Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (21 page)

‘In jail,’ said Phryne.

Eleven

…
the eyes, legs and hands of the middle wicket are never unoccupied. This situation will furnish lively employment for an active young gentleman
.

John Nyren,
The Young Cricketer’s Tutor

D
ot had been staring out of the window at the harbour and Phryne suspected that she had been crying, but she rose briskly as Phryne and her visitor came in.

‘No word from the cops, Miss,’ she told Phryne. ‘No news is good news.’

‘Your mind is about to be relieved. Dot, this is Mrs Hart, who needs to deliver a message to you,’ said Phryne, kicking off her shoes.

‘You look like your sister,’ said Dolly Hart. ‘Joanie gave me this for you.’

Dot took the folded piece of paper. The outside was grubby but it opened cleanly. She stared at it, then handed it to Phryne. In clear copybook script Phryne read, ‘Dot, dear, it’s not what you think. Look after the little ones for me. I’ll explain later, your loving sister Joan.’

‘What does it mean?’ asked Dot, immensely relieved at knowing that her sister was alive. It didn’t matter what Joan had done, that could all be adjusted, she was alive. Dot fought back tears. Phryne gave her a quick hug.

‘Put some nice clothes on Dot, hospital-going clothes, you’re accompanying Mrs Hart to the University. There you will find Professor Bretherton and ask him to sit with you and Mrs Hart in case Mr Hart cuts up rough. Now, we have to bluff a very unpleasant deceived husband. Mrs Hart needs to look respectable. It’ll put him on the back foot. None of my clothes will fit Mrs Hart, so can you lend her your linen coat and skirt? And perhaps that oatmeal coloured shirt and the small straw hat. She has to look right or this will not work.’

Dot sized Mrs Hart in her mind’s eye, nodded, and drew her into her room to change. Events were moving with their usual speed around Miss Fisher; she had found Joan and Joan was all right, and for that Dot would have given her whole wardrobe to this ageing tart if Phryne required it.

Stripped of the unbecoming dress, her face scrubbed, her hair drawn back into a French pleat and Dot’s exceptionally respectable clothes assumed, Mrs Hart could hardly be recognised. She looked at herself in the mirror, marvelling.

‘Well, will you look at that,’ she observed. ‘Might be anyone’s mother.’

‘You’re Joss Hart’s mother,’ said Phryne. ‘And you had better get back to him quickly. Dot, dear, I’m sure that Mrs Hart will explain about Joan on the way, but a brief précis is this: your sister hasn’t done anything which might cause a blush on a priest’s cheek. She’s been teaching deportment to Tillie’s girls, because Tillie wants them refined. That’s all, eh, Mrs Hart?’

Mrs Hart recalled a ladylike smile from her past and said, ‘That’s all. But the cops raided Tillie’s on Saturday, and swept her up. And now she’s doing fourteen days without the option. But it won’t be on her record. She’s there under a bodgy name. Once she gets out she can go home to her husband and children.’

‘If she wants to,’ snapped Dot. Outrage at Joan’s husband’s reaction was growing in her bosom. ‘Jim Thompson doesn’t deserve to get her back if he doesn’t change his tune quick smart. Assume my sister is a slut, will he? Assume that I’m one too! I knew she couldn’t have taken the bad path. I’ll go and see her and tell her that the children are being cared for. But there’s nothing wrong with teaching deportment,’ declared Dot. ‘Whoever you teach it to.’

‘That’s the spirit.’ Mrs Hart smiled again. Phryne was full of admiration. ‘Now, dear, can we go?’ Mrs Hart’s smile cracked.

‘That’s my son, dearie, lying in that hospital. I haven’t seen him since he was eight, and I might never see him again if we don’t get a move on.’

‘Right away. Miss, a Mr Sanders left a message that he’s in room 64,’ said Dot, grabbing for a light summer coat, her hat and her bag. ‘And there’s the telephone messages on the little table.’

A brief flurry and Dot and Mrs Hart were gone. Phryne was pleased that Mr Sanders had made his way to the hotel. She was banking on his having read an entrancing book by A.A. Milne which had just been published. It concerned the adventures of a group of toys and one of them, Piglet, lived under the name of Sanders. The telephone messages were not interesting—except for the last, a block-printed, hand-delivered sheet of paper.

‘Come to the jacaranda tree at seven o’clock and you will hear something to your advantage. Destroy this note.’

No signature, no clue to the identity. Just what sort of heroine do you think I am? Phryne asked the air. Only a Gothic novel protagonist would receive that and say, ‘Goodness, let me just slip into a low-cut white nightie and put on the highest heeled shoes I can find,’ and, pausing only to burn the note, slip out of, hotel by a back exit and go forth to meet her doom in the den of the monster—to be rescued in the nick of time by the strong-jawed young hero (he of the Byronic profile and the muscles rippling beneath the torn shirt). ‘Oh, my dear,’ Phryne spoke aloud as if to the letter-writer. ‘You don’t know a lot about me, do you?’

Phryne’s preparations were more elaborate (and, in any case, she did not wear white or high heels). After their completion, she picked up the house telephone.

‘Mr Sanders?’ she asked.

A voice replied, ‘All out for 253 and Hobbs and Sutcliffe are still in.’

‘How about dinner? I can have some sent up,’ she offered.

‘I’d rather be on my own, if you don’t mind,’ said the voice politely. ‘I’ve got rather a lot to think about.’

‘If you are being constrained, all you have to say next is, bandersnatch,’ said Phryne.

‘Not even a Jabberwock,’ chuckled Ayers. ‘I just feel the need of some silent meditation.’

‘Fine. Comfortable?’

‘Lovely,’ he affirmed.

Phryne rang off. She felt like some company but none of the available persons pleased her. She shook herself, ordered a steak from room service and took a long, thorough bath.

When she went out at half-past six, she had left a note for Dot in the room, a letter at reception, and had stowed her notes on the case in the hotel safe.

The journey to the University was quick. She would be on time for her appointment. It was getting dark and the campus seemed deserted. She stepped lightly, listening for footsteps.

Phryne believed in precautions. She was not prepared, however, when a blanket was thrown over her head, her feet were kicked from under her, and she was rushed through what sounded like stone corridors and down stone stairs before she could scream.

Then she heard a terrible ringing scrape, and she was falling. She fell into the dark, feet first, not knowing how far she had to fall.

Dancers, acrobats and fighters learn to fall. Phryne concentrated, shelving all other emotions, and collapsed gracefully as she hit the ground, rolling with the impact, so instead of breaking both ankles she was lightly bruised all over. A reasonable exchange, she thought, gathering her wits. She estimated that she had fallen ten, perhaps fifteen feet.

Onto what? The ground was hard and slick with moisture. Stone. Paving stone, she decided, feeling the straight joins. So. Ten to fifteen feet down onto a stone floor. She stood up uncertainly in the darkness. Where was she?

The journey had been bumpy and she had been muffled in a blanket which had come down with her. She gathered it up and walked with one hand extended until she came up against a wall. More cold damp stone, curving under her touch. Phryne began to shiver. Was this a well? Is that why it was wet? And did her kidnappers expect her to die here, drowning slowly as the water rose?

The darkness pressed close. She strained her eyes to see, inducing light-spot illusions. She shut her eyes, abandoning the sense as unreliable, and began to feel her way along the wall, stepping carefully. Her sliding feet impacted on something soft after only a few paces and she crouched next to it, hoping that it was, firstly, not dangerous and, secondly, useful. A rope ladder would be a favourite, or some means of making light.

Her fingers touched cloth. A jacket. Tweed. She felt further down and found trousers, then further up and found a face. The clothes were inhabited by a man; she touched a beard. A corpse? Not pleasant company, she reflected, though he was unlikely to offend her for long if this really was a well. Dead? She leaned down and listened for a breath, her hand on the tweed-clad chest. Alive. The jacket rose and fell. Warm breath gusted past her cheek. Alive was good, though he was not precisely kicking. What was wrong with him? Drugged? If he had been dropped down as she had, he might have hit his head. Her theory was confirmed when she laid her hand on the unknown man’s hair and felt it was matted and sticky.

Feeling better now that she knew that she was not entirely alone in the dark, Phryne sat down on her blanket and considered herself. She had been snatched off the Quad and her handbag had gone, but she had been wearing a skirt with an old-fashioned pocket. In that pocket…

Hardly daring to breathe, she rummaged, and gave a cry of triumph which echoed oddly in the confined space. A packet of Gauloise Gitanes. A comb. A handkerchief. A box of matches.

Phryne Fisher ritually blessed the names of both Bryant and May, extracted a cigarette by feel and lit it. In the first flare she saw that she and the unknown man were in a circular chamber which seemed to have no exit except from above. The cigarette glow did not extend high enough to see the roof, but the walls seemed unbroken by any door. Phryne counted her matches.

She had eight left. Eight matches were not going to last long.

Drawing grateful draughts of smoke into her lungs to keep the gasper alight, she began to work on the edge of the blanket with the comb. It wasn’t going to work, of course, she realised after a moment: the blanket was wool and wool did not burn. What was she wearing which might?

Mr Edmund Brazell, Professor of Anthropology, opened his eyes, feeling like death, and saw a beautiful woman stripping off her garments. A chemise dropped onto his face, followed by a bust-band and French camiknickers. It was obvious, he decided, that he had died and gone to Heaven, which was a distinctly more interesting place than he had been led to believe.

Phryne rolled the knickers, applied the cigarette end, and blew gently. A small flame sprang up.

‘Silk,’ she said with satisfaction. Carrying the improvised torch, she stood up and began to carry out a circuit of the walls, looking for cracks.

Mr Brazell propped himself on one elbow. He believed that the Mohammedan paradise did rather feature naked and beautiful women, but they were unlikely to be clad in stockings, shoes and a blanket, smoking what his nose told him was a French gasper, and he decided that he had not died after all.

Still, his immediate future looked distinctly interesting.

‘Excuse me,’ he began, touching his aching head with tentative fingertips and instantly regretting it. ‘Ouch!’

‘Oh, you’re awake. Stay still, that’s my advice. You’ve a nasty bang on the head.’

‘S-So I discover,’ he agreed, watching her progress with fascination. She seemed perfectly unconcerned at her near-nakedness. She was small, straight-backed and as slim as a nymph, her cap of black hair swinging forward as she moved. He watched through watering eyes as she completed her inspection of the walls and came back to him. She knelt down, looking concerned.

‘Let’s have a look at that bump. I don’t think my torch is going to last much longer.’ He leaned forward and she touched the wound gently. Her fingers were very sure.

‘I don’t think they’ve cracked your skull, just split your scalp. I’ll put my hankie on it. Can you sit up?’

‘I think s-so,’ gasped Brazell. She helped him sit up with his back against the wall and he held the torch as she reassumed her skirt and blouse.

‘Now, we’ve got a blanket and some cigarettes and the rest of my underwear in reserve, though I’ve only got seven matches. But I’ve set out on picnics with less. What have you got in your pockets?’

‘Madam,’ said Edmund Brazell, ‘who are you?’

She grinned a gamine grin, which lit up her face and set her green eyes alight. ‘I’m Phryne Fisher, who are you?’

‘Edmund Brazell. Of course, we’ve met. At that frightful faculty do. What are we doing here?’

‘There you have me. I haven’t the faintest. Though if I ever get out of here I shall find whoever did this and rivet their genitalia to a Bondi tram, laughing merrily the while and probably selling tickets. We’ll have time to talk, Edmund dear, but just now I need to know if you have anything inflammable in your pockets?’

‘Papers,’ he gasped, gesturing to her to search his right-hand side while he went through the left.

Phryne wondered why men made jokes about women’s handbags. Edmund Brazell was carrying his own weight in rubbish—fortunately. She managed to catch the last flicker from her charred knickers on an old bus ticket and transferred it to a tightly folded playbill for The Sydney Follies.

‘Those Sydney Follies were obviously hot stuff,’ she observed. Brazell laughed. Phryne looked up from folding an advertisement for a new translation of Homer’s
Iliad
and considered him.

Not a very young man, pale and bloodstained. He had dark curly hair and a dark curly beard and a wide mouth; portrait of a Roman, perhaps. He had been stunned and thrown down into a well and was obviously confused and in pain, but he was neither unnerved nor suspiciously calm. His hands were long and beautiful, and he smelt of tweed and soap. She approved.