Death in Daylesford Page 10

  Hugh nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s a good idea. Perhaps you could go tomorrow afternoon? They should be home on a Sunday.’

  Jane nodded decisively. ‘We’ll take the tram.’

  ‘That’s settled then. Remember: stick to your story! Mrs Knight might suspect you’re up to something, but don’t let on. If she’s intelligent enough to know what you’re doing—and I suspect she might be—she’ll play along.’

  ‘What about me? What do you want me to do?’ Tinker felt it was high time to break his silence.

  Hugh scratched his head and looked him over. ‘Look, I’m not sure, Tinker. Keep your ears open at school. You never know; you might hear something. Maybe the father of the child might be someone your friends know? It isn’t likely, but longer shots have got home in police detection than that. Look out for boys acting strange.’

  ‘You mean guilty?’

  ‘Exactly that. Anyone who gets a girl in trouble isn’t going to advertise it. And if the girl comes to harm afterwards, he’s going to think he’s in a whole lot of trouble.’ He blinked. ‘Of course, if the boy got her pregnant but had nothing to do with her death—and can prove it—then his best plan is to come forward now, before we find him and charge him.’ He gave Tinker a sharp look. ‘The trouble is that all too often boys keep their mouths shut when they should be speaking up.’

  Tinker nodded, and blushed.

  ‘It all sounds like Romeo and Juliet.’ Ruth looked doleful again.

  ‘It might well have been just like Romeo and Juliet.’ Hugh shrugged and sighed.

  Jane looked suddenly alert. ‘And the Prince said that they were all to blame—and all are punished.’

  ‘I remember.’ Ruth looked again at the portrait of Claire In Love. ‘We don’t have a golden statue like Lord Montague promised, but we do have her painting.’

  ‘All right, that’s our plan,’ Hugh concluded. ‘Now I’m going to have a snooze. I was up earlier than I like this morning.’

  He clumped out of the kitchen, and the three children looked at each other in turn.

  ‘We’re gonna find who did this, aren’t we?’ Tinker announced.

  Ruth and Jane exchanged looks of resolution. ‘Yes, we are. I wish Claire had told us she needed help; but this is too bad,’ said Ruth. ‘Whoever did this has to pay for it. It’s not fair!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber’s wall.

  Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all.

  A.B. Paterson,

  ‘The Man from Ironbark’

  ‘Whatever d’ye think yer doing now? A terrible accident like this is no place for a lady! Get along with you!’

  It had taken Sergeant Offaly no more than fifteen seconds to appear. His sergeant’s stripes bristled at her. An accusing forefinger pointed directly at Phryne’s sternum.

  She dimpled, with maximum artifice. ‘Sergeant, this is no accident,’ she suggested, holding up a sliver of steel in her gloved hand. ‘I found this in Mr McAlpine’s neck. If you ask nicely, he will show you the puncture wound.’ She indicated the shocked caber-tosser, who blinked at the sergeant and indicated a small bloom of blood on his neck.

  But the sergeant was having none of it. Beads of sweat gathered on his unsightly features, which suffused with blood like an overripe tangerine.

  ‘Be off with ye! I won’t be havin’ any amateur detectives on my watch, d’ye hear me now?’ He shooed her away as though banishing chickens from his kitchen door, and Phryne took the unresisting McAlpine by the arm back towards the beer tent. Shocked groups of bystanders gathered in clumps, deploring the sudden calamity and speculating on what was to be done, and who was going to do it.

  Meanwhile, things were happening with considerable speed on the green. An elderly man in a tweed jacket had inspected the body and pronounced life extinct. A stretcher had appeared, and the deceased had been wrapped decently in a blanket and carried off. Hats were removed, hands were clasped in reverent silence. At an imperious sign from the Gaelic-speaking clergyman, one of the pipers began to play ‘Flowers of the Forest’. As the haunting lament echoed across the oval, Dot wiped away a tear. Phryne’s eyes scanned back and forth in mounting frustration. Too many suspects, and virtually none of them known to her. An idiotic police sergeant who would be of no help whatever, and probably an active hindrance.

  ‘Just sit quiet for a while, Mr McAlpine,’ Phryne advised. ‘You’ve had a bad shock, as have we all. But what I need you to know right now is that none of this was your fault. I do not believe in coincidences. Somebody deliberately sabotaged your throw.’ She held out the pin. ‘Since our village copper doesn’t seem to be interested in this, let’s have a close look at it ourselves. Do you own anything like this?’

  McAlpine stared at it. ‘I thought I’d been stung by a bee. But I think it’s a needle from a sewing machine.’ His voice was butter-soft and, though broadly antipodean, retained some of the Highland lilt of his claymore-wielding ancestors. ‘No, I don’t have such a thing. Any time I need any sewing done, she does it for me.’ He looked at Phryne from beneath his curling eyelashes. ‘She’s a wonderful girl with a needle.’

  ‘She being …’ Phryne prompted.

  He blushed. ‘Annie! What a girl she is!’

  ‘I see. Mr McAlpine, if I seem rude and forthright, then please believe that I have good reason for any questions I may ask you. Are you in love in Annie?’

  ‘Mph. That I am,’ he conceded.

  ‘Does she know?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Phryne doubted this very much, but let it pass.

  ‘But there it is. Everyone loves her. You can see why, can you not?’

  ‘Yes, I really can. Now please: tell me about the deceased.’

  McAlpine opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment the sergeant erupted in front of them and held out a ham-like hand. ‘I’ll take that, if you please, Miss. It may be nothing, but it might be Evidence.’

  Phryne looked up at him and smiled winningly. ‘Yes, Sergeant. Do take care of it.’ She made to hand over the needle, but held up her other gloved hand in warning. ‘Sergeant? Fingerprints?’

  He leaned forward, his face closer to hers than was comfortable. A hot blast of boiled cabbage and potato wafted across her outraged nostrils. ‘Whoever heard of fingerprints on a damned needle? Don’t be daft, woman!’ He grabbed the needle and turned on his heel.

  As the sergeant’s clumping feet receded across the lawn, Dot reached into her handbag and handed Phryne a small bottle of cologne in outraged silence. Phryne inhaled deeply.

  ‘Thank you, Dot. Now, as I was enquiring before we were so rudely interrupted, who was the poor man?’

  McAlpine laid his hand across the substantial breadth of his barrel chest and bowed his head. ‘Donald Mackay. He’s a farmer. Or he was. A good man! I don’t know how …’ He paused, silent tears running down his cheek and into his beard.

  ‘Oh, but we do know how, Mr McAlpine. I expect somebody with a blowpipe fired this into your neck at the very instant you were going to do your party piece. They intended to kill someone and were ruthless or desperate enough not to care if your caber hit the wrong person. They fired from your left-hand side, and Mr Mackay was on your right. As I recall, he was standing by himself with nobody around him. So, this was a crime of opportunity. Now, can you tell me if the late Donald was also in love with Annie?’

  ‘Oh, he was that. I mean to say: everybody loved her, but I believe she favoured Donald more than most. Do you think he was killed because of a jealous man?’

  Phryne looked into his haunted eyes. ‘I think it very possible. But unless you are the world’s best actor, Mr McAlpine, I don’t think the jealous lover was you. You could have stabbed yourself with the needle and pretended that your hands had slipped, but that is such a far-fetched idea that nobody would ever believe it. Except possibly Sergeant Offaly, whom I am beginning to dislike more and more.�
�� This raised a faint smile from McAlpine, and Phryne continued. ‘It will be his duty to question you at some point. He may well believe it was an accident, or he may not. With the abysmally stupid, who even knows what they think? But if he gives you any reason to suspect that he thinks you did it, then come and find me, or send word. I’m staying at the Mooltan in Hepburn Springs, but I’m here in Daylesford for the moment. And I see him come most carefully on his hour. Dot, we are leaving.’

  Phryne rose as the sergeant came clumping back towards them. Once more the accusatory finger shot out like a gangrenous sausage. ‘McAlpine! I want a word with you.’

  Phryne and Dot departed.

  ‘I don’t think he’s the one, Miss Phryne,’ Dot ventured.

  Phryne looked back over her shoulder. A grubby notebook was being flourished, and the sergeant was scribbling with earnest intent. ‘I don’t think so either, Dot. I didn’t get a good look at our corpse, but I am fairly certain our departed friend was staring at Annie in the beer tent with a lovelorn passion such as I have rarely encountered. Apparently Annie favoured him, as you heard. And this might be a jealous rival. Possibly. Do people kill off their rivals in love, except in penny novelettes?’

  ‘They might, Miss. She’s very beautiful.’

  ‘That she is, Dot. And genuinely kind and charming. But as soon as this drama quietens down, I am going to have a serious word with Jessie. She’s holding plenty back, and I want all of it, not just hints and warnings.’

  Back on the green, the doctor sighed, laid the coverlet over the face of the late Donald Mackay and stood up. He began issuing instructions to helpful bystanders. A stretcher had been produced from somewhere, and the dear departed was ferried away. Meanwhile the mayor had assumed the podium again. The locals had formed a bewildered circle around him, hoping that Someone would Take Charge, and it seemed that the mayor had assumed the role. He was orating in his best municipal voice, and it seemed that this was having the desired effect.

  ‘—this terrible mishap. Therefore, I believe it would be best if we close this event now. Tomorrow we shall go to our respective churches and pray for the soul of this good man Donald Mackay, so unfortunately taken from us. I have spoken with all the representatives of our local churches, and they and I are of one mind here. First, we grieve, then we give thanks for Donald’s life and our hopes for his soul’s salvation. And thereafter … Well, now, you will all remember that the dear departed was a great man for playing the violin, and he dearly loved the country dancing. The Reverend McPherson has offered his church hall from four o’clock tomorrow. We all think it would be a worthy and fitting tribute to the life of this splendid young man if you would all come to a dance there. I hope this meets with your approval.’

  There was a sigh of what seemed to be approbation. The mayor stepped down, his goldish chain clanking, and disappeared into the beer tent. After a short wait Phryne and Dot followed him in. Annie was sobbing loudly, being comforted by her sister. Phryne advanced upon the melancholic licensee and fixed him with her glittering eye. ‘Mr McKenzie? I would strongly advise that you take over management of the bar, right now. I wish to speak with your nieces. Alone.’

  Phryne raised her open hand in warning to Jessie, who was looking at her over Annie’s shoulder. Annie burst into a fresh outbreak of tears. Phryne ignored her and approached the bar. ‘Jessie? You and I are going to have a proper talk. While your uncle minds the shop.’

  McKenzie avoided her eye and chewed the ends of his beard for a long moment. ‘Aye, well. I can do that. Do what Miss Fisher says, Jessie.’

  A faint smile coloured Jessie’s face. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Come along with me.’

  Phryne swept out of the beer tent, with Dot and Jessie in her wake. As they crossed the green, she saw that Colleen O’Rourke had taken charge of the young men. They were gathered around her in a semicircle and she was giving them instructions.

  Phryne turned to her companion. ‘Watching the worthy sergeant making a complete mess of this criminal investigation is more than I can cope with right now. We’re not going to find any suspects hanging around here.’ She turned. ‘Jessie, we are going to sit over there—’ she pointed to the table and chairs where they had watched the dancing ‘—and you are going to tell me everything you know.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, looking across the green to the beer tent. Tragedy had not, it seemed, assuaged the thirsts of the locals. Annie was clearly visible, standing by her uncle. Both were serving drinks.

  ‘I should be there,’ Jessie fretted. ‘And Annie should be resting.’

  Phryne glared at her. ‘Annie will just have to cope, Jessie; you can’t always be at her side and smoothing her way in front of her. Serving drinks is what she’s good at and it will be a lot better for her if she’s kept busy. She can collapse later on, if she wants to, when everything is packed up. Then you can read her bedtime stories and hold her hand and tuck her up in bed with her dolls. But right now, I need your full attention. Look at me!’

  Ever sensitive to her employer’s moods, Dot stood up so Phryne and she could change places. Jessie sat up, her pale, freckled face damp with tears and apprehension, and stared back into Phryne’s determined countenance.

  ‘Much better,’ Phryne observed. She folded both hands in front of her on the wooden tabletop. ‘I want to know what’s happening around here, and I think you are the person best placed to tell me what’s going on. So please do—and no holding back—before somebody else gets killed.’

  Jessie looked at Phryne without speaking for a long moment. ‘You don’t think Donald’s death was an accident, then?’ she ventured at last.

  ‘I really don’t. How many times has our Highland warrior tossed that caber?’

  ‘I can’t remember. But he’s never dropped it before.’

  ‘I thought not.’ Phryne leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘Our murderer came armed and ready to act, and when he saw his chance he took it, firing a needle into Kenneth’s neck at the crucial moment to make him release the caber. Donald Mackay was standing by himself and there was a good chance that this would succeed. Now, I want you to give me the names of Annie’s most devoted admirers. Since our sergeant seems unwilling—or unable—to take this seriously, I am taking the case on. Very presumptuous of me, no doubt. But solving mysteries is what I do, and I’m going to do it. You told me that you were afraid that not all the Admiration Brigade were as docile as they seemed, and it appears you may be right. So: names?’ Phryne reached into her handbag and took out a gold fountain pen and a notebook.

  Jessie closed her eyes for a moment. ‘All right, I think I can do that. Poor Donald was the one she liked the most, after Pat Sullivan. Graeme Forbes goes into a swoon whenever he claps eyes on her, but never speaks to her directly. He’s harmless, I’m sure of that. Anyone who keeps as many cats as he does around the house wouldn’t be a killer.’

  Phryne wrote quickly, then looked up in expectation. ‘Next?’

  ‘There’s James Hepburn. I’m sure he loves her, but he goes red in the face and talks too much. And there’s Johnnie Armstrong, though he lives a few miles away and doesn’t come into town that often. He’s a dark, brooding sort of man: a bit older than the others. Annie doesn’t like him because he looks at her in a funny way. But anyway, he’s got a wife down in Melbourne, so he’s not a suitor for my sister’s hand. There are the Gilded Youths who come and gawp at her in the bar, but all they do is gawp; I don’t think any of them have any real designs on her.’

  Phryne jotted this down. ‘I see—they merely bathe in the sight of her beauty. Gilded Youths, like in “The Man from Ironbark”?’

  Jessie nodded. ‘I can give you their names. Robert Graham, John Hemp and Peter Trevise. But I really don’t think they had anything to do with this; they haven’t the brains to plan it.’

  ‘Does it bother you that your sister gets all the attention?’

  Jessie clasped her hands in front of her: neat, strong hands
marked by toil and blisters. ‘Well, there’s a question! All right. Yes, it does. It’s annoying. But Annie’s only eighteen, and I don’t think she wants to marry anyone yet. She likes the attention—who wouldn’t?—but she thinks she can keep the boys sweet by smiling at them and being kind. And it mostly works. But even though she’s not stupid, I think she underestimates how much trouble she could get into.’

  ‘Naive?’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly the word. You aren’t going to tell her about this, are you? She’d be horrified if she thought her admirers were killing each other.’

  Phryne considered this. ‘I’ll leave that up to you. But I can’t think of any good reason to upset her. Not yet, anyway.’ Phryne closed her book, then opened it again, eyes wide. ‘Wait a moment, Jessie—you said something about a Sullivan? Who’s he? Is he here today?’

  Jessie frowned ‘Poor Patrick. He had an accident a month ago.’

  ‘WHAT?’ To Phryne’s chagrin, she realised she had thumped the table. Jessie stared at her in astonishment. ‘I’m sorry, but what happened?’

  ‘The poor dear.’ Jessie closed her eyes. ‘He was a kind, gentle man.’ She stopped, stuttered, and eventually blurted out her confession. ‘I loved him. And he was kind to me and Annie.’

  Phryne leaned across and took the girl’s hand. ‘How old are you, Jessie?’

  A solitary droplet rolled down the girl’s cheek. ‘Twenty.’ She burst, quite unexpectedly, into flooding tears.

  Phryne took an embroidered silk handkerchief from her bag and passed it to her. Jessie blew her nose and stared at the crumpled silk.

  ‘Keep it, Jessie. I have plenty of them and I won’t miss one. You poor dear. You really are a brave, kind-hearted and generous girl. But I need you to tell me about this accident. Did he die?’

  Jessie nodded quickly and gulped. ‘He fell out of the train window. He was leaning out to look at a parrot in a tree and lost his balance.’ She squared her shoulders. ‘That’s what they said, anyway. It was the train that goes to Trentham. It’s mostly used by the timber mill, but it does take passengers. Pat loved the forest. He took Annie and me there for a picnic once.’