Dead Man's Chest (22 page)

As he fell asleep in a clean bed, tended and nourished and scrubbed and in fresh pyjamas, Fraser thought that he might, indeed, be beginning a new career. He had to do something worthwhile with his new-given life. Being alive was so very much better than the alternative.

He resolved to offer the Ellis brothers’ heirs for one of the puppies. It had nestled close to his cheek and tried to lick the blood off his face. He fell asleep smiling.

It was Thursday at last and the Fisher household slept disgracefully late. Máire arrived at eight as usual and found the back door locked, went next door to find out if Miss Fisher was away, and received all the news from the kitchen.

Mrs Cook had sent the gardener’s assistant to supervise the boy Fraser’s bath, he having returned a night after the other two, wet as a herring and strangely subdued. Breakfast was imminent and Mrs Cook was delighted to have some help, since Lily had not been replaced, poor Lily, and Mrs Mason was always grumpy at breakfast.

‘If I drank that much the night before I’d be cross as well,’ Mrs Cook told Máire. ‘Sit down, Máire, and shell these eggs for me for the kedgeree. But before you do that, watch the frying pan, will you? That bacon’s cut so thin it’ll catch. Such doings!’

‘What doings?’ asked Máire, sliding the big pan off the heat and forking the crispy slices into a dish shaped to go into the bain-marie. Then she expertly rolled the hard-boiled eggs on the table, peeling off the shells in one piece. She passed the eggs to the cook, who cut them up and sprinkled them over the top of her fish and rice.

‘Good, now toast for your life, and I’ll tell you all,’ said Mrs Cook, who had caught Tinker on an early-morning cadge and at the expense of a bite of this and a munch of that, and that leftover chicken stew for Gaston, had heard the whole story.

And she regaled the attentive Máire with every detail as she toasted bread in the flat-sided temperamental toasting machine, from the discovery of the Johnsons—somewhere unspecified—to the raid on the Ellis brothers’ yard, the arrest of Tom Ellis and his workers, and the attack by Jim Ellis and his offsider Bluey on the house next door.

‘I heard a shot,’ she told Máire, ‘past midnight, but it could have been anyone out hunting rabbits. I never thought it would be next door! In Mercer Street! And that Miss Fisher shot him neat as neat, clean through the knee. He’s given his wretched boys their last kicking, that’s plain. Mind you, it should properly have been through the heart,’ said Mrs Cook, taking up the mound of toast. ‘Carry in the bacon for me, there’s a dear. There.’ She surveyed the table. The bain-marie was alight, the scrambled eggs, the bacon, the mushrooms, the grilled tomatoes and the kedgeree were perfect, and Mrs Mason’s pot of coffee was stewing gently. Excellent. Tea could be had from the urn at any time. Breakfast was now served.

‘Now, my dear, time for a little refreshment of our own,’ said Mrs Cook cosily. The kitchen maid looked rather pale, she thought, in need of some hot tea and a good meal.

‘So it’s quite caught, the Ellis brothers are?’ asked Máire, sinking down into a chair.

‘One in hospital and one in jail,’ said Mrs Cook cheerfully. ‘And good riddance, I say. Don’t you worry,’ she said, for she too had suspicions about the role of certain fishermen in the shifting of the Ellis brothers’ illegal cargos. ‘The man in charge’s young lady is Miss Williams next door. He isn’t going to cause a fuss for anyone here. He’s got the criminals. That’s all he wants, I expect. Now have some of my scrambled eggs, my dear, and don’t be troubled.’

Máire obediently ate the scrambled eggs, which were very good. It does not do to offend a cook, and she would need a new job when Miss Fisher went back to St Kilda. Máire would not mind working for Mrs Cook. And by the generosity with which she was being plied with dainties, she suspected that Mrs Cook might like to employ her.

If only the dad hadn’t done something rash . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Journeys end in lovers’ meeting Every wise man’s son doth know.

William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night

After spending the remains of the night doing the paperwork involved in accounting for a housebreaking, a shooting, and a huge quantity of impounded uncustomed goods—not to mention the attempted murder of the Johnsons, foiled by the anonymous boatman (about whose actions the hungover Tom Ellis was quite vehement)—Hugh Collins went back to Home by the Sea for a bath and a few hours’ sleep. He woke slowly at noon. The sun had penetrated a hole in his blind. He stretched. Everything had worked out well. Robinson would be pleased with him. Dot was all right. The world was relieved of a pair of scoundrels. Some lunch, perhaps, and then off to rescue the marooned.

By arrangement, he brought them to Miss Fisher’s house at three, just in time for tea. Gaston, who had been sitting under the table awaiting provisions, sniffed suddenly. He had caught a familiar scent. His small nose shot up and his ears pricked. Yes! That was it! It was her! He galloped to the front hall and barked and yelped and bounced as Dot struggled to open the door and Gaston leapt like a salmon.

As soon as she had managed to get the door ajar, Gaston jumped through the gap and into the arms of a woman who wept unashamedly as he whined and wriggled and licked her face in an ecstasy of love and regret. ‘I lost you, I couldn’t find you!’ Gaston tried to convey as his whole body attempted to wag like his tail. ‘I looked for you and I couldn’t find you!’

Dot blinked back her own tears, and invited Mr and Mrs Johnson back into their own house. Mrs Johnson tried to put Gaston down to greet her hostess but Gaston was having nothing of that. As soon as his paws hit the floor he jumped back into her embrace. Gaston had found his people and he did not intend to lose them again. Mrs Johnson sat down at the tea table and sat him on her lap, where he stayed, ready to pursue her if she made a sudden move or showed signs of leaving him again.

Mrs Johnson returned Dot’s cardigan, apologising for its bedraggled state after being used as a blanket. Dot told her not to mention it; it would doubtless wash up well in soft soap and eucalyptus oil. Gaston gave a companionable bark.

‘He’s such a good doggie,’ said Ruth, breaking a somewhat strained silence. The Johnsons were uncomfortable. They were not used to taking tea in the parlour, like guests.

‘He is a good doggie,’ agreed Mrs Johnson. She inspected the tea table, with its pound cake, fruit scones and cucumber sandwiches. ‘Where did you find another cook so far into the season, Miss Fisher?’ she asked.

‘I brought one with me,’ said Phryne. ‘My daughter Ruth, who wants to be a cook, nobly took on the challenge of an empty larder and a lot of hearty appetites. I have a telegram from Mr Thomas here asking what is going on, and I am so glad that I can wire back that all is well. Is that true?’

‘You did beautifully,’ Mrs Johnson told Ruth, who blushed. ‘I couldn’t make a better pound cake myself, my dear. Oh, I did miss bread and cake! Cut me another slice, Miss Ruth, if you please.’

‘Ahem. Miss Fisher, we have been thinking,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘If you could manage without us for the rest of your visit, we would have time to get our furniture back from the police pound and arrange ourselves again. We haven’t had a long holiday for a long time. We could go and stay with my sister in Point, if that would suit, for the next three weeks. We’d stay near enough for Mrs Johnson to come in and cook, but none of the boarding houses would let us keep Gaston with us, and he’s been through enough, the poor little fellow.’

Gaston heard his name and wagged his tail. Phryne looked at Ruth. She grinned. She had more recipes from the inexhaustible Mrs Leyel to concoct and the household had now arranged itself so that she didn’t end up doing all the work. And Tinker was getting expert at washing dishes without those distressing crashes which had marked his early apprenticeship.

‘Very well,’ Phryne told Mrs Johnson. ‘Please accept a few pounds for expenses. Gaston will need dog food and a new collar. No, no, please take it. It’s just an advance—I shall claim it back from Mr Thomas. You’ll need to buy some clothes and so on.’

Mrs Johnson accepted the money, and shortly after Hugh took them away, to Point Lonsdale to Mr Johnson’s sister’s house, where Gaston also had his admirers. The Mercer Street inhabitants settled down to eat some more tea. Molly saw Gaston off with a farewell barking, then pranced back into the parlour, delighted to be relieved of her small noisy rival for titbits and affection. When Hugh came back, he was taking the whole family out to dine at the Esplanade Hotel, a rough but cheerful hostelry, renowned for its fish. Dot went upstairs to prepare. He might think her beautiful in house gown and crimps; he would find her magnificent in her starfish dress.

Hugh, leaving with the Johnsons, caught Máire in the street, and took her arm to gently draw her aside.

‘Your dad did nothing wrong,’ he told her. ‘Well, not a lot wrong, and he saved the Johnsons, so don’t worry. His name isn’t going to be mentioned. The house won’t be searched. Miss Phryne told me that you and your sister took the flour and stuff.’

‘But how by all the saints did she know?’ cried Máire.

‘You knew your way around the kitchen the first time, and you had supposedly never been there before,’ said Hugh. ‘She’s a noticing sort of lady, Miss Fisher is. I just thought I’d tell you so you wouldn’t be worried. You’re fine, your dad’s in the clear, and your sister too.’

Máire promptly did something scandalous, for which her father would rightly have reproved her. But he wasn’t there, so she kissed Hugh Collins—an English polisman!—on the cheek, and went home much eased in her mind.

Ruth ate one of her sandwiches, dreaming of future menus. Phryne telephoned her placatory telegram to Mr Thomas in Katherine. On her return she ate a fruit scone, considering that she had—for once—got through an imbroglio without anyone dying, and she deserved it. Jane sneaked her book out from under the table and sat openly reading while Tinker fed Molly bits of cake. The doorbell rang and Miss Fisher admitted a long line of undress surrealists—in their mundane clothes. They bore offerings.

To the tune of ‘The Dead March’ from
Saul
, played by the child Laszlo on a penny whistle, they deposited objects on the tea table, while Ruth hastily moved the cakes out of the way. Two RMs, bearing between them a garlic press on a cushion. Sylvia, laying down a twined jelly baby and jelly bean necklace. Pete, handing over a sculpture made out of a ruptured cricket ball with a bail stuck through it. T Superbus, a mourning brooch made of plaited hair. Lucius Brazenose, a specially written poem. Thaddeus Trove, a tangle of string and coins labelled
Capitalism
. Julian Strange, a windbitten piece of salty wood in the shape of a snake. Magdalen Morse giggled as she laid down a perfect copper cast of a dead fish, and Mr Wellbeloved, looking incomplete without Cyril, silently contributed an eighteenth-century etching of a hyena. And finally Dr Green, relieved of his household cares, put down a standard chemist’s bottle of pink pills marked
To Induce Melancholy
.

They paraded around the room until Madame Sélavy called them to a halt. She was wearing a gown of bright green silk and a turban of silver brocade. Pussykins the parrot stood on her shoulder, shedding the occasional feather. Phryne stood as Madame unstrung one of the gold chains from her own neck and dropped it over Phryne’s head.

‘For the treasure hunt,’ said Madame in her gravelly voice. ‘The best surrealist joke in the history of Queenscliff.’

‘Canned chance!’ remarked Pussykins.

Then they paraded out again, Laszlo, still tootling, following behind like a small and not very attick shepherd.

They had barely time to exclaim before they had more visitors. This time it was Miss Lavinia and Bridget.

They accepted tea and scones.

‘Such good news,’ said Miss Lavinia. ‘I have had a letter from the lawyer who is handling Mrs McNaster’s estate. He has advanced me quite a lot of money, and we are going to Melbourne tomorrow to find me a nice little house. With a large garden. And trees in the street,’ she added. ‘And Bridget is going with me as my maid and companion. She likes dogs, too,’ Miss Lavinia told Ruth. ‘And we shall visit the pound and find one who really needs us.’

‘I can think of several in Queenscliff,’ said Ruth, remembering Hugh Collins’ description of the starved guard dogs at the Ellis’s yard. She told Miss Lavinia about them.

‘I probably want a little dog, like that darling Gaston,’ said Miss Lavinia. ‘But I’ll go down and see them tomorrow—no, the next day. Poor creatures! How glad I am that you shot that monster Jim Ellis.’

‘Me too,’ said Phryne. She was feeling fine. Lin Chung, he of the gentle, clever hands and astounding, skilled passion, would be here in her actual grasp tomorrow. She could wait. Just. And she had such a lot to tell him. In only a week she had acquired a new attendant, shot a monster and listened to a lot of fairy tales. It had been exciting, but it was other forms of excitement which Miss Fisher had in prospect. She had made plans; she had given instructions which she was sure would be carried out. As soon as he walked in the door, Lin Chung was Phryne’s property. The bed was made with her favourite green sheets. The window was properly curtained so that the early sun should not wake the sleepers. The refreshments were ordered and the beverages already cooling in the icebox. The inhabitants had been admonished that to interrupt Miss Phryne’s idyll for anything short of fire would be punishable by her extreme displeasure.

As they were leaving, Phryne congratulated Bridget on her change of employment.

‘Oh, it was nothing to rid the world of that oul’ witch,’ said Bridget affably.

Phryne shook her hand with as much animation as she could muster. Had this plump, red-cheeked, charming girl really meant what Phryne thought she had meant?

Phryne went upstairs and looked in vain in her room. She called to Dot in the shower, ‘Dot, what became of that pillowcase I left on my table?’

From the steam Dot replied, ‘Oh, it wasn’t ours, Miss Phryne, it was the doctor’s. I washed it out and dried it and gave it back yesterday.’

Phryne was silent.

Dot, hearing no reply, called anxiously over the roar of the shower, ‘Was that all right, Miss?’

‘Quite all right,’ said Phryne. Well, it was gone. Evidence, perhaps, of an old woman being smothered—the staining of saliva and the marks of her teeth in the pillowcase. There was now no proof at all, and Mrs McNaster was both unmissed and decently buried.

And I thought I had got through the week without a murder.

Heigh-ho.

Phryne shrugged and let the matter go. Bridget was happy with Miss Lavinia, Miss Lavinia was happy with Bridget. Tomorrow, there would be Lin Chung.

Events would have to look after themselves, which, mostly, they did. She went downstairs for another drink.