She found her watch. ‘Six-thirty. I haven’t been up this early for years. And I really don’t want to go back to sleep, not if that snail is still lurking. I shall dress and go out for a nice walk. That’ll astonish the neighbours. And Dot, too. It really looks like it means to stay spring for a while; October is an iffy month.’ She found a dress and some sandals, washed her face and brushed her teeth, and caught up a handbag and house-keys.
Phryne tiptoed down the stairs and let herself out at her own front door with a click. The sun was rising, the sky was a fetching pastel barred with dark clouds, and the air smelt fresh. The esplanade was silent as she crossed over to the path that ran along the beach. One hardy fisherman hulked over his basket on the jetty. Phryne shook her head, losing the dark remnants of the dream.
The milkman’s horse was clopping resignedly along the road when she returned from a brisk half-hour walk. There was a massive, tank-like clattering of bottles as the cart moved. The horse stopped at each house as though it knew the route better than its employer. Phryne stopped to pat it, marvelling at how huge the creature was; six feet high at the shoulder, and as docile as a lamb. It snuffled hopefully at her hands, its lips as soft as a baby’s, and allowed her to stroke its neck.
‘Morning, Miss!’ hailed the milkman. ‘You been out or going out?’
Phryne often met the milkman on her return. She felt unaccustomedly virtuous. ‘Just out for a walk,’ she called. ‘Nice day!’
‘Yair, it’ll be a sunny one,’ said the milkman, cocking an eye at the cool sunrise. ‘Here’s your milk, Miss. And one of cream. Gidday,’ he said, hoisting a jangling crate of empties onto shoulders almost as broad as his horse’s.
Phryne entered with the milk, surprising Mrs Butler, who had just put the first kettle of the day on the stove.
‘Morning, Mrs B, I couldn’t sleep so I’ve just been out for a walk. I ought to get up early more often. I haven’t seen sunrise for ages.’
Phryne swept past the dumbfounded Mrs Butler, and, collecting the newspaper from the front step, sat down in the drawing room to read it.
The papers had certainly enjoyed themselves with the murder at the Green Mill. There was a photograph of Detective Inspector Robinson looking as though he would love to run the photographer in for something, and of the Green Mill itself, with Flinders Street Station in the background. There was Signor Antonio, looking distraught. And there was a photograph of the dead man. Phryne read on:
The victim has been identified as Mr Bernard Stevens, a stock clerk employed by Myer. He was thirty-four years old and lived in lodgings in St Kilda with some other young men. It appears that he was stabbed in the heart as the dance marathon neared its end. The winners of the baby Austin car were Mr Percy McPhee of Carlton and Miss Violet King of South Yarra. They danced for forty-seven hours and twenty-one minutes before the marathon was brought to an untimely end by this dreadful occurrence. As yet, no arrests have been made, though Detective Inspector Robinson (pictured above) is said to be confident of solving the mystery.
Phryne smiled. Jack Robinson had not seemed all that confident when she had seen him last. However, things might have happened in the night.
There was just time to eat her breakfast and read the rest of the meagre information in the paper before the phone rang. She had guessed who it would be before Mr Butler called her.
‘Mrs Freeman, Miss Fisher.’
‘Oh, Lord, Mr B, I bet she wants me to go and find Charles,’ she groaned, putting down an interesting column of spicy divorce news. ‘Is that it?’
‘Yes, Miss, I believe so. The lady is very upset,’ he added.
Phryne went out to the telephone and said, ‘Yes, Mrs Freeman?’ then held the receiver away from her ear. When the shrieking had died away somewhat, she began to listen.
‘Oh, he hasn’t been home all night, and Charles is never away all night. What can have happened to him? And he was always delicate, if he’s caught a cold it will go straight to his chest, and . . .’
‘Listen!’ yelled Phryne. ‘Put a sock in it, woman, you’ll give yourself hysterics. Now, tell me quietly. Has Charles not come home?’
‘No,’ said a cold voice, shocked into calm.
‘And he has not called?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t know where he could be?’
‘No.’
‘And you want me to find him?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. See how easy that was? I shall be over directly, Mrs Freeman, if you promise to have a good stiff dose of valerian and a nice cup of tea and not to cry any more. All right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is your doctor? Have you called him?’
‘Yes. He left me some drops.’
‘Good. Take them, and I’ll be with you in two shakes.’ Phryne rang off and called to Dot to supply her with a hat and coat. The doorbell rang and Phryne, being nearest, opened the door.
Detective Inspector Robinson came in looking tired and lined. Phryne conducted him into the breakfast room and ordered strong coffee.
‘Tea, if you don’t mind, Miss Fisher. You going somewhere?’
‘Mrs Freeman has asked me to find Charles.’
‘Has she? I can’t find no trace of him.’
‘Well, if I find him, I’ll hand him over to you, Jack dear, though I cannot see him as murderer material. Do you want to talk to me, or can you wait until I’ve seen Mrs Freeman?’
‘I want to talk to you,’ said the policeman with unusual abruptness. ‘Mrs Freeman can wait.’
‘All right, Jack, of course. Mr B, could you ring Mrs Freeman and tell her I have been delayed? If she cuts up rough give her Miss Rousseau’s address and tell her that she is a professional detective with more skill than I. Thanks. Jack, you look tired to death.’
Robinson shed his coat and dropped his hat and rubbed his face with hands which, he noticed, were dirty.
‘Perhaps a bit of a wash and brush up, eh?’ said Phryne. ‘Guest bathroom is through there, yell if you want anything. Then you can have a brief and refreshing look at Mrs Butler’s new orchid—a cattleya, I believe—then a cuppa and you will be a new policeman.’
Jack Robinson did as he was told, washing his hands and face with Floris soap, and going out to the fernery to be shown Mrs Butler’s flowering orchid. It was a pink and white cattleya and it cheered his heart. When he came back to the breakfast room he absorbed two cups of tea without comment and sat back feeling, if not a new policeman, at least an improved one.
‘Thanks. That really hit the spot. And that’s a beautiful plant. Mrs Butler certainly has a way with orchids.’
‘She has a way with breakfast, too, if you’re hungry.’
‘No, I had mine at six. Boiled grease from the pie cart. This case, Miss Fisher, is, if you’ll forgive me, bloody. I never had a case before with so many witnesses who didn’t see anything! I’ve talked to every person near the dead man in that hall, and no one saw the murder. Even a good observer like yourself didn’t see it. I can pinpoint when it happened—bar thirty-five in “Bye Bye Blackbird”. All the band saw was the man falling. Three of them stepped down to pick the poor bloke up, and he was a goner. Does that bear out what you saw?’
‘Yes. I had my back to him when he fell. He sort of fell straight back, stiff, dead before he hit the ground, I fear. I fell over him, his partner dropped to her knees, the other dance marathon couple fell down as well. In a moment the floor was covered in bodies. The band stopped playing and three of them came down, I remember; the trumpeter, Tintagel Stone, and someone else . . .’
‘The clarinet player, Hugh Anderson.’
‘Yes. And the man was dead then. I could see that he was dead. I said so to Charles and he backed away, sick as a dog.’
‘And then he ran away and is still missing.’
‘What about the search? Did you find the murder weapon?’
‘No.’ Detective Inspector Robinson chuckled. ‘Lots of other things, though. Amazing how much booze people smuggle into a dancehall. A few penknives and so on, bottle openers, a couple of powders of unknown origin stated to be for headaches, usual stuff. But no knife. Nothing like anything long or sharp enough. We’ve searched the Green Mill top to toe and there is no sign of it.’
‘I can think of one way that it could have been carried out,’ observed Phryne. ‘And I bet you missed it.’
‘How?’
‘Hatpin,’ said Phryne shortly. Robinson inspected his fingernails and groped for his pipe.
‘Oh, Lord, a hatpin. Could there be one long enough?’
‘Dot? Can you bring down a bunch of the long hatpins?’ yelled Phryne. Dot came down the stairs a moment later with what looked like a small armoury: cube-shaped, amethystine, jewelled, and enamelled. One of Phryne’s hatpins, with suitable blade fixed, could certainly have stabbed Bernard Stevens, clerk, thirty-four, through the heart without pause or need for great strength.
‘How could you hide it?’
‘Put it back in the hat, of course. Did you search all the patrons to the skin?’
‘No, well, they were searched for the murder weapon. I told my men to look for a knife. It is possible that . . . oh, Lord, it could have been missed. There were several ladies wearing large hats. Oh, well, if we missed it, we missed it. It wasn’t on any of the people who were near, anyway; you were wearing that close-fitting thing, Miss Jordan had a bandeau, and so did Mrs Winter, the lady in puce. The searchers would have noticed a gentleman wearing a hatpin. Though I didn’t look at that frail girl in blue, the dead man’s partner. She’s still in hospital. Doctor says she’s suffering from exhaustion and a broken foot. Name’s Pansy Shore.’
‘It can’t possibly be,’ Phryne laughed, then pulled herself together. ‘What an unusual name. Well, sorry to give you another puzzle, Jack. Where have you searched for my errant escort?’
‘His mother’s house, his club, places like that. No one’s seen him. So far there seems to be no connection between your Freeman and the murdered man. I don’t know. What a case!’ He had his pipe burning evenly at last, and sat quite still, staring without seeing at Phryne’s marine-coloured parlour. Phryne said nothing. Jack Robinson reflected that she was a restful female when she wasn’t raising hell, and shut his eyes for a moment.
He woke to the sound of music half an hour later. Strange but attractive sounds were coming from the phonograph.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, hauling himself out of deep sleep.
‘“Basin Street Blues”. Well, Jack, if you don’t want me any more, I’d better go and see Mrs Freeman before she spontaneously combusts. Can I give you a lift anywhere?’
‘Yes, you can drop me at my place.’ He knocked out the dead pipe into an ashtray. ‘I’m for my bed, at least for a few hours. Give Mrs Butler my congratulations on her green fingers.’ He stood up, grunting with the effort. ‘And you will let me have Charles, Miss Fisher, if you find him?’
‘He shall be delivered post-haste. Did you have a coat? Mr Butler? I’m off to see Mrs Freeman. Don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll call if I’m coming for dinner. Come along, Jack. And you can omit your usual lecture on speed limits,’ she added, leading the way to the garage and packing the policeman into the big red car, ‘I’m perfectly aware of ’em.’
‘I never thought you weren’t aware of them,’ protested Detective Inspector Robinson as the car took the road. ‘Just that you don’t pay any attention to them!’
Mrs Freeman, a thin and agitated lady with advanced neurasthenia, was lying back on a chaise longue, smelling salts and a small pile of fresh handkerchiefs to hand. Phryne was
conducted into her presence by a resentful parlourmaid.
‘She’s taking on something awful,’ whispered the maid. ‘I never seen anything like it. See what you can do, Miss Fisher, she won’t eat, nor take her sleeping draught, and Doctor can’t do nothing with her.’
‘Where’s Mr Freeman? Oh, I forgot. How long has he been . . . ?’
‘Six months, Miss, and she was getting over it. She never liked him much anyway, but Charlie is the core of her heart; real mother’s boy he is. If she knew half of his goings-on she wouldn’t dote on him so fierce.’
This sounded like it had personal application. Phryne glanced sideways and saw the maid’s face screw up into a disgusted grimace.
‘I could understand if it was girls,’ she began, then dried up. Phryne searched for an acceptable euphemism.
‘You mean that . . . er . . . he is unlikely to marry?’
‘Yes,’ hissed the maid. ‘Boys!’ Then she opened the parlour door, announced, ‘Miss Fisher,’ and allowed Phryne to pass in.
Phryne had always considered homosexuality to be unfortunate, robbing her as it did of the attentions of many artistic and beautiful young men. But she considered that it was as inevitable as being born with red hair, and did not approve of attempts to cure the sufferer, especially since the sufferer was not necessarily suffering and probably had no more desire to be cured of his propensity for pretty boys than Phryne had of hers. Poor Charles! That could explain a lot about him. Since he had a Dreadful Secret he would have to spend his life either frustrated or afraid.
Phryne wondered if Mrs Freeman knew about this.
A moment’s acquaintance was sufficient to convince her that Mrs Freeman would not know anything she didn’t want to know.