Murder in Montparnasse (5 page)

‘Hardly.’

‘And you never know, someone in quod might have found a use for Billy the Match. Sorry, Miss Fisher. I interrupted you. What were you saying?’

‘Nothing of any importance, Jack dear. Just wondering if Miss Chambers had met a lover in Paris who might have followed her here.’

‘If you can’t meet a lover in Paris, where can you meet one?’ asked Robinson, as if this was a silly comment. ‘But I can tell you which French people came through customs at the docks, anyway, if you want.’

‘Thank you,’ said Phryne. ‘Now, what’s for dessert? Oh, wonderful. Apple pies.’

Jack Robinson sighed happily and surreptitiously undid a bottom waistcoat button.

Phryne slept the night without dreams and woke in the early morning, thinking about Paris in a warm, sleepy trance. What was it she didn’t want to remember? Her time in Paris had been fascinating. She had mixed with artists and poets, had been to one of Miss Stein’s Sunday Afternoons, eaten bread and cheese and drunk vin so absolutely ordinaire that it stained the teeth and eroded the palate; vin du table made of real table . . . and all because Daddy had sent a fierce telegram ordering her to stay at the Magnifique until he could send someone to get her and escort her home in time for the County Ball. And Phryne wasn’t going to go to that ball . . .

No. She was not going to think about what happened next. She dragged herself brutally awake, took a punitive shower and dressed soberly.

Lin Chung looked up from his toast, marmalade and coffee and stood as she came into the room. Paler than the moon, with the Manchu red mouth, the silky black hair and those strange, disturbing green eyes.

‘Silver Lady,’ he said gravely, taking her hand.

‘Lin dear,’ she said, sitting down firmly and taking up a napkin and a cup of coffee in that order. Lin Chung looked as immaculate as ever; a smooth, cultivated young man, of surpassing amatory skill and extensive education. He was wearing a silk suit which might have been woven in China but was definitely cut in Savile Row, and a four in hand tie with a pearl pin. Phryne found him altogether a charming sight for so early in the morning.

‘Today I must go to Station Pier to meet a person,’ he said. ‘Would it please you to come with me?’

‘If you don’t mind a detour or three,’ said Phryne. ‘Who are you meeting?’

‘My new wife,’ said Lin smoothly.

Mr Butler, laying some poached eggs in the bain-marie, jerked a little and just saved his egg as it tried to leap off the spoon. Miss Fisher, however, did not turn a hair.

‘Would it be suitable for me to be there?’ asked Phryne. She was closer to Chinese culture than most Australians, but she was still unsure about the finer points—for instance, whether it was proper for a young man to take his mistress to greet his new wife as she got off the ship.

‘Perfectly,’ said Lin.

‘But it would not be suitable to take the poor girl on trips to offices and police stations, which is where I am going, and then to visit a racing man who is probably, as Dot so accurately puts it, a crook. The young woman will want to find a wash and a meal and a place to lie down until the ground stops moving. I know those passenger ships. A long voyage. Has she come from China?’

‘Indirectly. She has been staying with my cousins in Hong Kong until we could get the necessary permits. Australia does not want to be overrun with the heathen Chinee and it takes time to get permission for a young woman to travel here. I must marry her within three months or she will be deported.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Her name is Camellia. She is not very familiar with western ways and speaks little English. The cousins funded her voyage from the Four Counties and I understand it was more like an escape. Her family has traditionally been allied with mine.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Seventeen,’ said Lin Chung evenly, taking more marmalade.

‘Ah,’ said Phryne. ‘And she understands our . . . arrangement?’

‘Yes. I made sure of that.’

‘Good. No, I don’t think I should come with you. She will be afraid and she doesn’t need a strange face—I mean a strange occidental face—to disconcert her further. I’m sure that you will introduce us in due course.’

Phryne found that she had lost her appetite. She gulped her coffee and a shaken Mr Butler refilled her cup. He was proud of the fact that he did not spill a drop. Drat, he was thinking. I liked this one. He was charming and conversable and Miss Fisher really liked him, and now Mr Butler would have to laboriously train the next lover in the ways of the house. The girls liked Mr Lin, too. Bringing them shawls and teaching them that Chinese satin stitch. Perfectly proper that he should marry a suitable girl, of course, bound to happen some time, but Mr Butler was going to miss Mr Lin. It was most regrettable.

Miss Fisher’s next comment made him flick a drop of coffee onto his own immaculate white apron.

‘So will I see you tonight?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ said Mr Lin.

Lin took his leave and Mr Butler offered Miss Fisher more coffee, perhaps an egg, and his resignation.

‘What?’ asked Phryne, passing a hand over her eyes.

‘Our notice, Miss Fisher.’

‘Why?’ she asked, blankly.

‘Mrs Butler and I have never been concerned about your . . . company, Miss Fisher. We can take the rough with the smooth. But adultery, no. Old-fashioned we may be, but that is our principle.’

‘Adultery?’ repeated Phryne.

‘Run a house with adultery in it, Miss Fisher, and sooner or later you find yourself standing up in a court giving evidence and breaking all oaths of confidentiality so that no one will ever employ you again, or refusing to answer and getting locked up for contempt. Happened to a friend of mine. His name was all over
Society Spice
. It ruined him. So if you are continuing with Mr Lin, and he is getting married, then I’m afraid that we must regretfully . . .’

‘Oh no, you don’t,’ said Phryne. ‘Not regretfully. Not with the greatest respect, either.’ She stood up. Her Paris memories, in which something lurked which she would not face, fired her temper. ‘If that is your view, Mr Butler, then you may take your leave as you wish. I will not have my morals the subject of adverse comment by my servants!’

‘As you wish,’ said Mr Butler, and withdrew.

Phryne gave herself a mark for good conduct. She didn’t throw the epergne at his retreating, stubborn, righteous back.

Her fingers itched to box someone’s ears. She took her coat and hat from Dot, who was troubled but bit back any comment. Then she ignited the Hispano-Suiza with one vengeful twist of the starting handle, leapt in, and roared down the street, scattering small boys, delivery bicycles and startled pigeons in her magnificent wake.

By the time she had reached the city, she had slowed down. However irascible the driver, it did not pay to try conclusions with the nine tons of unstoppable steel which was a tram in its own right of way. Adultery! Did people really think that way? How dare they! Courts, indeed. And yet, there was the excellent cooking of Mrs Butler and the unobtrusive, imperturbable service of Mr Butler, who also mixed the best cocktails in Victoria. Damn! And there was Lin Chung, whom she had personally rescued from durance vile, risking her life and her virtue in the process, and the memory of his silky, sure touch made her shiver. No. There had to be some way to keep the Butlers and Lin Chung, and she would think of it as soon as she had time.

Now for the records of French travellers, the strange fiery passion of Billy the Match, and the unexpected silence of a prominent racing identity.

She flicked the car around a baker’s van and set off for Russell Street.

CHAPTER FOUR

Countess G used to say ‘What do I care if they love
men, women or canaries?’

Natalie Barney,
Illicit Love Defended

Jack Robinson in his little cubbyhole in Russell Street Police Station looked just as subfusc as Jack Robinson in Phryne’s dining room. He fitted perfectly into any surroundings, like a chameleon, if one could imagine a chameleon with no colour except, probably, mid-brown.

‘Here’s the list of Frenchies for the last two months. Not too many to cope with. And the inquest reports ought to be somewhere here—yes, both of them. I’ve had a look through. They don’t help much if this really is murder. In fact, if this is the work of one murderer, he’s a clever chap and I hope he doesn’t continue murdering. They both look like pure and simple accidents to me.’

‘They would,’ Phryne pointed out, ‘if they were successful murders.’

Jack Robinson nodded. ‘You’ll have to look at them here,’ he said regretfully. ‘But you can have the next office if you want to make notes. Old Smithy’s on leave. Getting married! Smithy! Strewth, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Smithy’s a confirmed bachelor, that’s what we all thought. Then he ups and sweeps this young typist off her feet. Nice girl, of course. Seems devoted to Smithy. But I would have given good money . . .’

Robinson gradually became aware that his cheerful patter was not going over well with Miss Fisher. The glare of her green eyes finally penetrated his amusement. He coughed.

‘Yes, well, as I said, the office is empty. Here’s the gen on our old mate Billy the Match, too. He’s out. Been out a good three months. Supposed to be living with his old mother in a boarding house in Fraser Street, St Kilda—he’s a neighbour of yours, Miss Fisher.’

‘Oh, good,’ murmured Phryne.

‘Here’s his photo,’ said Robinson.

She looked at a smallish, dullish face, scant as to chin and forehead, with a big nose and a wide mouth. He had beetling eyebrows, the only sign of character. The notes said that he was mousy, with blue eyes.

‘Face you could pass in a crowd,’ said Phryne.

‘Not as anonymous as he once was. He got on the wrong side of some people in jail and he’s got a scar on his face now. Right across it, apparently. Slashed with a bottle. He was weeks in the infirmary, but he wouldn’t tell who did it.’

‘Honour among thieves?’ asked Phryne, with conscious irony.

‘No, I reckon it was just fear of what they’d do to him if he told. His associates are unknown. He doesn’t seem to have had any friends inside. Now, I can’t haul him in for a little chat unless you tell me more about these fires and we get an official complaint.’

‘I’ll talk to the owner,’ promised Phryne. ‘If he agrees, I’ll tell you all about it and you can take action. I’m sorry I glared at you, Jack dear. Mr Butler has just given me notice.’

‘Mr Butler?’ gasped Robinson. ‘I thought he was set for life.’

‘So did I, but . . . well, he’s decided he can’t stay in a house where . . .’ she struggled for a euphemism, ‘he risks getting a headline in
Society Spice
, if I can put it that way.’

Jack Robinson was very fast on the uptake. And, it seemed, a confirmed reader of
Society Spice
.

‘Who’s the married bloke?’ he asked.

‘Lin Chung.’

‘Miss Fisher,’ Jack Robinson took Phryne’s hand and patted it. ‘That’s awful. I suppose Mrs Butler goes too?’

‘Of course.’

‘Real awful,’ he repeated.

Phryne had to agree.

Safely ensconced in the absent Smithy’s office, she examined the account of the death of Alan ‘Conger’ Eeles. The coroner certainly hadn’t extended himself on the subject. Mr Eeles was twenty-nine years old, married with two small children, and made his living as a delivery man. Three weeks ago he had been found dead, with the front wheel of a truck crushing his chest. Massive internal injuries, heart crushed, ribs broken, huge internal bleeding, death by exsanguination . . . Evidence had been given that the jack had slipped, though no one had asked what he was trying to fix in that position and why, if there was something amiss, he had been trying to do it in the dark. His two-ton truck was examined by a mechanic and found to be in sound condition. So was the jack. The conclusion that it had been placed on an unstable surface seemed optimistic in explanation of his death. Good mechanics do not take any chances with jacks, knowing that their lives depend on them not slipping.

Odd, thought Phryne. She had mended a fair number of cars herself, in her ambulance days—was everything conspiring to remind her of France?—and offhand she couldn’t think of any part of the engine easily reached by lying under the front wheel. He could have been interested in the suspension, of course, or the axle, but that would not entail him reposing under a wheel. Someone should have noticed this. But the coroner took only formal evidence of identity from the prostrate widow, clearly not wanting to upset her further. Mr Eeles had left her a small sum in insurance, and the house. From the comments in the ‘remarks’ section of the badly typed form, Phryne read that the police had no doubt that this was an accident. The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of death by misadventure and they had added a rider expressing their sympathy for the widow and suggesting that all buyers of jacks should be instructed as to their use. Oh, very helpful. Date of death—three weeks ago, almost to the day.

Mr MacKenzie got even shorter shrift from the Crown’s judicial officer. Cause of death: drowning. Alcohol content of blood .38. Very drunk, Phryne thought. Evidence given: identity Thomas MacKenzie, aged twenty-nine, farmer, unmarried. Had attended a birthday party at the pub that evening for his employee Richard Trewes. Ordinarily abstemious, he had drunk two beers and eaten a meat pie. He had left the pub at ten p.m., saying that he had a lot of work to do on the morrow. No one had seen him again until his employee had found him, face down in the water-filled ditch, at nine in the morning of the next day. By then he had been dead for about eight hours.

Two beers would not produce a blood alcohol content of damn near dead, said Phryne to herself. How had he got that load on between the pub and home? Someone must have either spiked his two abstemious beers or met him outside and filled him as full as a boot with something like whisky. What did the autopsy say about that? Stomach almost empty except for a yeasty fluid—that was the beer—and acidic fluid—apparently he was a confirmed orange juice drinker—and some pastry and meat—that was the pie he ate at the pub. Therefore he was killed shortly after someone had filled him full of the old familiar juice and laid him gently in a ditch to drown. Hadn’t Bert said something about marks on the body? She flicked over the page. Aha! Yes. Rounded bruises on the shoulder blades of unknown but unconnected origin. How did the medical officer know that? What sort of marks would be produced by someone standing on—no, rounded edges—kneeling on a prostrate victim to hold him down in the water until he stopped struggling? How much struggling would he be able to do anyway, when even a vampire feasting on the deceased would be locked up for drunk and disorderly? Also bruises to the back of the head. Did someone tip his head back and make him drink? Coroner’s jury verdict—accident. The fatheads. The jury added a rider that people coming home drunk should be careful where they walk. Helpful.