Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (41 page)

‘Yes, I can sing,’ agreed Phryne. ‘What time? And shall I bring anything?’

‘Some beer would be nice,’ said Aaron Black. ‘You will come, then?’

‘If that place has any heating, yes.’

‘It shall be heated, if I have to bribe the furnace man with gold,’ said Aaron. ‘Till then, Miss Fisher.’

Alastair passed her on his way into the boathouse, but he did not say a word. Phryne went back thoughtfully to sit in the car and was presently joined by Lindsay, clean and dressed in old flannels and a cricket jumper.

‘I never thought that you’d really come,’ he said quietly. ‘I am honoured, Miss Fisher.’

‘Get in,’ invited Phryne, ‘I’m freezing here. What nice fellows your crewmates are. They’ve invited me to a singsong in the boathouse on Friday. Are you coming? Can you sing?’

‘Yes, and yes,’ agreed the young man, slicking back his hair. ‘Nothing would keep me away from you, Phryne. And I carol a very neat stave, if I do say so myself.’

‘Sing to me,’ requested Phryne. ‘Shall you come home with me?’ she added, with such hidden emphasis that Lindsay’s admirable jaw dropped.

‘Yes,’ he stammered, and Phryne started the car.

As they negotiated the muddy path, the young man began to sing, in a pure, unaccented tenor:

Since making whoopee became all the rage,

Its even got into the old bird cage,

My canary has circles under his eyes . . .

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I never put things into people’s hands—that would never do—you must get it for yourself.’

Lewis Carroll
Alice Through the Looking Glass

‘I should like a word with you, if you please,’ said an undistinguished man courteously, flashing a badge. Alastair was leaving the boathouse in search of any vehicle which was going to Carlton when a hand fell on his shoulder. ‘I’m Detective-inspector Robinson, and I’m investigating the murder of Mrs Henderson. I gather that you know her daughter.’

‘Yes, I do, we are engaged to be married. I don’t know anything about the murder.’

‘Just for the record, sir, where were you on the night of the twenty-first of June?’ asked the policeman, taking out a notebook. ‘Perhaps we might sit down on this seat here, you look tired.’

‘I’m not tired,’ snapped the young man. ‘And I’m not telling you anything. I don’t have to tell you what I was doing.’

‘No, sir, you don’t have to tell me, but if you don’t then I will have to find out, and it would be easier all round if you told me,’ said the detective easily. ‘That was the night of the murder, and I will be asking all of the persons involved what they were doing. Just for elimination, you understand. Were you at home?’

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Alastair grudgingly. Detective-inspector Robinson made a laborious note.

‘I see, and was anyone with you?’

‘No. My room-mate was out. All night. I don’t know where he was, either. You’ll have to ask him.’

‘I don’t see what business it is of mine, as he isn’t involved with this matter at all.’

‘Oh, isn’t he? I tell you one thing, that female harpy has got her claws into him. She collected him like a parcel and he’s gone off with her in her big red car.’

‘Well, that’s not my affair either, is it? Or yours, sir.’ Robinson did not correct the young man, although he knew that harpies are always female. Robinson had been to a public school.

‘What were you doing, at home and all alone? Did anyone call?’

‘No. I was quite alone all night and I can’t prove it. So put that in your pipe and smoke it,’ added the young man fiercely. ‘I don’t have to answer to you! And unless you want to arrest me now, I’m going home.’

‘I’m not arresting you,’ said the policeman calmly, ‘yet.’

‘Then I’m going,’ said Alastair defiantly. He walked a few paces, stopped and glared, as if defying Robinson to make a move, then strode away.

‘Well, that may be the product of injured innocence, and it may not,’ mused the detective-inspector. ‘A little more inquiry should settle it. And Miss Fisher has taken the other one home with her, has she?’ he chuckled. ‘Pity I can’t use her methods of interrogation. I’m sure that they would be more fun.’ He went back to his police car and drove decorously back to Russell Street.

On arrival, he found a packet of photographs on the desk, with a note from Dot.

‘Dear Mr Robinson,’ he read. Dot still did not like policemen, but she did like Robinson, so she did not use his title. ‘Miss Fisher said to send these to you. She also wants me to tell you that the girl is five feet tall, weighs six stone, and has brown eyes and brown hair. She has no distinguishing—’Dot had taken several tries to manage this word—‘marks or scars except a brown mole on her right upper arm. She says that she has had the pictures taken in the old frock she wore on the train, and hopes that you can find out who lost her. Yours truly, Dorothy Williams (Miss).’

The photographs showed a thin, pale young woman with long hair. Anyone who knew the girl ought to recognise her from them. The detective-inspector called up his minions, sent out the negative plates to be copied and distributed, and also ordered a discreet watch on the angry medical student. ‘Just,’ he said to himself, ‘in case.’

Phryne arrived home, found that Dot and Jane had gone back with Dr MacMillan to the Queen Victoria Hospital to observe casualty, and Miss Henderson was ensconced for the day in her bed with a new novel. Mrs Butler was expecting the dairy-boy and the baker, and so was relieved of her anxieties in the matter of the milk. Phryne put in an order for hot chocolate and raisin toast, and led the bemused young man up the stairs to her private chambers.

These were decorated in her favourite shade of green; curtains and carpets were mossy, and even the sheets on her bed were leaf-coloured. It was a little like being in a tree, the young man thought, as he sank down onto a couch which yielded luxuriously to his weight and seemed to embrace his limbs.

Lindsay Herbert had seen many movies, and he was reminded forcibly of Theda Bara in
Desire
. She, however, had reclined on a tigerskin rug, and Miss Fisher had only common sheepskin.

The fire was lit, the room was warm, and Lindsay was alert, aroused and tense. Had she brought him here only to tease him, to raise him to an unbearable pitch of desire and then to disappoint him? He had known such women. He hoped that Phryne was not one of them, but he was neither sure nor certain, and sipped his hot chocolate suspiciously.

He began to realise that she was in earnest when she dismissed Mr Butler, told him that she was not to be disturbed, and threw the bolt on the door. Now these three rooms were cut off from the rest of the house, although household noises could be heard through the floor: the voice of Mrs Butler giving the dairy-man a piece of her mind in reference to the soured milk of yesterday, and the noise of Mr Butler using the new vacuum cleaner on the hall carpet.

Lindsay put down the cup and stood up, and Phryne put a record on the gramophone. She wound it up with some force and placed the needle on the spinning disc, and there was Bessie Smith, the thin, feline voice, lamenting, ‘He’s a woodpecker, and I just knock on wood . . .’

Phryne slid into Lindsay’s arms and whispered, ‘Let’s dance.’ They began to foxtrot slowly to the woman’s lament. Lindsay was keenly alive to the scent of Miss Fisher’s hair, the smoothness of her bare arms, and when she raised her head, he laid his mouth to her throat and clutched her close.

‘Oh, Phryne,’ he breathed, and her voice came, cool and amused. ‘Do you want me?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Well, I want you, too,’ she returned, her hands dropping to the buttons of his shirt. The song ground to an end and the gramophone ran down. Phryne peeled off the young man’s shirt and caressed the shoulders and back, smooth and lithe and muscular, unblemished, young. Here were no hard lumps of football muscle, but the long sinews of a runner. Lindsay, striving to control hands that trembled, undid the hook at the back of Miss Fisher’s beautiful woollen dress, and then fumbled his way down until the dress dropped, and she was revealed in bust-band and petticoat and gartered stockings. He noticed that she had jazz garters, all colours, as she sat down on the couch and extended her legs for him to remove them. As he rolled the silk, trying not to snag it, he relished the smoothness of her naked skin, and saw that she, too, trembled at his touch.

The petticoat, it appeared, came off over her head, and the bust-band undid at the back.

Phryne took her lover by the hand and led him to her big bed, in the warm room, and lay down. Her body seemed almost luminous against the dark-green sheets, and Lindsay, for a moment, was overcome and thought that he might faint. Her scent was musky now, female and demanding, and he was afraid that he might hurt her.

She wriggled a little, and was underneath him; he was not sure how she had got there. He felt the delicate bones, overlaid with fine skin, at her hip and her chest; ran his hands down her sides as she thrust up her breasts to his mouth.

As the lips closed, Phryne gave a soft cry, and Lindsay was inside her, the strong but liquid, blood-heat tissue and muscle clutching and sucking, and Lindsay realised that she did not mean to cheat him.

All previous half-frightened, half-bold encounters in bushes, which had been the pitch of his sexual experience before, vanished before this bath of sensuality. The woman was strong and as lithe as a cat; she twisted and moved beneath and above him, stroking and kissing; she loved the touch of his hands and body in the same way as he loved the contact of her skin on his own. He detected the ripple of her desire as it reached its climax; he fell forward onto her body as she flexed and gasped and was clutched close in her arms.

Lindsay Herbert buried his face in Phryne’s shoulder and began to weep.

Phryne, assuaged, held him close, his tears pooling in the hollow of her collarbone, until he sniffed and shook his head, and then she said gently, ‘Are you regretting the loss of your innocence, my dear?’

The young man raised a glowing, wet face to hers and said, ‘Oh, no, no, it was just so lovely, so lovely, Phryne, I couldn’t bear it to end . . . I mean . . .’

Phryne released him and he rolled away to dry his eyes on the sheet. He laid a calloused hand on her thigh, and laughed. Phryne sat up.

‘If that is the joy of conquest, my sweet darling, then I can’t approve of it. Come and lie down again. I like the feel of your body, Lindsay—you are an intriguing mixture of smooth and strong.’

He stretched out beside her and yawned.

‘I thought that you were a vamp,’ he said artlessly, and was mildly offended when Phryne began to laugh. ‘No, don’t laugh at me. I mean, vamps always lead men on, and arouse them, and then abandon them.’

‘Well, I certainly aimed to arouse lust,’ agreed Phryne, gurgling with suppressed laughter, ‘but I had no intention of leaving you unsatisfied. And there’s no hurry, my sweet. We can stay here all day. Unless you have something else to do?’

Lindsay pulled a grim face. ‘You realise that you’ve made me miss three lectures,’ he reproved, and Phryne pulled him down into her arms again.

‘And I shall make you miss another three,’ she said, sealing his protesting mouth with her own. Lindsay knew when he had met a determined woman. He submitted.

Miss Henderson, on inquiring as to the whereabouts of Miss Fisher, was told by Mr Butler that she was in conference and could not be disturbed. Mr Butler’s face was perfectly straight. He was pleased that Miss Fisher had dropped the painter who had been her last lover. The painter had left partly-finished canvases all over the place and had washed his brushes in Mrs Butler’s pristine kitchen sink. A law student, Mr Butler reflected, was likely to be much cleaner around the house.

Awakening from a light sleep, Lindsay turned over with a muttered curse, loath to leave the most ravishing dream he had enjoyed for . . . well, for all of his life. His face came into contact with Phryne’s sleeping breast and he woke, and kissed her.

‘Oh, Phryne, so you weren’t a dream!’

‘Quite real and indeed palpable,’ agreed Phryne. ‘But I must get up, Lindsay darling. I’ve got things to do.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said the young man, holding her firmly and pinning her down with one knee. ‘Later.’

‘Later,’ Phryne succumbed, laughing.

Lindsay was in the bathroom, wondering which of the golden dolphin taps would yield hot water, when there was a thunderous banging at the front door, and he heard the admirable Mr Butler open it.

‘I must see Miss Henderson,’ he heard Alastair say, in a muted roar which meant that he was very angry indeed. Phryne pulled on a robe and joined him in listening.

‘Very well, sir, if you would care to wait I will ascertain if she is at home,’ Mr Butler replied.

Alastair yelled, ‘You know she’s at home!’

Mr Butler said crushingly, ‘I meant, sir, that I would find out if she is at home to you.’

There was a silence, during which they could hear feet pacing to and fro across the tiles of the landing. The door to Miss Henderson’s room opened and shut.

‘Miss Henderson will see you, sir.’

The feet ran down the hall. Phryne heard the door crash open.

‘Eunice, have you had the infernal nerve to call in the police?’ shouted Alastair, and Phryne swore.

‘Hell! Has the man no heart? What did I do with my clothes?’

She dragged on some garments and ran down the stairs, with the half-naked Lindsay close behind her.

‘Mr Thompson, I must ask you not to make such a noise!’ she said icily, and he turned on her a face white with fury.

‘You traitorous bitch! What have you done with my friend? All you women are alike—all betrayers and whores!’

He swung back his arm, meaning to slap Phryne across the face, and found himself on his knees with a terrible pain in his elbow. Miss Fisher’s face, calm and cold, was three inches from his own, and he could smell the scent of female sexuality exuding from her skin. It turned him sick.

‘Make one move and I’ll break your arm,’ said Miss Fisher flatly. ‘What do you mean, storming into my house like a bully? Call me a traitor, will you? Here is your friend. I haven’t hurt him. I have pleased him—and perhaps that’s more than you could have done, hmm? Go on. Try to hit me again.’

Lindsay, aghast, had stopped on the stairs when he realised that Phryne did not need any help. The fight was going out of Alastair. At the same time, Dot and Jane came to the front door, Miss Henderson started to cry, Mr Butler picked up the telephone to call the police and Mrs Butler appeared from the kitchen with the poker. Alastair stood up slowly, glared at Phryne, turned, and walked out of the house.

‘The fun’s over,’ said Phryne, pushing back her hair. ‘Come down, Lindsay. Mr B., shut the door, and serve some drinks. Don’t distress yourself, Miss Henderson, it’s just a brainstorm of some kind, he’ll be better tomorrow. Dot, Jane, how nice to see you. Come in and I think I will open a bottle of champagne, Mr B. It has been a very good day, otherwise.’

Phryne sank down on the couch and set about dispelling the sour aftertaste of Alastair’s violence with vivacity and Veuve Clicquot.