The Green Mill Murder
Praise for Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series
‘Independent, wealthy, spirited and possessed of an uninhibited style that makes everyone move out of her way and stand gawking for a full five minutes after she walks by—Phryne Fisher is a woman who gets what she wants and has the good sense to enjoy every minute of it!’
Geelong Times
‘Phryne . . . is a wonderful fantasy of how you could live your life if you had beauty, money, brains and superb self control.’
The Age
‘Fisher is a sexy, sassy and singularly modish character. Her 1920s Melbourne is racy, liberal and a city where crime occurs on its shadowy, largely unlit streets.’
Canberra Times
‘The presence of the inimitable Phryne Fisher makes this mystery a delightful, glamorous romp of a novel—a literary glass of champagne with a hint of debauchery.’
Armidale Express
‘Elegant, fabulously wealthy and sharp as a tack, Phryne sleuths her way through these classical detective stories with customary panache . . . Greenwood’s character is irresistibly charming, and her stories benefit from research, worn lightly, into the Melbourne of the period.’
The Age
‘The astonishing thing is not that Phryne is so gloriously fleshed out with her lulu bob and taste for white peaches and green chartreuse, but that I had not already made her acquaintance.’
Bendigo Advertiser
KERRY GREENWOOD is the author of more than fifty novels and six non-fiction works, and the editor of two collections. When she is not writing Kerry is an advocate in magistrates’ courts for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.
Phryne Fisher mysteries:
Cocaine Blues
Flying too High
Murder on the Ballarat Train
Death at Victoria Dock
The Green Mill Murder
Blood and Circuses
Ruddy Gore
Urn Burial
Raisins and Almonds
Death Before Wicket
Away with the Fairies
Murder in Montparnasse
The Castlemaine Murders
Queen of the Flowers
Death by Water
Murder in the Dark
Murder on a Midsummer Night
Dead Man’s Chest
A Question of Death: An Illustrated Phryne Fisher Treasury
Corinna Chapman mysteries:
Earthly Delights
Heavenly Pleasures
Devil’s Food
Trick or Treat
Forbidden Fruit
Cooking the Books
KERRY
GREENWOOD
THE
GREEN MILL MURDER
This edition published in 2012.
First published by Allen & Unwin in 2005.
First published in 1993 by McPhee Gribble Publishers.
Copyright © Kerry Greenwood 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74237 960 9
Set in 11.5/14 pt Adobe Garamond by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Martin Suter
I am grateful for the assistance of the Victorian Ministry of the Arts in the writing of this book.
My thanks to Trina Cairns for diligent research and to the Jumbo Jazz Band for great music and inspiring information. Special thanks to Eugene Ball; banjo player and composer extraordinaire, John Withers; and Jenny Pausacker and Nance Peck for role-modelling and encouragement.
For a good man nowadays sure is hard
to find
Charlie Green
Contents
Make my bed and light the light
I’ ll be home late tonight
Black bird, bye bye.
Ray Henderson
‘Bye Bye Blackbird’
It was eleven by the Green Mill’s clock when the cornet player went into a muted reprise in ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, and one of the marathon dancers plunged heavily and finally to the floor at Phryne Fisher’s feet. She stumbled over him. His partner dropped to her knees with a wail.
The cornet player stopped mid-note. The tall Amazon with the bass gave one final, mellow plunk. Tintagel Stone stood up. The three musicians came forward as Phryne turned the man over with her foot and recoiled, dragging her escort with her. The jazz players bent over the fallen man, and a high female voice, much affected by gin, screamed, ‘The manager! Call the manager!’
‘Come away, Charles,’ said Phryne calmly. ‘There is something seriously wrong with that man.’
‘Why, you don’t mean that he’s . . . ?’ began Charles, and Phryne nodded.
It had been such a promising evening up until now, Phryne reflected, feeling Charles begin to tremble in her grasp. The monumental ceiling of the Green Mill glittered with electric stars. She herself glittered in a lobelia georgette dress with pail-lettes of Chinese white and diamantes. She had been dancing a foxtrot with Charles Freeman, sole scion of an extremely rich family, who was a tedious but socially acceptable escort. The two remaining contenders for the dance marathon prize (one baby Austin car, value £190) had been dragging themselves drearily around in ever-decreasing circles, requiring Phryne to dance carefully around them. She had been pleased with the dress, delighted with her dancing skill, and satisfied with her partner, who had been sufficiently snubbed to make him stop talking about his dead father’s wealth and his own importance. She had been a little elevated on Grand Marnier, a flask of which reposed in her garter. She had been warmed by the admiring regard of the eponymous banjo player of Tintagel Stone and the Jazz Makers. His acetylene-blue eyes had been on her all night; they had produced an agreeable frisson.
Now she was stone-cold sober, and unenchanted, as she always was in the presence of death.
The dance marathon’s surviving couple sank down, still wreathed in each other’s arms, crying with exhaustion and relief and possibly triumph. Dancers milled about in the half-dark. Faces lit and vanished as the stars glittered. The manager glided onto the dance floor. He was a tall, distinguished man in perfect evening costume, worn with an Italianate air, and he summed up the situation instantly.