Murder in the Dark (6 page)

A string of polo ponies trotted behind an escort on a stockhorse. Mr Butler slowed down to walking pace to pass them and the rider tipped his hat. He looked like a standard bushman—oilskin, boots, leather hat—until the car’s inhabitants realised that ‘he’ was a woman, riding as easily as if she was sitting in an armchair. Phryne grinned at her and was rewarded with a smile, white teeth in a tanned face.

Then the car swept around a further curve and the house was revealed.

It was a true, proper, stately home, Phryne thought. It had a portico. It had a tower. It had a huge sanded area in front for carriages to turn around. It had a superb formal garden and swathes of greensward. The said greensward was dotted with white marquees. But there was room here to bivouac an army.

The front of the house was congested with vehicles, including the cheeky blue Austin, Phryne noticed. There was a lot of shouting going on. Phryne directed Mr Butler to turn the big car for an instant getaway and alighted, savouring the gravel with her soft shoes. Dot and the baggage could stay where they were for the moment.

Phryne sauntered through the expostulating throng and saw that the front door of the mansion was being held, at the risk of his life, by a single white-gloved entity whose patience was evidently growing ragged. He was assailed by a collection of public school boys who had clearly lunched far too well.

‘You must go and report to the red tent,’ insisted the butler for the thousandth time. ‘You cannot come into the house, gentlemen!’

‘Where’s old Gerald?’ asked one beery voice. ‘Ought to be here to greet us, he ought.’ He surged forward, or would have had not an unaccountably strong lady’s hand caught hold of his shoulder. He desisted from making any move, amazed.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Phryne sweetly. ‘The red tent,’ she said. ‘See? Just over there. You don’t want to cause trouble on such a nice afternoon,’ she told them. ‘You don’t want to be thrown out of the Last Best Party for 1928,’ she added, thinking, you horrible little worms. ‘Off you go, now,’ she said and, subdued by her governess-nanny-mother-knows-best tone, they went, shouldering each other like young bulls.

The butler sagged a little and mopped his brow.

‘They should never have left you out here on your own,’ said Phryne sympathetically. ‘Can I lend you my chauffeur? Or perhaps I can summon a couple of footmen.’

‘They’ve just gone off for their tea,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Miss. They’ll be back soon. How can I help you?’

Phryne exhibited her invitation.

‘Oh yes, you’re in the house,’ said the butler, ticking her off on his list. ‘Just up the stairs and to the right, Miss Fisher. And your baggage . . .?’

‘My maid and I can carry it,’ said Phryne. ‘Ah, here come your henchmen.’ Two large footmen were approaching from around the corner of the house, wiping their mouths. ‘They ought to suppress any further riot. Dot? Come along,’ she called, and Dot appeared with Phryne’s suitcase and one small bag.

‘Up the stairs and to the right,’ said Phryne as the butler opened the front door.

It had been a very beautiful house. The hall was high, the proportions grand without being grandiose. The graceful staircase bisected a good-sized entrance, which had once been elaborately decorated. There were niches for tall Chinese vases and little sconces which had once illuminated specially treasured paintings of ancestors. The floor was meant to have a carpet, probably commissioned to be woven for the pleasing dimensions of the rooms. The windows with their restrained etchings were meant to be clean and the brass rails were meant to be polished. The whole was meant to be lit by a big, heavy, glittering chandelier dripping with candles, originally, then fuelled by gas, scattering diamonds of light over the pink of the painted plaster roses and the green of the vines.

All that was gone, suppressed, violated. The plaster had been whitewashed a dead chalk. The floor was bare but for a scrubby strip of American cloth. The walls had been wounded by bicycles and hockey sticks and the only light came from meagre electric bulbs, bare, on long snaking cables which hung down like hangman’s nooses. Someone had stuffed armloads of fresh flowers into a miscellany of pots, buckets and vases, but the underlying smell of wet woollens, unwashed boys, footy boots and good wholesome cabbage boiled for three hours rose above the floral scents like a vile miasma in some fetid English slum.

Phryne was so taken aback that she cried out: ‘Oh, Lord! What has happened to you, poor house?’

An elderly woman carrying an armload of towels was stopped dead in her tracks by this cry and turned to stare.

‘It’s whitewash,’ said Dot, horrified. ‘All over them plaster flowers and pretty things. Who’d do such a thing?’

‘The present owners,’ said Phryne, mounting a fine staircase whose gracious contours could not be marred by lack of polish. ‘I suppose they consider flowers frivolous. Oh well, Dot, let’s find my room. They all have flower names along this corridor. Fuchsia, Sweet Pea, Rose, Violet—aha! Iris.’

Phryne applied her key and the door opened. It was a small room, hung with iris chintz. A tall vase of irises decorated the plain dresser. There was a wardrobe, a double bed hung with iris patterned curtains, a jug and basin on the washstand and not much else. The chintz, Phryne ascertained, had been folded and then nailed or stapled to a wall which still showed pale patches where the owner’s paintings had been removed. Draping the room in printed fabric was a good way of changing its appearance if there was no time or inclination to repaint and refurnish. Mr Ventura was a clever man.

‘A bit bare,’ commented Dot, hanging up Phryne’s meagre wardrobe. ‘Here’s the bag for your laundry, Miss, your stockings are in this drawer and your underwear in this. The emergency rations are in the picnic basket. Are you sure you’re all right to be left, Miss?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne. ‘I just wanted you to know where I will be sleeping so you can find it again tomorrow. Let’s have a look around, Dot. Despite the whitewash, this is a lovely house.’

‘Yes, it’s a nice shape,’ agreed Dot. ‘Not too huge, like a church.’

‘Human-sized,’ said Phryne, locking her door and putting the key into her petticoat pocket. This was a fashion of her grandmother’s which Phryne had resurrected as a remedy for the sad lack of pockets in female attire. She led the way out onto the balcony, which ran the full length of the house. It was edged with marble pillars. Phryne looked down and saw bright blue tesserae winking at her from the floor. The Church had not uglified the mosaics, then. Probably through lack of time. No doubt they would get around to them with that tin of whitewash.

Neither had they destroyed the gardens, which were extensive and beautiful and filled with people, tents, horses, wagons and large trucks.

‘Look, a monkey puzzle,’ said Dot, who loved these odd shaped trees.

‘Yes, there’s another—no, three,’ said Phryne. ‘And we have a knot garden, a parterre, a vegie garden—look at the size of those tomatoes!—and over there must be a lake. And a polo ground. Do you feel better about leaving me here now, Dot dear?’

‘Yes,’ said Dot. ‘If all else fails, you can climb a tree.’

‘True,’ said Phryne.

Dot took her leave. Phryne walked her back to the car and waved as they drew away. It was now getting on for five o’clock, and the directory to the party told Phryne that cocktails would be served in the purple marquee from five. A nice cold drink would be bracing, she thought, and glided through the throng of giggling girls and hearty young men towards a distant glimpse of purple.

The red tent, which she reached first, was efficiently handing out tickets for places in marquees. A peep into one of the decorated bell tents showed it lined with camp beds, each draped with mosquito netting. This would be needed, Phryne knew. Even now she could sense the hum as the bloodsuckers exercised their wings and whetted their beaks for human prey.

She was not looking where she was going and thus was surprised when she caught her foot on a trailing rope and almost fell over a goat. The goat made a bleating protest and Phryne, saving herself from falling by grabbing a handy tent pole, patted it soothingly between the horns.

‘Quite, my dear sir or nanny. Nanny, I perceive. I wasn’t watching where I was going. On the other hand, you don’t precisely look as though you belong in this tent either. Shall we go outside and find your owner? I observe that you have chewed through your tether,’ she said chattily, taking the end of the frayed rope and leading the goat out into the sunlight, ‘so presumably you had somewhere that you wanted to go.’

The goat, which was mostly white and quite large, with floppy ears, went biddably as she was led. Phryne, blithely unconcerned as to the picture she presented to the assembled partygoers, went towards the purple tent. Just because she had acquired a goat didn’t mean that she didn’t get a drink. And perhaps the goat would like one as well.

‘Pornutopia,’ commented a young man with a studied forelock.

‘Nonsense, that was a pig,’ replied Phryne, leading the goat past him. It made an experimental snatch at the book he was reading, and he fled with a squeak.

‘Not books,’ Phryne told the goat reprovingly. ‘You might start small, just a little poetry, limp covers only, then you get a taste for it and move on to the major playwrights, and pretty soon you’ll find yourself tucking into the complete works of George Bernard Shaw and that would give you indigestion. Come along—I want a drink. And so do you, I expect.’

The purple tent was hung with long banners of purple silk. There was a bar set up in the middle which seemed blessedly uncrowded and Phryne went straight for it.

It was very well equipped. Nestling in huge tubs of ice Phryne saw capped bottles of beer. In chilled compartments in a humming machine Phryne saw jugs of cocktails, all ready for pouring and decorating. Behind the rank of personable attendants were assistants seated at a long table, cutting up fruit and squeezing juices. The air smelt of pineapples. Exquisite.

Phryne leaned up against the bar, next to a woman in a shimmering green evening dress. She had a mass of black curls cascading down her bare back almost to her waist, where her dress began again after a long absence. She was addressing the barman in a slow, sweet drawl which could only have come from the more Southern parts of America. South Carolina, Phryne considered. Georgia, perhaps. A voice that had been dipped in blackstrap molasses.

‘Honey, y’all want to mash that mint real good,’ she instructed.

The goat suddenly made her move. She nudged the woman aside and reared, so that her front hoofs were on the bar. Then she made a strong and loud bleating demand, right into the barman’s face.

He jumped, retaining his hold on his cocktail shaker only by the barman’s strict training and adherence to his code.

‘I’m so sorry,’ apologised Phryne, hauling on the rope. ‘Do forgive me. Could I have a White Lady and a bunch of mint, please? When you have finished that julep.’

‘Phryne?’ asked the lady in the evening dress, tottering for a moment and then recovering her balance. ‘Phryne, honey, is that you?’

‘Nerine,’ said Phryne, embracing her. ‘How very nice to see you.’ As always, hugging Nerine was a sensual experience not to be missed. ‘Are you singing here?’

Phryne was not insulted that Nerine hadn’t noticed her until now. It was well known that the singer was perfect of pitch, of heart-wringing Bessie Smith like talent, supple as a snake, shameless as Josephine Baker in her banana skirt and very acute of hearing, but only found her way to the front of the stage by feeling with one foot. She was, everyone agreed, as short-sighted as an owl.

‘Sure am,’ said Nerine. ‘I’m with a new band, they’re waiting for me outside.’

The barman had completed the julep and compounded Miss Fisher’s White Lady, of gin, Cointreau and lemon juice with a dash of egg white, at record speed. He wasn’t used to goats in his bar and this one, he feared, was giving him the evil eye.

Phryne took her drink and the mint and led Nerine out into the garden, where three young people were waiting to escort her to the jazz venue. They were well supplied with beer. Jazz, Phryne knew, ran on beer.

‘The band,’ said Nerine proudly. ‘Three T’s—Thomas, Terence and Tab. That’s Tabitha, she plays the clarinet real good for a li’l bitty mite, and Tommy—he blows a mean horn—and ol’ Terry, that ol’ boy he plays anythin’ with strings, piano to banjo. This is my ol’ fren’ the Lady Phryne,’ she told the band. ‘She once—no, twice—got me out of the tightest spot I ever been in in all my natural born days. She’s a fine lady. We gonna play real good for her, y’hear?’

They heard. The band members were all about the same height, chestnut of hair and haggard of complexion, very young, perhaps skimming twenty-one, and they all grinned rather shyly at Phryne. She was not used to shy jazz musicians and was delighted.

‘Y’all liquored up to last?’ asked Nerine, extending a hand confidently. Terry took it and tucked it under his elbow. ‘We gotta go find some rehearsal time. You come hear us tonight, Phryne, we’ll play real good for you.’

‘I promise,’ said Phryne, and kissed Nerine’s scented satiny cheek once again for the pleasure of it. Nerine always reminded Phryne of a big, plump cat—a leopard, perhaps. It would have been a pleasure and an honour to be stalked and eaten by her. The band grinned again and led Nerine away, seeking whom she might devour. Provided she ran into it nose-first, of course.

Feeling a little bereft, Phryne wandered over to a garden seat to sip her drink and feed mint leaves to her goat. The goat sat down on her haunches like a dog. Mint was what she had gone out in quest of, mint was what she now had. The goat glowed with self righteousness.

Phryne sipped her White Lady and waited for events to overtake her. It was that sort of day.

Presently someone said, ‘May I?’ and Phryne waved a hand. Breeches and a loose shirt—a young woman, it seemed, with a bottle of beer in one hand and a puzzled expression on her weatherworn face.

‘That your goat?’ she asked, in a strong Australian accent.

‘For the moment,’ said Phryne equably. ‘Phryne,’ she said, holding out a hand. The young woman shook it heartily.