Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher Page 3

  The shops, however, were engrossing, and Phryne purchased a pair of fine doeskin gloves, and a barrette for her black hair, sparkling with diamantés and formed in the shape of a winged insect.

  She arranged that these purchases should be wrapped and delivered to the Windsor, and decided that she could cope with a cup of tea. She caught sight of herself in the mirror-shiny black pillar of the glove shop, and paused to tidy her hair. In the reflection she noticed the set, white face of a girl, standing behind her, unaware of Phryne’s regard, who was slowly biting into her lower lip. The horror on that face gave Phryne a start, and she spun about. The girl was leaning on the opposite pillar. She was dressed in a light cotton shift of deep, shabby black, and her legs were bare. She was innocent of gloves, hat or coat and had scuffed house-slippers on her feet. Her long, light-brown hair was dragged back into an unbecoming bun, which was coming adrift from its pins. Her blue eyes stared out of what would have been a fresh, milk-maid’s complexion, if she had not been tinged heliotrope by some illness or internal stress. On impulse, Phryne crossed the Arcade and came up to the girl, wondering what it was she held concealed in her hands close to her body. As she approached, she identified it — it was a knife.

  ‘Hello, I was just going to get some tea,’ she said casually, as though meeting an old acquaintance. ‘Would you like to come too? Just over here,’ she added chattily, leading the unresisting girl by the arm. Now, sit down, and we’ll order. Waitress! Two teas, please. Sandwiches?’ she asked and the girl nodded. ‘And sandwiches,’ added Phryne. ‘I think that you’d better give me that knife, don’t you?’

  The girl handed over the knife, still mute, and Phryne put it in her pocket. It was an ordinary kitchen knife, such as is used to chop vegetables, and it was razor-sharp. Phryne hoped that it would not slit the pocket-lining of her new coat.

  Tea was brought. The Moorish arches, hung with artificial flowers and lanterns, were soothing, and the light was not harsh. Phryne dispensed tea and sandwiches, and watched her companion becoming more lively with each mouthful.

  ‘Thanks, Miss,’ said the girl. ‘I was famished.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Phryne easily. ‘Some more?’

  The girl nodded again, and Phryne ordered more food. A jazz orchestra was damaging the night somewhere, but not near enough to preclude speech. The young woman finished the sandwiches, leaned back, and sighed. Phryne offered her a gasper, and she refused rather indignantly.

  ‘Nice girls don’t smoke,’ she said trenchantly. ‘I mean. .’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ smiled Phryne. ‘Well, what about it? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for him,’ said the girl. ‘To kill him. I come from Collingwood, see, and I got a job as a housemaid in this doctor’s house. The doctor’s missus, she was a very good woman.’

  Phryne had a feeling that she had heard this story before.

  But her son, see, he kept following me about, mauling me, and he wouldn’t leave me be. Tonight, it all got too much for me, and I told him what I thought of him, and that I’d tell his mum if he didn’t leave me alone. He came back when the old lady was having her afternoon nap, and threw me down. I donged him one, and he gave me such a belt I could hardly see, but I got my knee into him, and he let go, and ran away. Then the missus calls me in after dinner and tells me that I’ve been “shamelessly pursuing her son”, and that she was putting me out of the house, “a low, vulgar wench”, that’s what she called me. And she gave me no character and no wages. And him sitting there grinning like a dog, being a good boy. So I took me things to the station and I stole the peeling knife out of the kitchen and I was going to kill him. ’Cos I can’t go home. Me mum’s got seven others to keep, and she depends on my wages, see? So I’ll never get another job. He’s made me into a whore, that’s what he’s done. He deserves killing.’

  ‘So he does,’ agreed Phryne. Her companion was a little taken aback.

  ‘But there are better ways to do it. Did you expect him here tonight?’

  ‘Yair, he’s a knut — one of them dandies, he always parades up and down here.’

  ‘Have you seen him yet?’ asked Phryne.

  ‘That’s him there,’ said the girl. A young exquisite, clearly bung-full of conceit, sauntered past.

  ‘What’s your name? I’m Phryne Fisher, from London.’

  ‘Dorothy Bryant. Ooh, look at him! I wish I could get my hands on him!’

  ‘Listen, I need a maid, and I’ll employ you. I’m staying at the Windsor. I’m quite respectable,’ she added. ‘Now, if I revenge you on that young hound, can you keep a quiet tongue about my activities?’

  ‘If you can do it, I’m yours,’ swore Dorothy. Phryne smiled.

  ‘Watch, and don’t move from here,’ she said, then slid out into the crowd. The young man was accompanied by several fellows, equally expensive and excruciatingly idle. Phryne listened to their conversation as she stalked the young man.

  ‘Then I laid her on the floor of the manse, and she’ll never dare complain — not the vicar’s daughter!’ crowed the young man, and his companions guffawed. Phryne insinuated herself close to the youth, and with a swift and skilled slice, cut his braces through the loose coat, and then slit up his undergarment, so that all below the waist was revealed. By the time he realised what had happened he was standing, perfectly dressed as to coat and shirt and hat, and quite bare down to his sock-suspenders.

  It happened quickly; but the crowd in the Arcade appreciated it at once. The young man was surrounded instantly by the more unruly half of Melbourne’s fashionable society, all of them howling with mirth. When he took a step forward and tripped, sprawling on the floor, the mob crowed with delight, as did the young man’s companions. And when a large policeman hoisted him to his feet and hauled him, suitably covered by his helmet, off to the watch-house to be charged with indecent exposure and conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, the vaulted ceiling rang with raucous comments and shrieks.

  Phryne slipped back into her place and ordered some more tea, and Dorothy put one small, warm hand on her wrist. The girl’s eyes were shining with tears.

  ‘I’m yours,’ affirmed Dorothy.

  ‘Good. We’ll pick up your bundle tomorrow, and I’ve a maid’s room attached to my suite at the Windsor; you’ll be comfortable there. And you wouldn’t really want to go on the streets, Dorothy; it isn’t at all amusing, really.’

  Dazed, Dorothy followed Phryne out of the arcade and back up the hill to the hotel.

  As soon as Bert and Cec were safely gone, Dr MacMillan took the large scissors and cut off the blue silk dress, bundling it and the underwear together and slinging them into a corner. A quick examination assured her that her patient had undergone a criminal abortion, performed by an amateur with only a sketchy knowledge of anatomy.

  Sister Simmonds, who intended to undertake medical studies as soon as she could earn the fees, arrived and Dr MacMillan explained her diagnosis.

  ‘Clean all that matter away, Sister — you see? Some foreign body introduced into the womb — a knitting needle or syringe of soapy water, perhaps slippery elm bark. Butchers! Mind, Sister, an abortion done under ether with proper asepsis is not perilous — better, usually, to clear the contents of an incompetent womb before the third month than coddle a near-miscarriage to term and birth a monster or a sickly bairn which dies as a neonate. But this is butchery. Look, the cervix is widely dilated and all the vaginal bacteria have rushed in and started colonies.’

  ‘How long ago did this happen, Doctor?’ asked Sister Simmonds, taking up another carbolic-soaked cloth.

  ‘Two days, maybe three. Criminals! They perpetrate this outrage on nature, and the girl begins to miscarry — this one was four months gone, perhaps — and they usually send them home to cope with the results. Septicaemia is the least they can expect. Well, how would you diagnose her?’

  Sister Simmonds picked up Alice’s hand and felt for a pulse. It flickered so fast that she
could not distinguish the separate beats. The girl’s temperature was 104 degrees. She was alternately sweating and shaking with cold, and dried out and burning with heat. Her belly, breasts and thighs were patterned with a scarlet-fever like rash.

  ‘Sapraemia,’ she announced. Dr MacMillan nodded.

  ‘Treatment?’

  ‘Salicyclates and anti-tetanus serum.’

  ‘Good. Tell them to prepare a bed in the septic ward, and the theatre as soon as you can. If I remove the source of the infection she will have a better chance. Arrange for ice-water sponging and paraldehyde by injection.

  ‘Poor mite,’ added Dr MacMillan, touching Alice’s cheek. ‘But a bairn herself.’

  Bert sipped his tea suspiciously. It was hot and sweet and he drank it quickly, burning his tongue. He did not like this at all. He suspected that Alice was going to lead them into trouble and fervently wished that the tall man in Lonsdale Street had chosen another cab to deposit the poor little rat into. Cec was staring at the wall, his tea untouched.

  ‘Drink your tea, mate,’ suggested Bert, and Cec said, ‘She’s only a kid,’ again. Bert sighed. He had known Cec for many years and was aware that his heart was as soft as putty. The rooming house in Carlton where they both lived presently lodged three cats and two dogs which had all been found in extremis and nursed back to aggressive, barking, scratching health by his partner. After all, Bert thought, I seen him sit up all night nursing a half-drowned kitten. Plain nutty on anything weak and wanting, that’s Cec. And what Mrs Browning is going to say if he wants to bring a stray girl home, I don’t know. She complained something chronic about the last puppy. The thought made him smile and he patted Cec on the shoulder.

  ‘Tails up, Cec. She’ll be apples,’ he encouraged, and Cec took up his cup.

  He had barely raised it to his lips when Dr MacMillan entered the room, and they both stood up. She waved them to their hard hospital chairs again and sat down heavily in the only easy chair. Cec poured her tea.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked anxiously. Dr MacMillan shot him a quick look, and saw the brown eyes full of concern, without the inevitable fear which would have marked the man responsible for Alice’s condition or for her operation. She sighed.

  ‘It is not good. She waited too long to come to us. She has blood poisoning and I don’t know if we can save her. It will be touch and go. It depends upon how strong her will to live is.’

  ‘Can’t you do anything?’ demanded Bert.

  ‘No. Even modern medicine can do very little. She must fight her own battle, and maybe lose it. Now, tell me all about the tall man in Lonsdale Street.’

  ‘About six feet, lofty beggar, with dark hat and suit, looked like a gentleman. He was worried, but. Gold signet ring on the left little finger with a diamond in it big as a hatpin.’

  ‘Was he a pimp?’

  ‘Nah, and she’s no whore,’ objected Bert. ‘I should know, I’ve carried enough. Only people who can afford taxis, almost.’

  ‘No, she’s not one of them,’ agreed Cec. ‘She made a mistake, that’s all. Some bloke ain’t acted square. He’s podded her and then left her, and she must have a respectable family, because she said she could go home now. You remember, mate? She wouldn’t have said that unless she came from a good home, and they didn’t know.’

  ‘Yair, she was frantic,’ said Bert. ‘We said that you wouldn’t tell ’em.’

  ‘Nor shall I,’ agreed Dr MacMillan. ‘I shall tell them that she is here, but not what brought her here. One can get blood poisoning from any breach in the skin. A rose thorn would do. What else can you recall about the man who brought her to you?’

  ‘Nothin’ much else. Black hair, I reckoned, and a toffy look. Eh, Cec?’

  Cec, overcome by his unaccustomed eloquence, nodded.

  ‘Yair, and I reckon we’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Might have been in the cab, might have just been on the street — have a feeling that it was somewhere around Lon. or Little Lon. . Cec, does that toffy mug ring a bell?’

  ‘Nah, mate. You musta been on your pat.’

  ‘We don’t usually work together, see. Cec has a truck. But she’s laid up with piston trouble so we’re doing a double shift. Nah, I can’t remember. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘To inform the police, of course,’ stated Dr MacMillan quietly. ‘He must be found and put in jail. If she dies, he is a murderer. Butchers! They batten on the respectability of these stupid girls — it’s always the innocent and deceived that get caught — and they mutilate them, charging ten pounds for the savagery that a cannibal wouldn’t stoop to, and then they dump them like so much garbage to bleed out their lives in the gutter. Nothing is too bad for such men — nothing. If I could but lay a hand on them myself I’d inoculate them with bacteria, and watch how they liked trembling and shrieking their lives away down to an agonising, filthy death.’

  ‘Not the jacks, though,’ mumbled Bert. ‘Not the cops. .’

  ‘And why not? You are essential witnesses.’

  ‘Yair, but Cec and me don’t have no cause to love the jacks.’

  ‘I am not asking you to love them, nor will they be concerned with your petty crimes. You will come down to Russell Street with me this afternoon and you will tell them everything you know, and I will answer for it that you will walk out again. Do you understand?’

  They understood.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, Bert and Cec tailed Dr MacMillan into the police station, under the red brick portal, and came before the desk-sergeant on his high pedestal.

  ‘I am Dr Elizabeth MacMillan, and I have an appointment to see a Detective-inspector Robinson.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ said the desk-sergeant. ‘He’s expecting you. These are your people, sir,’ he added to a soberly dressed young man sitting beside him. They followed him along a corridor and into a small, bleak office painted institution green. It contained a desk, a filing cabinet, and four hard chairs. The cable-car clanged outside. At his signal, they all sat down and there was a moment’s silence while he took down a folio ledger and unscrewed a black fountain pen.

  ‘Your names, please,’ he said in a carefully unmodulated voice. The man was colourless, with mid-brown hair, mid-brown eyes, and nothing noticeable about him at all. They gave their names. When he heard ‘Albert Johnson’ and ‘Cecil Yates’ he grinned.

  ‘The red-raggers, eh? Still fighting the capitalist menace? Been to Russia yet? With a lot of property reasonably suspec- ted to be unlawfully obtained?’

  Cec stared mournfully at Dr MacMillan.

  Bert, glaring at the policeman, snarled, ‘Your time will come. Oppressor of the widow and orphan, upholder of the exploiter. .’

  ‘That will do,’ interposed Dr MacMillan. ‘I spoke to you, officer, if you recall, about these gentlemen. They behaved, in relation to this wretched girl, with notable gallantry and gentleness. I have assured them that they are required only to state what they have observed about this butcher of an abortionist, and I would not be forsworn.’ She fixed the uncomfortable detective with her eye, and he flinched.

  ‘That’s right, madam, you are quite correct. Now, tell me all about the man.’

  Bert, assisted by Cec, repeated the description, and the detective lost his indifference. He flicked over the pages in the ledger and read aloud, ‘Six feet tall, cropped hair, swarthy complexion, signet ring on his left hand.’

  ‘Yair,’ agreed Bert. ‘We couldn’t see his hair because he had his hat on, but I reckoned that it was black, or very dark brown, like shoe polish. And a little smear of a moustache, just a line on the upper lip.’

  ‘That’s him,’ said the detective. ‘He’s been involved in this racket for three years — or that’s as long as we’ve known about it. We call him Butcher George. The first victim was a girl called Mary Elizabeth Allen, found dead in the Flagstaff Gardens, dumped out of a car by a man of that description. Good girl, by the way. The next was a common prostitute know
n as Gay Lil, real name Lillian Marchent, found dying in a gutter in Fitzroy Street. She said that the job was done by a man called George Fletcher and gave a similar description. Course, you can’t rely on the word of a girl like that. .’

  ‘O can’t ye?’ demanded Dr MacMillan, her accent becoming more Scottish as she lost her temper. ‘I’ve worked with enough of ’em to know you can trust ’em just as fine as anyone — they’re human women, for the Lord’s sake! Lil’s death is just as much a tragedy as the good little girls’—they all die the same, Detective-inspector.’

  Dr MacMillan saw that Bert, Cec and the policeman were all regarding her with the same puzzled stare. She concluded that men were all alike, one side of the law or the other, and held her tongue. The detective-inspector read on.

  ‘Third was a married woman — eight kids she had — and she got home before she bled to death. Left her husband a note saying that George had charged her ten pounds and she was sorry. Man answering to that description seen leaving the house. That was six months ago. And now your girl — when do you reckon it was done?’

  ‘Two or three days ago.’

  ‘And will she live?’

  ‘I hope so. I can’t tell,’ sighed Dr MacMillan. The detective-inspector leaned back in his chair.

  ‘We don’t know enough. It’s always hard to find ’em, because their victims protect ’em. To a girl in that situation, even death seems better than continuing pregnant, with social ruin staring her in the face. And some of them are quite competent. Some even use ether and have an operating-room. Some, like this bastard — beg pardon, madam — force themselves on the girls before they do the procedure.’

  Cec growled, and Bert demanded, ‘If you’ve got all this proof, why don’t you catch him?’

  ‘No clues, he gets rid of the ones who die.’

  ‘And the ones that live won’t say a word. They com- mitted a crime by having the abortion, I understand,’ said Dr MacMillan. ‘We see enough of them at the hospital. Bleeding like pigs, infected, mutilated, torn and sterile for life, they all insist that it was a hot bath, or a horse-ride, or a fall down some steep stairs. Very well, officer. Thank you for seeing us.’