Murder in the Dark (22 page)

‘Agreed,’ said Nicholas. ‘How do we make sure that they stay put?’

‘Paper games,’ said Phryne promptly. ‘I am providing all the makings of a game of consequences, and I am about to make sure that Sylvanus takes control of it. If ever a man had a guilty secret, it is him.’

‘Probably whole loads of them,’ said Nicholas. ‘Though my . . . er . . . friend in the police said that none of them had criminal records in Australia.’

‘They have scarcely had time,’ chided Phryne. ‘They haven’t been here very long. Hello, Syl,’ she said affectionately, stooping to kiss the fat man’s cheek. ‘I want you to do me a favour.’

‘Anything, princess,’ he replied. ‘Including my worthless life and my even more worthless fortune.’

Phryne explained, Sylvanus accepted the paper and pencils. He did not ask for any further instructions.

Phryne let him go, then led Nicholas back into the Iris Room, where she shed the shift and put on Minnie’s oldest black dress and her cleanest spare apron and cap. Outside the door, someone had left the old tea-trolley, now laden with towels. This would assist Phryne’s disguise. Nicholas, who found that he had quite forgotten to breathe as Phryne was flinging off her clothes, breathed.

‘I’ve got the pass key,’ she told him, adjusting her cap and tying back the wings of her black hair. ‘You’re my cockatoo. I’ll search, you watch. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ he said.

An hour later Phryne and Nicholas had finished with the top floor. They had opened cupboards and wardrobes and chests. They had penetrated the roof space, disturbed a colony of tiny insectivorous bats, encountered a fair number of rats and one very cross hunting cat, but found no trace of the missing boy. Phryne, who was thorough when she felt like it, had tapped every panel and followed every echo. It would be like the Chirnside brothers to have made a romantic secret room in their mansion, but one had not been found.

The guests had brought some odd things into the house, it was true. Phryne wondered why anyone would import a huge backgammon board, a large empty fish bowl, a coffee set in white bone china, a Tiffany lamp or a dog collar and a set of chains, though she could make a shrewd guess about the last. She did not do so out loud in case she offended Nicholas’s sensibilities. Clothes ranged from very good to very basic, and underwear from ragged (Sylvanus) to embroidered peach, apricot and black satin (several people, none of them female). Phryne was dusty and Nicholas had spiderwebs in his hair.

‘Down to the ground floor,’ said Phryne, and he followed, trying to remove dust from his flannels by brushing them with a sweaty hand. This had the effect of making him look as though he had tried to tunnel out of the Château d’If in his pyjamas.

The ground floor contained the public rooms, which were unlikely but had to be searched anyway, and the kitchen and usual offices, which had already been searched. Phryne whizzed through the billiard room and the parlours, tapping and testing and rolling back carpet to check on interestingly soft spots. Nothing.

As she began to tackle the tenanted rooms, Nicholas leaned in the open front door and saw that the purple tent was closed and gusts of laughter were coming from it. He had never thought that the Templar menage was much given to laughter. It sounded vaguely sinister. But at least Syl was keeping them amused and inside.

The rattle of a trolley announced that Phryne was returning.

‘Come with me,’ she ordered. She showed him the room called Rose. It was very small and hung with red roses in glazed chintz. There were roses on the table in a silver vase and a rosy spread on each of the two single beds.

On the dressing table was a stack of cheap paper, and beside it a ragged pen, a pen knife, and a well of cheap black ink.

‘Whose room?’ he asked.

‘Amelia and Sad Alison,’ said Phryne.

The Joker drank one small glass of cognac to compose his nerves.
His time was near. Soon the perfect moment would be utterly
perfected by death. He held out his hands. The tremor had
subsided. They were as steady as a rock.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Wink is often good as nod;
Spoils the child who spares the rod;
Thirsty lambs run foxy dangers;
Dogs are found in many mangers.

WS Gilbert
HMS Pinafore

‘No sign of the luggage labeller?’ asked Nicholas.

‘No. But here is the writer of death threats. Hmm. They ought to have gone through a round of consequences by now. I want you to go into the tent and collect the waste paper.’

‘Do what?’ asked Nicholas. It had been a long day and it was getting longer.

‘Just do as I say,’ said Phryne sweetly, and sat down on Sad Alison’s bed.

As soon as Nicholas had gone she felt under the mattresses, looked through every bag and pocket in both the hanging and folded clothes, and even emptied out the water in the dressing table jug. She gathered a few hints as to the backgrounds of both girls. Amelia’s father was writing her furious letters from Lyons, offering to send the passage money if she would come home and promise ‘
pas de betises
’ in future. Sad Alison had a photograph of Gerald on the washstand and a bundle of letters from someone signing herself ‘your loving mother’ reporting on the condition of ‘your disgraced sister’.

Amelia had a bottle of cognac under her bed, and Sad Alison a box of powders marked ‘to be taken when the pain is severe’ with a doctor’s name and a dispenser’s address in London. Phryne judged them to be morphine by the taste. Chronic pain could explain Sad Alison’s sadness, perhaps. The only other fact she elicited from her search was that someone had broken a glass in the room; a scatter of prismatic dust coated a section of floor.

Nicholas returned with a bundle of papers, all folded. ‘I don’t know why you wanted these,’ he said.

‘Don’t you?’ asked Phryne, carefully unfolding and stacking them. ‘Did you notice the order in which the players were sitting?’

‘Yes, I did,’ he said.

‘Where was Alison?’

‘Sixth in line,’ he said promptly. Phryne made another tick on her mental checklist. Someone had trained his observation and memory. ‘Amelia was seventh, next to her.’

‘Good. Have you ever played consequences?’

‘No,’ he said, sitting down on the other bed.

‘You take a piece of paper, and you write a name on the top. Here’s an example. “Lily Langtry.” With me so far?’

‘Yes,’ he said. Phryne hoped he was not going to sulk.

‘Then you fold over what you have written and give the paper to the person next to you. They write “Met . . .” and the name of another person—in this case, “Saint Dominique” —and fold it over again. Then they pass it along and the third player writes a place. “In a lift.” The fourth writes what was said, folds the paper, the fifth writes a reply, folds the paper and passes it to the sixth, who writes the result of the exchange. In this case: “He said, fine weather we are having.” The reply is “She said, I love you passionately,” and the consequence is “And the result was a breach in the League of Nations”.’

‘What a waste of time,’ said Nicholas. Something was definitely bothering the young man with the cornflower blue eyes. Phryne did not care.

‘Not if you want a handwriting sample,’ Phryne told him. She laid out the threatening letters and the consequences and pored over them for quite three minutes before she invited Nicholas’s scrutiny.

‘Pretty clear, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘Yes, they’re the same,’ he said.

‘Then I’ll just go and cut Sad Alison out from the mob,’ said Phryne. ‘I’ll bring her back here. Don’t fall asleep,’ she said airily. Nicholas snorted.

Sad Alison yielded to Phryne’s tug on her hand and followed her in lamb-like docility. They crept out as Sylvanus announced that the next game out be Book Rhymes. He had a huge fund of poetry to draw from and some of the acolytes were alert enough to play word games now. The difficulty of Book Rhymes was to get the metre and scansion right. The sense took care of itself and thus was frequently absent.

‘The year is dying like the night,’ he announced as Phryne and Sad Alison reached the door. A female voice capped it with, ‘But certainly it serves him right!’ and there was applause. On the noise of clapping Phryne and Sad Alison departed.

‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Alison.

‘To a place where you will find some answers,’ said Phryne.

Nicholas looked up as they came into the small rose-decked room.

‘Why is he here?’ asked Alison, shrinking into Phryne’s side. Phryne had no patience with shrinking females. Her own view was that what Sad Alison needed to do was to eat carrots to clear her skin, wash her stringy, greasy hair in a lemon vinegar rinse, and pull herself together. To this end she uncorked Amelia’s bottle of cognac and poured a solid tot.

‘Drink this and listen. I will a tale unfold. And when I get it wrong you will correct me, right?’ Phryne administered the brandy. Sad Alison sipped and choked. ‘You encountered the Templars in Paris,’ said Phryne. ‘You and your sister. No need to spit out good brandy, I know you have a sister and that she is now sitting disgraced in a Brighton nursing home. Am I right?’

Alison nodded. Her eyes brimmed. Nicholas produced his handkerchief. Alison took it and wiped at her tears.

‘I say, Phryne, you’re a bit rough,’ he protested. She awarded him the Look again and he subsided.

‘Elaine,’ said Alison. ‘Her name is Elaine.’

‘Good. Elaine told you and your mother that the father of her child was Gerald Templar.’ Nicholas stared. Phryne pressed on relentlessly. ‘Right?’

‘Yes,’ sobbed Alison.

‘No one else would have called Gerald a fraud. You and Elaine had been in karez. You thought that the Templars were, if not actually asexual, at least not . . .’

‘Cheats,’ snarled Alison suddenly. ‘I believed him, we believed him, when he said we were in no moral danger, and then . . .’

‘So you stayed with the Templars in order to revenge your sister’s lost honour,’ said Phryne tonelessly. ‘You wrote death threats in black ink on Woolworth’s paper. You repeatedly tried to poison him. What else did you do, eh? Did you send me a snake? Did you put ground glass in my cold cream?’

‘No, that was—’ Alison bit her tongue.

‘Amelia,’ said Phryne. ‘The remains of the grinding are still on the floor over there. I noticed them when I was searching the room. And Amelia wants to hurt me because . . . ?’

‘She hates you because Pam thinks you’re beautiful. Pam said so. Lots of times. So Amelia thought she’d make you less beautiful.’

Phryne accepted this explanation.

‘So Amelia did the ground glass. What about the other things?’

‘No,’ said Sad Alison sadly. ‘I don’t know anything about any other things.’

‘And Tarquin?’ asked Phryne, taking the girl’s hands and compelling her attention.

‘I don’t know where he is!’ said Alison. ‘I just wanted to kill Templar, because my sister Elaine—’ ‘Lied to you,’ said Phryne flatly.

‘What?’ asked Nicholas.

‘It’s well known that Gerald Templar is incapable of increase. He’s sterile. Not impotent. Just sterile. Why else would he be adopting boys when a sensible man would breed his own sons?’

‘She . . . lied?’ gasped Alison, wringing Nicholas’s handkerchief.

‘Oh, have some more brandy, Alison, and try to pay attention. This is a serious matter,’ said Phryne crossly. ‘We need to find that child. He may be in danger. I tell you, and it can be confirmed if you wish, that Gerald Templar could be many things to your sister Elaine but the one thing he could not be is the father of her child. Do you believe me?’

‘Yes,’ said Sad Alison.

‘Was there someone in the menage that Elaine liked?’

‘Not really,’ said Alison. ‘I am thinking of Franklin, the boy she wanted to marry but my father wouldn’t let her. Then he was killed in a motor accident. At around the same time as she said . . . Oh, I have been so wicked.’ She burst into tears.

‘Ah, Amelia,’ said Phryne, as the young woman came puzzled into the small room. ‘Can you comfort your friend? She’s had a shock. You’re French, you should be taking better care of her. Get her a proper hair rinse and some skin cream. And if you ever attack me again, Pamela or no Pamela, I’ll make you regret it. Do you know where Tarquin is?’

‘No,’ said Amelia, grabbing for the cognac bottle. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was jealous. Alison? What shock is this?’

‘She can tell you all about it if she likes,’ said Phryne, conscious that she was still wearing a maid’s costume. ‘I will see you both at dinner. Goodbye,’ she said, and the two girls stared at the door, which shut quite hard behind Phryne and Nicholas as they went out.

Alison and Amelia drank more brandy and wept, Alison for her own wickedness, Amelia for her jealous nature.

‘You’re a genius,’ said Nicholas, as Phryne divested herself of servitude and reassumed her own clothes. He had almost got used to her changing her costume in front of him. Almost.

‘Thank you, but we have only solved a little bit of the mystery. The scholarly blue ink of the luggage label writer is not in those handwriting samples. So, who is the riddler? Who sent me that coral snake and all those warnings, who’s ordered a murderer to be sent from Melbourne, and where is poor little Tarquin?’