‘Yair, well, I could have told you that. I told that cop. And I don’t reckon I could have raised an arm to stab anyone. I wouldn’t have, either. This is our future, Vi’s and mine. Our whole lives, our chance. We couldn’t start it with a murder. It would be all wrong. I want to be happy,’ he said with quiet conviction. ‘And I’m gonna be.’
‘Can Violet stand the work on a farm? I bet she hasn’t ever met a cow.’
‘I think so. She wants to try, anyway. But if they won’t give us the prize then it’s all been wasted.’
Percy McPhee looked like he was about to cry, and Phryne felt that she had been cried over enough for one afternoon.
‘I shall see the management,’ she said, patting the young man on the arm. ‘Don’t worry. You shall have your car. And then Violet can give notice to Mrs Garland. She will enjoy doing that, I’m sure. Have you concluded the deal with the seller?’
‘Yair, I went out last week, bonzer little place. Bloke didn’t want to sell but his missus has consumption and he wants to take her to Queensland. He’s got relatives there. I don’t reckon she’s got long. So he’s in a hurry to get out. Two weeks and we could be on our own farm. Married, of course,’ he added quickly. ‘We can get married as soon as Vi can walk again. She’s had all her wedding things ready for three years. Got a licence and all. My dad says we can have the breakfast at his place in Rockbank, that’s on the way. He keeps the general store—he got sick of cows too. But I reckon me and the cows are fated.’ He grinned. ‘You sure that you can swing it with the management?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. Now, I’ll just go up and see how Miss King is faring with the massage. I’m so glad it wasn’t you.’ Phryne went out. A phone call should deal with the Green Mill. Phryne had a lot of social influence, to which all dancehalls were peculiarly sensitive. The powerful smell of liniment greeted her as it percolated down the stairs. Miss Jordan’s compound, like Mr Butler’s cocktails, had authority.
Miss Violet King was standing up when Phryne came in; she had been clad in a new nightgown and was dubiously sipping a cooling herbal drink. Judging from her expression, it did not taste good, but she drank it anyway. For the first time since the dance marathon which was to secure her future, Violet looked as though she was emerging from a dark dream.
‘Every hour,’ instructed Iris, ‘you will walk ten times around this room, and then you will lie down with your feet up. I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m leaving some aspirin and a bottle of my mixture, all of which you will drink. You will feel better by tonight, but you mustn’t go out and you mustn’t get cold.’
‘Yes, Miss Jordan,’ murmured Violet. She glanced at Phryne, not recognising her.
‘My name is Phryne Fisher. I brought Miss Jordan, and I’ll pay her, no need to worry about that. Percy is downstairs and is all right, though still limping a bit. Your prize is safe and the farm is arranged, so all you have to do is get better and be beautiful for the wedding.’
Violet stared at Phryne, still drugged, and strove for utterance.
‘Now, I’m investigating the murder at the Green Mill, and I need to know if you saw anything, anything at all.’
‘No, Miss, I was behind you. Of course, I recognise you now, the beautiful lady in blue. I was pretty far gone, Miss. I was just hanging on Perce. He was saying that it was the thirtieth time we had heard “Bye Bye Blackbird”, and I was saying that it was the Duke’s favourite foxtrot, just for something to say. I wasn’t looking at the others, but I heard something.’
‘What did you hear?’
Violet screwed up her lips and produced a sound. ‘Pfft.’
‘Pfft?’ asked Phryne. Violet nodded.
Iris turned from folding up her pink sheet. ‘I heard that, too. Don’t know what it was. Just before Ben launched into the mute reprise in “Blackbird”.’
‘Pfft, eh? I don’t know. This case is going to drive me barmy. Anything else, Violet?’
‘No. Then the chap fell, and you fell over him, and I just dropped. I never been so tired in all my life, never. Is, is it all right, Miss? About the car? And the farm?’
‘Yes, and yes. By the way. Here’s a wedding present.’ Phryne took a roll of notes from her bag. ‘Keep them secret. They are your little hoard.’
‘For when things get bad, Miss?’
‘No, with an experienced farmer like your Perce I don’t think that things are likely to get appallingly bad. They’re for you to travel to the nearest town,’ said Phryne from the door, ‘to go to the pictures.’
Violet unfolded the notes when the door closed. There were £20. She rolled them up and hid them in her underwear drawer, then limped out onto the landing.
‘Percy?’ she called, heedless of Mrs Garland’s sensibilities. ‘Don’t you come up, my dear, and I can’t come down. But it’s going to be all right, Perce. It’s going to be bonzer.’
Australia Will Be There
WW (Skipper) Francis
‘Australia Will Be There: For Auld Lang Syne’
‘Well, Dot, you look pleased!’
‘I found him, Miss!’ Dot had discovered in herself a keen interest in diligent research of nice calm paper records, which never wept or ran away or turned nasty. ‘I searched from December 1920 to July 1921, and then I found him.’
Dot displayed the death certificate of William Simmonds, which gave the cause as ‘alcoholic dementia ten days heart failure one day’ on the 11th of July 1921. Nerine had been free of her husband for seven years without knowing it. William had died in the charity ward of the Melbourne Hospital. He was listed as indigent, and ‘not known’ had been entered against next of kin.
‘Oh, well done, Dot! Is that a certified copy? Super! That solves one problem. Have there been any calls?’
‘Just that person who breathes, Miss. I told him you’d be back before six.’
‘This game of hide-and-seek is no longer at all diverting. You are invaluable, Dot, really you are. Now I must just make a call to the Green Mill, and then we shall get all dressed up for dinner. Since you are dining with me, would you like to wear the peacock dress, perhaps?’
‘Oh, no, Miss, I couldn’t. But p’raps I could borrow the one called sunrise. I love the colours.’
‘Borrow it? You shall have it. That gold and brown never suited me above half, but it will be just the ticket with your hair and eyes. You should have mentioned it before. And you can have first bath. Imagine, those villains at the Green Mill want to deny the prize to those poor dancers!’
Phryne stalked to the phone and obtained, after a certain delay, Signor Antonio himself. A brief pause while he identified Phryne, and then reassurances flooded from the phone. Of course Miss Fisher had no need to be concerned. Naturally the car would be awarded as promised. Certainly the young persons had won. The delay had merely been the whisper of a question about the incident which had ended the competition. Signor Antonio appreciated Miss Fisher’s esteemed patronage. Could Signor Antonio hope for the pleasure of Miss Fisher’s continued attendance?
Phryne assured the signor that she would definitely be back at the Green Mill, which really was the best place to dance in Melbourne, and rang off. Good. That assured the future of Percy and his Violet. Phryne wondered again what the sound could have been. Both Iris and Violet had heard it, so it could not have been an hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Pfft? She gave it up and sat by the phone to wait for Charles, had a sudden idea, and called Detective Inspector Robinson.
‘Ah, Jack, Phryne Fisher. How are you?’
‘Terrible. This is a chronic case. I found all sorts of reasons why your escort should have killed Stevens, but I can’t find him.’
‘As to those reasons, Jack dear, I suppose that you are referring to photographs of the deceased and Charles in compromising positions?’
‘I am. Nothing too obscene, Miss, but compromising. He had a wad of them stuck away under a floorboard.’
‘Well, I’m not asking you to give me anything that is evidential, Jack, but if there are some which don’t show Charles but do show another young man in a
very
compromising position, I suppose that you don’t really need them?’
‘No, I don’t really need them. Why? You taking up blackmail too?’
‘Was Bernard?’
‘Oh yes. Polite, nicely worded blackmail, but blackmail all right. Nasty little piece of work. Got a couple of hundred pounds out of your Charles, I’d say.’
‘Jack, he really
isn’t
my Charles. I’m just trying to find him. And you shall have him as soon as I do.’
‘All right, Miss Fisher, I’ll have a constable drop round the other pictures, and the plates. I can trust you to deal with them properly. Otherwise I would have to hand them over to Vice. We don’t want to prosecute them, poor nancy-boys, but the law says we have to. But find Charles for me!’ Detective Inspector Robinson sounded ragged with strain. ‘My chief is creating something fierce.’
‘I’ll find him. Thanks, Jack. You’re a darling.’
Jack Robinson, in the course of his career maintaining Peace and Order for His Sovereign Majesty King George, had been called many things, but darling wasn’t one of them. He blinked.
‘My pleasure, Miss Fisher, and get a move on with that Freeman. I’ll have to put out an all-stations hue-and-cry for him tomorrow if he ain’t given himself up.’
‘I’ll do my best. Goodbye, Jack.’
Phryne sat by the phone, worrying. It rang.
Someone was breathing.
‘Charles, dear, unless you give yourself up tonight I’m afraid that every cop in Australia will be looking for you. And another thing, tell me about your brother Victor.’
‘Vic’s dead,’ said Charles, surprised into speech. ‘He died in the Great War.’
‘No, pet, your mother told you a little fib. Until at least 1920 your brother Victor was alive, and she wants me to find him.’
‘You’ve gone mad!’
‘Me, no, but I have my doubts about your mother. Now if you weren’t snugged away like a rat in the wainscoting we would be able to talk about this and many other strange and wonderful things but, as it is, unless you put on your evening togs and come to my house at eleven tonight, I will advise your mother that I can’t find you and throw in the case. I can’t conduct an investigation sitting by the telephone. Besides, I hate telephones. I have seen your friend Bobby, who is a darling, and I know that the police have the photos of you and he kissing. They know all about it, Charlie, there is no use in hiding. If you didn’t do it, my dear boy, then for heaven’s sake allow me to prove it. If you are guilty, then try the port now, and get on a ship headed for America. Even New Zealand would do. Make up your mind. I haven’t got all night; I’ve got guests for dinner, and I have to dress.’
‘Vic’s alive?’
‘Possibly. Will you come?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ and the phone went dead. Phryne slammed it down in a flare of irritation and went to see how Dot was looking in the sunrise dress.
She was so stunning that Phryne forgot her annoyance. Dot was fair-skinned, with fine brown hair and brown eyes. She doted upon autumn colours, warm browns, gold, umber, orange—a complete contrast to Phryne’s preference for icy blue, dark green, purple, silver and black. Phryne had bought the sunrise dress from a rather exclusive dressmaker because of its beautiful beading. The hem was the red and brown earth; the orb of the rising sun was gold, bright enough to hurt the eyes; and the sky was layered in red and orange, with a faint streak of cerulean blue at the shoulders. Dot had braided her long hair and twisted the plaits into a knot at the back of her neck. She wore brown stockings and brown leather shoes with a Louis heel. Phryne surprised her staring at her reflection in the mirror, astonished.
‘Oh, Dot, you look spiffing! That dress might have been made for you! Hugh must see you like this. Pity that policemen don’t earn the kind of salary to take you to a place to match.’
‘There’s the Policemen and Firemen’s Ball,’ said Dot. ‘I can wear it there. Anyway, I don’t care if I never wear it anywhere. It might get damaged, someone might spill something on it.’ She stroked the dress caressingly. Phryne went into the bathroom, shedding clothes as she went.
‘Oh, Miss, I forgot. The girls rang. Can they go to the school Christmas treat? Apparently it’s an extra.’
‘Of course.’ Phryne’s adopted daughters, acquired in strange circumstances, were at the Presbyterian Ladies College, learning how to move freely among the Upper Classes. Having been poor, they were wincingly careful of Phryne’s money, though Phryne wasn’t. She found this trait touching and exceptionally unusual.
‘Do they need clothes?’ she asked through the open bathroom door, groping for the
Nuit d’Amour
soap. Dot turned on her heel, watching the immaculate colouring of the dress flow with the movement.
‘No, Miss, but they want you to come to the prize-giving. In the Hispano-Suiza, Jane said.’
‘The Hispano-Suiza they shall have.’ Phryne remembered that a letter from Peter Smith reposed unread in her dressing-gown pocket, got out of the bath, and found a towel.
It was a short letter. She read it three times while she was dressed in a suitable evening gown by Dot.
‘Peter says that he is well, and there has been no sign of pursuit from the anarchists,’ she told Dot. Lovers came and lovers went in Phryne’s house, but Peter the anarchist had been exceptional. The letter read: