Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (29 page)

‘Phryne,’ she said. ‘Would you like a croissant? These are really very good. There’s a French baker in Little Collins Street, an artisan boulanger just out of Lyon.’

‘Just coffee,’ said Phryne, sitting down. ‘How are you, Ann?’

‘“What with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows and with poverty, I am custom shrunk,”’ replied Ann Thomas, quoting Shakespeare as she always did in moments of stress. ‘Not too bad. Love always sells, Phryne dear. Nice to see you. Is this just a social visit?’

‘Not entirely,’ confessed Phryne. ‘I have come across a very nasty white slavery ring, and I would like to ask your ladies about it.’

‘Ever since you found Pompey you know that you have my eternal gratitude,’ said Madame.

Pompey, a beautiful orange tomcat, heard his name and spared a brief purr for the distinguished visitor before returning his attention to his dish of cream. Phryne had located him locked in the van which delivered the houses’ fish. He had eaten quite a lot of premium flathead tails before he had been rescued, much against his will, and bathed, combed and fluffed dry, to his grave displeasure. The ladies of the house doted on Pompey.

‘Drink your coffee,’ said Madame Paris. ‘The ladies will still be in the bath.’

‘I see,’ said Phryne. It was excellent coffee.

‘We rise at nine, unless we have been up very late,’ said Madame. ‘We bathe, don shifts, and breakfast. Then we have physical exercise, dancing and music, and the schoolmistress comes for those who are not quite as educated as the rest. The others are at liberty to amuse themselves until lunch, then we have a nap until afternoon tea. After that we prepare for the evening—the hairdresser comes, clothes are tried on, and so on. Until seven o’clock the house is closed, unless a gentleman wishes to make a special arrangement.’

‘Which would cost him a fortune,’ said Phryne. ‘Upsetting your arrangements as it would.’

‘A small fortune,’ conceded Madame. ‘This is hard work. We need time when we are not expected to be charming or amusing or amorous. I always suggest that when they marry, my ladies impose a similar rule on their husbands.’

‘And do most of your ladies marry?’

Madame smiled complacently. ‘Or retire. Running pubs has been popular lately. When my ladies arrive they often have great beauty but no manners. When they leave me they are polished, still beautiful, and quite the best wife for a man of business. They know how to dress, how to please, how to conduct themselves in company, have some sort of respectable diversion and are unlikely to take lovers.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Phryne. ‘They would have had any curiosity about men well satisfied before they leave here.’

‘Indeed,’ said Madame Paris. ‘We do have specialists, of course. Some gentlemen have individual tastes. We can cater for most of them. But we are not a freak show. There are other places for the more outré pastimes. And for gentlemen of the other persuasion there is the Blue Cat, of course.’

‘Is there much abuse of your ladies?’ asked Phryne.

Madame Paris bridled. ‘None,’ she declared. ‘Gentlemen who act unbecomingly are asked to leave and are not allowed to return.’

‘Asked by, as it might be, your doorman?’

‘Isn’t he just adorable?’ said Madame dotingly. ‘We don’t use his real name. He’s called Pompey, too, like the cat. Yes, indeed, Pompey escorts the misbehaving client out of the door. Sometimes at some speed and with some force. The ladies and I rely on him. It will be a pity when he finishes his degree and returns to New Zealand. I don’t know where I’ll find another like him.’

‘In Melbourne he is unique,’ agreed Phryne.

A small bell tinkled.

‘Ah. The ladies will be at breakfast,’ said Madame. ‘Come this way, Phryne.’

She led the way into a large parlour, where the table was laid for fourteen. A buffet was laden with what smelt like excellent food. The coffee pot steamed. Around the table sat ten women in white shifts, three in plain black dresses, and Pompey. Both of them. They were contemplating white china plates piled with their favourite delicacies—in Pompey the cat’s case, raw fish, whereas Pompey the man preferred his smoked and in kedgeree. Both appeared to be agreeably conscious that they were the acceptable males in an all-female household. They looked sleek and glossy.

The ladies varied in colouring and in body shape from the very plump to the very thin, the youthful to the mature. They also looked comfortable and clean. They were gossiping about their clients in words which would have brought no blush to a vicar’s cheek, but was devastatingly frank all the same.

‘He said that his young lady wouldn’t kiss him,’ giggled one. ‘I gave him the card for our dentist and told him to do something about his foul breath and disgusting teeth and then everyone would want to kiss him.’

‘That was daring,’ said Madame.

‘Yes, but he asked me for advice,’ said the girl. ‘And he stank like a rotten corpse, poor man. If a whore can’t tell him, who can?’

‘True,’ said Madame. ‘But it might have been more gently expressed.’

‘Yes, Madame,’ said the girl deferentially.

‘Our gentlemen can get home truths at home,’ said Madame. ‘Here they should not have to listen to them. Unless, of course, as you say, Primrose, they have asked for advice. Now, Phryne, I would like to introduce Posy, Primula, Poppy, Peony, Pansy, Primrose and Petunia. And there are Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Smythe and Mrs. Schmitt. The Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher is here to ask you some questions and I would be obliged if you will answer her. She is a friend of the house.’

Seven women called by a name starting with P put down their cups and gave Phryne their full attention. Also two rather unlikely variations on Smith. Phryne was reminded of the convent giving their workers numbers. But the names were more pleasant. She would ask about this convention later.

‘Jobs for All in Lonsdale Street. Does anyone know anything about it?’

‘They were putting out the word in the factory where I used to work,’ said Peony, who looked like she hadn’t done a hand’s turn in all her plump, well-fed life. She had the velvet assurance of a Persian cat and, regrettably, the intellectual power. ‘Jobs overseas, they said. In the theatre. A likely story! One of my mates went. May. No one ever saw or heard from her again. That was last year.’

‘And you think that something bad happened to her?’ asked Phryne.

‘She was real fond of her mum and her little brother,’ said Peony. ‘She would have written, sent them a postcard, something. But not a word.’

‘What do you think became of her?’ asked Phryne.

Peony shrugged. Imagination was not her strong suit.

‘Anyone else hearing anything about this agency? Or girls vanishing?’

‘When I was in that Magdalen Laundry,’ said Primrose, ‘someone kept chalking SS five hundred and ten BM on the wall. No one ever caught her. Used tailor’s chalk. I don’t know what it meant. I got out of there fairly soon and found a place here.’

‘And someone is collecting blondes,’ said the redheaded Primrose. ‘Three natural blondes in my street, they all went to Jobs for All and they all…went. Never came back, as far as I know. I went to the agency, and they didn’t have anything for me. I ain’t been back there,’ she added, sounding thankful. ‘Or to Fitzroy. And the blondes ain’t—sorry, haven’t—come home.’

‘Where did you live?’ asked Phryne.

‘Brunswick Street,’ said Primrose.

‘Anyone else?’ asked Phryne. Heads shook all round the table. Breakfast resumed. Clearly the establishment had told Phryne everything they knew.

Madame stood up and addressed the staff. ‘Well, time is getting on. Any complaints, ladies?’

‘Why do I have to learn arithmetic?’ complained Poppy, the thin blonde girl with the fashionable bobby-cut. ‘I’m such a dolt, I can’t understand it. And Miss Thompson gets so cross with me.’

‘If you don’t learn arithmetic, when you have a household of your own—which will be quite soon, I expect, if that elderly lawyer plucks up his courage—then your servants will rob you blind, your husband will be unhappy and your dress allowance will suffer,’ said Madame equably.

‘You’re not such a dunce as all that,’ teased Posy, the plump dark girl. ‘I’ve never seen you lose track of a sixpence, not so much as a farthing.’

‘Oh,’ said Poppy. ‘Right. My household, of course. If only Miss T had told me that! Of course. I’ll just have to try harder.’

‘Splendid,’ said Madame, and led Phryne back to her own parlour.

‘What a well-run establishment,’ said Phryne.

‘I like to think of it as such. The work is not too hard, they are well fed and dressed, and I turn them out in a very marriageable condition. Some of them send me Christmas cards every year, with pictures of themselves and their children. Some of them, of course, never wish to think of us again. But they are a credit to me by the time they leave.’

‘“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,”’ quoted Phryne.

‘Thomas Hardy, yes? He was right.’

‘Why the flower names?’ asked Phryne.

‘Oh, Madame Brussels established it. So no one used their own name and could leave their identity behind when they left the house. I’m Madame Paris so all my names start with P. Madame Bristol has Begonia and Butterfly and Bellflower and Bluebell.’

‘And Madame Leyden has Lavender, Larkspur, Lobelia and Lotus?’ guessed Phryne.

‘Quite. When they are being called by those names, they put on their professional armour. Their feelings are not engaged. Ideally.’

‘And what happens when, for instance, Poppy marries her lawyer?’

‘Then a new Poppy will be found. I have a waiting list.’

‘Where do you get your labour?’ asked Phryne.

‘Some come along from the trade,’ said Madame. ‘Some are naturals. I don’t take any but the most enthusiastic volunteers, and they arrive in various ways. The present Primrose, in fact, came here by stowing away in a van. Oh, Lord, it’s ten o’clock and I have an errand that won’t wait. Will you come?’

‘Where?’ asked Phryne.

‘To the alley,’ said Madame.

Phryne followed her to the back of the house where the laundry van was drawn up. Large sacks of sheets were being hauled into the tray by a cheeky bloke with a bright eye: Phryne thought that he liked his job—this aspect of it, at least.

‘G’day, Madame,’ he said, tipping his cap. ‘Prim decided to marry me yet?’

‘She is still thinking about it, Terence,’ said Madame.

He grinned. ‘She’ll come round to me in time,’ he said. ‘I’m building a house, you know. In Sunshine. The usual?’ he asked.

Madame nodded. She took out her purse from an old-fashioned petticoat pocket and put a ten-shilling note into one of the washing bags. The driver mounted, chirruped to his engine as though it was a horse, and trundled off.