Death in Daylesford Read online

  Phryne admired a number of creations. All were tasteful rather than opulent, and mostly darker shades, with splashes of colour. On a stand beside the counter rested a splendid dark crimson cloche with a spray of artificial fuchsias. A miniscule card attached by a length of fine cotton announced to the browser that the hat was available for purchase at one pound and three shillings. ‘Dot? What do you think?’

  Her companion had not, however, followed her inside the shop. She found Dot staring through the window from the street, plainly coveting a chocolate brown hat not dissimilar to a gentleman’s hat and adorned with a bunch of imitation petunias. Phryne grinned at her through the window and beckoned with her finger.

  Dot entered the shop with reluctance. ‘Miss Phryne, I was just looking.’

  ‘And I am just buying, Dot. I’m having this one.’ She indicated the cloche. ‘I’ll take this, please, Sophie, and my companion will have the brown in the window with the petunias.’

  Sophie disappeared for a moment and returned with two hexagonal boxes of Prussian blue cardboard. She turned back to Phryne and the now thoroughly discomfited Dot. ‘That will be two pounds and sixpence, Miss.’

  ‘Miss Phryne, I was only window-shopping,’ she whispered in an agony of embarrassment.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Dot. You wanted it, didn’t you? Well, it’s yours.’ She turned back to Sophie and handed over two pound notes and a sixpence. ‘Thank you. I love your shop.’

  Sophie grinned as she played upon the keys of her cash register, which rang out its merry carillon of another sale completed. ‘Thank you, Miss. Staying here long?’

  ‘Just for the week.’

  Having stowed the hatboxes in the boot of the Hispano-Suiza, Phryne walked slowly on towards the summit of the hill. Most of the stores were exactly what one would have expected to find: two-storeyed with verandahs. There were butchers and bakers (but no candlestick makers). There were banks which oozed stone-ground solidity and Victorian virtue. There was a grocer. Some of the buildings looked very much like the town hall’s younger siblings: similar in architecture but not as grandiose.

  Dot caught her arm. ‘Look, there’s a teashop! May we stop here, Miss Phryne?’

  The shop was long and narrow, and womaned by a brisk, middle-aged personage with a mottled face and hair in a greying bob. She also sold chocolates, and Dot bought two packets: one for herself and one for Hugh. Dot’s tea was bergamot-flavoured, and Phryne ordered coffee which turned out to be astonishingly good by Australian standards. She recollected that Italians from the Dolomites had been featured among the early settlers hereabouts.

  They sat at a small wooden table and Dot sipped her tea with content.

  ‘What do you think of the Temperance Hotel, Dot?’ Phryne asked.

  Dot put down her cup. ‘Miss, it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know how she puts up with it.’

  ‘The wall-to-wall Adoration of the Magi? I think I could get used to it.’ Phryne leaned forward. ‘What else did you notice, Dot?’

  ‘I wonder who does all the work.’

  ‘So do I. There is sister Jessie, who will probably serve us lunch. There was a cousin mentioned—Peggy. And you heard her refer to what seems to be a shell-shocked uncle, though he may just be a drunk. I didn’t see any adult males on the strength doing anything useful. Well, we shall see.’

  Lunch in the Temperance Hotel’s ladies’ lounge was indeed served by sister Jessie, who was so utterly unlike Annie that Phryne would have guessed at two different mothers and possibly three different fathers. She was tall and slight, though the muscles on her forearms looked sinewy and tough beneath her sleeves. She wore navy blue trousers, flat-heeled leather boots and a green buttoned tunic, disdaining all fripperies of the aproned variety. Her face was pale and freckled by the sun, her eyes turquoise, and her hair brick-red, curly and cropped short like a boy’s. She exuded an air of brisk happiness with undertones of serious overwork. Phryne ordered roast chicken, with crème brulée to follow, and a half-bottle of white wine.

  ‘And what would you like, Dot?’

  Dot stared at the menu, which appeared to have a strong flavour of Foreign. She was briefly tempted by entrecote de boeuf, but didn’t feel like risking it in case it turned out to be oven-baked overcoats. ‘I’ll have what you’re having, Miss Phryne.’

  Jessie’s eyes sharpened. ‘Are you Phryne Fisher? Sorry, that’s a bit abrupt. I just wondered, that’s all. I’m Jessie.’ Her voice had become more Scots-flavoured, especially around the w- sound, which emerged as hw- from between her thin, pale lips.

  Phryne inclined her chin. ‘Yes, I am. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Miss Fisher, I’ve heard of you.’ Jessie turned to take in the three other tables with waiting guests. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to talk to you later on, when I’m not so busy.’

  ‘By all means, Jessie. We’re not in a hurry.’

  While waiting for their lunch, Phryne admired the decor. It mirrored the main bar, though with added pictures on the pastel-painted walls. They appeared to be local vistas. Eucalypts, lavender and rose gardens predominated. She looked harder at what she had first assumed to be prints and saw they were in fact framed water-colour paintings, clearly all executed by the same hand. One of them showed the Temperance Hotel on a rainy spring day. In the one nearest to her, the signature Agnes Tremain could be made out in spidery copperplate.

  ‘They’re pretty pictures, Miss Phryne,’ Dot ventured.

  ‘They are, Dot. And painted, I would guess, by Annie and Jessie’s mother, or possibly an aunt.’

  ‘My late mother.’ Jessie had reappeared with a bottle and two glasses. ‘This is a local wine, Miss Fisher. I hope you like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Phryne murmured. ‘She was a fine artist.’

  Phryne sniffed her capacious rounded glass, into which Jessie had, in the approved sommelier manner, poured a smidgeon. ‘This is seriously good, Jessie. Citrus, and hints of stone fruit. Yes, please: pour away, and do not cease pouring until this half-bottle is quite exhausted.’

  Seeing Jessie’s eye glance upon Dot, Phryne raised an enquiring eyebrow. Dot shook her head with a smile. She had a glass of mineral water with a slice of lemon and two ice cubes floating moodily in it, and she had not the slightest desire to embroil her constitution with the fruit of the vine, however sumptuous.

  When Jessie had finished pouring, Phryne held her glass up to the light and nodded. ‘So many whites seem rather ashamed of themselves. This one doesn’t hide its light under a bushel. This is as full-bodied a white as I have seen on these shores.’

  Jessie nodded. ‘I think Peggy has your chicken ready. I’ll go fetch it now.’

  Their chicken had, until its untimely end, plainly been raised in a health spa and waited on hand and foot by muscular attendants. The accompanying vegetables (potatoes marinated in oil and rosemary, two flavours of pumpkin and string beans) were everything that could be wished for.

  ‘Miss Phryne, this is wonderful.’

  ‘It really is. Truly, we have come to the land of Canaan.’

  ‘Yes. I saw dairy cows on the way here, and there are farms selling honey as well.’

  Phryne smiled, and returned to her meal. A land of milk and honey, verily.

  Their table was the last to be cleared away. As Jessie approached, Phryne gave her a winning look. The waitress paused, watching as the other guests sauntered out of the lounge. When only Phryne and Dot remained, she returned her attention to the former. ‘Miss Fisher, I’m worried about my sister,’ she stated without preamble.

  ‘What in particular is concerning you, Jessie? Is it the look on the faces of the local boys, all of whom appear to have been in receipt of a large steam engine in the small of their backs?’

  Jessie grinned. ‘You noticed that? Well, you couldn’t miss it, could you?’ She drew a deep breath. ‘I don’t think anyone will offer her harm. There would be unfortunate consequences if they did.’

  ‘Wo
uld this be our redoubtable caber tosser?’

  ‘No. Kenneth is a good man. The worst he would do is drop them in a lake somewhere.’ She showed her teeth. ‘I, on the other hand, would skin them with a blunt knife. I love my sister dearly, but she thinks everyone is as good and kind as she is. And I don’t think all of them are. I’m worried, Miss Fisher. Things have happened and I’m not convinced—well, the local polisman is not precisely …’

  Jessie was clearly struggling between candour and decorum, and Phryne decided to help her out. ‘Jessie, you don’t have to be polite. I’ve met him.’

  Some colour filtered into the girl’s pale cheeks. ‘Very well. But I would be grateful if you would keep an eye on things while you’re here.’

  ‘All right, Jessie. Now I have a question of my own. This is a big hotel. Surely you and your sister don’t run it all by yourself? I know there’s Peggy in the kitchen, for a start.’

  ‘Peggy’s my cousin. Her grandma is Aunty Morag McKenzie, who brought us up. Father was killed at Villers-Bretonneux, and Mother died soon after.’

  ‘And the licensee, Frederick McKenzie, Esquire?’

  Jessie looked around for eavesdroppers. Finding none, she leaned forward with a grimace. ‘He was wounded in the war, but that’s no excuse for being a lazy, useless drunk. I’m sorry, Miss—’ her fine, almost transparent eyelashes fluttered ‘—but I get so angry. He should be helping and he won’t. The three of us have to do everything.’ She gathered up their empty plates. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘But sometimes I can’t hold it all in.’ She blinked at Phryne, embarrassed, and drew herself up. ‘That will be seven and six, Miss Fisher.’

  Phryne gave her a ten-shilling note and told her to keep the change. ‘One moment, Jessie.’ Phryne held up her right index finger. ‘You said that things have happened here. Would you care to elaborate?’

  Jessie pocketed the ten shillings with a brief nod of thanks and clasped her hands together. ‘I don’t really know what to think. But there have been disappearances. And—’ Jessie seemed about to disclose more information, but apparently thought better of it and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’ And with that she swept out of the Ladies’ Lounge.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai

  Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day

  How Sultán after Sultán went his Pomp,

  Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

  Edward Fitzgerald,

  The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr

  The one thing universally admitted about bagpipes, Phryne considered, is that they are unsubtle. There are some musical instruments—like lutes, recorders and spinets—which may safely be unleashed in refined drawing rooms. They hover on the edge of polite conversation. The human ear can take them or leave them alone. By contrast, the pipes rather command attention. A score and a half of them, with as many drummers industriously pounding away two-handed at their skins, could not have been ignored by anyone in the same postal district. They were led by a fearsome-looking drum-major about eight feet six inches tall and nearly as broad across his massive shoulders. The man’s black moustache quivered. His darkling eyes flashed thunderbolts. He wielded his mace in two gigantic hands as if suppressing a native rebellion, and wore his bearskin hat with such vast panache that he gave the impression of having eaten the rest of the bear for breakfast, washed down with a pibroch and soda.

  The row was deafening. Next to her, Dot put her hands over her ears. This did not seem to help. ‘What are they playing, Miss?’

  ‘“Scotland the Brave”, I think. It’s traditional.’

  Dot and Phryne were sitting on the side of the road as the procession passed down the middle of the main street. There was a sudden gust of wind, and Dot blushed scarlet beneath her felt hat, and put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Dot, what’s wrong?’

  Dot folded her hands in her lap and looked at the gutter. ‘Oh, Miss. I know it’s traditional, but I—’

  ‘Inadvertently spotted a certain lack of underclothing on one or more of the pipers, despite your best efforts not to? Never mind, Dot. It is, as you say, traditional.’

  They watched the wailing chorus pass on over the brow of the hill.

  ‘And where are they going now?’

  ‘It looks like they’re ready to invade Ballarat and reduce it to servitude; but I believe they’re going into the school grounds. There is very little flat ground hereabouts, Dot, and I believe the festivities will be on the school oval. Come on. It will be fun.’

  By the time they reached the school oval, the pipes and drums had ceased, and Dot felt the sort of relief experienced by those who have been beaten about the head with rubber mallets when those administering the bastinado have downed tools for the afternoon. She cast a quick look at her employer, but Phryne had plainly enjoyed the music. Dot could hear fiddles in the distance, playing what sounded like country dances. Fiddles were just fine as far as she was concerned. Fiddles didn’t make you feel as though your eardrums had been turned inside out and scrubbed with lye soap. And she had to admit that everything looked festive indeed. There were tents, from which came the scent of pies and roasted meats. There was enough bunting to encompass a Roman legionary camp. There was a substantial beer tent, with a hand-painted canvas sign reading the temperance hotel, lic. f. mckenzie hanging from its hither tent pole. And there were stalls selling everything from boiled sweets to haggises. Dot examined one of the latter from a safe distance and shuddered. It was brown, with overtones of grey, and it lurked like a malevolent beast of prey.

  ‘Don’t fancy it, Dot? I’m told that, prepared properly, it can be quite palatable.’

  Dot turned to her employer. ‘If you say so, Miss.’

  Phryne laughed. ‘I know. It looks as if it’s designed to be a battlefield projectile.’

  Her eye was drawn to a wooden podium at one side of the oval. Light wooden chairs were drawn up in military-grade ranks in front of it, and the seats were filling up rapidly with tartan-clad locals. Flagpoles at either side bore the Australian flag, and the blue-and-white saltire of Scotland. ‘It appears there will be speeches. Inevitable, I expect, but we don’t have to listen to them. I can see a mayor, complete with gold-plated chain of office. Is he going to open proceedings, I wonder?’

  But pride of place had been given to a fearsome-looking man in a tight collar and a jet-black coat, who lifted both clenched hands in the air and began like a minor prophet denouncing sin among the Tribes of Israel. His address was hearkened to with considerable respect, although it was doubtful how much of it got in among his audience, since it was uttered in what Phryne could only assume was Scots Gaelic. The appreciation was perhaps what was offered to divers or gymnasts: so many points for general style, with marks deducted for misplaced semaphore.

  ‘Well, I’m sure that’s impressing everyone here, Dot, but I feel like a drink and a sit-down. Shall we go to the beer tent? I’m sure there’ll be lemon squash, and I sincerely hope there will be chairs. Tables, too, if we’re lucky.’

  Within the voluminous beer tent were all of these, and Dot and Phryne sat in relative comfort. Through the open canvas tent flap could be heard the voice of His Worship thanking the minister for his truly Highland welcome. Phryne had a glass of the local white wine she had already sampled at lunch and looked about her. Gentle Annie was serving beer to a group of awed young men from behind a trestle table, and a man limped towards them with open palms, clearly requesting an audience. Phryne beckoned, and the newcomer settled down in the third of the four chairs at their small square deal table.

  ‘You must be Miss Fisher. My name is McKenzie. I believe you came to lunch at my hotel?’

  ‘I did, Mr McKenzie. And may I introduce my companion, Dorothy Williams?’

  His dark eyes flickered over Dot, and he nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ His voice was unmistakably Highland Scots, and ancient sorrow was written all over it.

&n
bsp; ‘The hospitality of your hotel was exceptional, Mr McKenzie. You are to be congratulated on your … nieces, I believe?’

  McKenzie gave her a momentary sharp look and bowed his unshaven chin. There were patches of white in the stubble, and in the unkempt sandy hair. His face was pale, haunted, and, while it had been scrubbed to a bright sheen, the low-water mark of his ablutions could be detected below his open collar. A morose drunk in truth, as reported by the exasperated Jessie, Phryne concluded. But not a stupid one. The implied reproach in Phryne’s congratulation had not gone unnoticed.

  ‘Ach, well. I have a wound from the war, and I am not as quick on my feet as once I was. But they are good girls, both of them. Their mother was my sister, and she perished in childbed after her man was killed in battle.’

  ‘And your wound?’ Phryne prompted, wondering what the man wanted with her.

  ‘In the same battle, at a place called Villers-Breton. It was a bad fight, and many of our men did not return. But a victory for our side over the heathen Gairmans.’

  ‘It was. Have you lived here all your life, Mr McKenzie?’

  The innkeeper shook his shaggy head. ‘My grandfather was on the hell ship. The Ticonderoga set out from England with eight hundred Highlanders thrown off their crofts during the Clearances. A quarter of them perished on the way. It would have been many more were it not for the ship’s doctor. I have forgot his name now, but he was a proper hero. Grandfather settled here, but returned to Scotland after the Crofters’ Act of 1886, when the Parliament men gave us our richts.’ He brooded for a moment. ‘But there are still lairds in Scotland, and here there are none, so my father brought us out in the Year Four, when we were bairns.’ His eyes raked over Phryne. ‘You are the detective, Miss Fisher, are you not? So you will be here to find the missing women, I expect? Wives have disappeared from farms that need them.’

  Phryne lifted an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Indeed? I have not heard of any missing women.’

  McKenzie opened both hands for a moment. ‘Have you not? Well now. My mistake. I thought it must be that.’