Queen of Flowers (20 page)

Li Pen carried the retching girl up the steps and into Phryne’s house. Dot was awake. She had enjoyed a blameless evening at the Holy Land lantern slide show and had even allowed her young man to kiss her at the door. Hugh Collins kissed beautifully. Then somehow Dot couldn’t sleep so she thought that she would sit up and wait for Miss Phryne, even though Dot considered that fortune-telling was contrary to the law of God, and unsound as well. Her crochet dropped from her hands as she jumped to her feet.

‘You’ve got her?’ she asked.

‘In a bad way. Ring Jack Robinson, Dot, at the number he left. Tell him to bring a scene of the crime bag and the police surgeon. Lay her down here, Li Pen, if you please. Oh, Rose, you have been seeing life,’ she commented.

Rose Weston had been comprehensively beaten. Her face was beginning to swell: eyes, cheekbones, jaw. Her arms were
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ringed with red fingermarks and as Phryne peeled more of the wet dress away, more bruises appeared, darkening now that Rose was warming back into life. Phryne sent Li Pen to the kitchen to make tea and fill hot water bottles and Lin to fetch several fluffy towels to wrap the girl under the blanket. The head wound started to bleed. Dot came back.

‘He’s on his way,’ she said. ‘Oh, Miss, that looks bad.’

‘Head wounds always bleed a lot,’ said Phryne. ‘I’m more worried about her lungs and how cold she is. I wish I dared give her tea but she might have to have chloroform. Ah. Hot water bottles. Good.’

With the help of Li Pen and Lin, Phryne tucked the hot water bottles into the towels and wrapped Rose closely. Dot turned on the electric fire, a great convenience which gave instant heat. Rose and her wrappings began to steam. Phryne said with satisfaction, ‘Now, we can sit down and have a drink, and Lin can dry his feet. Dot, break out the booze. Li Pen has made Chinese tea if you prefer, Lin dear.’

‘Both,’ said Lin. ‘I was sure that she was dead, Phryne, when you hauled her out of the sea! You brought her back by sheer willpower. If she lives, she will owe you her life.’

‘If she lives,’ said Phryne, taking the small glass of green chartreuse which Dot handed her and sipping. It was not possible to gulp green chartreuse if you ever wanted to have more than one functioning taste bud again. Dot poured herself a sherry. Lin drank Chinese tea and brandy alternately. Li Pen sank to the floor, removed Lin’s shoes and socks and dried his feet. Thereafter he remained, cross-legged, on the floor with the teapot for company. He found western chairs uncomfortable.

Dot thought he looked ever so exotic.

The room warmed until it was almost hot. The rest of the house was asleep. Phryne could hear Mr and Mrs Butler’s
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snores, one genteel and one rather deeper. James Murray was sleeping like a mouse, and so were the two girls. Rose Weston breathed like a consumptive. Phryne nodded. Then she jerked awake as she heard footsteps on the porch.

She slipped out and opened the door before they could ring. She was so pleased to see Jack Robinson’s unmemorable face that she could have hugged him.

‘In here,’ she told him, and conducted Jack and a solid older man with a doctor’s bag into the parlour.

Everyone woke up.

‘This is Doctor Page,’ said Jack. ‘And this is the victim?’

‘We found her on the shore,’ said Phryne. ‘Below the high tide mark. We emptied out most of the water and brought her here. She’s been beaten and there’s a terrible bump on her head.’

The police surgeon looked at Jack Robinson, who gave him a nod. Well, if he was to examine a victim in a room which contained not one but two Chinese men and two competent looking women, it was Jack Robinson’s funeral. Lin and Li Pen went into the other parlour as the police surgeon pulled the blanket and towels away from the mistreated body.

‘Bad business,’ Dr Page grunted. ‘You did the right thing, Miss. Cold’s a killer in these drowning cases. Been beaten with fists, I think,’ he said, feeling over Rose Weston for broken bones.

‘Heart sounds all right. Lungs are still fluidy. Bruising around the ribs, of course.’ He took a spatula from his bag. ‘Give me a little jar, Jack.’ He scraped busily. ‘Label that “sand from the victim’s mouth”, will you?’ he said, and Robinson wrote busily.

The doctor took samples from every part of Rose Weston’s body. Finally he probed the head wound, feeling for crepitus, the creaking of a broken bone, with sensitive fingers. Dot, who had been minded to object to his heartless handling, reminded herself that he usually dealt with dead people.

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‘Might be a small fracture,’ he said, washing his hands in a bowl of water which Phryne had supplied. ‘I’ll clean it and put in some stitches. Then you need to keep her warm in a nice dark place—no sudden lights, no noises—and see how she is after a day or so. Wash all this sand off her and use arnica for the bruises. I’ll give you some morphine, but you can’t use it until she’s awake and can walk and both pupils dilate the same. Morphine can kill in concussion. Just a light diet, aspirin and plenty of fluids. But you’ll get your own doctor,’ he added.

‘Bit of a treat for me to work on a live body,’ he added, patting Rose Weston on an unbruised space of shoulder. ‘She’ll do, I believe.’

Dot suddenly liked this red-faced, elderly person a lot better.

He cleaned and stitched the head wound neatly enough.

Then he picked up his bag.

‘Would you like some tea, or a drink?’ asked Phryne.

The doctor put the bag down again.

‘Whisky,’ said Dr Page. ‘A glass of whisky would be most acceptable. Poor girl! What happened to her?’

‘That’s what we have to find out,’ said Jack Robinson.

‘I know you said you’d find her, Miss Fisher, but I have to confess I didn’t really believe you.’

‘You should always believe her,’ said Li Pen unexpectedly.

He was lifting Rose Weston and her wrappings and hot water bottles and following Dot up to Phryne’s bathroom. There the rush of water would not wake the household. They were used to Phryne having baths at all hours.

‘Yes,’ said Robinson. ‘I suppose, after all this time, I should.

You say that it was a fortune-teller who guided you there?’

‘Either she was speaking to the spirits or she knew about the stray girl in the camp,’ said Phryne. ‘Rose might have been there of her own free will, but once the gossip was spread she
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was doomed. They had to get rid of her. Am I right to think that there was sperm in one of those samples?’

Dr Page, having long associated with hospital nurses and female police, was used to plain speaking women.

‘I believe so. I shall know when I get it under a microscope.’

‘She’s not sixteen yet. She’s a threat. And there was the other thing as well. With her family. I do not believe that she meant to run away for good. She left ten pounds behind if she did.’

‘Not possible, unless she was mental,’ said Robinson.

‘A little deranged by ill treatment, perhaps, but not that deranged,’ Phryne told him. ‘Two people were with the body but they ran away and we couldn’t spare the time to catch them. Tell me, Doctor Page, did she fall off a ship and get washed ashore?’

‘She’s got the gooseskin hands,’ he said. ‘Been in the water an hour or so. At least. I haven’t got any water from her lungs but the stuff in her mouth was definitely sea-sand. I reckon she was face down in the sand.’

‘She was,’ affirmed Phryne.

‘Well, your two unknowns were either trying to help and got scared when they saw you coming, or they were . . .’

‘Pressing her face down into the sand,’ said Phryne. ‘To suffocate. How very horrible.’

‘Murder is like that, and this looks like an attempted murder. She wouldn’t have been able to swim or even think with that great blow on the head. She might have fallen overboard, though, and hit her head on the way down. Then she might have floated or been washed ashore, and the two strangers might have been rescuers. It’s all in the way you look at it,’ said Dr Page. ‘Now, Miss, I’ll thank you for the whisky, and I’ll take my leave. Jack?’

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ said Robinson. ‘Least I can do after dragging you out so late. Miss Fisher will write me a statement
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about everything that happened on the beach. I’ll call on you tomorrow, Miss Fisher. And—well done,’ he said quietly. ‘Sorry for doubting you.’

‘Quite all right, Jack dear. After a few miles up and down that beach I was doubting myself.’

She let them out and closed the door. Then she sat herself across Lin Chung’s lap. His arms closed around her. She rested her neat head on his chest.

‘Shouldn’t we go and help Li Pen and Dot?’ he asked, holding her closer.

‘They’ll manage,’ said Phryne drowsily. ‘How very nice you smell, Lin dear. I have often noticed it.’

He kissed her on the top of the head.

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

Miss Anna Ross to Mr Rory McCrimmon

Rory dear husband for so I think of you. I cannot understand
why Mama refused your proposal but I did not refuse it. I am
yours as I said I was when you asked me. I shall try to creep out
and speak to you at three this morning if you will wait for me
at the corner of the street.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies
John Keats

‘Ode to a Nightingale’

Morning found Phryne asleep with Lin Chung in her boudoir, Li Pen asleep on the floor of the second guest room, Rose Weston asleep in the bed of the second guest room, Dot in the chair in the second guest room and everyone else waking to greet the new morning in their usual fashion. Breakfast was served to James Murray, Dot and the girls in the dining room, to Lin and Miss Phryne in her own bedroom, and Li Pen was supplied with Vegemite toast in the kitchen. Dot did not dare disclose the presence of Rose Weston without Phryne’s direct orders, so she mustered the household and took them all on a nice brisk walk to see the marching bands, despite their muttered objections.

Phryne saw them go from her high window. ‘I shall have
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to buy Dot an especially nice present,’ she remarked, turning to kiss Lin Chung with her coffee-flavoured mouth.

‘Why?’ asked Lin as he surfaced.

‘Because she has taken the girls and James and even Molly firmly out of the house. And now we must get up and see how our patient is doing.’

‘Li has been there all night. He knows a lot about injuries.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ said Phryne, removing a questing hand and getting pointedly out of bed. Lin sighed. Adventure had the worst effect on romance. On the other hand, adventure appeared to have an aphrodisiac effect on Phryne, and Lin was always happy to assist with assuaging her fevers.

He sat up to eat the rest of the stack of bible-leaf toast which Mrs Butler made so well. Very thin slices of rye bread, flash toasted and soaked in butter. Bliss. One just nibbled gently and—voilà!—somehow one had eaten all the toast.

Rabbits must feel that way about lettuce, he thought. As he got up, Ember assumed his place on Phryne’s moss-green sheets and settled down for a nice long nap, until Dot came to make the bed.

Musing gently, Lin took advantage of Phryne’s absence to wash and dress. He had done this here often enough to have left a change of clothes in Phryne’s wardrobe and to know where to find the towels. The house was very quiet.

Then, from downstairs, came a scream of pure terror.

Lin was out of the room before he realised that he had heard it. It was coming from the second bedroom. Li Pen came out.

‘The young woman awoke and saw me,’ he said, a little hurt. ‘And she screamed.’

‘Probably reads too much Sax Rohmer,’ explained Lin sympathetically. ‘I suggest you take a rest, Li Pen. Go and sit in the garden. I’d better keep out of the way, too. Ah, here comes
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the good Mrs Butler. Come, Li Pen, and admire Camellia’s garden. It is laid out on the best Buddhist principles.’

Phryne eased Rose Weston back onto her pillow, scolding gently: ‘Yes, it was a Chinaman, and no, he isn’t Fu Manchu, don’t be so silly. He’s a good friend of mine, and of yours, for he carried you when we rescued you last night. Now, have a drink of this nice barley water,’ said Phryne, and administered it. Rose sipped, then seized the glass and drank thirstily. Phryne poured her another. ‘You’re all dried out,’ she said. ‘Too much sea-water in the system.’

‘Sea-water?’ asked Rose. She lifted a hand to push her hair away from her face and winced twice; once for the bruised hand, once for the bruised face.

‘Yes. Now, look at me. Do you know who I am?’

‘Miss Fisher,’ said Rose.

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Rose through split lips.

‘Ah. Do you hurt?’

‘Everywhere,’ said Rose. ‘What happened to me? Where am I?’

‘You were attacked and you’re in my house and perfectly safe. No one shall know where you are. Li Pen and others will protect you.’

‘Attacked?’ said Rose, beginning to cry.

‘Do you remember what happened?’ asked Phryne.

‘No,’ said Rose. ‘It’s all dark.’

Mrs Butler came in with a tray. ‘Have a little breakfast,’ said Phryne. ‘People come for miles to eat Mrs Butler’s coddled egg. Don’t try to remember. Your name, by the way, is Rose.’

‘Rose,’ said Rose uncertainly.

‘And as soon as you can walk on your own, you shall have something for the pain. I’ll be back later,’ she promised, and
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