Dead Man's Chest (4 page)

Morning announced itself to Miss Fisher’s displeased ear with the shouts and cries of those who labour for a living.

The first, from the sprightly conversation, was the ice man, who called Ruth ‘sweetheart’ and seemed to be smashing through doors rather than going to the bother of opening them. A brief pause, then it was a dray at the back gate loaded with a truly remarkable number of sacks, packets and boxes, some of which chinked. He called Ruth ‘darling’ and Tinker ‘young feller-me-lad’ and also seemed to have some prejudice about opening doors. But loved slamming them shut. The next was the butcher’s boy, who whistled ‘Lily of Laguna’ a precise half-tone flat. Molly proved herself to be a dog of good socialist principles by barking at all without fear or favour.

In a quiet interval, Dot brought a cup of Hellenic coffee and a fresh hot roll to Phryne, who sat up in bed to receive the tray.

‘Knew you’d be awake, Miss,’ she said apologetically. ‘Only one of the Seven Sleepers could have slept through that racket. Jane has, though,’ she added, as Phryne sipped the inky beverage.

‘Probably stayed awake half the night reading Mr Thomas’s books,’ rejoined Phryne. ‘Are there more tradesmen to come?’

‘Oh, yes, Miss, there’s the fruiterer and the ham-and-beef and the man from the pub,’ Dot informed her.

‘Then I shall rise and go for a refreshing morning dip,’ Phryne decided. ‘What’s the weather like?’

‘Fine and clear,’ said Dot.

‘Good. Are you coming, Dot dear?’

‘No, Miss, too chilly for me yet. The girls don’t want me in the kitchen so I’ll put on my hat and go for a walk. They’ll see this kitchen maid settled in and all the rest of the provisions delivered. That Tinker’s still unpacking stuff. He’s being a good boy,’ said Dot with faint astonishment. Tinker was not living up to his reputation.

‘Pip pip, then,’ said Phryne. Houses were not her business. She would give this experiment a couple of days, and if it seemed that her household was working too hard, they would shift en masse to the Queenscliff Hotel, a most superior hostelry. Money, thought Phryne as she finished her coffee and found her bathing suit, was sometimes very useful in smoothing the rough patches in the path of life.

The town of Queenscliff was out and about when she walked from the house and into the cool morning air. Generally Phryne only saw this part of the day if she had approached it from the other end.

I shall be so robust if I do this every day, she thought to herself. Strong and hearty. What a ghastly thought. I wonder how long Mrs Mason has been on the sauce? Her son didn’t appear to be surprised at her consumption and her butler has clearly been through times that try butlers’ souls. On the other hand, Jane squashed the upstart boy and the cocktails were first rate. Oh, Lord, and now we will have to ask Mrs M and her brood to dinner—and only Ruth to cook it. That should be interesting. Must make sure that the gin supplies hold out . . .

The sea embraced her almost-naked skin. She dived.

Ruth looked up from ticking supplies off her list at the appearance of a languid girl of about sixteen. She was thin and blonde and had watery blue eyes. From her crisp grey uniform, Ruth assumed that this was the kitchen maid which Mrs Cook had offered to lend her to get her kitchen into order. The girl advanced to the step, tripped over it and said, ‘H’lo.’

‘Hello, I’m Ruth, what’s your name?’

‘Lily,’ replied the girl, aiming for a drawl but not managing it.

‘Come in, then. I’m just making sure we’ve got all the things Miss Phryne ordered.’

‘How about a cup of tea first?’ asked Lily. ‘Your Miss Phryne’s still out, she won’t catch us.’

Ruth was shocked.

‘She’s out, but we’re in, and we’re going to do this right,’ she told Lily very firmly. ‘This is my first kitchen and I’m going to make sure that she gets as good a dinner as I can cook. Now you can help me, or you can go back to Mrs Cook and I’ll manage with Tinker.’

‘So there, Miss La-di-dah!’ sneered Tinker, laying down a load of boxes.

‘He’s helping you? Wouldn’t scratch his own . . . I mean, he’s a lazy beggar. And his name’s Eddie,’ snapped Lily.

‘Really? Here we call him Tinker,’ said Ruth.

‘She’s callin’ me lazy! Always moonin’ over movie stars, while poor ol’ Amos the butcher’s boy is breakin’ his heart over ’er,’ added Tinker.

‘You little hound!’ exclaimed Lily, blushing.

Ruth felt that she needed to assert some control over her minions.

‘Well, shall we do some work? If we get it all done soon I’ll make some banana cake. Those bananas are just about overripe. I need to find out how the oven works, too.’

‘I can show you that,’ said Tinker eagerly.

‘And you can go on with the list,’ said Lily, giving up on an easy day. If she went back, Mrs Cook would find more and more things for her to do. ‘I’ll stack and put away.’

Ruth took up the list again, bit her pencil, and reflected that the gentle art of cookery might be the least of the challenges involved in running a tight kitchen.

Lubricated by tea and nourished by Miss Phryne’s additions to the list, which included a large paper bag of Swallow & Ariell’s Best Assorted biscuits, Ruth had her kitchen and pantry arranged to her liking in four hours. She knew where all the stores were. She had overseen Tinker’s cleaning of the empty bins and lockers. She had checked for signs of rats and cockroaches. Her table was scrubbed. Her floor was swept. She had allowed Tinker to sharpen the knives, which he greatly enjoyed. She had hard-boiled the eggs. She had sliced ham and cheese. She had washed and polished a variety of summer fruits. She had cut several plates of ham and pickle sandwiches, cream cheese and chive sandwiches and tomato sandwiches, and her banana bread had come out of a nice efficient reliable oven just the right colour and cooked all the way through.

She sent Lily to set the luncheon table for a buffet and had Tinker wheel the food in, place it carefully on the side table and cover it with a muslin cloth to keep off flies. The lemonade was made and cooling in the icebox, orange slices and mint swimming in the tart, refreshing fluid, just waiting for the fizzy injection of soda water to make it perfect. Miss Phryne’s gin was chilling beside it.

Then the kitchen staff sat down to their own preferred luncheon, which in Tinker’s case was a doorstop of bread topped with a handful of pickled onions, as much ham and cheese as he could cram onto it, sealed with another doorstop.

‘You’re never going to get that in your mouth,’ jeered Lily.

‘Yah,’ replied Tinker.

Ruth ate her own sandwich in silence. She was considering her menu with the calm, devoted contemplation of an enclosed nun reflecting on the sacrament. Not even watching Tinker engulf his sandwich as though he could unhinge his jaw was enough to distract her. She had Miss Leyel’s book open on the table in front of her.

Lily was bored. No one to talk to in this hole, she thought. Still, one more try before she went back to Mrs Cook. At least there she had other people around who weren’t rude boys or real strange girls who were only half there.

‘Going to the movies while you’re here?’ she asked Ruth.

‘Yes, I expect so,’ said Ruth. ‘Tinker, can you go and find Miss Jane and ask her to come and help me? Sorry, Lily, I really don’t want to talk about anything. I want to think about my menu. Thank you for your help. Can you come in tomorrow for breakfast?’

‘Dunno,’ said Lily, mentally vowing that hell would freeze over first. ‘Missus might send the other girl. See you,’ she said and made it out the kitchen door as fast as she could. That was a strange house and she didn’t want to go back to it.

Fortunately thoughts of Gary Cooper came to comfort and distract her. Gary Cooper could always distract Lily. Amos the butcher’s boy in his distasteful stained apron was too, too impossible, even though he dogged her footsteps and stared at her with his mouth open. One day, she dreamed, Gary Cooper would come to the kitchen door, rip off her apron and sweep her off her feet.

Jane came in, marking her place in her book with her finger until she found a more durable bookmark. Nothing seemed available except lettuce.

‘Here I am,’ she announced, as Ruth was staring into space. ‘I say, Ruthie? Are you all right?’

‘Oh, Jane, can you help me? There are too many recipes,’ exclaimed Ruth. ‘I want to cook them all!’

‘Steady on,’ said Jane. ‘Give me a look.’

Ruth sipped a strengthening cup of mint tea as Jane skimmed the masterwork. But what would Jane know? She was a scientist! Cookery was an art!

‘I see,’ murmured Jane. ‘Well, I’ve got an idea,’ she told her sister. ‘Pick one from each chapter and that makes a menu.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Ruth sharply. ‘It has to be balanced. Not too much cream, not too much sweetness . . .’

‘Let’s give it a try,’ suggested Jane, who preferred experiment to theory every time. ‘Then if one thing doesn’t work we just go back to the chapter and find one which does. Now, what sort of meat have you got?’

‘A leg of lamb. And a duck, but the duck’s got to hang to let the fat drain out of it, so it’s for tomorrow,’ explained Ruth.

‘Lucky Ember isn’t here. Just think how he’d feel about a hanging duck!’

Ruth chuckled, imagining the black cat batting the duck back and forth until it flew into his mouth and was thus lawful prey. Jane was continuing her research in Miss Leyel’s book.

‘All right, how are you going to cook your leg of lamb? Let’s see. How about boned with a herb stuffing on page 189?’

‘That sounds good.’ Ruth was feeling better. The problem, once stated, had become manageable. ‘Then what about the vegetables?’

‘What did you order?’

‘I’ve got green peas,’ said Ruth, truffling about in the cool space under the sink. ‘Green beans, a cauliflower and a lot of potatoes and onions.’

‘Peas,’ decided Jane. ‘Mint sauce. Now for soup. And the finger alights on . . . potato.’

‘Too heavy. We need something light.’

Jane grinned and tossed back her plaits.

‘Then the moving finger writes and having writ comes up with . . .
potage bonne femme
, which is made of . . . carrots, mostly.’

‘Sounds good,’ agreed Ruth. ‘I can send Tinker downtown for some. And for dessert, we can have that amazing
crème
d’abricot
, ’cos I’ve lots of apricots. Thank you!’ She embraced Jane suddenly. ‘Now, as a special favour, you can bone the leg of lamb while I go and cut the herbs for the stuffing.’

‘Jolly good,’ said Jane, taking up the smallest and most flexible of the carving knives and trying to recall the anatomical diagram in Mrs Beeton.

Tinker, constructing himself another sandwich of architectural complexity, thought that they were very nice sisters indeed, and not at all like his own, who quarrelled without ceasing over anything whatsoever. He sat on the back step, feeding scraps of ham to Molly, and felt that life was, for a change, treating him well.

CHAPTER FOUR

Work apace, apace, apace Honest labour bears a lovely face.

Thomas Dekker ‘Sweet Content’

Phryne and Dot returned to the house to find lunch all laid out on a buffet. At the sound of her entry, Ruth brought the lemonade out of the icebox, put it and the gin bottle onto a tray, and bore them into the parlour, where Jane was already nibbling and reading, Dot was selecting a ham and pickle sandwich and a bunch of grapes, and Phryne was taking off her straw hat.

‘Lunch!’ she said. ‘Let me just go and wash the salt off. Won’t be a tick. Two fingers of gin in the glass, Ruth dear, then fill it up with ice and lemonade. I must have swum for miles.’

‘And I must have walked for miles,’ groaned Dot, easing off her shoes. ‘Put on the kettle, Ruth, I need tea.’

‘All ready,’ replied Ruth, whipping off another muslin cloth to reveal the tea urn simmering. Ruth made the tea with dispatch, not forgetting to warm the pot and slick the cup in boiling water. Dot smiled at her earnest expression.

‘You’re doing really well,’ she told Ruth.

‘I hope so,’ Ruth replied. ‘This is what I always wanted, and now it’s very scary.’

‘That’s the way of it with wishes,’ said Dot, after her first deep ambrosial sip. ‘You have to be careful because you might get exactly what you want. But you make a heavenly cup of tea, my dear. For that alone you could get a job.’

‘Try one of the cheese sandwiches,’ offered Jane, not coming out of her book. ‘They’re really creamy. And sort of salty. And just a little bit oniony.’

‘So they are,’ agreed Dot, taking one more.

Phryne flew in a little later, her hair still wet, dressed in one of her long Chinese gowns. ‘I’m starving,’ she exlaimed, accepting the gin squash. ‘What do we have here? Looks scrumptious.’ She sampled. ‘Is scrumptious. Well done, Ruth dear. Now do sit down and stop hovering. How does dinner look?’

‘It looks good,’ Jane said, still reading. ‘We came up with a nice mathematical method of selecting dishes. I boned the leg of lamb.’

‘You are so deft,’ said Phryne affectionately. ‘In the good old days you would have been very good at picking locks, embroidery, petit point, lacemaking.’

‘I can’t see the point of handicrafts,’ said Jane.

‘It’s soothing to have something to occupy your hands while you are thinking,’ said Dot.

‘Not while there are books in the world,’ said Jane flatly.

‘Have you been for a walk today?’ asked Dot. She was worried by Jane’s habit of taking a supply of literature into her room and refusing to come out until she ran out of books. Young girls ought to take exercise or they risked green-sickness, Dot’s grandmother had always said.

‘I’m going for a swim with Ruth later,’ said Jane, crossing her fingers.

Dot took another cup of tea. Phryne poured herself another drink. For the first time she felt that she was actually on holiday.

‘How was the kitchen maid from the Mason household?’

‘I don’t think she liked me giving her orders, Miss Phryne,’ said Ruth gravely. ‘And she wanted to talk all the time and drink tea.’

‘Not one of the world’s workers, then.’

‘No,’ said Jane. ‘And Tinker doesn’t like her. Also, she trod on Molly’s tail and didn’t apologise.’

‘That was discourteous,’ agreed Phryne. ‘One cannot avoid occasionally treading on Molly, she does spread herself rather, but one should say sorry when one does.’

‘She says Mrs Cook will send the other maid tomorrow. She didn’t like us, either.’ Jane seemed unconcerned.

Dot put down her empty cup and picked up her shoes.

‘That was a nice lunch, and I’m going to lie down for a while. I walked a long way.’

‘Where to?’ asked Phryne.

‘Just around the shops. Then I went down to the docks to look at the fishing boats. There’s a whole fleet setting out from here, you know. Well, coming in, at this hour. Quite nice shops,’ said Dot, who had not expected anywhere outside the city to resemble civilisation. She was already debating whether her intended, Hugh Collins, an amiable police constable (who had said he was coming down to see Dot and perhaps do a little fishing after he finished his fraud case), would like her in a soft shift of ivory cotton with sportive orange starfish dancing around the hem.

She mounted the stairs, shoes in hand, resolving to see if the dress was still there tomorrow. Phryne paid very well. Dot had money to spend on treats for herself, if she felt she needed a treat.

Ruth and Jane removed the remains of the feast to the kitchen. Phryne decided to survey Mr Thomas’s library. She felt like emulating Dot. A nice lie-down with a good detective story was indicated, especially after that second gin squash. Nice collection of detective stories, including a whole shelf of R Austin Freeman which she had not read. She picked up
The Famous Cases of Dr Thorndyke
and her half-empty glass and prepared to ascend to softer and more luxurious regions.

Molly, however, rocketed up almost under her feet and sped into the back part of the house, whence emanated barking and yelling. Phryne put down the book and, carrying the glass, her gown swishing around her, headed for the centre of the disturbance.

The pantry contained, reading from left to right, Tinker hanging onto Molly, Jane looking perturbed, Ruth clasping a large raw bone to her aproned bosom and a small, shaggy, indescribably dirty creature, wagging a stump of a tail and carrying a very large, very dead rat in its mouth. Phryne took charge.

‘Tinker, shut Molly in the scullery. Jane, could you close the baize door, Dot is trying to have a nap. Ruth, you could probably put down that bone, now. And you can come here,’ she said, sinking onto her heels and holding out her hand.

The animal edged closer and deposited the rat, proudly.

‘Yes, a very big rat, how clever of you, a real Sherlock Holmes Giant Rat of Sumatra,’ soothed Phryne. ‘You have definitely earned a reward. Tinker, can you dispose of the rat? And Ruth, can you find some scraps for the . . . er . . .’

‘I suppose it is a dog,’ said Jane dubiously.

‘’Course it’s a dog,’ said Tinker. ‘It’s the Johnsons’ dog, Gaston. You remember me, Gaston?’

Gaston decided that he did remember Tinker, but was concentrating on the plate of scraps which Ruth was assembling. When they arrived he dived headlong into the plate, his miniature tail whirring. The effluvia arising from his coat was rank enough to make Jane sneeze. Even Phryne, with Great War battle experience, had seldom smelt worse.

‘I dunno where he’s been,’ said Tinker.

‘A rubbish heap,’ said Phryne. ‘I hope. Don’t I remember an old hip bath hanging up in the scullery? That’s your next task, Tinker dear. Disinter the dog from under the mud, or what I fervently hope is mud, identify him, and then manage to introduce him to Molly. I will not have dog fights. Were the Johnsons fond of Gaston?’

‘Doted on him, Guv’nor,’ replied Tinker promptly. ‘Not a good sign, is it?’

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘Carry on,’ she said, refilled her glass with lemonade and ice, and left them to it.

‘Molly’s in the scullery,’ said Ruth, reasoning it out. ‘Miss Phryne says we have to wash this dog in the hip bath. Which is in the scullery. Without causing a dog fight.’

There was a silence.

‘Bit of a facer,’ commented Tinker.

‘You’re not washing that thing in my nice clean sink,’ said Ruth, anticipating him. ‘I prepare food in here. That creature’s been digging into a septic tank. It probably carries cholera.’

In the end they managed it by recourse to an old problem in logic which involved a river, a tiger, a cabbage and a goat, which Jane explained as they shuttled Molly and Gaston in and out of the scullery, finally managing to get the filthy mongrel, the tub and a good supply of soapy hot water on one side of a door and Molly on the other, who was both placated and gagged with the huge lamb bone.

Gaston was resigned to being washed and did not even yelp as Tinker ruthlessly scrubbed horrible debris from his coat. The hip bath was filled and emptied twice before Gaston emerged as a handsome (if thin) Jack Russell terrier, liver and white, a collar with his name tag on it still around his neck. Tinker rubbed him almost dry with a washed thin towel and Ruth allowed him another plate of scraps. She was now rapidly running out of scraps.

‘Poor little blighter!’ said Tinker. ‘He’s been doing a perish all right. He’s thin as a lath.’

‘Not for long, if he stays around here,’ said Jane, as Ruth added some gravy-soaked bread to the plate.

‘Who wants to peel potatoes?’ asked Ruth brightly.

Jane and her book vanished with a whisking noise like the sound of a rapidly turned page. Tinker sat down on the step philosophically with the bucket of potatoes and began peeling. He knew a hint when it was applied, even with a soft oven glove. And it wasn’t as if Miss Ruth wasn’t working as hard as anyone.

Silence fell in the house. Gaston, exhausted by hygiene and his first good meal in a week, fell asleep in the mint bed. Molly, assured that her bone would remain her very own exclusive property, flopped down under the kitchen table and gnawed, resolving to ignore this intruder for now. Ruth peeled and chopped carrots for her
potage bonne femme
. Jane continued her anthropological research in the parlour.

Phryne, already making inroads into R Austin Freeman, listened to the seductive voice of the sea and closed her eyes. Peace reigned in Mercer Street, Queenscliff, at three in the afternoon of a warm January day.

It couldn’t last, of course. But the household got in a solid hour’s rest before the policeman hammered on the door.

Dot woke with a start and jumped to her feet. Jane dropped her book—but caught it before it hit the floor. Phryne rose in one motion and was at the door before she was quite awake. The speed of her reflexes had delivered her from many unpleasant encounters, such as a drunken Gascon with a switchblade and a fair number of high- explosive shells.

She admitted an unexploded police constable in a high state of excitement.

‘Miss Fisher! They say you found the Johnsons’ little dog?’

‘Yes, he came to the door bringing me a very sizeable rat. You breed rats big by the seaside. Would you like to see him?’ Phryne reflected that news moved fast in Queenscliff.

‘If you please,’ said the constable, clearly bung-full of news and anxious to impart it.

Phryne led him through the green baize door to the kitchen where Ruth was sucking a cut finger and Tinker was picking up fallen potatoes. He had tipped over his bucket. He scowled when he saw the visitor and identified him as a cop, then remembered that he was now on the side of the angels and tried a grin.

‘Yes, that’s Gaston all right,’ said PC Dawson.

‘Yair, well, he’s still got his collar and all,’ drawled Tinker.

Gaston wagged his tail uncertainly.

‘You would have thought they’d take him with them,’ said the constable.

‘Yair, you would have. Mrs Johnson used to carry him around like he was a baby.’ Tinker was Helping the Police with Their Enquiries. Until the advent of Miss Fisher into his life, he would have put good money on that not ever happening.

‘But we’ve found the furniture van. Ellis and Co, of Point Lonsdale. They packed up everything and left. Tuesday morning, very early.’

‘Indeed. Did they also take the contents of the kitchen?’ asked Phryne.

‘The witness didn’t say.’

‘Because you didn’t ask him, I expect.’ Phryne was still sounding gentle.

Tinker pricked up his ears. He had taken his bucket of peeled potatoes into the kitchen and was rinsing them in the sink. Ruth knew that tone, too. Miss Fisher was losing patience. That cop had better adjust his views or she might adjust them for him, with painful results.

‘Anyway, they skipped,’ said the policeman, sealing his fate.

‘Have you heard from Mr Thomas?’ asked Phryne sweetly.

‘No, Miss, he’s somewhere out on the never-never, we can’t find him,’ answered the young man, backing away a little.

‘Fine,’ said Phryne, escorting him to the door. ‘So you won’t be making any more enquiries about the fate of the Johnsons?’

‘No, Miss, it’s all solved.’

‘God bless you,’ said Phryne, shoving him gently out onto the porch. ‘And give you better sense,’ she added. ‘Tinker?’

‘Yes, Guv’nor?’

‘Conference,’ she said, and led him into the parlour. He stood awkwardly, cap dangling, aware suddenly of how grimy he was. He was not used to parlours, soft furnishings, or beautiful ladies with jade eyes.

‘Ruth, can you manage tea?’ called Phryne.

‘Yes, Miss,’ called Ruth, who had already laid out the afternoon tea before she had started peeling what seemed to be a world of carrots. Her domestic confidence was growing. This is what I will do for the rest of my life, she thought, and was suddenly so happy that she distributed the heel of the ham between Molly and Gaston.

Phryne considered Tinker. All arms and legs. Had outgrown those trousers two or three years ago. Boots, scant as to laces. Shirt, entirely missing. Washed thin grey jumper, unravelling at the elbows. Hands, large and dirty. Face, unwashed. Cap, filthy old tweed doubtless inherited from a father or uncle. He wriggled under her gaze. Bright blue eyes, probably blondish hair under the grime. Intelligent eyes, in fact, softened only with devotion. She made up her mind.

‘Tinker, we are going to find out what happened to the Johnsons.’

‘Yes, Guv’nor?’

‘And to do that we need an operative who can go boldly but carefully down amongst the poor and oppressed and gather information. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, Guv’nor,’ he replied instantly.

‘I will double your wages,’ said Phryne. Not a big financial sacrifice, she thought. Twice a pittance was still a pittance. ‘You can eat as much as you want of Ruth’s cooking, and that includes a proper breakfast. Where do you live?’

‘Fishermen’s Flat, Guv’nor.’

‘Where is that?’

‘Down by the harbour, Guv’nor. There’s me mum and seven of us. Dad’s a sailor. He ain’t home much,’ said Tinker, and Phryne got the impression that this was all right with Tinker. ‘We live in a house, but we rent it out to the trippers in summer.’