Queen of Flowers (25 page)

‘Tell me,’ said Mr Prayse, lighting another gasper.

‘Johnson,’ said Hugh, trailing his coat. ‘And Weston.’

‘Johnson,’ mused Mr Prayse, ‘and Weston. Always suspected some sort of deal between them. Just move some of
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the books and have a seat. Tea?’ he asked, producing a battered kettle from the hob on which it had been steaming.

‘No thanks,’ said Hugh. He shifted a directory and sat down. Prayse poured out a cup as black as ink. It probably was ink. What else do printers drink?

‘Weston. He’s a miser. Never wants to let anything or anyone out of his hands. And yet his granddaughter is missing, right?’

‘Right,’ said Hugh, giving away his first card.

‘Have something to do with Johnson?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Hugh warily. ‘What I want to know is, what did Johnson have on Weston?’

‘Oh, that old scandal? Everyone’s forgotten about it,’ said Prayse. ‘If that’s all you’ve got you just needed to read the

“Hawklet”. Now go away and don’t waste my time.’

Hugh put five shillings down on the desk, next to the overflowing ashtray. ‘Let me buy half an hour of your time,’ he said,

‘while you tell me all about this scandal that everyone’s forgotten.’

‘For five bob,’ said Mr Prayse, scraping the coins into his hand with alacrity, ‘you could have the paper as well. Let’s see.

Yes. Two years ago Weston had shares in a company which were leaping up in value so fast that the chalkies were getting altitude sickness. Silver River Oil, it was. Californian. The market has fads, you know, fashions, and Silver River Oil was booming. Then all of a sudden it crashed without trace because a report came through that said it didn’t have any oil. None at all. It had been a puff from the beginning. With me so far?’

Hugh nodded.

‘Well, Weston sold out, just before the prices hit the floor.

Made a mint. And Johnson’s was the office through which the report came. Johnson didn’t have any shares in Silver River Oil. He’s not a fool. But Weston would have been ruined if he hadn’t sold when he did.’

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‘Didn’t anyone investigate it?’ asked Hugh. ‘Surely someone noticed.’

‘Johnson stuck to the story that the report had never been out of his hands for a moment and Weston said it was a whim.

We gave that a headline. “Gold-edged whim”. But there’s no legs in that old tale, so what have you got for me?’

‘Nothing for the moment. But keep your eyes on Weston and Johnson. They’re heading for a smash,’ said Hugh, and got up.

‘Can I have your name?’ asked Mr Prayse, pencil poised.

‘No,’ said Hugh politely, and let himself out.

Even the air in Little Lonsdale Street, not locally considered choice, smelt good to Hugh, and he strode off towards Russell Street with a sense of a job well done.

Mr Prayse swore, said, ‘Well, what about that?’ and lit another cigarette.

The bulldog snored. The presses rumbled. Another issue of the ‘Hawklet’ was coming to astonish the world.

At five o’clock Dot gave up. ‘She isn’t here,’ she said. ‘You would have drawn her or we would have found her by now.

We’ve searched this camp end to end.’

James stored his fiddle and bow and sat flexing his fingers, absently rubbing some life back into them.

‘Where can she be, then, the little bird?’ he asked helplessly.

‘If she isn’t here, at least we know that,’ said Dot firmly.

‘Now Jane just needs to go and be sick, and we can go home. My Hugh should be back and he’ll have found something out.’

Jane was duly sick under a convenient bush. James, Dot and Jane walked back to the road. They had failed. But there had been beautiful music, Jane thought, much relieved.

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Somehow, for no sensible or logical reason, that made it better.

The Flora was a hissing and a byword wherever anyone discussed pubs. It had been so for more than eighty years.

Rumour had it that it was established as a government plot to poison Fenian diggers coming home from the goldfields with a strike. Elderly shearers, having retired their shears and stone, sat back in country pubs when there were complaints about their own local and said, ‘At least it isn’t like the Flora.’

Hardened wharfies, offered a drink at the Flora as an essential link in a twenty-four hour pub-crawl, had decided that sobriety was their best bet at this point. Police officers entered the Flora only in pairs and only when they really, really had no option, even if that option was (1) resignation from the force or (2) explaining their actions to their sergeant.

It was, of course, dark. And, naturally, it smelt of old drains and beer spilled ten years earlier. And things which Bert didn’t want to specify even to himself. The other drinkers were invisible in the gloom. They moved and muttered. They didn’t like strangers in the Flora. Not that they got many. Any unwary idiot driven by thirst through the front door would surely have been put off by the barman, who appeared to have been dead for some years. Living humans usually have more flesh. And hair. And expression.

Bert laid a shilling on the bar in a pool of what was at least identifiable as spilled ale, and the aged barman creaked, ‘What d’you want?’

‘Beer,’ said Bert. He had to buy it, but no power on earth could make him drink it. ‘You seen Mongrel and Simonds?’

The invisible audience heaved and murmured.

‘Why’d you want ’em?’ growled the mummified barman.

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‘I owe ’em some money,’ said Bert.

There was a pause composed of blank astonishment.

Someone laughed.

‘They’re barred,’ said the aged corpse. ‘They started a fight.

Last fight they’ll start here, Boss said. Yesterday, it was.’

‘Any idea where they’d have gone? There’s a bob in it,’ he added invitingly to the shadows.

‘Nah,’ said the barman. ‘Don’t know anything,’ he added.

Bert took the horse-piss beer in one hand and turned around to survey the darkness. It seemed to throb gently. They were listening.

‘Anyone know where Mongrel and Simonds are? They’ll be dark on yer if yer do ’em out of their five bob.’

He had calculated the amount carefully. Five bob was a good sum, but not a fortune. Bert didn’t feel like being robbed on the way out.

‘They might’a gone to the Railway,’ said an anonymous voice.

‘They ain’t banned there yet. They can’ta spent all that coin yet.’

‘They had money?’ asked Bert skeptically.

‘That’s what started the fight,’ said the unseen voice.

‘I’ll just leave the bob on the bar, shall I?’ asked Bert, and he walked backwards out of the Flora, Cec covering his exit.

‘They must be bad bastards, them two,’ said Cec.

‘Why?’ asked Bert, happy to be out in the nice clean St Kilda afternoon on the way to the Railway Arms, a respectable pub.

‘I never heard of
anyone
being banned from the Flora,’

said Cec.

‘Too right,’ said Bert.

Five-thirty saw all of the investigators back at Phryne’s. She came down the stairs in a red house gown and smiled at them.

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‘Choose your poison, gentlemen and ladies, and let’s exchange information,’ she said. Bert and Cec chose tea, to her surprise.

‘I never want to drink beer again—’ Bert caught himself.

‘At least until tomorrow.’

‘But we did find out things,’ said Cec.

‘We didn’t find Ruth,’ said Dot sadly.

‘But I found out about an old scandal involving Mr Weston and Mr Johnson,’ said Hugh Collins proudly.

‘Good. We’ll do this in order and Dot, if she will, will make notes. Bert dear, you look a little tired. What have you found out?’

‘We hunted ’em through several pubs,’ said Bert, drinking tea with relish. It was just as he liked it, sweet, milky, and very strong. ‘Finally found their last port of call, which was the Railway. They were rich,’ he said significantly. ‘Barman said they had pounds and pounds. Looks like you might have been right, Miss,’ he told Phryne. ‘Where are rabbits like Mongrel and Simonds going to get pounds and pounds? They ain’t got the . . . er . . . well, they ain’t got them, to be big time robbers.

You don’t find that kind of money on the street.’

‘So they were spending some of their fee from murdering Rose Weston,’ said Phryne.

‘Looks like,’ said Bert.

‘But you didn’t catch up with them,’ said Phryne.

‘Nah. Gone to ground.’

‘Damn. What about you, Hugh?’

‘I got a lot,’ said Hugh modestly. ‘I read those files that aren’t supposed to be there and I talked to the editor of the “Hawklet”. Strange bird. Thought I was there to give him a writ.’

‘So, what did you learn?’ prompted Dot.

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Hugh gave a summary of the scandal about the Silver River Oil shares, the odd whim of Mr Weston and the sworn oath of Mr Johnson that the report had never left his hands. Dot beamed at him proudly.

‘Well, there’s the motive for selling Rose,’ commented Phryne. ‘Weston was buying Johnson’s silence. Well done, Hugh dear! Now, Dot, I gather you and James and Jane didn’t find any trace of Ruth at the carnival?’

Dot shook her head. ‘No sign at all,’ she said. ‘That elephant lady was very kind to us, showed us around the circus.

She tried to make me feel better by telling me she was sure Ruth would turn up all right.’

‘And I never want to eat Turkey lolly again,’ said Jane, echoing Bert. ‘At least, not until tomorrow.’

‘Well, we look elsewhere,’ said Phryne. ‘Now, we can have dinner, then Lin and I are going to see the lantern show called the “Golden Journey to Samarkand”, which I promised to attend. I have to meet my new flower maiden Jessica Adams and the others there. Then I’ll come back to change for the midnight boat trip. And now, excuse me, I have to learn how to play baccarat.’

‘Told you,’ said Bert, shuffling a deck of cards which Mr Butler had brought on his silver salver. ‘Work of a moment. Imagine that I’m dealing out of a boot with six decks of cards in it. Two players. One is the bank. On Mr Walker’s boat, the bank is the house.’

‘Why did I think that?’ asked Phryne.

‘Two cards each,’ said Bert, dealing them. ‘Aim is to get nine. If either card is a nine—a natural—or an eight, you have to turn it up. On a six or a seven you have to stand. On less than five you have to call for another card, which he deals face
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up. Bank has to draw to a point under three, stand with a point above six, and can do either of them if the mug has a four at the third card or a nine with the third card. See?’

‘Court cards equal . . .?’ asked Phryne.

‘Nix,’ said Bert.

They played ten rounds of baccarat. Phryne won once, with a natural in her first drawing, and after that the odds fluc-tuated. Basically, the house won. This was not uncommon.

What was the point of having a house if it didn’t win?

‘And the interest in this game is . . .?’ she asked, yawning delicately behind her hand.

‘The side betting,’ said Bert. ‘This is a simple form of chemmy, where the bank passes from player to player.’

‘Oh. Well, thanks a lot, Bert dear. See you on the beach at eleven-fifteen?’

‘Yair,’ said Bert. ‘We’ll be there. I’ll get the password for tonight. And remember to bring your card.’

‘Right,’ said Phryne.

Dinner was, as usual, excellent. Mrs Butler, knowing that there was trouble in the house, had decided that soothing, easy to eat food was just the thing to slide past a lump in the throat.

Nothing sharp, no pastry, no fried food. So she had cooked a nourishing chicken soup, a white ragout of veal with celery, and a selection of her justly famous sorbets: mango, pineapple and lemon. There was a savoury of Welsh rarebit and a strengthening pot of coffee. Phryne ate well but refused wine. She was going to need all her wits about her.

‘We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage

‘And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,

‘We poets of the proud old lineage

‘Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why—’

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Phryne leaned back in the hard seat of the church hall.

Here was a voice which should have been on the Shakespearean stage, a rich, full, evocative voice. Professor Merckens, who was reading, must have been in his late sixties. He was tall, inclining to a corporation, with a shining bald dome and glasses. He was wearing full evening dress, in which he looked very comfortable.

The lantern slides were being worked by a girl in a belly-dancer’s costume who jingled faintly as she moved. Her long black hair had been dressed with jasmine-scented oil which almost overcame the scent of tea-urns boiling, old hymn books and settled chalk dust, the standard scent of all church halls.

The audience stopped coughing and rustling sweet papers and settled down like birds.

‘What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales

‘Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest,

‘Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales

‘And winds and shadows fall toward the West.’

The first slide clicked into place. There, in sepia, was the Great Gate of Baghdad, with camels and horses and small boys in nightshirts driving mules. And the beautiful voice went on:

‘And how beguile you? Death has no repose

‘Warmer and deeper than that Orient sand

‘Which hides the beauty and bright faith of those

‘Who made the golden journey to Samarkand.