Murder on a Midsummer Night Page 22

  ‘Miss Fisher, my daughter says that I can trust you,’ he began. ‘This is very nice port,’ he added. ‘A good year. Well. I am concerned. I am worried, even. You know that I run a little shop in the Centreway, just a few things, small things? Coins, stamps, maybe a few precious stones, artifacts?’

  Phryne nodded. The old man sipped more port and paused. His breath was short. His lips had a bluish tinge which made Phryne fear for his heart.

  ‘Take your time,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘No, I’m all right, nice lady,’ he answered. ‘Not sick. Just old. See, look, a pretty thing,’ he said, and showed her a small velvet packet which he produced from his inner suit pocket. Inside an object was encased in oiled silk. Phryne opened this envelope and looked at a golden coin, almost as big as a penny.

  ‘Byzantine,’ said Mr. Rosenberg. ‘Now I know a little about coins, yes? I know there are only seven of these Antiochus the Seconds. One only in Australia. In the collection of an old Italian gentleman, which was inherited by his wife, who died—’

  ‘Recently. Mrs. Bonnetti?’ asked Phryne.

  ‘Mrs. Bonnetti. I tried to buy this coin from her husband, he often dealt with me, he said I was the only honest dealer in Melbourne. He was a nice man—I used to go there sometimes with a coin I had found and drink port with him. I liked him. But he wouldn’t sell me the Antiochus. “It’s for my son,” he said. Then this coin comes into my shop. You can imagine how I felt.’

  ‘Who brought it?’

  ‘A man, that’s what my assistant says. He came in this morning when I was at the doctor’s. She is a good girl, Helen, my sister Miriam’s daughter’s child, but she is an artist—you know? She works for me to get money to buy more paints. Knows nothing about coins. But a good girl, she sees this is old, she tells the man, you can leave it, come back tomorrow, I have to ask my great uncle. Me, I don’t know what it’s worth. He doesn’t want to leave it, but she says, fine, take it away, you won’t find another man who knows as much as my great uncle, God love her, and he finally grumbles but he leaves it and goes out kvetching. Rachel comes back from the shopping and finds her about to clean it, and she shrieks and snatches it away and tells her it’s worth ten thousand pounds. Then Helen has to sit down and drink brandy. When I come back the shop is closed, both of them are in the back room, laughing like fools, and the Antiochus the Second sitting there on a tea towel like a big gold sequin.’

  ‘What did the man look like?’ asked Phryne, as Mr. Butler refilled his glass.

  He shrugged fluidly. ‘Helen, she says swarthy, tall and broad shouldered, wearing a good coat, hat pulled down so she couldn’t really see his face. But rude, she says, curt, as though she was a scullery maid. Soft hands, not a labourer. She didn’t like him a lot. Said she wouldn’t paint him if he paid for it.’

  ‘She’s a good observer!’ said Phryne.

  ‘Artists, they see things. But on coins, she is a little ignoramus. Now, nice lady Miss Fisher, what would you have me do?’

  ‘I would have you finish your port. How did you get here, by the way? Is there someone waiting in a car?’

  ‘I took the tram,’ he said. ‘My doctor he says rest but I will get enough rest when I am called to heaven by the Master of the Universe, no? I felt that this was important.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ said Phryne. ‘I will call my policeman friend Jack Robinson and he will arrange to have someone pick up the man when he comes tomorrow. No trouble,’ she assured him. ‘No noise. Nice and quiet. Assuming, of course, that he comes back.’

  ‘For this,’ said Mr. Rosenberg, stowing the coin and getting carefully to his feet, ‘for this I think he will come back. You choose me a nice quiet policeman, no? Otherwise the man will fight and I have Rachel and Helen to think of, God help me. And the stock, some of which is breakable.’

  ‘I know just the person,’ Phryne replied. ‘Are you sure I can’t call you a taxi?’

  ‘Taxi? No, I take the tram again, it is nice to get out for some sea air. Rachel is right,’ he told Phryne, taking her hand. ‘You are nice lady.’

  ‘There is something you can do for me,’ Phryne told him. ‘Wait just one moment.’

  She opened the drawer in her small desk and took out the coin which had been found on Augustine Manifold when he was dragged from the sea. Mr. Rosenberg grunted, came over to the desk and switched on the light, took a loupe out of his pocket and screwed it into his eye. Then he turned the coin around under the strong illumination. It shone as gold as…well, gold.

  ‘And you got this where?’ he asked.

  ‘It was in Augustine Manifold’s pocket,’ Phryne told him.

  ‘Poor Augustine, he was a good fellow,’ said Mr. Rosenberg, turning the coin over again. It glowed.

  ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it is a shekel, a pre-Roman shekel. After the Romans conquered Israel they called in the coinage, melted it down with the temple treasure, and issued new coins with Judea Captiva on them. This has no mourning figure, no head of Vespasian or Titus.’

  ‘Where could it have come from?’

  ‘From Palestine, maybe. I have seen some of these. They were popular in the Ancient World, nice lady, the gold content is very high. They were alloyed just enough to make them coinage. Some were still in circulation in the eighteenth century. Interesting. If you find that Augustine had more of them, I would like to make an offer. Now I must go,’ he said. ‘Rachel will be worrying. Ever since her husband got run down by that van, she worries. Good night,’ he added.

  Mr. Butler saw him out. Phryne was on the phone as he came back from shutting the door yet again.

  ‘Who was that nice young officer who helped out with the Pompeii loot last year, Jack dear? Thin, youngish, had a beard? Oh, you made him shave it, what a shame. Had a German name…Pinkus, was it? Yes, that one. Well, if you send him along to Mr. Rosenberg’s coin shop tomorrow I think you will be able to pinch the person who has been looting the Bonnetti estate. Better be armed, I think. We don’t want this to turn ugly, do we, in such a confined space full of treasures? I’ve just sent Mr. Rosenberg home. It might be an idea to keep a bit of an eye on him, too, he’s walking around with ten thousand pounds worth of coin in his breast pocket. I know, but I couldn’t shanghai the old gentleman and fling him into a cab, could I? Well, then. Let me know how it goes. I suspect things are about to break, Jack dear. In both cases. Good night to you too, my dear old chap.’ She broke the connection, thought a moment, then scrabbled through her notebook. ‘Mr. Butler, could you get this number for me? Inform Mrs. Phillips that her father has been to see me and is on his way home. If he isn’t there in an hour, perhaps she could call? I worry, too,’ she added with a grin. She was feeling breathless with excitement. Facts were coming in and the whole scenario was beginning to make sense, which was an immense relief. One reason why Phryne solved puzzles is that she hated mysteries.

  ‘Certainly, Miss Fisher.’

  Mr. Butler took the phone from her hand. Not wanting to disturb Lin while he was making magical designs, she flung herself down on the couch and lit a gasper. She looked at her watch. Getting on for seven. Time to bathe and change for dinner.

  First, however, she needed to find out if there was going to be any dinner.

  Phryne approached the kitchen door with some care. Mrs. Butler, when moved, had been known to throw things. But when she opened the door the scene was of genteel cordiality. Mrs. Butler was sitting in her cook’s chair with her feet up, Dot was pouring orange crush for all, and Ruth was describing her Home Management teacher’s false teeth, which slid and clicked whenever she said ‘shervant shituation’.

  Phryne entered on a gale of giggles, which stopped as soon as she came in.

  ‘No, no, no one move, I was just about to go up to get ready for dinner and I thought I’d find out how the shervant shituation was.’

  This
set the girls and Dot off again and made Phryne feel less like the spectre at the feast.

  ‘Dinner’s all ready, Miss, all cold, even the strawberry shape has set,’ Mrs. Butler informed her.

  ‘Wonderful. I hope we have only four more people to come, just Eliza and Lady Alice and Bert and Cec. Then we bar the doors and loose the dogs and inform the sentries that they are to shoot on sight. I want a nice quiet evening, and I expect that you do, too.’

  ‘It’s been fun,’ Ruth told her.

  Jane nodded. She had been allowed to dissect the cooked roast duck with cherry jelly which was the centrepiece of Mrs. Butler’s cold collation. She found it strange that while Mrs. Butler had no anatomical knowledge per se, she knew how a duck fitted together and how to take it apart. And Jane had smuggled a lot of scraps to Ember, who was now sitting in the middle of the sacred kitchen table, on a tea towel, washing himself with greasy, overfed languor.

  ‘Time we all got ready,’ said Dot, finishing her drink and putting the glass in the sink. ‘Come along, girls, you can have first wash. Is that young man all right?’ she asked Phryne.

  ‘Perfectly so, and in any case I’ve locked him in,’ Phryne replied. She did not know anything about James’ preferences, but they were not going to include Jane or Ruth.

  ‘Then we thank Mrs. Butler for a nice afternoon and off we go,’ Dot instructed. ‘And we take the cat,’ she added.

  Jane gathered Ember to her unformed bosom and carried him, purring, out of the room and the others followed.

  ‘All right, Mrs. Butler?’ asked Phryne.

  ‘Oh, yes, Miss,’ said the cook, wriggling her toes in her lisle stockings. ‘Nothing to what Mr. B and I did in the old days— there were always a string of visitors hanging on the bell. The afternoon goes fast. It’s all right being flat out like a lizard drinking, once in a way.’

  ‘But only once in a way,’ said Phryne, who had got the message. ‘Right, I’m off. Thank you so much, Mrs. Butler. Pink flowers on the hat, am I right? And perhaps white feathers?’

  ‘Right you are, Miss,’ said Mrs. Butler.

  Phryne, bathed and scented, dressed in her favourite at-home dinner dress. It was ankle length, modest in cut, with a sweetheart neckline and thin straps. She smoothed down the material, a fine claret coloured silk which draped like velvet. It had been an interesting day, and further revelations were to come. She heard the bell ring for what she hoped would be the last time today, and Eliza’s voice in the hall. Good.

  She sat down at her window to watch the sun set, smoke a meditative cigarette, and get her thoughts into order. She scribbled for some time in her notebook.

  A little later she rose and descended to find her parlour augmented with Eliza and Lady Alice, accepting cocktails, and Bert and Cec, accepting beer.

  ‘There she is!’ Bert raised his glass. ‘You look bonzer, Comrade!’

  ‘Thank you, Comrade Bert,’ said Phryne, wondering if he had been imbibing already.

  ‘You always look lovely in that dress, Phryne,’ her sister told her. ‘We are celebrating our first successful mission as spies.’

  ‘Oh?’ asked Phryne. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Rather,’ said Eliza, seconded by Lady Alice. ‘I’ve always loved driving fast, but father would never let me drive the Rolls, you know, and the gardener’s car would go about twenty miles an hour, even down Dewberry Hill.’

  ‘You drove down Dewberry Hill in that old rattletrap?’ Phryne was amazed. ‘You’re braver than I! How very enterprising of you, Eliza!’

  ‘It wasn’t so much going down,’ replied Eliza thoughtfully, ‘as stopping at the bottom without brakes. I ended up in the hedge about three times out of five. But it was a stout hedge.’

  ‘She is very enterprising,’ agreed Lady Alice. ‘We even managed to make the accounts balance—well, almost—while we were lurking.’

  ‘Miss Fisher, Mrs. Phillips reports that her father has returned safely. And dinner is served,’ announced Mr. Butler.

  The table was laid buffet style, an invention which Phryne approved of, because you could see the whole choice of food at once and collar your favourites. Mr. Butler approved of it, because it meant that he did not need to wait on the diners, and his feet hurt. Dot and the girls liked it because it seemed so luxurious to have all that food in view. Mrs. Butler was not sure. Bert had never seen such a thing before, but his opinion was formed in a moment.

  ‘You beaut!’ he enthused. ‘What a spread! Come on, Cec mate, pass me the cold steak and kidney pie.’

  Lady Alice and Eliza were so hungry that they didn’t even murmur a protest about how many poor families this feast could feed. Everyone found a plate and began to help themselves. Cold chicken, cold duck with cherry jelly, five kinds of salads, three kinds of bread. A French cheese and egg pie. A steak and kidney pie. A pork pie filled with delicious seasoned jelly. Small cups of chilled bouillon.

  There was a general sigh of delight as the company found their particular tastes and indulged. Jane found that dissecting the dinner didn’t change the taste at all.

  ‘I like this eggy pie,’ observed Bert.

  ‘And this is wonderful chicken,’ said Dot. ‘So tender! I didn’t think we’d be hungry after all the scraps the girls and I have eaten today.’

  ‘Whereas Cec and me have been doing Boy Racer all through the city,’ Bert replied, reaching for another slice of—pork pie, this time? ‘And he had the hardest yakka, ’cos that old van ain’t up to much these days.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Cec, replenishing his plate with salade russe, for which he had acquired a taste on the very first occasion that Phryne Fisher had irrupted into their lives. ‘Just a bit old and a man can’t get the parts for it, so we had to make a few of them. The door stays on all right if you remember to tie it up. But I almost lost you, Bert. That Harley was breaking all the speed limits.’

  ‘Yair, where’s a copper when you need one?’ grinned Bert.

  ‘All right, Eliza, what happened?’ asked Phryne, who had ordered a plate of delicacies conveyed to Lin Chung, who was still designing and did not want to be disturbed. James Barton was still asleep. Phryne had taken the plate of alligator pear vinaigrette to herself. No one else had had the nerve to try it yet. It was buttery and perfect. ‘We are agog to hear your adventures!’

  ‘Oh, Phryne dear, it was fun,’ confessed Eliza. ‘And Comrade Bert is a most expert driver. The big motorbike ridden by the man we are calling Simon came first to the Manifold shop. Comrade Cec went in to talk to his cousin Cedric first,’ she said, trying to keep her facts in order.

  ‘Ceddie,’ said Cec, ‘told me that this Simon was always hanging around Sophie, and Ceddie didn’t like his looks. Had seen him off a couple of times, but what can a man do when the sheila lets the mongrel in? Says he told Soph the bloke was a wrong ’un but she didn’t listen.’

  ‘They’re good at that,’ observed Bert. ‘Women. Not listening. My landlady—’ He was suddenly aware of a silence and looked around a table entirely populated by women. The silence lengthened. Dot, Phryne, Eliza, Lady Alice and both girls stared at him. ‘Can someone pass me some of that thin soup?’ he asked desperately.

  ‘He kissed Sophie goodbye, the hound. Then we started off,’ said Eliza. ‘The bike roared through the night and we followed. If we talk of breaking speed limits, Comrade, I don’t like to think how fast we were going.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Bert, burying his blushes in bouillon. ‘Not that fast. We had to keep Cec in view, and the bloke on the Harley as well. Luckily he never thought to hare off down some of them lanes, or we would have lost him.’

  ‘Then we raced through to Kew, where he stopped outside the Atkinson mansion. There he loitered with intent until a maid came out and threw herself into his arms.’

  ‘Gertrude,’ said Phryne. Her heart sank. Gertrude had tended her kindly when sh
e had arrived at the Atkinson home soaking wet. She had even sold Phryne her new pink slippers. Somehow the thought of the slippers made Phryne feel sad. And hadn’t she said that her young man was a baker and they were saving up to get married? That must have been what Simon told her. The hound.

  ‘They were clearly well acquainted,’ continued Miss Eliza delicately. ‘He spoke to her and then he kissed her goodbye— and then we were off again. This time to Richmond, it transpired. He really let the bike out on those curves.’

  ‘Going like a bat out of hell,’ agreed Bert, who had recovered his spirits.

  ‘That’s where I nearly lost you,’ Cec informed him.

  ‘But luckily there was a traffic lock on Studley Park Road,’ continued Eliza. ‘And he had to slow down. He actually got off the bike and rolled a cigarette and waited for the cars to go past. A truck, I believe, had shed its load and there were peaches all over the road.’

  ‘Not a lot of traction in stone fruit,’ said Bert.

  Jane immediately began calculating. If a standard peach was crushed under a weight of, say, one ton, how slippery would it be under motorcycle wheels?

  ‘So that when he went on we could easily follow,’ said Eliza. ‘And then—he went home. You’ll never guess where he lives, Phryne, not in a million years.’

  Phryne had an idea but she wasn’t going to spoil her sister’s triumph.

  ‘Can’t imagine,’ she said, putting down a forkful of tomato salad with basil and olive oil. ‘Where?’

  ‘With Miss Collins,’ said Eliza. ‘Veronica Collins. She is one of them. I saw her at the funeral.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I heard her mother kept a boarding house. Gosh,’ said Phryne. ‘That young man does spread himself around, doesn’t he?’

  ‘By the way he was embracing Miss Collins,’ said Eliza primly, ‘I’d agree with you.’

  ‘Fervently?’ asked Ruth, who loved romances.

  ‘Most amorous,’ said Lady Alice, to whom they were a secret vice.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Ruth. ‘That’s three!’