Flying Too High (4 page)

Phryne inspected her bed-hangings, which were black silk embroidered with green leaves, and her mossy sheets, which were dark to show off her white body. Her carpet was green and soft as new grass, and her mirrors appropriately pink, and framed in ceramic vine leaves. All she needed now was a bacchanalian lover to match the room.

She smiled as she surveyed her male acquaintance. No one leapt to mind. However, something would come along. She might leave it for awhile until she found out how her staff would react. She had yet to meet the plumber-conquering Mr Butler. Phryne calculated that she had given Dot enough time to enjoy her room and called softly, ‘Dot? Let’s go and have dinner, or would you like to stay? You can come along in the morning, and help me pack.’

Phryne did not hear the feet on the stairs, but Dot’s voice was close. ‘Oh, can I stay, Miss?’

‘Certainly. Come to the hotel at about eight, though. We’ve got a lot to do.’

‘Oh, yes, Miss,’ breathed Dot.

Phryne collected her coat and drove back to the city. She telephoned a flying friend she knew from her schooldays, and asked her to dinner, to re-acquaint herself with the aeroplane world.

‘Bunji’ Ross was a bracing young woman with an Eton crop and shoulders like a wrestler. She had begun life as a track rider, but had been discovered to be female and thrown out of the stables. She had no chance of becoming a jockey as she was too tall and heavy but found that the same qualifications that had made her a good rider made her a good flier. She had sharp reflexes, strong hands and most importantly, she never panicked.

‘Of course, Phryne, you never met Ruth Law, did you?’ asked Bunji, as she sat down in the Windsor’s plush dining-room and stared hopelessly at the menu. ‘I say, old girl, I don’t really go for all this stuff, you know. I suppose steak and chips is out of the question?’

‘Steak and chips you shall have, Bunji, old bean,’ agreed Phryne, turning to the waiter. ‘
Filet mignon
and
pommes frites
for Madame, and bring me lobster mayonnaise. Champagne,’ she added to the hovering wine waiter. ‘The Widow ’23. No, I didn’t meet Ruth Law, what was she like?’

‘A charming woman, and a simply ripping flier. But she was involved in a bad crash and her husband had a
crise de nerfs
and begged her not to fly again. As far as I know she hasn’t. Terrible waste. I hear you did a Perils of Pauline on a Moth, Phryne.’

‘News travels fast out here.’

‘Well, everyone knows everyone in the flying fraternity. Mostly it is a fraternity, too, only a few other females in Melbourne. But there’s more coming up, you know. I’ve got six in my class at the moment; good girls, too. Like I always say, all you need for flying is good reflexes and light hands. You don’t need brute force. In fact brute force will crash you nine times out of ten. Trouble is the cost of a ’bus. Look at Bill McNaughton, he’s just spent a small fortune on a new Fokker, and what is he going to do with it? Fly over the South Pole, by all that’s crazy.’

‘I met him,’ said Phryne, as the waiter filled her glass.

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, he was flying the Moth while I did my stunt.’

‘You’re a braver woman than me, then.’

‘Why, what’s wrong with him?’

‘Brute force, like I say. Wrenches his machine around as if there were no such things as metal fatigue and tensile strengths. Saw him rip the wings off a Moth once, and that takes doing. You know how forgiving they are, nicest little things, apart from a tendency to buck—a child could fly them. But Bill has never learned that muscle ain’t the solution to every problem. That’s what’s wrong with him.’

‘I told him to keep her to a steady path and compensate for the tilt, and he did.’

‘Well, that’s more than I would have thought of him. I wouldn’t try it. He’d be just as likely to loop the loop with you aloft. I’d say you had a lucky escape, old girl. Let me fill up your glass. You look pale.’

‘I feel pale,’ agreed Phryne. ‘What do you know about him, then?’

‘Bill? His father stumped up manfully for him to start his flying school. It ain’t going well. He’s a lousy teacher. Yells at his pupils and frightens them into fits, then won’t let them try on their own. They either give up flying or come to me. I’ve had three of his ex-pupils. He’d reduced all of them to pulp, especially the men. He doesn’t really think that women can fly, so he’s not so hard on ’em. It don’t do a young man any harm to be pulped occasionally. Stop ’em from getting above ’emselves. However, you can’t expect them to pay for it. He’s a bruising flier—brave but brash, and he breaks his machines. Luckily, he’s a good mechanic so he can repair his own. Word is that he gets on very badly with his dad, which is not surprising, because they are much alike. Both big, loud, self-opinionated bastards. This steak is jolly good,’ added Bunji, and tucked in joyfully. Phryne picked at her lobster mayonnaise and sipped champagne. She was obscurely worried about Bill McNaughton. Having intruded into his life, she now felt responsible for him.

‘Why not fly over the South Pole?’ she asked, idly.

‘Too big,’ said Bunji with her mouth full. ‘The North Pole is big, but most of it is ice, and so when some of the ice melts there’s a lot less land to cross. The South Pole, I believe is mostly land overlaid with ice and when the ice melts it ain’t going to get any smaller. And ice does funny things to planes. Look at poor old Nobile, the Italian, who took the airship over the North Pole. The planes sent out to rescue him all crashed, either on landing or on taking off again. That Fokker of McNaughton’s was one of the planes they sent out after him, and it only managed one journey before it crashed, nose heavy in icy air. Nothing can carry enough fuel to stay up all the way over, that’s the problem. If we could refuel in mid-air it would be different. Without a working radio and a few new inventions, it ain’t possible, Phryne. And I’m the woman who flew the Pyrenees in January. I know about snow. What shall we have for dessert? And can you lend me a gown, Phryne? I’ve got to go to a ball, to get a prize for that speed event, and they won’t let me wear my flying togs.’

Phryne sighed, as every dress she had ever lent Bunji had come back ruined; but she smiled, suggested trifle for dessert, and agreed. After all, considering her childhood of miserable poverty, it was nice to have so many dresses that it did not matter that one of them was ruined. She ate her trifle, reflecting that grinding poverty, though loathsome while one is in it, has the advantage of making one enjoy money in a way denied to the rich-from-birth.

It also enabled one to fulfil one’s sillier impulses. She reached into her bag and gave Bunji her newly printed card.

‘Miss Phryne Fisher. Investigations. 221B, The Esplanade, St Kilda,’ read Bunji. ‘You becoming a private Dick, eh? What larks! And what luck about the address.’

‘It wasn’t luck, I just added a B to 221. I bought the house for the number. You must drop in and see me, Bunji. Now come upstairs and we’ll find you a gown.’

Luckily, none of Phryne’s favourite gowns would fit the chunky Bunji, who was satisfied with a plain, loose artist’s smock in dark velvet which Phryne had bought on a whim and had never worn.

‘No, I don’t want it back. I never liked it, and it suits you beautifully. How about a hat?’

Bunji chose an extravagent felt with a bunch of violets over one ear in which she looked indescribable. Phryne did not shudder but packed it up in a box and rang for tea.

‘By the way, there’s a daughter in that family—Amelia, I think that’s her name. She came to watch Bill fly once. Arty type. Grubby but pretty, slender and pale. I asked her if she wanted to go up with me and she came over all faint, had to be helped to a chair,’ Bunji snorted, not unkindly.

‘Poor kid, living with them two, she’s had all the spirit crushed out of her. But she did a fine watercolour of the flight. Don’t know anything about art but I thought she was rather good. She gave it to me, and I put it on the wall at once. Bill saw it and said, “It’s very nice of you to encourage my sister, Bunji,” as if the stuff was rubbish, and I came right back at him and said that I thought it was a jolly good painting and that he was a Philistine, but by then the girl had crept away. He’s a brute, Bill is. I don’t like him. Anyway, dear, ta for the tea and the dinner, and thanks for the gown. I’ll come and see you when you’re settled, Sherlock, and if you want a bit of a fly, just look me up.’

Bunji breezed off, and Phryne, rather depressed, put herself to bed.

Chapter Three

‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche’

(‘Let them eat cake’)

Marie Antoinette (attributed)

Dot sat down to an early tea with Mr and Mrs Butler. There was thick vegetable soup, an egg-and-bacon pie, and apple crumble, with many cups of strong kitchen tea.

‘Well, Else, I reckon it’s a nice little house and she’s a nice girl, eh?’ beamed Mr Butler, who had won his duel with the plumber. Everything that Miss Fisher had decreed should flush, now flushed enthusiastically, and the electric fires about which Mr Butler had had doubts, were working perfectly. Dot frowned. She did not know if this was a correct way to speak about Phryne.

‘She’s a lady,’ reproved Mrs Butler. ‘And don’t you forget it, Ted. She’s got grand relations at Home and her dad is related to the King.’

‘She’s still a nice girl. Knows what she wants and gets it. And pays for it. Us, for instance.’

‘You see, my dear,’ Mrs B. said to Dot, ‘we weren’t going to take another place when our old gentleman died. Such a nice man. He had good connections, too. He left us enough money to retire—a little house in Richmond and a bit of garden, just what we’ve always wanted. But Ted and me, we ain’t old yet and somehow we didn’t really want to retire, not if we could find a good place. A smaller establishment, with no children and other help coming in for the laundry and the rough work. We put ourselves on the books of the most exclusive agency, and doubled our wages. Miss Fisher sent the solicitor to interview us and we told the lawyer what we wanted. All Miss Fisher required was that we swore not to disclose any of her personal affairs to anyone, and naturally we’d never do that. Then the solicitor upped and asked us when we could move in to supervise the alterations, and so we agreed to try out for six months and see if we suited one another. So far it’s going well. What about you, dear?’

‘I’ve been with her for three months,’ replied Dot. ‘She helped me out of a scrape. I was out of place because the son of the house was chasing me, and she took me on. Since we started this private investigator stuff it’s been all go. The only thing that might annoy you is tea at all hours if she’s working on a problem, otherwise she’s lovely,’ said Dot, taking another mouthful of apple crumble. ‘This is delicious,’ she added. Mrs Butler smiled. Like all good cooks, she loved feeding people.

‘Do you like cars, Mr Butler?’ Dot asked.

‘Call me Ted. I love cars. Always wanted to handle a machine like Miss Fisher’s. Lagonda, is it?’

‘Hispano-Suiza,’ corrected Dot. ‘She drives like a demon.’

Ted’s eyes lit up. ‘I expect she’ll let me drive her to parties and balls and so on. I shall have to get a chauffeur’s cap.’

Dot wondered how she was to mention Phryne’s habit of strewing her boudoir with beautiful naked young men. She could not think of a method of introducing the subject and decided to leave it to Phryne to cope with.

‘Well, Miss Williams, the bath water’s hot if you want it,’ said Mr Butler. ‘And the whatsername works, at last. I’m going to polish the silver,’ he said, and took himself off into the back of the house.

‘Call me Dot. I’ve got to be at the hotel by eight, Mrs Butler, so can you manage some breakfast at seven? Just tea and toast. Good night.’

Dot climbed the stairs to her own room, washed her face and hands, and fell into a dreamless sleep in her own bed, in her own room. Outside the sea roared in the first of the winter’s storms, but in 221B The Esplanade Dot was as snug as a bug in a rug.

Breakfast the next morning was bacon and eggs. Mrs Butler exclaimed at the idea of sending such a thin young woman out for a long day’s work on tea and toast. Unusually full, Dot caught the tram and arrived at the Windsor in a lowering chill. The wind had dropped but the sky was full of rain. Dot clutched her coat close and ran up the steps, greeting the doorman as she passed.

‘You must be freezing!’ she exclaimed, as he fumbled with the big door.

‘Not as bad yet as it’s going to be,’ he opined, cocking a knowing eye at the sky. ‘Miss Fisher ain’t going to walk any aeroplanes today.’

Dot found Phryne dropping her third armload of dresses onto her bed and staring at them.

‘I had no idea that I had this many clothes, Dot. I should give them away, what a collection.’

‘No, you need them all, Miss. You sit down and I’ll start packing. You make out a cheque for the bill, and I’ll have this all put away in a jiffy. By the way, the doorman knew about your stunt in the plane. You must be in the paper.’

‘Oh, good. I’ll go down and buy one. Can you cope?’

Dot nodded. She would cope much better if Phryne was not there. Phryne took her cheque book and bag and went out to drink coffee in the morning room and check each item in a voluminous bill. She was sorry to leave the Windsor. In it she had found great joy with her lover, Sasha of the
Compagnie des Ballets Masques
, now returned to France. While staying here she had broken a cocaine ring and had been instrumental in catching a notorious abortionist. It had been a fascinating three months but one could not live in a hotel all one’s life. She sighed and poured more coffee. A bottle of Benedictine? When had she ordered that?