Flying Too High (18 page)

‘Dinner, my dears,’ called Mrs Ellis. The cats rose, stretched, and approached their food with royal leisure. Cec set the black cat down by his plate and he began to eat hungrily. Mrs Ellis stroked it with her gnarled hands, and Cec found himself close to tears. He swallowed.

‘Well, Mrs Ellis, I must go. Hope that the little fellow recovers well. I’m sure he’ll be bonzer in a couple of days. Your cats are beauties,’ commented Cec. Mrs Ellis accompanied him to the door and thrust a penny in his hand.

‘Tell them kids not to make so much noise outside my house,’ she snapped, and slammed the door with less than her usual force.

Cec was met at the gate by Jim.

‘She gave me a penny for you.’ He handed it over. ‘She’s not such a bad old chook if you leave her cats alone.’

Jim stood open-mouthed. A man invited into old Mother Ellis’ house who emerges not only with his life but with a reward!

‘All right,’ said Jim, gathering his clan around the cabbies. ‘What do you want to know?’

Bert told them the story of poor Bill McNaughton, unjustly accused of killing his father. He reminded them that on that very Friday they were going to a party with Miss McNaughton, where they would be entertained and fed. Could they take the lady’s jelly and buns and ginger-beer and refuse to help her brother? Jim thought about it, and they drew off to confer. Elsie uncorked her mouth and said her first words. ‘Tell them, Jim. I trust them.’

This seemed to be some sort of talisman. Bert had the whole story in ten minutes. He marvelled at the perspicacity of Miss Fisher once again, and handed over the shilling. He had just got some new change from the bank, so it was a bright and shiny shilling. The children gazed at it as it lay in Jim’s hand. Unnoticed, little Mickey edged close to him and made a sudden grab.

‘Quick, he’ll swallow it!’ screamed Lucy. Bert, the eldest of six children, acted with dispatch. He seized Mickey and turned him upside down like a chicken to be slaughtered, then gave him a hard thump in the middle of the back. Out shot the shilling. Elsie dived on it and tied it into her handkerchief. She stowed the hankie in the leg of her bloomers. Bert put Mickey down on his feet. He howled. It seemed to be his forte.

‘Lost my rainbow ball!’ he screamed. Lucy found it on the pavement and stuffed it back into the gaping mouth. Bert shuddered, but then reflected that children, like ostriches, seemed to be able to digest anything.

‘All right, kids, we’ll see you at Miss McNaughton’s party on Friday. Not a word until then, eh?’

The heads nodded in a row. Bert and Cec went to reclaim their cab. A sudden thought struck Bert. He came back.

‘What did you want to do to that cat?’ he asked. Jim looked up from the old envelope on which he was taking orders for lollies.

He told Bert what they wanted with the cat. Bert roared with laughter.

‘You’re supposed to wait until they’re dead!’ The children blushed.

***

Seconds before the last of Phryne’s sinews gave out, the car arrived at its destination. It stopped in a dark spot under the gumtrees. Phryne untied herself and fell backwards onto the road, before the roar of the engine died. Ann and Sidney got out of the car without noticing her, and walked into the house.

Phryne was bruised all over and her hands and feet were cramped and pinched. For a minute she lay still, unable to move, then gently she flexed and stretched until she was able to get to her feet.

There was still plenty of paint in the bladder. Lavishly, she traced a big cross on the road. A plane flew over and dipped both wings in salute.

Success. Phryne shook her shoulders and the folds of her jacket fell into place, loaded with equipment. She drew a line to the front gate of the house, and crept around it like a Red Indian tracking a particular scalp. The only light she could see came from the back of the house. She guessed it was the kitchen.

Sidney opened the front door with his key and took the gun out of his pocket. Ann was behind him, soft-footed. The house was silent. Just three shots, thought Sidney, and I’m home and dried.

The kitchen door creaked and woke Mike. It also woke Candida, who was lying curled up against his back, her thumb in her mouth and the singlet doll clutched to her chest.

As Sid crept in, Mike said contemptuously, ‘I thought you’d try that. Put it down, you murdering swine.’

‘You were right,’ agreed Sidney. ‘In a few moments the whole five thou will be mine.’

‘You double-crossing bastard,’ spat Ann, standing in the doorway. ‘You promised you’d take me, too.’

Mike shifted his concentration from Sidney, to his wife, then lunged at her. But he was too late. Sidney had turned as she spoke and fired at point-blank range into her heart. She fell, and instead of strangling his wife Mike was now cradling her lifeless body in his arms. Sid swung round to take wavering aim at Candida. She shrieked, and Mike dropped his wife and dived across the kitchen, shattering the back door with his shoulder. He pushed Candida out into the night. ‘Run!’ he yelled. ‘I’ll deal with this bastard.’

Sid fired. The bullet scraped along Mike’s arm and buried itself into the mistreated door. Then Mike had hold of the gun hand. Sidney was the smaller and weaker, but he was a tough street fighter. Mike could not get him down.

‘Excuse me,’ came a clipped voice from the back doorstep. ‘Could you possibly hold up the gun hand?’

It was an indescribably dirty young woman. Her face was streaked with blood and mud and her features could not be told, but she had a steady hand and held a pearl-handled revolver with it. Mike gaped briefly, then hauled the gun wrist up until Sid was nearly clear of the ground.

‘Thanks,’ said Phryne coolly, and placed a neat hole in Sid’s wrist. He dropped the gun. Mike knelt on him and tied him up with the length of rope that the surprising young woman produced.

‘I really should tie you up, too,’ she commented. ‘Except that I saw you rescue Candida. We’d better go and find her.’

‘I told her to run,’ frowned Mike, kicking Sidney in the ribs as an aid to meditation. ‘She might not have stopped yet.’

‘I’ve got a lure that will bring her back,’ smiled Phryne, and produced the teddybear from the sling.

‘Is that Bear?’ asked Mike. ‘That’s good.’ He was contemplating his wife’s body.

‘I gather she gave you a hard time,’ said Phryne.

‘It was my own fault,’ said Mike ruefully. ‘Candida!’ he called. ‘The lady has brought Bear.’

A small voice spoke from somewhere close. ‘I don’t believe you. Put him on the step.’

Phryne placed Bear reverently on the step and a rustling was heard in the bushes. A small dirty hand shot out, seized Bear by the leg and dragged him off the step. There was silence. Phryne began to be rather worried.

‘Candida? Daddy and Mummy are on their way. They will be here soon. Come inside and er, no, don’t come inside. Go out to the car and I’ll meet you there.’ Phryne heard a faint, relieved sobbing, muffled in teddybear fur.

‘Oh, Bear, I knew you’d come. And now Daddy is coming and Mummy is coming and my lollies are coming and the nasty man is caught and the nasty lady is dead.’

Phryne went back into the kitchen. Candida was fine where she was.

‘Who are you?’ she asked the big man.

‘Mike. Mike Herbert. I didn’t want to be in this, but I had to support my wife.’

‘Did you? Why?’

‘She liked pretty things and I couldn’t afford to buy them—I lost my job, the factory closed down. I’m a carpenter. She borrowed some money off…a certain person…and then she couldn’t pay it back, and I couldn’t either, so…the certain person was going to send the boys around, and…’

‘Break both her legs, eh? Let’s have a look at her. Where did she fall?’

‘In the bathroom. I think that she’s dead. Poor Ann. She should have been born rich.’

Phryne bent over the body, supine on the oilcloth. She felt for a heartbeat in the cooling breast, and found none. The flesh was clammy and limp against her palm. She stood up and wiped her hands on her trousers.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Mike. ‘She can’t have felt anything, you know, the bullet drilled her heart.’

Mike knelt, drew his wife’s skirt down until it covered her knees, and kissed her gently on the cheek.

‘Goodbye, Annie,’ Phryne heard him say as she tactfully withdrew. ‘I would have done anything to make you happy, but it never worked. You shouldn’t have got involved with me. I can’t even bury you properly.’

After about ten minutes, Mike came back to the kitchen, where Phryne was bandaging Sid’s wrist lest he bleed to an untimely death. He whimpered as she handled him and she observed with pleasure that her aim had been perfect. The hole was in the exact middle of the wrist and had not even chipped a bone. The tendons were, as she had purposed, cut neatly though. He would not use that hand to molest any more children.

Mike came into the kitchen and took Phryne by the shoulder, turning her carefully toward him.

‘I never meant to hurt the little girl,’ he pleaded.

‘Well, she doesn’t need you any longer,’ commented Phryne. ‘So now we must decide what to do. I think that I shall cast you as heroic rescuer. I think I’d better bind up your arm and give you some money. Then you can have a wash and a shave, go home to your dear landlady, Mrs O’Brien, and report your car stolen. You thought your wife had it, but she’s not come back, and you’re afraid that something has happened to her. Did you write the note?’

‘No,’ said Mike through lips numb with astonishment.

‘Good. Now let’s wash this wound. It’s little more than a scratch, just keep it dry. I’ll take off this disgusting hat and find my face.’

Phryne put her head under the cold-water tap and scrubbed vigorously. She emerged as a young woman of some distinction with a bleeding cut over one eye. Phryne dabbed at it with her handkerchief.

‘You need a bit of sticky plaster,’ offered Mike. He found some in the cupboard and applied it neatly. Phryne washed her face again. She was aching all over.

***

‘Henry, I’ll try to give you as much altitude as I can, but I think this is a silly idea,’ yelled Bunji as she hauled the plane into another turn. ‘You can’t even see the ground. The moon’s down.’

‘I can see that dirty great cross that Phryne’s drawn on that road and I’m going to come down right in the middle of it,’ said Henry confidently. ‘There’s no wind. If I haul in the slacks I should drop right on their heads.’

‘Oh, all right, old chum, far be it from me to stop a friend anxious to break his neck. Careful as you go over, don’t catch anything on the wing.
Merde
!’ yelled Bunji. ‘Now!’

She had judged it nicely. The man’s body fell out of vision. A pale flower blossomed, cutting off her sight of the luminous cross. Right on target. Bunji drank another mouthful of the luke-warm coffee and looked for a place to set down.

Candida, who occasionally did as she was told, had taken Bear out to the road and was sitting quietly on the running board of the Bentley. She looked at the road. It was glowing.

‘They must have awful big snails here, Bear, to leave a trail like that. Big enough to ride on. Perhaps we can catch one and ride home.’ She yawned. It had been an exciting evening.

Dropping out of the sky into the centre of the snail tracks came a man clad all in leather. Candida froze. He cursed a bit as he loosened the parachute cords and Candida and Bear edged closer. The voice was familiar. Then the man tore off his flying helmet and she saw his face in the lights that were now streaming from the house.

‘Daddy!’ shrieked Candida, and flew to him, scaling his body and settling back into his embrace. She held him as tight as a limpet for five minutes as he stroked her hair, then she looked up.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked severely. ‘Why did you let those people steal me?’

Chapter Twelve

I met murder on the way

The Mask of Anarchy,
P.B. Shelley

Phryne found a bottle of rum and two glasses, and lit her first gasper in hours. She leaned back on the draining board and smoked luxuriously.

‘You’d better hit the road, Mike. Don’t forget to report the car stolen.’

Mike, dressed in a clean shirt and combed and shaved, looked like a respectable working man. Phryne peeled off a hundred pounds from her wad of notes.

‘This should take care of you for a while. I’ll look after Candida. Her family will be arriving soon.’

Mike knocked back the rum and pointed at the bundle, which was Sid, on the floor.

‘What about him? He’ll sing like a canary.’

‘I’ll take care of him,’ said Phryne quietly. Sidney, hearing her, winced.

‘Don’t look back,’ she advised Mike. ‘Keep going. There’s the right woman, and children, waiting for you yet. If you need any help with a job, come to me.’ She tucked her card into his pocket with the money, and let him out the front door.

They were both arrested by the sight of what appeared to be an angel, fallen from the sky. He stood tall and shapely, draped in his billowing wings. Candida and Bear were in his arms.