Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (20 page)

‘Jobs for All,’ said the Shakespearean actor.

‘I see.’

‘I talked the silly mare who told me about it out of going,’ said the Shakespearean actor. ‘But there will have been others.’

‘Without the benefit of good advice,’ said the other actor.

Silence fell. Phryne was thinking, and did not speak. Neither did the company. They looked at each other and drank their coffee.

‘There has been a loan application,’ said the banker. ‘For the purchase or lease of a passenger ship. Not a big one and not a lot of money. But from a Catholic charity called Gratitude. I thought it odd. I’ve held it up in paperwork. But it seems to be guaranteed by the Church. I haven’t a reason for refusing it.’

‘Why should the Catholic Church need to borrow?’ asked the businessman. ‘They’ve got pots of money. Something iffy about it, my dear.’

‘I thought so. I’ve put an investigator on to them. Not one penny of my money do they get for white slaving. Think of the bank’s reputation!’

‘And the poor girls,’ reminded the footballer.

‘Yes, them too.’

Silence fell again. That appeared to be all that anyone had to say to Miss Fisher. And Dr. MacMillan hadn’t said a word. Interesting.

‘I’ve seen you with that beautiful piece Lin Chung,’ said the fancy-goods importer, desperate to break the quiet. ‘I don’t suppose he plays for both sides?’

‘Sorry,’ said Phryne. ‘Do you deal with the Lin family?’

‘For porcelain and jade,’ said the importer. ‘Now the Chinese would never engage in white slavery. They think white girls are ugly.’

‘They do,’ said Phryne. ‘Round-eyes, they call us.’

‘But the Middle East really like them pale. If you could find how they are getting them out…You’ve friends on the waterfront, I believe.’

‘I have,’ said Phryne. ‘Well, gentlemen, thank you for a very pleasant luncheon. Unless there is something else? If there is, I am leaving my cards.’ She did so. ‘Please telephone me if there is something I should know. And I still do not know your names.’ She smiled, bowed, collected Dr. MacMillan and was escorted out.

‘Blimey,’ said the footballer.

The others agreed.

Chapter Nine

Prospero: The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance…

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Jack Robinson was having an annoying day, which was not unusual. He was hungry, thirsty, hot and cross.

He assuaged his hunger by sending his constable for hot pies from the pie cart, and tea from the office urn, which had been cleaned only last April. The tea, however masked by sugar and almost-off milk, tasted of tin. He attempted to cool himself by opening the window on hot, cross, dusty, noisy Russell Street. He shut it again. Bugger, he thought.

‘Girls,’ he said to his detective constable, Hugh Collins, ‘are a mistake.’

‘Sir?’

‘Always trouble,’ growled Robinson. ‘Getting lost. Getting stolen. The commissioner’s real ratty about these missing girls. And can we find them? Not a trace of the silly tarts. Nothing from the houses?’ he asked, without much hope.

‘No, sir,’ said Collins, who was also feeling the heat. ‘They seem worried, too. Let us in without a warrant, even Corsican Joe’s. Even the Railway Inn.’

‘Bugger,’ repeated Robinson. ‘Girls. I always said they were a mistake. We should have set our face against them from the outset.’

This was too much for Detective Constable Collins.

‘But, sir, without girls the human race would not survive.’

‘And what’s good about the human race?’ demanded his superior.

Collins could think of a few things, like beer and fishing and his fiancée, Dot, but wisely held his tongue. The day could only get hotter. Like Robinson’s temper.

‘Things getting bad on the waterfront,’ he said, hoping to distract the detective inspector.

‘Something’s going to crack soon,’ agreed Robinson. ‘Luckily that’s not our problem. Open that window, will you. Perhaps there’s a breath of air out there.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Collins. But he opened the window anyway. Order are orders. The clang of passing trams, the horns of overwrought drivers, and the ceaseless tramp of feet, plus a lot of ozone-laden dust, came in and he shut it again.

‘Parents haven’t heard anything?’

‘No, sir. I spoke to those missing Reillys. They’d gone to her sister’s in Shep. Skipped out ahead of the landlord. They haven’t heard from their daughter Julie. Seemed a bit cut up about her, too. And they needed her salary—the old man’s out of work. Said that if we find her she can come home provided she puts the baby out for adoption and promises to marry the bloke they chose for her.’

‘Do they know who the father is?’ growled Robinson.

‘They got their suspicions,’ said Collins, trying to loosen his tight collar. That had been an embarassing interview. ‘They think it was the union bloke at her work. He was asking after her. They didn’t tell him they sent her to the convent. And there’s been another of those odd assaults, sir.’

‘The day just keeps improving,’ groaned Robinson. ‘Who is it this time?’

‘That gentleman who’s paying the O’Haras’ rent,’ said Collins delicately. ‘Just like old man O’Hara. Someone came to the door, he answered, everything went black, and he woke up feeling like he’d been punched in the balls. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke,’ added Collins.

Robinson considered the assaults, rubbing a hand over his sweaty, unremarkable face. ‘Ask around about about them,’ he said to Collins. ‘There might be more. But we still haven’t found that pest of a reporter and we haven’t got any more clues. I suppose no one’s found the Ryans?’

‘Not so far, sir,’ said Collins carefully.

His superior stared bleakly into his tea. It stared back. It was not informative tea.

‘We’ve got to find another avenue of enquiry.’

‘You might tell Miss Fisher, sir, about those assaults,’ suggested Collins. ‘They might be relevant to her enquiries.’

‘Yair, s’pose. Tell you what, you do some phoning and write me a report. Then you cut off to Miss Fisher’s and have a cuppa with your beloved. Let Miss Fisher know about it. All this family stuff! It’s enough to make a man swear celibacy, struth it is. Get out of here,’ he advised his junior, and Hugh Collins got.

***

An hour on the phone garnered him some very coarse jokes and the information that four other men had been similarly assaulted. That made six. He wrote his report in longhand, with two carbons, and then departed with relief into the city street, which was marginally cooler and in slightly better temper. The odd thing about the case he kept for the moment when he and his cuppa and a long drink of iced lemonade sat down with Dot in Phryne Fisher’s bijou garden.

It was very pleasant there. The bamboo fences kept off the worst of the salt wind. The jasmine was in flower. What air arrived was scented and almost cool. Hugh loosened his collar and wiped his face with his handkerchief. Then he took a long gulp of his lemonade. He was suddenly a very happy man.

‘How are you, Dot? You look bonzer,’ he said.

Dot blushed. Hugh took her hand. She was so lovely, his Dottie. Not like Miss Fisher, dangerous and beautiful, like a painting. But normal and human and a little rumpled. Her mousy hair was sweat-dampened on her forehead and curling a little. Her hand in his was hard with work. She belongs to my world, Hugh thought.

‘I’m well,’ said Dot. ‘You look good, too.’

There the conversation stuck. They sat in silence for a while. Then Hugh recalled himself to his duty.

‘I’ve got this report for Miss Fisher,’ he said, putting down the envelope. ‘I don’t reckon you want to read it, Dot. Not nice for a lady. It’s about various men who’ve been assaulted. But the odd thing, Dot, the strange thing…’

‘Yes?’ asked Dot.

‘Them names,’ said Collins. ‘Here’s the list. The ones who’ve been assaulted. Three of ’em are on Miss Fisher’s list of missing girls, too. I mean, they’re connected. Mr. O’Hara, Mary O’Hara’s father, and that Fraser bloke who pays their rent, and the foreman of that factory where Ann Prospect worked.’

‘Odd,’ commented Dot, filling up his glass with more of the icy lemonade. She knew where her priorities lay. Hugh looked hot, even though the air was mild and the jasmine sweet. ‘What sort of assaults were they? Punched or kicked?’

‘Er…’ said Hugh, writhing with discomfort. ‘More personal than that. More intimate, like. In a more…private place.’

‘Oh,’ said Dot, enlightened, and she blushed again. He loved the way she blushed. ‘Oh, I see. Well, that sounds like revenge, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ agreed Hugh, with enormous relief at having got over this difficulty. ‘They answered the door, everything went black, and they woke up with…er…’

‘Quite,’ said Dot. ‘They didn’t see anyone?’

‘Only one bloke said it was a nun.’

‘A nun? I mean, only one nun?’

‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘Oh, now you come to say it…’

‘Exactly,’ said Dot. ‘Nuns come in pairs. I don’t believe they are allowed to leave the convent unless they have a companion.’

‘That’s true,’ said Hugh. ‘So maybe this nun isn’t a nun at all?’

‘It would make a good disguise,’ mused Dot. ‘In the war they said German spies were dressing as nuns. The gown goes down to the feet.’

‘Yes, and the headdress covers the whole head and chin. Unless he forgot to shave, a nun could be anyone. And you’re right, you can’t see the feet. We used to think nuns ran on wheels.’

‘So did we,’ said Dot. ‘But it could be a woman. Those robes conceal the figure. I remember at school, Kitty told everyone that Sister Perpetua was a man, and we all believed it. She could have been, for all we could see.’

‘Oh?’

‘And she could hit as hard as a man,’ said Dot ruefully.

‘Too right,’ said Collins, trying not to rub his rump, which had been frequently flayed by Sister Beatrice. The old scars still ached when he sat on hard chairs.

They drank more lemonade, freshly pleased to be out of range of Sister Mary’s ruler.

‘Growing up,’ said Dot. ‘It’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘Too true,’ said Hugh Collins, and took her hand again.