Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (31 page)

After about ten minutes, Mike came back to the kitchen, where Phryne was bandaging Sid’s wrist lest he bleed to an untimely death. He whimpered as she handled him and she observed with pleasure that her aim had been perfect. The hole was in the exact middle of the wrist and had not even chipped a bone. The tendons were, as she had purposed, cut neatly though. He would not use that hand to molest any more children.

Mike came into the kitchen and took Phryne by the shoulder, turning her carefully towards him. ‘I never meant to hurt the little girl,’ he pleaded.

‘Well, she doesn’t need you any longer,’ commented Phryne. ‘So now we must decide what to do. I think that I shall cast you as heroic rescuer. I think I’d better bind up your arm and give you some money. Then you can have a wash and a shave, go home to dear Mrs O’Brien, and report your car stolen. You thought your wife had it, but she’s not come back, and you’re afraid that something has happened to her. Did you write the note?’

‘No,’ said Mike through lips numb with astonishment.

‘Good. Now let’s wash this wound. It’s little more than a scratch, just keep it dry. I’ll take off this disgusting hat and find my face.’

Phryne put her head under the cold-water tap and scrubbed vigorously. She emerged as a young woman of some distinction with a bleeding cut over one eye. Phryne dabbed at it with her handkerchief.

‘You need a bit of sticky plaster,’ offered Mike. He found some in the cupboard and applied it neatly. Phryne washed her face again. She was aching all over.

‘Henry, I’ll try to give you as much altitude as I can, but I think this is a silly idea,’ yelled Bunji as she hauled the plane into another turn. ‘You can’t even see the ground. The moon’s down.’

‘I can see that dirty great cross that Phryne’s drawn on that road and I’m going to come down right in the middle of it,’ said Henry confidently. ‘There’s no wind. If I haul in the slacks I should drop right on their heads.’

‘Oh, all right, old chum, far be it from me to stop a friend anxious to break his neck. Careful as you go over, don’t catch anything on the wing.
Merde
!’ yelled Bunji. ‘Now!’

She had judged it nicely. The man’s body fell out of vision. A pale flower blossomed, cutting off her sight of the luminous cross. Right on target. Bunji drank another mouthful of the luke-warm coffee and looked for a place to set down.

Candida, who occasionally did as she was told, had taken Bear out to the road and was sitting quietly on the running board of the Bentley. She looked at the road. It was glowing.

‘They must have awful big snails here, Bear, to leave a trail like that. Big enough to ride on. Perhaps we can catch one and ride home.’ She yawned. It had been an exciting evening.

Dropping out of the sky into the centre of the snail tracks came a man clad all in leather. Candida froze. He cursed a bit as he loosened the parachute cords, and Candida and Bear edged closer. The voice was familiar. Then the man tore off his flying helmet and she saw his face in the lights that were now streaming from the house.

‘Daddy!’ shrieked Candida, and flew to him, scaling his body and settling back into his embrace. She held him as tight as a limpet for five minutes as he stroked her hair, then she looked up.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked severely. ‘Why did you let those people steal me?’

CHAPTER TWELVE

I met murder on the way

P.B. Shelley
The Mask of Anarchy

Phryne found a bottle of rum and two glasses, and lit her first gasper in hours. She leaned back on the draining board and smoked luxuriously.

‘You’d better hit the road, Mike. Don’t forget to report the car stolen.’

Mike, dressed in a clean shirt and combed and shaved, looked like a respectable working man. Phryne peeled off a hundred pounds from her wad of notes.

‘This should take care of you for a while. I’ll look after Candida. Her family will be arriving soon.’

Mike knocked back the rum and pointed at the bundle, which was Sid, on the floor.

‘What about him? He’ll sing like a canary.’

‘I’ll take care of him,’ said Phryne quietly. Sidney, hearing her, winced.

‘Don’t look back,’ she advised Mike. ‘Keep going. There’s the right woman, and children, waiting for you yet. If you need any help with a job, come to me.’ She tucked her card into his pocket with the money, and let him out the front door.

They were both arrested by the sight of what appeared to be an angel, fallen from the sky. He stood tall and shapely, draped in his billowing wings. Candida and Bear were in his arms.

‘Mike,’ squealed Candida. ‘Daddy’s come.’

Mike walked over to her and took her hand.

‘Well, everything’s worked out then. I’ve got to go, Candida. I’ve come to say goodbye.’

Candida, who always associated goodbyes with kisses, turned her cheek. Mike bent and kissed her. Then he took Henry Maldon’s hand and shook it firmly. He turned away and walked into the night.

‘Mike!’ cried Candida, ‘you’ll get lost in the dark.’ But his step did not falter.

Phryne walked over to Henry. ‘I think you’d better get off the highway, dear man, or you’ll be run over by the rescuers. Excuse me for a moment.’

Phryne went back into the kitchen and propped Sid up against a cabinet. ‘I want to talk to you,’ said Phryne. ‘What will you take for keeping your mouth shut?’

‘Why should I? I’ll swing as soon as the cops lay their hands on me.’

‘Yes, you will. But I might be able to gratify any last wish.’ Her voice contained a hint of perversion.

Sidney licked his lips. ‘Can you smuggle me a girl before I go to the gallows?’

‘I think so,’ said Phryne.

Sid wriggled. ‘I mean my sort of girl. A child.’

‘Perhaps. How old?’

‘Twelve at the most.’

Phryne thought of her friend Klara, a lesbian who got a great kick from getting money out of men. Especially men like Sid. She dressed in a gym slip and looked almost prepubescent. The child-molesters who constituted most of her clientele fuelled her loathing, and it would not be the first time her little-girl’s body had been purchased by one who was about to die.

From her extensive knowledge of the underworld Phryne knew that it was no great matter to smuggle anything into a prison. All that was needed were a few timely words and more than a few coins of the realm. She recalled that the orgy which preceded the death of the Carlton murderer Jackson had been described to her in great detail by the prison guard who let the three girls in, disguised as prisoners. He said he had stayed to ‘supervise’ and fend off any inquiries. What had been his name? Briggs, that was it, a Northern Irishman of flexible morality and an ever-open palm. He volunteered for the duty which the other warders avoided; sitting up with the man to be hanged on the morrow. Stranger things than Klara had been taken into Pentridge for the comfort of those about to die, though the strangest was probably a bushranger’s horse. He had wanted to say farewell to it in person.

‘I think I can manage that, yes,’ she agreed.

‘In the death cell?’ bargained Sidney. Phryne wondered how long he had been in love with death. Perhaps the desired culmination of his whole career would be his judicial execution at the hands of stronger men. She poured out some rum and helped him drink it. Sidney, dispossessed of his gun, was a pathetic creature.

Ann was less pathetic because she was so very dead. Phryne stood over the corpse and looked down on her. The expression of surprise had faded. She looked now as if she was asleep. The thirsty spirit had gone, presumably back to its maker. Phryne collected up the few personal belongings that pointed to a second man having been present and stuffed them in her pockets. Then she went to sit on the front step and wait for the car. She was aching and bruised and tired out but pleased with the night’s work.

Phryne offered Henry a cigarette and lit her own. Candida and Bear were wrapped up in the parachute. They were awake, but warm. The lights of the big car approached. Tree trunks sprang into visibility.

‘Here they are at last,’ said Phryne. ‘I’d kill for a cup of tea. Look, Henry, it’s picanninny daylight. The sun will be up in an hour.’

The car drew up, and disgorged Dot, Molly, Jack Leonard and Bunji. They saw two bedraggled figures sitting on the front step of the small house. They were smoking. Next to them was a bundle of white silk, in which one could see a straggling head of pale hair and a bear.

‘Is it all right, Miss?’ asked Dot, breaking the silence. Molly flew to Candida, who embraced her frantically.

‘Daddy came down out of the sky and the lady brought Bear so I knew that it was all right,’ she informed Molly. Then she wriggled down and laid herself out across Molly’s knees.

‘What are you doing, Candida Alice?’ asked Molly fondly.

‘I want my spanking, and then I want my lollies!’ said Candida.

Molly laughed, sobbed, and delivered five moderate slaps. Candida sat up and Dot put her bag of lollies into her hands. The child checked through them carefully. The whole threepence worth was there, even if somewhat muddy. Candida filled her mouth with mint leaves and began to cry.

They all piled into the car as the sun was rising and took the road for the town. Phryne laughed aloud at the sight of them, all dusty and streaked, and reflected she must be the most bedraggled of them all.

‘What’s the best hotel in Queenscliff?’ she called to Molly.

Molly could not reply because she had unwisely accepted Candida’s offer of a toffee and her teeth were glued together.

Henry said, ‘The Queenscliff Hotel is the best, but we can’t go there looking like this.’

‘Yes we can,’ said Phryne flatly. ‘You should have seen the state in which we once entered the Windsor. I’m positively overdressed by comparison.’

Dot remembered it well. Phryne looked a lot more respectable in her present attire.

They drew up outside the Queenscliff Hotel and climbed the stone steps wearily. There, Phryne’s money, charm and air of authority obtained three rooms, one with a bath, and breakfast as soon as it should be laid. Phryne saw that her guests were settled in front of a hastily lit fire in the drawing-room, then sent a boy out for a roll of brown paper and some string. She wrapped Sid in the paper, using knots taught to her by a young sailor she had loved briefly during the Great War. By the time she had finished, only Sid’s head was free. With the help of the hotel porter, she then carried Sid to the police station and deposited him on the counter.

The desk-sergeant looked up, blinked, and dropped his pen.

‘What’s all this about, Miss?’

Phryne sank wearily into a chair and pointed at the uncomfortable felon.

‘Read the label,’ she said.

The desk-sergeant called for a constable and walked around into the room. He surveyed Sid carefully and read the label aloud.

‘“For Detective-inspector Jack Robinson, Russell Street, Melbourne. A present from Phryne Fisher.” Aha, we had a message about you, Miss Fisher. They telephoned from Geelong. Every cooperation, they said. You are a respected person, evidently.’

Phryne smiled faintly.

‘His name is Sidney Brayshaw, and you’ve been looking for him for some time, I believe. You’d better get a doctor fairly soon, because I had a little trouble picking him up and he got damaged. Detective-inspector Robinson is going to be furious if you let him bleed to death.’

The sergeant ripped off the paper and led Sidney away. As Sidney was leaving the room, he broke the silence he had maintained throughout his humiliation and called to Phryne, ‘You better not forget, lady. Remember—I’m not dead yet.’

‘You look like you could do with a doctor, too,’ suggested the young constable. ‘You seem to have taken a bit of a battering. I’ll just give the local man a call, shall I?’

‘Yes indeed, if you want Sidney to live to hang. He is undoubtedly the most unpleasant person I have ever met in my whole life. How I would love to squeeze the life out of the little rat. Have you heard of him, Constable . . .’

‘Constable Smith, Miss Fisher. I am astounded that you have come in with Sidney Brayshaw. Why, there’s his portrait on the wall,’ commented the young man, pointing out a ‘Most Wanted’ poster. He took it down.

‘He ain’t wanted anymore,’ he said. Phryne laughed. The constable did not think he had ever seen a face so drawn. The black hat and the black collar enclosed a countenance as white as marble.

‘Where are you staying, Miss? If you don’t mind my saying, you look all in.’

‘The Queenscliff Hotel. Can you drive my car there? And make me a present of that poster? It will make a perfect souvenir.’

Constable Smith, who had a sense of occasion, rolled up the poster and presented it with a bow. Then he vanished behind the desk, presumably to ask permission to leave and to summon the doctor to Sid.

Phryne was almost asleep on her feet when the constable came back. She gave him the keys, suffered herself to be helped into a seat beside him, and by the time Constable Smith had proudly steered the big red car around the corner she was fast asleep.

Thus Phryne made her most impressive entrance, though she missed it at the time; lolling gracefully with her head on a policeman’s shoulder. He stalked up the steps in correct uniform, helmet on and every button gleaming.

He stopped at reception and asked the manager, ‘Where shall I put her?’

The manager did not flick so much as an eyebrow. ‘Ah, yes, that is Miss Fisher. Room Six. Her maid has just gone out to purchase some necessaries. Follow me, Constable.’ Phryne was carried up the carpeted stairs and laid gently on the bed. Constable Smith took off Phryne’s boots and flung the quilt over her.

‘Thank you, Constable, I think that will be all,’ observed the manager. ‘I shall inform her maid that Miss Fisher has returned. I believe that a Mr Jack Leonard was expressing a wish to speak to you.’

The Queenscliff Hotel had been built in those spacious days when an empire was an empire, and the rooms were lavishly appointed. Constable Smith brushed past a bowl of winter leaves and berries which took up three square feet and saw the strangest assortment of people he had ever set eyes on, gathered around the largest fireplace he had ever seen. You could have roasted an ox in it, as he told his mates later. There was the chink of dishes in the back parlour as breakfast was laid.

The room contained numerous soft couches and two easy chairs. On one of the couches sat a man in flying gear, playing ‘scissors, paper, stone’ with a very grubby child in a stained white nightgown. Next to him sat a well-dressed and well-groomed young woman with fiery hair who kept patting the child, as if she was not sure that she was real. Between the child and the sofa back reclined a battered teddy bear with a handkerchief around its neck.

In one easy chair sat a plump young woman in leather gear, who had taken a cup of coffee into both hands as though to absorb the heat. She was staring into the fire. In the other easy chair sat the very dapper young man with a thin moustache, who stood up.

‘Hello, old chap. That was Miss Fisher I saw you carrying up the stairs just now, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ agreed the constable.

‘Is she all right?’

‘She fell asleep and I couldn’t wake her so I put her to bed. I don’t think there is anything wrong with her.’

‘Good. She told me that if she didn’t succeed in telling you the story I was to inform you that we’ll be down to the station after lunch to tell all. By the way, there’s a dead woman in a house up the hill,’ he gave the address. ‘Sidney killed her. I’m sure that he will explain.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the dumbfounded constable. ‘I’ll see about it right away, sir.’

He left the hotel to go and find his sergeant. What a young constable needs when given this sort of information is a sergeant. However, he had a strong suspicion as to what the sergeant would say.

He was right. He was immediately sent to see if there was a dead woman in the house. There was.

Dot had found that the lady who kept the draper’s shop lived over her premises, and Dot knocked until a sleepy voice replied that she was coming. At last the door opened.

‘Well?’ asked Mrs Draper.

‘I need a lot of things for three ladies who are benighted in the area,’ said Dot. Mrs Draper opened the shop door and switched on the light.

‘You look for what you want, dear,’ she said kindly. ‘I’ll just go and make me tea.’

She tottered off. Dot selected a light travelling bag and found a nightgown and a pair of soft, black velvet slippers. Phryne’s trousers were all very well but one could not dine in them. Dot took a black skirt in a size W for Bunji and in SSW for Phryne; bought a loose white blouse with dolman sleeves and a bright red jersey top, three gentlemen’s shirts and socks and undergarments, and three sets of stockings and undies for the ladies. Then she remembered herself and added one more of each. At the back of the shop she spied a quaint beaded cap with a long scarf hanging from it. She bought a feather cockade for the black cloche, and remembered Bunji’s flying boots at the last moment and bought her a pair of slippers, too. She wrestled this mountain of purchases onto the counter and went in search of the draper.

Placidly, the old woman added up the astronomical total, checked it, and gave Dot change. She agreed that the things would be sent instantly to the Queenscliff Hotel and saw her customer to the door, which she locked behind her. Then she chose a comfortable bit of floor and fainted.