Phryne was left with Hugh.
‘Did you see anything?’ she asked.
‘Not really. I was watching the floor, like I always do, and I think I saw him fall, but that’s all. I hope they won’t get me in bad with the uni! I’m in fourth year now, start my internship next year.’
‘Where?’
‘Well, I was rather hoping to specialise in gynaecology. Pity the Queen Victoria Hospital won’t take male doctors, though I can understand why. So it will have to be the Women’s.’
‘I know a doctor at the Queen Vic. Doctor MacMillan. She can give you a few pointers, perhaps.’
‘Really? That would be wizard! We hardly see any real doctors, you know, only consultants who whistle past in a godlike state and then whistle off again. I think Iris has a point about medicine, you know. We tend to treat the disease, not the whole person. And she gets some amazing results. Science isn’t everything, though don’t tell any of my lecturers that I said so. Gotta go, Miss Fisher, the policeman beckons. Will we see you again?’
‘Oh, I expect so,’ agreed Phryne, alone on the dais.
Questioned and released, Phryne had paused only to press her card on Tintagel Stone before leaving the Green Mill and finding her car. The big red Hispano-Suiza, her extravagance and delight, was parked opposite Young and Jackson’s, and her chauffeur Mr Butler was asleep in the front seat, cap over eyes. The band, carrying an assortment of instruments and illicit bottles, were trailing along Flinders Street and passed her.
‘Good night, Miss Fisher. Golly, what a motor!’ exclaimed Jim Hyde, staggering under the weight of his trombone and four beer bottles. Tintagel Stone, bearing a banjo and a bottle of red wine, winked as he went on. They all smiled, except Ben Rodgers, who was carrying two cases and must have drunk his drink, because he alone was unencumbered with alcoholic beverages. Rodgers snarled, but Phryne was getting used to trumpeters.
‘Had a good night, Miss?’ asked Mr Butler, waking up and pushing back his chauffeur’s hat. Phryne climbed into the big car and tore off her beaded cap, running her fingers through her short black hair.
‘Not precisely a good night, Mr B, but undeniably interesting. There was a murder at the Green Mill, didn’t you see everyone leaving early?’
‘No, Miss, I been asleep, didn’t notice a thing. What about the gentleman, Miss? Mr Freeman?’
‘Mr Freeman has run away, it appears.’
‘Oh.’ Mr Butler got out, swung the starting handle, and the racing engine turned over with a lion-like roar. He drove back to Miss Fisher’s
bijou
residence in St Kilda Road, casting the occasional sidelong look at his employer. She had been very upset by the last dead man, he remembered, but she seemed calm enough about this one. There was no accounting for women, he reflected, and swung the great car into its housing, cutting off the engine. Phryne leapt out, pulling her black evening cloak about her.
‘I need a drink,’ she said, and ran down the path to the back door, to be admitted by Mrs Butler on a wave of warmth and the scent of freshly ground coffee.
‘We’ve had another murder, Mrs B, at the Green Mill of all places, and Mr Freeman has done a bunk. So don’t bother about supper if you please. Is Dot still up?’
‘Yes, Miss,’ agreed Mrs Butler, who was proof against most domestic crises. ‘She’s in the drawing room, Miss, reading the new library books. A murder? Was there a fight, in a well-conducted place like the Green Mill?’
‘No, no fight, someone was stabbed. One of the contestants in that foul dance marathon.’
‘I’ve always said they was wicked things,’ said Mr Butler from the kitchen door. ‘You go in, Miss, and I’ll come and mix you one of my specials.’
Phryne went into the drawing room, warmed by the thought of one of Mr Butler’s cocktails. He declined absolutely to divulge the recipe, and mixed them in secret in the kitchen, but they were smooth, fruity, and authoritative. Phryne suspected kirsch and lemon juice and ice, but was unable to diagnose further.
‘Miss! You’re home early!’
Dot arose from the deep chair in which she had been reclining with three library books and a box of Hillier’s chocolates, which she was eating at a rationed four an evening. Phryne threw herself onto the couch, flinging aside her beaded cap and cloak. She looked upon her maid and companion with affection. No one could say that Dot was modern. Her long brown hair was restrained in one plait down her back; her face was innocent of powder and her mouth of lipstick. She displayed a deplorably old-fashioned taste which ran to a chenille dressing gown that looked like a bedspread, and sheepskin slippers. She was a disciplined soul, who would never eat a whole box of chocolates at one sitting and make herself sick. Phryne was very fond of Dot. She was infinitely to be relied upon.
‘A murder, Dot, they always interrupt one’s evening. And my escort has bolted, so wounding to a lady’s feelings. That reminds me, I had better ring Mrs Freeman before the cops get there. Back in a tick.’
Phryne kicked off her shoes and padded out on the cool tiles of the hall floor. She obtained the number of Mr Freeman’s imposing mama.
‘This is Phryne Fisher, is Mrs Freeman still up? No? Well, has Mr Freeman returned? No again? Oh dear. Look, I really think that you had better call her. Yes, it is serious. Yes, I do know what I’m asking. Why? Well, there was a murder at the Green Mill tonight, and Charles left rather precipitately, and without an explanation or even a forwarding address. And the cops will be along any moment. No, I am not joking. Get on with it! She’ll have conniptions if she’s woken by the police. All right, I’ll wait.’
Phryne sat down on the wrought-iron chair in the hall and began to wriggle her toes, reflecting that her new shoes had not done her feet any good. She could hear sounds of domestic upheaval over the phone; feet running, voices calling, doors opening and shutting. She ran over what she knew of the Freeman family. Two brothers, she thought, one killed in the Great War. Charles, the younger, cosseted when he became the only one. Rich family with pastoral interests who had made a fortune out of blankets in the said War to End War. Father popping off recently—heart failure, Phryne thought—leaving young Charles with two uncles still making blankets, and a large fortune. Pity he had few brains and very little style. She was wondering why no scientist had yet invented social skills in an injectable form when a sharp voice cut through her thoughts.
‘Miss Fisher? What is this . . . preposterous story? Murder at the Green Mill? How could you have let my son . . . ?’
‘One moment, Mrs Freeman. It wasn’t my idea and I had nothing to do with it. There was a murder, Charles saw the body, and then went off his head, shaking and mumbling. He rushed off to the . . . rushed off to be sick, I think, and then he vanished. I rang to find out if he had come home.’
‘He isn’t here.’ The voice was rocketing up into a screech. ‘Charles! What can have happened to you!’
This, Phryne thought, was a bit tough on the poor unknown who had been murdered. Charles, as far as Phryne knew, was perfectly healthy.
‘Calm down, Mrs Freeman, nothing has happened to Charles but a bad case of the collywobbles.’
The shrill voice shrieked again, and there was a thud. A polite, butlerish voice took over.
‘Miss Fisher? Mrs Freeman has fainted.’
‘So I heard. Well, call her doctor, and be ready for the cops. Mr Charles seems to have disappeared.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘From the scene of a murder.’
‘Yes, Miss?’
‘So tell him to ring me if he calls and wants some help.’
‘Yes, Miss. Will that be all, Miss? Good night, Miss Fisher.’
Phryne put down the phone and went back to the drawing room.
‘Murder, Miss?’ asked Dot, who had disentangled herself from her chair and was folding up the cloak. ‘At the Green Mill? How do you feel?’
‘I feel a bit shaken, but I’m all right, Dot, don’t fuss. This is not the same as that other time. I didn’t see this man die. I was just dancing past and then there he was, poor fellow, flat on his back and dead as a landed trout. He mustn’t have known what hit him. What I can’t understand is Charles Freeman’s reaction. He went all wobbly, Dot, lost his marbles completely.’
‘What was he shocked about, Miss? Did he see it happen?’
‘Now that you mention it, Dot, I didn’t ask him that. He staggered back from the body, sat down on the bandstand, nearly got crowned with a cymbal, and whimpered about never having seen a corpse before. I didn’t have a chance to ask, either, because he shoved me aside and hared off to the Gents, and that was the last I saw of him.’
‘Could he have done it, Miss?’
‘Yes. He could have had the knife up his sleeve in a wrist sheath, like my throwing knife, and he wasn’t holding me so close that I would have noticed the movement, not if it was very fast and skilled. I don’t know, Dot, somehow I don’t see that weak young man as a murderer. And I doubt very much whether he’d know exactly where to strike in order to kill instantly.’
‘The man was stabbed, then?’ asked Dot, privately wondering at how far she had come from the innocence of her mother’s house. If, a year ago, someone had told Dot that she would be sitting in a lady’s parlour in her dressing gown, eating Hillier’s chocolates and discussing murder without turning a hair, Dot would have laughed and told the speaker to get off the grog. She shut the chocolate box firmly and accepted a glass of lemonade from Mr Butler, who was offering Miss Fisher one of his special cocktails in a sugar-frosted glass.
Phryne took the drink and sipped with fitting concentration.
‘A work of art, Mr B, as usual,’ she commented. ‘Sure you won’t have one, Dot?’
Dot shuddered. She was willing to accept a glass of sherry, a whisky toddy when she had a cold, and an occasional cooling shandy, but could not fathom her mistress’s interest in what Dot’s teetotal mother would call Strong Drink. Phryne sipped again. Kirsch, yes, and a dark fruity taste; what was it? She gave it up. Every craft has its mysteries.
‘Yes, stabbed in the heart with a sharp, thin blade. Very clever, Dot, because there was so little bleeding, and . . .’
‘Were there Italians there, Miss?’
Phryne lost her train of thought. Something was nibbling at the edge of her mind and slid away again, like a flash of goldfish in a pond. ‘Damn, it’s gone. Something was different about him, Dot, and I can’t remember what it was. Italians? Why?’
‘They use thin knives, Miss. There’s one in this novel I’m reading. Stilettos, they’re called.’
Dot displayed the cover of
Murder in Milan.
‘You do have the most sanguinary tastes, Dot. No, no Italians. Signor Antonio is no more Italian than I am. Lost his accent directly he became upset. I suppose Charles might have done it, but I just can’t see that he has hidden depths. However, the band might have seen something.’
‘A jazz band, Miss?’
‘Yes, Tintagel Stone and the Jazz Makers, and let me say that Tintagel is the prettiest man I’ve seen in weeks. The band are good, too; well, they have to be, to play the Green Mill. And the dance marathon is finished, Dot. Poor things, the winning couple danced for nearly forty-eight hours to win their baby Austin car, bless them. Though they will need Miss Iris Jordan’s services if they are ever to walk again.’
‘Miss Jordan? She’s that physical culture lady,’ said Dot, putting her empty lemonade glass back on the tray. ‘You know, Miss, she has ads in the papers for massage and things. Mrs Freeman’s maid told me that they’ve done Mrs Freeman a lot of good. Sitz baths, you know. She isn’t well.’
‘She enjoys bad health, Dot. The woman hasn’t been well since 1915, and she’s as strong as a horse. Well, well, that’s a connection. Miss Jordan didn’t mention that she knew Charles.’
‘Perhaps she doesn’t, Miss, if she only sees his mother.’
‘Perhaps. Well, I’m going to have a bath and then I’m going to bed. Are you staying up, Dot?’
‘No, Miss, I was waiting for you. What was different about the dead man, Miss?’
‘If I could remember that,’ said Phryne, trailing her maid up the stairs, ‘I wouldn’t have this uncomfortable feeling that there was something terribly important that I have missed.’
HELEN:
Candles gutter awfully quickly when
they are burnt at both ends.
NICKY:
Meaning that I look like a debauched
wreck of my former self?
HELEN:
Exactly.
Noel Coward
The Vortex
The dead man smiled and brought a hand from behind his back. He held a bunch of flowers, which he offered to Phryne. They were red roses, buds and full blooms, and the scent was stunning. She moved closer, then saw with disgust that in the centre of one was a snail, a black and shiny snail which moved as she watched, slithering into the heart of the rose. Phryne recoiled, and the dead man thrust the flowers at her face. She
screamed and woke up.
‘Ooh, gosh, ghasdy! My subconscious has a really unpleasant imagination!’ She threw back the green sheets and leapt out of bed, dragging back the curtains so that the cool, pale light of early morning washed over her. ‘Thank goodness for waking! The slimy creature in the heart of the rose, I wonder what it means? And I wonder what time it is?’