Murder on a Midsummer Night (20 page)

His voice was rising into hysteria. He was promptly escorted out, to the massed but smothered parting curses of the Italians.

‘It seems that our late butler might be right,’ said Mr Bonnetti heavily, refusing to look at Mrs Bonnetti. ‘We are all fools.’

‘Of course,’ said Bernadette, coming out of her habitual trance, ‘I never liked that Johns and I tried to tell you, but no one listens to me.’

‘Tom, how could you?’ demanded Sheila Johnson. ‘You wasted all that money on a blackmailer, you never said a word to me, and they were my children, they might have been tainted, children of incest, how could you?’

‘You would have sent me away,’ he pleaded, rubbing his patchy red face with both hands.

‘And I shall,’ she said firmly. ‘Oh, I shall. Mr Adami?’

‘Ma’am?’ Mr Adami was glad of a distraction.

‘Draw up a Separation,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘From this hour. I want him out of my house. I’ll give you an allowance,’ she said. ‘But you’ll never lay a hand on me again, never come roaring into the house with your whores, never kick my dog or pawn my jewels or waste my substance. If you come near me again I shall call the police. Clear?’

Tears rolled down his face. This had always worked before but now there was an unfamiliar light of resolution in his wife’s eyes.

‘Sheils, you can’t mean it! I only wanted to protect you!’

‘No, you wanted to protect yourself,’ she said. ‘And it’s been a very expensive exercise.’

‘Bonnetti, can’t you do anything?’ He appealed to his brother-in-law.

‘Perhaps I could, but I’m not going to,’ said Mr Bonnetti. ‘It occurs to me that I have been very remiss in my duty to protect my sister, and perhaps it is not too late to begin. You may leave,’ he said.

‘Oh, no, don’t let him go,’ cried Mrs Johnson. ‘He’ll go home and kill Antoinette, my poodle. He’s always threatened to do that. He hates her because she loves me.’

‘Then you shall sit down in the smaller drawing room, Mr Johnson, and Mario will stay with you. And there you shall sit until we have completed this meeting. Then we will go to my sister’s house, remove your belongings, bestow them somewhere else, and arrange for her to have a little company, in case you feel like making trouble.’

Mario, who was strong and swarthy and already delighted by the fall of Mr Johns, grinned an unnerving grin. He had a mouthful of gold teeth and the self-assured air of one with a knife in his sleeve. And another in his sock. He took Mr Johnson by the shoulder and he, after all, went quietly.

Mr Lawrence and Mr Wright had been whispering to Miss Fisher while the family discussion had been going on. She nodded and smiled at them. Dot was feeling stunned. So much noise! Ladies and gentlemen acting like that! She was shocked and fascinated in roughly equal proportions.

‘So, Miss Fisher, what about the child?’ asked Mrs Bonnetti. ‘Did you find him?’

‘I found the child,’ said Phryne. ‘Dot, would you read the translation of the Irish writing for me? This was found amongst the pitiful belongings of Patrick O’Rourke, who died in extreme poverty. It was wrapped around a golden guinea. What did Father Kelly say about it, Dot?’

‘It says “
Tá sí milse ná seo rud eile
”, which means “this is for my sweet daughter”,’ said Dot.

‘And I think it’s time we gave it to her,’ said Phryne, and laid the coin in Tata’s hand. Silence fell with a thud. The company stared. Tata looked at the golden guinea.

‘And you knew Tata,’ said Phryne. ‘Mr Wright, Mr Lawrence?’

‘She was at the funeral,’ said Mr Lawrence. ‘Wearing an old black cloth coat with a rained-on fur collar.’

‘That was Mother’s,’ said Mr Bonnetti. ‘I was there when she gave it to Tata.’

‘I got the idea,’ said Phryne chattily, to give everyone time to recover a little, ‘when an eminent doctor mistook the daughter of my house for a servant. I thought, am I doing the same thing? Who notices Tata? Mr Bonnetti talks to her as though she was deaf or simple, but she isn’t simple or deaf. She’s just always been there. Part of the furniture. I bet you don’t even know her name. She isn’t a person. She’s a title.’

‘You’re right,’ he said numbly. ‘I don’t know her name. What . . . what is your name, Tata?’

‘Julia Flaherty,’ said the elderly woman in a firm voice. ‘You know, I always wondered if this day would come. I never knew how I would feel.’

‘Tell us,’ encouraged Phryne.

‘I was adopted by a good Catholic family and given the name of Mary Flaherty, though the nuns said my mother named me Julia, so I went back to Julia as soon as I could. We lived near the Sisters of Mercy’s home. Soon after I was adopted my mother and father had their own children. They tried to be fair but there was always a difference and I was unhappy. I started asking questions and found out the name of my real mother. The Flahertys said that she didn’t want me and had given me away. I was very young. So I ran away in the night and came to Melbourne and got a place in the household of this woman who had abandoned me. I was prepared to hate her. But she was kind and sad, and I thought that might be because of me, so I cared for her children as best I could. I found my father—I even saw him act—but I knew that he had abandoned my mother, and me, and I never tried to speak to him. Then it was too late.’

‘Tata—I mean, Miss Flaherty—I mean, Julia, that was Mother’s middle name, that’s why she called you Julia. You knew we were looking for you, why didn’t you say anything?’ asked Mr Bonnetti.

‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she said simply. ‘You might not have believed me, and then I would be dismissed, and I am old now, where would I go?’

‘She loved you,’ Dot said suddenly. ‘She wrote about it. She made this for you,’ and Dot unbundled the cobweb fine shawl and threw it over Tata’s shoulders, where it settled like a benediction over her black dress and white apron. ‘They both loved you. But they were ill-fated. She never would have abandoned you if she had had her own will.’

‘I nursed her,’ said Tata, stroking the shawl. ‘I held her in my arms when she was dying. I knew she was my mother and I think, at the end, she almost knew about me, too.’

‘That would explain the will,’ said Mr Adami, pleased that something was making sense at last.

‘But what are we going to do with you?’ asked Mr Bonnetti helplessly. ‘I mean, we have treated you very badly, Julia, what would you have us do?’

‘If you want to do something for me, then dismiss this charlatan and get Bernadette off those sedatives,’ said Julia. ‘She was despondent when the last baby came, a lot of women are. And she needed medicine for a few years, a lot of women do, such a hard time, the climacteric. But she doesn’t need it now and hasn’t for some years. It suited you that she was not interfering in your family affairs,’ she told Mr Bonnetti calmly. ‘She is capable of being quite tiresome, but she should not be drugged like this.’

‘Quite so, off you go, Dr James, there’s a good fellow,’ said Mr Bonnetti promptly. ‘We shall give you a generous severance, but no more valerian.’

‘She can’t just stop taking it like that!’ exclaimed the doctor, who did not offer any other words in his own defence. It had been a nice, comfortable position with an undemanding patient, but someone was bound to notice eventually.

‘No, we shall wean her off it slowly,’ Julia told him. ‘Now, do as the master tells you.’

Dr James left. Tata took off her cap and apron and became Julia. The room was emptying. Last act. At least it was not like the last act of
Hamlet
, thought Mr Wright, and repressed a giggle. This high-octane emotion was all right for the stage, but he preferred a quiet life these days. Mr Lawrence nudged him. He hadn’t had so much fun in decades.

‘I have a suggestion,’ said Phryne. ‘A voyage. Julia and Bernadette. A cruise ship—why not the
Hinemoa
?—to Europe. Sleepy days, good food, a little promenade on the sun deck. A reduced dose of valerian. And then a few trips to nice, bracing places—Skegness, perhaps? Switzerland? And when they come lazing home, Julia will have become a sister rather than a nurse, and Bernadette will be off the stuff.’

‘Wonderful,’ said Mr Bonnetti. ‘Agreed?’ He looked around the table. Everyone nodded. Incandescent Mrs Bonnetti, who had things to say to her husband. Sheila Bonnetti, freed of an appalling husband. Bernadette, shortly to be restored to whatever sanity she had been born with. Julia, restored to her proper place. The loathsome Mr Johns was in custody. The unuxorious Mr Johnson was in the care of a grinning Sicilian with a blade. Just what she would have wished for all of them.

Phryne felt that the day’s work was done and stood up.

‘Must go,’ she said. ‘My account will be in the mail. Goodbye,’ she said, collected her followers, and left. The front door stood open. A warm scented wind blew in. It smelt wet. Someone was watering the geraniums.

Phryne laughed suddenly and ran down the stairs. As her panting followers came up, she loaded them into the big car and gave her orders.

‘Mr Butler, to the pub! We all need a drink.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ whispered Mr Wright.

‘I thought she’d never ask,’ agreed Mr Lawrence.

‘When the next war comes along, I’m gonna go down to the docks with the troops and sing “Boys of the Old Brigade” and then I’m gonna turn around and march right back home,’ said Vern.

‘Too right. Halt! Who goes there?’

‘Oh, it’s just Zeke, the poor old coot. He’s got religion again.’

The voice came closer, wailing, ‘The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations: he hath utterly destroyed them: he hath delivered them to the slaughter. The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch and the dust thereof into brimstone, and it shall not be quenched by day or by night forever!’

‘Put a sock in it,’ suggested Curly easily.

‘They have stretched out upon Ashkelon the line of confusion and the stone of emptiness: they have swept it with the besom of destruction: it shall be an habitation for owls and a court for dragons.’

‘Not that he’s wrong, mind you,’ said Vern.

‘Too right,’ said Curly.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Glendower:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part I

Phryne felt she had had enough of the wild extravagances and small meannesses of human nature for the time being. She extracted Dot from her plunge into theatre gossip with the two elderly Thespians and went home quietly, which was the only way Mr Butler knew how to drive.

Then she left Dot to convey the solution of the Bonnetti puzzle to the enthralled staff, walked up to her own cool airy room and fell onto her bed, barely having the energy to take off her shoes and stockings and shuck the neat dark blue suit.

It had been an interesting afternoon. A period of reflection and repose was indicated. One mystery down, and one to go. A bee buzzed drowsily in the wisteria. Seconds only intervened before reflection gave way to repose and Phryne was asleep.

When she woke she bathed lazily and had another nap, knowing that she was going to dine at the Cafe Saporo. Mrs Butler, she considered, had served up enough large dinners lately. The whole party could walk to the cafe and back again, which also gave Mr Butler the night off. She dwelt affectionately on the memory of two aged actors, arms around each other, drinking Patrick O’Rourke’s health in pub whiskey, and Dot—Dot!—joining in a chorus of ‘She Was Poor But She Was Honest’. They had left seconds before they were thrown out of the pub, which in any case closed at six. And she thought how pleased the Sisters of Mercy and the Actors’ Benevolent Society would be with Phryne’s fee, which she was dividing amongst them, with a few deductions for new hats, vintage port and theatre treats incurred in the Bonnetti cause.

And it was probably time she got up and dressed and went down to see how James Barton was, and whether Lin Chung had returned.

So she selected a cool cotton dress and a shady hat and sauntered down the stairs to her quiet house, carrying her sandals in her hand. Mr Butler emerged from the kitchen to enquire as to her wishes.

‘The young ladies are in the larger parlour, Miss Fisher, reading their library books, which have to go back tomorrow. Mr Lin is in the smaller parlour, and Mr Barton has arisen and is with him. They are drinking tea.’

‘I would like a glass of orange crush, if you please,’ said Phryne. ‘You know that we are going out for dinner?’

‘Yes, Miss, the Cafe Saporo has confirmed your booking. Very obliging of you, Miss. Mrs Butler is looking forward, she says, to a boiled egg and a good sit down. And I am, too.’

‘I bet you are. Very good, Mr Butler. Where’s Dot?’

‘In the garden, Miss. Sewing. She says that the light is better.’

‘Good, thank you, Mr Butler. Enjoy your egg.’

The butler bowed a little and Phryne went into the smaller parlour. She found Lin Chung attempting to make conversation with James Barton, who was more than a trifle dazed.

‘I say, you are a Chinaman, aren’t you?’ he was asking. ‘Or is there something wrong with my eyes?’

‘Nothing wrong with your eyes,’ said Lin patiently. ‘I am, as you see, Chinese.’

‘Hello, sweet man.’ Phryne strolled in. ‘Can I get you anything? Muslin, paraffin wax, flying trumpets, the complete works of Harry Price?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Lin, smiling at the enumeration of the elements of faked seances and the man who proved them spurious. ‘My effects are nothing like as crude.’

‘I am really looking forward to this. Hello, James. How are you feeling?’

‘Still sleepy,’ confessed James Barton. ‘Bit woozy. Must have been that ghastly medicine.’ He sat up suddenly. ‘They haven’t come for me, have they?’

‘No, and if they did, they wouldn’t get you. Now, James dear, I am going to ask you to describe a seance at Mr Atkinson’s house, and I want you to remember everything. I am going to make notes. Then you can have a nice boiled egg for dinner and get some more sleep.’

Lin waited for James Barton to thank Phryne for her kindness and care. But he didn’t. This young man had no manners, Lin thought: no manners, no breeding, and no backbone. Altogether just the sort of young man that, according to Grandmamma, characterised the modern generation. Lin drank more tea and listened as James, slowly and then with more fluency, described the appearances of the spirits as seen by the medium Stephanie Reynolds in her red sari. Selima in her short white tunic crowned with roses. Zacarias in his long white robes with a tall conical hat. Charging Elk in buckskin, with a feathered headdress, and a bare chest strung with bears’ teeth and wampum. He imitated their voices for Phryne. Then he excused himself to go and lie down again. The effort had quite exhausted him. As breakdowns go, James Barton’s was not a nervous one. Phryne wondered if he had traumatic symplegia, like that Wodehouse cat, Augustus.

‘Is that enough information?’ Phryne asked Lin Chung.

‘Oh, yes, more than enough. I have located and rented a little house, which I have altered and wired for my effects. Which do not, by the way, involve cheesecloth ectoplasm. I have spent more than eight pounds,’ he confessed.

‘Which shall be repaid. This is very kind of you, Lin dear.’

‘No, not at all. I have not had a chance to play magician since I left the troupe in China. But I have to tell you, Phryne, some of my effects are . . . I do not know the term . . . perhaps, biological? They will scare all of us, you, me, them, the dog if there is a dog.’

‘Interesting. That’s all right, Lin. We’re brave.’

‘I just wanted to warn you,’ he said affectionately. He was feeling very well. Grandmamma had finally approved of the ice and fan arrangement, and she had slept all through the night. For three nights running, now. So, therefore, had her maids, her servants, the cooks and servers, and the Lin family daughters and granddaughters. And Lin himself. The relief was profound. He took Phryne’s hand and kissed it.

She returned the kiss and retrieved her hand. ‘Now, pass me a sheet of paper. I need to write an anonymous letter.’

‘To whom?’ asked Lin.

‘To Gerald Atkinson,’ she said. ‘Give me the address of your little house. And when would it be please you to commence your performance?’

‘Oh, after midnight,’ he said. ‘All the best ghosts arise at midnight.’

‘And do you want Miss Reynolds as your medium?’

‘She should prove admirable,’ he said. ‘If she is a fake, I will scare her into honesty. And if she is real—then Augustine Manifold must be fairly annoyed by now.’

‘Sometimes, Lin dear,’ said Phryne, blotting her letter, which was written in ragged black capitals, ‘you make my spine tingle. And other parts of me, of course. Now, let’s get James his supper and gather our family for a nice walk down to the cafe. I can post this on the way.’

‘Jade Lady,’ said Lin.

Phryne saw James Barton locked in for the night and led her family into the street for a soothing walk to Cafe Saporo, a Fitzroy Street restaurant run by the Patti family, Italian immigrants, which catered for simple people and large appetites. It was no use taking the girls to her favourite French bistro, Cafe Anatole, because they did not like French food. But Saporo would provide basic well-cooked English food for them and Dot, and pasta primavera and garlic prawns for Phryne and Lin.

In spite of her late breakfast or early lunch, Miss Fisher felt that she had missed out on one meal today, and did not mean to miss out on another.

The Saporo was pleased to see Phryne and her family. Signor Patti welcomed them in, sat them down at a table with a red-checked gingham cloth, and brought bread and glasses of grenadine without asking. Pasta primavera was produced, with steak, eggs and chips for the others. Dot was still expounding the mystery of the missing child as they ate and the girls hung on her every word. Phryne was content to let someone else tell the story.

Phryne finished her garlic prawns, wiped her mouth on the napkin, and suggested mixed gelati for dessert. With it came a beaming Signora Patti and a bottle of grappa.

‘Signorina Prudenzia,’ announced Signor Patti. ‘Drink with us!’

‘Certainly,’ said Phryne. ‘But what’s the occasion?’

‘We heard that you found out that dreadful man who was butler to the Bonnetti. He beat my son, once, and he . . . attempted the virtue of my daughter who worked in the kitchen. But now he is in jail, and we do not have to kill him, so we rejoice.’

‘A good reason,’ approved Lin Chung, holding out his glass. ‘We have a saying. “If you seek revenge, remember to dig two graves.” ’

It was, of course, illegal for such cafes to sell wine. God forbid that anyone in Victoria should enjoy themselves after six o’clock, except in the Melbourne Club. But there was nothing to stop the delighted Signor from giving it away. This was special grappa which his cousin made and, although to Phryne it reeked of floor varnish, to the Signor and the Signora it was a precious taste of home. So Phryne drank and smiled.

Then they tottered home, the girls and Dot to finish the last pages of their library books, Lin Chung to depart for his own house, and Phryne to beguile a sleepy hour or so with the latest Dorothy Sayers.

In the middle of the night she woke, switched on her light, scrabbled for her notebook and feverishly flicked through the pages. Then she wrote a memo to herself in large letters and lay down again, not altogether sure what had triggered off that strange chain of thought.

Pondering it, she drifted off again.

Morning brought a series of florists’ vans. A large bunch of roses from Mrs Bonnetti. Orange ones. A larger bunch of roses from Mr Bonnetti. White. A sheaf of paradise lilies from ‘Bernadette and Julia’. And an orchid from a grateful policeman, who brought it himself.

‘A lovely thing, Jack,’ said Phryne, turning it around. It was royal purple, shading to pink, with striations of a darker magenta.

‘Yes, but I reckon you’ve got enough flowers for today,’ he said, looking at the array which Mr Butler was carrying into the kitchen to be put in buckets until Miss Fisher could arrange them.

‘No, no, this is lovely. Come in. How clever of you to get them to flower.’

‘Taken me years to get that shade of blush in the middle,’ he confessed. ‘Just thought I’d see how you were going, and tell you about the Johns case.’

‘Oh, yes, please.’ Phryne popped the orchid into a cocktail glass of cool water and put it on the desk to admire it.

‘Well, he came back, as you know, and Constable Pinkus nabbed him real neat. Not so much as a stamp stirred in Mr Rosenberg’s shop. Then we took him to the Bonnetti house and Pinkus heard every word he said. Then on the way back to the station after he was cautioned, he said it all again. He’s proud of it!’

‘What an unpleasant man,’ said Phryne.

‘Chatty, too. I was afraid that the family would want to keep it all hushed up, but now they’ve got their Julia back they seem to have cheered up a lot. All of them happy to make complaints, even that Johnson coot. I reckon Johns is looking at twenty years for blackmail. And we’ve got most of the money back. He never spent it. He just liked extorting it. No accounting for tastes. Now, how about the Manifold case?’

‘By early tomorrow morning, Jack dear, I expect to have it solved. Or perhaps I should say, if I can’t solve it with this trick, I will not be able to solve it. And that would be a pity, because mysteries make my teeth itch. This is the address.’ She scribbled it on a leaf of paper. ‘Perhaps you might like to send someone to lurk outside at about two am or so? Just tell them to arrest anyone who leaves the house.’

‘For you,’ said Jack Robinson gallantly, ‘I shall come myself. See you tonight, then. When’s your kick-off?’

‘One in the morning,’ said Phryne. ‘When all the best ghosts, I am told, arise.’

‘Good-o,’ he said peaceably, and left.

Phryne caught Dot as she and the girls were about to set out for the library.

‘Dot, I need you to run an errand for me. To the Atkinson house. You’ve got some leaflets about girls’ societies and parish meetings and things, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Miss Phryne,’ said Dot, putting down her bag of books. ‘Then I want you to take some to the Atkinson house—take the car on after you’ve been to the library—and talk to Gertrude. I want you to find out something for me.’ Phryne told Dot what she wanted to know.

‘Might be a bit difficult to slip it into the conversation,’ she said. ‘But I’ll do it, Miss.’

‘I know you will,’ Phryne responded, and watched Jane and Ruth haul large shopping bags out to the car while Dot ran up to her room to collect some Improving Literature. ‘After this, ladies,’ she said to them, ‘we shall go on holiday. To the sea. We shall shut up this house and find a nice place to stay and you can send Mrs Butler a postcard. Queenscliff, perhaps. I hear that it is very charming.’

‘Do you mean it?’ asked Ruth, eyes shining.

‘I do,’ said Phryne. ‘I am getting very tired of my fellow humans,’ she added. ‘I think I’d better get away from them for a while.’

Ruth made no comment, as Miss Phryne looked a bit strained. Jane pressed Phryne’s hand. She had never been on a holiday. Then she frowned. She was calculating how many clothes she would have to leave behind so that she could take all her books. Cubic capacity of one suitcase . . .
Gray’s Anatomy
versus how many cotton dresses?

Phryne, at a loose end, donned her own bathing costume and went for a vigorous swim, returned to a bracing cold shower, put on a housedress and spent the afternoon peacefully arranging flowers, which was so engrossing a task that she almost forgot about the Atkinsons. She was not looking forward to seeing them again.

By the time the girls had returned and gone for their own swim, the house was filled with the scent. White roses and trailers of white jasmine lolling from a Fantin-Latour style silver epergne in the sea-green parlour. Orange roses and paradise lilies in a tall arrangement in the hall, surrounded with bamboo stalks. The orchid in a rotund brandy glass on Phryne’s little table. Phryne belonged to the Beverley Nichols school of flower arranging. Let them arrange themselves, no spikes, no torture. Just allow the beauty of the flowers to shine in the right vase and the right place. Beautiful.