Dead Man's Chest (13 page)

‘Hedge cutters?’ hazarded Dot. ‘That’s a big sharp snip.’

‘Bit conspicuous,’ said Phryne. ‘You feel a tug on your hair, you turn round, and behind you is a man with a pair of hedge cutters. At which point you shriek and point him out to the attentive constabulary.’

‘What about a knife?’ asked Tinker.

‘Have to be very sharp,’ said Hugh.

‘A razor,’ Tinker elaborated. ‘One of them cut-throat ones like my dad uses.’ He gulped. The razor strop was not a good memory for Tinker.

‘Good man,’ said Hugh. Tinker glowed. ‘Lend me your hair for a moment, Ruthie.’

Ruth turned her back, letting down her plait. Hugh walked up behind her, grabbed the braid, and performed a fast, upward slashing move with a pencil.

‘No, that won’t do,’ he said. ‘Not enough resistance to the blade. Must be like this, downwards.’

‘Running a terrible risk of cutting the victim,’ said Dot.

‘Perhaps he doesn’t care about that,’ said Hugh. ‘Who knows how madmen think?’

‘All right,’ said Phryne. ‘How about the Johnsons?’

‘The Johnsons?’ asked Hugh.

‘Gone and left not a rack behind,’ said Phryne. ‘Due to the bold and daring Tinker, we know that their stuff is in Ellis’s cargo shed ready to be sold. They also left Gaston, who was their pride and joy. No doubt of his being abandoned. When we first met, he had been truffling for a living in the cesspits. Tinker had to scour and rinse him twice before we could tell that he was a dog.’

‘He was filthy all right,’ agreed Tinker. ‘Poor little mutt.’

Gaston, who had been reposing on the sofa, woke at the sound of his name and wuffed.

‘Sounds bad,’ said Hugh. ‘What clues did you find, Miss Fisher?’

‘I have them here,’ said Phryne, opening a box on the sideboard. ‘Not much. A collar stud or two, a pin, an earring, a bit of telegram . . .’

‘Have you asked the post office for a list of the telegrams sent to this address?’ asked Hugh seriously. Phryne laughed.

‘Well, no, Hugh dear, I’m not official. And that dolt in uniform declined to take any action.’

‘I could do it,’ he said. There was something about Hugh Collins which was very comforting, thought Dot proudly. He was so strong, solid, respectable and intelligent. A wonderful combination. She considered herself a lucky woman.

‘Could you? You belong to Melbourne CIB, do you have jurisdiction?’

‘I’m sure I could convince them,’ responded Hugh. Phryne began to smell a rat of some sort.

‘And it was just coincidence that you happened to finish your fraud case and wander down to Queenscliff in search of amusement?’ she asked, arching an exquisite eyebrow.

‘Well,’ said Hugh. He wriggled. ‘It’s like this,’ said Hugh. He poured some more beer. ‘You see . . .’

‘Spit it out,’ advised Phryne inelegantly. ‘You’ve been sent on one of those undercover tasks; those on which Jack Robinson sends you when he has a bee in his bonnet.’

‘Steady on,’ protested Hugh, unwilling to countenance the suggestion that his superior had insects in his headgear. ‘He did just ask me to look around.’

‘As it happens,’ prompted Phryne.

‘You want to join the police force, don’t you, young feller?’ Hugh asked of Tinker. ‘Well, if you need a method of interrogation for your prisoners, you could learn a lot from Miss Fisher.’

‘Yessir,’ said Tinker. He was impressed. The victim had meant to keep the secret, and it had been wormed out of him by a mixture of . . . what was it? Force of character? The steady stare of those green eyes? He must observe further.

‘Well, all right, Miss Fisher, there’s a smuggling operation around here, bringing uncustomed rum from . . .’

‘Bundaberg,’ put in Tinker.

‘How do you know that?’ demanded Hugh, astonished.

‘I near bust me . . . er . . . stays unloading it,’ Tinker told him. ‘Crates and crates of bottles from Bundaberg in Queensland. You’re talking about Ellis and Co, ain’t you?’

‘Ellis and Co it is,’ affirmed Hugh. ‘I think you’ve got a lot to tell me, Tinker.’

‘Yessir,’ agreed Tinker.

‘But what about the Johnsons?’ asked Dot.

‘There you have me, my girl,’ said Hugh. ‘Maybe if we get the text of that telegram it might tell us something. You don’t think that the Johnsons are actually with their furniture, do you? I mean—sorry, Dot—that their bodies . . .’

An avid reader of Sexton Blake could not afford to be squeamish. Tinker answered promptly.

‘No, sir—no smell. And Gaston howled because he misses his people.’

‘And they weren’t killed here,’ said Phryne. ‘No blood, no signs of dragging, no feeling of death. Nothing stolen but food. Not even the containers, mostly. The flour was gone but the flour bin was still there. The salt and pepper pots empty. Crockery untouched. Cutlery unlooted. And
objects d’art
carefully hidden in the cellar.’

‘It’s a puzzle,’ said Hugh.They thought quietly for a while. No one had any new ideas. Phryne broke the silence.

‘Now, it’s four in the afternoon, I am going up for a rest. Can any of us help with dinner, Ruth?’

Ruth was recalled to duty.

‘No, it’s simple tonight. I’ve made the
vichyssoise
, and I just have to fry the garfish
á la
meunière
. Jane did the veggies for the
salade russe
and there’s sorbet and a surprise for dessert. How many for dinner? Weren’t we expecting the doctor?’

‘I doubt he’ll come, what with a death in his house,’ Phryne responded, suppressing her wince at Ruth’s French pronunciation. Stratford Atte Bowe was Parisian compared to Ruth’s Australian vowels. ‘However much he hated his mother-in-law, he’ll have to observe the niceties.’

‘To be sure,’ agreed Dot. ‘Hugh and I might go for a walk and see about those telegrams, then.’

‘Good idea,’ said Phryne. ‘Dinner at seven.’

‘You want to come fishing with me tomorrow, young feller?’ Hugh asked Tinker. Tinker nodded, too overcome to speak.

Phryne took herself to her room to read Dr Thorndyke, pleasantly aware that no eyes were now fixed on her from the house opposite. Ruth and Tinker went to the kitchen. Jane, after examining her new look in the big bathroom mirror, had a handful of hairpins which would be of no further service.

She had a use for one of them, though. She was going to get into that closed room, and Uncle Bert had taught her basic lockpicking as part of a young woman’s education. All you needed, he had explained, was patience and a hairpin. Jane had both.

Molly at her side, she sat down on her heels and examined the padlock. Large and simple. It was the work of only ten minutes and the ruination of three hairpins before she persuaded it to unlatch.

The door creaked as it opened.

And there before her enchanted eyes was a chamber full of bones straight out of a fairy story. Jane took a breath to calm herself, and then dived in.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires

William Wordsworth
‘
Ode to Duty’

Six o’clock and Phryne was just telling herself firmly that drinking gin at lunch was a good way of ensuring that she did nothing useful in the afternoon, when someone came hammering at the door, ringing the bell, and calling, ‘Miss Fisher!’

A triple summons was not to be denied so she yawned her way downstairs and found a distraught Dr Green on the front step, holding up a woman, grey-clad and grey-faced, who sagged in his arms.

‘Come in,’ she invited. The doctor deposited the lady on the hall seat. She was, Phryne realised, Lavinia, Mrs McNaster’s companion.

‘Miss Fisher, may I ask you for a great favour?’ the doctor gasped.

‘You may,’ said Phryne. Dr Green was rather good-looking even without his Greek tunic. His curly hair was rumpled, his fish-patterned tie was nestling near his shoulder and he seemed to have been through some emotional ordeal which was far too trying for such a rationalist.

‘My wife . . .’ he started, choked, and tried again. ‘Miss Lavinia . . .’

Bring the lady into the parlour,’ instructed Phryne. ‘I will get you a drink, and you shall tell me what you want me to do.’

The doctor did as he was bid. Miss Lavinia slid down on the sofa and Phryne put a pillow under her head. The doctor reached for the whisky bottle and poured himself a large glass. He drank it as Phryne arranged Miss Lavinia and wished Dot was with them. This looked like a faint. Sal volatile? Cold water on the brow?

Perhaps it would be better to leave the poor woman alone to enjoy her unconsciousness. As Phryne remembered it, Miss Lavinia had enjoyed few luxuries.

‘Well?’ Phryne asked Dr Green.

‘My wife . . . did you know that her mother passed away? Suddenly?’

‘Yes, the grapevine is very efficient around here.’ Phryne poured herself a small drink.

‘Well, I can’t give a certificate, of course, being a relative it wouldn’t be proper, so I had to call my colleague, and my wife got the idea that there was something wrong about the death, and she is sure that Miss Lavinia murdered Mrs McNaster.’

‘I see. And did she?’

‘No, of course not, she had a heart attack; she had all the signs, it was a completely natural death. But my wife is quite irrational about this. She won’t have poor Lavvie in the house, and I can’t send her to an hotel, all of Queenscliff will start gossiping and my practice will be ruined. And she hadn’t any relative except the old lady.’

‘I see. Very well. As you know, my house is without servants. If you would like me to care for Miss Lavinia, you’ll have to lend me one of your parlour maids. The Irish one, for preference.’

The doctor blenched.

‘Oh, Miss Fisher, I don’t know what my wife will say . . .’ he protested.

‘Then I’ll keep Lavinia tonight, and tomorrow she can move in with Madame Sélavy,’ continued Phryne, determined not to be saddled with the care of another person. ‘She knows how to keep secrets, if I’m any judge.’

‘Very well, Miss Fisher, I’ll call tomorrow and convey her to Madame. She’s not at home on Fridays, to anyone. That’s a good idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it,’ he said, faintly aggrieved.

‘You’re tired and shocked,’ suggested Phryne. ‘Now off you go and mix some chloral for your wife.’

‘Here’s that letter you wanted to see,’ said the doctor as the door was closing on him. Phryne took it and ushered him firmly out of the house. Then she returned to the parlour, moderately cross. What am I running, she reflected, the Queenscliff Home for Lost Causes?

Lavinia was still in her stupor so Phryne walked to the kitchen and asked Ruth to make some tea for herself and her guest. Ruth relayed the order to Tinker, found the smelling salts and followed Phryne back to tend the stricken. Phryne heard the woman sneeze and croak, ‘I killed her . . . I killed her!’ on a note of rising hysteria. Ruth recoiled. Phryne forced Miss Lavinia to swallow a measure of brandy and water, waited while she choked, and supplied more.

‘Now, you must be quiet,’ Phryne ordered. ‘Do not say anything until you have had a nice cup of tea and some of Ruth’s excellent date scones. Do you hear me?’

Miss Lavinia nodded, not daring to speak.

‘Good.’

Tinker, who had been listening, wheeled in the tea tray. He did not have a light hand with the tea, either. The cup which Ruth sugared and milked contained tea which was sepia in colour and as strong as a thunderstorm.

‘Could trot a moudiwarp on that,’ observed Tinker proudly. Phryne shuddered slightly, but she was willing to admit that a mole of moderate size could certainly have waltzed on the surface without peril.

Lavinia drank it hot, with a gasp, then ate two scones. She was now more pink and less grey and Phryne decided it was safe to allow her to talk.

‘Now, what can we do for you?’ she asked firmly.

‘Oh, Miss Fisher, I fell asleep,’ confessed Miss Lavinia. ‘She wanted me to watch for her and it was four in the morning and I was so tired, and I fell asleep!’

‘Understandably,’ said Phryne.

‘But when I woke she was dead!’

‘She was an old lady in frail health,’ Phryne told her distraught guest. ‘This is not your fault, Miss Lavinia.’

‘And Mrs Green said . . . she said . . .’

‘Mrs Green was not herself. She was probably feeling guilty at not liking her mother, and she needed a scapegoat, and you were so convenient.’

‘But I inherit all that money . . .’ wailed Miss Lavinia.

‘Good, you will not want to stay in the doctor’s house. You must now go up to my bathroom and wash your face and tidy your hair and then you may either lie down for a little rest on the spare bed or you may come down for dinner, which will be at seven. Ruth will help you,’ said Phryne.

Ruth put out a hand and the elderly woman rose and stood steadily enough. Now that she looked at Miss Lavinia, Phryne could see that she was not old. She was perhaps forty, a dyed-in-the-wool spinster, but her skin was unlined and she did not seem to be conspicuously withered. With a reasonable diet, a few good nights’ sleep and some fashionable clothes, Miss Lavinia would be a presentable figure of a woman.

‘Did she do in the old bi—besom?’ asked Tinker, gathering up the tea things.

‘She had reason,’ Phryne told him. ‘But I don’t think so. What do you think?’

‘If she hadn’t up to now, she wouldn’t,’ said Tinker. He was not used to people asking for his opinion. ‘Mrs McNaster’s been ballyragging her for all my life. And she wasn’t alone. The old bi—lady nagged her son-in-law, she screamed at her own daughter, she kept firing the maids and she hated everyone. Never a good word to say.’

‘Not short of enemies, then,’ murmured Phryne.

‘Yair, Guv’nor, but she was in her own room in the middle of the night, even if the other old lady was asleep. It’d have to be one of the family,’ protested Tinker.

‘Contrary to Sexton Blake, Tinker dear, most murders
are
family affairs. Mrs Green might be accusing Miss Lavinia in order to divert suspicion from herself. The doctor may have poisoned his mother-in-law with some . . .’

‘Colourless, odourless, undetectable South American poison?’ breathed Tinker.

‘One of those, yes,’ agreed Phryne. ‘Now, if that is the end of the excitement for the day, you get the trolley back to the kitchen and I’ll go and see how Ruth is managing with the poor lady.’

Tinker rattled off. Phryne climbed stairs. Ruth met her on the landing.

‘She did as you said, Miss Phryne, and then I showed her the spare bed and she just collapsed into it. But it’s funny.’

‘What’s funny?’

‘I can’t find Jane,’ said Ruth. ‘I thought she was in her room reading and she’s been there but she’s not there now and she isn’t in the loo and . . .’

‘Here she is now,’ said Phryne. ‘Don’t lose your nerve, Ruth dear. It’s been a nasty day and now we are going to have a nice dinner with Hugh and Dot.’

With a yelp, Ruth recollected that she still had to assemble the salad and she departed for the kitchen at some speed. Molly, who was a sympathetic dog, was curled at the side of Miss Lavinia’s bed. She raised her head and thumped her tail as Phryne came in but did not otherwise move. Miss Lavinia’s thin hand was on her head.

‘Nice doggie,’ murmured Miss Lavinia, very sleepily. ‘Used to have a doggie like you when I was a girl . . .’

Phryne left Molly to work her healing magic and caught Jane just as she was about to slip into her own room.

‘Jane?’ she asked gently. ‘There’s nowhere to hide up here. What did you find in the locked room?’

Jane had never got the hang of lying. And with Miss Phryne there was little point.

‘Bones,’ she replied. ‘Come and look.’

A few minutes later Phryne appreciated how accurate an answer that had been. There was a row of twenty ochre-stained skulls on top of the bookcase. There were boxes of ribs and long bones bound up like walking sticks with pink tape. On the room’s one chair was a sack containing handfuls of finger bones. There were several complete and articulated skeletons at artistic intervals. It looked like a clean, modern, scientific
danse macabre
.

‘Bones,’ agreed Phryne. ‘Switch on that desk lamp, will you, I’ve got a letter from the collector himself.’

Phryne laid the letter out flat and read:

Dear Anteus, having difficult time. Country is flooded. Had to get across the Roper by making a boat out of my cart. Even then got washed downstream considerably. My native boys didn’t yabber the lingo and ran away. I set out with a surveyor, a cinematographer, a horse man, a camp manager and myself and two black boys. We left on the SS
Marella
from Sydney for Darwin—a ten-day trip on a tub which rolled villainously. Then we took a cattle train for Katherine thirteen hours, and when you get there there’s only Katherine. Thence to Roper Bar 240 miles SE. Twenty-six horses and six mules. Crossed Roper River at Bar, washed down to Mount Marumba nine days later, following along the course of the Wilton River N 60 E towards the Goyder. Plentiful game here, low scrubby forest, quail, kangaroos, wild turkey, wallabies and buffalo. At least we are eating well. Tried to smoke some buffalo meat but must have the wrong kind of smoke. There’s plentiful rock paintings that Morgensen would give his right hand to see. Found strange grave customs here, trying to secure some of the bones. The local natives are distrustful; they’re not the ones I know. I keep losing horses to snakes. They grow some fearsome reptiles here. Hope that all is well with you and that the divine Miss Fisher is enjoying my house. I know the Johnsons will look after her well. Pip pip, Thomas.

‘He doesn’t know anything about the fate of the Johnsons,’ observed Jane.

‘No, and the question which remains with me is, why hasn’t some irritated native hit him over the head with a nullah-nullah? You can’t just barrel in and steal ancestral bones without so much as a by-your-leave,’ said Phryne. ‘I’d be cross if someone hauled the Fisher relatives out of their comfy cemetery in England and I don’t even like the Fishers.’

‘But he’s a scientist,’ argued Jane. ‘He needs the remains for his research.’

There was a pause in the room of bones while humanist and scientist stared at each other. Then Phryne shrugged.

‘What did you find out from this room?’ she asked.

‘Haven’t had time to really look,’ replied Jane. ‘You caught me early.’

‘Then truffle on by all means,’ Phryne told her. ‘But don’t let Ruth know. She’s sensitive.’

Jane assented. They went out, shutting the door and hanging the padlock back in its hasp. A clanging on the gong in the hall announced that it was dinnertime. Hugh and Dot had returned with a carefully copied bunch of telegrams, and Ruth had already laid out the buffet. Miss Lavinia was sleeping peacefully when Dot went up to her and Phryne decided to leave her alone. Tinker, who was starving, was vibrating at the door of the dining room. He had, Phryne observed, even washed his hands and face despite the fact that the day had contained a bath. Gaston bounced at his side. Phryne decided not to delay proceedings by changing her dress. She, also, was distinctly peckish.

Dinner started well with the potato and leek soup and continued well with a huge platter of hot, delicate garfish, accompanied by the
salades composées
and a sprightly white wine from the Barossa.

‘Poor Miss Lavinia, I wonder what she is going to do now?’ asked Dot.

‘She has money,’ Phryne pointed out. ‘With money she can buy a little house, purchase a doggie of her very own, get some good clothes and hire a cook-maid. Money can’t buy happiness but it can vastly improve the quality of your misery.’

‘Miss Phryne!’ exclaimed Dot.

‘Well, it’s true,’ responded Phryne. ‘If you’re poor and your heart is broken you have few options but to remain where you are, where every person and every stick of furniture reminds you of the one who is lost. If you’re rich, you can call up your yacht and embark on a four-week cruise of the Greek Islands for distraction. Unless, of course, Miss Lavinia did kill that disagreeable old woman. What do you think, Dot?’

‘How can I tell? I never met either of them. But probably not. Can someone pass me some more of that green salad with the anchovies? Thanks.’

‘Mrs McNaster did say that Lavinia was her heir,’ mused Phryne. ‘And that seemed odd, you know, because she was so unpleasant that you wouldn’t think she would leave anyone her money.’

‘More likely to give it to the dogs’ home,’ said Tinker. ‘Not that she liked dogs, either. Can you pass me the bread? Grouse bread, this.’

‘Soda bread,’ explained Ruth. ‘Máire taught me how to make it. It uses bicarbonate of soda instead of yeast as a raising agent, like scones and cakes.’

‘Really?’ asked Hugh, who was deeply interested in food. ‘That’d be good in an emergency.’

‘Yes, like the bread all getting eaten up and no one thinking of ordering more,’ observed Ruth tartly.

‘How’s the food at your boarding house?’ asked Dot hastily.

‘Not too flash,’ responded her beloved. ‘Mind you, I’ve only had dinner once and lunch, but it’s real overcooked and ordinary. Shepherd’s pie with sloppy potatoes. Careless.’