Death at Victoria Dock (15 page)

‘Ruth and me were reading a book about cardsharps,’ she whispered, ‘so we marked the whole deck. We didn’t mean to cheat,’ she pleaded, and Phryne patted her.

‘If you could take in Bert, Cec and Peter with them, pet, then they were well done, and I don’t think that we need to worry. But you had better give back their money.’

‘Of course,’ said Jane. She had already divided the pile of coins into stacks according to donor. Phryne took the first-aid box as Jane made a circuit of the room.

‘We weren’t playing for keeps,’ she explained. They nodded solemnly, though Peter insisted that she keep a kopeck, drachma, and button.

Nina’s injuries were, as Phryne suggested, less bad than they looked. When the young woman had washed her face Phryne applied iodine and plaster and Nina smiled painfully at Bill.

‘Don’t you see, I can leave them now,’ she said, defiantly. ‘I have not broken my word. They have flung me out. They will not even chase me, now. I do not like to run away,’ she added. ‘I am not much hurt and it is nothing if I should have secured my husband.’

She said this while vanishing into Bill Cooper’s massive embrace, so the finer points of her discourse were lost.

Dot floated upstairs in a haze, compounded of relief and exhaustion in equal shares, and stripped off her clothes, which had not borne the night’s entertainment well. She threw down her split stockings and damaged shoes, then laid aside her suit coat with the torn shoulder seams, her dusty skirt smeared with oil, and her shirt soaked in sweat. The water was hot and scented. She sank into it, biting back a cry as the water invaded the cuts on her hands. It had been in a good cause, she thought, and reached for the soap. Phryne’s favourite scent, Nuit d’Amour. Night of Love. Dot thought of Hugh Collins and began to laugh helplessly, until she hiccupped and sank down to extinguish her rising hysteria in the foam.

Bill Cooper had been induced to try champagne, but declared it was a sour and fizzy wine and he preferred beer. Peter Smith sat quietly on the end of the sofa and Nina explained about the robbery.

‘The time and place I gave you for the robbery were…corrected time. It will take place tomorrow at two. These are fierce men who will stop at nothing, and have no interest in human life, so they will not mind killing or dying. I would like some wine.’

Bill supplied champagne in a beer glass to his intended and glowed all over his big, ugly face. His paw held Nina’s hand as gently as if he were holding a butterfly. Phryne replenished her glass. Jane and Ruth were having their first taste of champagne, which they had heard was the best wine in the world, and were not liking it much.

‘It’s sour,’ complained Ruth to Jane, very quietly. Jane sipped at her glass, made a face, and then swallowed it down.

‘It’s all right if you gulp it,’ she advised, and Ruth gulped. Both girls then became so sleepy that they did not protest when Phryne sent them to bed.

Dot came down the stairs wearing Phryne’s lounging robe and silver slippers and had the satisfaction of stopping Hugh Collins in mid-sentence. He was arguing for a police presence at the robbery.

‘Not many men, Miss Fisher, maybe a sharp-shooter…or…’ He dried up. Phryne looked in the direction of his gaze and saw Dot, her wet hair trailing, feeling her way carefully down as though she was half-blind with exhaustion. She shone like the moon. Phryne looked on the gaffed-cod expression of the young policeman with interest. She had often produced that effect herself. It was interesting to see someone else do it.

Dot managed to get to the foot of the stairs and stood with one hand on the newel post, uncertain as to her balance.

‘Oh, Dot!’ cried Hugh Collins, and crossed the room to take her hand. ‘You’re worn out, girl dear. You should go to bed.’

‘I just came to thank everyone for rescuing me,’ said Dot, scanning the room and smiling at Phryne and the men. ‘Thank you.’ She turned and accepted Hugh Collins’ escort up the stairs again, leaning heavily on his muscular arm. Phryne was pleased to see that constabulary instinct was so submerged that he did not even attempt to put a ‘come-along-’o-me’ grip on Dot.

Reaching her door, Dot kissed her suitor politely on the cheek, failed to co-ordinate her thoughts sufficiently to find a nightgown, fell down into her bed in the jade-and-silver gown and was asleep before her head found the pillow.

‘Well, gentlemen, find yourselves a couch somewhere. Perhaps Nina would prefer my room?’

It appeared that Nina was not intending to move and anyway, she did not wish to leave Bill. Bill blushed and lay down on the floor next to the sofa. Bert and Cec took their leave, and Phryne held out her hand to Peter.

They passed Hugh Collins on the stairs.

‘Two sharp-shooters, if you can get them,’ smiled Phryne. ‘No more, or you might scare them off. Telephone me tomorrow—oh, it’s today, isn’t it?—at about ten and tell me what you have been able to arrange. Give your sergeant my best regards. Good night.’

Hugh took his leave of the sleepers. Bert and Cec took him home to his blameless cottage in Footscray and his incandescent mother, who had been waiting up for him. He did not seem to be listening to her excellent discourse on thankless sons who kept their innocent mothers up all night—look at the time!—mothers who had wasted the best years of their lives bringing up shameless kids who didn’t care for them at all. At this point Hugh Collins had got up from the kitchen chair on which he had been sitting and said, ‘I’m going to bed. Good night, Mum,’ and had kissed her politely on the cheek. She then realized that she had lost her ascendency, snapped, ‘Who is she?’ and received such a vague and delighted smile in return that she was quite quenched. She took herself off to bed without another word.

***

Phryne smiled at Peter Smith.

‘Stay with me?’ she asked. He cupped her face in his big hand and stared into her eyes.

‘Oh, Phryne,’ he said softly. ‘I would like to stay with you forever. I would like to close the door and never open it again.’

‘That could be inconvenient.’ Phryne did not like terms like ‘forever.’ ‘You have to come out sometime.’

‘Yes, you have to come out sometime. But not yet. This night, at least, you are mine.’

‘I am,’ agreed Phryne, and, leading him into her boudoir, shut out the other sleepers in the house.

Chapter Fourteen

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men
That taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the current of their life
Is spent in shallows and in miseries.’

William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar

Phryne spent most of the night which remained in making love to Peter Smith. He was as gentle, strong and responsive as ever—more, if anything, as though some driving passion possessed him. She got up to wash at four of the morning, and on her return found that he was standing at the window, staring out to sea. Little dots of light, which were ships, moved and converged on the black velvet of the ocean.

‘I will have to leave,’ he said. ‘After this is all done, and they are caught, I will be marked, even by the old comrades who remember…who remember the old days. I will lose you, Phryne, just when I have found you. I do not know how I will bear it.’

‘Where shall you go?’ Phryne joined him at the window, caressing the muscular swell of his shoulders. He kissed her hand.

‘Another country, I fear,’ he said. ‘South America, maybe, they will not look for me there. Perhaps I shall go to the back country in Queensland with my daughter.’

‘Nina is your daughter?’

‘I have no secrets from you. Her mother died three years ago. She came here with me from Paris. A long, long time ago. Come now, Phryne, you are not jealous of a dead woman?’

Phryne smiled. She had never been jealous of anyone’s lovers in her life.

‘No, I was frowning for quite another reason. I shall miss you.’

‘I do not know how I can leave you.’

‘But you must find a way. I would not have you demonstrate your fidelity by getting murdered.’

‘It could come to that. Nina was safe as long as I was held i
n respect, but they locked her up, and beat her. Our immunity is gone.’

‘Never mind, Peter. We have tonight, or what is left of it, and perhaps we may meet again. In another country.’

‘In another life,’ agreed Peter. ‘Come back to my arms. They will be empty enough without you.’

***

Nine o’clock brought breakfast—of which Peter ate heartily— and a demand for a council from the girls, the Butlers and Dot. Phryne felt unequal to this but came down anyway.

Her audience was seated at the dining table. Dot was pale, head-achey and disinclined for conversation. Mr. and Mrs. Butler were worried. The girls were excited.

‘It is like this,’ Phryne began abruptly. ‘I am attending a bank robbery, and no one is going with me. After today I solemnly promise to confine myself to paid and quiet cases within the law and not to ever get involved with revolutionaries again. Cross my heart. If you will bear with me for one more day, I expect peace, perfect peace, and no more people littering your floor. I shall ask Nina and Bill to stay here, and to promise not to leave the house until I give permission.’

Bill Cooper and Nina promised.

‘Dot, Ruth, Jane, the same. I can’t do this if any of you are in danger. Do you understand?’

They nodded, Dot appearing to regret the movement.

‘Mr. and Mrs. Butler, if you will put up with this for one more day, I would be obliged, and naturally some token of my appreciation will appear in the monthly envelope. You have been much tried.’

Mrs. Butler, who was worried by Phryne’s taut voice, said soothingly, ‘It ain’t been no trouble, really, Miss. We’ll stay in.’

‘Good. Now, everyone go and find something to do, except Dot, who is going back to bed. Perhaps you could take her up, Mrs. B. Girls, go and see her settled, there’s aspirin in my dressing-table drawer. Go on, Dorothy, you can’t go about being a hero and not suffer a hangover.’

Dot allowed herself to be led away. Bill Cooper and Nina got out the girls’ marked cards. Mr. Butler went to answer the phone.

‘Constable Collins, Miss Fisher,’ he announced, and went off to give the silver the polishing of a lifetime.

Phryne took the phone. The young man sounded distressed.

‘Miss Fisher, I can’t get my boss to listen. He’s given me leave to be there and to carry a pistol—he’s even issued me one—but he won’t believe that there will be a robbery. I can’t shift him.’

‘Never mind, Hugh. We can handle this—I hope. What calibre?’

‘A .45. Miss Fisher, what are you going to do?’

‘I’m not sure. Meet me at the bank at one-thirty. On the steps.’

‘All right,’ agreed the constable, and hung up.

‘Peter,’ she said imperiously, holding out her hand. ‘Give me your gun.’

‘My gun, Phryne?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you want it?’

‘I have a good reason.’ Peter produced a pistol. Phryne broke it, spun the action, counted the rounds, and snapped it back together.

‘Excellent,’ she approved. ‘Nice and clean. I suppose I shouldn’t ask where on earth you got a Colt .45?’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Peter Smith was looking very uneasy. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. For the moment, I am going back to my room to sleep for three hours. Are you coming?’

Peter Smith followed in her wake.

True to her word, Phryne slept until twelve, woke bedraggled and sad, having had bad dreams, and took a long bath. Her anarchist mark had faded away. She put on her street clothes, choosing a relatively wide skirt in case she had to run, and low-heeled shoes. Her costume was dark-blue and her hat sober and close-fitting. Elegant enough for the city, but not flamboyant. She did not want to attract notice.

Peter Smith said not a word as she kissed him lovingly and walked out of the house to her car, which she started with a mighty roar.

Peter Smith waited ten minutes, then opened the front door.

‘Miss Fisher would not like you to go out, sir,’ said Mr. Butler. ‘Please reconsider.’

‘I did not promise,’ Peter reminded him. ‘She did not ask me to promise. Say goodbye to the girls for me, and remind them of Baba Yaga’s daughter.’

He slipped out into the street, and heard Mr. Butler lock the door behind him. He pulled his old felt hat down over his eyes and caught a tram to the city.

***

Hugh Collins was not altogether pleased to see Miss Fisher on the steps of the imposing bank, although he wanted news of Dot. The small face under the cloche hat was set and he did not like either the glitter of her green eyes or the suggestive bulge at her waist.

‘Miss Fisher, what are you going to do?’ he asked again, and Phryne patted his arm.

‘Come along, Constable, we are going to earn you a medal. Your boss hasn’t relented, then?’

‘No, Miss Fisher. How is Miss Williams?’

‘I’ve sent her back to bed. Just reaction. She isn’t used to adventure. And a good thing, too. One adventuress is sufficient for most households. Now, they have this machine-gun, and your task is to get the gunner. I don’t know how they are going to bring it in. It might be anything. According to Cec, the whole thing is only about four feet long, and it only weighs twenty-eight pounds. Keep your eye peeled for it. This is the only entrance to the bank, they will have to come up here. I know all of them, and they won’t have been able to travel far. Have you still got the Bentley’s rotor arm in your pocket?’

‘No, Miss Fisher.’

‘Call me Phryne. Now, stay here. Look unofficial. The Lewis fires from a drum with forty-seven cartridges, so we have to stop them before they start firing or there will be hell to pay.’

Constable Collins watched the well-dressed people of Melbourne passing and re-passing him on the bank steps. He wondered how they would feel if they had known that an anarchist outrage was about to be enacted before their eyes. He envisaged the steps slippery with blood and screams echoed in his ears. He was so involved in this horrific vision that he jumped when Phryne handed him a bunch of spring flowers, bought from a barrow.

‘Look at your watch every ten minutes,’ she advised.

Constable Collins was the recipient of many pitying glances as he stood on the bank steps waiting for a girl who would never come. He saw Phryne as she crossed the banking chamber, chatted with a clerk, walked back, stopped to beg a light from a shocked city gent who did not approve of ladies smoking in public, strolled back to the counter for another word with the clerk, evidently an acquaintance.

Phryne made a small and significant gesture at Collins as three men stopped at the foot of the steps. One was carrying a roll of pretty blue wallpaper. It seemed very heavy. They began to mount the steps, and by the time they had reached Collins, one had begun to rip off the paper. The policeman sighted cold gun-metal beneath.

Hugh thrust his bunch of daffodils into a girl’s hands and dived for Casimir, who struggled and shouted oaths. The two others turned back at the door and drew guns. The girl to whom Hugh had given the flowers clutched them and ran. Several people screamed.

They drew a bead on the struggling mass of Collins, the Lewis gun, and the drum of ammunition which Casimir was striving to fix on the Lewis. Casimir was as strong as an ox. One shot whizzed past Hugh’s ear and clipped a shard off the bank’s decorative stonework. Inside the bank, Phryne screamed, ‘Everyone get down,’ and ran for the door.

A loud voice saved Hugh Collins’ life. There was another person in the bank who distracted the attention of Karl and Max.

‘Traitors!’ Peter’s voice boomed in the vaulted chamber. ‘You have betrayed the Revolution!’

Both of the anarchists were good looking young men, but their faces were as cold as masks, as empty of purpose now as of pity. Hugh and Casimir stopped fighting, remaining in their positions, with Hugh grabbing for the gun and Casimir locking the lever which fixed the drum.

‘I have fought for the freedom of Latvia all my life,’ continued Peter, his voice carrying as he moved forward into the light. ‘I have given to it all I had to give. And you bring
illégalisme
to this peaceful place! Dogs, and sons of dogs! I denounce you. Give me your guns. Give them to me.’

‘Your time is over,’ hissed Karl, and they fired together. Peter Smith collapsed quietly, all the people in the bank shrieked, and in the confusion no one noticed two more shots. First Karl, and then Max fell slowly backwards down the steps into the respectable street, dislodging Hugh from Casimir, who finally managed to find the trigger of the Lewis among the torn paper.

As Phryne launched herself forward into his line of fire, he pulled the trigger and held it there.

The Lewis did not fire.

Hugh Collins disentangled himself from the dead Karl and the dying Max and seized Casimir in an unbreakable grip. He marched him up the steps, slipping in blood like paint, and found Phryne embracing Peter Smith as he lay on the tiled floor.

***

The ambulance had gone, the bank’s cleaners were mopping the entrance and demanding double pay for having to deal with blood, and Constable Collins was being cross-examined by a superior who was somewhat mortified and partly pleased, but determined not to show either emotion.

‘So it was the good oil, was it?’ he asked, moving his feet so that a disgusted cleaner could mop around him. ‘Those commos told Miss Fisher the truth. Where is Miss Fisher, then?’

‘She’s gone in the ambulance with the bodies.’

‘Morbid tastes for a young woman. Did you have to shoot both of them, Collins?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Collins stood up straight and handed over his revolver. ‘Only two shots gone. They had shot an innocent bystander and they had the Lewis as well, sir.’ He dropped the shells into his superior’s hand.

‘Oh, I’m not arguing, Collins.’ He broke the gun, took a small sniff at the barrel, and stared at his constable. ‘You know, those new smokeless cartridges are very good. I’d swear this gun hadn’t been fired.’

‘Very good ammunition, sir.’

‘And I suppose that when the police surgeon digs the bullets out of them two dead’uns they’ll be .45?’

‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.’

‘Well, it was lucky that you happened to be here, and with a gun as well. The press are going to love it. Bank robbery foiled by courageous constable. Well, the super’ll be pleased. Just don’t get above yourself, Collins!’

‘No, sir.’

‘And consider yourself lucky I don’t ask you to turn out your pockets!’ snarled the detective.

Hugh grinned. The two unused cartridges were buried in the bank’s window box. He had thought about his pockets.

He walked down the newly cleansed steps to meet a covey of excited reporters, and wondered about the nature of fame.

***

For the second time in what seemed like days, Phryne returned to her house soaked in blood, but this time she avoided notice. She stripped in her own room, stuffed the soiled clothes in the laundry basket, and hid Peter’s gun under her mattress before she scoured her body clean. She took a large dose of chloral hydrate and, wrapped in her green coverlet, slept heavily for ten hours. She did not dream, but whimpered in her sleep.

***

She woke to the noise of music. There were many voices and what seemed to be a party. Phryne could never resist a party. She flexed and stretched and found that she was supple. Half-term was over. Tomorrow Ruth and Jane would be going back to school, Nina and Bill Cooper to Queensland, Max and Karl would be in hell by now, and Peter…what of Peter? His ultimate destination was a mystery. Phryne made up her face with precise licks of the compact, pencilled in her eyebrows, and pulled on an Erté dress. What was happening downstairs?

She descended to find Nina and Bill dancing, Hugh holding Dot closer than even a foxtrot warranted, Jane and Ruth working the phonograph, and a man dressed, it seemed, mostly in bandages sitting on the sea-green sofa with a glass of the good champagne in his large, scarred hand.

Peter Smith looked up as Phryne swooped like a Valkyrie down the stairs and threw herself at him.

‘They told me you were dead! Peter, they said that…’

‘Ah, so they thought. But those dogs had so little skill that one bullet missed me altogether and the other made a neat hole in my shoulder.’