Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (6 page)

‘Oh, aye, you got us there all right. I was never so frightened in all my life; the wind and the storm, and the sight of the waves leaping up to drag us into the water. What a journey! I swear that my hair turned white. And you as cool as a cucumber, even when the compass started to spin.’

‘No point in getting upset in the air,’ said Phryne. ‘Very unforgiving element. No use changing your mind about it, either. Once you’re up, you’re up, so to speak.’

‘Aye, and once ye’re down, ye’re down. I can’t imagine how we found the island, much less how we landed on it.’

‘Ah, yes, that was a little tricky, because I couldn’t see very well, what with the spray and the wind, and there’s only one long beach to land upon, and I was afraid that our approach was too fast, but I couldn’t count on finding the beach again, the wind was so strong, so I just put her down; that’s why we ran along the shore for such a long way. But it was a good landing; we had at least ten feet to spare when we ground to a halt.’

‘Ten feet,’ said Dr MacMillan faintly. ‘Pour me some coffee, there’s a dear.’

‘The real courage in that jaunt,’ observed Phryne, ‘was yours. I couldn’t have gone into those cottages, with all that filth and stench and corpses, not for anything, except that you swept me along in your wake. I still have nightmares about the cottages.’

‘Crofts,’ corrected Dr MacMillan. ‘And they need not cause you grief. As my Highland grandmother said—and she had the Sight—“Tis not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living!” And she was a wise woman. The dead are beyond your help or mine, poor things. But the living need us. Thirty souls at the least, Phryne, are still on that island to praise God who might now be angels—or devils. And speaking of courage, m’girl, who crept up the hill onto that lord’s land and led away and slaughtered one of his beasts to make broth?’

Phryne, recalling the thrill of stalking highland cattle through mist and over bog in company with a handsome young gillie, laughed, and disclaimed any virtue in the feat.

They lunched amiably on egg-and-bacon pie, then Phryne strolled back to the Windsor in an excellent mood.

She inspected the hotel’s lounge, found a copy of Herodotus, and took it with her to her suite.

The rooms were transformed. Dorothy had returned, and had evidently put in a good two hours’ work, fold- ing and hanging and sorting clothes, pairing shoes and repairing ripped hems. A small pile of neatly mended stockings lay over the arm of the sitting-room chair, and a petticoat decorated the other; the long rip in the hem, made by some partner’s heavy foot, was put together like a suture, so the rent could hardly be seen. Phryne dropped into the only unoccupied chair, a little dazed. Dorothy came in from her bedroom, where she had been combing out her hair.

‘Did you have a nice lunch, Miss?’

‘Yes, thank you, and you have evidently been busier than a beaver! How did you manage with the cards?’

‘Very well, Miss. And I got my bundle, and all. Here’s the change from the taxi.’

‘Keep it, Dorothy, a woman should have a little extra money. Did you remember to have lunch?’

‘Oh yes, Miss. And there’s a note for you, brought by hand about an hour ago,’ she said, handing Phryne a folded letter.

‘Thank you, Dorothy. I don’t want anything for the moment, so why don’t you finish your hair. You mend beautifully,’ she added. ‘Why did you become a house-maid?’

‘Mum thought it best,’ replied Dorothy. ‘It ain’t nice to work in factories or shops.’

‘I see,’ said Phryne. Factory work was still considered low.

Phryne unfolded the note. It was headed in gold with the name ‘Cryer’ in a tasteless and flamboyant script, and the address underneath; Toorak, of course. The handwriting was also lacking style, being scrawled across the page in purple ink.

‘Please honour a little dinner party tomorrow night. Melanie Cryer’. It boded ill; purple ink and no directions about time or dress. There was a telephone number below the gold heading. Phryne picked up the instrument and spoke to the operator.

‘Toorak 325,’ she said, and there was a buzzing and a few odd clunking noises. Then a woman’s voice said, with an accent which was pure Donegal, ‘Cryer’s. Who did ye want?’

‘This is Phryne Fisher. Is Mrs Cryer at home?’

There was a muffled squeak as the maid transferred the message to someone obviously standing next to her, and Phryne heard the experience violently displaced. A shrill voice exclaimed, ‘Why, Miss Fisher, how kind of you to call!’

Phryne hated the voice instantly, but replied cordially, accepting the invitation and asking at what time and in what habiliments she should present herself at the mansion Cryer. The hour was eight and the clothing formal, ‘Though you will find us very rustic, Miss Fisher!’ Phryne politely disagreed, which took a certain resolution, and rang off. If this was the social pinnacle of Melbourne, she reflected, this was going to be a grim investigation indeed. She sat back in the chair and addressed her maid.

Dot, I’ve got a question to ask, and I want you to consider it carefully.’ Phryne paused before going on. ‘Do you know
an address
?’

Dot dropped the jewellery box she was holding, and earrings spilled out all over the carpet.

‘Oh, Miss!’ she breathed. ‘You haven’t been . . . caught?’

‘No, I’m not pregnant, but I’m looking for an abortionist. Do you know an address?’

‘No, Miss, I don’t,’ said Dot stiffly. ‘I don’t approve of such goings-on. She ought to marry him and have it proper. It’s dangerous . . . that operation.’

‘I know it’s dangerous. The man nearly murdered a friend of my cab-driver’s, and I want to put him out of business. He’s in the city somewhere near Lonsdale Street. Is there anyone you can ask?’

‘Well, Miss, if that’s what you’re doing, I’m all for it. There’s my friend, Muriel Miller. She works in the Pickle Factory in Fitzroy. She might know. They’re not all good girls in the factories, that’s why Mum didn’t want me to work there . . .’

‘Good. Is your friend Muriel married? Is she on the phone?’

‘No, Miss, she lives at home; her dad’s got a lolly shop. There will be a phone there. I don’t know the number,’ said Dot dubiously, crawling in search of earrings. She secured and paired the last one as Phryne searched the telephone directory and found the number.

‘Will she be at home now?’

‘Probably. She helps in the shop in the afternoon.’ Phryne dialled, then held out the phone to Dot.

‘Mr Miller? It’s me, Dot Bryant. Can I speak to Muriel? Thank you.’ There was a pause, and she said breathlessly, ‘Hello, Muriel? It’s Dot . . . I got a new job and I’m staying at the Windsor! . . . Yes, it was a stroke of luck! I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, I’m going home to see Mum, can you come over then? . . . Good. M-m-muriel, have you got
an address
?
. . .
No, it isn’t for me, I promise. It’s for a friend. . . . No. I can prove it, well, can you find out? All right. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks, Muriel. Bye.’

‘She says that she’ll find out, Miss. I’ll see her tomorrow. But how do we know that it’s him?’

‘There can’t be that many abortionists in Melbourne,’ said Phryne grimly. ‘But, if necessary, I’ll call them all. Now I’m going to dinner.’

CHAPTER SIX

Made one with Death

Filled full of the Night

Algernon Swinburne ‘The Triumph of Time’

The following morning, Phryne took Dorothy on a shopping tour of Melbourne. She found that the young woman had excellent taste, though inclining to the flamboyant. Dorothy was also most anxious to save Phryne’s money, which was a pleasant change from the bulk of Phryne’s acquaintances, who were over-eager to spend it.

By luncheon time, they had acquired two uniform-like dresses in dark-blue linen, stockings, shoes, and foundation-garments in an attractive shade of champagne. As well as an overcoat of bright azure guaranteed to cheer the winter days, and a richly embroidered afternoon dress, bought over Dorothy’s protests by Phryne, who was adamant that the possession of pretty clothes was the second-best sustainer of a young woman’s morale in the world.

Phryne had presented her credentials at her bank, and had opened an account at Madame Olga’s in Collins Street, in case some trifle might attract her. This she rather doubted, considering Melbourne fashion, until she was trying on evening gowns in Madame’s sumptuous parlour. Madame, a gaunt, spiritual woman who looked upon the mode as a remote and harsh deity requiring great sacrifices, observed Phryne’s lack of interest in the available gowns, and snapped an order to a scurrying attendant.

‘Fetch
cinq a Sept
,’ she ordered.

The acolyte returned carrying with nervous tenderness a garment bundled in thin white silk. This was unrolled in reverent silence. Phryne, clad lightly in camiknickers and stockings, waited impatiently for the rite to be completed; she was sure that ice was forming on her upper slopes.

Madame shook the dress out and flung it over a stand, and stood back to watch Phryne’s reaction with restrained pleasure. Dorothy gasped, and even Phryne’s eyes widened.

It was deep claret, edged with dark mink; evidently a design by Erté, with few seams, the weight of the garment depending entirely from the shoulder. The deep décolleté was artfully concealed with strings of jet beads, which served the function of preventing the dress from sliding off the wearer’s shoulders, but leaving a gratifying impression that this was, indeed, what it might at any moment do.

‘Would mademoiselle wish to try?’ asked Madame, and Phryne allowed the dress to be lowered over her head. It had a train, but not so long as to be inconvenient, and the huge sleeves, inspired by an Imperial Chinese robe, slid gracefully together at the front to make a muff for her hands. The deep colour contrasted effectively with Phryne’s pale skin and black hair, and as she moved, the liquefaction of the satin flowed over her limbs, moulding her as if in gelatine. It was a perfectly decent but utterly erotic dress and Phryne knew that she must have it.

‘I have not shown this to anyone in Melbourne,’ observed Madame with quiet satisfaction. ‘There is no lady in Melbourne who could wear it with sufficient panache. Mademoiselle has style, therefore the gown is made for mademoiselle.’

‘It is,’ agreed Phryne, and accepted, without turning a hair, a price which made Dorothy gasp. This was the gown of the year, Phryne thought, and would make exactly the right impression on the Cryers, and hence on the rest of Melbourne. She mentioned the Cryers to Madame, who winced.

‘Madame Cryer has much money,’ she said, ‘and one must live;
que voulez-vous
!
But taste of the most execrable;
des parvenus
,’
she concluded, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I will have the gown conveyed to mademoiselle’s hotel?’

‘If you please. I am at the Windsor,’ said Phryne. ‘And now I must tear myself away, Madame; but I shall return, you can be assured.’

She wondered if she should ask Madame, who was evidently well-informed, about Lydia, the subject of her investigation, but decided against it. The fashion houses of Europe were the primary base of all gossip in the world and she had every reason to believe that Melbourne, being smaller and more incestuous, would be as bad, if not worse.

Dorothy and Phryne lunched lightly at the Block Arcade, and called upon a domestic employment agency to inquire as to the proper wages for a ladies’ maid. Dorothy was astonished to learn that she was to earn at least a pound a week, plus uniforms, board and washing, and was even more taken aback when Phryne promptly doubled it to two pounds a week with all clothes thrown in. Dorothy rushed off to see her mother and explain her changed circumstances, while Phryne visited an Elizabeth Arden beauty parlour in Collins Street. There she spent a luxurious couple of hours being massaged, steamed and pomaded, with an ear alert for gossip. She heard nothing useful except the interesting comment that cocaine had become the drug of choice for the dissolute upper class.

She emerged glowing, after fighting off assistants with various tonics and beauty powders which they felt that she stood in need of. She returned to the hotel, walking briskly, and slept for three hours. By then, Dorothy had returned, and was unpacking the Erté dress with appropriate delicacy.

‘Well, what did your mother say?’ demanded Phryne, sitting up and sipping her tea. ‘Have you found my jet earrings in your searches, Dorothy?’

‘Yes, Miss, they were in the bottom of that trunk. Mum said that you sounded rather worldly, but I told her that you went to church on Sunday, at the cathedral, and she said that you must be all right, and I think so too. Here’s the earrings.’

‘Thanks. I need the black silk stockings, the black cami- knicks, and the high-heeled black glacé kid shoes, and otherwise just a touch of “le Fruit Défendu”. Call down to the desk and ask for a taxi to the Cryers’ house, will you, Dot? Do you mind me calling you Dot?’

‘No, Miss, that’s what me sisters call me.’

‘Good,’ said Phryne, arising from her bed and stretching. She shed the mannish dressing-gown as she moved towards the bathroom. ‘I intend to impress Melbourne in that dress.’

‘Yes, Miss,’ agreed Dorothy, picking up the telephone. She was still unused to it, but no longer regarded it as an implement of incipient electrocution. She gave the order with passable directness, and rummaged for the underwear which was to be the foundation of the amazing gown.

An hour later, Phryne surveyed herself in the mirror with great satisfaction. The satin flowed like honey, and above the flamboyant billowings of the dress her own small, self-contained, sleek head rode, painted delicately like a Chinese woman’s, with a red mouth and dark eyes and eyebrows so thin that they could have been etched. The jet earrings brushed the fur, longer than her skilfully cut cap of dark hair, which was constrained by a silver bandeau. She threw a loose evening cape of silk-pile velvet as black as night over the whole ensemble and took a plain velvet bag shaped like a pouch. After a little thought, she put into it the small gun, as well as handkerchief and cigarettes and a goodly wad of currency. Phryne was not so used to wealth that she was comfortable without a monetary bulwark against disaster.

She swept down the stairs with Dot in anxious attendance. The doorman unbent sufficiently to help this lovely aristocrat into a waiting cab, and to accept without change of expression a thumping tip; and he and Dorothy watched her as she was carried magnificently away.

‘Ain’t she beautiful!’ sighed Dot, and the doorman agreed, reflecting again that the tastes of the aristocracy weren’t so odd after all. Indeed, Dorothy, in her new uniform and her own shoes, was very easy on the eye herself. Dot recollected herself, blushed, and retreated to Phryne’s room, to listen to the wireless playing dance music and to mend yet more stockings. Phryne usually bought new ones as soon as the old developed holes, and this extravagance shocked Dorothy profoundly. Besides, she liked mending stockings.

Phryne leaned back and lit a cigarette. She was smoking Black Russian cigarillos with gold-leaf tips; not really as palatable as gaspers, but one must be elegant, whatever the sacrifice.

‘Do you often go to the Cryers’?’ she asked the driver.

‘Yes, Miss,’ he said, pleased to find that someone who looked so like a fashion plate actually had a voice.

‘They has lots of these do’s, Miss, and mostly I takes people there, ’cos old Ted is a mate of mine.’

‘Old Ted?’

‘Yair, the doorman at the Windsor. We were on the Somme together, we were. A good bloke.’

‘Oh,’ said Phryne. The Great War had so sickened Phryne, while the rest of her school was possessed with war fever, that she avoided thinking about it. The last time she had cried had been as she sat dropping tears on the poems of Wilfred Owen. She wanted to change the subject.

‘What are the Cryers like? I am a visitor, you know, from England.’

She saw the taxi-driver’s eyes narrow as he calculated what would be safe to say to this woman reclining on his back seat and filling his taxi with exotic, scented smoke. Phryne laughed.

‘I won’t tell,’ she promised, and the driver seemed to believe her. He took a deep breath.

‘Mean as a dunny rat,’ he opined.

‘I see,’ observed Phryne. ‘Interesting.’

‘Yair, and if they found out I said that, I wouldn’t be driving no cab in Melbourne ever again, so I’m trusting you, Miss.’

‘You may,’ agreed Phryne, crushing out her Sobranie. ‘Is this the place?’

‘Yair,’ said the driver disconsolately.

Phryne surveyed the iced-cake frontage of a huge house—the red carpet and the flowers and the army of attendants awaiting the guests—and cringed inwardly. All this display, while the working classes were pinched beyond bearing. It was not wise, or tasteful; it smacked of ostentatious wealth. The Europe from which Phryne had lately come was impoverished, even the nobility, and was keeping its head down, still shocked by the Russian Revolution. It had become fashionable to make no display; understatement had become most stylish.

Phryne paid for her taxi, extracted herself and her gown without damage, and accepted the escort of two footmen to the front door of the Cryer mansion. She took a deep breath, sailed inside, and delivered her velvet cloak to a chambermaid in the ladies’ withdrawing-room. This was draped with silk in a distressing pattern, and constituted a pain to the eye, but Phryne gave no sign of her opinion. She tipped the chambermaid, tweaked every luscious fold into place, shook her head at the image in the full-length mirror, and prepared to greet her hostess.

The hall was painted a subdued green, which had the unfortunate effect of casting a deathly shade into every face. Phryne announced her name and braced herself. Madame Cryer, she was convinced, was an embracer.

Sure enough, there was a scatter of feet, and a skeletal woman in black and diamonds threw herself at Phryne, who submitted philosophically to the disarrangement of her hair and the painful imprint of facets on her cheek. Mrs Cryer smelt strongly of Chanel, and was so thin that Phryne wondered that she did not slit seams with what seemed to be the sharpest hips and shoulder blades in Melbourne. She made Phryne feel unduly robust and healthy, an odd sensation.

She allowed herself to be drawn forward by bony hands, glittering with a burden of precious stones, into a brilliantly lit ballroom. It was domed, huge, and full of people; a long buffet was laid along one wall, and a jazz band was conducting their usual assault on the five-bar stave in the musicians’ gallery. Hideously expensive and overblown tuberoses and orchids were everywhere, lending a heavy and exotic scent to the hot air. The effect was somewhat tropical, costly and vulgar. Mrs Cryer stated that, having heard they’d met, she had seated Phryne next to Mr Sanderson, the MP at dinner, which allowed Phryne the luxurious idea that there might be a human being in this assemblage despite appearances. Then her hostess dropped a name that caused Phryne’s painted mouth to curve in a private smile.

‘You may know the Hon. Robert Matthews,’ shrilled Mrs Cryer. ‘We’re all so fond of Bobby! He’s playing for the gentlemen, in the cricket match. I’m sure that you’ll get on terribly well.’

Phryne, who had been the cause of Bobby’s banishment to this foreign shore, was tolerably certain that she would not get on terribly well with him; and that, moreover, when she had known the young man, he had not been an Honourable. She caught the eye of that gentleman across the room at this point in her hostess’s discourse, and he sent her a look in which pleading and fury were so nicely mingled that Phryne wondered that her hair did not catch fire. She smiled amiably at him and he looked away. Mrs Cryer had not intercepted the glance, and bore Phryne with her across the floor, which had been polished to the slipperiness of ice, to introduce her to the artistic guests.

‘We are fortunate to have snared the Princesse de Grasse,’ said Mrs Cryer in a far-too-loud aside. ‘And she sponsered the
premier danseur
and
danseuse
of the
Compagnie des Ballets Masqués—
they are all the rage this season, perhaps you have seen them?’

Phryne caught up with her hostess and managed to free her hand.

‘Yes, I saw them in Paris last year,’ she said, recalling the strange, macabre charm of the dancers performing a
ballet masqué
in the tattered splendour of the old Opera. It had been primitive but spine-chilling—they had performed the mystery play of Death and the Maiden. Paris had been intrigued, but the
Compagnie des Ballets Masqués
had vanished, just as they were becoming the rage. So they had come to Australia! Phryne wondered why. She slowed her pace, smiling at Mr Sanderson, MP, as she passed him, and receiving a conspirational grin in return. The artists were solidly established at the buffet, as artists generally are, and only abandoned eating when Mrs Cryer was at their elbow.

‘Princesse, may I introduce the Hon. Phryne Fisher? Miss Fisher, this is the Princesse de Grasse, and also Mademoiselle . . . er . . .’

‘De Lisse, and this is my brother Sasha,’ put in the young woman. She and her brother, evidently twins, were tall, long-legged and graceful, with similar features; pale, elegant, high-cheekbones and deep, expressive brown eyes. They both had curly brown hair, identically cut, and were dressed alike in leotards and tights of unrelieved black. Sasha bent over her hand with a flourish, and declared: ‘But mademoiselle is
magnifique!
’