Dead Man's Chest (7 page)

‘What shall we have for lunch, Dot? Your choice. Simple at the teashop or elaborate at one of the restaurants?’

‘Simple,’ said Dot. ‘I’ve got to save my appetite for Ruth’s dinner.’

‘Simple it is,’ said Phryne, turning in at the door of the Queenscliff Tea Rooms.

An hour later, hunger satisfied if not sated by an excellent beef pie, a very serviceable apple crumble and a lot of strong tea—Phryne did not venture on coffee in watering-places, because she really liked coffee—they strolled out into the street again. Queenscliff appeared to be built for a gentle post- prandial amble. Well-dressed people, strolling; Phryne noticed that many of them were wearing some form of fish as decorat- ion. Patterned on a dress, on a tie, in silver or gold on a bosom or securing a hat. Well, it was a seaport.

So Phryne and Dot ambled, gently, along Hesse Street and surveyed the shops. It had a full complement of the usual: baker’s, butcher’s, grocer’s, ham-and-beef shop, three fish-and-chip shops, four teashops, draper’s, mercer’s, fishmonger’s. Then there were odd little shops, tucked in beside what was surely the thinnest house in the world; a newsagent’s, hairdresser’s, a lolly shop, an ice-cream shop and a purveyor of toys and games. Dot paused at the window of her preferred dress shop, Henrick Modes.

‘I’d like to go and collect my dress, if you don’t mind, Miss. They had to do a few alterations.’

‘By all means,’ Phryne agreed. She was feeling as sleepy as a sunned-on cat and disinclined to do anything energetic. This looked like quite a nice little shop. Ready-made, of course, but that was the coming thing. Pretty loose shifts made of cotton in bright colours, perfect for a summer purchase. Espadrilles in beige and white. An array of really very good parasols. Phryne had forgotten hers. A choice of sunset orange, cerise, purple, azure and spring green confronted her.

She put aside the green, which threw an after-death glow onto the face (useful for suburn), and the cerise, which gave the user the complexion of a boiled lolly. But the azure was charming, like carrying your own summer sky. She twirled it. It had a sensible shaft of steel, unlike the common flimsy cane constructions, so could be leaned on or used as a weapon and would not bend in a high wind. Altogether a thoroughly virtuous little parasol.

Phryne took it with her to look at Dot in her new dress. Dot had good taste. The dress was loose enough to be comfortable, and the line of dancing starfish was very well executed, if you liked starfish. It fitted very tidily.

‘Lovely,’ commented Phryne. ‘Why not wear it home? You do nice alterations,’ she told Miss Henrick, who with two other Misses Henrick constituted Henrick Modes.

‘My sister Faith made the dress,’ said Miss Henrick, a small and bouncy young woman with a cap of curly blonde hair. ‘My other sister Charity did the embroidery. And I do the alterations.’

‘Stout work, Miss Hope,’ said Phryne. ‘I may be throwing some business your way but for the moment I would like this parasol, please.’

‘They’re a bit expensive,’ said Miss Henrick, uniquely of all dressmakers in Phryne’s experience. She bit her lip. ‘They’re the English ones. I’m afraid they’re three pounds each.’

‘And Dot shall choose one for herself, so that makes two, and here is your six pounds, and thank you,’ said Phryne, handing over the money. Dot, flushed with the excitement of a new dress and now a sunset orange parasol to go with it, kissed Phryne on the cheek.

‘I like being on holiday,’ she exclaimed.

The kitchen staff, relieved of having to make a proper lunch for Miss Phryne, had lunched heartily on sandwiches made of various ingredients. Ruth never tired of ham and pickle, Jane loved tinned salmon and mayonnaise, Máire was introduced to the club sandwich by Tinker, who ate everything, as did the dogs, who prowled the floor begging for scraps. They accompanied this repast with lemon cordial and soda water.

Then, as Miss Dot required, they all rested for an hour. Dot, whose father had ulcers and believed that they were caused by exertion immediately after food, had made this a rule.

Therefore Máire found herself, for the first time in her life, sitting in a deckchair in the garden with nothing to do, accompanied by Tinker, who was still perfecting his bike and Gaston,who had retired to the mint bed for a snooze. Jane and Ruth took Molly up to their rooms, where Ruth drowsed over a book and Jane fell asleep. Reading aloud was just as tiring as working, she thought.

‘What sort of people are they?’ asked Máire eventually, after she had recovered a little from her surprise. No one she had ever worked for had ever given her any time off.

‘Good sort of people,’ said Tinker, unwinding the last bit of wire so that the rags of the old tyre started to peel off. ‘That’s got it! The boss, she’s a lady. A titled lady. And she has a maid called Dot. And the two girls are her daughters, adopted. And they all work hard, so we work hard, and then they rest so we rest. I never thought,’ said Tinker, blowing scraps of rubber off the bare rims, ‘I never thought in all me born that I’d be working for a private detective.’

‘And she gave you the bike?’ asked Máire, staring down into her cupped hands.

‘She lent me the money to buy it,’ corrected Tinker. ‘She’s no soft touch. I got to pay her back. It’ll be a bonzer machine when I’ve got all the rust off and put on them new tyres. You one of the fishos down Fishermen’s Flat?’

‘Just come from Eire—what you call Ireland,’ she confessed. ‘Me and seven of us, to join our cousins. My dad’s a fisherman, my brothers also. But it’s been a bad season, they say. Not enough of the ’couta to make the quota some weeks.’

‘So,’ said Tinker, negotiating the last curly twist of wire without stabbing any more fingers. ‘How d’you like Australia, then?’

‘It’s so strange,’ said Máire, not wanting to offend any natives. ‘So hot and bright. All the time the sun seems to shine.’

‘It gets chilly enough in the winter,’ Tinker warned her. ‘And you want to get a hat. You’ll burn in this weather. You want to help me?’

Máire was not used to doing nothing. She willingly knelt down to steady the bicycle as Tinker fitted his new tyres. Tinker decided that even though she was a Mick, she wasn’t all that bad, really. It was dawning on Tinker that everything his harassed mum said about the Church being the Scarlet Woman might not be entirely right.

‘What happened to the people who were here before?’ asked Máire suddenly.

Tinker spun the back wheel, delighted with the way it ran.

‘The Johnsons? Dunno. It’s a mystery. Miss Fisher got here and they’d done a moonlight flit.’

‘Fetched away?’ asked Máire, taking better hold of the bicycle as Tinker shifted his attentions to the front wheel.

‘Snatched, you mean?’ asked Tinker. ‘I dunno. All their stuff went. The boss is going to send some telegrams and make a few phone calls. Then we’ll see,’ he added with relish, as the front wheel came free of its accretions and moved under his hand. ‘That’s bonzer. Better let go now, Mary, you’ll get oil on your clean apron.’

‘That’s what aprons are for, surely to God,’ replied Máire. ‘I need to steady it. There, look at that now!’

‘You’re one of them O’Malleys, ain’t yer?’ asked Tinker, who had just remembered something.

‘O’Malley is my name, and that a fine one,’ replied Máire with spirit.

‘Nah, nah, don’t get your Irish up. I mean, that Grainy, she’s your sister, ain’t she? The sailor girl?’

‘She is,’ said Máire. Her jaw set and her sea-blue eyes regarded the boy one candle watt short of a glare. ‘My father Dubhdara forbade Gráinne my sister to go out upon the sea—unlucky, not fitting for a girl. But she stowed away, and when she was found she expected a beating. But my father embraced her and told her she was a true daughter of Black Oak and he would teach her all he knew about the sea, and so he did. Here they say things about her. But not to me, for she is my sister and a good girl and very dear to me.’

‘True dinks?’ asked Tinker. Máire did not know the idiom but divined the meaning.

‘By Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ she swore, crossing her aproned bosom. ‘And Patrick,’ she added, lest the patron saint should feel left out.

‘All right then,’ replied Tinker. ‘I’ll know what to say to the cur who says she’s . . . who says . . .’ He faltered. Euphemism was new to Tinker.

Máire rewarded him with a beaming, radiant, sunrise smile.

‘Let’s see to this bike then, God love you,’ she suggested. ‘We must be back in the kitchen in ten minutes. Can I not be seeing the clock from here?’

They bent to their task, well pleased with their company.

Phryne and Dot looked in at the post office, a most imposing building erected by someone with a strong inclination for turrets, and sent two telegrams which might or might not find Mr Thomas, somewhere near the Roper River. They strolled further, past Simpson Family Butchers and Game, A House, Land and Commission Agent, and then paused at the door of Leonard’s Hair and Perfumery, Wig-maker and Artificial Flowers, from whence issued a ferocious smell compounded of attar of roses, patchouli, chypre and singed hair. A woman with hennaed hair and over-liberal lipstick snarled at them as they stood in her light. Then she changed the scowl to an unconvincing smile.

‘How can I serve you, ladies?’ she asked.

‘Oh, just wandering for the present,’ said Phryne airily, and led Dot away.

‘I do not feel that I will need a haircut while in Queenscliff,’ she opined.

‘Nor me,’ said Dot. ‘Smelt like she was burning rope.’

‘It’s those marcel irons,’ said Phryne. ‘If you want hair like corrugated iron, you need to discipline it very severely.’

‘I like my hair as it is,’ said Dot, feeling the weight of her French plait. ‘And so does Hugh.’

‘Never felt like cutting it all off? No more long afternoons waiting for it to dry? Much easier to manage in summer,’ teased Phryne.

‘No, Miss Phryne.’

‘Well, stay out of the way of the phantom pigtail snipper,’ advised Phryne. ‘And now I think we should carry our burdens up the hill for a little afternoon rest. And I fancy another swim. Does the road wind uphill all the way?’ she asked, with Christina Rossetti.

‘Yes, to the very end,’ said Dot, unconscious of poetry.

Phryne chuckled all the way to Mercer Street and, provokingly, would not explain.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It is not true that the English have only one sauce, but it is true that in England sauces are very often badly made, badly mixed, and not flavoured at all.

Mrs CF Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley
The Gentle Art of Cookery

A rest, a swim, a tantalising scent of cooking fish, and it was dinnertime again. Ruth bore in the huge snapper, lavishly enfolded in butter and herbs which made a scented cloak to wrap the white, flaky, delicious flesh. There were groans of delight and satisfied desire from the table which gladdened Ruth’s heart. Phryne picked and picked again, as did the rest of the diners, until the whole skeleton of the fish was revealed.

‘I believe that this is all in one piece.’ Phryne marvelled at its symmetry and beauty, stripped of scale and fin. ‘What a beautiful object. Could you boil it clean for me, Ruth, and dry it?’

‘Yes, Miss Phryne, but why?’

‘Ah,’ said Phryne, and Ruth knew that she was not going to get an immediate answer.

‘You want it to stay in one piece?’ asked Dot. ‘Then you don’t want to boil it, Ruth, that’ll dissolve the gluey stuff that holds the bones together.’

‘Cartilage?’ hazarded Jane. ‘How do you know that it will do that?’

‘Because you can make fish glue out of boiling fish bones,’ replied Dot, who never took offence at Jane’s questions. They arose from a pure desire for knowledge.

‘Lick of lysol will take the stink out of it,’ advised Tinker. ‘That’s what the fishos do for their house signs.’

‘Lysol it is, then,’ said Phryne. Jane was pleased.

‘Perhaps we could start a collection of bones,’ she said.

‘You and your bones,’ sniffed Ruth. ‘Anyone for dessert?’

‘Perhaps just a teeny-weeny slice,’ said Phryne, as Ruth supplied orange jellies in orange cups and mango and pineapple ice cream stuck with almond wafers. Tinker carried out the plates.

‘Dessert goes into a different stomach, that’s what my mum says,’ offered Dot, slipping a spoon into the icy, creamy confection.

‘Too right,’ agreed Tinker, to whom frozen custard with fruit in it was a novelty to which he hoped to become accustomed.

‘Very, very nice,’ agreed Phryne. She accepted a cup of coffee, lit a gasper, put her elbows on the table and conspired. ‘Now, to our investigation. I sent the telegrams but the Lord knows if they will ever reach Mr Thomas. They’ve gone to Roper River and to Mount Marumba, wherever they are. And I rang Ellis and Co, the removalists, and found out something very odd.’

‘What, Guv’nor?’ demanded Tinker.

‘They know nothing about a removal from this house.’

‘What?’ asked Jane. ‘But a van came and took all their stuff, and it had Ellis and Co painted on the side. People saw it.’

‘Nonetheless, the obliging young clerk went through the whole book for me and they have no record of it.’

‘How odd!’ observed Dot. She was full of excellent food and finding it hard to keep her eyes open.

‘Sinister, eh, Guv’nor?’ asked Tinker.

‘Yes, perhaps. But there could be a few other explanations. Let me hear you give them. Jane?’

‘The van could have been stolen,’ said Jane. She knew she was weaker in exposition, which to her came perilously close to guessing. Which she instinctively felt was wrong, and possibly sinful.

‘True. Ruth?’

‘One of the carters might have been doing someone a favour. Had a load to bring to Queenscliff, and would have brought the van back empty. So he took the Johnsons’ stuff back with him.’

‘Dot?’

Dot yawned. ‘Sorry, Miss Phryne, I’m that tired. Must be all this sea air. What if the person who said they saw the Ellis and Co van was mistaken?’

‘Or lying?’ put in Tinker.

‘Good,’ said Phryne, very satisfied with her class on detection. ‘Make no assumptions. So we have three explanations: mistake or deceit, a borrowed van or a stolen van. What do we do next?’

‘Find the witnesses,’ said Jane.

‘Oh, I know who one musta been,’ said Tinker. ‘Old Mother Alice—I mean, Mrs McNaster. She’s never been known to sleep, spends all her time at the window. Real cranky old chook. Sorry. Not a nice friendly lady. Kicks dogs, hates the kids, sticks a knife into any ball that goes into her garden. Even though it ain’t her garden, really.’

‘Oh? And where does Mrs McNaster live?’ asked Phryne repressively.

‘’Cross the way,’ said Tinker, waving an expansive fork. ‘First floor. See them lace curtains? She watches through ’em all the time. She lives with her son-in-law, Dr Green, poor bas— er, man. Mrs Green, she’s not home a lot. They give Mrs McNaster the first floor for her own and they pay for her companion. But she never sleeps and she always watches. That’s who would have said it was Ellis’s van.’

‘Well, I suppose a neighbourly call is in order,’ said Phryne.

‘Guv’nor! You ain’t going there!’ said Tinker in fright.

‘I don’t think she’ll bite me,’ soothed Phryne. ‘And if she does I can always bite back. It’s not as though I live in Queens- cliff and have to get on with the locals. If Mrs McNaster confirms the name and seems to be in possession of her faculties, however uncharitable, then I shall send you, Tinker, down to Point Lonsdale to see what you can pick up from the removal yard. What is the state of your bike?’

‘Real good,’ he said. ‘That Mick . . . I mean the Irish girl, Mary, helped me with it and I got the new tyres fitted and a lick of polish and it’ll be good as.’

‘Right, that’s tomorrow,’ said Dot firmly. ‘Now we are all going to bed soon, so why not come down to the parlour and see what’s on that gramophone?’

‘Those of us who aren’t doing the dishes,’ said Ruth firmly, leading Tinker out after her, laden down with plates, with Jane walking behind carrying an unsteady tray of clinking glasses. Phryne listened for the crash, but when it came it was an unimportant and entirely superfluous gravy boat, of which the household already boasted three, so that was all right.

They sweetened the evening with Mr Thomas’s rather good collection of popular light classics, and went to bed early. The sea made everyone sleepy except Tinker. It was one of the first sounds he had ever heard. It had been the background of his entire life. He had never slept in a place where he could not hear it.

He took himself and Gaston to the servants’ quarters, with a slice of coconut cake, a glass of milk and a handful of dog biscuits for inner comfort and a new Sexton Blake to amuse the intellectual self. He washed and changed into his pyjamas and settled himself in his own bed with a pillow behind his back, a dog on his lap and his provisions on the table beside him.

It was a bloody good story. The cake and the milk vanished, the biscuits were gnawed to crumbs, and Gaston fell asleep, but Tinker was gripped by the narrative and read on.

Then Gaston woke up and barked, and Tinker was dragged bodily out of his absorption in the escape of Sexton Blake from handcuffs as he was being welded into a metal trunk destined to be sunk into the bottomless abyss. Passingly, he wondered why these villains didn’t just shoot Sexton Blake several times at close range, instead of trying to kill him in such elaborate ways, but supposed that this was the nature of Masters of Evil.

‘What’s the matter, you silly mutt?’ he asked a little roughly. Gaston looked up into his face, whined, then pointed his nose at the door and barked again.

‘Someone at the door?’

Tinker was afraid, but he was now the Man of the House and required to be brave. He put on his boots and armed himself with the fire axe then took a deep breath before he allowed the door to slip open a trifle. He saw no one. Moonlight streamed in. It was getting late, he thought, time to shut the book and go to sleep.

But Gaston dashed out into the garden, barking wildly, and Tinker followed. Inside the house, he heard Molly wake and bark, then subside as though she saw no need to keep on announcing that something had happened when clearly it had stopped happening.

Gaston arrived at the back gate and scrabbled, yelping madly and leaping like a small liver-and-white projectile, so that Tinker had to catch him up under one arm to get the gate open.

And there was the peaceful night, unscathed by any noise, not even footsteps. He put Gaston down and the small dog ran in an anxious circle, whining, then returned to hide behind Tinker, peering out around his pyjama-clad legs.

‘Whatever it was,’ Tinker told him, ‘it’s gone now,’ and he secured the gate with especial care and returned to the house, where he locked and bolted the door. Then Tinker went to the kitchen and got himself some more milk and another generous slice of coconut cake—plus a few gourmet bikkies from the Swallow & Ariell bag for his distressed canine friend.

Then they retreated to bed again. They applied Sexton Blake and a little supper as a remedy for their grated nerves. This worked well enough. After half an hour, Gaston drowsed on Tinker’s lap. After ten minutes more, the book slid from Tinker’s hand and they both slept until morning was announced by the shouts and cries of disappointed tradesmen who had found the back gate locked. As he hurried to unchain it, he resolved to tell Miss Fisher that someone had come to the back gate in the night.

Phryne was awoken by Dot, who carried coffee, butter, jam, a freshly baked roll and a proposition from Ruth.

‘She wants to invite Mrs Mason and the boys to dinner tonight,’ announced Dot.

‘I’m going out,’ said Phryne. ‘To see an art film.’

‘But not until nine, and only next door,’ put in Dot. ‘And we can get rid of them all by then if we dine at six thirty. As Ruth says, we owe them a dinner, and this way we don’t have to put up with them for too long.’

‘Mmm,’ said Phryne, buttering a piece of crust. ‘Cruel but adroit social placement. All right, send the invitation, Dot dear. Isn’t this view just heavenly?’

‘It is,’ agreed Dot. ‘Drat, that’s the telegraph boy.’

She left Phryne to go and answer the door. Dot had never got over her dread of telegrams. In the Great War they had delivered nothing but news of loss and grief. Even though the Great War was over Dot still couldn’t like the things. And the boys who delivered them were always cheeky.

This one was no exception. He gave her two telegrams, held out his hand, received his penny tip, whistled, promised Dot that he wouldn’t spend it all in riotous living, and went off on his bike before she could reply.

She turned the telegraph office envelopes over in her hands. One of them, for a wonder, was addressed to her. She opened it quickly, so that Fate might not notice her rash action.

A moment later she was running up the stairs. Phryne was in the bath.

‘Miss! Miss! Hugh’s coming!’ she called through the door.

‘Goodo,’ said Phryne, who liked Dot’s large, calm, policeman. ‘When?’

‘He’ll be here tomorrow night,’ said Dot. ‘Staying at a boarding house in Queen Street. Hopes to get in some fishing, he says.’

‘Invite him to dinner on Friday,’ said Phryne. ‘He’s a darling. I’ll be down presently,’ she hinted, and Dot recollected herself and chose some clothes for Phryne, laying them out on a bed which she made in four precise movements. Nice day again, blue skies and a light wind. Just a shift and sandals, no need for stockings. Then she descended to the kitchen to advise Ruth to lay an extra setting for Hugh tomorrow and supervise Tinker in cleaning all the cutlery, which had looked a bit dull at dinner the night before. And to find a corner to blush in unobserved, perhaps. She hadn’t seen Hugh since his fraud case started, which was almost three weeks ago. Dot had missed him.

Phryne Fisher, dressed in hat and gloves and even the despised stockings, a smart blue dress of moderate length and wearing only a recently bought fish brooch for ornament, rang the doorbell of the house opposite and stepped back a little so that any observer would be able to scan the visitor. She had made an effort and wanted Mrs McNaster to appreciate it. And she had no doubt that Mrs McNaster was watching her. Phryne had seen the telltale twitch of the heavy lace curtains.

The step had been scrubbed—this morning, Phryne judged; it was still a little damp. The door’s mahogany folds gleamed. The brass numbers reflected like small numerical suns. This was a very clean house. Even through the door a faint scent of carbolic was leaking through.

When the maid answered the door, Phryne handed over her card and was conducted into a very clean, sparsely furnished sitting room to wait. She declined tea. The maid, who was Irish and about sixteen, probably called Bridget, gave her an admiring look and said, ‘I’d take the tea now, Miss, you won’t get none from Herself.’

‘Then how can you offer it?’ asked Phryne.

‘I belong to the house, not the first floor,’ the maid told her. ‘The master, now, he’s a hospitable kind of man, he tells me, Bridget, you’re to offer refreshments to callers. Herself, she’s as mean as a . . . I mean, she’s not likely to offer no tea to a visitor. Not that she doesn’t relish tea for herself,’ said the maid. Phryne could take a hint, especially when it was delivered in that buttery accent.

‘Well, then, perhaps tea for both of us, if she can sit in this room?’

‘Surely she can, Miss,’ said the maid. ‘That’s why there’s only a few sticks in here. So that poor oul’ Lavvie can move her chair around. Back directly, Miss,’ she said, and bounced out, a plump, comely armful of a young woman who would probably not be in domestic service for long, if there was any of the old buccaneering spirit remaining in the boys of Queenscliff.

Phryne sat for another ten minutes, quite unconcerned, until a bumping and a voice like a corncrake which has been insulted by another corncrake and is afflicted with a terminal case of diphtheria offended the bright morning. The advent into the room of a wheeled chair dragged by a thin elderly woman coincided with that of the maid escorting a trolley of tea, which meant that Phryne got over the difficulty of introducing herself in the resulting scrimmage.

Once the old lady had been placed so that her feet were in the sun from the French windows but her head was in the shade, the tea trolley had been set so that she could reach her plate and her cup, and the maid had poured the first cup of tea, Mrs McNaster applied herself to the bread and butter for some minutes, while Phryne, the maid and the companion watched.