Murder on a Midsummer Night (6 page)

Since this was going to be Sister Immaculata’s day, Phryne nodded and watched her secure her wimple over her cap, flip on her veil and flick her hood over her head with the skill of long practice.

The Ozone tearoom was a long, light, very clean establishment, fairly cool and not very crowded. Sister Immaculata sat down on a chair which faced the sea and folded her hands.

‘It’s so big,’ she said. ‘Endless. Nothing between us and Antarctica bar a few islands and Tasmania. Teachers can easily forget that there is a world outside the classroom. Now, I understand that I am to answer your questions as fully as I can.’

‘But first,’ said Phryne firmly, ‘you are to have tea. And scones and cakes and sandwiches without the sand and whatever your heart desires.’

‘The Lord must have sent you to turn me away from sin,’ said Sister Immaculata with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I have been craving chocolate eclairs for weeks.’

Phryne waved over the waitress.

‘Chocolate eclairs, cakes, scones and cream,’ she ordered. ‘And tea for three, please.’

Phryne beguiled her tea with wondering about Sister Immaculata. She was stocky and brisk, perhaps a little pale, and none of her hair could be seen under the ecclesiastical headgear. But she had been born in 1874, which meant that she was fifty-four, an age at which most women without upper-class privileges were crones, either toothless and stringy or epicene, moustached and fat. Her skin was soft and almost unwrinkled and her movements were sure. And her appetite, as she reached for the plate of cakes, was excellent. She and Dot accounted for most of the food, while Phryne drank sugarless tea with lemon and tried not to melt.

She envied Mr Butler, who had probably slipped into that neat-looking little pub and was doubtless sinking a well-earned beer by now.

The fourth eclair defeated Sister Immaculata. She looked at it longingly, reached out for it, then sighed. She drank off the lees of her tea and set the cup down with a decisive little click.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That was a wonderful tea. I only have a light dinner, you see, because I have to go into the water after dark, and you mustn’t bathe with a full stomach. Shall we walk? I should like to breathe some fresh air.’

‘Into the gardens,’ suggested Phryne, who had seen a high fence with a rank of thick pine trees inside it just down the road. Those barriers might deflect this tearing north wind a little.

‘Tell me the subject of this enquiry, Miss Fisher, so I can order my thoughts as we walk,’ suggested the nun.

‘We want you to remember your mother,’ said Phryne. ‘It is possible that she bore a child, long before she met your father, and we need to find out if that is so. And there aren’t a lot of people we can ask.’

‘I see,’ said Sister Immaculata. She folded her hands across her well-filled middle and preceded Phryne down the road to the garden gate. The wind tore at her veil, but she did not unclasp her fingers to subdue it. She glided ahead like a plump, self-contained ghost and Phryne followed her.

The gate clicked open, and then shut. At once the wind was defeated and the sound of it died down to a gentle murmur. Inside the garden, it was still. A few of the sandy holidaymakers had penetrated its silence, but they too seemed to have been hypnotised by the aromatic quiet and were lying on the grass, dozing, their sunburn slicked with milk of roses, their children and goods piled around them. Phryne thought they looked like refugees from some war against the weather.

Sister Immaculata led the way to the lily pond, which had real lotus blossoms rising from its muddy depths, and across a little rustic bridge to the aviary. There she sat down on a bench and motioned Phryne and Dot to sit beside her. In the huge enclosure, a peacock thought about displaying his magnificent tail, lifting it with a froufrou as from a silk petticoat, then decided it was too hot even to impress the brown undistinguished peahens and put his head back under his wing. A scurry of quail ran across the floor of the cage, like little clockwork birds. They were so charming that Phryne was just crossing them off her list of edible poultry—with regret—when the nun began to speak.

‘My mother was not a happy woman,’ she said, looking down at her hands, now holding her rosary. ‘I don’t think she had ever been happy. My father was a good man and did all he could to please her, but . . . she wasn’t happy. She was lovely,’ said Sister Immaculata. ‘So beautiful. When I was little she used to let down her hair over me, like a waterfall of black silk. Scented with lilac. I always think of her when I smell lilac.’

‘She married an older man,’ hinted Phryne. ‘And not an Irish Catholic.’

‘Yes,’ said Sister Immaculata. ‘I always wondered about that. Not at the time, of course, a child does not wonder about her parents, but later. Why we never saw our other grandparents except at christenings. They gave us each a christening mug and a Bible. But that’s all. I believe that my brother tried to visit them once, but they would not receive him. He was very cross, poor Joe! I believe that she liked my father well enough, and she almost loved us, but . . . there were bad days. On bad days she would lie in bed all day and say that she wanted to die.’

‘Is that why you decided to become a nun?’ asked Phryne.

‘Oh, no, dear, God decided that,’ said Sister Immaculata with perfect conviction. ‘I have a vocation. I knew all my life and I went into the convent when I was sixteen. My father was not altogether pleased, you know, but Mother was. Ah, well, they are all with God now,’ she mused. ‘God be good to them!’

A parrot interjected ‘pretty boy!’ with some satisfaction. This set off several others, who all had their favourite line.

‘Polly wants a cracker!’

‘Pretty boy!’

‘Drop dead!’

This appeared to subdue the others. Sister Immaculata smiled.

‘Now, tell me, why did you want to know about my mother?’

‘Because it appears there is a problem with the distribution of her estate,’ said Phryne, and explained poor Mr Adami’s problem. ‘It seems that there may have been another child, and I thought I would start my enquiries with you, because . . .’

‘I don’t own anything? A good notion,’ said the nun, looking as though she was on the point of rewarding Phryne with a gold star or a boiled lolly. ‘Not owning anything set me free,’ she told them. ‘I had drawers full of clothes and dozens of toys and I left them all behind without a thought. Except the books,’ she said, as an afterthought. ‘But I work with books. If you have a couple of pennies, Miss Fisher, shall we buy some peanuts for those parrots?’

As Phryne could see that the nun had something more to say, she complied. A couple of pennies in a machine caused a bag of peanuts to come shooting down a green-painted chute. A macaw, a green parrot, a cockatoo and a couple of galahs came down the bars, helping themselves along with their meat-shears beaks, to partake of the bounty and comment ‘Polly wants a drink of water’ and ‘you beaut!’. Sister Immaculata fed them. Phryne looked at her, a strange survival in her medieval robes, the gaudy new world birds screaming and fluttering at her fingertips.

‘My mother left me a package,’ said the nun, when the final peanut had been crunched. ‘It’s with Mr Adami. I have been struggling in prayer about what to do. Tell him that you have my permission to open it. Then tell me what it contains. I have always known that there was something wrong. It would be a relief to know that my mother was suffering from loss and terrible grief, not from . . .’

She had no need to go on. Terrible grief was not inherited. Madness and melancholia were.

‘Well, we had better be getting you back,’ said Dot to Sister Immaculata. ‘You’ve been ill and you’re supposed to be resting.’

‘Yes. I am a little tired,’ said the nun politely, getting up and patting Dot’s hand.

‘Goodbye, Polly,’ said Phryne to the birds.

‘Ribuck,’ said the cocky.

‘I wonder who teaches them all those words?’ asked Dot, making conversation.

‘Someone with a lot of time on their hands,’ said Phryne.

They walked the now-silent Sister Immaculata back to her convent and watched the green door shut behind her. Mr Butler had returned to the car and was reading the
Hawklet
.

‘Where now, ladies?’ he asked.

‘Home, if you please,’ said Phryne. ‘The day gets hotter from noon, doesn’t it? I’m sure there’s some meteorological reason why it shouldn’t.’

‘Always does, but,’ said Dot. ‘Cool change tonight, Miss Phryne. You’ll need your blanket.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ said Phryne in a tone which indicated deep scepticism. ‘I need to telephone Mr Adami to bring that parcel around, and then we might get somewhere.’

‘But wasn’t she nice, Miss?’ asked Dot.

‘I wish she’d been my teacher,’ Phryne replied.

Simon hauled the heavy Harley-Davidson onto its centre stand. Now that old Augustine was gone it seemed pointless to continue his trading amongst the sailors and thieves. But he had another reason for visiting the shop. He settled his hair, smoothed his leather coat, and sidled towards the back gate of the yard. The guard dog Binji knew him, and did not bark.

CHAPTER SIX

Memento mori.
(Remember you must die.)

Proverb

Phryne made her phone call and Mr Adami agreed to have the parcel brought to her house within the hour. Meanwhile, the afternoon post brought her a sad black-bordered card—with a gloomy quotation from Ezekiel, advertising his opinion that all flesh was grass, on the top—which invited her to mourn the death of Augustine Manifold on the morrow.

‘The coroner’s released the body, of course,’ she commented. ‘Jane? Would you like to come and help me rob a funeral parlour?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Jane with ice-cold aplomb.

‘Right, then we need some anatomy lessons,’ said Phryne. ‘No, sorry, Jane, I should have said, some extra anatomy lessons. I know you have that Christmas copy of
Gray’s Anatomy
by heart by now. Wait until I get Dr MacMillan on the phone, and you shall be instructed. Meanwhile, I will go and have a cold shower and change this dress.’

‘Into burglary clothes?’ asked Ruth, who felt the heat and was refreshing herself with cold lemonade.

‘Something like that,’ replied Phryne.

Dot had already taken herself off to her own room to lie down in the cool dark. It had not been scorching long enough to really heat up Phryne’s stone-built house, though once it got hot Dot suspected that it would stay hot. Miss Phryne wouldn’t need her to rob a funeral parlour—the things she said—and she had a headache. She took two aspirin with her lemonade. It had been that hot and bright outside!

She allowed her eyes to close, remembering Sister Scholastica and the scent of roses. ‘St Elizabeth of Hungary,’ Dot murmured, and fell asleep.

A refreshed Phryne came down to the parlour to find that everyone had gone. Ruth had taken her lemonade into the kitchen, to watch Mrs Butler making sorbets. Jane was on the phone to Dr MacMillan. Phryne could hear her precise Scots voice saying, ‘You must push the needle directly through the chest . . .’ and didn’t listen to any more. She examined the card. The mortal remains of Augustine Manifold were to be viewed at the establishment of Mr Leonard Palisi, coffin maker and undertaker, of Smith Street. She had a feeling that she might have seen him before at some Church jollification. Tall, thin, always dressed in a black suit, Parade Gloss on his shoes, always wore a hat, even inside, except in the church. Beautifully bald, not a hair to his name. Yes, that was him. Kept birds, Phryne thought, I believe it was birds.

Mr Palisi? Ah, yes, the amiable and efficient undertaker who had not blenched at being asked to arrange a funeral for the mummified remains of one Thomas Beaconsfield, scion of the aristocracy. It had been a small but tasteful service. The only mourners had been Phryne’s own family, a dwarf and two nuns, Sister Mary Magdalen and Sister Elizabeth from the Convent of the Good Shepherd. Phryne smiled at the memory. The Fishers were a dissolute family, but they always kept their promises.

She sipped her lemonade, called Mr Butler to augment it with a suitable amount of gin, and waited for her minion to be ready.

Jane came back, flushed with excitement.

‘I know how to do it,’ she informed Phryne. ‘I just need to stop at a pharmacy to buy a syringe with a long needle. People use them for killing woodworm, the doctor says, so there shouldn’t be any trouble getting it. And the doctor says she’ll test for seawater in the hospital laboratory. Isn’t this exciting?’ she asked.

‘Indeed,’ said Phryne, sipping.

‘Miss Phryne, why don’t we just ask Mrs Manifold if we may?’

Phryne sipped again while wondering if she was going to shock her adopted daughter. Still, even shocks can be salutary.

‘Because Mrs Manifold might have killed him. I know, it’s unlikely. But we can’t rule anyone out, Jane. And if he wasn’t drowned in the sea, then where was he drowned? Come along,’ said Phryne, getting up and leading the way to the door. ‘And put on your hat,’ she added.

‘Yes, Miss Phryne,’ said Jane obediently. She crammed the straw on her head and fell in at Miss Fisher’s elegant heel. Jane wouldn’t have missed the chance to practise her anatomy for quids. Life with Miss Phryne was all that Jane could have desired.

The syringe was obtained without difficulty, though Phryne had to fight off a pressing offer of the proprietor’s patent woodworm-exterminating liquid. Under Phryne’s expert control, the big red car cut through traffic. Jane closed her eyes and thought about Gray’s display of the dissected chest and lung cavity. It was better than estimating how close the car was to that hysterical fruit truck, whose peaches were even, at this moment, beginning to spoil.

The funeral parlour was a small elegant building with black glass windows in the bottom storey. The door was mahogany and beautifully carved with angels by someone who had seen a Tiepolo. Phryne pushed it open and the dust and noise was instantly shut off. Just like the gardens, she thought, though this is the peace of death, not life. The cool air smelt, oddly, of flowers, polished floor tiles, cold stone and fresh sawdust. Jane vibrated at her side.

‘Mr Palisi?’ Phryne asked as the tall man in the black suit advanced almost noiselessly. ‘I believe you might remember me?’

‘No one could forget you, Miss Fisher,’ he replied. His voice was even and modulated, but his eyes were warm with admiration. He might be a well-preserved fifty, Phryne thought, or a prematurely aged thirty; it was hard to tell beneath his undertaker’s manner. ‘Have you come to see one of my people?’

‘Augustine Manifold,’ said Phryne.

‘I am so sorry.’ Mr Palisi took Phryne’s hand in his own cool fingers. ‘Mr Manifold was returned from the coroner’s office in . . . in some disarray. We do the best we can, of course, but he . . . is not in a suitable condition for viewing.’

‘They butchered him?’ asked Phryne coarsely. Mr Palisi winced.

‘In a word, Miss Fisher, yes. Samples of course were taken for various reasons, and we have done our best with stitching and wax, and naturally the embalming smoothes out the skin, but . . . sorry, young lady?’

Jane had uttered a modified yelp of disappointment.

‘He’s been embalmed?’ she asked.

‘Well, yes,’ said Mr Palisi, taken aback. ‘Rather necessary in this heat.’

‘Of course,’ said Phryne, suppressing Jane with one hand on her shoulder. There was no hope for it now but the truth. ‘We were rather hoping to get a sample from the body, you see. I am attempting to find out what happened to him, and the medical examiner didn’t test for certain things.’

‘And he didn’t know his left hand from his right,’ said Mr Palisi. ‘I like to do my best for the deceased, you know. For the relatives, really. There is no one else here at present so I might allow myself to express the opinion that it doesn’t matter to the dead how we treat them but it matters a great deal to those who loved them. Perhaps I might suggest that some of the samples might still be retained by the coroner? I can make a call,’ he suggested delicately. ‘Perhaps you might like to sit in my private rooms. Just up the stairs, Miss Fisher.’

Phryne accepted. It was very cool in the funeral parlour and if the body of Augustine Manifold wouldn’t tell her where he had been, perhaps the coroner might. She propelled Jane up the stairs in front of her.

The parlour was a surprise. Clearly Mr Palisi owned the whole building and lived, so to speak, above his work. It was a conventional room, sparkling clean, with several comfortable chairs, fresh roses on the table, and a whole window filled with an aviary. Jane flew to the library of interesting anatomical treatises. Phryne looked at the birds.

They were a mixed flock of canaries and budgerigars, a bird for which she had an affection. They were so unlikely, like a lot of Australian birds. Phryne did not approve of caged birds, but these ones seemed happy, and were not at risk of having their song abruptly terminated by a prowling cat. There were fresh branches of gum leaves in the cage and the scent lent a medicinal quality to the air.

Two canaries were perched by the window, each trying to outdo the other. Their songs were tuneful and charming and very, very loud.

‘You wouldn’t think that two ounces of feathers and beak could make such a noise,’ she commented to Jane, who was enthralled by some back issues of a trade publication called the
Undertaker’s Gazette
.

Phryne left her to it. Mr Palisi appeared at the door. He seemed to have the same ability to move without being seen to move attributed to some saints, the devil, and Mr Butler.

‘Beautiful birds,’ said Phryne.

‘They’re my little singers,’ he said, his face transformed. He opened the cage and one budgie flew out and landed on his shoulder. It examined Phryne with some care and then turned its back on her. Whatever the test was, Phryne had failed it.

‘Now, Geoffrey, be civil,’ said Mr Palisi. ‘I have ascertained that some samples have been kept by the coroner’s office, but I cannot imagine how you can get to them, Miss Fisher.’ He stopped, removed the budgie to his finger, and cleared his throat. ‘I am about to have an afternoon pick-me-up. Could I . . . perhaps . . . could I ask you ladies to join me? I seldom have any company.’

Phryne was about to refuse when she decided that she really couldn’t. This was a very pleasant, very lonely man. Even his budgie didn’t seem to like him much.

‘Thank you, Mr Palisi, that would be lovely. Your house is beautifully cool in this weather,’ she said, sitting down in one of the armchairs.

Mr Palisi blushed with pleasure all over his head. He opened a cabinet and revealed a collection of bottles.

‘I usually have a gin and tonic at this time,’ he said.

‘Excellent choice,’ said Phryne. Jane opted for barley water, never taking her eyes off the gazette.

‘Your young colleague seems fascinated by my trade,’ he commented.

‘She will be a very good doctor,’ responded Phryne, ‘when she learns some more about people. Tell me, Mr Palisi, isn’t yours a very sad profession?’

‘Not at all,’ he demurred, sitting forward on the chair. ‘Someone must care for the dead, make them presentable so their relatives won’t be stricken.’

‘It is one of the corporeal works of mercy,’ said Phryne.

‘Yes, you visit the prisoners and captives, and other people feed and clothe the poor, and I prepare the dead for their longest sleep. My father was a carpenter and coffin maker, and I inherited the business. I fear that no one will follow in my footsteps, however, as there is no Mrs Palisi.’

‘Never despair,’ said Phryne bracingly. She liked Mr Palisi and if he splurged on shaving he didn’t break the bank on shampoo. ‘There is always hope. You do meet a lot of eligible widows, don’t you?’

Mr Palisi did something which undertakers rarely do. He laughed. Geoffrey the budgie squawked and fluttered on his finger. He raised the bird to his face and made a kissing noise, which the budgie reciprocated. Perhaps Geoffrey was better company than Phryne had thought. Perhaps Geoffrey didn’t like visiting ladies who might have designs on his master. And Geoffrey ought to improve his manners or he might become cushion stuffing, given the wrong kind of lady.

‘Well, agreeable as this has been, we must away. Jane, put down the magazine and say goodbye to Mr Palisi.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Jane. ‘You have a fascinating profession. Might I perhaps come in some day and watch you at work?’

‘You are an amazing young lady,’ he replied, comprehensively taken aback but recognising real enthusiasm when he saw it. ‘Perhaps when you are a little older, and if Miss Fisher gives her permission.’

‘And perhaps we would like to invite Mr Palisi to dinner, Jane?’ asked Phryne.

‘Oh, yes, please.’ Jane was delighted.

‘I will send you a card, Mr Palisi.’

Mr Palisi blushed again. It was as though the sun was setting over his hairless pate.

‘I am overwhelmed, Miss Fisher. Thank you, I shall certainly come. Now, as you say, you must go. I’ll see you downstairs. Say goodbye, Geoffrey.’

Phryne left, a little stunned. She had never been sneered at by a budgerigar before.

‘To the morgue, Miss Phryne?’ asked Jane, skipping as though she had just been offered a trip to the zoo.

‘Yes, that’s in Batman Avenue and it’s getting late, so hold onto that hat.’

Jane held onto her hat, shut her eyes, and tried not to hear what the other drivers were saying about Miss Phryne’s skill, morals, antecedents and the marital status of her parents. Not to mention the screeching of brakes and an outraged shout from a traffic policeman who had nearly lost several toes which he valued.

‘That was a red light, Miss Phryne,’ she ventured.

‘Yes, it was,’ returned Phryne, unmoved.

Jane tried to think about anatomy. Anatomy was dead. And safe.

Like the funeral parlour, the morgue was cool, but it smelt of decomposing flesh and phenol, neither being attractive scents. Fortunately, the office was just closing as Phryne arrived. A conspiratorial boy grabbed Phryne’s sleeve as she mounted the worn stone steps. He was clad in a white overall with splashes of unnameable fluids on the front. He was red-faced and his mother should have done something about his wiry, curly hair, though shaving his head might have been the only answer.

‘I’m Mike. Mr Pally says you want the Manifold samples,’ he whispered. ‘I can show you where they are but someone’ll have to distract the doorman.’

‘I’ll distract,’ Phryne told Jane, still moving. ‘You get the sample. There’ll be a reward in this for you,’ she told the boy. He spat on the step.

‘Don’t care if they sack me. No life for a man, this. Cutting up dead bodies. I’m just waiting till I’m old enough to get into the engine drivers’ union.’

‘Go on,’ said Phryne. Jane accompanied Mike through a lower entrance and Phryne found herself talking to one of those cross-grained old soldiers who made entry into Melbourne’s public buildings so colourful and demotic an experience.

‘’Scuse me, Miss,’ he said, touching a finger to his cap. ‘Offices closing in a minute. Have to wait till tomorrow.’

‘Oh, what a pity,’ said Phryne, patting her bosom with one delicate hand. ‘My editor said I had to get the opinion of the people in the business about the state of the morgue. You’ll have to do,’ she added, and brought out a notebook and pencil. ‘What’s your name, sir?’