Murder on a Midsummer Night Read online

  ‘Perhaps later,’ said Phryne. ‘What conclusion did you two alchemists come to?’

  ‘Oh, it was clear,’ said Jane. ‘Beyond doubt. He was drowned in fresh water with soap in it.’

  The thunderstorm, feeling itself about to die, gave one last shattering crash which seemed to shake the house. The candles flickered.

  Dot crossed herself. ‘He was drowned in the bath,’ she said.

  ‘God have mercy on his soul.’

  ***

  The priest at St. Mary’s was about to knock off for a cup of tea with maybe a whisker of the cratur, for it had been a long night confessing the lost and strayed, when he heard someone come into the confessional and pulled the stole back over his shoulders.

  ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ came the whisper through the grating.

  An elderly man, he diagnosed. Ragged-voiced with strain. Educated accent. Well, the middle class were as sinful as anyone else, God forgive them.

  ‘God bless you, my son. How long has it been since your last confession?’

  ‘Ten years, Father. I have just found out…found out something…’

  ‘Yes?’ asked the priest testily, longing for his tea and whisky, as he heard nothing for some time. He got up slowly and pulled the curtain aside.

  The confessional was empty.

  Chapter Seven

  Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,

  That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

  William Shakespeare

  Romeo and Juliet

  ‘Miss Phryne?’ Jane was looking concerned, her pale face white in the candle light.

  ‘Yes, Jane?’

  ‘Why does Dot think it’s better that Mr. Augustine was murdered rather than it being a suicide?’

  ‘Ah, there you have me,’ Phryne temporised. What to say about this touchiest of all touchy topics? ‘Dot’s religion tells her that killing yourself is a mortal sin.’

  That was not going to be enough, Phryne could tell.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well, if you would have my plain answer, however brutal, Jane dear, I think that someone who has decided to die should be allowed to make their own choice. I stopped a suicide once, in Paris. Etienne. His father was making him leave his life in Montparnasse. He was going to have to work in a bank, marry a suitable lady, and be a bon bourgeois. He said he would rather die, and he took a lot of chloral, and I found him and called an ambulance and they pumped his stomach. The next day he went home to his father and married as required. I met him a few years later, walking his children in the park, and he gave me a look of such hatred that I can still feel the sting of it. So my advice is, try not to get involved.’

  ‘And if you can’t help getting involved?’ asked Jane keenly.

  ‘Then just do the best you can,’ said Phryne.

  Jane thought about this. She nodded. She collected Ruth, and they went to play an engrossing game of snap. Mr. and Mrs. Butler cleared and cleaned and retired for the evening. Phryne and Dot took a branch of candles into the small parlour and sat down at Phryne’s little table. Outside the storm had gone, and a cool wet wind swept in through all the windows, which Phryne had personally opened and would, in due course, personally close and lock. Dot had put on a cardigan and Phryne was enjoying the cool.

  ‘Whoever sealed this wanted it to stay sealed,’ said Phryne, slicing through another wad of wax with her sharp letter knife. ‘If the lady has left her daughter a letter which mentions the child and his or her fate, this will make our job a lot easier, Dot.’

  ‘Things are never that easy,’ said Dot practically.

  ‘True. But I feel fine! The rain is over and done and I am expecting the voice of the turtle to make itself heard any moment now.’

  ‘I think I’ve got this corner undone,’ said Dot.

  She slipped the stout paper aside and turned the box around in her hands.

  ‘Pretty thing,’ she said admiringly.

  ‘It is a very pretty thing,’ agreed Phryne. ‘A jewellery box, I suspect. Rosewood, eighteenth century, inlaid with maple, oak and mother of pearl. Chinoiserie at its best. The Prince Regent would have swooned over it. Let’s get it open.’

  ‘Don’t wrench it, Miss Phryne, here’s the key.’ Dot applied a delicate little golden key to the golden lock. ‘There. What’s this?’

  ‘Draw it out carefully, it’s been there a long time,’ instructed Phryne.

  Dot pulled out and unfolded over her hands a bundle of some soft thread. She slung it deftly over a chair and it fell in a spiderweb tracery, the colour of milk or ivory, unstained by its long confinement.

  ‘A cashmere shawl,’ said Dot soberly. ‘For the baby, perhaps. Lovely work! You can’t hardly see the lace-maker’s knots. It must have taken ages to make.’

  ‘Nine months, possibly? What else is in this box? We have letters.’ She laid out the artifacts as they came to hand. ‘One bundle, tied with pink ribbon. We have a little painting. We have some jewellery. We have some coins. And some cuttings, they look like newspaper. A little bound book. Drat this candlelight! I’ve got used to electric light, Dot.’

  ‘Might have to wait till morning,’ said Dot. ‘This writing is a real scribble and it’s crossed. No, we’re going to need sunlight to read it. What about the jewellery, Miss?’

  Phryne sorted rapidly through the glittering pile, holding each piece up to the candle. Little reflections of coloured lights blinked on and off in the lacquer of the Chinese box.

  ‘It looks good, but not excellent. A garnet set, they used to be very popular, especially for young women and those who could not afford rubies. Like the box, the setting is eighteenth century, as is this bracelet, and these rings, one of which is a gentleman’s signet.’ Phryne peered at the bezel, squinting in the candlelight, then shook her head. ‘Might be an armorial bearing. Eliza would know. Some kind of beast, I think. And this necklace made of sunstone daisies would be a lovely present for a little girl. Quite nice things, might have been an eldest daughter’s share of the family boodle. But this is entirely trumpery.’

  She gave Dot a pot metal ring in the form of two hands holding a crowned heart between them.

  ‘I’ve seen something like that before,’ said Dot. ‘But I can’t remember where.’

  ‘It’s not the sacred heart, is it?’ asked Phryne, who relied on Dot’s knowledge of all things religious.

  ‘No, and that’s what’s missing, Miss Phryne. There’s no crucifix, no rosary, nothing religious, like she might have left to a daughter who’s a nun. She might have left her the jewellery because they have to go to the eldest daughter, like you said, and I can see her sitting there making that shawl for her baby, poor girl. And maybe the letters will tell us more. But where is her rosary, Miss Phryne?’

  ‘Nothing else in the box,’ said Phryne, taking it up carefully, inverting it, and shaking it over the table. ‘Nothing but a little dust. Drat. I was hoping to get some clue to be going on with tonight.’

  As though her petition had been heard by some electrical goddess, the lights winked on. Dot laughed and began to blow out candles.

  ‘Leave us one,’ said Phryne. ‘I don’t entirely trust the weather. Or the supply. Come now, Dot dear, you can have first go with the magnifying glass. Let’s have a look before the lights go out again.’

  They worked silently for half an hour. Then Dot put down the letters and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Love letters?’ asked Phryne, hoping that Dot’s delicacy was not going to be outraged by long ago evidences of Irish passion.

  ‘No, they’re from her friend, a female friend. She lived in St. Kilda, I think, from what she says about going down Acland Street for cakes. Or perhaps she was on holiday here. People used to come to St. Kilda as a watering place, you know. So far it’s just gossip, schoolgirl’s gossip.
’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind, can you spend tomorrow morning making a fair copy for those without your pinpoint vision?’

  ‘Yes, Miss, of course. What’s in the little book?’

  ‘It’s in code,’ said Phryne. ‘Alphabet substitution, I think. I’ll break it. In all probability,’ she added, in case the goblins of obscurity could hear her. ‘The cuttings are from the St. Kilda Times, and either she wanted a knitting pattern or a review of Romeo and Juliet as put on by the St. Kilda Players, an amateur group who look absolutely dire. What was her girlfriend’s name?’

  ‘Margaret,’ said Dot, pouring herself a glass of lemonade.

  ‘Might be the Miss Margaret O’Rourke who played the nurse in this production. The little painting is good. A watercolour of a young man in costume. No title or signature that I can see. Still, Dot, I suspect that this is the father of the child.’

  Dot turned the little unframed sketch to the light. It had faded and foxed over the years but it was still a fine-spirited piece. The young man was wearing tights and a doublet. In his hand was a skull. His face was alive: wide mouth, bright blue eyes, prominent nose and jaw. Not beautiful, but very attractive. And very young.

  ‘An actor. Looks like a wild boy,’ she commented.

  Phryne, something of an expert on wildness in both genders, agreed. ‘A wild boy, indeed.’

  Dot yawned and took herself off to bed. Phryne hastily scribbled the alphabet on two strips of paper and began to attempt the breaking of the cipher. She surveyed the page, which seemed to have a lot of bs in it, assumed b would be e and slipped the alternative alphabet along. This yielded, at the first try, from QEFP YLLH YBILKDP to THIS BOOK BELONGS and constituted the fastest time in which Phryne had ever broken a code. Admittedly, it was a code only used by children under the age of sixteen, but she was proud of herself anyway.

  The girls came to say goodnight and went off to their own room. Molly assumed her usual place on Phryne’s feet. She gently altered this by slipping off her shoes and putting her feet on Molly. The dog was warm, like a breathing, affectionate hot-water bottle. Phryne read on, writing out the decoded pages as she went in the sea-green notebook which she assigned to each new case. From notebook to notebook her pen went flying. She fell into the cipherine’s trance whereby she was merely the bridge between the code and the clear, not truly aware of what she was writing, only of the words unfolding under her fingers. By the time the storm returned and the lights went out again, she had finished the diary and was unstiffening her maltreated wrist.

  ‘Phew,’ said Phryne, and loaded all the goods, except for the shawl, back into the rosewood coffer. She took the box to the foot of the stairs and left it there as she lit a few more candles and carried them with her as she carefully closed and locked every window. Then she bore Kathleen O’Brien’s legacy up to her own boudoir. If there were any more burglars, thought Phryne, they would have to fight her for the treasure. Tomorrow she would attend Augustine Manifold’s funeral. Tonight she would read the diary of that sixteen-year-old who had left her children such a puzzle to solve.

  Phryne washed briefly, donned a nightgown and took the Fisher silver candelabra which she had salvaged from her family’s trove when she left old England forever. She sat down by the window. With a little help from lightning, she ought to be able to read her own writing, starkly black against the bone-white page. ABXO AFXOV it began. Dear Diary. Phryne settled down, took a soothing mouthful of gin and lemonade, and started reading with attention.

  Dear Diary. It is the 25th of May in the year of our Lord 1863. Today is my fifteenth birthday and I was given this diary by Miss Beale and told that I ought to write an account of my thoughts every day, and also copy down any poetry or observations I make. She said this would allow me to examine the state of my soul and my affections. So I am doing as she said because Miss Beale is a very wise lady. My name is Kathleen Julia O’Brien and I live in Saint Kilda in the house of my father Daniel. My father is a lawyer who argues in court. Soon he is to be a member of the Governor’s Council. He is a very important man. I live with my mother Brigid and my sister also called Brigid and my brothers James and John who are all older than me. My favourite occupations are reading and playing music on my piano which my father bought for me. I am reading Shakespeare and Carlyle and working on a nightcap for my father. It is of Italian trapunto work and I am finding it quite difficult. Miss Beale says I will be a good housekeeper once I learn to add up properly. My household accounts always come out wrongly and besides I have rubbed them out so often they cannot be easily read. Otherwise I learn geography with the globes, mathematics, geometry and algebra, literature, cookery, tatting, lace-making, music, Proper Supervision of Servants, and dancing. I love music more than anything. I am learning a Chopin polonaise for our school’s afternoon tea for the parents and I love it so much. Even though it is so difficult that I could not get my stupid fingers to do as I asked and I felt like slamming the piano lid down on them. Miss Brougham, my teacher, found me in tears and told me that I was too ambitious in my choice of piece. But I will learn it.

  Phryne stopped reading and gazed out the window. A strong-minded young woman, this Kathleen. Not daunted by advice to try something easier. Not a survival trait, necessarily. The little book was not so much a diary as a commonplace book. And Kathleen had an irritating habit of not dating her entries.

  Sunday. After we came back from mass we settled down to Sunday occupations, which means no noisy games or running about. Papa found my brothers playing cards and thrashed both of them, so they are in disgrace for gambling on a Sunday. Or gambling at all, Papa is very set against gambling. We girls were lucky to avoid his wrath because we were trimming a hat, which would be frivolous and worldly, but when we heard him coming we put it aside and took up the altar cloth which we are mending. He grumbled a bit about sewing being work but agreed that mending an altar cloth was a suitable occupation for a Sunday. In fact he was pleased with us and sat down to read to us from O’Reilly’s Consolations while we sewed so we had to mend the whole cloth and it was so scratchy and dusty! It just served us right for our improper intentions! But I really cannot like Father O’Reilly’s book. He is so dreary. And he does not console me at all. But when we finished the cloth Mama came in and told us to put on our jackets and we all went out for a walk in the garden. Except for the boys who were confined to the house. Papa is rather severe with them. I’m sure they never meant to be impious.

  Phryne shook her head. Papa was severe, but thrashing bad boys was not uncommon. And it was pure defiance to play cards on a Sunday. Phryne’s own grandmother had considered even jigsaw puzzles to be unacceptably frivolous. Oh, those long Sundays, with nothing to do but stare out the window or read sermons. Phryne was willing to bet that O’Reilly’s Consolations were just as dire as Christian Thoughts For Little Ones, her own Sunday reading. She had beguiled the tedium by filling in all the os and writing I hate Sunday in very small writing over all blank spaces. For which, come to think of it, she had been spanked.

  Dear Diary, resumed Miss Kathleen, some days later. Today is washing day so we are all at liberty provided we do not give trouble. We are sitting in the garden. I have my favourite seat under the willow tree. It hangs down like a fairy curtain, so green and lacy. Margaret is visiting because it is washing day at her house too. We are working at embroidered slippers. We are making two pairs, one for her papa and one for mine, but it is easier if we do a slipper each so her papa’s will be finished first. Gerald was meant to read to us but he went to play football with some other boys, so Margaret’s brother Patrick is supplying his place. He is reading a Shakespeare play called The Tempest. We are supposed to use a special Shakespeare which omits the parts unsuitable for young ladies but we cannot find it so he is reading the whole play. It is very exciting and has spirits in it. Patrick wants to be an actor. He is a very good reader and dancer but his papa will never permit him to take up
such an occupation which is not for gentlemen’s sons. His father is a lawyer like mine and wants Patrick to be a lawyer too. He tells me that he will never be a lawyer, but an actor as soon as he is eighteen and can join the actors’ theatre. Then he will marry me as we have always intended. We have been in love since we met at Margaret’s sixth birthday party.

  Phryne stretched. The candlelight was flickering. She trimmed her candle and moved the book a little closer. Patrick was the man for Kathleen, then. What had happened to these two tender lovers?

  The journal then gave the reader a recipe for kangaroo tail soup, one for seed buns and one for potato scones. Phryne blinked at a recipe for Marlborough cakes which took eight eggs and required whisking for an hour to make it light. Miss Kathleen enclosed a sketch for a pair of detachable sleeves called engageantes and an embroidery pattern for a summer petticoat.

  Mama says that now I am sixteen and out and have put up my hair I may have a crinoline, and today one was fitted. I am to practise four hours a day walking and sitting in it. It is strange at first because there is no weight of undergarments and skirt. The skirt of the gown seems almost to float. But it swings easily and I knocked a lot of china off the little table in the nursery with it before I began to become accustomed to the movement. I am sure that I will be much more comfortable in summer with this admirable contrivance. But I can’t run anymore, and I cannot sit in the willow tree in a crinoline. I suppose I am becoming a young lady. I am working very hard at my music and watercolours and reading that beastly Carlyle on the French Revolution which was awful, the poor Queen and King and the poor little Dauphin. I am now responsible for the flower arranging for the parlour and the public rooms and Mama is teaching me to make potpourri today. The last of the roses are blooming even now. There is a very good song about the last rose which Margaret sings very pathetically and makes us all cry.

  Which was all very well, thought Phryne, who agreed with Kathleen about Carlyle. And she remembered leaving childhood behind, but she never remembered missing it at all. Phryne’s childhood had been endured but rarely enjoyed. And in the clothes she was presently wearing—which Miss Kathleen would not have thought decent as undergarments—she could climb as many trees as she pleased. Things have got better, thought Phryne.