Dead Man's Chest (14 page)

‘Then why don’t we invite Hugh to breakfast? Due to the lack of Johnsons, Dot has been making breakfast, and I’m told by trustworthy appetites that she fries a very crispy bit of bacon,’ suggested Phryne. Lust was a reliable emotion, but greed was altogether simpler to satisfy and you got to keep your clothes on. She refrained from saying this in deference to her family’s sensibilities.

Dessert was a lot of fruit and Ruth’s surprise, a huge, gaily decorated gateau, with Chantilly cream and a plethora of fresh strawberries.

‘God may have made a better berry, but so far he hasn’t,’ said Hugh, surreptitiously loosening his belt.

‘Wonderful,’ said Phryne, glad that she was wearing a shift dress.

Ruth cut and distributed the cake. It was superb. The table was drowned in cream and berries for some time.

Then, as Tinker brought in the coffee pot, Phryne was about to slip the last sliver of cake to Molly when she realised that the faithful hound was still attending on Miss Lavinia. What a good dog, she thought. Gaston, however, improvised while she was thinking this and whipped it swiftly out of her hand. Gaston liked cake. Mrs Johnson had often let him lick the remains of the mixture. So far Ruth had not been sufficiently trained to offer it.

‘Now, let’s have a look at your telegrams,’ she suggested, and Hugh Collins brought out his bundle of flimsies. Phryne scanned it rapidly, handing them along the table as she read.

‘Nice handwriting, Dot,’ she complimented. ‘As easy to read as print. You are sure that these are all of the telegrams in that week?’

‘Yessir,’ said Hugh. He managed not to salute. Dot giggled.

‘Here we have . . . arrangements about the sea voyage, train tickets, hiring a camera, buying horses. And—aha!’

‘That’s what I thought,’ affirmed Dot, smug in the knowledge that she had personally written out the salient document.

‘What?’ demanded the other diners.

‘Sent from—aha again—Point Leonard post office.
IMPORTANT GET OUT OF THE HOUSE CAR WILL PICK UP SEVEN AM ON SUNDAY AT BACK TAKE STUFF FOR A FEW DAYS WILL EXPLAIN URGENT VITAL THOMAS.
Well!’

‘Decoyed out of the house with their bits and pieces,’ murmured Dot.

‘Picked up by a car with darkened windows and carried away . . .’ added Tinker, bouncing in his seat.

‘Before they went they hid the belongings in the cellar,’ pointed out Ruth.

‘No struggles even for Mrs McNaster to see because they went willingly,’ said Phryne. ‘How very unpleasant. Seven in the morning on Sunday, no one about but the odd fisherman.’

‘Boarding houses serve breakfast from seven to eight,’ Hugh informed them. ‘All the trippers would be inside stuffing their faces.’

‘So they are whisked off . . . where?’ asked Dot.

‘To be killed somewhere else,’ suggested Tinker.

Ruth gave a small cry of fear and Jane took her hand.

‘Do pipe down,’ Phryne told him. ‘You’re frightening the innocent. They might have been further decoyed—sent to Katherine, for example. They wouldn’t have got there yet. They might be being held captive. But that is very useful, Hugh, Dot. Now we know that they were taken away. All we have to find out is where they now are.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ said Hugh ironically. ‘Simple.’

‘You must have faith,’ Phryne instructed him. ‘Simple faith is more than Norman blood, or so we are informed. Now, how about some music? After we all do the dishes.’

‘Miss Phryne, I’m still . . .’ Jane fluttered a hand. Upstairs were a wealth of bones waiting to be explored.

‘Of course, you have reading to do. But first,’ Phryne picked up the cake plate, ‘the dishes.’

The dishes washed and dried and put away to Ruth’s satisfaction, the company adjourned to play the gramophone and, when they had recovered from dinner, dance. The evening ended with Hugh singing ‘The Yeomen of England’ in a rich, hearty bass, to Dot’s rather shaky piano accompaniment. As an encore he did ‘Simon the Cellarer’ and retired pleased with his performance and his company.

Dot saw him to the door and went up to bed, first calling on Miss Lavinia. She was still fast asleep. Dot left her a nightlight and brought a handful of biscuits for Molly, who was still doing Noble Dog, though she had managed to edge the patient into the wall and was progressively occupying more and more of the narrow bed. She accepted the biscuits and crunched them noisily. Even this did not wake the sleeper.

Dot knew that Phryne would check all the locks and put herself to bed. It might be nice, she reflected, being married. To Hugh, of course. But she wasn’t going to leave Miss Phryne yet.

A small niggle itched at the edge of her mind as she got into her bed and pulled the sheets up over her maiden breast. Something about the Johnsons and locks. She was too tired to remember.

Commending her soul to God until the morning, as was her invariable practice, she fell asleep. Tomorrow she would remember it. Whatever it was.

When Hugh arrived for breakfast on Saturday he found the whole household in the kitchen, slavering as Dot cooked bacon, Ruth sliced bread, Jane read ‘Bluebeard’ aloud, Tinker found plates, Miss Lavinia sorted cutlery and Gaston and Molly got underfoot.

Miss Lavinia dropped a spoon with a squeak of alarm as Hugh came in. Dot introduced him as her fiancé and Miss Lavinia ducked her head and retrieved the spoon.

‘So silly of me,’ she whispered.

‘Time to get the table laid, Tinker,’ ordered Ruth. The young persons had not decided about Miss Lavinia yet. It was a point in her favour that Molly liked her. But, as Tinker had pointed out, dogs can be fooled. He was unwilling to leave the kitchen in case Miss Lavinia dropped a suspicious white powder into the kedgeree, but when Ruth scowled at him, he went. His father had always told him never to offend the galley man.

‘“These are the keys to the two large storerooms where I keep my gold and silver,”’
read Jane.
‘“Here are the ones for the caskets in which I keep my jewels. And here is the master key. Open anything you want. Go anywhere you please. But I forbid you to enter the small room at the end of the long gallery. If you open it I shall know and nothing will save you from my wrath.”’

‘That was a trap,’ remarked Hugh, taking up the large dish of kedgeree and carrying it into the dining room. Dot followed with the scrambled eggs. Jane put down the book and brought in the toast.

‘What was a trap?’ she asked, after Hugh had put down his cutlery for the first time.

‘Telling her not to open one door of all the doors. No one could resist that. He was setting her up for . . . something nasty,’ said Hugh.

Jane actually blushed. Ruth gave her a sharp look. Tinker, oblivious of this byplay, reached for the eggs.

‘Don’t stretch, dear, ask,’ murmured Miss Lavinia.

‘How are you feeling this morning, Miss Lavinia?’ asked Dot, pushing the dish over to within the ambit of Tinker’s eager spoon.

‘Much better, thank you. I believe I slept all through the night in the company of your darling doggie. And the bathroom, really most luxurious. Also, such a lavish spread—these are very good scrambled eggs.’

‘Too right,’ agreed Hugh. ‘Best I ever tasted.’

Now it was Dot’s turn to blush.

‘Miss Fisher . . . ?’ Miss Lavinia allowed the sentence to trail away.

‘Always has breakfast in her room,’ said Dot firmly.

‘Ah. I wanted to thank her. I really do feel as though you have all rescued me. That was kind,’ whispered Miss Lavinia.

‘Our pleasure,’ replied Dot. ‘Do have some of this marmalade with your toast. Or there’s plum jam in the little dish. More tea?’

Breakfast proceeded. Máire arrived to do the washing-up. She noticed the rods and reels and the wicker tackle basket which Hugh had left in the kitchen and asked, ‘Would the gentleman be going fishing?’

‘He would,’ said Hugh. ‘After a breakfast like that I ought to be able to hook a whale.’

‘If he would like a boat, my father is at leisure this morning, so he is,’ she said, running hot water into the sink.

‘I know it,’ said Tinker. ‘The
Black Oak
. Nice little ’couta boat.’

‘The ’couta aren’t running, but there are a lot more fishes in the sea whose names I do not know that you could be after catching,’ Máire suggested.

Hugh puzzled out the sentence.

‘Good idea,’ he told her. ‘We’ll go down presently. You coming, Tink?’

‘Yessir.’ Tinker wiped his mouth and fed the last bacon rind to Gaston.

‘Put on your jersey, it can be cold out on the water,’ scolded Dot. ‘What’s wrong, Máire?’ The maid was looking stricken.

‘Maybe it is that the sea will be too rough today,’ temporised Máire, biting her lip. ‘Perhaps another day might be better.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Hugh. ‘Looked out this morning on the way over here. Flat as a plate. Come on, young feller. Let’s go sort out the fish from the water.’

Tinker fell in behind like a mongrel who has at last found a home.

And Hugh kissed Dot goodbye and promised to be back before tea. Just like a husband. Ruth sighed and clasped her hands. A romance, under her very own roof!

Jane was plotting how quickly she could get down to the filming. The photographer had promised to let her operate the machine. She took up the fairytale book and slipped away as the last dish was put in its place and Máire began to teach Ruth how to make potato scones. Dot was undertaking a little mending while she waited for the washing to be returned. Dot liked mending.

Phryne rose on a fair windless morning that promised to be hot. She had eaten her freshly baked soda bread roll. She had drunk her coffee. She had dressed in another loose shift and was determined to sit down and think about the Johnsons’ abduction. In pursuance of which she took herself out to the garden, picked a leaf of mint and chewed it, and surveyed the layout of the house.

The back gate gave onto a broad alley down which the nightmen had once valiantly brought their cart and where the tradesmen now came with all the goodies that the household required. In fact, a Chinese man was presently opening the back gate and manoeuvering in a big laundry basket. He saw Phryne sitting on the kitchen step and paused.

She smiled and waved him in. He stepped past her, hefting the huge basket effortlessly, treading back on the heels of his soft cloth shoes. The Chinese did not have pigtails anymore, of course, except very old ones like Lin Chung’s great-grand-uncle. But hadn’t she heard of a pigtail-cutting panic in somewhere like—was it Macao? It had been in that book by that strange American, Charles Fort. And there was a copy of it on the shelves in the library.

But meanwhile, she was supposed to be thinking about the Johnsons. They had locked up the house, ensured that the valuables were safe, taken their overnight bags and walked out to a car to be whisked off into eternity . . . wait. Mrs McNaster could have seen them. She was dead. But Miss Lavinia wasn’t. And a condition of her servitude had been that she sat beside the loathsome but eagle-eyed Mrs McNaster in her endless survey of the area.

Phryne smiled at the Chinese as he carried the empty washing basket out and went inside to find Miss Lavinia.

She found her in the parlour with Dot. Dot was mending a stocking, an eye-straining task which needed concentration. Miss Lavinia had no task at all for the first time in many years and was trying to talk.

Phryne sat down and patted the sofa beside her.

‘How do you feel this morning, then, Miss Lavinia?’ she asked. ‘Up to a cup of tea and some gossip?’

‘Certainly, dear, if that’s what you want,’ she said, a little stiffly.

‘Only about the Johnsons,’ said Phryne. ‘They’re missing. I want to find them.’

‘It was very strange,’ said Miss Lavinia. ‘They were such respectable people. I used to see them every day. Their day ran like clockwork. I used to say to Mrs McNaster, “It must be ten o’clock, the Johnsons are going to their own quarters.” Every night at ten. Up at six every day except Sunday, and then it was seven. Mrs Johnson used to sing in the choir, Mr Johnson was a nice man who did, I gather, have a little flutter on the horses, but never more than five shillings. Our gardener used to take them for him. They seemed to be devoted to each other. If Mr Johnson went out he would always bring Mrs J a small gift when he came back. Went to the movies every Saturday night at the town hall.’

‘What about Mr Thomas? Was he a rackety man?’

‘No, dear, not at all. I used to talk to Mrs J sometimes when I could. Mrs McNaster liked jam made out of a certain fig—one grows in your garden, Miss Fisher—and only Mrs Johnson could make it to her satisfaction, so when she had fig jam made she would bring us a few pots. Mr Thomas was vague. If an idea struck him he would dive upstairs and shout down that he wanted dinner the day after, and not to disturb him. Then he would wander down in the middle of the night and raid the larder. She used to make sandwiches and leave them for him and she told me they always got eaten. When he took off to travel they had a great bustle to get all of his kit ready; he goes into wild places, you know, dear, where there are no civilised conveniences. Otherwise he had few friends, except Madame Sélavy. She has some sort of club and he always went to their meetings. Travelled into Melbourne to the university once a week to give his lectures. A nice, peaceable sort of man.’

‘And Mrs Mason?’

‘Oh, dear, she’s got a little bit of a problem. Mrs McNaster was very gleeful about it. Caught her every time smuggling bottles out to put into other people’s rubbish bins. And her son is probably a good boy but his friend Fraser is not. She hasn’t any control over those boys.’

‘I noticed,’ said Phryne grimly.

‘When I was in the scholastic profession, I should have got them a strong-minded tutor and told him to use his cane freely,’ stated Miss Lavinia. ‘I saw them throw a stone at Gaston once. They used to go hunting and come back positively festooned with corpses.’ Miss Lavinia shuddered. ‘And they slip out at night, climbing down into that cypress tree, and come back at two or three in the morning. Heaven knows what they have been up to!’

‘Hell knows, more probably,’ said Phryne. ‘Now, cast your mind back a couple of weeks. Do you remember the Johnsons leaving?’