Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (26 page)

‘Poor Polly,’ sighed Miss Cecilia.

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Phryne, inspecting a window display which contained a daring confection of pink ruffles in which she would not be seen deceased.

‘She worked so hard,’ said Cecilia. ‘She really wanted to succeed. They only gave her the job, she said, because there are so few men about. That’s why I’m so lucky to have Lance. Most of the boys from his grammar school class are dead or missing or maimed.’

‘It’s a common problem,’ observed Phryne, moving on to a green lace hat with two antennae which might belong to a giant ant. Who bought these things? And if they were so unwise as to buy them, who had the nerve to wear them?

‘Yes, and I’m very lucky to have him, but this wedding is wearing,’ said Cecilia. At all costs Phryne had to keep her mind on the problem.

‘Suppose I tell you that I will give an hour of my undivided attention to your wedding problems as soon as I have found Polly Kettle?’

Cecilia clasped her little hands together in a reprise of Her First Sermon. ‘Oh, Miss Fisher, will you? Everyone says you have the most exquisite taste.’

‘I will, if you tell me everything you know about Polly and you do it now, over tea and ribbon sandwiches.’

‘Deal,’ said Miss Cecilia decisively. They secured a table in the wood-panelled tearoom, gave their orders, and Miss Cecilia began to yield her knowledge forthwith.

‘She’s the same age as me. Twenty-one. Mother says that’s a good age to marry…sorry, off the subj…but Polly has always been a brain. She was a shark at school. Good at sport, too. Could run me off my legs and used to play wing in hockey. We won a cup. But she wanted to be a newshawk. So she wheedled her father into letting her take the position as a cadet. She worked really hard, moving copy, talking to printers, proofreading, carrying messages, then they let her do garden parties and such, all names spelt right. They wanted her to do women’s pages, but she wanted what she called “hard news.” They didn’t like that. There was an awful man called Bates who made ever such a fuss, said she’d stolen his story. I said it served him right for being such a beast to her.’

‘Have a sandwich,’ offered Phryne. She had eaten far too many scones and cakes in the interests of manners and wasn’t in the least hungry. The Hopetoun did a very good sandwich. Refined and tasty, an unusual combination.

‘Thanks,’ said Miss Cecilia, scoffing two and continuing her narrative. ‘So she found that these three girls left the place the convent had sent them to and vanished. She thought that if she could find them she might have a scoop which would make her career. So she was searching.’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne. ‘What did she tell you about her search?’

‘I can’t remember much,’ said Cecilia vaguely. ‘I wasn’t all that interested. They didn’t seem to be in the…the…’

‘Houses of ill repute?’ Phryne offered.

‘Them,’ said Miss Cecilia, covering her blushes by stuffing another couple of sandwiches into her rosy mouth. ‘And then she said she’d found some connection between the convent and white slavery. They always warned me about white slavery, and I didn’t believe it.’

‘Yes, me too,’ said Phryne.

‘She said there was some connection which she couldn’t find. And they must have the girls.’

‘In that state?’ asked Phryne.

Miss Cecilia blushed again. ‘That’s what she said, Miss Fisher. Then she said something—oh, well, why don’t I give you her letters? I’ve brought them with me.’ She handed over a packet.

‘Thank you,’ said Phryne, with heartfelt gratitude. ‘What can I do for you in return? A new hat, perhaps?’

‘That would be nice,’ said Cecilia. ‘I just love that one in the milliner’s window with the pink ruffles.’

Heartless little minx, thought Phryne. She deserved a frightful hat with pink ruffles in which she would look hideous. Not a word about her friend. No worries about her safety.

‘How did Polly get on with her brother?’

‘Very well,’ said Cecilia, glowing with expectation of a new hat. ‘They were rather thrown together. Mrs. Kettle dotes on the boy, and he’s a perfectly nice boy, but just a boy, you know? Likes sport and football. Not very good at school. Mrs. K got him tutors and made his life miserable by saying he had to be a doctor or a lawyer. Polly knew him. She never expected him to be brainy. He really loves her. Mrs. K packed him off to Mount Martha as soon as Polly went missing. Poor boy must be frantic.’

‘And her father?’

‘Nice old man,’ said Cecilia. ‘He knows where the brains in the family went. He really likes her. And her mum really doesn’t like that. I expect it’s a complex of some sort. Lance was telling me about complexes. He’s a doctor, you know. Mother says I have to be a helpmeet. I’m not sure I know how to do that.’

‘About Polly’s mother?’ prompted Phryne.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Miss Cecilia, who had been distracted by the lustre of her intended. ‘She’s always been a bit funny about Polly. Tried to get her to marry Herbert Grant, her second cousin. He lives in the country. Polly can’t stand him but he really liked her. He’s a halfwit, but owns a big house and lives like a gentleman in Castlemaine. I believe he’s rich. Polly thought her mum was trying to get rid of her. Polly wouldn’t even consider Herbert. Her mum was really angry about that. If Polly’s Dad spends any time with her, Mrs. K gets sniffy. They used to play chess until Mother Kettle threw such a conniption ding that he didn’t dare play anymore. He’s been spending a lot of time at his club. Polly used to see him there. There’s a ladies’ part, you know, at the Athenaeum. She used to go there at lunchtime and play chess with him, or talk.’

Phryne found this sad. Miss Cecilia was unaffected.

‘And since Polly has been gone Mrs. K has been sweet as honey.’

‘And her father?’

‘He’s spending even more time at the club,’ said Cecilia. ‘So if she got rid of Polly to have more of Mr. K, then it hasn’t worked. Do you read detective stories?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne.

‘If it was a detective story I’d say it was the mother,’ said Miss Cecilia, swallowing the last gulp of her tea. ‘Now, if you haven’t any more questions, what about that hat?’

Phryne bought the hat, took the letters, and drove home.

There she found that her researchers had combed through the available evidence, made notes, drawn conclusions, and knocked off for a lateish sandwich lunch and a conference.

‘She was interested in socialism,’ said Jane. ‘She took The Woman Worker.’

‘She was interested in chess,’ said Tinker. ‘There’s a lot of worked-out problems, mostly a player called Capablanca. “Technique is everything,” he says. She’s written it out. It looks interesting. I ought to learn this game.’

‘I’ll teach you,’ promised Jane, delighted. Ruth had no talent for chess. ‘And you’ll admire Capablanca. I’ll show you the moves this afternoon, if you like.’

‘Grouse,’ said Tinker.

‘There’s a lot of cuttings about the Abbotsford convent and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd,’ said Ruth. ‘Listen to this one. A Fallen Women’s Home. Centre of Sweating
…
The fact remains—and it is a fact that no church reclamation society seems to have risen above—that the women are sweated in return for such as they get—that they are compelled to toil to keep the institution going, and toil without wages. The proceeds from the laundry support the institution. The women receive no wages, no money at all, except the sum of one pound when they leave. This is absolute sweating of a sort confined to churches. It is a thing peculiarly aggravating to anyone not blinded by sectarian prejudice. It may be conceded, on hard material grounds, that the women should make some return for the beneficient work of preparing them for happier and more useful lives; but that they should be forced to toil for months and years without a penny of wages, without any other recompense than food and clothing, is repugnant to the sense that revolts at Sweating
.
’

‘Three cheers,’ said Phryne. ‘Couldn’t agree more.’

‘What’s “sweating”?’ asked Tinker.

‘Slavery,’ said Jane. ‘And we know what sort of food and clothing you get from someone who’s taken you on to work out of charity, don’t we, Ruthie?’

‘Cold porridge, bruises and rags,’ Ruth summed up their mutual past.

‘That’s about it. He goes on,’ said Jane ‘We bear no malice to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; we fully recognise their motives are altruistic. But they cannot, however altruistic, be allowed to practise sweating. Their doing so is calculated to defeat the object of their ministrations no less than to injure a large body of workmen and workwomen, for to throw a reclaimed girl on the world with only a few shillings in her pocket is simply madness. This institution, like all other sweating church “reliefs,” should be brought under the Factory Act. If this is not done, if the fallen women are still sweated and the general laundresses still exposed to unfair competition—the only thing for the anti-sweating public to do is to give the Home of the Good Shepherd a wide berth.
Gosh! Who does our laundry, Miss Phryne?’

‘The Chinese, and they do not practise sweating except in the usual way, occasioned by high temperatures in the ironing room.’

‘Hah!’ exclaimed Tinker, who had just caught the play on meanings for ‘sweating’.

‘Good. What else?’ asked Phryne.

‘She seems to have been trying to find out about houses in the city,’ said Ruth. ‘She’s got a 1922 government report on prostitution. It’s a bit hard to read,’ she confessed.

‘Give it to me, and I shall skim it. Lots of things get left out of reports like that. Does it mention white slavery?’

‘Yes, Miss Phryne, but it’s all about shipping girls overseas. I didn’t quite follow it.’

‘Government reports are like that,’ Phryne told her. ‘Not altogether meant to be understood, thus easily denied. Well done for trying, Ruth. And the next?’

‘Notes,’ said Tinker. ‘I got ’em because I used to have to read the boss’ writing, and it was chronic. This girl scribbles and she don’t—doesn’t sharpen her pencil. There’s stuff about the lying-in home, just the names and address, and there’s notes of people refusin’ to talk to her. A whole page of them. I copied it out fair, Guv’nor.’

‘Thank you!’ said Phryne.

‘And there’s that SS 5.10 BM. No explanation. Just all by itself in the middle of a page. Looks like it really is a clue, Guv.’

‘Yes, Tink, and I still don’t know what it means. Curses. Mr. Butler? A drink for all,’ said Phryne, who felt that she deserved a cocktail. If Polly’s letters were anything like those of her little friend Cecilia, it was going to be a trying afternoon.

When faced with difficulty, spread it out. She doled out a letter to each of her researchers. There weren’t many.

The room filled with the noise of rustling and sipping. Gin and orange juice, provided the orange juice is freshly squeezed and properly iced, was nectar on a day like this, Phryne thought. The letter was dated New Year’s Day and must be the most recent.