Murder in Montparnasse (17 page)

‘Good.’ Phryne surveyed herself in the mirror and gave her face four precise licks with a compact. ‘I’m late. Hand me the amethyst pin and the silver ring. And the amethyst fillet. Nice. What would I do without you? Are they here yet?’

The door bell sounded.

‘There they are,’ said Phryne. She dropped a scented kiss on Dot’s cheek and flew for the stairs.

Dot stood with an armload of precious fabrics pressed to her bosom and said aloud, ‘Good luck,’ as Phryne vanished. ‘Oh dear,’ Dot added. ‘Curse those Butlers! We haven’t had a comfortable moment since he decided to quit.’

She smoothed the dresses lovingly as she hung and folded. Dot, an incurably virtuous person, would have presented prosecuting counsel in a putative divorce case with an insurmountable problem. To every loaded question, she had already decided, she would reply, ‘I can’t say,’ and she would stick to it. It wasn’t a lie. And nothing could make her testify against Miss Phryne. She saw no reason why Mr Butler, with the same recourse available to him, should have developed the megrims. She thought it unmanly and unworthy of him. And he was making the whole house uncomfortable.

Phryne came down the stairs at a more decorous pace as Mr Butler was greeting Mr Lin and his bride and escorting them into the drawing room. She followed them in and took the young woman by the hand.

Her first thought was, her hand is as hard as a washerwoman’s. Her second thought was, she’s so young. And so scared. Young was to be expected. But scared, so afraid that the hard little hand was wet and shaking, was strange.

‘My name’s Phryne Fisher,’ she said gently. ‘Come and sit down, Miss . . .’

‘Li,’ supplied Lin Chung. He urged the young woman along by the elbow. ‘Sit down, Camellia, this isn’t the den of the black dragon! She won’t eat you, I promise!’

‘Often have I entered the cave of the green dragon,’ quoted Camellia, in a small voice and in very good English. Phryne relaxed a little. If her guest could speak a common language, this evening was going to be a lot easier. Camellia had the same breathy, slightly off-key accent as her soon-to-be grandmother, the effect of learning English later in life, after acquiring the multiple tones of Mandarin.

‘Delusion,’ said Phryne, who had not wasted her time in Shanghai either, despite the rival attractions of brilliantined young men and the famed dance bands of the Shanghai Hotel. ‘To enter the cave of the green dragon is to be deluded by the glittering distractions of the world. I have always found them agreeably diverting, it is true. Would you like a cocktail, Lin dear? Miss Li?’

Mr Butler bent over her with a tray. ‘Sherry or madeira,’ he intoned, like a bishop offering a particularly fruity choice in eternal bliss. Camellia had been trained in western customs. She chose the sherry of the respectable lady, not the madeira of those loose in the hilts. Phryne looked at the girl as she sipped gingerly. She would have liked madeira better, Phryne thought, sweeter and not so foreign.

Camellia Li was small and slim with long hair in a chignon in which someone had set three small enamelled birds. She wore a cocktail dress of red silk, the colour of a bride, and dark stockings and high heeled shoes which must, Phryne reflected, be giving her hell. Her face was not the perfect oval required by the poets. Instead she had rather high cheekbones and a small, decided chin. She glanced up for a moment and caught Phryne looking at her. The thin, arched eyebrows rose a little. A strong face. Phryne smiled. Camellia smiled back, tentatively.

‘I think we are going to be friends,’ said Phryne, and Camellia, after a pause, nodded. Phryne liked the pause. It meant that the girl had considered the offer and decided to accept it. Mr Butler brought Lin his favourite cocktail, an orange juice, gin and bitters concoction.

‘Are you a follower of the forbiddens?’ asked Phryne, wondering if there was any dish on the menu suitable for a strict vegetarian. Camellia shook her head.

‘No, but I like to read. My uncle thought that girls should be educated. He was a follower of the blessed Sun Yat Sen. I liked philosophy. My sister and brother also, so we had a tutor. My brother was more interested in commerce and my sister was more interested in the tutor, but I liked what he was teaching. Is Miss Fisher . . . surely Miss Fisher is not a Buddhist?’

‘No, I like reading too. I spent a couple of weeks in Shanghai and visited a lot of temples. I listened when people explained things to me and then found translations of their scriptures.’

‘It is good for a woman to have learning,’ said Camellia stoutly, as though expecting opposition. Lin Chung laughed lightly.

‘Certainly,’ he agreed. ‘You may learn as much as you wish, Camellia. I have already told you this. I am not the severe husband you might have had if you’d stayed in China. I would like you to enjoy your life here.’

‘I should not have had a husband there,’ said Camellia, softly. ‘In China there is nothing but chaos and blood. And on the sea, too. Oh . . .’ she remembered that Lin Chung knew all about the South China Sea pirates. She looked away, discomforted. Phryne said quickly, ‘That is a superb gown. Was it made in Melbourne? If so, I would like the name of your dressmaker.’

‘No, it was made in Hong Kong. I was seven months there, waiting for permission to come here. The Lin family were very kind and had my trousseau made for me,’ replied Camellia, grateful for the distraction. ‘Your own dress is very beautiful.’

‘I will introduce you to Madame Fleuri,’ said Phryne. ‘Then, when he receives her account, your husband will know the true meaning of pain.’

‘I already know what it means,’ said Lin. ‘I need no further education. Did you really read philosophy, Camellia?’

‘Indeed,’ said the young woman.

‘Your uncle was a wise man,’ said Phryne, running out of conversation and not feeling equal to philosophy before dinner. ‘What else is taught to a young woman in China since the divine Sun began teaching?’

‘Many things,’ said Camellia. ‘The usual, of course—how to supervise servants, how to keep household accounts, how to cook, embroidery and music.’

‘I did the same subjects,’ said Phryne, interested. ‘Cooking, French, household management, fine needlework, and the piano.’

‘And you excelled,’ said Lin Chung, teasingly.

‘I was good at accounts and household management, though you would never know it now,’ said Phryne. ‘I did nothing in needlework but stick needles into my fingers and bleed all over my poor sampler. And on the piano I was so abysmal that even the music master had to take it off the bill. He said it was “pure cruelty to the divine Muse” to make me continue.’

Camellia, whose eyes had widened at this confession of domestic incompetence, giggled. ‘I was supposed to play the moon guitar,’ she confessed, ‘but I broke so many strings and made such noises—Uncle once sent to find out what was making the house-dogs bark so much!—that they let me stop “tormenting an ancient and delicate instrument in which were all the arts of love”.’

‘Sounds like the same music master,’ said Phryne. ‘But I liked cooking. My mother was always too tired to cook and, later, too indolent.’

‘I, too, liked cooking,’ said Camellia. ‘It seemed magical that so many things which in their natural state are not at all nice—water chestnuts, for instance—become delicious when properly cooked.’

‘I hope my menu is to your taste,’ said Phryne. ‘I was going to ask Lin to lend me one of his cooks, but I forgot.’

‘Oh, I like western food,’ said the girl. ‘Except for some of the stranger things. In Hong Kong there are English restaurants. They make a strange food where mixed meats are forced into a skin made of—no, it is really too horrible.’ The small reddened hands gestured helplessly.

‘Sausages,’ diagnosed Phryne. ‘Each to his own. There’s the gong,’ she added. ‘Come along and we’ll see if any of this food is to your taste.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it will be,’ protested Camellia.

Dinner consisted of a clear soup, a sole bonne femme, a ragout of veal and a series of fruit sorbets. Mrs Butler had initially objected to sorbets as foreign but one mouthful of a well-made grapefruit sorbet had sent her experimenting with water ices. She had perfected her art. Lin took over the conversation as Camellia struggled bravely with the difficulties of using alien cutlery to eat alien food and a dinner which was the wrong way round, starting with soup (which everyone knows is the proper end to a meal) and ending with sweets, which start it.

Phryne saw that her guest would manage better if not observed, and dropped into a discussion about the missing girl, Elizabeth, daughter of well-known racing identity and grump, Hector Chambers.

‘The car, I feel, is important,’ said Lin Chung. ‘Your Inspector Robinson will find it. He has eyes all over the city and hundreds of men at his command. Then we shall see what we shall see.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. I’m worried about the girl. There’s no clue apart from that ransom note and the rather confused and useless account of her blonde best friend. I took her to tea at the Windsor and stuffed her full of cakes but she kept wittering off into gossip and irrelevancies.’

‘As good a way of escaping as any,’ commented Camellia, so quietly that Phryne almost didn’t hear her.

‘Yes, I thought of that,’ she responded. ‘She might have been trying to lead me into the cave of the green dragon. But apart from a desire for pretty clothes and a settled future, I really didn’t detect a lot of brain and absolutely no ambition. She is willing to marry this old curmudgeon just for his money . . .’ Phryne wondered if this was a good time to stop talking and decided it wasn’t. ‘Even though she could earn a living beading dresses.’

‘It must seem to you,’ said Camellia, putting down her knife and fork, ‘that I have made a similar bargain. My family was very poor. Now they are allied with the Lin family and are much more comfortable and secure.’

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘You’re from a culture where this is normal. Here, it isn’t normal. Here, we choose our own mates, all by ourselves.’

‘Then how do you know who to marry?’ asked Camellia. ‘I am far too young to decide such an important matter on my own.’

‘Good question,’ said Phryne, taken aback. ‘Perhaps I should just say that every culture agrees that it is the best in the world, and leave it at that?’

‘As you say.’ Camellia’s head bowed in assent, but Phryne sensed that she was both curious and disappointed.

‘Perhaps I can elaborate,’ she said. ‘Here, women go out alone, we work alone, we travel alone, unescorted, we mix with boys from early childhood and we are more used to . . . well, to men. When we find the one we want to marry, we take the advice of our elders and betters, but if the feeling is strong, we ignore them.’

‘And these marriages, do they fail?’

‘Some do,’ said Phryne. ‘Some don’t.’

‘In China, if the man is unhappy, he acquires another wife.’

‘Yes, but if the woman is unhappy, she can’t acquire another husband,’ said Phryne.

‘Oh!’ Camellia was so surprised that she dropped her fork. Mr Butler materialised at her side with another one.

‘Phryne, your ideas are too foreign for a well-brought-up young woman recently arrived in this den of vice,’ protested Lin Chung.

‘I am sorry,’ murmured Camellia. ‘But I never thought of such a thing.’

‘And you need not,’ said Phryne. ‘Have some orange sorbet, it’s really very good.’

The rest of the dinner was beguiled in general gossip and recipe swapping. Camellia, as her name suggested, was very interested in flowers and promised Phryne a root of a rare orchid which she had brought with her from China, when it was fully recovered from its journey.

Phryne swept Camellia away for a cup of coffee and a visit to the facilities. The young woman continued discussing rare orchids until Lin Chung was quite out of earshot. Then she caught Phryne’s sleeve.

‘May I come back and see you, by yourself, Miss Fisher?’

‘Of course,’ said Phryne, clasping a cold hand. ‘Whenever you like. Is there something wrong?’

‘Yes,’ said Camellia, shaking her head so that the enamelled ornaments tinkled. ‘Oh yes, there is. But I can’t tell you now. I will be allowed to visit you. That is something which Grandmother will allow. She approves of you.’

‘And I of her, if one can use the word “approve” for such an alarming old lady,’ said Phryne. The clasp on her hand loosened.

‘Yes, she is alarming, isn’t she?’ replied Camellia. ‘I will try to send you a message before I come. Now, we had better go back.’

Phryne saw them out before eleven, mystified, and put herself to bed with a tot of brandy and a feeling that the world was reeling out of control.

It was rather exciting.

Detective Inspector Robinson was woken from a sound sleep at his desk—it had been an action packed couple of days—by an overexcited Cadet Quinn.

‘Sir, sir,’ he yelled.

‘What?’ Robinson had long mastered the art of coming instantly awake, a skill which had proved invaluable when his children were young. He could be out of bed, supplying nutriment, water or a story, before his wife turned over in her sleep. He attributed his long and happy marriage to the fact that, unlike most mothers, his wife got to sleep through the night when he was at home.

‘We’ve found that car!’ roared the cadet.

‘Good,’ said Robinson. ‘Turn your voice down from a bellow to a gentle murmur or . . .’

Quinn didn’t wait to find out what the ‘or . . .’ was. He immediately moderated his voice to that of a cushat dove calling to another cushat dove across a gentle pasture in spring. Quinn was very young, but an upbringing with three older sisters had honed both his survival skills and his sensitivity to raised voices.

‘We’ve found that missing Bentley, sir,’ he said mellifluously.

‘Have you indeed?’ asked Robinson. He rubbed both hot hands over his hot face. ‘Slip down and get me a cuppa, will you, son? And some kind of food. What time is it?’

‘Gone nine, sir,’ said the cadet, halfway out the door. ‘Two sugars, was it, sir? And you prefer ham to cheese sandwiches?’

‘You’re going to go far in the Force, boy,’ said Robinson evenly.

Cadet Quinn reappeared with a cup of hot, strong tea, a plate of really fairly fresh ham sandwiches—the bread had barely begun to curl—and a constable with a notebook. Constable Burnett was a large, stolid, unimaginative looking constable. Traffic required a lack of imagination and the ability to stand in serious danger of being run down all day without shrieking. It attracted a particular type of person. This constable was typical.