Blood and Circuses (25 page)

Ronald Smythe did not notice that he was gone.

Matthias, Robinson, Samson, Dulcie and Alan Lee had covered the horse lines and the jugglers and tumblers. They interrupted Mr Burton in his study of Shakespeare’s sonnets and he was cross.

‘No, I don’t know where she is. But I do know who she is. Why? Is she lost?’

Jo Jo the clown nodded. His face was already painted into sad lines but now the underlying flesh echoed them.

‘She didn’t come when she said, Matt?’ snapped Mr Burton. ‘This is serious.’ He walked out along his caravan’s driving seat and stepped onto Samson’s shoulders. The huge man accepted the small added weight without comment. Mr Burton settled himself comfortably. ‘Well, come on.’ He tweaked Samson’s hair as though it were a rein. ‘To the rescue.’

Jones, favouring his groin, got to his feet. ‘We’d better do something about the hayseed,’ he said roughly. The others followed him to the tent. Ronald Smythe was on guard, chain smoking. ‘I heard a scream,’ he said nervously. ‘What . . . er . . . happened?’

Damien Maguire laughed. ‘She kicked Jones in the balls and fought like an animal. So we put her where she belongs.’ He peered into the tent. ‘Hey, you there?’

Maguire lit a match. Apart from some shredded ropes, the tent was empty.

‘You idiot!’ Jones cuffed Smythe. ‘You let him escape!’

Tommy Harris was lost. He blundered around in the dark until he came out into a relatively lighted stretch. A grotesque creature was approaching. It was nine feet tall and had two sets of arms. He gulped. Then it passed him and he saw it was a little man sitting on a big man’s shoulders. Detective Inspector Robinson said curtly, ‘Ah, Harris. Where the blazes have you been? Where is Fern?’ Constable Harris was about to protest that he had done rather well in freeing himself, all things considered, but this was not the time. He said, ‘They got her. Jones and the others. They took her towards a caravan.’

‘Where?’ snapped Mr Burton.

Constable Harris looked around helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It all looks the same in the dark.’

Detective Inspector Robinson swore in a way that would have gained Lizard Elsie’s admiration.

Darkness blanketed Phryne’s eyes. She was not cold. She was considering death. There was not much chance that she would get out of this cage alive. She stank of blood. She was sure that she was oozing terror. She was losing what grip she had on her wits and she could not reach the bolt. Every time she moved, the creature shifted and came a little closer. She looked and smelt like prey.

‘I don’t want to die,’ she mourned softly, hearing her voice as small as a child’s. ‘I don’t want to die yet. There are a lot of things I haven’t done.’

Even the reeking dark in the lion’s cage seemed precious and infinitely preferable to whatever lay beyond. She would go out like the flame of a candle. Where does the candle flame go when the candle is blown out?

She laid her painted face against the iron bars and bared her teeth at death.

‘What could you see?’ asked Robinson urgently. Harris shook his head.

‘Feet,’ said Dulcie urgently. ‘Running.’

‘Catch him!’ said Robinson to Harris. Ronald Smythe, fleeing in terror from his allies, was tripped and fell flat on his face. Alan Lee was on his back in a moment.

‘Tell us where Fern is,’ threatened the carnie in his silky voice, ‘or I’ll kill you.’ Alan Lee was seriously worried and did not allow the presence of two policemen to cramp his invective.

‘I’ll take you to the Boss,’ quavered Ronald. ‘Don’t hurt me!’

Robinson applied issue handcuffs to Smythe’s wrists and he led them to the right.

Jones was standing in the place where a caravan had rested, cursing. Damien Maguire and the other roustabout looked blank. There the searchers found them.

It was a short fight but nasty. Jones yelled for Farrell, dived back for his caravan and came up short facing a monster. It reached out two sets of arms. Samson seized Mr Jones by the waist and tucked him under his arm as neatly as if he had been a fractious child. He struggled. ‘Excuse me, Mr Burton,’ said Samson politely, ‘could you help?’ The dwarf sprang down from Samson’s height and twisted his tie around Jones’s neck.

‘I am very displeased with you,’ he told the enpurpling face. ‘If you give my colleague here any little difficulty, I shall have to strangle you all dead, instead of half dead.’

Mr Jones ceased to struggle.

Harris and Alan Lee circled Damien Maguire, who had a knife. Lee feinted one way, Harris another. Maguire turned, threatening, ‘Come closer and I’ll stick yer. You won’t take me again!’ Lee went left, Harris right. The man kept turning so that they could not get behind him.

Robinson had secured the roustabout’s hands behind his back by dint of knocking him down and kneeling on him. He watched Maguire with concern. And where was the interfering Miss Fisher?

Jo Jo the clown looked into one of the nearby tents and picked up a large iron skillet. Then he stood just outside the circle with it hidden behind his back. Alan Lee looked at him.

‘Ringwise,’ said Jo Jo calmly, as if he were giving directions in a rehearsal. Alan Lee moved clockwise, Harris lunged forward, and Jo Jo crowned Damien Maguire with the skillet. The blow made a loud, heavy, soggy noise and the bank-robber fell to earth, he knew not where. They handcuffed him. Jo Jo, Alan Lee and Constable Harris shook hands.

‘Now,’ said Robinson to the half-conscious Jones, ‘where is she?’

Jones spat. Mr Burton hauled on the tie.

Phryne had tried once more to undo the bolt. She had the advantage of opposable thumbs, but her hands would not answer her orders. The lion’s attention was attracted by the movement. It rolled over, stood up and padded towards her. She shut her eyes. A cold nose slid up her arm, a heavy paw held down her knees. Teeth scraped her skin. Phryne felt it at last. Sleepy acceptance weighted her eyelids. Warmth bloomed in her blood. She sighed on a gust of the predator’s breath. The teeth took hold of her arm, pulling her into the middle of the cage.

Then Bruno sniffed her all over, looking for ginger biscuits.

The gathering crowd of rescuers, who had managed to extract from the roustabout the secret of Phryne’s whereabouts, came running with torches. Amazing Hans had been woken and carried a loaded rifle, weeping but ready to shoot. Jo Jo, Alan and the lion tamer entered the lions’ tent carefully, dreading what they might see.

They looked into all the cages, waking the occupants, who snarled and muttered. Phryne Fisher was not there. Then they came to Bruno’s cage beyond the tent wall. They stopped and stared, struck dumb.

A naked woman, bruised and streaked with dirt, was lying curled up in the middle of an iron cage. Her face was painted and her black hair fell forward like a cap. Her head was pillowed on the bear’s back. Her hands were buried deep in cinnamon fur. To Alan and Jo Jo, she seemed like a forest goddess, tamer of beasts and invulnerable. To Detective Inspector Robinson, she was evidence of a criminal act which he was intending to take out of Mr Jones’s hide. Samson considerately averted his eyes. Mr Burton was reminded of a print out of the Marquis de Sade.

To the handcuffed Jones she was an erotic memory which would torment him until, after due process of law, they put a bag over his head, strapped his hands and dropped him into eternity.

Phryne opened her eyes and blinked. ‘Oh, there you are,’ she said dreamily. ‘I can’t reach the bolt.’

Jo Jo and Lee undid the cage door and she crawled out. Bruno leaned a questing nose after her and grumbled.

‘Anyone got a ginger biscuit?’ asked Phryne, and collapsed into the waiting arms.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘I tell you what, Squire. To speak plain to you,
my opinion is that you had better cut it short
and drop it. They’re very good-natur’ d people,
my people, but they’re accustomed to be quick
in their movements; and if you don’t act on
my advice, I’m damned if I don’t believe that
they’ ll pitch you out of the window.’

Charles Dickens
Hard Times

An unconscious Phryne was being cleansed and tended in the girl’s tent by Dulcie and Joseph the horse doctor.

Outside, Samson threw down an armload of wood and Mr Burton kindled a small fire. All the participants of the evening’s turmoil sat down on the bone-dry grass. Constable Harris, awed by Samson’s size, stared up at the big man. By cripes, but he was huge. Then he asked his chief, ‘What do we do now, sir?’

Robinson was tired. ‘Nothing to be done for the moment, son. Sergeant Grossmith has taken the prisoners to Rockbank and then he’ll come back for us. I’ve sent out a road alert to all stations between here and Melbourne, but I reckon that bastard Sheridan has shot through. I hate to lose him.’

‘After what he did to Miss Parkes, trying to frame her for something she didn’t do and nearly driving her mad, is he going to get away?’ protested Constable Harris. ‘Surely not, sir.’

‘We’ll catch him.’ Robinson accepted a mug from Mr Burton, who had brewed tea over the fire. ‘Don’t you worry. You’ve done well, Harris.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Tommy Harris was not as pleased as he might once have been at receiving a compliment from a superior officer.

‘What has Sheridan done?’ Mr Burton asked Harris. Because he was sitting down and the dwarf was standing up, Constable Harris was looking into Mr Burton’s eyes. They were bright and intelligent.

‘He’s done a murder—your Mr Christopher,’ said Tommy. ‘And he tried to frame Miss Parkes for it.’

‘
He
killed Chris?’ Miss Younger had come out to see what all the excitement was. Her face knotted with hatred. Tommy Harris shivered at the sight of such implacable fury and pain.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ she wailed.

‘I don’t know. He said he loved her.’ Tommy was getting confused.

Miss Younger made a guttural sound that he would have expected from a wounded animal. Then she demanded in a fierce, hard voice, ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s run,’ said Robinson. ‘No use hoping to catch him, Miss. But we’ll get him in Melbourne, if he ain’t took ship and gone by now.’

Mr Burton tugged at Miss Younger’s shirt. ‘Sit down and have some tea,’ he urged. ‘You can’t get to him, Miss Younger.’

She pulled away from his touch. ‘Freak!’ she screamed at him and stumbled into the night. Mr Burton stood quite still. His face showed no expression.

‘Poor woman,’ said Farrell from the other side of the fire. ‘I’d better go after her. If she should find our Mr Sheridan there wouldn’t be nothing left for you to hang.’ He walked away into the dark, calling, ‘Molly!’

‘Tell me what this reprobate of a magician has done,’ insisted Mr Burton.

Tommy sipped his tea, which was heavily laced with rum, and told the story while the dwarf listened with the closest attention.

‘But what will his criminal associates think of him deserting them like this?’ Mr Burton asked in his precise, scholar’s voice.

Robinson laughed. ‘If Albert Ellis knew about it, he’d spit chips and there’d be more blood on Brunswick Street. But they don’t know about it. This tea just about hits the spot, Mr Burton. Any more in the pot?’

‘Certainly,’ said Mr Burton, and refilled the detective inspector’s cup.

Tommy Harris caught the dwarfs eye and grinned slowly. Mr Burton made an excuse and trotted out of the firelight, with Tommy following.

‘Constable Harris,’ said Mr Burton, speaking with great deliberation, ‘it is not very far to Rockbank, where there is a telephone operator who is already awake. All I need is the number. What do you say?’

Harris drew a deep breath. ‘I’m risking my career,’ he began. Then he remembered Miss Parkes and her courage and her pain. He recalled Reffo dying in his arms. Lizard Elsie’s remembered face grinned at him. He made up his mind and opened his notebook at the page where he had written down Albert Ellis’s telephone number. The dwarf needed only one look. Then Harris went back to the fire and Mr Burton faded into the scent-laden circus night.

Phryne woke abruptly, stifling a scream. Something was breathing close beside her. She put out a hand and touched hair, slid down and found a human face. Eyelashes flickered against her palm.