Blood and Circuses pf-6 Read online

  As he called them by name, they sat up and snarled. ‘Sarah, Sam, Boy, King, Queenie, Prince!’

  Phryne had seen lion tamers before. And she really did not like the lions. The clowns paused in the antechamber.

  ‘You’re marvellous,’ said Phryne. ‘Really terrific.’

  ‘Did you hear that, Toby?’ asked Jo Jo. He touched his brother’s cheek and waved a hand in front of his eyes. ‘Oh, dear, he’s gone again. Now, Fern, what about you? Can’t go on with a naked face, it’s indecent. Let me just stand Toby over here and I’ll paint you. We might as well match, eh? Tip up your chin. Now stay still.’

  Matthias could not have been more professional. He smoothed greasepaint numbers five and nine into Phryne’s skin, carefully blending it in the palm of his hand. Then he drew in her eyes, provided red for her cheeks and lips and tucked a stray wisp of black hair under the feathers.

  ‘Pretty bird,’ he said. ‘Look at yourself.’

  Phryne surveyed the face in the mirror and did not know it. The paint abolished features with which she was tolerably familiar and transformed her into a circus rider, born in a trunk and exactly the same as all the others. She smiled, then frowned. She was looking at a stranger.

  A whip cracked in the big top. The lions were removed and it was interval. The crowd came streaming out, in search of fairy lollies and saveloys and ice-cream in tubs.

  ‘I’d better put poor old Toby back in his box,’ said Matthias. ‘Back later, Fern. Don’t miss the flyers. They are very good.’

  Phryne learned that she was required to stay within the purlieus of the tent. She obtained a cup of tea and sat down on the grass to consider her situation.

  There was too much that she did not know. She could pin down most of the accidents at Farrell’s Circus to the abominable Jones and his three henchmen. The tall one, the dark one, and the man with the sticking plaster on his hands. That was clear. What was not clear was why. If Jones wanted his half-share, he now had it, at the cost of three hundred pounds. What if Jones was the appointee of Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd? Phryne presumed that he was. He wielded too much power over Farrell not to have some financial or other very strong stake in the show. Mr Burton, a very shrewd person, thought it was money. So Jones, or Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd, had their half. Why should they keep on? And why should they kill Mr Christopher? If they had?

  Phryne felt wrath glow in her insides about Mr Christopher. Christopher/Christine, he had been billed. Criss/Cross, the man–woman, perfect complement to poor Miss Younger. She would never find another man like him. Phryne was desperately sorry for Molly Younger.

  ‘Heads up, Fern,’ warned Dulcie. ‘The Bevans are on.’

  The trapeze was occupied. Two young men, one at each end of the tent, were stretching and bending on gear slung from the king poles. They were clad in fleshings and tunics and they glittered with spangles. From the ground they seemed to have naked legs, chests and arms. They unslung the trapezes and swung out lazily, sitting on the bar like children on a swing, far over the audience’s heads.

  One slid down and swung. The other slid as well, with a 192 heart-stopping jerk which Phryne hoped was done for effect. They swung by one hand, by one leg, backwards and forwards.

  A young woman in a cloak was climbing a rope as easily as walking up a ramp. She reached the flies, unclasped the cloak and dropped it fluttering to the ground. It seemed to fall very slowly. It was a long way down. The audience’s eyes followed it. Two more men swarmed up ropes to the ceiling, just under the hot lights.

  ‘Now,’ she heard the biggest man call, hanging upside down by his knees. Some kind of cuff attached his ankle to the trapeze.

  Swinging gently, the first man lazily let go of the bar with his knees and flipped himself into space. Just as lazily and with absolute timing, the catcher locked his hands onto his wrists. The crowd screamed. The catcher swung back and deposited the flyer on the perch. The next Bevan performed a somersault. The third did a double somersault. Five people changed places between trapeze and perch, moving with the assurance of birds in their native element. The young woman Lynn flew nonchalantly through the air, her lithe body a streak of blue, glittering as she turned, and was snared by her catcher’s safe hands.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen!’ announced Sam Farrell. ‘Silence if you please. Miss Lynn Bevan will now attempt, for your astonishment and delight, the most dangerous feat ever to be done by an aerialist. The triple somersault!’

  The audience clapped. Phryne winced away from their hot eyes.

  ‘Called the death trick,’ continued the ringmaster, ‘thought to be humanly impossible. Now, could I have complete silence please.’

  The drum rolled and was still. The blue-clad girl appeared to be impossibly high and impossibly delicate. She could not defy gravity for long enough to roll three times. Phryne held her breath. So did the crowd.

  The catcher and the girl, hanging by their knees, began to swing. They were carefully out of phase. One movement seemed to be wrong and ugly because it did not reflect the other. Only when Phryne had begun to gnaw the greasepaint off her lips did the girl leave her perch and spin like a ball in the air. Once, twice, thrice and her hands came out of the last roll. The catcher had her safe, or as safe as she could be hanging by both wrists high above unforgiving sawdust. From up there, Phryne thought, the net must look like a pocket handkerchief. The crowd roared with relief and admiration. Miss Bevan was decanted neatly onto the stand and the Flying Bevans slid down ropes to take their bow.

  ‘While they get the net folded, we have jugglers,’ said Dulcie. ‘One of which is, come to think of it, me.’

  She ran into the ring, catching balls tossed to her by her tall handsome partner. He smiled at her as she tossed back objects of different sizes and weight. There were balls, a matchbox, a club and an orange. Dulcie managed them without appearing to concentrate. The pair moved around the outside of the ring, tossing objects and quips, as the roustabouts rolled up the safety net and carried it out.

  Then they took the centre. A boy ran in with a bundle of lit kerosene flambeaux. Dulcie and Tom took one each and passed them. Then two each and finally three. The flames flared and streamed as they were passed with precision from one hand to the other, so that Phryne was dazzled. She wondered how burned they had got, practising this dangerous trick. Finally, they caught up three each and brandished them.

  Bernie entered, with Bruno in tow, passing Dulcie and Tom. The bear took a scooter away from a clown and got on it. He pushed off and scooted around the ring with solemn dignity, then dropped on all fours and was fed a ginger biscuit. He sat down, sat up and rolled over on request. Then the band struck up a waltz and he bowed to Bernie and waltzed him confidently around the ring to the strains of an out-of-tune Blue Danube. Bernie fed him another ginger biscuit. Phryne suddenly thought that this was a terrible thing to do to a wild creature.

  Sultan and Rajah lumbered in to stand on tubs and awe the audience with their hugeness, and Phryne remembered that she was on soon. She had better go and look for Missy.

  She found her standing quietly with the other horses. Feathers nodded between her ears and her harness was glittering with stones. The elephants walked out, and in came Mr Sheridan the magician. He wore immaculate evening dress and carried only a small wand. Phryne watched him pass, disliking his manner. She pinned down the cause of her distaste. He was a parvenu, an affected social climber. She recalled that his father was reputed to have been a grocer and wished his son had stayed a counter-jumper, where he belonged. Dulcie, in tights and a spangled costume, came behind him, bearing a collapsible table. Behind her were two stagehands carrying the disappearing box.

  Phryne patted Missy and gave her a carrot. The dark passage was full of horses and girls. The hot air smelt sweetly of greasepaint and it was stifling. Phryne went back into the tent and looked through the peephole again.

  ‘I conjure,’ announced Mr Sheridan, ‘a dagger!’

  Out of the air a dagger came floating
down towards him. Phryne was close enough to see that it was suspended by nearly invisible fishing line.

  How Shakespearean, thought Phryne. Parlour stage craft. She was not interested in Mr Sheridan. The audience, however, were enthusiastic.

  ‘We’re on,’ said Miss Younger’s voice. ‘Mount up.’

  Phryne ran her hands over Missy’s back and the horse flinched and kicked.

  ‘What’s the matter, Missy?’ she asked. When she peeled back the tinselled riding blanket, something pricked her finger. She pulled it out. It was a splinter, fully two inches long. If she had leapt onto Missy’s back without knowing of it, her weight would have driven it into Missy’s flesh, which the mare would have pardonably resented. She put the splinter into the webbing belt, smoothed down her skimpy tunic and got up. Missy did not shift.

  ‘On we go. One circuit, knees. Next circuit, on the signal, stand. Three more circuits, standing. Then down and off and follow the parade. Go,’ said Miss Younger and rode Bell up the ramp and into the ring.

  Phryne and Missy followed third in line, nose to tail with the next horse, up the incline. The ring was brighter than sunshine. Phryne blinked. The horses began to walk, then canter, at their smooth pace. Miss Younger cracked her whip. Obediently ten girls in feather headdresses rose to their knees. The whip cracked again and Phryne was standing with the others and the ring and the faces were flashing past. Missy was moving without fault, as smooth as cream.

  Phryne felt a smile balloon up onto her face. She felt the strange force holding her on and upright. This is how a billy of tea feels when you spin it round your head, she thought as they completed the last circuit and slipped down to ride astride out of the ring and the tent, to turn and follow the tail of the procession.

  In the crowd, Constable Tommy Harris picked out the third girl in the rush as Miss Phryne Fisher, only because he had been told that this was Fern Williams. He was dressed in his own clothes, elastic-sided boots, a clean white shirt, moleskins, a waistcoat and a pale wide-brimmed felt hat. He was fascinated. He had always loved circuses.

  Detective Inspector Robinson was also somewhere in the crowd. He was difficult to spot in any gathering because he seemed to melt and blend, so that it was hard even for his friends to remember exactly what he looked like. He had no memorable features.

  Sergeant Grossmith, under Robinson’s orders and profoundly out of place away from his precious Brunswick Street, was in Rockbank waking up the local constable. Jack Robinson meant to make a clean sweep of the circus. He had already spotted one man he knew—the little man with the sticking plaster on his hands, assiduously sweeping up horse droppings.

  ‘Ronald Smythe, or I’m a Dutchman,’ he breathed. Since he had definitely been born in Richmond, he was sure of his identification.

  The grand parade was just starting when a hand plucked at Constable Harris’s clean white sleeve.

  ‘You looking for Fern?’ asked a voice behind him, in the gloom above his seat. ‘Come down here, then. She wants to talk to you private.’

  Constable Harris had only been in the police force for eight months. He jumped softly down into the dark and, after a short and painful interval, knew no more.

  Phryne rode Missy out of the tent and allowed a handler to take her away. She looked around for Dulcie or Matthias and could not see them. It was dark after the lights in the big top and she stood still to let her eyes adjust. Soon people would be streaming out of the tent again, to play games in the carnival and eat more ice-cream. They were merely the audience. She was now part of the show. She pulled off the feathers and ran her hands through her hair, hoping to cool her head.

  At which point someone flipped a sack over her and scooped her off her feet. She was too astonished to scream. When she started to struggle, someone shoved a sharp blade through the sack. The point was icy on the hot flesh of her back.

  ‘Say one word,’ grated a voice, ‘and it’ll be your last.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As a god self-slain on his own strange altar

  Death lies dead.

  Algernon Swinburne

  The Forsaken Garden

  Detective inspector Robinson, unable to locate Phryne, drifted over to the carnival in search of the person Dot had mentioned as her friend. The carousel music blared, brassy and loud. Jack Robinson jumped aboard and went round with the horses. Poseidon, Artilleryman, Carbine and Spearfelt bobbed and swayed. He sat down on one called Windbag. Alan Lee had a taste, it seemed, for Melbourne Cup winners. Robinson had an affection for Windbag. It had come in first in 1925 over the favourite Manfred, netting a nice return at five to one. Alan Lee was taking tickets from the children. Robinson settled down on Windbag to wait.

  Phryne was extracted from her sack, bound and gagged and flung into what felt like a tent. It smelt sweaty and hot and there was dead grass under her, which crackled as she moved.

  She tried her bonds; they were tight and expertly applied. She rolled over and sat up. Something shifted in the dark and made a suppressed noise, like a partly strangled oboe. Phryne peered into the gloom. Something humped over the ground and touched her. Then a chest became apparent and a male chin, which scraped over her face until teeth could seize her gag and drag it down, at the risk of dislocating her jaw.

  ‘Ouch,’ she commented. ‘Who are you?’

  The man mumbled again. Phryne got the idea and knelt up, finding the gag in his mouth and pulling it away. She still could not see, but got the general impression of someone quite large and young.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked again. The figure coughed, spat and then whispered, ‘I’m Constable Harris. Tommy Harris. Are you Miss Fisher?’

  ‘Yes. But they know me as Fern. Is Jack Robinson here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right. Well, he’ll find me. Find us. Who scragged you?’

  ‘I couldn’t see. It was too dark.’

  ‘Me neither. Can you turn and reach my hands?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  He struggled with positioning and at last his fingers found the knots. He scrabbled for a while and then said, ‘Can’t be done. My fingers have gone numb.’

  ‘Never mind. What we need in these circumstances is calm.’ Phryne was not feeling calm. ‘We’ll have to pass the time. Talk to me,’ she said, leaning against his comfortingly broad back.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Tell me all about Exit and Mr Christopher.’

  Tommy began to feel less outraged. He was still ready and willing to lose his temper if it would help, but dragging against his bonds had only damaged his hands. So he began, in his soft country voice just above the level of hearing, to tell Phryne Fisher all he could remember about both cases. Because he was naturally meticulous he told her everything, including the decor of Mr Christopher’s room, the collapse of Miss Parkes, Lizard Elsie’s falling asleep with her head on his shoulder in the custody area, and the shooting which had left a pool of blood on Brunswick Street.

  Phryne did not interrupt. When he had got down to the present, she said, ‘Interesting. Now I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing.’

  Phryne recounted her struggles to stay on Missy’s back. She talked about the social organisation of the circus, the carnival and the gypsies. She told him about the clown Matthias and his brother Toby. She mentioned the various acts that made up the show, the grace of the flyers, the importance of the rigger, and the unfillable void which Mr Christopher’s death had left in Miss Younger’s life. Pieces began to fall like dominoes. The two stories dovetailed in a way that would have made a Chippendale carpenter swell with pride. At the end of this recital Phryne knew who had killed Mr Christopher and why. She had discovered who was sabotaging Farrell’s Circus and why.

  She nudged the young constable. ‘Listen!’ she said urgently. ‘If you get out of here, then you have to tell Jack all about this and make sure that he catches the guilty parties. I expect they’ll come for us soon. Stick to your story that you came looking for me because someone
told you that I was a tart.’ He made a shocked exclamation and Phryne snapped, ‘I tell you, that’s your best chance. By circus standards I am a tart. They all think so. Now, this is important.’

  Carefully she told Constable Harris all that Jack Robinson needed to know to solve the portfolio of problems currently in his possession. Towards the end, she stopped.

  ‘Can you hear something?’ she whispered.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought I heard a footstep.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  Phryne completed her theory. Harris nodded. Then he remembered that he could not be seen and said, ‘All right, but I can’t leave you.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ said Phryne acidly. ‘If you get away, then you can find Jack and rescue me. Clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ the young man said reluctantly.

  Alan Lee walked around the carousel to the unremarkable man sitting on Windbag and said, ‘Tickets, please.’

  ‘I must speak to you,’ said Jack Robinson. ‘About Fern Williams.’

  ‘Wait till we stop,’ said Alan. I’ll get Bill to take over. Then we can talk.’

  The carousel went round again, to the tune of ‘A Bicycle Built For Two’, a full quarter tone flat.

  Grossmith found that the Rockbank constable had been called out on a sheep-stealing case. He gritted his teeth.

  They came for Phryne a little after midnight. She heard footsteps and she and Tommy Harris struggled to replace their gags.

  Phryne was dragged upright by unseen hands. Someone chuckled.

  ‘Leave him,’ said an oily voice. ‘He’s just a bumpkin. Come sniffing after this tart, I bet. But this one . . .’ He slung Phryne over his shoulder. ‘Jones wants this one.’

  Phryne was taken out of the tent. Left alone, Constable Harris struggled afresh with his bonds. The gag had slipped back into his mouth and he was rendered mute.