Away With The Fairies (30 page)

‘I’ll show you,’ said Phryne, and let go the key.

Jack Robinson caught Mr Bell as he dived for the door. He struggled as the large policeman brought him round to face the group, both arms behind his back. The music box tinkled ‘Fairy Bells’ into the astounded silence.

‘The mechanism is exhausted,’ said Phryne. ‘I wound it up and played it the first time I came here and got nothing worse than a rendition of “Fairy Bells”. The remains of the cyanide crystals, however, will be quite enough to hang you. Why was this music box jumping up and down and yelling at me, “Hello! I’m a clue!”? Because it was red. Miss Lavender had a mania for pink but not red, there’s no red in the whole house. You said you sat in the garden after a long night of recovering from quinine overdose. You had to admit that someone came to Miss Lavender’s door and delivered a package. You had to admit that because Miss Grigg heard the messenger as well, though she didn’t see him. It was you, Mr Bell. Alone and unassisted. “For me?” Miss Lavender said. A nice lethal present. You altered Miss Grigg’s music box so that when the clockwork turned, a pill of cyanide dropped into a lemon juice solution and—puff! Cyanide gas. It killed her in an instant. That’s why Mercy Porter fainted. She got a good whiff of the stuff when she opened the door. Cyanide is metabolised quickly in the body and is hard to identify except by its effects. But it has one peculiar feature. It turns blue things red. It changed the colour of the blue fairy. It altered the feathers of the poor bluebird.’

‘She was squeezing me dry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t keep paying her fees. And she was threatening Helen. I understood why Helen married while I was away. But she never stopped loving me and she loved me even disfigured as I am. We were going to go away together but she wouldn’t leave Wendy.’

‘Don’t like you,’ said Wendy coldly to Mr Bell.

‘And Miss Lavender knew about the art treasures which come into Melbourne disguised as bad copies of Raphael madonnas, and the pots from Pompeii,’ said Phryne.

‘They owed it to me,’ Mr Bell ground his teeth. ‘I was nearly burned to death in a training exercise, trying to get those bloody I-ties into some sort of shape. Did they offer me any compensation? Did Il Duce condescend to visit? No. Nothing but a notice of dismissal as I could no longer fly. They owed me more than that. Then Mussolini declared that no ancient treasures should leave Italy and I thought, want to bet? So I set up the network. There are so many churches in Italy and no one even looks at their pictures. The peasants are just as happy with a new copy in bright colours. And the Pompeii site is being looted by anyone with the money. I just joined the throng.’

‘And every time a shipment came in, it was announced by a letter to
Women’s Choice
asking how to grow primroses. Which was passed on to you. I checked the letter book against the bills of lading. The dates match the measurements of the putative garden beds. Miss Lavender must have known that, too.’

‘You asked about primroses yesterday,’ said Mr Bell. ‘That’s how I knew you were onto me, Miss Fisher. That’s why I’m not going to stay to face a trial. Goodbye, Helen. Grigg, don’t forget the ixias. Goodbye, Phryne.’

He grinned at her, a grotesque parody of a young man. His jaw moved in a sideways crunch. There was a strong smell of bitter almonds. Before Robinson could bear him up, he was dead.

‘
Arrivederci
, Giovanni,’ said Phryne.

The inhabitants of Tintern Avenue gathered at an impromptu tea party in Mr Bell’s Italian garden. The body of Mr Bell had been taken away in an ambulance. Wendy was clinging to her mother and glaring at her father, who was visibly weakening under the assault. Miss Gallagher was sobbing on Miss Grigg’s shoulder.

‘Oh, Grigg, I thought it must have been you!’ she confessed.

‘Whatever for, old girl?’ asked Miss Grigg gently.

‘You got the majolica from John Bell,’ said Miss Gallagher. ‘You were friends with him. I knew he was smuggling. He said as much when I was talking about import duty on our china and he laughed and said there wasn’t any. That’s what I told Miss Lavender when she was being so sympathetic. I’ve been flirting shamelessly with everyone because I was so angry with you. I’m so sorry,’ wept Miss Gallagher. Miss Grigg patted her on the shoulder and murmured, ‘There, there. Don’t take it to heart, old dear.’ She looked up at Phryne. ‘It’s just her way,’ she mumbled.

The Hewlands had withdrawn for a session of private prayer. Mrs Needham was cheering up. The murder was solved, the murderer had had the decency to kill himself and save them all from a terrible scandal. Her household was her own again, she could get rid of all those policemen and that interfering Miss Fisher, and re-let Wee Nooke. She fed a fish-paste sandwich to Ping, who so far forgot himself as to wag his tail.

Professor Keith was disdaining tea in favour of a whisky and soda, which Mercy brought from his own apartment. He smiled at Margery and offered her a drink. She blushed and accepted. So did Mr Carroll, who was several yards behind events.

‘I told you I never fainted,’ said Mercy Porter to Miss Fisher. ‘I was worried that there was something wrong with me. I’ve been that worried all week.’

‘We can all stop worrying. Anything else which Miss Lavender had on anyone is now obliterated. Jack can make his report and close his file, eh, Jack?’

‘Not to mention telling the Italian Ambassador that we’ve recovered a lot of his treasures,’ said Robinson. ‘Did you know he’d break, Miss Fisher?’

‘I thought he might. I did wonder about Miss Grigg,’ confessed Phryne. ‘Ever since I found that bit of blue net wrapped around an oil bottle I thought that you had made the music box.’

‘So I did,’ Miss Grigg agreed. ‘But I never turned it into an infernal device.’

‘And it was your own letter you were looking for in my box,’ Phryne said to Mrs Opie. ‘I made a serious error there. Miss Lavender had put it in the safety deposit box. You were feeling for the seal, weren’t you?’

‘Giovanni gave it to me,’ sobbed Mrs Opie. ‘It was a Roman one, the winged victory Nike driving a chariot. A carved chaledony seal. I never knew it was stolen. Oh, what am I to do?’

‘Dry your face,’ said Phryne. ‘Take Wendy down the shop for an ice cream. And I think you’ll find your husband amenable, if you give him time. It was a hopeless affair,’ she added, the voice of experience.

‘Ice cream,’ said Wendy, flashing a conspiratorial glance at Phryne. ‘Ice cream!’ she added, as her mother seemed to waver.

‘All right, Wendy, I’ll just put my hat on,’ mumbled Mrs Opie.

Phryne turned back to the gathering. Professor Keith was following his line of thought.

‘And one must never underestimate how badly people are twisted by being deformed,’ said Professor Keith, musingly, into his whisky and soda. ‘A limp, say, or a missing hand. Bell’s whole spirit was mutilated, not just his face. Saw a lot of it in the war. Some chaps with two missing legs bounced back like a rubber ball, cracked jokes, managed the pain and humiliation as though it had happened to someone else. Some of the others were wounded to the heart and pined to death, like Aborigines when someone has pointed the bone at them. The scars weren’t just on their bodies, but went all the way to the soul. Bell felt a burning sense of injustice. It’s not surprising that he rewarded himself when Italy failed to reward him.’

‘No, that part makes perfect sense,’ said Robinson. Phryne was struck with horror. How would Lin Chung bear his mutilation? Would his spirit be twisted as well, like John Bell’s?

‘Glad it has worked out well,’ she said. ‘Now, Jack, I really have to go home.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The topmost line, divided, shows the pleasure of
the subject in leading and attracting others.

Hexagram 58: Tui
The I Ching Book of Changes

Phryne stayed in bed with Lin Chung for the better part of two days. A message came from Madame Lin that the transfer of land had been cancelled and that the remains of Lin Tai had been claimed, identified as far as possible, and were to be cremated in a suitable ceremony which Lin was not expected to attend.

Phryne was vindicated, exalted, floating in a sea of sensuality. She presided over large meals which Lin began to be able to eat, watched him gain weight, presence, and confidence. She was there when he requested a mirror and pushed back the overlong shiny hair to survey the extent of his mutilation.

He turned his face this way and that. The ear had been neatly removed almost flush with his head. His face was put out of perspective by its absence.

‘I’m fortunate,’ she heard him murmur.

‘In what way?’ she asked.

‘That it wasn’t a nose or a finger. Cousin Lin Choi can make me a passable rubber ear which will balance out my appearance and improve my hearing. A nose would be harder to fake. People have false teeth,’ he said with a small laugh. ‘Will you still love me with a false ear?’

‘You know that I will,’ she responded.

‘I’m doubly fortunate, then.’

‘You’re a very brave man,’ said Phryne.

‘Not particularly,’ said Lin with some surprise. ‘I was dreading this sight, but it’s not too bad.’

Phryne told him about John Bell.

‘There’s one difference,’ said Lin. ‘He retained his sense of grievance. Whereas I, Silver Lady, was amply revenged. Stop worrying, Phryne. I’m not going to forget about this. I will still have bad dreams, and I doubt I shall ever forgive Lin Tai, though I shall try, of course. But I am still myself,’ said Lin Chung, laying down the mirror and drawing Phryne into an embrace. ‘I am still Lin Chung.’

‘More than ever,’ Phryne agreed, and gasped as his lips touched her breast.

‘I will have to go home,’ he said that night as they lay down again. ‘Li Pen has brought a message from Grandmother. She would have been most upset by Lin Tai’s betrayal. She has asked to see you, in the most polite and formal terms. “If the Honourable Miss Fisher would deign to shed the light of her countenance on my unworthy hovel” sort of polite. A tone, I have to add, which Grandmother has never been known to use. Also my silk has been unpacked and I have a few little things which I bought for you in Macao.’

‘Very well,’ said Phryne. ‘If you think you can cope with being stared at.’

‘Let them stare,’ said Lin Chung, stretching out his arms. ‘They may well stare. Am I not returned from the dead?’

He laughed. Phryne felt comforted. She knew she couldn’t keep him with her. But she knew that now their bond was so profound that it could not be severed.

‘Tomorrow,’ she said, and snuggled into his shoulder.

The Hispano-Suiza edged down Little Bourke Street and stopped outside the Lin family house, blocking the road. Lin Chung was returning in style. Phryne, wearing a very plain black suit and hat, as befitted a woman going into a house of mourning, accompanied the heir of the Lin fortune up the steps, through the warehouse door, and into the garden, accompanied by Li Pen.

It was crammed with flowers in all shades of red. A red banner hung from the gable, displaying ‘welcome’ in broad calligraphy. Cousins and retainers lined the way and small girls in red jackets threw camellias and rose petals. Men in blue jackets pounded drums and banged gongs. Fireworks crackled. The noise was joyous and deafening.

Through the hail of sweet scented petals Lin Chung led Phryne up the steps into the house, followed by Li Pen. Madame Lin was waiting in the porch, attended by a couple of granddaughters, all arrayed in bright red. When she saw Lin, she bowed. She bowed to Li Pen.

When she saw Phryne, she bowed again.

The whole household held its breath. Phryne thought about it. It was this woman’s preference for the cousin Lin Tai which had encouraged him to hope for better status, and had thus endangered Phryne’s life on several occasions and nearly killed Lin Chung.

However, an
amende honorable
was an
amende honorable
and an olive branch was an olive branch. And Lin Tai was not Madame Lin’s fault, but his own. Phryne clasped her hands and bowed to precisely the same depth, her black hair swinging forward to hide her face. With her eyes hidden, she might have been a dutiful Chinese daughter greeting her own matriarch.

The household exhaled. The drums and gongs broke out again with relieved pleasure. Li, Lin and Phryne were ushered into the house, seated on low chairs, and Madame Lin took her place on the blackwood throne.

Suddenly human, she took Lin’s hand in her own and stroked it.

‘I am very glad that you have returned,’ she said in her off-key voice. ‘My dear grandson. The traitor has been disposed of suitably. His family will be cared for. Choi has something for you if you will go with him.’

Lin smiled at his cousin and accompanied him out of the room.

‘Miss Fisher,’ said Madame Lin as soon as he was safely gone. ‘You have done us a great service.’

‘Li Pen did you the greatest service,’ Phryne pointed out. ‘I just helped.’

‘Li Pen has retrieved his honour,’ she conceded. ‘But you are too modest. You found the ship. You rescued Chung. You recovered the cargo. What would you ask of the Lin family?’

‘When Lin is required to marry,’ said Phryne deliberately, ‘he will still associate with me. We are too close now to be separated. You will need to choose a wife who understands this.’

Madame Lin inclined her beautiful head.

‘I have thought of this,’ she replied. ‘And such a woman shall be found, and the bargain, Miss Fisher, is made. I will soon step down from my position. The family has lost some confidence in me, because I allowed my grandson to be kidnapped and made an error of judgment in relation to Lin Tai. Chung will take over. He will marry. And he will still associate with you,’ she said. ‘This much we certainly owe you, Miss Fisher.’

Phryne nodded. She did not want to marry Lin Chung. But she could not bear to lose him. Now she would no longer be haunted by the imminent severance of relations. It was worth a few bumps and scrapes and the loss of a set of embroidered camiknickers.

She had a sudden thought. Lin Tai had made her strip. Her knickers, carefully marked ‘Fisher’ in indelible pencil, must still be on board the SS
Apu
. And Jack Robinson would have found them. He had known all along. And he hadn’t taken any action. The sly old police dog.