Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (27 page)

Professor Kirkpatrick answered his own door. ‘I never allow the girl to work on the Sabbath,’ he said with conscious virtue. ‘Oh, it’s you, Miss Fisher. And Brazell. Come in, will you?’

Phryne did not ask any questions. She looked around a small sitting room whose predominant colour was dark brown with chocolate highlights, drank tea as pale as straw and asked polite questions about the decor. Mrs Kirkpatrick, a meagre woman whose social manner was more than a little creaky, roused herself from contemplation of the sinfulness of not one but a whole bunch of velvet pansies on a blue hat, and displayed her treasures. There was a steel etching of the Monarch of the Glen, a fine Chelsea tea-cup and saucer in the shape of a lettuce leaf (safely locked behind glass where impious hands could not touch it) and an oil painting of Glasgow University, presented to Professor Kirkpatrick on the occasion of his leaving it and coming to Australia, a land, Mrs Kirkpatrick said, of frightful moral laxness and sin. What was to be expected, she asked, of a place originally inhabited by godless savages and convicts? Though the moral tone of the colony, of course, had improved with the arrival of her exceptionally noble, virtuous and upright husband, Professor Kirkpatrick, a man of unexampled probity and—of course—honesty.

Phryne agreed and smiled, told Professor Kirkpatrick to be at the faculty office at seven o’clock even if it was the Sabbath, and Mrs Kirkpatrick saw them out.

‘Well, that didn’t prove anything,’ said Brazell, trailing his coat.

‘Didn’t it? Next address, please, driver.’

‘You hirin’ me for the whole day, Missus?’ demanded the driver.

‘If necessary,’ said Phryne.

‘It’ll cost you,’ warned the driver. Phryne dropped a banknote over the seat.

‘I can afford it,’ she told him. The note vanished with remarkable speed. One moment it was there, the next, only a disturbance of the air and the suspicion of a whisking noise.

‘Right you are, lady,’ said the driver with as much optimism as a Sydney taxi-driver ever displays. ‘Next house.’

Fortunately, most of the faculty lived either in Bellevue Hill or Vaucluse, with the exception of the Dean, who had recently moved.

‘The garden really is splendid, isn’t it?’ asked Phryne, as they walked up a winding paved path to a small house called—as Phryne knew it would be—Rose Cottage.

‘Beautiful,’ agreed Brazell, who preferred deserts. Gardens always seemed to him to be vaguely obscene. So lush. So urgent.

Then again, he reflected, he was in no position to be judgmental, considering the night and day he had just spent. He followed Phryne’s neat back up the path. A woman in a thick skirt and battered tweed hat which had clearly belonged to her husband stood up and stretched.

‘Come in,’ she called, waving a hospitable trowel. ‘Hello, Mr Brazell! Corny’s just put the tea on. Soon have a nice cup. Hello,’ she said to Phryne. ‘I’d shake your hand but I’m a bit mucky. That couchgrass is a real curse in growing weather. It’d have all my beds overgrown in an afternoon if I didn’t keep at it.’

‘This is Miss Fisher.’ Brazell introduced Phryne. ‘I’ll go and find S-Sykes, s-shall I?’ Following the path towards the house, he was almost hidden under a tangle of weeping roses which dropped pink petals onto his shoulders.

Mrs Sykes cleaned her trowel, tucked a wisp of straggling hair under her hat (in the process getting a smear of topsoil on her weathered cheek) and gave Phryne a considered look.

‘So you’re Miss Fisher,’ she said. ‘Nice to meet you. Corny’s told me about the trouble at the University, and he says they all trust you to find out the answer.’

‘It’s a puzzle,’ said Phryne, sitting down on a rustic seat made of lacquered tree branches.

‘All I know about it is that poor Corny’s nearly worried to death,’ said Mrs Sykes, joining her. The seat groaned. Mrs Sykes was a solid, blocky woman, broad in shoulder and beam.

‘He’s never been a complicated man,’ she said softly, pushing back the hat and wiping her brow. ‘Sykes, I mean. Fond of the garden. Likes pottering about with the plants. He’s writing a paper on azaleas for the
Gardener’s World
magazine. I don’t believe there’s a dishonest bone in his body. But he worries, see, and that Dean makes him worse by shouting at him. I’m afraid he may have done something foolish.’

‘If he has, I’ll probably find out,’ said Phryne gently. The scent of roses flowed over her, strong enough to make her sneeze.

Mrs Sykes produced a pair of secateurs from her pocket and snipped off an intrusive trailer.

‘He could retire,’ she suggested, cutting the severed creeper in half, then in quarters. ‘With his pension and a bit of money I’ve got we’d be all right. Tending the garden. No more worries.’

‘That could happen,’ Phryne watched the trailer cut into eights and then sixteenths. ‘The University doesn’t want a scandal. Tell him to come to the faculty office at seven o’clock tonight and we should be able to fix everything.’

‘Well, I hope so,’ said Mrs Sykes. ‘Come in and have some tea. We’ll have it out in the gazebo, eh? Nice weather for it, Miss Fisher.’

‘Nice weather indeed. How do you manage the wind? It must tear across your fence and blight your plants.’

‘Planted that row of bamboo, oh, it must have been twenty years ago now,’ said Mrs Sykes. ‘Bamboo doesn’t mind wind. Behind its shelter we’ve got all the most delicate things. Come and look,’ she said.

Phryne went quietly.

An hour later they departed. Phryne got back into the taxi preceded by a huge bunch of roses of all colours, from pure white to a red that was almost black. She placed it next to the driver. He was about to protest when he thought of that nice crackly fiver under his waistcoat, and subsided.

‘Nice feller, S-Sykes,’ said Edmund. ‘Knows a fearful amount about roses.’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne, giving nothing away. ‘So does his wife. Next address, please.’

The next address proved to be just around the corner. Professor John Bretherton lived in a small mansion with green lawns and a gravelled carriage drive—not very long, but very impressive. Phryne and Brazell were announced by an aged maid in a black uniform and rigidly pinned cap. Mrs Bretherton was in, and would receive Miss Fisher. Mr Bretherton was in his study and would be pleased to see Mr Brazell.

Wondering if this was a policy of divide and conquer or just a desire to keep Miss Fisher away from the susceptible Bretherton,

Phryne was shown into a large parlour. The French windows were open onto a pleasant garden in which a small child was being pushed in a swing by a larger sibling. Squeals of joy rent the air.

‘My granddaughters,’ said Mrs Bretherton. She was a middle sized, middle aged woman with soft hands and a slightly tired smile. ‘I don’t know how it is, Miss Fisher, but I’m finding small children just a whisker less of a delight than I used to. I was once immune to noise. Now I find that it grates on my ear. Will you sit down? Nan will bring tea directly.’

Mrs Bretherton was longing to ask Miss Fisher to what she owed the honour of her visit, but it was far too early in the ritual to do so. Phryne sat down on a chaise longue and wondered how much tea she could drink in one day without serious bladder damage.

‘John told me that you are looking into the burglary at the university, and the shocking affair of the Hart boy.’ Mrs Bretherton made the opening bid.

‘That’s true,’ said Phryne. ‘I’m expecting it all to be cleared up directly. Can you tell Professor Bretherton to come to the faculty office at seven tonight? What a charming room.’

‘It’s a little battered, but so are we all,’ replied Mrs Bretherton. ‘The children leave their mark on furniture, of course, and I can’t bring myself to replace, as it might be, the sofa that the little girls used to bounce on or the chair where my eldest daughter sat in her wedding dress.’ Her face shone as she spoke of her children. This was a woman, Phryne thought, who might not be very clever but who would die for her offspring, or murder for them. And what would life hold for her, now that she would no longer conceive? The answer was even now falling off the swing in the garden and screaming at the top of its voice.

Mrs Bretherton was out of chair and house at the speed of light, and returned carrying a tot who had bruised its topknot and lost its ribbon and was very unhappy about it.

‘Hush, hush,’ soothed Mrs Bretherton. ‘What a bump! Grandma will kiss it better. That didn’t hurt, did it? Now, Lucy, this is Miss Fisher come to visit Grandma. Say hello.’

Prompted, the small girl eyed Phryne, said ‘H’lo,’ obediently, then added, ‘Flowers!’

‘Pansies,’ said Phryne, allowing the grandchild to ascend her chaise longue and inspect her hat.

‘Nice,’ decided the child. ‘Nice lady smells good,’ said Lucy, embracing Phryne suddenly. It was like being hugged by a puppy. Just as suddenly the child released her hold on Phryne’s neck and climbed down with a great display of frilly undergarments. ‘Lolly?’ she asked.

‘Choose,’ said Mrs Bretherton, lifting down a tall jar of boiled sweets. Lucy sat down to consider it. Her bump was forgotten and her concentration total.

‘The lolly standard,’ said Mrs Bretherton, inclined to like Phryne now that Lucy had given her a vote of confidence. ‘One lolly per bump. Of course, she may have fallen off the swing on purpose. Lucy really loves boiled lollies.’

‘This one,’ Lucy said, pointing. Mrs Bretherton managed to shake the jar so adroitly that the chosen sweet rose to the surface. Phryne saw that Lucy was choosing for size, not taste. Lucy left, smiling.

‘My husband is a good man,’ stated Mrs Bretherton. ‘Oh, I know he’s susceptible. He’s a hot-blooded creature and would go anywhere, with anyone, at the drop of a handkerchief. But he always comes home.’ She leaned forward to emphasise her point. ‘There’s no reason why he would steal, Miss Fisher. If it had been a matter of some woman’s virtue, well, then I might be concerned.’

‘Indeed,’ said Phryne. She drank her tea, when it came, asked for and got use of Mrs Bretherton’s lavatory, and was paying polite attention to Mrs Bretherton’s commentary on several volumes of grandchildren’s photographs when Bretherton escorted Brazell into the parlour. They both bore that look of uneasiness which men wear when they suspect (and rightly) that women have been talking about them.

‘Very nice to meet you.’ Phryne shook hands and the Brethertons walked them to their taxi. The driver had snoozed off in the scent of roses, and woke abruptly.

‘Next address, lady?’

‘Next address,’ confirmed Phryne.

‘Bisset lives in College.’ Edmund ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Ayers also. Are we going to s-see him?’

‘No, he’s not at home,’ said Phryne. Brazell accepted this.

‘Not the VC-C, s-surely,’ pleaded Brazell.

‘No, not the VC.’

‘Oh, good. Why are we going back towards the c-city? Are we going home?’

‘No, dear boy, not yet,’ said Phryne. ‘We’re going to see the Dean.’

‘Oh, golly,’ said Brazell.

The taxi roared on the journey back to the city. Phryne did not speak. Brazell looked at her, wondering what she was thinking. His mind drifted off to his own concerns. Joss had stolen the hand axe to please his father. Well, that was damnable nerve but no real loss to archaeology. Australia was rather rich in hand axes. The idea, however, that Hart and Co. were about to demolish the landscape of his favourite tribe was outrageous, absolutely outrageous. There was still a Protector of Aborigines. Let him do his job! Let him protect them for a change. The land was the life of the tribe, any fool knew that. Edmund Brazell began to muster his arguments. That axe had come from the territory of the Coast Murri Dreaming. Every stone was sacred, every waterhole, every cliff, every patch of greenish gravel which apparently denoted the presence of copper. If Hart and Co. thought that there was no one who cared about the Murri, then he was wrong. It was wise and far-sighted of Hart to order Edmund Brazell flung down a well, because that was the only way that he would not make a frightful stink about this plan. Hart would get his mining lease over his, Brazell’s, dead body. That, in fact, had been the idea. A sobering thought. It was largely due to Miss Fisher that he was still alive to object. He took Phryne’s hand.

Far too soon, the taxi arrived at a middle-sized house in an unfashionable suburb near the University.

‘Where are we?’ asked Phryne.

‘Ah, well, this is Glebe. Called s-so because a lot of it belongs to the Church, I presume. A lot of the s-students live here. Used to be full of pretensions—Avenue Road, for instance, with Toxteth House and all those impressive Edwardian terraces—but most of it just grew. It’s a bit varied. But I like it. When I move out of College, I’d like to live here. Nice variable population, too: Islanders, Turks, Arabs, Aborigines.’

‘No, not grew,’ said Phryne, a woman who valued precision of expression. ‘I think the word is accreted.’

There was something of the coral reef about Glebe. It had been there a long time, and houses were almost never pulled down. Instead they were added to in a variety of bizarre ways. A lot of it was falling down. Loose galvanised iron flapped on decrepit roofs and blocked-in upper balconies. An old man sat smoking a foul pipe on his front step, the only part of his cottage which appeared to be both level and solid. Children skipped in the road, chanting the age-old fate of the daughters of Old Mother Moore.