Death by Water (4 page)

‘There are a few more people to come,’ said Mr Forrester, consulting the card on the table. ‘Mr Jack Mason, Miss Margery Lemmon and Mr Vivian Aubrey. Mr and Mrs Singer never join us on the first night out. He’s got a dicey tummy.’

Phryne took a forkful of beef. It was excellent. A steward appeared, ushering an old man to the table. When he was comfortably seated, the steward whisked away and came back with a steaming dish of lamb curry and rice. The old man thanked him.

‘Why do I get served and the rest of you have to carry your own dinner?’ asked the old man, anticipating something which Mrs Cahill was about to say. She primmed up her lips,
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disconcerted. ‘You are not being slighted, my dear madam. It’s just that they’re afraid I might drop things. I’m not as young as you,’ said the old man, smiling gently. ‘And this is my seventh voyage on the
Hinemoa
. Isn’t she the most beautiful ship you ever saw?’

‘Rides the sea like a bird,’ agreed Phryne, introducing herself. That was a really muscular curry. The vindaloo scent of it was strong enough to sting her eyes. It had certainly been specially made for the old man.

‘Aubrey,’ said the old man, holding her hand in an unexpectedly firm grasp. ‘Vivian Aubrey, at your service. My dear Miss Fisher,’ he said, drinking in the sight of Phryne with appreciation.

Phryne returned his gaze. He was a well polished old gentleman, with cherubic blue eyes and a neatly trimmed tonsure.

His complexion had been coloured by hotter suns than his native Britain, she guessed, and he was almost supernaturally clean. His shirt front winked at her. She gave him an approving smile. Mr Aubrey obviously considered himself host and carried on smoothly, including all of the group in the conversation.

‘I gather you are a photographer, Mr Forrester. What made you choose that form of art?’

‘Couldn’t draw,’ said Forrester, brushing back his curls. ‘So I had to draw with light. What was your profession, sir?’

‘Old India hand,’ replied Mr Aubrey, twinkling. ‘Old India bore, now, I fear. I was there for forty years, and when I came home I just couldn’t settle into a nice hotel in Brighton with the same faces at breakfast until I died. Too cold, for one thing.

So I just travel; a few weeks ashore at the end of every voyage, then back on board again. Always new people to talk to, always a new sea.’

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‘What a lovely idea,’ said Professor Applegate with some irony. ‘Assuming you have nothing else to do.’

‘Don’t want me in India anymore, my dear,’ said Aubrey, taking a liberty which the professor strangely did not seem to resent. ‘Memsahib passed away ten years ago. No family left except the children, and they are all married and settled down.

One son in Sydney, one son in Bournemouth, one daughter in Cairo. If I travel I can see them all, and they are pleased to see me because I am not on their doorstep all the time, interrupting their lives. Oh, I must remember to get several Maori dolls for the little girls. Perhaps you would help me choose them, Mrs West?’

‘Oh yes,’ squeaked Mrs West. ‘I love dolls. Don’t I, Johnnie?’

‘Yes,’ said her husband dotingly. ‘You’re a living doll yourself, Jonquil dear.’

Phryne kept eating. Jonquil. Well, well. Even Aubrey appeared to have been silenced. Then Mrs West, quivering with emotion, ventured, ‘Miss Fisher . . . that stone . . .’

‘Oh, the Maharani?’ said Phryne. ‘Isn’t it just beautiful?’

‘Oh yes,’ breathed Mrs West.

‘It’s from India,’ said Mr Aubrey. ‘I think I’ve heard about this. The Great Queen of Sapphires, eh? Usually have a tale attached to them, the great stones. Sometimes even a curse.’

‘Oh yes, there’s a story,’ replied Phryne. A waiter leaned over her to fill her wine glass with red wine. ‘But I’ll tell it another time. I have always been interested in photography, Mr Forrester. Have you brought your equipment with you?’

‘Yes. My speciality is the female form divine,’ he said, gazing dreamily at Mrs West’s practically uncovered bosom. Mr West, in a purely animal and instinctive move, slid an arm over his wife’s shoulder. ‘Mine!’ said the arm. Mr Forrester transferred his gaze
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to Phryne, who had no objections. ‘I’ve been doing studies for the covers of fashionable magazines,’ he told her cleavage.

‘And you, Mr West? What was your profession?’

‘I was an accountant,’ said Mr West. ‘Retired now. Made some very good investments for my clients—and for me. This is the fourth cruise I have been on. My Jonquil said I needed a rest. My children . . .’

Are exigent, thought Phryne, and don’t approve of this new wife, who is probably younger than they are. And likely to inherit all the old man’s money. Mr Aubrey came through as the silence lengthened.

‘And you, Professor, didn’t I read your excellent book on Maori culture? What was it called, now, dear me, memory going at last . . .’

‘‘‘Moko and Maori Warrior Culture’’,’ said the professor.

‘The word means tattoo. Among other things. Do I speak to a colleague?’

‘Only in the most amateur way,’ replied Mr Aubrey. ‘Had to know a bit about native customs, you know, religions and so on, or one could make a frightful blunder and HO would purse the lips. Had to know the languages, too, pass all the exams, or stay down at clerk level forever. Hard cheese on chaps who just couldn’t be doing with languages. There are some, you know. Nothing to do with intelligence, either.’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne. ‘I always thought it was like being tone deaf.’

The professor awarded her an approving look. ‘But not you?’ she asked.

‘Only French,’ said Phryne. ‘And a little bit of Italian and Spanish. You?’

‘Maori dialects and English alone, I’m afraid. I couldn’t see the sense of learning French out here in South East Asia.’

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‘I was an awful duffer at school,’ confessed Mrs West.

‘And I never spoke any language other than English,’

responded her husband. ‘Never mind, Jonquil. You don’t need to be clever.’

‘I suppose you speak a lot of those heathen tongues, Mr Aubrey?’ asked Mrs Cahill disapprovingly.

‘Hindi, of course, and some Farsi, and a few others,’ said Mr Aubrey, his voice tightening a little. He did not like that nasty reference to heathens, Phryne observed. ‘They kept moving us young chaps around and practically every new place had a new dialect.’

‘In that case I must say “Namaste”,’ said a young woman, taking her place beside Mr Aubrey. He pressed both arthritic hands together and returned her gesture.

‘Namaste,’ he said, bowing his head a little.

‘Margery Lemmon,’ she introduced herself to the others.

‘Sorry about showing off, but I don’t often get a chance to talk Hindi.’

‘My niece’, said Mr Aubrey proudly.

‘And how do you know Hindi?’ asked Mr West.

‘Best reason of all,’ said Margery Lemmon. ‘Born there.

Nunc said this was a lovely ship and I’m at a bit of a loose end—so I came along for the ride. This holiday is the first one I have ever taken. And it’s so nice to have Nunc here. I’m allowed to share his curry, for one thing.’

‘The right spirit,’ approved the professor.

A young man bounded up like someone out of a musical comedy and produced the second ‘hullo-ullo-ullo!’ of the day.

‘Jack Mason, nice to meet you all again,’ said the new-comer. ‘I say, this ship is a bit of all right, what?’

‘And so is the dinner,’ suggested Phryne. ‘Get some while you can.’

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‘Good notion,’ said Mr Mason, and shot off to the buffet.

He was tall, thin, athletic, and as far as Phryne could tell at that speed, had brown hair and brown eyes, rather like a seal’s. He was sitting next to Miss Lemmon. She was tall, too, and thin, and her hair was cut short. Her air was the no-nonsense one of nurses everywhere but Mr Mason seemed to amuse her.

‘Precipitate lout,’ muttered Mr Forrester. ‘He’ll have that table over if he doesn’t watch out.’

‘He’s just a boy,’ soothed Miss Lemmon.

‘And boys,’ said Mr Aubrey dryly, ‘will be boys. Did you have a lot of difficulty, Professor, in getting the Maori to talk to you?’

‘No,’ said Professor Applegate, who also seemed amused at the male reaction to Mr Mason. ‘I spoke to the chiefs first, of course, and then to the shamans, the
tohunga
, and once they had passed me as not
tapu
, all was well.
Tapu
means forbidden, of course. In fact they are proud of their warriors, as well they might be. They almost beat the British, you know.’

‘Impossible,’ said Mr West.

‘I assure you,’ said the professor. ‘They fought so hard and bravely that Queen Victoria directed that there should be a peace treaty to “prevent the further effusion of blood”. It’s called the Treaty of Waitangi. I can lend you a copy if you like, Mr West,’ she offered sweetly.

‘No, thanks,’ grunted Mr West. ‘I’m on this cruise for a rest, eh, Jonquil?’

‘Darling,’ cooed Jonquil.

Mr Mason returned with a plate piled high with miscella-neous meats. He managed to put it down without disaster and they watched, fascinated, as he absorbed it all, hardly stopping to chew, and then departed for a second helping.

‘I used to be able to eat like that,’ said Mr Aubrey with acute envy.

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‘Hollow legs at that age,’ commented Miss Lemmon.

‘At least he’ll be able to partner you ladies at deck tennis,’

said Mr Aubrey. ‘A fine game . . .’

Phryne’s attention wandered, as it always did when someone was attempting to explain rules to her. She would learn them when she had to.

The rules of deck tennis lasted through the rest of the meal.

Phryne took her leave and went into the Palm Court, where she could hear a dance band tuning up.

Mavis and the Melody Makers were dressed identically in lavender satin, which had the effect of making the stouter members of the group look like well tailored cushions. The only person not wearing lavender was a short stout woman in faultless gentleman’s evening dress.

They had done their best with the clothes. Two tall, slender women, one dark and one fair, so similar that they had to be sisters, had shortened their skirts and loosened their tops. The cello player had been allowed wide-cut pyjama trousers, in view of how she had to sit. The others were much of a muchness.

Phryne found a wicker chair under a palm frond and ordered a gin fizz.

Phryne knew that, for all musicians, setting up was a strain and it certainly produced grumbles from the Melody Makers.

One music stand slammed down repeatedly and would not stay at the right height until the trumpeter surrendered something from her mouth—under protest—to glue it into place.

One sheet of the opening music was missing altogether from every copy. Mavis was sneezing, the double bass player was green with seasickness and someone had been plying the trombone with restorative brandy. She was hiccupping gently and seemed so restored as to be almost horizontal.

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‘Now, girls, come along,’ said Mavis, a raddled woman with unconvincing brown hair and a harried expression.

‘Where’s Rosie?’ asked the blonde sister. ‘Can’t play this without a clarinet.’

‘Oh, bother, where is she then?’ exclaimed Mavis. ‘Has anyone seen her?’

‘Might be back in her room,’ suggested the blonde’s sister.

‘Oh Lord, Magda, go and see, will you? And hurry!’

Tall, slender and fair was Magda, Phryne noted, accepting and sipping her gin fizz. The trumpet player drifted over to stand a little behind Phryne, under the shade of the palms, emptying her spit valve into the pot.

‘You’re my Uncle Cec’s Miss Fisher, aren’t you?’ she asked, staring artlessly into space.

‘I am,’ said Phryne. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Lizbet Yates,’ said Lizbet, unwrapping a flat silver paper package and extracting another piece of whatever it was that she had been chewing. She had the fair colouring of the admirable wharfie and knockabout bloke Cec’s Scandinavian ancestry; pale straight hair, ice-blue eyes and a humorous quirk to her mouth. She might have been twenty, perhaps twenty-two. ‘Want a piece of Lumberjack?’

‘Not at the moment,’ said Phryne. ‘What is it?’

‘Chewing gum. I’ve got a friend who’s a Yank, and they chew all the time. Keeps your mouth moist, and that’s important for a brass player. It comes from Redmond, Virginia,’ said Lizbet, chewing like a cow. ‘One day I’m going to get there.

That’s where my sailor boy lives.’

‘And how did Cec’s niece come to be one of the Melody Makers?’

Lizbet cast a glance at her colleagues, who were still waiting for Rosie, and settled down for a good gossip.

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‘I drove my mum mad when I was a kid, picking out tunes on the piano, nagging her until she got me lessons. Pretty soon I knew I wasn’t going to be good enough for a concert pianist so I tootled a bit on my uncle Bill’s old bugle, and I was good at it. No way of getting into an orchestra, though, they don’t want girls playing brass in their nice, clean orchestras. So I got a job with Mavis. Good pay, good hours. One day I’ll convince

’em to let me into the Melbourne Symphony. Till then I get a lot of practice.’

‘Very enterprising of you,’ said Phryne, impressed. ‘Tell me about the rest of the group.’

‘Magda and Katrina,’ said Lizbet promptly. ‘First and second violins, and they both sing. Wait till you hear them playing them wild gypsy songs. They’re Czech. Sisters. Annie, that’s the short dark one, plays the viola and percussion. Lil is trombone.

She always gets seasick first day out and says brandy’s the best treatment. I reckon she’s feeling no pain whatsoever.