Death by Water (7 page)

‘Poof?’ asked Dot, drawing a thread through the fabric.

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‘No necklace,’ said Phryne. ‘She thought that the clasp must have come undone, and the whole dance floor was searched, as was the lady in case it was caught inside her clothes.

No necklace. Miss Van Sluys was put to bed inconsolable and everyone was questioned about it, but no one saw anything.

And they stuck to it. Mavis and the Melody Makers were questioned but all they had seen were people whizzing past in a quickstep. Mr Van Sluys threw a conniption of massive proportions, but nothing was ever found and P&O paid for the necklace. A pretty penny, as I understand.’

‘No one saw anything?’ asked Dot, picking up cross threads with a deft needle.

‘Well, they saw lots of things, but none germane to the issue. At the time, the photographer was spooning with a middle aged widow on whom he had amorous designs, the professor was sitting the dance out with old Mr Aubrey, the Singers and the Cahills were dancing with each other, Mrs West was dancing with Jack Mason, Mr West was dancing with someone else and the crew were doing what the crew usually does. Mavis and the Melody Makers were playing

‘ Tiptoe Through the Tulips’’, though I don’t see how that piece of information helps.’

‘Must have been a young man,’ said Dot, threading another needle without even looking.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘He had to get close to her to undo the catch,’ said Dot, not even beginning to blush. Phryne wondered if her sojourn in Phryne’s house was coarsening Dot’s sensibilities. ‘Dancing a quickstep he has to put his arms around her.’

‘True. However, a lady accomplice, dancing closer than usual, could do the same thing,’ said Phryne. ‘It’s not likely the catch undid itself. People who make diamond necklaces usually
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provide them with a Bank of England secure fastening. Anyway, the girl’s maid would have checked, that’s one of the duties of a maid.’

‘Should I be doing that, too?’ asked Dot.

‘No, you aren’t a maid, you’re a companion,’ said Phryne affectionately. ‘People with companions look after their own jewellery. However, one can imagine the scene. Shrieks, wails, panic, denunciations from Papa, apologies from the company, and all this brouhaha results in—no necklace.’

‘Right,’ agreed Dot, tying off a thread.

‘Next one was two voyages later,’ said Phryne. ‘Famous opera singer, La Paloma di Napoli, real name Caterina Marinara. Light coloratura, very good at baroque music. Most famous for ‘‘The Jewel Song’’ from ‘‘Faust’’. By Gounod.’

‘Never heard of him,’ said Dot flatly. ‘Should I put another brown thread through this edging, Miss, or would gold be better?’

‘What is it going to be when it’s finished?’ asked Phryne.

‘Afternoon tea cloth,’ said Dot, shaking out the folds.

‘Not gold. Not for afternoon tea. Why not weave in a strand of that burnt sienna I see there? More dramatic but not vulgar.’

‘Good idea,’ said Dot, who always took Phryne’s advice on aesthetics. Phryne might not be able to mend even so small a thing as a rent in a stocking without pricking her fingers, making ladders, and finally throwing the stocking away and buying another, but she had excellent taste. ‘What does La Paloma mean?’

‘The dove,’ responded Phryne, lighting a gasper. ‘They call her ‘‘the dove of Naples’’. Though if any dove unwisely alighted in the part of Naples that Caterina comes from, the inhabitants would have eaten it instantly. Like many from poor hungry
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beginnings, she has considerable embonpoint and the temperament almost expected of opera singers. Tears. Complaints.

She was travelling with a frayed accompanist and a very stout hearted maid, once her nurse. The only person reckoned able to deal with one of Miss Marinara’s tantrums was this nurse, Signora Capadimento.’

‘Stands to reason,’ said Dot. ‘It’s hard to fool someone who’s wiped your bottom—and smacked it—when you were a baby. It’s like trying to impress your mother with how sick you are when you don’t want to go to school. Very hard to do.’

‘Indeed.’ Phryne stubbed out her cigarette and ruffled the notes. ‘But even the signora couldn’t calm the dove of Naples until P&O offered her a large sum, which she accepted, drying her tears with the hand not holding the money.’

‘What was stolen?’ asked Dot.

‘A big ruby,’ said Phryne. ‘While La Paloma was busy at the salon, having her hair washed. The stone should have been in the captain’s strong box, but the singer liked having it close; it reminded her of the giver, the Maharajah of Gopal. Apparently he was quite smitten. While she was out, the stone vanished from her cabin. This cabin, in fact. Everyone was questioned.

The stewardess didn’t notice a thing. I rather gather that La Paloma had made her work for her wages, poor girl. It was Caroline, your Maori friend. You might ask her about it. In fact, the stewardess was Caroline in all these cases, which need not surprise us, because she looks after both Imperial suites. Anyway, fits having been thrown, as we might say in Latin, P&O stumped up and La Paloma forgave them, unbending so far as to give a recital of light classical pieces for the adoring multitude.’

‘That was nice of her,’ said Dot, admiring the contrast of light beige and burnt sienna. Phryne had, of course, been right about gold. Gold during the day was vulgar.

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‘More so because she went and sang for Second and Third Class as well. Perhaps sopranos can be forgiven a little uneasi-ness of temperament. All those high notes must rob the brain of oxygen, I expect. At the time of the theft, most of our suspects were blamelessly occupied elsewhere, the only one unaccounted for being Jack Mason, who was supposed to have been in the Turkish bath. He may have been there but the attendant doesn’t remember seeing him. He pointed out that the steam was so thick that he might have missed even so fast moving a target as Mr Mason.’

‘And the third theft?’ prompted Dot.

‘Was of a collection of emeralds—the Attenbury emeralds, Dot, you may remember hearing about them. It was in all the papers.’

‘An old man died and left the jewels to his nurse. And the family took it to court to say that he was cuckoo,’ Dot recalled.

‘But I can’t remember what happened.’

‘The family won,’ Phryne told her. ‘They proved that the old gentleman repeatedly walked on his hands, ate only a vegetable diet, refused to see any of his relatives when they called and sent his nurse out to, for instance, buy overripe mangoes so that he could throw them against a wall. He liked the splosh, apparently.

The nurse looked on these actions as harmless eccentricities but the stern majesty of the law took a different view. The mangoes alone were enough to convince the court that the testator was not in his right mind. Miss Jacobs, the nurse, was turned out without a penny and became companion to Miss Berengaria Reynolds, the elderly lady who was the principal beneficiary, being the old man’s only close relative. His sister, I believe.

‘Reading between Mr Navigation Officer Theodore Green’s tactful lines, I gather that the old lady was one of those poisonous bitches who make it their practice to humiliate their
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companion in every possible way. Especially in public. Miss Jacobs was always being sent back for things she had forgotten because Miss Reynolds hadn’t told her to bring them, berated for bringing things Miss Reynolds didn’t want after all, called a fool in every possible way for failing to read her mistress’s mind and grudged any time out of her persecutress’s claws.

Presumably in case she recovered any joie de vivre.’

‘I know that sort of lady,’ said Dot, lips tightening.

‘Me too. Not to mention the personal abuse, about how ugly she was and how unlikely to attract a man, and how she would have to spend the rest of her miserable life as a companion to such as Miss Berengaria,’ said Phryne. ‘Now if Miss Berengaria had been dropped overboard no one would have been even slightly surprised. There might, in fact, have been discreet applause. But instead the Attenbury emeralds went byes while Miss Berengaria was taking a virtuous afternoon nap and Miss Jacobs was in the Palm Court, drinking a gin fizz in company with Mr Albert Forrester. And if ever a woman needed a gin fizz and some complimentary male company it was poor Miss Jacobs. Of course Miss Reynolds instantly denounced her for the theft, but it was clear that she had a perfect alibi.’

‘And the jewels were never found?’

‘Not so much as a glint of green glass. The last theft was from Mrs West, the underdressed lady. It was a necklace of perfectly matched pearls. Pink ones, each about the size of a marrowfat pea. Worth untold squillions, though Mr West settled for less than that. Again, removed from the lady while she was dancing. With, as it happens, Mr Mason, but she dances with him a lot. Again, an increasingly stringent search.

Again, not a sausage. Same cast. They must know each other very well by now.’

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‘Indeed,’ said Dot. She stitched steadily. ‘Oh, by the way, Miss, I met a musician who said she was Mr Cec’s niece.’

‘Lizbet Yates? Plays the trumpet. Which I think is very enterprising of her.’

‘Nice girl, though she’s a bit rough and some of the other Melody Makers are rougher,’ opined Dot, biting off a thread.

‘The amount of drink they got through, you’d think it was the wharfies’ picnic. And it’s not nice, a lady drinking beer like that.’

‘All brass players drink a lot of beer,’ said Phryne. ‘They blow themselves quite dehydrated. Or that’s what I’m told—

by, now I come to think of it, brass players. At least she’s a good tempered creature, unlike some male trumpeters I have met.’

‘Nice as pie,’ said Dot. ‘Very friendly. I’m having lunch with most of them. Lunch in the Palm Court only rates a string quartet so the rest of them get to sit down with us servants and crew.’

‘Keep your ears . . . er . . . peeled; doesn’t sound right, does it? Pay close attention, Dot dear. Who knows all about the passengers? The stewards. See if you can find anything that the victims had in common.’

‘They are all ladies,’ said Dot.

‘Yes,’ said Phryne. ‘But that may just be because it’s the ladies who wear the jewels. Now, I’m going to have a swim.

Coming?’

‘Too cold for me,’ shivered Dot, who could be persuaded to venture into the shallow end of a pool only when the temperature was over the century mark and rocketing skywards.

‘I’ll sit here and complete this side of my sewing. Then I might have a walk around and look at the shop. The stewards say it’s very good. I need some more ivory thread.’

‘Then I’ll see you later,’ said Phryne, donning her bathing slip, putting a loose cotton dress on over it and gathering towel,
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bathing cap, hat and capacious bag. It was figured with Pierrot and Columbine in jazz colours of black, white and purple. It had been made for Phryne by a craft needlewoman in St Kilda, discovered contributing real works of art to the Lady Mayor-ess’s Fund Sale of Work. For possibly the first occasion in that fund’s history. Her hat had a gay panache of a jazz coloured scarf, knotted in the middle and stitched to the band.

‘Miss!’ hissed Dot. ‘What about the . . . thingy?’

‘Got it safe,’ said Phryne, patting her bag. She stowed into it various other aids to comfort and went out.

Dot threaded another needle. Swimming! It must have been spending all that time in Europe, where it snowed, that made Miss Phryne so proof against cold. Or possibly it was her hot blood.

Leaving that topic immediately, Dot put on the radio, which played gentle dance tunes, and resumed stitching.

Sean O’Reilly

Queenstown

Ireland

God and Patrick be with you cousin dear we will be arriving on
the train at eight in the morning on the seventh. Little Seamus is
eager to be on the big ship. He says it is lucky because of the name
of the line. Father says he will grow up to be a fisherman. Men
who use the sea always watch stars, you see. I am so glad that you
will be able to see us on board. We are to be gone forever and that
is a weary time.

Yours, dear cousin

Fionnghula

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CHAPTER FOUR

I would be the necklace

. . . Upon her balmy bosom

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘The Miller’s Daughter’

The water was agreeably cold and refreshing. Phryne dived in, swam a few strokes, then rolled over and lazed. This time, ten of the morning, when the day had been properly aired, was her favourite. All the fanatical early-to-rise brigade had done their grim ten laps and gone to a virtuous breakfast. It was too early for the real sybarites who never breakfasted but arose in good time for lunch. The swimming race was at three. The sky above her was as blue as lapis lazuli. She floated on her back in the dead centre of an empty swimming bath in complete luxury.

But it was not to last. A young man hurried up and flung himself almost on top of her. Phryne was forced down to the bottom, from whence she rose in wrath and fetched Jack Mason a tidy buffet on the ear.

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‘Idiot,’ she snarled. ‘Can’t you look where you’re diving, you clumsy lout?’

‘Oops!’ he said ruefully, clutching her by the shoulders and trying to rub his ear with the same hand, which had the effect of driving Phryne under again. She dived away from him and came up at a safe distance, still furious. Jack Mason, keeping out of cuffing range, said, ‘Golly, Miss Fisher, dashed frightful of me! Can you ever forgive me? Let me get you a drink? I say, Steward!’ he called to the swimming pool steward, a sedate older man in a white coat. ‘Can you help this distressed lady out and fetch her a nice drink? And me too? I really am so very sorry,’ he said again, paddling to the side like a puppy deeply conscious of a suspiciously wet spot on the Axminster.