Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (42 page)

CHAPTER NINE

‘Although she managed to pick plenty of beautiful Rushes . . . there was always a more lovely one that she couldn’t reach.’

Lewis Carroll
Alice Through the Looking Glass

Phryne woke from an uncomfortable dream—not precisely a nightmare but certainly not a delightful reverie—and found that during the night she had pulled a pillow over her face, which probably accounted for it.

Next to her, sleeping like a baby, lay the beautiful Lindsay, as sleek as a seal, and utterly relaxed. Phryne picked up his hand, and dropped it. It fell limply.

‘Out to the world,’ she observed, and went to the bathroom to run herself a deep, hot, foaming bath, scented with Rose de Gueldy. Then she sat down on the big bed and looked at her lover, finding herself unexpectedly moved by his beauty and his gentleness. Her motives in seducing him had been mixed, to say the least; among them lust and the desire to hammer a wedge between him and his friend Alastair predominated. He had been an engrossing, untiring, eager lover and an apt pupil, and she almost envied the lucky young woman whom he would marry. Like Janet in the old ballad of Tam Lin, ‘she had gotten a stately groom’.

He sighed and turned over, revealing the ordered propriety of bone and muscle that was his back, and Phryne was about to slide down beside him again when she bethought herself of her bath, and went to take it, getting to the taps seconds before it overflowed.

She soaked herself thoroughly, and only rose from the foam like Aphrodite when Mr Butler tapped at the door with the early morning tea.

‘Good morning, Mr Butler,’ she said, accepting the loaded tray, and the houseman smiled at her.

‘Good morning, Miss Fisher, you are looking well, the young man has done you good. I’ve brought the papers, Miss Jane’s photograph is in them.’

‘Thank you, Mr Butler,’ and Phryne shut the door, woke Lindsay with a cup of tea, and sat down beside him to survey the news.

Jane’s photograph occupied a column of page three, with the caption, ‘Do you know this girl?’ Phryne thought that it had come out uncommonly well, and should produce results. Lindsay sat up sleepily and drank his tea, and Phryne settled back comfortably against his shoulder.

‘I don’t know if I dare go back to my digs,’ confessed the young man who had done Miss Fisher so much good. ‘How can I look old Alastair in the eye?’

‘Mmm?’ asked Phryne, and Lindsay tried to explain.

‘You see, we’ve known each other almost all our lives, and we’ve always done everything together—we used to climb together, but Alastair had an accident with another climber. He was killed by a falling rock, and Alastair thought that it was his fault, though it wasn’t, of course—rocks can happen to anyone. Then we were in the school play together—he was a good actor. I remember him doing Captain Hook, limping around waiting for the crocodile . . . tick . . . tick . . . with his face all scarred.’

‘Oh? How did he do that?’ asked Phryne, who was not really listening.

‘Glue, Phryne—just glue. You must have noticed how it puckers up your skin if you spill it. A line of glue on the face and there’s your scar. Perfect. Then we joined the glee club, and because we couldn’t climb anymore, he suggested that we take up rowing, and we’ve always done everything together, except . . .’

‘Except this,’ said Phryne, kissing him on his swollen mouth. ‘But it was bound to happen, Lindsay. Didn’t you feel left out when he took up with Miss Henderson?’

‘Well, no, she never seduced him, and I always thought her a very dull girl, with that frightful mother. I could never understand what he saw in her, really. A very good girl, of course, but no conversation. She used to just sit there and adore him, and her mother would sit there and abuse him, and I refused to go there again, I just couldn’t see the amusement in it. But he seemed devoted, though he never talked about her. Then again, words could not express what I feel about you, so there it is. And I must get up and go to training,’ said the young man reluctantly. ‘Shall I see you again?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘More than anything else.’

‘Then you shall. But not tonight. I shall see you Friday at the glee club singalong, and you shall come home with me again, if you like. Today’s Wednesday. That should give you time to recover.’

‘I’ll never recover,’ declared Lindsay Herbert gallantly, and escorted Phryne down to breakfast.

Lindsay was just about to leave when the doorbell rang and Mr Butler allowed a crestfallen Alastair to enter. The student was bearing a huge bundle of out-of-season roses and did not even start when he came face to face with Lindsay and Phryne.

‘I came to say how sorry I was about that scene yesterday,’ he said in a low voice, thrusting the flowers at Phryne. She side-stepped neatly.

‘Take them to Miss Henderson, she’s the one you have hurt,’ Phryne’s voice was cold. ‘You didn’t do me any harm.’

‘Lindsay, old man, I’m sorry,’ said Alastair, and Lindsay took his hand and shook it warmly.

‘That’s all right, Alastair. I’ll wait for you and we shall go to training together.’

Lindsay sat down in the hall and Alastair went to make peace with his fiancée.

From the cry of delight which Phryne heard from outside the door, where she was unashamedly listening, it seemed that he had succeeded. He came out five minutes later, collected Lindsay, and went off down the path, a picture of humility.

Dot wondered that Phryne shut the door behind them with such a vindictive slap.

The phone rang as she was walking down the hall, and Phryne took the call herself.

‘Yes, this is Miss Fisher . . . yes, the Honourable Phryne Fisher,’ Dot heard Phryne say impatiently. ‘A missing girl? Where was she last seen?’ She was scribbling notes on the telephone book. ‘I see, outside Emily MacPherson? Someone actually saw her go? Good. A description of the abductor please . . . yes. Portly but respectable . . . all right. Do you have a photograph of her? Good. And some idea of her destination? Oh, dear. I see. Gertrude Street, eh? She has been seen there? By whom? Never mind, I suppose that I don’t need to know that, really. Send me the photograph and I’ll do what I can. Yes, Mr Hart, I will reassure her that you still want her . . . of course. Send the photograph as soon as you can. You shall have her home soon if that is where she is. Goodbye.’

‘What is it, Miss?’

‘Troubles rarely come singly, Dot. That was a Mr Hart who wants me to retrieve his daughter Gabrielle from a brothel in Fitzroy, whence she was enticed from outside the Emily MacPherson School of Domestic Science by a portly but respectable gentleman. And her father wants her back, convinced that she has been mesmerised. It sounds highly unlikely to me. However, I shall take the photo and do the brothel rummage with Klara. She knows everyone on Gertrude Street. Nothing I can do until the picture arrives. Now who is calling, for God’s sake?’

It was the estate manager. Phryne stamped into her salon and awaited him with scant patience. She was not in the mood for business.

Phryne spent an irritating morning arguing with Mr Turner who wanted her to buy more shares. Phryne was acquiring land, and selling off her speculative shares, sometimes even at a loss. The only ones she consented to keep were beer, tobacco and flour.

‘I don’t care,’ she finally shouted, out of all patience with the man. ‘I don’t care if shares in some Argentinian gold mine are going cheap. They can’t be cheap enough for me. I want houses and I want government stocks, and that’s all I want, except perhaps some more jewellery. That is my last word, and if you do not carry out my wishes, I will find a solicitor who can. Mr Butler, see Mr Turner out!’

Mr Turner left, taking his hat more in sorrow than in anger, and Mr Butler shut him out. Mr Turner turned back on the porch, as though he had thought of yet another stock which Miss Fisher might find more acceptable, but Mr Butler had locked the door. Mr Butler was sorry that his mistress was in such a tiz, and put his head around the kitchen door to warn his wife that lunch had better be early and good, because Miss Fisher was going to need a drink.

Miss Fisher, however, did not get the chance. Another caller hung on the bell, and this time Mr Butler was faced with a tall, raw-boned woman, who demanded, ‘Where’s my niece?’

Mr Butler was about to tell her to drink beer next time, because gin obviously gave her the heeby jeebies, when she flourished a photograph torn out of a newspaper. It was Jane’s photograph.

‘Perhaps you should speak to Miss Fisher, then, Mrs . . .’

‘Miss,’ she snarled. ‘Miss Gay.’

Mr Butler went regretfully to Phryne to warn her that someone had come to remove Jane. Phryne came out into the hall with outstretched hand, at the same time as Jane emerged from her room, with Ember riding on her shoulder.

‘There she is. My niece. I want her back!’

‘Do you?’ asked Phryne unpleasantly. ‘I see. Jane, do you remember this . . . lady?’

Jane had shrunk back against the wall, frightened by the strident voice and the clutching hand.

‘Of course she remembers me!’ shrieked Miss Gay, who seemed to be singularly badly named. ‘I’m her Aunt Jessie and she’s my niece Jane Graham, and if you didn’t know her name why did you call her Jane?’

‘I plucked a name out of the air, and I don’t think she recalls you, do you, Jane?’

Jane shook her head, numbly. Phryne turned Miss Gay by the sleeve.

‘Leave me your address, and some proofs that she is your niece, and I’ll have my lawyer look them over. I really can’t release Jane into your custody until I am sure that she is your relative. And possibly not then. What were you about, to let her get that thin, and be on a train to Ballarat all on her own?’

‘I pinned her ticket into her pocket, and she was lucky to get the job, going as a skivvy in a doctor’s house, she was, though I suppose they’ve got someone else now. Don’t listen to her if she says that I mistreated her . . . I treated her like one of my own, so I did, when her mother died, and then her grandmother died . . .’

‘Yes, thank you, Miss Gay, what is your address?’ asked Phryne, and wrote it down. ‘I’ll be in touch with you in due course, or my solicitor will. You are the girl’s legal guardian, I assume? Appointed by a court? No? I thought not. Good morning, Miss Gay.’

Phryne stepped back as she gave the woman a shrewd push and shoved her out of the house in mid-sentence.

‘Quick, Mr Butler, shut that door, bolt it and bar it, don’t let anyone in. I am not at home to anyone, not even a long lost relative or a man telling me I have won Tatt’s. Gosh, what a morning! Jane? Where are you?’

Jane was crushed into the corner of her bed, with an indignant Ember in her arms, and Phryne did not touch her. She sat down on the end of the bed and said casually, ‘I’m not going to give you up, you know. That woman has no claim on you. Even if you are Jane Graham, and it’s a nice name, I like it, she can’t make you live with her. She isn’t your guardian and she may not be your closest relative. So don’t worry. I’ll call my solicitor and have him draw up adoption papers at once. In fact, I’ll call him now. Have you remembered anything?’

‘Sort of. I began to remember when Ember scratched on the window. My name is Jane Graham. I recall my grandmother but I don’t remember that woman at all. As far as I know, I’ve never seen her before. What’s the address, Miss Fisher?’

‘Seventeen Railway Crescent, Seddon.’

Jane shook her head again. ‘No.’

‘Not a bell?’

‘No.’

‘You can tell me the truth, you know. I’ve given you my word that you shall stay with me, and I am not forsworn.’

‘Miss Fisher, I am telling you the truth. I don’t recall the address and I don’t know the name. I can remember everything up to my grandmother’s death. Then it’s all a fog.’

‘What was in the parcel we took with us on the train?’

‘Rachel coloured rice powder and Lalla perfume, a collar for Ember and some flea-soap, and . . . and . . . there was something else . . . the chrysanthemums for Dot. I think that’s all.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your memory, is there, Jane?’

Jane shook her head, so that the heavy plaits danced.

‘No. I can remember everything that happened from the time I was on Ballarat station, but nothing of the past since my grandmother’s funeral.’

‘I know who we need,’ said Phryne briskly. ‘We need Bert and Cec. I’ll go and call them now.’

‘Bert?’ asked Jane, bewildered but uncoiling from her defensive crouch.

‘And Cec,’ agreed Phryne, on her way to the phone. She dialled, and asked the operator for an address in Fitzroy.

‘Bert? It’s Phryne Fisher. I’ve got a bit of a job for you. Are you on?’

The telephone quacked, seeming to expostulate.

‘No, no, nothing rough, or illegal, just a spot of investigating. Excellent. See you in an hour,’ and Phryne rang off. She smiled at Jane.

‘There’s just time for lunch, and then we shall send out the troops. Don’t look so downcast, pet. You are staying with me, come hell or high water. If you remember anything else, anything at all, tell me. Now—lunch.’

Because of Mr Butler’s warning and because of her own culinary pride, Mrs Butler served up a
riz de veau financiére
of superlative tenderness and flavour, followed by a selection of cheeses and a compote of winter fruits. Phryne had two glasses of a nice dry Barossa, which she was trying for a vintner friend, and was in an expansive mood when Bert and Cec arrived in their shiny new taxi.

They came in and sat down, uneasy in Phryne’s delicate salon, and were introduced.

‘This is Jane Graham, or at least, we think she is. Have you seen the papers today?’

Bert nodded. Cec grunted.

‘Jane, this is Mr Albert Johnson, a staunch friend of mine.’ Jane looked at Bert. He was short and stocky, with shrewd blue eyes and a thatch of dark hair, thinning at the crown. He was wearing a threadbare blue suit and a clean white shirt, evidently newly donned. He smiled at Jane.

‘And this is Mr Cecil Yates, Bert’s mate; you should get on, he loves cats.’

Ember gave a mute vote of confidence by leaping up onto Cec’s knee and climbing his coat. Cec stroked him gently. He was tall and Scandinavian looking, with a mane of blond hair and incongruous deep brown eyes like a spaniel. He nodded at Jane.