Murder on a Midsummer Night Read online

  ‘Mind you, he’d say the same after a good sunning,’ said Phryne. ‘Scotch, please, with water.’

  Mr. Atkinson obliged, pouring a small glass for Phryne and a tumbler for himself. Miss Fisher sipped at her very good whisky and looked around the room, wriggling her toes into Gertrude’s pink slippers.

  ‘I know all about you, Miss Fisher!’ he exclaimed.

  Phryne privately considered this very unlikely, but was still trying to place Mr. Atkinson, so she merely inclined her head and smiled.

  ‘And I know nothing about you,’ she said. ‘So you can start.’

  This disconcerted the young man, who had clearly prepared an elaborate compliment. He took a gulp of his drink and began.

  ‘Born: Cairo. My father was a diplomat. School: privately educated. Came to Melbourne in ’13, family fearing war. In which they were right, of course. Family settled in Camberwell. I inherited this house, so came to live here.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Mr. Atkinson ambiguously. Phryne let that one lie for the present.

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘Gentleman,’ he informed her stiffly. Aha. One of those. Phryne was familiar with the insistence of the upper middle class on idleness as a measure of social status. They had, of course, not met people like Lady Alice Harborough, Eliza’s friend, who worked harder than any skivvy at her chosen avocation, which was rescuing the women of St. Kilda from penury and crime.

  ‘Yes, but even gentlemen have occupations. My father, for instance, is a baronet and also a Justice of the Peace and a Master of Fox Hounds. My sister Eliza is a social worker, and I am a private detective.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean. I’m a collector of antiquities,’ said Mr. Atkinson, mollified. Phryne waved a hand at the shelves which Gertrude found such a trial to dust.

  ‘Yes, I can see that. Care to show me some of your collection?’

  ‘Certainly!’ Mr. Atkinson’s eyes lit up and he looked almost attractive. ‘If you would come this way?’

  ‘First, I need to call my house and get someone to bring me some clothes,’ she said. ‘I can scarcely travel in your very delightful gown.’

  He almost blushed. ‘This way, Miss Fisher.’

  The telephone was in a library which Phryne longed to explore. Mr. Atkinson did not appear to be bookish. There were no volumes open on the desk or the library table, no bookmarks, no signs that anyone had ever read any of the opulent sets of classics and half-calf bindings. Only the collectors’ texts were well-used: Gibbons on stamps, the standard authorities on coins and on porcelain. And, for some reason, Roman plays.

  Phryne made telephonic contact with Mr. Butler and gave him orders in relation to the clothes and the address at which he was to call with all convenient speed. He was reminded to bring an umbrella and Phryne hung up.

  ‘What a lovely library,’ she said, meaning it.

  ‘I inherited it all from my grandfather,’ said Mr. Atkinson, carefully not mentioning the name or profession of the said ancestor. Which meant, Phryne knew, that he had been In Trade.

  She considered this philosophy extremely silly. If there were no trade, nothing would ever get done or made. And if her own grandfather had not married a Trade heiress, the Fisher family would be as poor as church mice and eking out a living by taking in washing. No point, however, in imparting her own views to this deluded person. He would only be shocked and she didn’t want to shock him yet.

  ‘Your grandfather had excellent taste,’ she observed, swishing her gown as she moved. The drag of the heavy silk was most pleasing.

  ‘Indeed. Now, if you will come this way,’ he said, and Phryne was plunged into the world of the collector.

  She had been there before, of course. Sometimes it was fun— like the man who collected Fabergé eggs, or the charming woman who collected children’s toys. Sometimes the wit and charm of the collector could overcome the tedium of the collection, such as the delightful Jane Wright, who had a collection of hair ribbons which covered walls, but was very funny about them, as far as anyone can be funny about hair ribbons. In the case of Mr. Atkinson, it was going to be a long day. He collected broken bits of old rock, about which he knew far too much, and Phryne dropped instantly into the trance she employed when stuck in an all-too-familiar church service or a parliamentary debate. She surfaced briefly to nod at ‘Mesopotamian’ and ‘Old Petrie’ and ‘cuneiform’ then slid effortlessly back into her meditative state. More bits passed under her gaze.

  ‘Of course, if you remember your Aramaic,’ he was saying when she dropped in again. She nodded solemnly and he continued. ‘And this was sent to me from a dig in Gaza. You see the curve?’

  It was a shard of terracotta, broken from a bigger pot. Mr. Atkinson’s hands described a cylindrical shape.

  ‘It would have held a scroll,’ he said. ‘The Bedouin bring such things into Cairo occasionally, or Alex. They will never say where they have found them. A few complete ones have been sold, far beyond my touch, alas!’

  ‘I find such things fascinating,’ lied Phryne. ‘But this is too much to absorb at one time. Let’s go back to the parlour and I’ll tell you why I came to see you.’

  ‘But the rest…’ cried Mr. Atkinson, as distressed as a doting mother with a reserve of fifty-seven cabinet photographs of her infants still to exhibit.

  ‘I will come back and see them,’ promised Phryne, laying a hand on his arm. ‘Now we need to talk about the sad death of your friend, Augustine Manifold.’

  ‘Oh, poor Augustine,’ said Mr. Atkinson, allowing himself to be led back into the parlour and sinking down onto the couch. ‘I’ll never know why he did it.’

  ‘Tell me about Augustine,’ prompted Phryne.

  ‘He was my best friend,’ said Mr. Atkinson, groping for a handkerchief.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘I went to his shop,’ said Mr. Atkinson. ‘He had some bits and pieces that I found quite irresistible. Rarities, you know. And we got talking and I found that he knew a lot about antiquities, especially considering that he had never been to university.’

  ‘Self-taught is often best,’ agreed Phryne.

  ‘He knew all the archaeologists,’ continued Mr. Atkinson, finding the handkerchief in his trouser pocket and wiping his eyes. ‘They sold him duplicates and broken stuff, things you couldn’t put in a museum. I remember we spent a whole night putting together a Greek pot, using his special glue. The best sort of jigsaw puzzle, and it was a kylix with a dancing maenad in the middle, a real find. I’ve got it in that glass case over there, you can hardly see the cracks.’

  Phryne got up and looked. It was a lovely thing. The maenad tossed her hair and brandished a lyre, which was polite of her, considering what else, being what she was, she could be brandishing.

  ‘That glue must be amazing stuff, to join such friable material together,’ Phryne commented.

  ‘His own invention. He made another one for furniture. The carpenter chappie said it was better than any he’d ever used. You didn’t have to keep it hot, see. But now I expect that it will vanish, unless Augustine wrote down the recipe. That old mother of his hasn’t a particle of Augustine’s initiative or sense—she’ll just sit on the inventions and the collection like a foul old broody hen.’

  ‘Indeed,’ murmured Phryne.

  ‘He was such a good fellow!’ Mr. Atkinson burst into sobs. ‘We used to talk all day and all night, sometimes. I took him to lunch on the day…on the day he…’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘Just as ever, but excited. He said he had some great enterprise on foot. Something which would make him rich. He was going to buy a lovely house for his mother so he could live alone at last. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was, this deal. And now he never will!’ he said sadly.

  Phryne looked away, in charity, from his tear-blubbered face.r />
  She was still in two minds about Mr. Atkinson. A snob, certainly, one who had never bothered to learn the name of the carpenter who did such lovely work on the dead man’s furniture. He didn’t like Mrs. Manifold, but he would be in good company there. And he seemed genuinely affected by the loss of his friend. But there was some character trait in him that she had yet to elicit, and she did not know what it was. Some buried emotion which she could sense lurking under his civilised surface.

  ‘I am investigating Mr. Manifold’s death,’ she told him.

  ‘Good,’ he said through his handkerchief. ‘Then when you find out, you can tell me why. Because I don’t know,’ he wept. ‘I don’t know!’

  He fled from the room, leaving Phryne still puzzled.

  She pottered around the collection until the bell rang, her car arrived, and the maid Gertrude escorted her to her previous bedroom, where she assumed her clothes and shoes and returned, with some regret, the sprightly gown.

  ‘Here’s my card,’ she said to the maid. ‘If you can think of anything strange about Mr. Manifold’s death or life, call me. There’s a reward,’ she added. Gertrude’s eyes gleamed and she stowed the card in her apron pocket.

  ‘Right you are, Miss. M’lady.’

  Phryne took her bundle of rough-dried clothes and her newspaper-stuffed shoes and entered the big car. All the way home she was silent. Mr. Butler did not know if this was deep consideration or pique and took care around corners, so as not to joggle his employer out of a train of thought.

  But all she said, as he closed the front door of her own house on her and hefted the bundle, was, ‘Odd.’

  Mr. Butler did not know what to make of this, but considered that lunch was in order. And perhaps a strong black coffee.

  ‘Has Dot returned, Mr. B?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Miss, she is still with Miss Eliza at the shop. She left a telephonic communication that she expected to be engaged for the rest of the day.’

  ‘And the girls?’

  ‘Have gone to visit their school friend, Miss. They were collected by the Laurens’ chauffeur half an hour ago, also expected home for dinner.’

  ‘Then it’s just me for lunch?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Ask Mrs. Butler to do me some fish,’ said Phryne. ‘I need brain food. Or steak, of course.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Fisher. A few of the flathead tails, crumbed, Miss, some French potatoes, a little green salad? And an apple pie to follow.’

  ‘Scrumptious. I will be in the parlour,’ she told him, and took herself firmly into the sea-green room. Notes. She needed to write all of this down and then it might make more sense. She was annoyed at Mr. Atkinson’s flight, just when she was getting a handle on him. Of course, that might have been the reason that he had fled.

  She took a new sea-green silk-covered notebook from the stack in the bookcase, uncapped her fountain pen, and began to write.

  Mr. Butler saw her suitably occupied, brought her a cup of strong black coffee, and left her undisturbed until he called her to lunch.

  Lunch was excellent. Phryne appreciated the crispness of the fresh fish, the crunchiness of the fried potatoes, and the spiced heartiness of Mrs. Butler’s famous apple pie. With the meal she sipped away two glasses of an athletic hock from the Barossa; a little young and foolish but perfectly agreeable company. She had made all the notes she usefully could, and was about to propose lying down for a brief nap when the doorbell rang and Mr. Butler returned with his silver salver. On it reposed a card. In good style, Phryne observed; neat lettering, engraved, very much a gentleman’s card. Mr. Valentine Adami, Barrister at Law, apparently wished the favour of speech with Miss Fisher.

  ‘Show Mr. Adami into the parlour, Mr. B,’ she said. ‘Break out the port.’

  Mr. Adami presented no difficulty in classification. He was well, but not too well, dressed. His hair was stylishly cut and his eyes were bright and he was a charming specimen. A successful immigrant, Phryne diagnosed, comfortable and attractive. Nice suit, too. She waited until he was properly seated and had sipped his port before she asked, ‘Well, Mr. Adami, I see that you are a lawyer. What can I do for you? I have to tell you in advance, I don’t do divorce.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ he said in his pleasant, hardly accented voice. ‘I have been advised to see you by…’ he lowered his voice, ‘a very exalted personage indeed. In the Church, you know.’

  Phryne was puzzled. Had she obliged any Princes of the Church lately? Of course—the exceptionally reverend Daniel Mannix, in that strange affair of Jock McHale’s hat. Mr. Adami was well connected. Phryne made a little bow.

  ‘I am honoured by his confidence,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed. He holds your skills in high regard,’ said Mr. Adami carefully. Phryne appreciated the nuance. ‘He said that if anyone could help me, it would be you.’

  ‘Indeed. What is the problem?’

  ‘It’s an estate,’ he said, putting down the port glass with appropriate care. ‘The estate of a very old lady who died last week. Her name was Mrs. Mario Bonnetti.’

  ‘She was Italian?’ Phryne sipped at her own port. It really was superb.

  ‘No, not at all. That being the problem, as I hope I shall explain. Let’s see…’ He unfolded a bundle of papers and scanned them. ‘She was born Kathleen Julia O’Brien on the twenty-fifth of May, 1848. In Melbourne. Her father was a lawyer, a propertied man who bought and sold land and built houses.’

  ‘Fairly oofy, then,’ observed Phryne.

  Mr. Adami registered the slang, clearly did not approve of such levity on the serious matter of money, but went on without comment. ‘Yes, a wealthy man was Daniel O’Brien, and so was his wife, the former Miss Bridget Ryan. The family’s wealth was in land and manufacturing so it was not destroyed by the crash in 1880. However. Miss Kathleen Julia was a clever girl and her father sent her to school; not to a convent school, as was usual, but to a school run by some rather advanced ladies, where she showed a great talent for languages, mathematics and music.’

  Mr. Butler shimmered into the parlour, refilled the port glasses, laid down a plate of cheese straws, green olives and black olives, and dematerialised in his own remarkable fashion. Mr. Adami took an olive, tasted it, and said with more than common politeness, ‘The Archbishop said that you were a truly sophisticated lady, Miss Fisher, and I see that he was understating the matter. Real Sicilian olives! What a treat!’

  ‘Have several,’ urged Phryne. So far the story had not engaged her interest but she could not help liking this dapper Italian. Mr. Adami obliged her by eating three olives then returned to his discourse, refreshed.

  ‘So, we have Miss Kathleen Julia at sixteen, accomplished and intelligent, in post gold rush Melbourne. She goes to suitable concerts with her sisters, properly escorted, of course. She visits the conservatorium. She attends suitable parties for young persons. Then there is a sudden break in her life. Abruptly and without explanation she is withdrawn from school and sent to stay with her Aunt Susan in the country. And there she stays until she is seventeen, a whole year. When she comes back she attends no parties and goes to no concerts, is not seen in public and her piano is given to her younger sister. Then, when she is twenty, in 1870, she marries Mr. Mario Bonnetti, a gentleman forty years of age.’

  ‘Curious,’ said Phryne, who had an easy explanation for that rustication.

  ‘Significant,’ said Mr. Adami. ‘But she made him a good wife, according to all accounts. He was an indulgent husband who allowed her to resume her music. He liked her playing, it is said. And she bore him many children, four of whom are still living. I have their names here, and a family tree.’

  Phryne looked. Giuseppe, known as Joseph, born 1872. Maria, born 1874. Patrick, born 1875—he died young— Sheila, born 1878, and Bernadette, born 1880. In between, the solicitor had recorded, were three babies dead before they were a
year old and five stillbirths. Phryne sent up a brief but fervent prayer of thanksgiving to Marie Stopes.

  ‘And these four are still alive,’ she prompted.

  ‘Yes. Maria is now Sister Immaculata, and belongs to a teaching order. She inherited her mother’s talent for music. The others are all married with children of their own. I am instructed that it was a happy family.’

  Phryne noted the use of ‘I am instructed’. It conveyed what the lawyer had been told without any indication of his opinion as to its veracity.

  ‘Fruitful, certainly,’ she commented.

  ‘And Mr. Bonnetti died at the age of seventy-two in 1903. He was a man who did not like lawyers and he wrote his own will and testament.’

  ‘They say that all the lawyers in Gray’s Inn raise their glasses once a year to the man who makes his own will,’ said Phryne.

  ‘As well they might,’ said Mr. Adami with feeling. ‘This one was unusually inept. Mr. Bonnetti left all his worldly goods to his wife. Not just for her lifetime. Outright.’

  ‘I begin to see where this is heading, Mr. Adami,’ said Phryne, taking another olive and holding out the plate. Mr. Adami took two to soothe his feelings.

  ‘Mrs. Bonnetti did employ a solicitor. My firm, in fact. She was adamant about the terms of her will. She left everything, except for some trifling legacies to servants and so on, to be divided equally between her children. The issue of her body, that is.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phryne.

  ‘Not just her legitimate children,’ elaborated Mr. Adami.

  ‘And you suspect that there may have been a child back in 1864 when she was sent to…where?’

  ‘Ballarat, I believe.’

  ‘She didn’t leave you a letter or a document about this possible child?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And have we any more clues?’

  ‘Just this,’ he said, and gave her a miniature. Phryne switched on the table lamp, with its Tiffany jewels, to examine it.

  The setting was skimpy, a gold border barely a sixteenth of an inch wide, and the backing was of base metal. Not a very well painted miniature. It showed a young man with dark curly hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a tight high collar with a severe necktie and a penitential pin. Under the painting was his name in small even letters.