Murder on a Midsummer Night (14 page)

Phryne refrained from mentioning that she had met the young man in question and that his burning desire was to be an engineer.

‘So, what have you been doing, Jack dear?’

‘Reported to the Powers That Be that we had a homicide, had it registered and a file opened. It’s now a homicide case. That was the hard part. Took me the best part of a day.’ Jack sipped a little more beer. ‘Then got a list of suspects and I’ll be working my way through them. First, the mother. Not likely.’

‘I agree. She was devastated by his loss. And she asked me to look into his death, you know; you had it written up as a suicide.’

‘Could be a double bluff. Some murderers are real deep.’

They both thought about Mrs Manifold. Harsh, yes, strong-minded, savagely reserved. But murderous, no.

‘She adored Augustine,’ Phryne told Jack. ‘Scrub her off your list.’

‘For the time being, all right. Girl who works in the shop. Sophie Westwood. Not strong enough. Takes a lot of heft to force someone’s head underwater. Even a mostly unconscious person will struggle if they can’t breathe. Besides, she was doing good in the shop, the boss was pleased with her, and now she might be out of a job, and things are pretty crook for finding another. She’s not pretty or taking. Not likely to get anything but factory work, and that ain’t no fun. Vague sign of a boyfriend, don’t know anything more. I think we scrub her, as well.’

‘Agreed,’ said Phryne.

‘Reach me my notebook? It’s in my inside pocket.’ Phryne fetched it from the policeman’s suit coat, which Mr Butler had hung neatly over a chair. He riffled through the pages. ‘Yair. Then there’s the odd job carpenter, now he’s a possibility. Cedric Yates. Strong enough, even though he’s only got one leg. He could hold the deceased down until he drowned. I got his history. Discharged honourably from the army with a missing limb. Was sent to Alexandria and then home. Soldiers’ rehab got him onto carpentry and in the end gave him a carpenter’s ticket. His teacher said he was a natural with wood. Didn’t talk much but got on all right with the other blokes. Nothing on his military record. Got a decoration for rescuing a pilot in Palestine. But he’s cousin to your Cecil Yates, and they’re all red-raggers, wobblies. Workers of the world unite. You know the sort of thing.’

‘Really, Jack, you don’t think that poor Augustine was the victim of a revolutionary outrage?’

Jack Robinson drank deeply of a refreshed glass and had the grace to hiccup. ‘Nah, not really. Main reason why I don’t think it was, say, Yates and Westwood working together, is that there’s no bathroom in Manifold’s house. A wash-place and a WC in the garden, but that’s all. There’s a tin bath but it has to be filled from the copper, which is only lighted on Mondays for the household washing. Augustine most likely died on a Saturday or a Sunday, he hadn’t been that long in the sea. If anyone lit the copper on a day when they weren’t washing, then Mrs Manifold would know the reason why. She keeps a very tight hand on the expenses. Pinch a penny till it squeaked. And if anyone had lit the copper and drawn a bath, despite the old chook, the whole household would have known about it, and someone would have told me.’

‘Indeed,’ murmured Phryne.

‘So then we come to his friends. That’s why I was at the funeral, to get a squiz at them.’

‘And you got more than you bargained for,’ guessed Phryne.

‘That woman in heathen dress—red—at a funeral! That slinky woman in black straight out of Sapper! What a collection! Young blokes in clothes which must have cost the earth and all completely—’

‘Outrageous?’ hazarded Phryne.

‘Yair. You could say that. The sane ones were Rachel Phillips, married, two children, nothing known. Her dad, Mr Rosenberg, runs a stamp and coin shop in the city, respectable old coot, pillar of the local synagogue, very devout. Wears one of them skullcaps. Mrs Phillips works for him, believed to be real good at stamps. The old Mr Rosenberg thinks the world of her. Disinherited his son, who was a waster, and is leaving the shop to Rachel.’

‘His son is a waster?’

‘He’s a drunk. You don’t see that much amongst the Jews. Named Zachary, calls himself Simon. Spends his time sponging off his younger sister. Does a little dealing of this and that, we’ve had him on the list for years. Sooner or later he’ll sell something he really has no title to and we’ll get him. So far he’s on the edge.’

‘Greyish, but not black.’

‘Yair. Greyish. But getting darker. Mrs Phillips had no motive to murder Augustine. She didn’t even know him real well, as far as we’ve been able to find out.’

‘She told me she went to the funeral because her father didn’t feel comfortable entering a Christian church.’

‘Yair, well, that’d be right. Professor Rowlands works up at the university. Lives in a nice house with a housekeeper to look after him. Bit of an eye for the ladies but nothing permanent so far. Gossip says he’s much run after but so far won’t let himself be caught.’

‘That would be right. A twinkle in the eye and a flirtatious manner which never goes too far. A charming man. I had him to lunch today.’

The beer was beginning to catch up with Robinson. His next glass was filled with ice cold soda water by the observant Mr Butler. Robinson didn’t seem to notice the substitution.

‘Did yer?’ he asked Phryne. ‘And?’

‘I was much amused but I am not sure that he told me the whole story about Augustine. I suspect he knows more. But he told me what the frightful Atkinson clique wanted with Augustine.’

Phryne explained the treasure of Edward Teach and the fact that Augustine seemed to have found part, at least, of the hoard. And was about to sell them a treasure map.

Detective Inspector Robinson sprayed soda water all over his chair. ‘Treasure map? I never heard such stuff.’

‘Yes, me too, but those Atkinsons are strange. I went on to their version of a wake after the funeral and I must say, Jack, I have been in some awful company before—I have dined with torturers and Apaches and strict Plymouth Brethren and politicians—but I never met such vile company as those people. Each in his or her own way, they were frightful.’

‘Do tell!’ urged Robinson.

Phryne ordered her thoughts, opting for a glass of the soda water in which lumps of ice were floating. The heat was affecting her mind, taking the edge off her recall. She concentrated on that disgusting afternoon, recalling the scent of incense and hashish.

‘When I came in, they were all dancing,’ she began. ‘Luke Adler and Valentine Turner were minding the door and the gramophone, respectively.’

‘Turner has a police record for assault,’ said Robinson. ‘As does Adler. Street fights.’

‘Near certain public toilets, perhaps?’ asked Phryne, wrinkling her nose.

‘As it happens . . .’ Robinson spread his hands. ‘No street offences, though.’

‘I see. Then there was that unbalanced pair, James Barton and his sister Priscilla. She’s an hysteric who clings to the slinky lady, Blanche White, in whose name I, frankly, do not believe.’

‘Still trying to find out about her,’ Robinson admitted. ‘The Bartons are clean. Both of them get an income from a trust fund set up by their uncle, who was in wholesale chilled lamb. Export, you know. James Barton went to university but failed his first set of law exams and has drifted ever since. She’s been hospitalised for an attempted suicide by drug overdose.’

‘Then there was Stephanie Reynolds in her red sari. She is a fan of the hidden masters and has a spirit guide called Charging Elk. I suspect she is sincere in an entirely bird-witted way. She seems to have been conducting seances for them, seeking treasure. Now don’t choke, Jack dear, the opinions of the Atkinsons are not those of the management. She has called up two spirits from the vasty deep, one called Selima and one called Zacarias. They have told her that Augustine was not to be trusted.’

‘Hmm,’ said Robinson.

‘Veronica Collins didn’t make a lot of impression on me, except that I might have told her that one with so Restoration a figure should not wear clothes designed for the thin.’

‘Nothing known,’ said Robinson. ‘Lives with her mum in a small house. The Widow Collins takes in lodgers.’

‘She’s sinning above her station, then. And then there is Gerald himself, a poisonous little numero with, I suspect, a line in drug dealing.’

‘Is on the watch list,’ agreed Robinson. ‘He received a parcel from South America with a lot of cocaine in it, but those morons in customs grabbed him before he could open it. The cocaine was hidden in some real ugly terracotta figures, so he could say—possibly even with truth—that he didn’t know the drug was there. And wasn’t charged. He buys a lot of stramonthium and marijuana cigarettes for—he says—asthma. Got his money from Daddy, who died last year, just when son Gerald was on his arse bones.’

‘Suspicious death?’

‘Car accident. Brakes failed. Ran straight into a snow gum. We looked at the car, but no real evidence of tampering. Driver was drunk, anyway, as apparently he had been every day except Sundays for his whole adult life. Gerald was all right at school and started an antique shop, but it failed because he kept taking things home and not selling them. Now he lives on a whopping lot of rents. His dad owned most of Emerald Hill. Never married, no police record.’

‘And a nasty piece of work. I bet he’s got a bathroom.’

‘Several, I should think.’

Mr Butler refilled glasses in the silence. Then Phryne protested, ‘The only thing, Jack, is that they all said—even the spirits—that Augustine wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. If he was planning a massive fraud, wouldn’t he have told them? Showed them the map? Let them test it to find that the parchment was the right age and the ink wasn’t modern?’

‘Could Augustine have made a thing like that?’

‘Oh, I expect so. There are always leaves of old parchment knocking around, in the mountings of pictures, for example. And I could make you a good medieval ink if you could find me some oak galls in Australia, and some vinegar and soot. I had a friend in London, Ambrose, who used to make what were known as facsimiles. For museums, he said. So their real documents wouldn’t get exposed to the sun and air. Ambrose would have been able to construct a convincing pirate map in an afternoon.’

‘And yet everyone says that Augustine was straight as a die,’ observed Robinson.

‘Yes, it’s a puzzle, isn’t it?’ said Phryne, and they both fell silent, listening to the mad wind trying to tear the roof off the house.

Simon kicked the big motorbike over and the engine roared. Not much longer. Very soon the right amount of money would be in his pocket, and then the longed-for revenge could begin. He savoured it, licking his lips.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all winter long.

William Shakespeare
The Winter’s Tale

Miss Fisher retired for a rest after Mr Butler had shown a much refreshed policeman to the door. Her room was cooled with ice and the electric fan and she lay down in the breath of winter with great delight. The cool air fanned her forehead, blowing delicate wisps of silky black hair across her eyes. She closed them. Just for a moment.

When she awoke the wind had changed. The dreadful sense of assault by weather had gone. Apart from the humming of the fan, the room was silent. She stretched and found that she had been joined by, on one hand, a finely framed, perfectly black cat, extended to his full length asleep with his head on her pillow. On the other hand, a half-naked, beautifully smooth Chinese man; also sprawled, also elegant, also asleep.

The situation was novel and delightful and Phryne did not want to disturb the lovely picture which they made. She settled down again between them, but the siren call of the carnal woke both of her male bed-companions before long. Ember flowed up into a meticulous stretch, yawning and showing his pointed teeth, on the arrival of the fishmonger at the kitchen door.

Phryne rose to open the door for him and he passed her with a regal nod. Lin Chung had other ideas, but they did not involve food.

‘Come back to bed,’ he suggested.

‘We’ll get hot,’ she said, putting one hand on her hip.

‘But there is plenty of ice left,’ he pointed out. ‘So we can get cool again.’

This argument convinced Miss Fisher. She watched hungrily as Lin stood up to remove the rest of his clothes. She shucked the single garment she was wearing.

And then she sprang on him like a small, impassioned tiger.

Lin went down under this avalanche of kisses that were almost bites and surrendered to his fate. Strong arms held him down, strong thighs rode his flanks. The world dissolved into a white chrysanthemum behind his eyes.

Some time later he realised that he was being covered with a discreet gown and Phryne was talking to someone at the door.

‘Just a light, simple dinner, cold salmon and salad, and can you open a bottle of Veuve? Thank you so much, Mr Butler.’

She came back and bathed in the cold air as he had seen her bathe in a hot shower, turning each part of her admirable form to the stream. Her beauty always amazed him. Her passion had surprised him. He felt gingerly over his body, ascertained that it all appeared to be present, and wrapped himself in a green satin sheet. Lin Chung felt almost cold, a great luxury in such a climate.

‘Ah, Phryne. Jade Lady,’ he sighed.

‘Beautiful man,’ she responded, and rubbed her naked body the length of his, a cat-like movement, finishing with her nose in the hollow of his throat. ‘I’ve ordered us a simple little repast. We don’t have to get up until the weather changes.’

‘This ice-and-fan arrangement is wonderful,’ he said. ‘I will institute it at once. Grandmamma feels the heat terribly and never gets a lot of sleep during the summer, and consequently neither does her household. Her view is if she is awake, everyone else should be awake. Her maids were overheard conspiring to put chloral hydrate in her late-night tea. And I happen to have a rather nice collection of ceramic pots, fully big enough, just off the ship from Hong Kong. I shall have one sent around tomorrow: the green porcelain with the blue lotuses, I think. It would suit the room better than the tin bath. Very clever, Jade Lady.’

‘Not me—Mr Butler. He might, of course, have been thinking of putting a mickey finn in my late-night cocktail. I have been wandering around at night because I couldn’t sleep. And there was a burglar, of course.’

‘Poor man,’ sympathised Lin Chung. ‘What did you do with the body?’

Phryne slapped his wrist. ‘I let him go,’ she said. ‘He was not a very skilled burglar and he didn’t take anything. Might have just been a wandering thief. I’ve been having such a puzzling time, Lin dear.’

‘Tell me about it?’

‘Wait for the champagne,’ she told him, and kissed him again.

By the time the champagne arrived an hour later, delivered by Mr Butler, along with the ‘simple repast’ on a covered trolley, Lin felt in need of something strengthening. Phryne drank a glass of the Veuve rather more quickly than its antiquity warranted and it shocked her into speech.

She told Lin about the Atkinsons, then all about the case of the missing child. Lin sipped gently. The savour was of spring, strawberries and hyacinths, with the uniquely French yeasty sparkle which caressed the palate. He shook his head over the tragedy of the drunken actor’s suicide and the forsaken maiden’s respectable fate.

‘Could have been much worse,’ he said lazily. ‘She could have been thrown out into the street with her baby, and then what would have happened to her?’

‘I don’t know.’ Phryne sat up abruptly and reached for the bottle. ‘But she could have determined it on her own. Dot said the same thing, come to think of it. She might have decided that she couldn’t care for the baby on her own and that adoption was an answer—though there were a lot of spare babies then, and baby farmers, and not a lot of the poor little creatures survived. She might have starved and begged with her actor husband. She might have gone on the streets and taken to gin—or become a famous whore with a pink feather boa. Or even a rich courtesan with one parliamentary lover and a little house in South Yarra.’

‘Or killed herself and her baby one night with a cry of, “Oh, the river, the river!” ’ replied Lin Chung. The sight of a drop of champagne running down Phryne’s rounded chin and thence down her pearly breast to her admirable navel was ruining his concentration.

‘Dickens himself knew that most prostitutes didn’t kill themselves,’ she retorted. ‘It’s just that he wasn’t allowed to put it in a book. Public taste required poor Little Em’ly to die—or go to Australia, which was much the same thing. Ironic, really. But it was all decided for Kathleen O’Brien, poor girl. Her parents knew better.’

‘At that time,’ said Lin carefully, ‘that was the general belief. They thought they were handling the matter with tact and care. They didn’t send her away after the baby was born, and they did find a suitable husband, this Bonnetti, for her, who was kind to her, as you say. She had her music and her children and lived a long, comfortable life.’

‘Oh, well, damn it, I suppose so,’ admitted Phryne grumpily. ‘How have things been with you? I haven’t even asked, I’m sorry.’

‘Well enough. Grandmamma has not been healthy or happy in this weather, though I now have a remedy for that which will increase our harmoniousness.’

‘Did you sack the maids who wanted to drug her?’

‘No, just warned them not to try it. Unless instructed by me. Many more nights of scolding and shrieking would not be good for the old lady. But if anyone is going to drug her, it is going to be me. Better drugged than poisoned.’

‘That could happen?’

He shrugged. ‘I hope not, of course. But she is very exigent and lack of sleep is a well-known torture. What has Mr Butler given us? I can’t keep drinking champagne on an empty stomach . . .’

‘Let’s see.’ Phryne collected the trolley and wheeled it inside, within easy reach of the bed. She began lifting lids. ‘Simple little repast,’ she said admiringly. ‘A little caviar, perhaps, Lin dear?’

Lin loved caviar. He accepted a plate and loaded caviar, sieved boiled egg and chopped onion onto a sippet of rye toast. The next course was perfectly cooked salmon, with mayonnaise and a bitter-leaved salad. And for dessert, Phryne found, they had Mrs Butler’s famous tropical fruit sorbet, luscious with slivers of pawpaw and mango in a pineapple and passionfruit base. Phryne settled back into the envelope of cool air and sighed with pleasure.

‘Are you staying for breakfast?’ she asked Lin.

‘Since I cannot get any ice at this late hour, and therefore cannot alleviate Grandmamma’s discomfort until tomorrow, I would be delighted. And so would Ember,’ he added, as the black cat strolled into the room, tail as erect as a taper, scenting caviar and salmon, his favourite fruits.

Because he did not demand, but sat collectedly at her feet, tail curled round paws, radiating ‘I am a good and deserving cat’ so effectively that she could almost see the halo around his ears, Phryne awarded him a portion of salmon and a tea-spoonful of caviar. He ate them with great neatness, polishing the plate and then positioning himself in the ambiance of the fan to wash and brush his already immaculate fur. He knew Phryne very well.

She could not be forced, but she could always be seduced.

Phryne reposed that night in the cool damp air, between the purring black cat and the luxuriating Lin Chung, and slept like a baby.

When she woke Lin had already washed and dressed and was leaning down to kiss her. Ember had vanished, presumably seeking bacon rind. It was eight o’clock.

‘I must go and arrange about the ice and the fan,’ Lin said. ‘I will send the porcelain bath over as soon as I can. Thank you for last night,’ he added, kissed her again, and left.

This suited Phryne, who was never keen on company for breakfast. If ever there was a woman born to be a concubine, she told herself as she turned on the shower, it is I. A night of passion, and then the loved man wafts away. No domestic dramas, no domesticity at all, in fact, and if I need a man as an escort I can always find one. Perfect, she said to herself as the hot water cascaded over her shoulders. Phryne liked the twentieth century. It had had its unfortunate events—like the Great War—but with any luck, that would be the last one for the duration. And no parent could now stop Phryne from living exactly as she wished.

She dressed in a light shift and went down to breakfast. Dot and the girls had already eaten. Phryne and her newspaper were alone with the croissant, the cherry jam and the pot of coffee.

Dot came in as she sipped the last sip and nibbled the last crumb.

‘Cooler today,’ she observed, ‘now that rotten wind has dropped. You’ve got the meeting with the Bonnettis, Miss Phryne?’

‘Yes, and it is not likely to be amusing. I haven’t got any information about the child, only about the father, and that’s a sad story in itself. Would you like to come with me?’

‘Me?’ asked Dot, taken aback.

‘Yes, you. You did most of the research. You talked to Sister Immaculata. And there is almost guaranteed to be a priest present and you know that priests make me nervous. I never know if I’m supposed to kneel or bow or whether a simple handshake will suffice.’

‘You just have to shake his hand,’ Dot instructed. ‘You’re not part of his congregation.’

‘Right. Well, up to you,’ said Phryne.

‘All right, Miss Phryne, if you like. I’ll put on some good clothes.’

‘And so will I,’ said Phryne. ‘At least we are not going to melt. Oh, Mr Butler, Lin Chung is having a porcelain bath delivered today to take the place of the tin one in your admirable air cooling system. Make sure that you get the carriers to move everything for you. That’s what they are for. Should we hire a house man, do you think, for the heavy work?’

The butler bowed from the waist. ‘If you would be so good, Miss Fisher, there is a large young fellow, a connection of my wife’s, who would do admirably and could be paid by the hour. He’s out of place, due to no fault of his own.’

‘Good, hire him immediately. I don’t want you to throw your back out hauling heavy loads, Mr Butler.’

‘No, Miss Fisher.’

‘I’m taking the car to attend this Bonnetti meeting, is she fuelled and ready to go?’

‘Yes, Miss Fisher, filled her up yesterday.’

‘Wonderful. Carry on, Mr Butler.’

Dot was having second thoughts about accompanying Phryne anywhere, if she was the chauffeur.

‘Are you driving, Miss? Can’t Mr Butler drive?’

‘He has to wait for the porcelain. Don’t worry, old thing! I’ll drive like I’m carrying a cargo of little lambkins, Dot, I promise.’

‘Very well,’ said Dot reluctantly. She knew how Phryne drove. It put the ‘neck’ into ‘neck or nothing’, and the neck was Dot’s.

Her fears were, unhappily, realised. By the time they arrived in Kew, with the heartfelt curses of half of Melbourne’s motorists (and that poor cyclist) following, Dot was worn out. If Miss Phryne had been driving lambkins, she thought crossly, they would have the world’s curliest wool before they arrived at their destination. With their nerves, also, in rags and hardly a bleat between them.

‘Here we are!’ exclaimed Phryne, allowing the big car to roll to a halt. ‘You can open your eyes now. Nice house, Dot.’

Dot opened her eyes as ordered. ‘Expensive,’ she said, looking at a vast black marble pile with a long line of stairs up to the front door, flanked by black marble walls with flowerpots flowing over with white and scarlet ivy-leafed geraniums, mostly dying of drought.

‘Old money,’ Phryne said. ‘Well, old for Australia. Come along. Let me just put your hat straight, and you shall do the same for me.’

Dot imitated a lambkin. The big house overawed her. But nothing overawed Miss Phryne. She marched up the steps as though she was a duchess condescending to view a peasant’s hut. Dot followed the violet silk flicker of Phryne’s skirt up the steps, of which there seemed to be thousands. They arrived, panting a little, at the top, a glassy black marble pavement as big as a tennis court and as welcoming as a tombstone.

‘Vulgar,’ observed Phryne to her shrinking handmaid. Then, as the massive door opened, she turned the full measure of her personality on a butler so terribly well dressed and so freezing in manner that Dot almost squeaked and fled.

‘The Honourable Miss Fisher and her companion Dorothy Williams,’ she announced, in a tone so icily flat that Dot began to shiver and even the butler flinched a little. He stepped back and they walked in.

‘I believe that Mr Bonnetti is expecting you,’ he intoned.

‘I believe that he is,’ said Phryne flatly.

‘I will announce you,’ said the butler, giving up the effort to impress this obdurately unimpressionable guest. He knew sheer unadulterated aristocratic arrogance when he saw it. ‘If you would come this way, ladies . . .’