Death in Daylesford Read online

  Phryne fired up the motor and engaged the clutch. ‘Yes, Dot. There’s still something niggling at me about this hotel. You can learn a lot about people by playing cards with them.’

  To Dot’s surprise, the Hispano-Suiza headed up a different hill from that she was expecting. ‘Where are we going now, Miss?’

  ‘To Musk, Dot. Keep a close eye out for a multi-coloured scarf.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dot was mystified but forbore to question her imperious employer. Doubtless she would find out in due course. In the meantime, she adjusted her Freda Storm Veil and did her best to admire the rolling meadows.

  Before long they reached Musk, and Phryne slowed the car down. She turned right down the first road and went for a couple of miles, before executing a difficult three-point turn. Then it was back to the main highway, and another try at the next turnoff. It took nearly an hour before Dot pointed excitedly. They were far off the beaten track now. The farm looked like so many others they had passed, but hanging from one of the two fence posts was a knitted woollen scarf in purple, white, green and blue. Phryne stopped the car.

  ‘Dot, I think we should walk from here. Will your shoes be all right?’

  Dot surveyed the brown, beaten earth, dotted with tussocks of yellow forage. Two horses looked at them briefly and resumed their diurnal munching. Ahead, on the verandah of a stone farmhouse, sat a woman accompanied by two enormous black dogs. She was lean, angular, and looked as though she had been carved out of mandrake roots. Across her knees was a large double-barrelled shotgun. The dogs looked up as they approached, but did not utter a sound. The woman stared at them without speaking.

  ‘Is that the woman you saw in the shop, Dot?’ Phryne whispered.

  ‘Yes, Miss. I’m sure.’

  Phryne stopped about ten yards in front of the verandah and smiled her most winning smile. ‘Mrs McKenzie, I believe? My name is Phryne Fisher, and this is my companion Dorothy Williams.’

  If Phryne was expecting a welcoming smile in return, it failed to materialise. ‘Yair, I’ve heard of you,’ the woman commented. And that appeared to be that for the moment.

  Phryne continued to broadcast Goodwill to All Womenkind at sixty watts until a sequel of sorts was reluctantly produced.

  ‘All right. Whaddaya want?’

  ‘I followed the scarves. And would I be right in thinking you are Annie and Jessie’s Aunty Morag?’

  ‘I might be. But them girls dunno nuthin’ ’bout scarves.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t think they do. But they’re both good girls. I’m trying to give them some assistance.’ Phryne raised her voice a fraction. ‘And you’re not helping.’

  Both dogs growled at her. The old woman leaned down and patted them back into quiescence. ‘They’re all right,’ she confided. ‘They only bite men.’ Hard blue eyes bored into her. ‘That’s right, Miss Fisher. I’m not helpin’ because I dunno what you want. I did ask, and you’re not answering me.’

  Phryne laughed. ‘That’s perfectly true, Mrs McKenzie.’

  ‘Miss McKenzie.’ The first syllable was loaded with more sibilants than a basketful of cobras. Phryne pondered the insistence on Miss. Wasn’t she someone’s mother or grandmother? Very well, then. Miss it was to be.

  ‘Miss McKenzie,’ Phryne continued, ‘I know the secret of the scarves and I think it’s a wonderful idea. But …’

  Aunty Morag gripped the shotgun tightly. ‘What would you know about domestic slavery, Miss Titled Lady? Tell me that!’ she rasped. The acid scorn in her voice could have dissolved the Hispano-Suiza’s engine block.

  Phryne glared back. ‘You’d be amazed, Miss McKenzie. I wasn’t always rich and titled. I grew up in the malodorous back streets of Richmond and Collingwood, scavenging for fruit and vegetables at the end of market day while my idiot father drank away our money—what there was of it. I know all about poverty, and I’m not in favour of it.’

  The dogs looked to their mistress for orders, and she stretched out her hand again. It was a battered hand, with years of manual labour carved into it, but she caressed the dogs with surprising gentleness. ‘Fair enough, Miss Fisher. All right. Who’ve you come to see? Anyone who’s here ain’t goin’ back, you know.’

  ‘Quite. What I do want to know, more than anything else, is have you got Helena Ogilvie from Hepburn Springs?’

  ‘Who’s she when she’s at home?’

  ‘She works at the spa for Captain Herbert. She’s about seventeen—’

  Aunty Morag laughed. It was like an armful of twigs being broken in half. ‘There’s no one here under thirty-five, Miss Fisher.’ Her eyes raked Phryne’s elegant clothes again. ‘You’re not gonna give me any peace until I show ya round, are ya?’

  ‘Possibly not, but I’m inclined to believe you. Also, though this is not directly germane to my investigations, I would be intrigued to know if you also have Mrs Frances Pollock of Sailor’s Falls.’

  ‘Ain’t sayin’.’

  Phryne was beginning to lose what patience she had left. ‘Miss McKenzie, the moment I am satisfied, you will never hear from me again. In addition, I will give you ten pounds to help carry on your work, and I will keep your secret organisation a secret. Last night, I was at the dance in Daylesford, and Mrs Pollock turned up wearing the scarf with the red band that signals I Need Help. It was the same scarf I saw hanging outside her dismal little farm last Friday when I drove into town for the first time. She went off with Mrs Sinclair the librarian and she was reported missing today, presumably by her husband. I have no interest in returning her to the House of Horrors. I might even be able to help get any belongings she needs.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Her false teeth. Would I be right to assume her husband has hidden them from her?’

  ‘Ha! Drunken bastard took ’em away as punishment. That was the last straw. These poor bloomin’ women think if they keep on sufferin’ in silence then their man might love ’em again. Ptui!’

  ‘And they never do,’ Phryne agreed. ‘I have a plan, Miss McKenzie. I will arrange to have her husband removed from the premises, then I will take Mrs Pollock to her house and we can get anything she needs.’

  ‘How’re ya gonna do that?’

  Phryne smiled. ‘Trade secrets. Look, I’ll go back to town now. As soon as the house is empty and ready, I’ll take her there. I don’t know how long it will take me, but I’ll come back when it’s organised. Deal?’

  The old woman nodded. ‘Deal. And good luck.’

  As they walked back across the paddock to the road, Phryne turned to Dot. ‘Well, wasn’t she nice?’

  ‘Not really, Miss. But she looks like she means business.’

  ‘She does. And I believe her. It really is a splendid idea, though. Someone lets it be known, on the QT, that any woman who can’t stand it any longer and wants rescuing can go to the portable library and get the knitting books. Because who pays attention to knitting patterns? She knits the scarf with the red band that says Help! and hangs it on the front fence. Presumably some preliminary contact is made. And the women are told to keep an eye out for another scarf like this one with the blue stripe—’ Phryne paused at the front gate and gestured to it ‘—because that’s where your help is. And, as we saw last night, a woman from the organisation will carry you off to freedom.’

  ‘It’s a bit complicated, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes, Dot, it is. But running away from home isn’t a decision you take lightly. The time you spend knitting the scarf is your time for reflection. If you finish it, Aunty Morag knows you really mean it, and you’re not wasting her time.’ Phryne leaned on the gatepost and began to sing softly. ‘When the sun comes back, and the first quail calls, Follow the drinkin’ gourd, For the old man is waiting just to carry you to freedom, Follow the drinkin’ gourd. That, Dot, was a slaves’ song. It gave instructions to slaves escaping from the American South—or, more correctly, from the slave states—as to how to get over Jordan and to freedom.’

  ‘I’ve always wonder
ed about the River Jordan in those Negro songs. Didn’t they know that the Jordan is in Palestine?’

  ‘I think it was the Missouri River they were talking about. North of that were the free states. And—’ she turned to face Dot ‘—the Underground Railroad that helped the slaves to reach freedom was run by a woman. Her name was Harriet Tubman. I suspect our Aunty Morag is a woman of that sort. Now, let’s go and see if we can get Mrs Pollock’s house emptied of bullies, shall we?’

  ‘As you say, Miss.’

  ‘But while we may have solved the mystery of the disappearing wives, we’re still in the dark on the matter of Helena Ogilvie.’

  They drove in silence, until they were nearing the town.

  Dot turned to Phryne. ‘Miss, I wonder about this tonic Captain Spencer’s been giving his patients.’

  ‘What about it, Dot?’

  ‘Miss, what about the licensing laws? You said it had alcohol.’

  ‘I never even thought about that, Dot. But you’re right. Some of the men I met at the spa said they worked the still. Which makes it sound rather like strong drink.’

  ‘No, Miss, I suppose you wouldn’t. But it’s serious. He could go to prison for breaking the law, couldn’t he?’

  ‘What are you suggesting, Dot?’

  ‘Miss, what if Helena threatened to tell on him, so he kidnapped her?’

  ‘He certainly would have a strong motive in that case. I wonder? Can one smile, and smile, and yet be a villain? If so, why would he have dragged me into this?’

  ‘Well, Miss, maybe he likes Aubrey and hopes to put the blame on someone else, and he’s hoping you will help him do it.’

  ‘I suppose it had to happen one day—the villain calls in the detective, hoping to outwit her. But there is another problem: the only policeman around here is Sergeant Offaly. Can you see Helena wanting to tell him anything at all? And what would be her motive for incriminating the Captain?’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘It’s possible. We will have to bear your theory in mind, Dot.’

  Phryne felt a shiver down her lower back. She had been sorely tempted by the Captain. Rule One of Detection: never get romantically involved with suspects.

  Their luck was in. Mr Pollock of Sailor’s Falls, it transpired, was a well-known habitué of the Station Hotel. So was the man whose help she would require.

  ‘Yair, Pollock’s just over there,’ said Inspector Kelly, pointing his cauliflower nose towards a lean, morose individual drinking by himself at the other end of the bar. He wore a long, drooping black moustache that looked like a caterpillar making a break for freedom. His clothes were dirty, his face unwashed and unshaven, and he was one of nature’s mutterers. The other patrons in the bar studiously avoided him. ‘I know the bastard. Offaly has done him twice for drunk driving, and I’ve been to his bloody awful farm looking for sly grog. He had a still and we pinched him for that, too. I remember him because he’s got Wife-beater written all over his ugly face. I hate bastards like that.’

  ‘Funny you should mention that, Mick. As it happens, I want you to do me a small favour.’

  Phryne and the inspector conversed in lowered voices for a minute or so, and Dot could not hear the substance of their talk.

  Finally, Mick Kelly rose to his feet and sauntered off down the bar. ‘So, George. How’re ya goin’? Still in the sly-grog trade?’

  Pollock turned his skinny head and glared. ‘Does it bloody look like it?’

  ‘No. And how’s the missus?’

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘I don’t blame ’er. Livin’ with you must be a real treat.’ Kelly had been inching closer all the time and was now looming right over Pollock’s bar stool. ‘Yair, go on,’ he encouraged in a smooth undertone. ‘You know you want to. Go on, George. Have a swing. You get a free one. I won’t belt ya. Not this time. And you owe me one or two, don’tcha?’

  Neurons appeared to be colliding inside Pollock’s brain, but he made no move as yet.

  Kelly brought his face down next to Pollock’s. ‘You’re a free man, George. Youse can have any woman you want now, ’cos she ain’t comin’ back. That’s if yer capable, o’ course,’ he added, raising his voice a little. ‘When was the last time you got it up, George?’

  There was a stifled giggle from one of the other patrons. Suddenly Pollock’s fist shot out, and was seized and pinioned by a massive claw. ‘You’re hurtin’ me!’ Pollock squealed.

  ‘Yair, ’cos you’re resistin’ arrest. I’m takin’ youse in for assault on a police officer, George. Youse can cool down in the cells. You’ll like it there. And if you’re really good, Sergeant Offaly might read you a bedtime story. Come on.’

  With calm, unhurried movements, Kelly attached his other fist to the collar of Pollock’s villainous black overcoat and propelled him towards the door. The prisoner appealed to the denizens of the bar. ‘You all heard! He provoked me!’

  Pollock was destined to experience a disappointing audience. There was a general movement of glasses to mouths, and no support of any kind. As Kelly opened the bar door with the toe of his boot, one of the drinkers finally made a contribution. ‘Didn’t hear a thing.’

  Dot was looking at this display of formation blokedom with wide eyes. The only really strident Aussie blokes she had met before were Bert and Cec. These men might have been their immediate family, and she began to realise that perhaps the two wharfies were not so unusual after all.

  Phryne, meanwhile, nodded and beamed at the company. ‘Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen.’

  There was a general inclination of heads. The man nearest to Phryne gave her the ghost of a wink. ‘Mick’s a decent bloke, for a copper. And that one’s a bad bastard.’ A pointed jaw was jerked towards the exit with maximum derision. He looked into Phryne’s face with a mixture of disdain and embarrassment. ‘We don’t like wife-beaters either.’ There was another mute expression of masculine solidarity from the company, followed by a general raising of glasses.

  ‘Good for you,’ Phryne enthused. ‘Come on, Dot.’

  An hour later, Phryne and Dot helped Mrs Pollock into the back seat of the Hispano-Suiza. She looked pale, thin and beaten down, but little sproutings of defiance and rebellion seemed to be erupting quietly from her demeanour. ‘This is very kind of you,’ she mouthed.

  ‘Mrs Pollock, it’s all right,’ Phryne assured her. ‘You don’t have to say another word. I know where you live and we’ll get all your things. He’ll never touch you again.’

  Embarrassed and grateful, the runaway wrapped a shawl around her bony shoulders and stared out the window at the countryside. Phryne did not hurry. The experience of riding in a limousine might be therapeutic, she considered.

  As they drove through the streets of Daylesford, Dot was watching, as discreetly as she could, in the rear-vision mirror. Mrs Pollock hunched her shoulders and pulled her straw hat down over her face, doing her best to be invisible. As they passed the Station Hotel, Dot saw her shudder. As soon as the car reached the town limits she sat upright, composed and determined.

  Phryne pulled off the road outside the doom-laden farm and stopped the motor. ‘Take all the time you want. We’ve got all afternoon. He’s behind bars at the police station. Do you have a key?’

  Mrs Pollock shook her head and squared her bony shoulders. As she led them up the dusty path towards the front door, the black- and-white cat stalked towards her, mewing a litany of complaints. She stopped, kneeled down and began to caress the cat’s head. Soothing, cooing noises emerged from her mouth, and the cat rubbed itself frantically against her thin legs. Phryne and Dot addressed themselves to the front door and shook it. ‘I’ll break it down if I have to, Dot. But it might not be necessary.’ Phryne reached into her handbag and produced her set of lock picks. Thirty seconds later the lock clicked open, and Phryne stepped inside.

  Some houses exude an atmosphere of welcoming. This wasn’t one of them. The prevailing atmosphere was of Doom, with undercurrents of dread and frustration.
There was surprisingly little furniture. Perhaps it had all been pawned, or sold. As they paced through the drear interior, Dot’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

  Phryne turned to her. ‘We have to find her teeth, Dot. Search the kitchen. You might find them in his tobacco jar, if he has one.’

  As it happened, it took until Phryne searched the repellent outhouse to discover the missing dentures stowed behind the lavatory bowl. As she picked them up in a handkerchief a large spider gave her a look of concentrated malevolence. She returned to the house to find Mrs Pollock standing in the middle of the kitchen with a large bag on the floor next to her. The black-and-white cat was perched precariously on top of the bag, determined not to let her protector leave without her bodyguard.

  ‘Mrs Pollock, I’ve found them, but you wouldn’t want to know where they were. I’d like to boil them for twenty minutes, but the fire’s out. If you don’t mind the taste of fancy grog I think we can expedite the process.’

  Mrs Pollock eyed the grimy dentures, sighed, and nodded. Phryne produced her hip flask, strode into the indescribable washhouse, and rinsed the dentures with thirty-year-old Armagnac. More spiders glared at her, but she ignored them. Dusty sunlight oozed between the cracks in the walls. She produced another handkerchief, wrapped up the teeth, and returned to the kitchen to find Mrs Pollock sweeping the floor. The broom was fighting a losing battle.

  ‘Here they are, and please keep the handkerchief. And look: you don’t have to sweep this dump ever again. The only thing that would successfully redecorate this house is three minutes’ worth of flamethrower. I have to say I’m very tempted.’

  Mrs Pollock turned her back, inserted her dentures, and burst into tears. Dot put her arms around her and waited until the tempest had subsided.

  ‘Let’s go, Frances,’ Phryne suggested. ‘And good riddance to bad rubbish.’

  Mrs Pollock sniffed, nodded and picked up the bag. ‘Come on, Mr Whiskers. You’re coming home with me.’

  The triumphal procession (Miss Fisher at the front, Mr Whiskers bringing up the rear) made its way to the car. The door had been slammed shut. Mrs Pollock thought that she had never heard a sound of such satisfying finality.