Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (44 page)

Mr Burton bowed. ‘The Great Chang; he died, poor fellow, doing that bullet trick, a few years later.’

Miss Gay served what smelt like a tasty chicken soup to Mr Henry, from his own small saucepan. The other lodgers lacked the spirit even to glare at this arrant favouritism. Mr Henry had a wonderful voice: rich, deep, persuasive, a vocal instrument perfectly wielded. Bert remembered the act which he had seen—a man behaving like a chicken, a woman stretched stiff as a board between two chairs. It had been very impressive. What was the great man doing in a dump like this? Surely he could not dote upon the appalling Miss Gay?

Ruth came in to remove the soup plates, and to hand out dinner plates, which were also mismatched and chipped. Miss Gay brought in congealed gravy, fatty, depressed roast beast of some sort—Bert suspected horse—and potatoes as hard as bullets. The lodgers munched their way uncomplainingly through this detestable repast, while Mr Henry Burton dined on a pheasant in redcurrant jelly and winter broccoli.

Pudding was a floury suet thing with very little gooseberry jam. Even the old men could not eat it. Mr Burton had water biscuits and stilton cheese. Bert drank a cup of hot water in which three tea-leaves had been steeped, and went up to bed. Most of the lodgers did the same. Bert reflected, as he lay down in the creaking cot, that he had been more comfortable on the hills among the dead men and the Turkish snipers.

Phryne dismissed her taxi in Gertrude Street and emerged into the cold, wrapping her furs around her and snuggling her chin into the sumptuous collar of red fox. She was uncertain as to where she should begin in this rough place, in search of Gabrielle Hart.

She had a photograph of the girl. She looked again on the thin, unsensual, plain face, beaky nose and deep eye-sockets, a generous mouth. This young woman was not pretty, and would be consequently easy to seduce by flattery. She was sixteen.

By arrangement, Phryne met the unsettling Klara in a tea and sly-grog shop on the corner.

‘Phryne! Come and buy me some tea,’ called Klara. She was a small, thin woman dressed in a gym slip. Her hips and breasts had never developed adult curves; she looked like a pre-pubescent school girl. She was twenty-three, lesbian, and very acute.

Tea was purchased. Phryne liked Klara, but found her company worrying. No one hated the whole male sex, absolutely and without exceptions, like Klara. She was a very successful whore, and her tax returns usually came in above three thousand pounds a year.

The tea-shop was cold. Klara was wearing only her gym slip and a ratty overcoat; her skinny legs were bare and muddy. Phryne huddled into her coat.

‘Aren’t you cold, Klara? Have some of this disgusting tea.’

‘Oh, I’m cold all right, but that’s what the punters pay for, ain’t it? I’ll be warm enough when I get home. Show me the photo.’

Klara drank the luke-warm tea and considered.

‘I ain’t seen her, but that don’t mean she ain’t here. We’ll start at the end of the street and work our way down. Lucky it’s such a crook night; no one’ll be out pounding the pavements if they can avoid it. You equipped for trouble, Phryne?’

Phryne nodded. Her little gun was loaded and in her pocket.

‘All right. Come on, love. Bye, Jack!’

A figure shining with grease looked up from the chip fryer and grinned.

‘This is the first. The other two only deal in chinks. Hello, Alice. Got a friend with me tonight. Seen this girl?’

‘Hello, Klara,’ said the big woman in purple satin uneasily, shooting a sidelong glance at Phryne. ‘No, I ain’t seen her, she ain’t one of mine.’

A languid girl, wearing only a stained silk petticoat, looked in on the mistress.

‘The gent in number four is passed out,’ she said casually. ‘Better call the boys and put him out. I don’t like his breathing; he’s gone purple and is puffing like a grampus. Hello, Klara! What are you doing in this abode of vice?’

‘Hello, Sylvia. Looking for this girl.’

Sylvia pushed back a mop of bleached curly hair and considered Phryne.

‘You don’t look like one of them Soul Rescue people,’ she commented. ‘What do you want her for?’

‘I want to take her home,’ said Phryne. ‘Her father is worried about her.’

‘Jeez, I wish I had a father to worry about me.’

‘Do you know her, Syl?’

‘Is there a reward?’

‘There might be.’ Klara consulted Phryne with a look.

‘Yair. Well, she’s the new one in Chicago Pete’s. Better watch out, Klara. They ain’t nice people. Saw her this arvo. Seemed dazed. She ain’t been there long. Chicago Pete’s girls always look like that.’

‘Drugged?’

Syl shrugged admirable shoulders under the drooping silk. ‘Maybe.’

Phryne folded a five-pound note and thrust it into Sylvia’s hand. She and Klara regained the street.

‘Chicago Pete?’

‘Yair. A yank. They say he was a gangster, but they’ll say anything on this road. Come along, there’s the entrance.’

Phryne and Klara lurked, surveying the respectable dark-stone entry of a two-storey house.

‘How do we get in? And can we get her out?’

Klara grinned, showing unexpectedly white teeth between blistered lips. She felt in her shabby pocket and produced a knife.

‘Even Chicago Pete knows not to muck about with me,’ she hissed. Phryne wondered what elemental force she had let loose on Gertrude Street and decided that Gertrude Street could look after itself.

‘Which way shall we go in?’ asked Phryne.

‘Front door,’ decided Klara, and led the way up the respectable stone steps to a thick, closed door.

On this she knocked what was evidently a coded series of taps and it creaked open. A flat-faced individual was behind the door and stared unspeaking at the guttersnipe and Phryne in her furs.

‘Well?’ he asked in an American rasp.

‘You new?’ asked Klara scornfully. She came up to his second waistcoat button.

‘Yeah, I just got off the boat, why?’

‘I’m Klara, get Chicago Pete for me, willya?’

‘Now why should I do that?’

‘Because if you don’t know me, Pete does, and he’ll knock your block off if he misses me; we’re pals, Pete and me.’

The doorkeeper let them into a well-kept hall and lumbered off up the stairs.

‘Pals?’ asked Phryne, noticing that the street-side windows were barred.

‘Yair, pals. He says I remind him of his little sister. He’s as queer as a nine dollar bill, Pete is. Here he comes. Gimme that photo and let me do the talking.’

Chicago Pete was a ruin; huge, damaged. His face might originally have been comely, but it had been beaten and twisted out of true as though an angry child had wrung a wet clay head between temperamental fingers. His eyes were dark, and as flat and cold as a slate tombstone.

‘Klara! Why haven’t you been here for a week, little Miss?’ The voice was lovely, soft and rich with a Southern accent.

‘I been busy,’ said Klara. ‘I got a proposition for you, Pete, and I want to do you a favour.’

‘Come in here,’ he ushered them into a room which was frilled and shirred in pastel shades, like a Victorian boudoir. ‘I know you don’t drink, little Miss, but I have lemonade. And maybe a good Kentucky bourbon for your friend, eh?’

Phryne accepted a glass and Klara sat on the edge of a table, exhibiting her thin legs splashed with mudstains. They affected Chicago Pete strangely.

‘Why don’t you wear some of them nice clothes I bought you, Missie? You make me sad, looking so bare.’

‘Business,’ snapped Klara. ‘Listen. We want to buy one of your girls. This is my friend Phryne; she’s acting for another party, and we don’t want no trouble.’

‘Which one?’

Klara handed him the picture. Chicago Pete’s eyes narrowed.

‘Her? You can have her. The cook reckons she’s under a spell.’

‘What, that black monster in your kitchen? What would he know?’

‘You mind your tongue, Miss. The doctor, he’s a New Orleans man, a jazz-man, a voodoo priest. He knows a spell when he sees one. She ain’t worth nothing, that doll. And I paid . . .’

He stopped, calculating what the market might bear. Phryne smiled. She did not mind what she paid. Mr Hart could afford it. And she was interested in the spell.

‘Dope?’ she asked, and Chicago Pete shook his awful head.

‘No. Or if it is, it ain’t like no dope I’ve ever seen. I’ll get them to bring her down. Wait a moment.’

He stepped to the door, gave an order to the doorkeeper, and said to Phryne, ‘She ain’t been used much. And she ain’t been damaged. Much. What will you offer?’

‘How much did she cost you?’

‘Ten bills.’

‘Twelve.’

‘Twenty.’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Nineteen. Here she is. Say hello to the nice lady, doll.’

The girl was limp, her gaze vacant. She was dressed in a nightgown far too big for her and her feet were bare. She was bruised over all of her body that Phryne could see.

‘She must have had clothes,’ commented Phryne. ‘Can someone bring them? We’ll dress her again, and then I want to see your jazz-man.’

‘If you want him, he’s in the kitchen. But I don’t think . . .’ Klara pointed, and Phryne went out, past the doorkeeper, into the back of the house where she could smell cooking.

‘Shrimps and rice and peas,’ said the thin black man, pointing into a pot. ‘Very nice. What you want, Miss?’

‘I want you to take the spell off Gabrielle Hart,’ said Phryne, and repeated it in French. The old man grinned and took off his apron, then reached for a cloth bag and a handful of feathers.

‘We had
poulet Orleans
for dinner,’ he took a little dish that seemed to be full of blood. ‘You know voodoo?’

‘A little. I have been to Haiti. Can you do this?’

‘
Oueh
,’ he grunted. ‘You pay me ten silver florins and I do it. Little doll will remember.’

‘Who put on the spell? Another voodoo priest?’

The old man shook his head. ‘Ain’t none of my magic, but strong magic. Strong,’ he repeated, hefted the loaded tray, and followed Phryne into the pink-and-blue sitting-room.

The girl had been clad in her own street clothes again, and Klara had combed her tangled hair and plaited it. She looked now like the schoolgirl she had been when someone snapped his fingers and told her to follow. Her eyes were still glazed. Klara had planted herself on Chicago Pete’s knees and he hugged her very carefully, as though she might break.

‘I don’t like this,’ he said uneasily, and Klara patted his cheek.

‘It’s worth nineteen bills, Pete,’ she soothed. The priest set down the tray, and stared at the girl, then picked up her wrist and allowed it to drop.

‘Strong magic,’ he commented, setting out the blood and the feathers, and laying down a white tablecloth over the Chinese carpet. He removed his shirt and began to anoint himself with the blood, muttering under his breath. Gabrielle stared at him. Her attention had been caught, for the first time.

Around the old man’s neck swung a bright gold coin. Her eyes fixed on this as he began to dance.

Three times around the girl the old man moved; then he lit the bundle of feathers and cried out, ‘Erzulie! You captured this soul! You possessed this girl! Erzulie! You took her! I call for the third time, and you release her. You give her back to the world: Erzulie!’

Neither Chicago Pete nor Klara had moved. The smoke from the chicken feathers filled the delicate room with a farmyard reek. Phryne almost fancied that dreadful, elemental things moved and squeaked in that smoke; she shook herself and pinched the back of her hand hard.

Gabrielle Hart flinched as from a striking thunderbolt and began to wail. Klara ran to her and hugged the shocked face against her skinny bosom. The old man straightened up, shiny with sweat, and held out a bloodstained hand to Phryne.

She poured the coins from her purse, and added one extra.

‘You come on a Saturday,’ he said to Phryne as he bent to collect the instruments of his magic. ‘We got good jazz. Best in the city.’

‘For the love of Mike,’ cried Chicago Pete. ‘Get out of here! And take all that heathen stuff with you!’

The priest folded the tablecloth and went out. Klara released the girl.

‘All right, Mr er . . . here is the money, and we must be going. Can your doorman call us a taxi? Thank you so much,’ said Phryne graciously.

The doorman was dispatched for a cab. Gabrielle Hart sat in her chair and cried and cried.

‘You sure you want her?’ asked Chicago Pete, and Phryne smiled.

Klara and Phryne left the respectable-looking house and waited for the taxi on the front steps. Gabrielle had stopped crying and was now asking questions, some of which Phryne could answer.

‘What am I doing here? Who are you? Where am I?’

‘I am the Hon. Phryne Fisher, and this is Klara. You are in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, and only God knows what you are doing here. You had a brainstorm, my dear, and we are taking you home.’

‘No, no, someone else said that to me . . . someone else said that they were taking me home . . . and they didn’t . . . they
hurt
me!’

‘Oh, Lord . . . all right. Calm yourself. You shall tell the driver where to go. Oh, thank God, it’s Cec.’

Cec smiled his beautiful smile from the driving seat of the taxi.

‘I’m on me pat,’ he told Phryne. ‘Bert’s still about that . . . er . . . business with the boarding house. Poor old bloke. They said you was out on a case in Gertrude Street and I thought . . .’

‘You thought right. This young woman is Gabrielle Hart, and she will tell you the address. Take her there and deliver her into the care of her father only. If he isn’t home, wait, but I think that he will be there soon. Give him my card and tell him I shall call on him tomorrow. Hang on to this girl, Cec, don’t let her get out until you are at her house. She’s a little disordered.’

‘All right,’ agreed Cec, opening the door. ‘Come on, Miss.’

Gabrielle Hart moved to the taxi, got in, and gave Cec the direction. He looked over at Phryne.

‘What about you, Miss?’

‘We’ll get another taxi. She’s scared of us. See you later, Cec.’

‘We might as well walk down to the rank,’ suggested Klara. They had only gone about three paces before the attack came.