMillan from Scotland, and I’m just visiting.’

‘You staying at the Windsor, Miss?’ asked Bert, removing his pendant cigarette and flinging it through the rattling window of the taxi. ‘Toffy, are you? The time will come when the working man rises up against his oppressors, and breaks the chains of Capital, and . . .’

‘. . . then there won’t be any more Windsor,’ finished Phryne. Bert looked injured. He released the steering wheel and turned his head to remonstrate with the young capitalist.

‘No, Miss, you don’t understand,’ he began, averting death with a swift twiddle of the wheel that skidded them to safety around a van. ‘When the revolution comes, we’ll all be staying at the Windsor.’

‘It sounds like an excellent idea,’ agreed Phryne.

‘I saw enough of such things during the war,’ snorted Dr MacMillan. ‘Revolutions mean blood and murder. And innocent people made homeless.’

‘War,’ said the driver sententiously, ‘is a plot by Capital to force the workers to fight their battles in the name of economic security. That’s what war is,’ he concluded.

‘Is Cec still following?’ Phryne asked, hoping to divert this fervent communist.

‘Yeah, Cec is on our tail. He’s a good driver,’ said Bert. ‘But not as good as me.’

The city was flying past, halated behind them in the cloud of exhaust and dust generated by the ex-grocer’s van, and they stopped suddenly at an unimposing entrance. As the air cleared, Phryne saw the legend of the main door and realised that she must part with Elizabeth MacMillan. She felt an unexpected pang, but suppressed it. The doctor kissed Phryne on the cheek, gathered her Gladstone bag and her coat, and Cec unloaded the tea-chest onto the pavement without actually endangering the lives of too many passers-by. Elizabeth waved, the driver hauled his unwilling motor into gear and, avoiding a clanging tram by inches, belted down to Collins Street, described a circle around the policeman on point duty, and groaned up the hill. They inched up, past the Theosophical building and the Theatre, past two churches, some rather charming couturières, and brass plates by the hundred, until Phryne saw a large and imposing grey building dead ahead, and entertained a momentary apprehension that her driver might try his steed on the majestic flight of steps that fronted it.

Her fears were unfounded. The driver had done this journey before. Bert hauled the motor around in another three-point turn and stopped, grinning, in front of the austere portals of the hotel. The doorman, not blanching in the least at this outlandish vehicle, stepped forward with dignity and opened the door by its one remaining hinge. Phryne took his gloved hand and extracted herself from the car, brushed herself down, and produced her purse.

The driver abandoned his vehicle and handed over Phry- ne’s coat, grinning amiably. He was wearing a new cigarette.

‘Thank you so much for the interesting ride,’ said Phryne. ‘How much do I owe you and—er—Cec?’

‘I reckon that five shillings will do it,’ grinned Bert, avoiding the doorman’s eye. Phryne opened her purse.

‘I think about two-and-six will do it, don’t you?’ she said artlessly.

‘And a deener for Cec,’ Bert bargained. Phryne handed over the extra shilling. Cec, a gangly man with more strength than appeared to inhabit his bony frame, transferred Phryne’s trunks and boxes into the care of a small army of porters, all in the livery of the hotel. Then, with a whoop and a cloud of dust, the drivers vanished.

‘I’m Phryne Fisher,’ she informed the doorman. ‘I made my reservation in London.’

‘Ah, yes, Miss,’ replied the doorman. ‘You’re expected. Come in on the
Orient
this morning? You’ll want a cup of tea. Come this way, if you please.’ Phryne surrendered herself, and stepped up into the quiet, well-ordered, opulent world of the Windsor.

Bathed, re-clothed and hungry, Phryne came down into the hotel dining-room for luncheon. She cut a distractingly fashionable figure in pale straw-coloured cotton and a straw hat, around which she had wrapped a silk scarf of green, lemon and sea-blue. She chose a table under the cluster of marble cupids, selected clear soup and a cold collation from the menu handed to her by a neat girl in black, and considered the inhabitants.

The women were well-dressed, and some quite beautiful, though admittedly a little behind the mode. The men were dressed in the usual pin-stripe and the occasional dark suit—solicitors or bank managers, perhaps. A few bright young things in flannel bags and sports jacket or Fugi dresses swinging braid, and caked make-up livened things up. One actress was in grease-paint, wearing a set of beach pyjamas in gold cloth and a turban. Her fingers dripped with jewels, and a leopard-cub on a strong chain sat at her feet. The Windsor took them all in its stride.

The soup was excellent; Phryne demolished it and her collation and three cups of tea, then returned to her room for a rest. She fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until the dressing-gong sounded for dinner.

While she had been asleep, her clothes had been unpacked, pressed, and hung up in the massive wooden wardrobe. The room was decorated in excellent, if subdued, taste, though she would have preferred a less aggressive pink for the lampshades and fewer statues of nymphs. Phryne had a grudge against nymphs. Her name, chosen by her father, had been Psyche. Regrettably, at her christening he had not been himself, due to a long evening at the club the night before. When called upon for her name, he had rummaged through the rags of a classical education and seized upon Phryne. So instead of Psyche the nymph, she was Phryne the courtesan.