Flying Too High (8 page)

‘Of course, I shall be delighted to instruct you, Miss Fisher,’ he purred. ‘But I came to tell Miss Amelia that she should get a lawyer for her brother. He’s coming up before the Magistrates tomorrow morning, and he should be represented.’

‘Thank you, I shall do that,’ said Amelia. ‘Are you certain that my brother killed my father, Detective-inspector?’

‘Well, Miss, he hasn’t admitted it. He says that he came home last night and intended to have a discussion with Mr McNaughton. He admits that he had continual arguments with his father, and that they became violent at times.’

‘Yes, that is true,’ sighed Amelia.

‘He wanted to drive his father to a meeting at the aerodrome so that the mother would not be upset by their argument,’ said the detective-inspector. ‘He says you suggested it, Miss Fisher. He waited for his father until four o’clock then gave up on him and went for a walk in the park. He says he met no one except an old man with a sack over his shoulder and a young woman, who ran past in a bathing suit.’

‘So have you found the girl or the old man?’ asked Phryne respectfully. ‘I’m sure that you are looking for them.’

‘Well, yes.’ The policeman paused. ‘Yes, so to speak, but we haven’t found them. And we won’t. I don’t for a moment believe that there was a man or a girl, or that he went for a walk in the valley. I am sure that he killed your father, Miss McNaughton.’

‘Why?’ asked Phryne artlessly.

‘Why? Well, such things are not nice for a young woman, Miss Fisher.’

‘Ah. Suppose you take me out to look at where it happened. I have always wanted to see the scene of the crime.’ Phryne wondered if she was laying it on too thick but it seemed that for this obtuse man no flattery could be too gross.

‘Very well, Miss,’ agreed the detective-inspector. ‘Come along with me.’

‘You stay here, Amelia,’ instructed Phryne. ‘Have some more tea. I shall be quite safe with Detective-inspector Benton.’

Amelia, open mouthed, smothered a giggle in her tea-cup.

Benton led Phryne out of the house and along a fine mossy path to the tennis-court. It was beautifully kept, with a grass surface as smooth as a bowling green. The lines were freshly painted and the net was not in evidence.

‘This grass will not hold footprints,’ commented Benton. ‘But here are the holes caused by Mrs McNaughton’s high-heels. She ran off the path here, you see, stood for a moment where the heels have sunk in deep, then ran back to the house. The dog’s footprints aren’t heavy enough to make a mark except on the flowerbeds. The body lay here.’

Phryne could see that it had. There was a sanded puddle of blood and grey matter, indicating that a very heavy blow had killed Mr McNaughton.

Benton hovered at Phryne’s elbow, ready to catch her if she should faint. She did not, however, even pale.

‘A head wound,’ she said. ‘How bad? How heavy a blow?’

‘A very heavy blow, Miss. He was hit with a stone, a big rock.’

‘Were there any fingerprints on the rock?’

‘No, Miss, the surface was too rough to take prints.’

‘How do you know it was the murder weapon?’

‘Blood and brains all over it,’ said the policeman, aiming to shock this young woman out of her unnatural composure.

‘And why should Bill McNaughton have delivered it?’

‘It was a good, solid skull-cracking blow, Miss. Split the head almost in two. No woman could have delivered it.’

‘I see.’ Phryne scanned the garden. There was not a gap in the flowerbeds, which were in any case edged with wood.

‘Where did the rock come from?’ she asked. Benton spluttered.

‘Where did the…’

‘Yes, where did it come from? Look around. There’s not a stone in sight. In the opportunistic crime which you describe, the murderer would have snatched up anything to hit his father with and left him lying. You are assuming that Mr McNaughton followed his father out here to continue the argument and it developed into a fight? And that under the influence of fury, Bill McNaughton went beserk and just donged his father with whatever was to hand? Is that not the idea?’

‘Yes. I take your point, Miss. This must have been premeditated. He must have had the rock all ready, then lured his father out here and killed him.’

Phryne briefly wondered how anyone could cling to a theory with this intransigence, in the face of all the evidence.

Phryne had moved away to lean against the old oak which had one branch overhanging the lawn. She patted it idly—she loved trees—and looked up into the branches.

‘There’s a scar on that branch,’ she observed. ‘Something hung here.’

‘Quite the little detective, aren’t you, Miss? That was a swing—a tyre. Miss McNaughton put it there for the neighbouring children. Very fond of children, Miss McNaughton,’ said the detective-inspector, evidently approving of this womanly passion. ‘The cook tells me she was always inviting them in for tea on Sundays, and playing games with them. We took the tyre away to be tested but there are no bloodstains on it. Miss McNaughton will be able to put the swing back, if she wants to. After the place has been cleaned up, of course. Nice young woman, pity she is so plain. Should have children of her own.’

Phryne agreed. Miss McNaughton would enjoy having children of her own. She withdrew her gaze from the tree.

‘So Mrs McNaughton came out here—why was Mr McNaughton here?’

‘He must have come out here to continue his argument with his son, of course. Then it developed into a fight, no, hang on, there’s the point about the stone. Bill McNaughton brought his father out here, and had the rock ready, and asked his father to look at something, perhaps, and then…bang, then he panics, leaves the stone, and runs off down the valley to recover himself.’

‘Would he have had blood on him?’

‘I asked the police surgeon that, Miss. He says that if he hit him from behind, which is what he thinks happened, then he wouldn’t have to have any blood on him. I thought like you, Miss,’ continued Benton, honouring Phryne by implying that they shared the same reasoning, ‘I thought that he was going down to the river to wash. But he still had the same clothes on when we apprehended him last night, and there ain’t no mark on them.’

‘I see. Well, watching your methods has been most illuminating, Detective-inspector. Thank you so much.’ Phryne took her leave and went back to the house. Danny the dog cried after her from where he was tied in the kitchen garden.

‘Amelia, I have to go and find a lawyer for Bill,’ she called into the Chinese room. ‘Give me my paintings and see what you can do about getting me a taxi.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ offered Amelia. Phryne shook her head.

‘I need you here, and so does your mother.’

The maid went off to telephone for a cab, and Amelia seized Phryne by the sleeve.

‘Do you think Bill did it?’ she breathed.

‘I don’t know. Tell me, the children who play in the garden, did your father know about them?’

‘Not until recently—he was always out during Sunday. He came home early last week and caught me with them, and threw them out, the brute. The poor little things haven’t anywhere else to play, and their mothers know that they are safe with me. I used to give them tea. And cakes. Bill likes children, too. He rigged up that swing with the tyre for them.’ Amelia shuddered suddenly, and all the colour drained out of her face.

‘The police took the tyre away, but they said I can have it back. I’ll have to find somewhere else to put it.’

‘Have you seen the children since your father died?’

‘No, they have stayed away, poor things, I suppose that they are frightened.’

‘Why don’t you invite them again?’ suggested Phryne. ‘They will make you feel better, and you can have them in the house, now.’

‘What a good idea. I can have a party! Oh, but not with Bill—’

‘Nonsense. Have your party. Let me know when it is. I like children, too,’ lied Phryne. ‘Your brother will come up at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court tomorrow at ten. Perhaps you should be there, and bring some money.’

‘Where shall I get money?’

‘Oh, dear, have you not got your father’s bankbooks? Did he have a safe in the house?’

‘Of course. The detective-inspector brought the keys back. The police have already searched it. Come on, let’s have a look.’

She led the way upstairs to a huge bedroom, decorated in the extreme of modernity. The walls were jazz-coloured and the stark gigantic bed looked like it was made of industrial piping.

‘Did your father really like all this stuff?’ asked Phryne, as Amelia swung a picture aside and unlocked the safe.

‘Father? I don’t know,’ admitted Amelia, her brow furrowing as she spun the combination wheel. ‘He had the house built in the most modern style and then said that the inside had to match the outside. The designer did all the rest. It was very expensive. Ah. There’s the click. I remembered the combination correctly after all.’ The safe door swung open and Phryne received an armload of paper, jewel cases and a document case.

‘There are mother’s sapphires—he told her he had sold them,’ observed Amelia, opening the blue-velvet boxes. ‘And Granny’s pearls, and Great-Granny’s emerald set. Oh, and here is the enamel from that German exhibition.’

Amelia put into Phryne’s hand one of the most beautiful pieces of jewellery she had ever seen. It was a mermaid in enamel, seated on a baroque pearl. Her delicately modelled body was of ivory; her hair was malachite, and tiny emeralds sparkled as her eyes. Bronze threads shone in her seaweed-green hair.

‘Isn’t she pretty? Even Father appreciated her. Is there any money?’

‘Yes, here’s two thou in notes, that should be enough to spring Bill and pay the wages until the estate is settled. Hang on while I just have a bit of a look through these papers.’

The document case contained several reports from the ‘Discretion Private Investigations Agency’ which listed Mrs McNaughton’s movements through a whole week. They concluded that there was nothing suspicious in her actions. Did Mr McNaughton know about Gerald? Phryne wondered. Amelia pinned the mermaid brooch to the bosom of her drab dress and contemplated herself artlessly in the mirror which covered one whole wall of the room. It was all lights and surfaces and Phryne felt it to be intensely uncomfortable. The agency reported that Paolo Raguzzi was known to be sleeping with two of his models, and included names and dates. As a strategy designed to detach Amelia, it had not been any more successful than it deserved. Phryne leafed through several bank statements and cheque books and a pile of share certificates. The deeds to the house were there, as was the will.

She glanced through it. The bulk of the estate went to the wife, as long as she should not remarry. Ten thousand pounds was left to ‘my daughter, Amelia, as long as she shall not marry’. The old bastard, thought Phryne, trying to hang on to his control of his family even after he was dead.

A firm of solicitors were the executors. The estate seemed to be worth about fifty thousand. This did not include the house which was freehold. Phryne reflected that Mrs McNaughton could live very comfortably on the interest.

‘Here’s the will, do you know what’s in it?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s left me some money provided I don’t marry. But he can’t stop me from having Granny’s money. It was left to me but he took it and invested it and wouldn’t give me an allowance. The papers should be there…yes.’ She plucked an old parchment and probate out of the pile. “To my grand-daughter Amelia the sum of five thousand pounds”. That will keep me for life. I don’t want any of my father’s money.’

Fine words, thought Phryne. I wonder if Paolo thinks the same.

‘Did you tell Paolo about the will?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Amelia indifferently. ‘He just said that he would expect such a thing from Father. Well, if that is all, Phryne, your taxi should be waiting, and I’ll put all this stuff back in the safe. I will see you tomorrow?’

‘Yes, I shall be there. Take heart, my dear. I shall get your brother out of prison.’

‘Thanks,’ murmured Amelia. Phryne took her leave and ordered the taxi to take her to Carlton.

At the door of a rather dingy office building she asked her cab to wait and leapt up the stairs, taking the route indicated by the brass plate ‘Henderson, Jones, and Mayhew’. Luckily, the light was still on, although the secretary had gone home.

‘Hello, Jilly, old bean, are you home?’

‘Certainly, come through, Phryne. What brings you to this haunt of probate and miscellaneous offences?’

Jillian Henderson was a short, stout woman of about forty, who had taken her father’s place in his firm. She was still a junior partner and prone to collect more than her share of divorces and family problems. None the less she had built up a flourishing little practice in crime and was always on the lookout for a murder, where she thought she would make her reputation.

‘Got a murder for you, Jilly, and you’ll have to apply for bail for him tomorrow morning, can you manage?’

‘Oh, Phryne, how super! A murder of my very own. What’s his name?’

‘Bill McNaughton. You might have read about it in the newspaper. Have you no fire in these rooms? I’m perishing.’

Phryne went into Jillian’s office, and ensconced herself in front of a meagre kerosene heater.