Murder on a Midsummer Night Page 12

  ‘He was a good boss,’ said Cedric Yates firmly, and Sophie burst into tears. ‘And a good bloke,’ he added.

  He raised his glass.

  ‘To Augustine,’ said Cedric, and they all drank.

  Then it was time to condole with the bereaved and go home. Phryne distributed her cards to Rachel and the others and took her leave of the old woman. Even as she watched, Mrs. Manifold filled with renewed power. She had buried her son fitly and mourned him as she would for the rest of her life. But she had something still to do. It was revenge. She straightened a little, put back her hair, and took Phryne’s warm hand in her two cold claws. She had a grip like an eagle, and it is never wise, Phryne thought, to rob eagles of their chicks.

  ‘Do you know anything more?’ she grated.

  ‘I will come and see you soon,’ Phryne said. ‘When I know more.’

  The talons relaxed their grip. Phryne bent to kiss the icy cheek and went out into the sunshine, where Rachel Phillips was drawing a deep breath of smoky St. Kilda air as though it was straight from bracing Skegness.

  ‘Phew!’ she said.

  Phryne had to agree. ‘Can I give you a ride?’ she asked.

  Rachel shook her curls. ‘I’m going to walk,’ she said. ‘By the sea. And muse on mortality and other things. I’ll call you,’ she promised.

  Phryne was about to enter her car when the bright young things came out in a group and lit cigarettes to soothe their feelings. Phryne did the same and accepted a light from Valentine.

  ‘We’re going back to Gerald’s house,’ said Stephanie. ‘Would you like to come too, Miss Fisher? Augustine deserves a real wake.’

  Phryne did not relish their company, but accepted in the interests of detection. Professor Rowlands emerged from the house of woe, bowed, replaced his hat, and strode away. She hoped that he would call her as soon as he could. Treasure, eh? What kind of treasure?

  Cedric Yates and Sophie came and shut the door and locked it with a curiously final click. Manifold’s was closed, possibly forever.

  ‘Very well, but I need to go home first,’ Phryne said to Stephanie. ‘I shall join you later. At Gerald’s house, is it? Then I shall see you there.’

  She smiled on the others, got into the car and said to her chauffeur, ‘Get me out of here, Mr. B, and with all convenient speed.’

  The big car drew away from the pavement.

  Phryne arrived home to find that she had a visitor. She didn’t want one but it was the point-device Mr. Adami and she could not refuse him an interview. He was as beautifully dressed as ever and looked concerned. A solicitor who looks concerned is always a bad omen. Dot accompanied her into the room, trying to field her coat and hat, which Phryne had flung to the winds. Dot succeeded, due to wicket-keeping for her little brothers as a girl, and stood clutching the garments to her demure bosom. Her employer was, evidently, in a mood.

  ‘Hello, Mr. Adami, do sit down,’ Phryne said crossly, flinging herself into a chair in the small parlour. ‘Dot dear, can you get me a cup of tea? And perhaps ask Mrs. B if there is any leftover lunch? Tea, Mr. Adami?’

  ‘No, Miss Fisher, very kind of you but no, I am in haste,’ he said in his precise English. ‘I came here to deliver an invitation from the head of the Bonnetti family—that is, the eldest son, Joseph. He has called a family council about the will of his mother and he would very much appreciate your presence, Miss Fisher.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Phryne ungraciously. She was in possession of a magnificent fit of temper which she would have to dissipate soon or self-combust. She wondered where it had come from. ‘When?’

  ‘On Friday afternoon, Miss Fisher. Here is the address. At three, if you please,’ said Mr. Adami, and made his escape, feeling, not for the first time, that his profession was a lot more dangerous than the general public would credit. As the front door shut safely behind him Phryne swore loudly.

  ‘I am quite out of sorts, Dot, and I am going for a swim. When I come back I would like some strong tea to take the taste of funeral liquor out of my mouth and perhaps a toasted sandwich or an omelette. I am going to have to keep up with what I judge is a hard-drinking crowd and my stomach will need lining. Back soon,’ she said, ran upstairs for her bathing costume, ran downstairs and out of the house all in a moment, slamming the door on the way out.

  ‘Funerals,’ said Dot to Mr. Butler. ‘Do funny things to people.’

  ‘She’s had a tiring day,’ said the butler solemnly. ‘And borne it pretty well up to now.’

  ‘She’ll be better after a swim,’ said Dot, smoothing the coat as though its feelings might have been ruffled.

  Phryne ran across the prickly grass and the hot sand, tore off her loose shift and walked into the water and out as far as she could wade, then dived and swam for the horizon. In her present incandescent state, she thought, it was amazing that the tide was not seething around her. She duck dived over and under the waves as though she was swimming for her life from some sort of shipwreck.

  After half an hour she was beginning to recover. Her hair was soaked, as she had been unable to find her bathing cap and had not the patience to search for it. It clung to her sleek head like a seal’s fur, deliciously cold. Her arms and shoulders were agreeably tired and her temper tantrum appeared to have been washed away in the cool salty water. Moreover, she was getting weary and the sun was killingly hot.

  She walked home and climbed the stairs to a cool shower and a change of garments, washing away the salt with the fury and soothing her skin with milk of roses lotion (as used by royalty). By the time she had donned a silky violet afternoon dress and sandals she was ready to descend and be affable to her staff, who drew surreptitious breaths of relief and tended her cautiously, as though she might bite.

  Phryne ate her omelette, drank a glass of milk and toyed with a meditative banana, sliced, with ice cream, chocolate syrup and nuts. It sweetened her afternoon in a very satisfactory manner. She looked at her companions and saw their wary expressions. Oh, dear. She must have been really uncivil. Again. Time to start mollifying everyone’s feelings.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dot, I really loathe funerals. I beg your pardon for being so rude. Poor Mr. Adami went out of here like a rocket.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ said Dot. ‘He’s a lawyer. They got thick skins, my mum always said. You sure you want to go to this bunfight, Miss?’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Phryne, stretching as she stood up. ‘But I’m going. Don’t delay dinner for me, God knows how long I’ll be away with the fairies. If a gentleman called Professor Rowlands calls, ask him to lunch tomorrow. If I’m not home in the morning, call Jack Robinson. He was at the Manifold funeral, so he must think there’s something wrong with that death. How do I look?’

  ‘Chic,’ said Dot. ‘That violet is a lovely colour with your skin, Miss Phryne. Aren’t you going to wear stockings?’

  ‘Not with sandals. I need a hat, though—come and help me choose one? And why not ask Mrs. B to slice up that roast beef for salad tonight? You know how you like cold roast beef.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dot, who recognised an apology when she heard one. ‘That would be nice.’

  Later, wearing a perfectly darling black straw hat with a pale heliotrope ribbon, Phryne was driven to Gerald Atkinson’s house, whence there was a sound of revelry by day. As Valentine opened the door, she was regaled with a little song, a little song entitled ‘No Matter How Young a Prune May Be, It’s Always Full of Wrinkles’.

  It seemed scarcely decent, but she walked inside anyway.

  The party was in the parlour, a large room in plush and gilt, filled presently with dancers. Valentine said over the roar of the gramophone, ‘Do help yourself to a drink, Miss Fisher, I’ve got to mind the door.’

  Phryne stood still. The room was half lit by hundreds of candles. The air was thick with a sweetish heavy smoke. Incense, but not Chur
ch incense, unless it was another kind of church altogether. Under the cloud of sandalwood she could smell a sour reek she associated with Morocco—what was it? That scent of burning rotten leaves was familiar. Of course. Kif. Phryne sneezed discreetly and moved through whirling figures until she reached the far wall, where the door into the next room stood half open and a comprehensive bar had been established.

  Phryne looked at the profusion of glittering bottles. Lavish and very expensive. Everything that any drinker had ever wanted to imbibe: chartreuse in both colours, strange Greek and Slavic brandies, schnapps, cognac, whisky and whiskey, bourbon and rye, vermouth and Pernod, even including absinthe. She resisted la Fée Verte firmly and poured herself a very modest gin and tonic, with just enough gin to flavour her breath. This was no company for teetotallers and she wanted this group to confide in her.

  If they ever stopped dancing. Valentine was minding the door, Luke was playing the gramophone. Rachel Phillips must have been and gone, also the professor. Gerald was dancing with Veronica, Priscilla was dancing with Blanche, James was dancing with Stephanie in a whirl of red sari. At least they were tired, which would limit this shameless exhibition. Phryne saw that two of the three couples were now performing the Nightclub Glide, where the female of the pair wreathes her arms around the male partner’s neck and the two lean inwards, providing mutual support to the terminally intoxicated. Fairly soon, they would have to sit down, or fall down.

  The gramophone began to play a charleston and that sprightly dance proved to be an impossible task. Gerald sank down onto the sofa and Luke allowed the music machine to wind down. ‘The Varsity Rag’ wailed into silence, which spread and pooled like milk. The dancers were too breathless to speak and Phryne was not going to start. She was hoping that she would not become too affected by the kif if she sat in a draught of fresh air. She had smoked it overseas and it always made her very sleepy and indiscreet, though the indiscretion (which took the form of stroking the nearest available male flesh) might have been inherent, rather than drug-induced.

  ‘Divine Phryne!’ exclaimed Gerald Atkinson, stretching out a languid hand. ‘So good of you to come and help us mourn poor, poor Augustine!’

  ‘Poor Augustine,’ repeated Phryne insinuatingly.

  ‘He was such a nice man,’ sobbed Priscilla. She had collapsed into an armchair and was ransacking her bag, looking for a handkerchief.

  ‘A good fellow,’ sobbed Blanche, wiping her kohled eyes with a wisp of silk which showed not a trace of black when she let it fall.

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ said Veronica Collins, leaning both plump elbows on the table and supporting her dimpled chin in her hands. She spoke with the authority of the very drunk, a state which had degraded her private girls’ school accent a class or two. ‘He wasn’t a nice man at all.’

  ‘Ronnie, please,’ said Gerald.

  ‘In what way?’ Phryne’s voice, just audible, floated on the smoky air.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell,’ pouted Veronica.

  ‘I said we could get him on the planchette when he’s had a chance to settle down in the afterlife,’ objected Stephanie. ‘He’ll tell us then, just have patience.’

  ‘Steph, you really are such a fool,’ said James Barton, who had clearly reached the limit of his patience with female sensibilities.

  ‘How dare you?’ shrilled Miss Reynolds, shocked. ‘You’ve seen what the Hidden Masters can do! You…you…unbeliever!’ She threw this epithet at him like a curse.

  James grinned. It was rather too close to a baring of teeth for comfort.

  ‘I am an unbeliever,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t believe in any of your spiritualist nonsense. I don’t believe that Augustine knew where it was, and I don’t believe he was going to tell us anything, and I don’t believe that he’ll be any more amenable because he’s dead. He cheated Gerald. He cheated us. He was a twister.’

  ‘Oh, James, how unkind,’ wept Priscilla. ‘You always were unkind. Mother always said—’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about Mother!’ James snarled. ‘You always throw Mother at me when I show signs of sickening of all this…mawkishness, all this join-hands-and-sing-a-hymn, “Is there-anybody-there?” foolery. I’m sick of it. I’ll have no more of it, Pris, do you hear? No more!’

  ‘I will not desert my masters,’ said Priscilla with unexpected firmness.

  ‘Then you can play with your ouija board without me!’ James flung around and was at the door when Valentine laid a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I say, old man…’ he began.

  James shrugged off the hand and Valentine was joined by Luke, who applied another hand to the other shoulder.

  ‘You’re upset,’ soothed Luke. ‘Come and have another drink.’

  James pushed Luke aside and shoved his way into the hall. Valentine stood in front of him and Luke flanked him. Both of them were sounding very sober, all of a sudden.

  ‘No, really, old chap, we can’t let you drive a car in this state,’ said Luke.

  Phryne found their cooperation slightly menacing. They were like two hunting dogs, reacting to each other without having to look. However, James really should not be allowed out in this state, in the interests of the national death rate. It was a kind action to restrain him.

  Without violence the two young men shouldered James into the room again, and Gerald gave him a large glass of brandy.

  ‘Drink it down, old boy, and you’ll feel more the thing,’ Luke encouraged.

  James complied. He shuddered and sat down rather quickly.

  ‘There,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Where?’ asked Priscilla. ‘Did you hear what he said about my masters?’

  ‘Yes, I heard it,’ said Blanche calmly. ‘It is strange how different two siblings can be! One open to all sorts of possibilities, another closed up tight as a drum, and so angry!’ She wavered closer to James, trailing her graceful fingers across his face, and cooed, ‘Is the great big man angry?’

  ‘You should see your aura,’ Priscilla informed him.

  James batted ineffectually at the caressing hand.

  Gerald took another deep breath of the drugged air and said, ‘But we are forgetting our guest! Come and look at the pretty things which Augustine found for me.’

  Phryne, who had thought the quarrel strangely compelling, rose and accompanied her host as he wobbled from glass case to glass case. ‘Here is a Ming Dynasty lady,’ he said, peering through the glass at a tiny maiden carved in blackwood.

  ‘The Taoist flower maiden,’ said Phryne, who had been given a much larger, more intact and more valuable jade version by her lover, Lin Chung.

  ‘Quite right!’ slurred Gerald. ‘What a clever girl you are! Can you tell me what this is?’

  ‘A ceremonial cup,’ said Phryne. ‘Bronze, Chinese, fifth century, perhaps?’

  ‘And the incense burner that goes with it,’ agreed Gerald. ‘How about this?’

  ‘Egyptian.’ Phryne was beginning to enjoy herself but was watching her host closely. A collector should not be outfaced amongst his own collection. He would be nettled and he could have weapons. It would be interestingly historic to be battered with a ninth-century Chinese warrior’s club, but it would also hurt. ‘It’s a faience scarab, perhaps one that the Pharaoh had issued to mark particular triumphs. This one has soldiers and captured enemies on it, so is it Ramses the Third?’

  ‘Egypt’s Napoleon, yes,’ agreed Gerald, who seemed rather pleased than nettled by Phryne’s erudition. Veronica Collins, who had trailed along, observed, ‘I always loved this one.’

  ‘It’s a putto,’ said Phryne, who had a limited tolerance for small, fat, nude children, even if they did have wings. This one appeared to be simpering. ‘Not classical. From a grave, possibly, or maybe a mantelpiece? One can see the little tongue of stone where it was attached to something upright. Eighteenth century. Italian. Is this som
e sort of test, Mr. Atkinson?’

  ‘Everything’s a test,’ mumbled Gerald. ‘This is Pris’ favourite.’

  Phryne could see why. It was a small iconostasis, about the size of a paperback book for railway reading. It was hinged in the middle. The outside was wood, carved and gilded. The inside revealed a glorious gilded Madonna surrounded by angels with lapis wings on one side and a morose man, attired in an airy sheepskin, staring cross-eyed out of a bush of thorns at a woman in a ruby-red dress. St. Anthony being tempted and the Madonna being praised by angels. The blues were astounding, so fresh, so bright. Periwinkle, thought Phryne, hyacinth, Greek midday over Hydra.

  ‘Where would we be without Charging Elk, I ask you?’ Stephanie was demanding of the company, having joined the guided tour. ‘Where would we be in our quest without Selima and Zacarias? Nowhere. Augustine wasn’t going to tell us anything else, but my spirit guide knows…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ soothed Blanche White, slinking along after Pris like a cat after a bird. ‘That is a lovely thing, Gerald.’

  ‘It’s Greek, isn’t it?’ asked Phryne. ‘Precious.’

  ‘Very precious,’ agreed Gerald. His colour was heightened, perhaps with a touch of rouge, his eyes dilated almost black by the kif, and his bee-stung mouth was smiling. He looked like a Saint Sebastian drawn by Félicien Rops. Reynolds was joined in conversation by Priscilla and Phryne was listening to both her and Gerald, a skill learned at school and sharpened by many dreary cocktail parties.

  ‘This?’ asked Gerald, indicating a handful of broken coins.

  ‘No idea,’ confessed Phryne promptly.

  ‘It’s pieces of eight,’ said Veronica.

  ‘Really? As in Long John Silver and “Sixteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest”? Pirate treasure? Fascinating,’ said Phryne, rather disappointed.

  ‘They had better plunder. Moidores, Louis d’or, gold cups and chains. They say that Blackbeard had fifteen caches of treasure, and only eight have ever been found.’

  ‘Charging Elk said, “How! Seekers must look to the West!” You remember, don’t you, Pris?’