Murder on a Midsummer Night Page 21
‘Would you care to particularise?’
‘They’ve been getting muddled messages from the spirits,’ he said. ‘About who to trust and what to do, and where the bloody treasure is. There are two spirits, Selima, who was a slave girl in Ancient Rome at the court of Heliogabalus and was smothered in roses, and Zacarias, who is some sort of Jewish high priest or prophet and was stoned to death. Both of them come through the medium of this utterly bogus Indian called Charging Elk. I mean, Indians don’t really say things like, “How! White man speak with forked tongue,” do they? I mean, outside the movies?’
‘I have never met an American Indian so I cannot tell, but I think it very unlikely,’ Phryne assured him. ‘Got it so far; two spirits brought through the veil by Charging Elk, the Synthetic Indian.’
James managed a smile. It wasn’t a very good smile, but it was better than his expression of unsettled panic.
‘Well, it all went along merrily at the beginning, when we got a lot of information, I mean they got a lot of information, and the spirits appeared to make sense, or at least sentences. But since…’
‘Augustine died?’
‘He was a good…’ James began, but Phryne held up a monitory hand.
‘Don’t. Is it since Augustine died that the spirits have lost their coherence?’
‘Yes,’ said James, faintly astonished. ‘But he wasn’t at the seances.’
‘No matter. Go on.’
‘Well, Selima appears to be sulking and all they can get is Zacarias, and he said…he said…’ He broke down, sobbing.
‘Buck up, James, do!’ urged Phryne. ‘I can’t protect you unless I know what the danger is! Spit it out!’
‘He said they needed a scapegoat, a sacrifice for the endeavour, and I would do because I was an unbeliever anyway. And Gerald just nodded and got out one of his sacrificial knives and Val and Luke had ropes in their hands and the girls were nodding. I just leapt through the window and ran to my car and came here because they’re afraid of you, Miss Fisher.’
‘And you really think they meant to kill you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said.
Phryne was convinced, at least, that James did believe it. She patted the shaking hand.
‘Right, my dear, you’re here for the duration. Would you like Lin to take you home to pack a bag?’
‘No! What if they’re waiting for me?’
‘Then we shall send Li Pen as well and they will be very sorry.’
‘Who’s Li Pen?’
‘Lin’s bodyguard. I would back him against twenty men. Against Valentine and Luke he wouldn’t even break into a light perspiration and they would be tied into knots. Turk’s heads, for preference.’
‘No!’ James shuddered.
‘Can you forgive me if I lend this shivering wreck one of your suits of pyjamas, Lin dear? Then he can have a nice bath, take his next dose of Dr. Shang’s medicine and we’ll tuck him into bed. I’ll bribe Dot to wash his shirt and underwear, they ought to take, oh, minutes to dry in this weather.’
‘Certainly I can forgive you,’ said Lin. ‘I will supervise the bath and change. Where are you putting him to bed?’
‘Spare room, next to the girls. You can use their bathroom. I’ll get the jammies.’
‘Might I suggest the pale blue ones which you do not much like?’ asked Lin as she went out. ‘Come along, Mr. Barton,’ he said kindly. ‘Take your next dose and a bath will make you feel better.’
‘What about a drink?’ asked James hoarsely, having swallowed the evil brew.
‘I think we could manage a brandy and soda,’ said Lin, observing him closely. He was aware of what Phryne was doing. Anyone who had helped or even observed the drowning of Augustine Manifold would show some reaction to baths.
But James exhibited no emotion except his prevailing one of muted terror. Lin ran a bath, helped him strip, handed the discarded garments to Phryne, and ushered the young man into the pale blue gentlemen’s nightwear, and then into the spare room’s comfortable bed, without noticing anything amiss except his habitual failure of nerve.
James Barton drank his weak brandy and soda, sighed, and closed his eyes.
‘Augustine,’ insinuated Lin. ‘What happened to him?’
‘I dunno,’ blurred James. ‘I was asleep.’
Lin suppressed a curse and went out, closing the door against the hot light. He told Phryne what Barton had said.
She tsked. ‘I knew we’d have to do something outrageous to solve this one,’ she said. ‘Never mind, it should be fun. You told me once you could make me a spirit. We were in the ghost train at Luna Park and you said you could make it a journey into terror and nightmare. Was it true?’
‘Given the right conditions, yes,’ he said. Phryne never ceased to surprise him.
‘Name your conditions,’ she said.
***
Bert looked at his passengers in the rear-view mirror. Phryne had hired his vehicle for the duration of the Manifold campaign, and after a rousing argument about socialism he had decided that he liked the two communist chooks who were presently balancing their charity accounts in the back seat of the bonzer new taxi. He and Cec had done a lot of watching in their time as soldiers, on hot cliffs at Gallipoli and in deep Flanders mud.
He wasn’t going to miss a bloke on a great big motorbike. And he wasn’t going to lose him, either. Round the corner Cec was waiting in the battered van which was still going, more or less, though held together with baling twine and spit. If all else failed he knew several ways of bringing a motorbike down, sometimes without killing the rider. He hoped this would not be necessary. The cops always went crook about any little disturbance. They were funny like that.
The Manifold shop had opened again. So far business was brisk. Naturally all the silvertails wanted to gig at a place where the proprietor was murdered—nothing better to do after they had trodden on the faces of the starving poor for the day. Cec had been in to have a bit of a yarn with his cousin Cedric, and he had reported that this Simon bloke always turned up just after dusk, as though he had something to hide. Well, that could be said of many blokes. If the bloke was just dealing in a little merchandise which had fallen off the back of a truck, Bert wasn’t going to go all righteous on him. But Miss Fisher said that something very unpleasant was going on, and Bert’s not to reason why.
Besides, he liked listening to the flow of socialist patter from the back seat. Made a nice change from his fares complaining about the Test cricket.
‘If we transfer four pounds from the Girls’ Friendly to the Orphans’ Picnic Fund we can borrow six pounds ten from the Provision of the Works of Marx and Engels and still hire the hall for the Mothers’ and Babies’ Hygiene and pay the cook for the Factory Girls’ Cookery and Household Management,’ said Lady Alice, biting the end of her indelible pencil and spreading a purple stain across her lower lip.
‘Yes, dear, but if we take six pounds ten out of the Provision of Works Fund, we won’t be able to pay for the new books that are coming in from Russia this Thursday,’ worried Miss Eliza.
‘Drat, I’d forgotten that. Well, what about pinching five pounds out of the Working Girls’ Retraining…no, that won’t do…’
Bert was about to suggest stinging Miss Fisher for the whole of the Provision of Works Fund, but refrained. They were enjoying themselves too much. Good works, Bert thought with a touch of sentiment. Who would have thought that two nice comfy pussies would have spent so much of their time and energy on caring for the downtrodden masses and the lumpen proletariat (some more proletarian than others)? It made world revolution seem slightly more possible.
Not much traffic on the road. Twilight was fading and pretty soon it would be dark. No sign of a big motorbike.
Bert was about to suggest that they turn it up for the nonce when he heard the sound of a hungry engine, roaring.
‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Miss Eliza. ‘And there’s Sophie meeting him. No embrace, kiss on the cheek. Probably hasn’t gone too far to be easily reversed, Alice.’
‘She’s very plain,’ said Lady Alice dubiously. ‘She’d be grateful to him. It’s going to be a blow to the poor girl if he’s up to what Phryne thinks he’s up to.’
‘There are always blows,’ said Eliza. ‘And she’s got a profession, and a respectable one. Oh, he’s leaving. Can we follow, Comrade Bert?’
Bert had never met a woman who could say ‘comrade’ as though it was ‘mister’. He started the engine and let the taxi slide out into the street.
‘But what if he sees us?’ asked Lady Alice.
‘You can leave that to me and Cec, Comrade,’ Bert assured her, relighting his stub of cigarette. ‘That big bike sounds like a smithy and goes like a bat out of hell, but me and Cec know this city like the back of our hand.’
‘Carry on, then,’ said Eliza.
The bike sped up, flying around the Esplanade on the way to the city, and the taxi kept pace, sometimes falling back, sometimes drawing almost level. Behind, the unmarked van trundled on its way, unnoticed amongst the remains of the commercial traffic as the city dismissed its workers, closed its shops, and settled down into a respectable slumber.
Down Swanston Street like Bert’s bat out of hell roared the big bike. Expertly driven, the taxi and the van dogged its heels. Past the brewery, up the hill to Parkville, past the university and onto Johnson Street.
‘I reckon we’re going to Kew,’ said Bert. ‘Anyone we know in Kew, Comrade Eliza?’
‘Gerald Atkinson,’ replied Eliza. ‘Oh, dear, I’m afraid this looks very disappointing for Sophie.’
‘Kew it is,’ said Bert some time later. ‘That’s Studley Park. You know, he hasn’t looked around once, that bloke.’
‘So he’s innocent?’ asked Lady Alice.
‘Or very confident,’ replied Eliza Fisher.
‘Bingo,’ said Bert with deep satisfaction, as the big bike halted outside a large mansion.
‘Yes, that’s the Atkinson address,’ Eliza confirmed. ‘Oh, dear!’
The figure of a young woman had run out from the side gate and embraced Simon in the full glare of the streetlight. He kissed her on the mouth, laughing. Then he swung her around, tripped over the kerb, staggered, laughed again and kissed her again.
‘Well,’ said Lady Alice. ‘Keep following, Comrade Bert,’ ordered Miss Eliza.
***
‘Well, there might be water up in them caves,’ insisted Curly. ‘I seen them limestone caves before.’
‘If we don’t find water, we’re dead,’ said Jim. ‘And the neddies too. Up we go, then.’
They scrambled and clawed their way up the baking cliffs. Vern found a long crack in the stone and slipped inside.
‘You beaut, Curly, there’s water all right. A soak. Tastes a bit chalky. Bring ’em in, there’s room for all, it widens out here. Do a recce of that little cave, Jim, we might be able to light a fire.’
‘Yair, we can light a fire. There’s a triangle on this rock and some carving. Adelphos, whatever that means. There’s a hollow behind. I’ll just pull out this stone…Come and look,’ Jim requested.
They came. They stared.
‘Do we call an officer?’ quavered Jim. The others looked at him. Vern knelt and counted them out of the lid of the broken stone box.
‘Gold coins. Forty. That’s ten each. Nip out and get some of that pitch, Jim. We can solder ’em into a bandolier. And we say nothing, right? We keep shtum. This is our ticket into civvie street.’
‘Right,’ said the four.
Chapter Sixteen
All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told…
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
Phryne was about to suggest to Lin Chung that a pre-dinner nap would be a pleasant thing when the doorbell, which fairly soon she was going to disable with a handy hammer, pealed again. It was six p.m. and getting dark and Phryne wanted to wash and change for a civilised dinner, assuming her staff had not given notice by then.
‘Well, Mr. Butler? We are having a day, aren’t we?’
‘A lady to see you, Miss Fisher,’ he replied, offering her the silver salver. Phryne took the card. Then she looked at Lin and abandoned her lascivious ideas for the present.
‘Sorry, Lin dear, I really do have to see this lady.’
‘I’ll start designing my journey into horror,’ he offered, and went into the smaller parlour in search of pencil, paper and freedom from interruptions.
Phryne shook herself into order, adjusted her expression to ‘bland’, and went to greet Mrs. Joseph Bonnetti.
As Phryne remembered from the Lord Mayor’s Show, she was a large, florid woman in a flowered hat. She still was. But the hand in Phryne’s was the second trembling one of the day. Phryne sat her down and offered a drink, which Mrs. Bonnetti accepted. She gulped down her glass of the ordinary sherry and accepted another.
By this time Phryne felt she had deserved a cocktail and Mr. Butler did not fail her. It was a strong concoction of Campari, cherry brandy and gin, rather stressing the gin. Miss Phryne had behaved generously and Mr. Butler was not one to stint a lady in distress. Especially when it was her liquor.
‘What can I do for you, Mrs. Bonnetti?’ asked Phryne.
‘I was not at the conference in the old lady’s house,’ said Mrs. Bonnetti. ‘You might have noticed that.’
‘I did,’ said Phryne, sipping. One could not gulp a Negroni of this strength and keep breathing.
‘You might also have wondered where I was?’
‘Well, yes, I did rather…since it was a family gathering, I thought that you might have been there.’
‘I was excluded,’ said Mrs. Bonnetti, with strong disapproval. ‘My husband said that it was a Bonnetti matter. He is terrified, Miss Fisher, he always gets more autocratic when he’s scared. Something frightful is happening.’
‘Your brother-in-law was just here, flourishing money and telling me to stop investigating,’ Phryne told her.
‘That fool!’ Mrs. Bonnetti snorted. ‘I have never been able to understand what Sheila sees in him. If I was her I would have shown him the door—and made sure he went through it— years ago. Then again, she is not altogether…but I am digressing.’
Mrs. Bonnetti settled her hat, gulped her second glass of sherry, and laid a hand on Phryne’s sleeve. ‘I want you to keep on,’ she said.
‘Why?’ asked Phryne, which was not part of her brief.
‘Because if it is some fearful disaster, if it is an hereditary disease or weakness or madness, I need to know. I have three children. They have children.’
‘I don’t think it’s a disease,’ Phryne said, assessing how much courage her interlocutor possessed. Considerable, she judged. Mr. Bonnetti was a pater familias of the old school and would be outraged if he found out that his wife was here. ‘I think it’s a scandal.’
Mrs. Bonnetti waved a dismissive hand. The artificial orange roses on her hat shook as in a strong breeze.
‘If so, it’s an old scandal. No one is going to care, in this year of grace 1929, that Kathleen Bonnetti had a lover before she married the old man so long ago. There is something alive and present day about this, and I need to know. The situation at the old lady’s house is strange. That butler, Johns, is insolent. Yet he goes unreproved and he keeps his place. If he was my servant he’d be out on the street in his nightshirt.’
‘Yes,’ said Phryne consideringly, believing her without difficulty. ‘I have Mr. Johns in mind. I believe that he is selling things from the
old lady’s house. Ornaments and so on.’
‘Is he? So he is a thief, as well? We should call the police!’
‘No, not yet, remember that this scandal is so important to your husband that he keeps Johns in his employment. And that possibly one of the reasons why you were not asked to that meeting is that you would, as I did, notice the gaps in the dust on the mantelpiece.’
‘The Dresden shepherdesses!’ gasped Mrs. Bonnetti.
‘Probably. I’ve asked my policeman to put out a notice to all pawnbrokers so we might get him that way. In any case, we will continue until we know the truth. But it might be a very unpleasant truth,’ Phryne warned.
‘If it’s unpleasant, we will deal with it,’ replied Mrs. Bonnetti, getting to her feet with some difficulty. ‘The Bonnettis have been a prosperous but rather unlucky family. Their mother and father were happy enough, but Sheila married a waster, Maria is a nun, Bernadette lost her wits, and only my husband appears to have retained his grip. And I am not going to allow some dreadful secret to poison the rest of our lives. Out into the sun with it, I say, and then we can deal with it. Whatever it is!’
‘Commendable,’ said Phryne, recognising real resolution when she heard it. She said goodbye, and Mr. Butler saw Mrs. Bonnetti out, her orange roses still agitated as by a tornado.
Phryne drank the rest of her cocktail. It was now six thirty. She was expecting Eliza back for dinner, with Bert and Cec, reporting on Sophie’s boyfriend, the mysterious Simon of the large Harley-Davidson. She was not expecting anyone else. She was just about to join Lin in the smaller parlour when the bell rang again. Phryne swore most indelicately.
This time she had no need to offer tea from a kitchen that was probably getting pretty cross by now, as Mr. Rosenberg would not have been able to accept it in a non-kosher home. So she offered him some port and sat him down in the best armchair.
He was a small man, hunched by years of close work, and short-sighted to a degree. He wore a good but very old dark grey suit and a yarmulke. His hands, Phryne noticed as he reached out to take his glass of port, were very beautiful: spotless, white, smooth, long fingered and deft. Watchmaker’s hands.