Dead Man's Chest (9 page)

The first thing that Madame Sélavy noticed as her slim, dark-haired neighbour sauntered into the very surprising room was that she was not surprised at all.

Miss Fisher was wearing a loose purple and silver gown over a daring pair of beach pyjamas. Her head was bare—most unusual. Social distinction in women depended on who was wearing the hat. Hatless was for servants and workers. Hatted was for ladies. Intriguing. The guest wore long earrings made of seagull’s feathers. And she was carrying, hanging negligently from her wrist like a fan, a bare, ivory-coloured fish skeleton.

Madame Sélavy considered that the evening might be less fatiguing than she had thought. Perhaps Miss Fisher played chess . . .

Phryne paused at the drinks tray. It was going to be an interesting evening. The room was startling. Even if you managed to ignore the stuffed elephant, which was a task in itself, there were the paintings; eye-afflicting abstracts which might turn into coherence seconds after the migraine set in. Strange rustic gatherings of part-human, part-animal. One superb Picasso of a cat stretching. A house of taste, in a way. She was strongly reminded of her own days as a model in Montparnasse. Where she had been cold, bare, hungry, and vastly appreciated.

The room rose to greet Phryne. First a straight-backed girl, possibly, in I Zingari cricket costume, with a stick of celery in his or her lapel instead of a daisy. His or her black hair, cut into a becoming cap, was as shiny and soft as a raven’s feather. He or she was introduced as Pete. He or she growled ‘Hello’ in a deepish voice and ducked his or her head like a schoolboy. Pete’s companion was dressed in a filmy gown with layers of black, pink and green tulle; a ladies’ tea gown circa 1910. Looped around her neck and hanging to her knees was a necklace apparently composed of licorice allsorts, interspersed with mint leaves. This was definitely a female person, with a wise and mocking smile and unexpected dimples. She took the tips of Phryne’s fingers in her own and announced herself as Sylvia.

Madame Sélavy said in her honeyed Hungarian voice, ‘Wine, Miss Fisher?’ and waved a hand at a young man who was entirely naked except, to Phryne’s regret, a band of fur around his rather luscious loins. Described as Lucius Brazenose, the primitivist poet, he brought Phryne a glass and whispered, ‘You’re doing well, most newcomers don’t get offered wine,’ and Phryne sipped. A big full red.

‘Bull’s blood,’ explained Madame. ‘Conduct Miss Fisher to a chair, RM.’

Two identical persons rose. They were dressed in lounge suits, white shirts and red ties. They had the same scrubby haircut. They moved in perfect accord. Twins? Phryne scanned the faces. They were different, but each difference had been erased by greasepaint. RM 1, for instance, had broader cheekbones than RM 2, so RM 2 had used theatrical pads to widen his. The telltale scent of stage makeup reached Phryne’s sensitive nose. They led her to what looked like a perfectly ordinary armchair. She examined it narrowly for traps and springs and little surprises before she sat. Then she smiled, waved one of the RMs to sit down, and the arms of the chair folded around him. Phryne perched herself on his trapped knees. The audience laughed and clapped.

‘Very good, Miss Fisher!’ said Lucius Brazenose. ‘I can see that you are going to enjoy our company. Up you get, RM.’ He hauled the slightly crushed epicene figure to his feet.

‘I have met surrealists before,’ smiled Phryne.

An orange cat which looked as though it had been in every cat fight in Queenscliff since he had been a slip of a kitten strolled into the room. His ears had been deckle-edged and he had scars all over his big bruiser’s face. He had great authority. No doubt that this was the local Master Cat. All he lacked were the top-boots.

He stalked to Phryne’s feet and sat down, staring up at her and twitching the very end of his bitten tail. She allowed a suitable interval to pass, then offered him a closed hand to sniff. He did so, bit her gently on the knuckle, and passed on to shred a curtain.

‘Perroquet,’ said Madame, ‘has his fancies.’

‘He hates me,’ said a young man, dressed in the soft shirt and black suit of a Paris bohemian. ‘Thaddeus Trove. Can I refill your glass?’

‘Only with wine,’ temporised Phryne. One must always beware of unconditional offers from artists. A cat called Parrot? Well, why not? The cat didn’t care what he was called as long as he was always called for dinner. Though that one would probably be out rolling sailors. And eating them.

There was, however, a real parrot, wakening from forty winks and shrilling, ‘Chance! Canned chance!’ Phryne guessed at the name.

‘Hello, Pussycat,’ she said, offering the cockatoo a grape from the fruit bowl on the table. It took the grape suspiciously, which was perhaps explicable in a surrealist house, then ate it with a snap of its strong beak. It was an old parrot, rather moth-eaten about the tail. It had originally been white with a yellow crest. Now its feathers were the colour of bread mould but the bird itself seemed alert and aggressive. ‘Chaos!’ it remarked.

‘Pussykins,’ corrected Thaddeus. ‘Good guess, though.’ Phryne selected a chair next to Sylvia, who was explaining to a gushing young woman that it wasn’t hard to make the licorice allsorts necklace.

‘You just string them on thread with a darning needle,’ she said.

`But don’t they go stale and fall off?’ asked the girl. She was mostly wearing a red evening dress designed for an older and stouter relative. She needed, Phryne considered, a couple of safety pins or cleaner underwear.

‘Then you can make another one,’ said Sylvia earnestly. ‘I like my jewellery to be always fresh, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said the young woman.

‘This is Magdalen Morse,’ Sylvia introduced her. ‘Poet and artist. Come and I’ll introduce you to Cyril.’

‘Why not?’ asked Phryne, amused.

A middle-aged man sat rigidly in a straight chair, clutching a stuffed hyena.

‘This is Miss Fisher,’ said Sylvia, fluttering a few acres of tulle.

‘Hello, Cyril,’ said Phryne, holding out her free hand.

The man did not move or look at her.

‘No, no,’ chuckled Sylvia. ‘Cyril is the hyena. This is Mr Wellbeloved.’

‘Ah,’ said Phryne. She had turned away to speak to Magdalen Morse when a voice croaked behind her.

‘Nice fish.’

‘Was that you or Cyril?’ she asked, and neither answered. The man was silent. So was the hyena. Phryne smiled.

‘Come and see my latest collage,’ urged Magdalen. Phryne went. There is no point in arguing with artists.

The collage stood in the centre of a dining room, where a table was laid with various covered dishes. Phryne was not in the least hungry, having eaten well, but was pleased to receive a refill of wine from a poet as she examined the artwork before her.

‘
Objets trouvés
,’ proclaimed Magdalen.

‘So they are,’ said Phryne.

The collage was a casting in bronze of a heap of seaside rubbish. It included a crushed packet of Woodbines and a tangle of fishing line. There was a hook or two, some shells, some pebbles, a flattened bully beef tin, four spruce cones and a wooden sandcastle spade lost by some child. Also, for some reason, a mouse.

‘I like it,’ said Phryne, who admired the skill with which the crushed fag packet had been rendered. ‘But what about the mouse?’

‘Perroquet brought it and left it there,’ Magdalen told her. Phryne looked closer. Yes, that bronze mouse did have a rather battered, nibbled look. ‘So I cast it.’

‘Of course,’ said Phryne. ‘Canned chance.’

‘Indeed!’ Magdalen beamed. Despite the dress and the general impression of a nice girl who had been abandoned on a beach for a month without access to soap or a comb, she had a very innocent smile. Her occupation as a bronze caster did explain the small burns on her strong hands.

Someone was pulling at Phryne’s sleeve. It was a conventional-looking young man dressed unconventionally in a tattered ballgown and tiara.

‘Look at mine!’ he urged.

‘Julian Strange,’ Magdalen told Phryne. ‘Anarchist.’

Phryne contemplated the construction of string and bolts and paper flowers. All the anarchists she had known were more interested in bloody revolution than art. She said so. Julian grasped her arm.

‘I call this
Collectivism
.’

‘Well, of course you do,’ smiled Phryne.

A dark, rotund, affable man in a blue silk smoking jacket brocaded with magnificent goldfish leaned forward to supply Phryne with a light for her gasper.

‘T Superbus,’ he said, introducing himself. Phryne was about to offer her hand but something in the dark, concentrated gaze made her wave lightly instead.

‘Intuitive,’ commented Madame. ‘T Superbus does not touch. Humans, that is.’

T Superbus gave Phryne a comradely smile.

A small child dressed in a Greek tunic passed solemnly through the room, bearing a wooden lemon squeezer on a richly embroidered cushion.

‘Manifesto,’ said Madame Sélavy in her rich voice. ‘Mani- feste du surréalisme
par André Breton
. Poisson soluble.’

Phryne held up her wrist and exhibited her deceased snapper.

‘
Poisson insoluble
,’ she said firmly.

There was a moment of complete silence. Then the fine maquillage cracked. Madame began to laugh. Relieved, so did the whole company. Magdalen was explaining to Thaddeus.

‘
Poisson soluble
means soluble fish. Miss Fisher is saying that in the essence things are not soluble, in fact that the fish is real and cohesive. It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.’

‘How about another drink?’ asked Thaddeus. In Phryne’s opinion, this was the most sensible question of the evening.

‘Reality is imaginary,’ proclaimed Madame, in English. ‘Existence is insignificant. But the imagination is ruthless. Surrealism is a drug. It is the fortuitous juxtaposition of two terms that shed a particular light to which we are infinitely sensitive. The strongest image is arbitrary.’

‘The eye exists in a primitive state,’ agreed Sylvia cosily. ‘Let’s do some automatic drawing tonight.’

‘After the film,’ said Madame amiably. Phryne suddenly felt comfortable. This was not a cult of personality. Madame was not an absolute ruler. And automatic drawing had to be better than the last surrealist game she had played, back in 1918, when three people had drawn random notes from cut-up musical scores out of a hat and assembled them. And then made Phryne listen as they played them. That was no way to treat Bach, even if it was inferior Bach.

The child with the lemon squeezer returned. Phryne raised an eyebrow at Pete.

‘Every thirty-six minutes,’ she informed the visitor.

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

‘Ah.’

Surrealism aimed to detach events from each other, so each occurred as a perfect thing to be examined and appreciated. Dreams. Nightmares. And that probably explained that horrific little box frame made like a window at which a monster coral-coloured lobster scratched. It was probably cross about being boiled . . .

The guests took their seats facing the opposite wall, and a cranking clicking was heard. The lights dimmed, the film’s title was displayed.
Entr’acte
. Two men playing chess with great concentration. They played more chess. Someone in a corner of the room played nursery rhymes on a comb and tissue paper. The left-hand man made another move. The right-hand man considered it.

It might, Phryne thought, be time for a little more wine . . .

CHAPTER NINE

Surprise: non sequitur: revolution.

André Breton
Surrealist Manifesto

The washing-up was done. Every dish was clean, dry and in its right place. Dot supplied herself, Jane, Ruth and Tinker with cocoa and a few biscuits to guard against night starvation. Ruth was dropping asleep as she staggered up the stairs with Jane’s arm around her waist. Molly plodded behind. Tinker yawned hugely, summoned Gaston and went to bed behind the baize door. Silence fell. In ten minutes the whole Mercer Street household was asleep, except Dot, who sat up for Phryne. She was not too sure of that strange collection of people next door. Artists. Poets. You never knew with people like that. Or with people altogether.

Dot sipped her cocoa. Now that the house was quiet, she could hear the sea again. It sighed. No noise came from the street and the night outside was wholly dark, moonless, velvety and soft. Dot nodded, drowsy with the soothing, shushing sound. Then she sat up firmly and reached for her knitting. She would not sleep until Phryne came home safe.

Phryne had just regained her seat when a huge bucket of water was emptied over both players, splashing the camera, washing the chess game and the pieces away. It was cathartic. Phryne laughed aloud. So did the surrealists.

‘I know that it’s coming, but I never get used to it,’ said the half-naked young poet. ‘Well,’ he added as the film whizzed and clocked its way back onto the reel and the lights came up again, ‘time for supper. Can I get you a small
amuse-bouche
, Miss Fisher?’

‘No,’ said Phryne, who had presided over strange feasts before. ‘I’ve eaten. And I have drunk, too. No more, thank you,’ she added. ‘That bull’s blood is strong stuff.’

‘Pity,’ commented a middle-aged man wearing a Greek tunic. It looked rather good on him. He had nicely muscled legs. ‘You might have enjoyed the string spaghetti.’

‘I might,’ Phryne told him. ‘But I’m not going to. You can have my portion,’ she added generously. He laughed. He had short curly hair and soft dark eyes.

‘In this costume I am called Anteus,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘But if you see me in a suit please call me Dr Green.’

‘Certainly,’ said Phryne. ‘What brings you to the surrealists, Anteus?’

‘Sheer boredom,’ he said. ‘I am quite successful as a doctor here. I treat all the fashionable invalids with sea bathing and fruit diets. And of course there are accidents and illnesses amongst the fisherfolk. But I am not born to be respectable.’

‘Then there would be plenty of debauchery available if that was your bent.’ Phryne observed. ‘Or at least I assume so—this is a seaport, after all.’

‘Oh, yes, there is, but I am not looking to be debauched,’ said the doctor. ‘Just diverted. And this is the most interesting company in Queenscliff. Poets, artists, lunatics. The bulk of the populace is aggravatingly sane.’

‘Too bad,’ sympathised Sylvia, who was holding a small dessert bowl half full of ball bearings. ‘We probably do try too hard,’ she said to Phryne, catching her thought in a slightly unnerving fashion. ‘But just breaking away from normality takes a large amount of effort. Life has been so much more fun since Madame arrived.’

‘When was that?’ asked Phryne.

‘Three years ago. Of course, she may not stay. This is not Europe. Bit of a cultural wasteland, Australia. In fact we all wonder why she came here. But we are so pleased she did that we don’t like to enquire. Have a ball bearing?’

‘Thanks,’ said Phryne, took one, and put it in her sleeve. ‘But Queenscliff isn’t boring at present. You have a phantom hair snipper. And my housekeepers, the Johnsons, have vanished without a trace. Furniture and all.’

‘Both tediously explicable,’ said the doctor. He had a cool, clear voice which must have been a comfort to those invalids who needed companionship and attention as much as sea bathing. ‘What is the common factor in all the snipper’s victims?’

‘They had plaits,’ responded Phryne.

‘Precisely.’ The doctor pulled his Greek tunic over his knees. ‘They are all young women under the age of sixteen. Over sixteen, young women either put up their hair or get a bob, like yours. And very charming it is, I might say. Only young girls, that is, pre-pubertal, manifestly not sexually available, wear pigtails. And there is the explanation.’

‘He is a hair fetishist?’ asked Sylvia. Pete had materialised at her side and was offering her a glass of fizzy wine. Pete himself had a glass of clear liquid which smelt of cucumbers.

‘Krafft-Ebing has a chapter about it,’ said the doctor. ‘To possess the hair is to possess the girl. Tedious, very.’

‘Lacks the skill, money or confidence to approach a real girl?’ asked Phryne. She had read Krafft-Ebing and had even been able to translate the Latin, to which language the writer had resorted when he felt that the hoi polloi should not be privy to the depths of human depravity which he was describing. The book had not impressed her. Human sexuality, in which Phryne took a keen interest, had more convolutions than a sea shell, and she was only interested in a small number of them.

‘No, not necessarily. He may be a paedophile, one who only becomes sexually aroused by children. Possibly he is so twisted that the hair doesn’t just represent the girl, the hair is the girl.’

‘In which case he is probably a surrealist,’ said Phryne lightly. The doctor looked grave.

‘Possibly,’ he conceded. ‘But not one of Us.’

‘And the Johnsons?’ asked Sylvia, thoughtfully biting a mint leaf off her necklace. ‘That has caused a lot of talk, you know. They were such staid, careful people. To vanish like that—it was odd.’

‘Crisis,’ decided the doctor. ‘They had been repressed for too long and one night they just broke out. Freud wrote about such cases. Not interesting.’

‘Planning,’ objected Phryne.

‘I’m sorry?’ asked the doctor, who was not used to being contradicted.

‘Freud wrote about people who just threw down their tools and their lives and walked away. The irruption into the sane Ego of the unconscious Id. This wasn’t the case. I spoke to your mother-in-law about it and she is a very good observer.’

The doctor winced slightly.

‘Yes, she is, isn’t she?’

‘These people arranged to have their furniture removed. Ergo, they had somewhere else to be.’

‘That is a point,’ conceded the doctor. ‘Has anyone told Thomas about it?’

‘I sent telegrams, so far I have had no reply,’ said Phryne.

‘Had a letter from him only yesterday,’ said the doctor. ‘Didn’t say anything about the Johnsons.’

‘Perhaps you might come to dinner and tell me about him? Tomorrow night?’

‘I should be honoured,’ said Dr Green.

‘Bring the letter. It is a mystery,’ said Phryne. ‘One I mean to get to the bottom of,’ she added.

‘Why?’ growled the schoolboy, Pete.

‘Because,’ said Phryne. This was such a surrealist answer that conversation halted for a moment in respect.

‘Automatic drawing,’ observed Sylvia, seeing two servants remove the feast and lay out a protective cloth, sheets of paper and handfuls of charcoal sticks. ‘Come along!’

Phryne was seated next to Madame. This was the first good look at her hostess she had had.

Madame Sélavy was tall, thin and haggard. Her face was bony, her nose beaky, her eyes as bright as pins. She was heavily made-up, white paint and red lips and kohl around the eyes. She wore a draped gown which Princess Eugenie might have considered overdecorated, dripping with black and gold bugle beads, embroideries, tassels and fringes to the utmost tolerance of woven cloth. She smelt strongly of patchouli. Rings burdened every finger, her neck was wrapped in pearl-studded chains and a band of brilliants encircled her throat.

‘Madame Sélavy,
enchanté
,’ said Phryne, knowing that she was being inspected in return. She knew what Madame must be seeing. Slim, small, pale skin, green eyes, black hair cut in Lulu bob, no decoration except the seagull feather earrings which Dot had threaded for her. Madame gave Phryne her beringed hand. Phryne raised it and kissed it. The skin beneath her lips was old and papery.

‘Mademoiselle,
enchanté
,’ replied Madame, and kissed Phryne’s hand in turn. They looked at each other. Both smiled.

‘This is automatic drawing,’ said Madame. ‘You are familiar with it?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne.

‘Call me Rrose,’ said Madame unexpectedly.

‘And I am Phryne,’ replied Phryne.

Madame took a sheet of paper, thought for a moment, then drew a quick scribble and folded it over. Phryne did likewise and passed the bundle on. At the opposite end of the table Magdalen Morse was doing the same. The papers passed rapidly along the ranks, each person drawing a few lines and then folding and passing the composition on. It actually was fun to be playing a Victorian parlour game in such eccentric company. Phryne, who could not draw, was not at a disadvantage.

The child with the lemon squeezer passed through the room unregarded. Perroquet drifted in and decided to sit on Phryne’s lap. There was just enough room. He elevated his chin to be scratched and his deep bass purr added an odd counterpoint to the music of Erik Satie, which clunked and wheezed and chimed.

‘Perroquet,’ said Madame dotingly. ‘He likes you.’

‘I am sensible of the honour,’ replied Phryne. She was finding the added burden of very heavy cat a little hard on the knees, and extremely cosy for the weather, but she knew cats had their fancies and soon a call from the kitchen or rubbish heap would summon Perroquet away. ‘Rrose, this is an impertinent question, but what brings you to Queenscliff?’

‘Europe,’ said Madame. ‘It was a cruel place. War, destruction, horror. My friend left me this house. So I came here. What does it matter where one is, if one’s fondest wish is to be elsewhere?’

‘And you found agreeable company,’ said Phryne, looking at the table of people all busily scribbling and laughing.

‘They try a little too hard,’ said Madame, sotto voce. ‘But they are witty and charming. And you, Phryne? What brings an urban sophisticate like you to this watering place?’

‘Holiday,’ said Phryne. ‘One recent case was exigent and I nearly got assassinated. I am a private detective,’ she told Madame. A momentary silence had fallen on the room. Phryne was used to this reaction. She smiled sunnily. ‘And I am not investigating anyone here, I swear.’

There were a couple of sighs—of relief, perhaps? Madame ordered, ‘The drawings,’ and the papers were unfolded.

They were a strange and meaningless concoction, except for one. The first person had drawn a bull’s head, and the subsequent artists, quite by chance, had added a man’s torso, a horse’s hindquarters, and a fishy tail. Unless someone had peeked, it was a whole mythical animal derived entirely by chance. Not one that the Ancients would have recognised but perfectly convincing.

‘That one goes on the wall,’ announced Sylvia, and gave it to Pete to add to the others which were pinned to a high Victorian Gothic screen. ‘Now for automatic writing.’

This was, as far as Phryne could tell, exactly the same as the old game of Consequences. More paper, pencils, more folding, one sentence per person. Liqueurs and chocolates and small salty cheese pastries were served. Phryne nibbled very circumspectly on a chocolate. It was a rich, creamy chocolate with an edgy hint of salt. It was, for some surrealist reason, one of the most satisfying savours she had ever experienced. Not, she understood, to be gorged on, when the salt might even become emetic. But so tasty that she allowed herself another small piece. Pete grinned at her. Perroquet purred. The company shuffled the completed essays and began unfolding poems and reading them. The only alteration allowed was to correct the gender of the speakers.

Some, by chance, were quite comprehensible. Sylvia Glass met Queen Elizabeth in a lift. She said, ‘Off with her head!’ She said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ And the result was a breach in the League of Nations.

Lucius Brazenose met Lorenzo di Medici in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. He said, ‘I adore you!’ He said, ‘I simply cannot understand a word you say.’ And the result was a confusing poem about cabbages.

Magdalen Morse met the Lord Chief Justice in 79 Collins Street, Melbourne. He said, ‘Down with all revolutionaries!’ She said, ‘Tomatoes are in season.’ And the result was a small tin of baked beans.

T Superbus met Winnie-the-Pooh in Parliament House. He said, ‘Only seagulls can really enjoy flying.’ He said, ‘Would you kiss me?’ And the result was a bathing mat woven of human hair.

Thaddeus Trove met Theda Bara in a disused Chinese eating house. He said, ‘I really cannot like sea bathing.’ She said ‘Come with me to my studio.’ And the result was a small sickly child.

‘That,’ said Madame severely, ‘verges perilously close to sense. Crumple it up.’

Julian Strange met both RMs in a fisherman’s shelter. He said, ‘I need a drink.’ They said, ‘Pumpkin shells can be hollowed out to make a lantern.’ And the result was a stained-glass watering can.

‘That one goes on the wall,’ decided Anteus. ‘I’ll pin it up.’

Pete met Mr Wellbeloved and Cyril in the Cafe Royale. He said, ‘I cannot see the naked woman hidden in the forest.’ He said, ‘I hear the call of the wild.’ And the result was a green snakeskin shoe.

Anteus met Sexton Blake in a shell hole. He said, ‘What is the coefficient of friction of brass?’ He said, ‘Da da da da da.’ And the result was a bald head with hair on it.

Madame Rrose met a very old drake with green wings in a dark savage forest. He said, ‘We must prosecute the real world.’ She said, ‘Turn towards childhood for lucidity.’ And the result was a clockwork eel-strangler.

‘That, I like,’ opined Madame. ‘The last one is yours, Phryne.’

Phryne opened the last one: Phryne Fisher met Mussolini in a public convenience. She said, ‘I will get to the bottom of this.’ He said, ‘If you gather thistles, expect prickles.’ And the result was shorter hair. She could not help feeling that someone had cheated. Madame Rrose felt the same and was displeased.

‘Crumple it up,’ she ordered, and Phryne crushed the paper and, unobserved, stuffed it into her capacious sleeve. Sleeve pockets, she reflected, were essential for any conspiracy. No wonder the Ancient Chinese had so many of them.