Queen of Flowers (19 page)

‘You’re a good observer, Jane!’ said Phryne, struck by this vivid image. ‘A clever chocolate for you when we get home.

What else did she say?’

‘She looked in. I couldn’t see anything but my own reflection upside down. Then she frowned and rubbed the glass again and said “Tell your mistress that the girl on the beach will die unless she gets to her by midnight. Tell her to walk the beach at midnight”. Then she clutched at her temples and said
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to me, “That’s all, girl, now go away”. And I went. She was calling out to someone in the back of the tent for some aspirin as I left.’

‘Curious,’ said Phryne. ‘Well, it can’t hurt.’

Whether Madame Sosostris was in touch with the spirits or whether she was a cunning old baggage who thought, like everyone else, that stray girls were trouble and wanted to get rid of Rose, it was all one. Midnight would find Phryne on the beach.

‘So I have to revise my opinion,’ said Jane. ‘Most fortune-telling is just watching people and telling them what they want to hear. But some of it is genuine.’

‘A reasonable conclusion. Now, we’re home, it’s afternoon tea time and Dot should be back by now.’

‘Miss Phryne? Are you going to rescue Biddy?’ asked Ruth.

‘I shall find somewhere else for her to go, yes. That house is not as bad as the one you were in—no, I take it back, it’s cleaner, but just as mean and nasty. Biddy’s got a family and a little sister and I’ll bet I find that she’s a good girl—is that the case, Dot?’

‘I spoke to the priest at St Joan of Arc’s,’ said Dot, meeting Phryne at the gate. ‘He says she comes to six-thirty mass several times a week, before she starts work. And always on Sunday.

Her mother’s got eight children. Her father works on the railways. He’s not perfectly sober, Father O’Brian says.’ Dot always got a little flushed talking to priests. This one had been old and Irish and not disposed to judge humans too harshly.

‘But not a bad or neglectful man. Mrs Ryan has a job in a hotel.

All the other children are at school except for little Mary, and that’s why they jumped at a job where Bridget could take Mary with her. Mrs Ryan lost a baby in the care of a baby minder and she won’t hear of Mary being minded. Miss, the priest
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asked me if Bridget was in moral danger in that house. I said I’d have to ask you. Is she?’

‘I don’t believe so, Dot. Not for the time being. Now, come along, ladies, a nice cup of tea is what we need. You would have liked the lantern show, Dot. Would you like to go tonight? You could take Hugh with you if you’re feeling nervous.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Dot. Even Dot’s own mother, a censorious woman, could not object to a lantern show about the Holy Land. And she hadn’t seen Hugh for a week.

‘Good. I need to ring Lin. You have first go at the phone.’

Phryne toyed with the idea of taking Ruth into her parlour and making her tell Phryne what was on her mind, but gave it away. Forced confidences were not valuable. Ruth would tell her eventually.

The tea table was laid. Mr Butler waited until he heard Phryne coming downstairs after taking off her hat, and then he began pouring. There were small iced cakes. Jane brought the box of Haighs Superfine in which the clever chocolates, rewards for a clever question or answer, dwelt, and was allowed to choose one. She was in luck; it was her favourite, an orange cream.

Roused by the clatter of cups, James Murray woke and for a moment wondered where he was. In a lady’s house, by the sound of the voices and the tinkle of teaspoons. He was warm and lying in a luxurious bed, perfectly free of leaks, waterstains, rats or lice. He was clean. He looked at the jazz-coloured curtains and the little pictures of street children all around the walls. Of course. Phryne Fisher had rescued him.

He dressed in his clean shirt—that Chinese laundry was quick and there wasn’t a crease in it, they had even got the oil and tomato sauce stains out—and went in to see if anyone felt like giving him a cup. Preferably with tea in it.

They did. He sat down and drank and ate an iced cake.

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‘Do you have a family, Mr Murray?’ asked Jane. James beamed. He could have kissed her. Just the question he hoped she would ask.

‘Ah, there’s my Maggie,’ he said, digging in his pocket for his wallet and extracting a picture which he handed to Jane.

‘She’s waiting for me this moment, wondering where I am.

But I’ll be back with her soon.’

Jane examined the photograph of the strong featured woman and passed it to Phryne, who was sitting next to her.

‘And children?’ Jane asked.

‘None,’ he said sadly. ‘But there’s still time.’

Phryne understood. She was being warned off. She did not mind. This was a graceful way of doing it.

‘That’s a pity,’ said Jane, reaching for her third cake. ‘You’re good at children. We like you. And you seem to like us.’

‘Jane,’ said Phryne. ‘Remember what I said about making personal remarks?’

‘But it’s true,’ said Jane, her invariable defence and reply.

James Murray intervened.

‘Aye, so it is, and I like you well. Do I not, my bonny bird?’

he asked Ruth, and hugged her. She surprised him by returning his casual embrace with a swift, fierce hug. He buried his face for a second in her clean hair.

Ruth let go and left the table without permission. James looked up and felt Phryne’s eyes upon him.

‘She’s a little upset,’ explained Jane. ‘About—’

‘Jane,’ said Phryne firmly, and Jane subsided into her cake.

‘You have a concert tonight?’ she asked James.

‘Aye, at eight, in the town hall.’

‘Are you likely to be home after midnight? I can give you a key.’

‘Och, no, I’ve no taste for post concert parties. Too much
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weak tea and discussion about the definition of a folk song.

I say it’s a folk song if folk sing it. But that is never enough for them, because it would include “Daisy Daisy” and “My Old Kentucky Home”. It’s a minefield, this Folk Song Society stuff.

I just stick to playing the fiddle and saying “och, aye” in the thickest Glasgow accent I can muster if anyone speaks to me.

They think all Scotsmen have heavy accents. And a name beginning with Mac.’

‘But you’re not a Gael anyway,’ protested Jane. ‘You’re a Viking.’

‘Aye,’ said James comfortably. ‘But you wouldn’t want to give a fellow away, would you, hinny? Not when there’s a thumping good fee to be made.’

‘And you’re the best fiddler they’re ever likely to hear,’ said Phryne.

The afternoon passed uneventfully. Mr Johnson rang to find out the progress of Miss Fisher’s investigations and she assured him that they were proceeding. And, she congratulated herself, she did it without the gritting of her teeth being at all audible.

The beach at midnight was a different place. Phryne had seen her household settled, made certain preparations, and was walking idly along at the edge of the sea, where the sand was hardest.

Lin Chung was walking beside her. They both wore dark clothing. Phryne was in her boy’s clothes, with her cap pulled over her eyes.

Lin felt odd walking beside her. She really did look like a boy. She walked like a boy. Yet she was the object of his most profound desire. Underneath that rough serge was the body—

and the passion—of a goddess. To cover his discomfort, he started to talk.

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‘So, we are doing this because a fortune-teller said so?’

he asked.

‘And because my old friend James told every gossip in the camp that tomorrow there would be a police raid.’

‘This old friend,’ Lin began.

‘He was my lover once,’ said Phryne, short-circuiting the question. ‘When I was twenty, in Orkney. Now he is married to his Maggie and wants to go back to her. I just didn’t want to see an old friend—and a wonderful musician—sleeping in the rain. Clear?’

‘Clear,’ said Lin. The way Phryne read his mind was disconcerting but it did make communication easy. ‘I gather you don’t think his scheme was a good idea?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have done that. It puts the girl in too much danger. She might be here of her own free will, you know. She was dining at Anatole’s of her own free will with two of Bert’s Bad Men. Who rejoice, by the way, in the names of Simonds and Mongrel. And I’m not the woman to take her back to her family, who sold her virginity, at the age of twelve, to Mr Johnson for a great deal of money and stock market favours.’

Phryne, stuttering in outrage, needed to say this out loud.

It seemed easier, in the darkness and the open, with the sleeping carnival on one side and the slapping sea on the other. She heard Lin’s hiss of distaste.

‘You know this because . . .?’ asked Lin.

‘I deciphered her diary,’ said Phryne. ‘And the cream of the joke is that Mr Johnson is paying me.’

‘Ironic,’ said Lin. ‘Juvenalian. Not funny.’

‘Quite. But I’m afraid that these two men might hurt her because she could tell on them. She’s only thirteen, you know.

She would have been easy to seduce. She doesn’t value her body so she would give it away to whoever wanted it.’

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‘Or die in defending her honour,’ said Lin. ‘It can go either way for the ones who have been shamed. Except in China, where she would be expected to kill herself.’

‘She hasn’t anything to be ashamed of,’ said Phryne.

‘No, but I bet that isn’t how she sees it. It’s getting colder.

How long do we need to patrol?’

‘We’ll turn when we reach those lights and come back,’ said Phryne. ‘For St Kilda dwellers, this is “the beach”.’

‘Running feet,’ said Lin, slowing. ‘And splashing. Here they come,’ he said calmly.

He turned, his walking stick in hand. Phryne flanked him.

In St Kilda it is never really dark. Two people were running, not toward Phryne and Lin now but towards the outcasts’ camp.

One of them swore as he tripped, almost fell, and scrambled on.

The other was wholly silent and somehow familiar. Both were lost to sight in an instant in the mess of canvas and lines.

‘Oh God,’ groaned Phryne, and was gone from beside him.

On the flat wet sand Phryne was as fleet as a deer and Lin laboured after her. He could not see what she was aiming for.

Then he saw it. A bundle of wet garments carelessly left below the high tide mark. A bundle which Phryne was trying to drag out of the shallow water. As he came closer it developed arms and legs and a lolling head.

He grabbed the body under its armpits and Phryne took the feet and they hauled, sobbing with effort. The girl seemed to weigh as much as a fully grown whale. Sand slid and gritted under cold flesh and torn hair. Surely she was dead. She was the very definition of a dead weight.

He had reckoned without Phryne. She whispered, ‘Move her arms! Up and down, above her head and down! Quickly!’

Then she balled her fist and punched the rounded white breast which protruded from the torn dress.

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‘There’s a faint pulse in this wrist,’ said Lin.

Phryne listened at the slack mouth, took a deep breath, and breathed her own warm life into Rose Weston. The lips were corpse cold and salty under her own. The body flexed and shuddered as Lin moved the arms up and down as he had been told. Surely this was a waste of time. Surely the poor girl was beyond recall. But he kept dragging and releasing her arms, because Phryne was still trying. Water soaked his knees and seeped into his boots. He shivered with cold and the presence of death.

Then he felt the body convulse, and Phryne turned Rose’s head to the side as she vomited water and sand, coughed, then breathed on her own. Once. Twice. A pause. Then she coughed and breathed again.

‘Li Pen?’ Lin called. The invaluable Li Pen, Lin’s bodyguard, the only Shaolin monk in Australia who liked Vegemite, mat-erialised with a blanket, wrapped Rose Weston and lifted her over his shoulder. He carried her without any effort, belly down and still spilling sea-water from her mouth. She was breathing in shuddering gasps but she was breathing.

‘Where?’ asked Li Pen. He was not surprised at the turn of events. The Jade Lady had said that tonight she would rescue this lost girl, and she had. The Jade Lady was invariably right.

His master was fortunate that she only wanted to be his concubine. She was as formidable, in her way, as Lin’s Dragon Lady grandmother. Li Pen was only sorry that he had not been able to catch those two miscreants who had fled into the camp.

But he had been bidden to stay close to Lin Chung.

‘Car,’ said Phryne.

If anyone in the circus noticed two Chinese men and a boy carrying a blanket-wrapped girl out of their sacred precinct, they didn’t feel it necessary to object.

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‘Hospital, or home?’ asked Lin, helping Li Pen load Rose Weston into the back seat.

‘I’ll just drive for a while. How is she, Li Pen?’

‘She has a bad wound on the back of her head,’ he said, drawing back the sandy blanket. ‘She is bruised on all the parts I can see. Even her fingernails are broken. I do not like the thread of her pulse. Also, she is very cold.’

‘If I take her home I’ll have to hide her,’ Phryne mused, allowing the great car to slide out into the silent street. ‘If I take her to hospital there will be questions. And her family will be informed. She can’t talk until she recovers and she’ll need to swear to her diary for me to nail that old bastard, her grandfather and the kindly Mr Johnson. Home,’ she decided, and found that her hands had already decided for her. The Hispano-Suiza, like a homing bird, had driven itself back to its own garage.