Death by Water (3 page)

He read. It was on letterhead and he knew the signature.

He looked at Phryne with a wild surmise.

‘I’m your detective,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I’m here to find out who’s pinching the jewellery. And you are going to help me.’

Theodore Green surrendered without a fight. Resistance, apparently, was futile.

‘I was told that someone was coming,’ he said. ‘Here is your sapphire, Miss Fisher.’

Phryne accepted a wash-leather bag and undid the draw-string. Onto her palm rolled a blue stone as big as a doorknob, sparkling like ice.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘How very, very pretty. A very good fake.’

Theodore Green smiled.

‘And here is the story of the stone,’ he said, giving Phryne a small booklet. ‘Call me if there is anything I can do, Miss Fisher.’

‘I will,’ responded Phryne.

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To Miss Maggie May

Liverpool

Mags old girl got a good berth on a big ship. None of them coast-ers. Trans Atlantic. Good prog and not too bad gelt. When I get
back what say we get drunk for a week?

Your old pal Jack

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CHAPTER TWO

Was this the face that launch’d a thousand
ships?

Christopher Marlowe

The Tragical History of Dr Faustus

Dot had been conducted through all the rituals of the SS

Hinemoa
by Caroline and was peacefully embroidering when Phryne came back. She looked a picture, Phryne thought, pretty Dorothy sitting in a white wicker chair with her back to the light and the sun making a halo out of her chestnut hair.

A Dutch master would have been ravished. Dot herself never paid much attention to her appearance, considering that the best thing that could be said of her face was that it was clean.

‘Hello, old thing,’ said Phryne, sitting down on the blue morocain sofa and lighting a gasper. ‘I’ve just been shown over the ship and there is an awful lot of it.’

Dot laid her work down in her lap. ‘I met our stewardess, Caroline. She’s nice. I had tea. And she told me all about how the ship works.’

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‘Good. Why don’t you stay where you are and I’ll just lie down for a nice little snooze? I’ve got a lot to think about. And you are supposed to be having a holiday, Dot dear.’

‘Oh, Miss Phryne, a holiday! It’s not as though I work very hard,’ protested Dot.

‘Nonetheless,’ said Phryne, shedding shoes. Dot gathered them up and put them on the shoe rack before she sat down and resumed her drawn thread work. The sun was at the perfect angle to allow her to count threads. And the motion of the ship was so smooth that it almost didn’t seem to be moving . . .

Dot woke when someone sounded a gong. Phryne sat up and shook her hair into order.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That nice officer told me about this. Come out, Dot, we’re going through the heads. He said that the sea might be a bit bumpier out here.’

‘Wind’s cold,’ said Dot as Phryne opened the French windows to the private balcony. ‘I’ll just get our coats.’

‘I’m not cold,’ said Phryne, hanging over the rail dangerously and scanning the horizon. ‘Look, there we are. And now we face the rip, and here we go!’

Dot saw that the water on either side of the
Hinemoa
’s elegant green sides was broken and rough, and she clung onto the rail with the one hand which wasn’t caught inside her coat sleeve. The ship heaved, surged, heaved again, then there was a cheer from somewhere below and they were out into the open sea. Landscape moved away from the eye. Phryne donned her coat in one movement and was straightening up. SS
Hinemoa
tasted the waves, found an agreeably smooth path between them, and sailed on to the drum of her strong diesel engines.

‘Oh, lovely,’ Phryne said. ‘I’ve never sailed in such a beautiful ship. She rides like a swan. Are you all right, Dot dear?’

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‘Yes,’ said Dot, finally managing to get her coat on. ‘She is smooth, isn’t she? I brought tablets for seasickness.’

‘Take one,’ said Phryne. ‘I’ll have one too. Can’t hurt and I want to enjoy my dinner. Can you see the clock from here?’

‘Five thirty,’ said Dot.

‘Good. Then I shall have a nice bath not leaving the fresh water tap running, and then we might dress.’

‘I’m in Second Class,’ said Dot. ‘Caroline said. All maids and valets are in the second class dining room.’

‘No,’ said Phryne firmly. ‘You’re dining with me. Second Class indeed. I did not bring you here to be patronised, Dot.’

‘I might be more use with all them maids and valets,’ said Dot, who really did not want to go through the ordeal of dinner in wealthy company. She never knew what to say and the gentlemen would keep paying her compliments. ‘You know how the lower orders gossip,’ urged Dot, trying for Miss Eliza’s upper class tone.

‘Hmm,’ said Phryne. ‘You might be right. Can you stick it, Dot?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Dot with heartfelt relief. ‘For you, Miss Phryne.’

‘That’s very nice of you, Dot. I appreciate it. Then let’s get on with the bathing and dressing, old thing. I wish to make an impression. I’ve got the bauble,’ she said, producing it.

‘Pretty,’ said Dot. ‘Looks like a Christmas decoration.’

‘And what is the program for First Class tonight?’ asked Phryne, shedding clothes as Dot read the ship’s newsletter.

‘Buffet dinner at eight,’ she replied. ‘Always a buffet for the first night at sea, Caroline said. Not formal dressing tonight, just ordinary dinner clothes. You’re at table three with those people you know about. Then there’s dancing with Mavis and the Melody Makers in the Palm Court. There’s a bridge game
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in the smaller salon and comic songs in the Smoke Room, gentlemen only—why don’t they call it a smoking room like everyone else? Drinks from the bar. What do you want to wear?’

‘Blue,’ said Phryne. Dot laid the dress out on her bed and went to run the scented bath without which Miss Fisher never ventured on social occasions.

‘How do you want to smell?’ asked Dot from the bathroom, noticing that the taps were in the shape of dolphins.

‘Expensive,’ said Phryne, still staring out to sea, dressed only in red washing silk camiknickers and an absorbed expression.

Bathing luxuriously and dressing slowly was a ritual which Phryne thoroughly enjoyed. When she wasn’t in the mood for it she didn’t do it, so it retained its opulent ambiance. She particularly liked the feeling of being dressed in all her undergarments and a dressing gown. It always made her feel like a Grande Horizontale, about to receive a new and wealth-ier protector.

Phryne, of course, was in no need of protection. She had an independent income, a French war pension, and a house of her own. But it was a pleasant feeling.

The bath was scented with Floris honeysuckle, which smelt sweeter for being opposed to salt air. She put on her dark underclothes and a truly vibrant dressing gown, gold figured with purple flowers like an explosion in a chrysanthemum garden.

Dot joined her after a while, identically scented, in her nice warm woolly brown gown, with which she paired sheepskin slippers that kept even the ankles toasty. Dot felt the cold.

Phryne smiled at them, reflected side by side in the mirror.

‘We make a pair. Now, I want a gin and tonic and you want a sherry. It takes a little Dutch courage to go into new company.’

Phryne lifted the phone and expressed her wishes. In a very short time, Caroline brought in a tray. Dot introduced Phryne.

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Caroline looked at the scented hand in hers and didn’t quite know what to do with it. Then she shook it heartily.

‘Nice drop of gin,’ she said cheerfully, putting a half-bottle on the small table, along with a bottle of tonic in an ice-bucket.

She poured a judicious amount of the spirit into a tall, unfigured glass, and added tonic and a slice of lemon to the mixture.

Phryne tasted. It was perfect. She said so.

Caroline grinned. ‘Thanks, Miss. And here’s your sherry, Dot. Anything else, ladies? I’m just going off duty. After me it’s Nick, he’s a nice bloke but he’s got a heavy hand with the drinks. All his ladies get squiffy.’

‘Nothing else,’ said Phryne. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll come back and get you at seven thirty and show you the way to dinner,’ said Caroline to Dot. ‘We have dinner then, too. You can sit with us if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ said Dot. It was a kind offer. ‘I’d like that.’

Caroline went out. Dot sipped her sherry. Her family, apart from her father, were blue-ribbon teetotal, so she got a tickling feeling of wickedness from drinking even a modest glass of sherry.

Phryne drank her G and T with a distracted air. All the people at her table had been on the
Hinemoa
when the other jewels had vanished. If some unknown and exceptionally clever crew member wasn’t the thief, one of them had to be. But none of them sounded at all promising. Not from the meticulous descriptions supplied by Navigation Officer Green—a man, she was sure, who noticed things, even if they weren’t things that Phryne would necessarily want to know. Well, no sense in borrowing trouble, as her grandmother had said. And this was a very good gin and tonic. She laid Chaucer on her spare pillow and began to construe.

Dot, finding the ship’s lights not really bright enough for complex stitching, had a bag full of detective novels. She knew
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that look on Miss Phryne’s face. She was reading and thinking and did not want to be disturbed.

Dot put on her own dinner dress, a modest assemblage in dark oak silk with an autumn leaf pattern, and withdrew to her dressing table, where there was a lamp on a long stem. She opened her book.

She had just got to the exciting discovery of the body in the library when Phryne came to life and stood up, stretching.

‘Put me into the blue dress, Dot dear, it’s nearly time for your dinner. Take care, now, no Sexton Blake action. Just keep your ears open and don’t take any risks. I’ve no idea who’s involved or not so we don’t say anything about the job.’

‘But we can talk about the jewel?’ asked Dot.

‘I authorise you to positively gossip about it,’ said Phryne.

Dot dropped the calf length blue brocade dress over Phryne’s sleek head and did up the side fastening. The dress was plain and had an almost unfashionable plunge neckline and a most respectable high back. It had been chosen to show off the jewel.

Dot fastened the ring closure and also pinned the little safety chain to the back neckline of the dress. Then she placed on Phryne’s head a simple silver headband with a panache of one blue ostrich feather, which curled down to her shoulder.

‘There,’ said Dot. Phryne looked at the effect in the mirror.

She was standing there when Caroline knocked and came in.

She stood amazed.

The lady was wearing a very nice dress, but that was to be expected. What riveted the stewardess’s attention was a huge sapphire on a string of smaller sapphires. The main stone blazed almost indigo, a dark fire against Phryne’s ivory cleavage.

‘Blimey,’ said Caroline.

‘Pretty thing, isn’t it?’ responded Phryne. ‘Dot will tell you
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about it. I just couldn’t leave it at home with all the others. It’s the Maharani,’ she said. ‘The Great Queen of Sapphires.’

Phryne walked into the Grand Salon and paused, surveying the arrangements. She located table three and headed for it, threading her way through a throng of passengers. A murmur arose in her wake and she smiled privately. That was the impression she had hoped to make. Someone so rich and so vain that they would wear a precious jewel to impress the sparse company on the first night at sea . . .

Table three consisted of an elderly lady in a dark red Molyneux dinner dress which she must have bought in about 1912, a tall slim man with absurdly fluffy blond curls, and a shingled young woman in the minimum of coverage allowed by the Decency Act. The gentleman stood up as Phryne approached.

‘Ah,’ he said, on a breath of pure admiration. ‘Can it be that we have the good fortune to have you gracing our table?’

‘The good fortune is mine,’ said Phryne politely, holding out her hand. ‘Phryne Fisher.’

‘Miss Fisher,’ said the tall man. ‘I am Albert Forrester, a photographer. May I have the pleasure of introducing Professor Applegate—’ the elderly lady nodded affably—‘and Mrs West.’

Mrs West was the underclad girl. She gave Phryne a soft warm little hand, limp as a recently deceased mouse, and giggled briefly. Her eyes were fixed on Phryne’s bosom. So were Mr Forrester’s, but his interest, she judged, was aesthetic, or possibly biological. Mrs West was just afire with greed.

‘What a gorgeous stone,’ said Mrs West. She had a high, affected, childish voice.

‘Thank you,’ said Phryne.

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‘If you would like to come this way,’ offered Mr Forrester,

‘I’ll show you the buffet.’

‘Please, do continue with your dinner,’ said Phryne. ‘I can manage. I’ll be back soon.’

The buffet had been designed for slightly wobbly tummies, not yet comfortable with the sea. The soup was chilled beef consommé, the chicken was either hotly curried or in a cool aspic, the salads were crisp and offered with a vinaigrette, not mayonnaise. The beef was roasted and cold. Phryne helped herself to cold beef and salad and decided to come back for dessert. Those jellies looked so decorative, with fruit set inside them.

She returned to table three and found that it had been augmented with a worried elderly man, sitting next to Mrs West; presumably her husband. Two solid middle aged people had also arrived: a Mr Cahill and his wife. A retired grazier, Mr Forrester explained. Phryne knew the type. Spent so long with his dog and his cattle that he had lost the habit of human speech and let his wife interpret the world for him. Mrs Cahill had a comfortable figure and was wondering aloud about the constituents of the seafood in aspic that she was eating.