Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (22 page)

Phryne replaced all the chattels except the letters, and opened them carefully, sliding off the elaborate bow of ribbon. She read rapidly, with one eye on her inert client, who moaned occasionally. As she read, her eyebrows rose until they disappeared under her bangs.

‘A fine, robust turn of phrase the gentleman has,’ she commented aloud. ‘Who is he?’ She leafed through the pages of passionate prose and found the signature: ‘Your devoted Gerald’. Gerald had not carried his frankness as far as putting his full name or address on the letters. Phryne folded them carefully in their original creases and slipped them back into the envelopes and the ribbon. Mrs McNaughton had hidden depths. Her husband’s name was—or had been—William, and she had been married for many years. The letters were recent, the paper and ink were fresh. The incriminating correspondence was back in the bag and Phryne was staring idly into the fire by the time Dot and Mr B. re-entered, escorting a very young doctor.

He was tall and slim, with curly hair and dark brown eyes. Phryne felt an immediate interest and stood up to greet him. He took a stride forward, caught his foot in the hearthrug, and almost fell into Phryne’s arms. She embraced him heartily, feeling the strong flat muscles in his back before she replaced him on his feet and smiled at him.

‘I’m Phryne Fisher,’ she said warmly. ‘Are you the local doctor?’

‘Yes,’ stammered the enchanting young man, blushing with embarrassment. ‘Sorry. I still haven’t got used to the length of my legs. Hope I didn’t hurt you. I’m Dr Fielding. I’ve just started with old Dr Dorset; I’ve only been here a few months.’

‘I’ve just moved in,’ said Phryne. ‘I hope we shall be friends. Meanwhile, this is Mrs McNaughton.’ She indicated the supine woman, and Dr Fielding lost his clumsiness. He took a chair and sat down beside the patient, gestured to Mr B. to bring his bag, then gently pulled back the ragged hair from her face. He unhooked his watch and took her pulse, put away the watch, and laid the limp hot hand down carefully.

‘She’s collapsed from some terrible shock,’ he said sternly. ‘What has happened?’

‘Her son has just been arrested for murdering her husband,’ said Phryne. ‘I think that you would call that a terrible shock. She arrived at the door in a state and fainted into Mr B.’s arms. Did she say anything, Mr Butler?’

‘No, Miss Fisher. Just her name. Then she keeled over. Shall I fetch anything, Doctor?’ His voice was quietly respectful.

‘Yes, can you go down to the chemist and fill this prescription?’ Dr Fielding scribbled busily. ‘I can give her an injection which will help for the moment, and then she should be put to bed.’

‘Doctor, she doesn’t live here,’ protested Phryne. ‘She should be taken to her own home. And if I am to investigate the matter, I need her awake, at least for a short time, to tell me what happened when her husband was murdered.’ Dr Fielding looked Phryne in the eye.

‘I will not give the patient anything that will act to her detriment, Miss Fisher.’

‘I am not asking you to, Dr Fielding. All I want is a safe stimulant so that she can tell me what she wants me to do. I can’t act without instructions, and only she can give them to me. If she’s going to be laid up with an attack of brain fever or something she might be
non compos
for weeks.’ Dr Fielding compressed his lips, shook his head, counted the pulse again, then filled a syringe with a clear liquid. He gave the injection, then sat down again, watching his patient’s face attentively.

Mrs McNaughton stirred and tried to sit up. Phryne brought a glass of water, and she sipped.

‘Oh, Miss Fisher, you must help me. They’ve arrested Bill.’

‘Delighted to help, but you must calm down, take a deep breath, and tell me what happened.’

‘I went out to call in Danny the dog. It was getting dark and I heard him howling, on the tennis-court. I went out and there was William lying on the court with his head . . . horrible, all that blood . . . and I screamed, and the police came, and took Bill away and now they’ll hang him.’

Her voice was rising into hysteria. Dr Fielding put a large soothing hand on her wrist. Phryne smiled as confidently as she could.

‘Calm yourself, my dear. I will investigate the matter. Today I’ll go and see Bill and I’ll do my best to get him out. All you have to do is close your eyes and rest. You won’t be useful to Bill in your present state. Now Dr Fielding will give you an injection and when you wake up you’ll be in your own house.’

Dr Fielding was prompt upon his cue and the tortured eyes lost their rigid gaze.

‘Right, now we shall see what we shall see. Mr B., what about the medicine?’

‘I’ve sent the boy next door for it, Miss. I thought that I should call Mrs McNaughton’s home.’

‘Quite right. Was anyone home?’

‘Yes, Miss, the lady’s daughter. She is on her way to fetch her mother and asks that we wait for her. She has also given me the name and telephone number of the lady’s own medical practitioner. I’ve telephoned him and he would like a word with Dr Fielding.’

Dr Fielding paled, tripped over a small table, and took the receiver. There was a short conversation which Phryne did not catch, then he hung up. A relieved smile illuminated his pleasant face.

‘I appear to have adopted the right course of treatment. Her doctor says that she is a nervous subject. Well, you don’t need me anymore, Miss Fisher.’

‘Oh, yes I do,’ said Phryne hurriedly, unwilling to let the first pretty young man she had seen for weeks out of her sight. ‘Please stay until the daughter comes and oversee the start of the journey, at least. Sit down, Doctor. We shall have tea.’

Dr Fielding was a skilled medical practitioner, but his social encounters had been limited. Against Phryne he did not stand a chance.

He sat down and accepted a cup of tea.

Molly Maldon received the return of Jack Leonard and her husband with barely concealed anxiety.

‘Nothing?’ she whispered. Henry shook his head.

‘She was angry with me for not taking her to the lolly shop,’ Mrs Maldon sat down suddenly. ‘She stopped asking me, after a while, and that isn’t like Candida. The lolly shop. Of course!’ Without taking off her apron or putting on her hat, Molly Maldon ran down the hall and out through the door, into the street like a steeplechaser. Jack and Henry looked at each other, and shook their heads. There was no accounting for women. It was well known.

Molly tore round the corner and struggled through the bamboo curtain. The window was packed with gingerbread men in golden coats. How Candida had coveted those sixpenny gingerbread soldiers. After her spanking she should have a whole one to herself, thought Molly. The shop bell jangled wildly.

‘Have you seen a small girl in a blue dress, fair hair and an Alice band?’

‘Why yes,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘She told me her name—Candida, she said. Spent threepence on lollies. I told her not to eat them all at once. Why? Ain’t her dad brought her home yet? He left a good two hours ago.’

‘Her dad?’ gasped Molly, wondering for a distracted moment if Henry were playing a joke on her. If so, he would know how she felt about it seconds after he gave Candida back.

‘Yes, in a big black car, a woman and a man.’

‘What kind of car?’

‘Like I said, a big black one. My Jimmy might have noticed more, clean mad about motors, he is.’

‘Where is Jimmy, then?’

‘He’s gone to school, Missus, he was only here for lunch, but he’ll be home at half-past three, if you want to come back. What’s the trouble? Has something happened to the little girl?’

‘Yes,’ said Molly, and ran out of the shop.

There, lying in the gutter, was a bag of sweets. Mint leaves and silver sticks spilled onto the ground. Molly gathered them up tenderly and ran back to her husband.

‘Hello, old girl, did you find her?’ asked Henry, looking up from the depths of a comfortable armchair. Molly flung the bag of lollies into his lap and screamed.

‘I think she’s been kidnapped. The sweet-shop woman saw her taken away in a big black car. Call the police!’

Henry brushed off the cascade of honeybears and bananas, and stood up to take his wife in a close embrace. She was weeping bitterly.

‘Call the police,’ she whispered into his chest. ‘Call the police.’

He shook her gently. ‘Hang on, dear girl, let’s not go off half-cocked. If she’s been kidnapped for money then we must wait for a ransom note. If we bring the police into it they might hurt her . . . they might . . .’ He could not go on.

Jack Leonard handed him a whisky and soda which was mostly whisky.

They settled down to wait. Henry Maldon would have preferred flying over Antarctica in a blizzard.

CHAPTER FOUR

All Art is quite useless

Oscar Wilde
Picture of Dorian Gray

‘Miss Amelia McNaughton, Miss Fisher,’ announced Mr Butler.

Phryne and the young doctor had been getting on famously when a faltering ring of the doorbell had interrupted their flirtation. Phryne pulled her mind back to the task at hand and took a good look at the daughter of the McNaughton house. It was not encouraging. Amelia was tall and thin, with ruthlessly cropped mousy hair and blotchy skin. She had beautifully shaped hands, long and white, but they were stained with paint and the nails had been gnawed down to the quick. She had obviously dressed in a hurry or in the dark, for she was wearing a shapeless knitted skirt, darned black lisle stockings, and an over-large shirt and jacket. Her pale blue eyes flicked from Phryne to Dr Fielding and she was biting her lower lip.

Dr Fielding stood up and offered her his chair.

‘Please sit down, Miss McNaughton, and have some tea,’ invited Phryne. ‘Your mother is quite all right for the moment. Dr Fielding has given her a sedative. You must be cold. Mr B., could you get more tea? No, on second thoughts, a cocktail would be more suitable,’ she went on, observing the blue lips and the features pinched, as if with cold.

Miss McNaughton sank down into the chair and held out her gnawed fingers to the bright fire.

‘Thank you, Miss Fisher. I don’t know what to do. Father is dead, and Bill arrested, and mother in a state, and I’ve no one to turn to . . .’

‘Have you no relatives in Melbourne who might help?’

‘God, no. There’s my father’s brothers; Uncle Ted and Uncle Bob. Both of them worse than useless. We have never been a close family. Uncle Ted telephoned, but all he wanted to say was that Father had left him some shares in his will and that now was the time to transfer them, because the market was turning down and they should be sold.’

‘Charming,’ commented Phryne. Dr Fielding got to his feet and kicked the fire-irons over.

‘Lord, man, can’t you keep your seat?’ snapped Phryne. ‘We have enough to worry about without you doing three rounds with the furniture. I want you here to take Mrs McNaughton home and I’d be obliged if you would stay put.’

Dr Fielding stiffened. ‘I would not be remiss in my duty to the patient, but I did not wish to be third-party to a conference,’ he announced. ‘I shall sit in the kitchen until you are ready, Miss Fisher.’

He stalked out to be comforted by Mrs Butler with teacake.

‘“It is offended: see, it stalks away”,’ quoted Phryne and chuckled. ‘What a strong sense of propriety, to be sure. Miss McNaughton, I am reluctant to leave you in that house with no one to look after you.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ muttered Miss McNaughton gracelessly. ‘Mama’s maid was my nurse. We shall do well together. And now that Father is . . . is dead, Mama’s nerves will be better.’

‘If your father was anything like your brother Bill, then he must have been rather . . . er . . . robust in his private life.’

‘He was a loud, crass, overbearing, selfish brute,’ said Miss McNaughton flatly. ‘He nearly drove Mother mad and he always treated me like a chattel.’ She gulped her cocktail thirstily. ‘Do you know what he wanted to do, Miss Fisher? In this year of 1928? He wanted to marry me off.’

‘How medieval,’ said Phryne. ‘How did you feel about that? I should have dug in my heels.’

‘So I did,’ agreed the young woman rather muzzily. Mr Butler’s cocktails had some authority. ‘I told him I’d see him damned first. I have my own man.’

She cast Phryne a glance both proud and oddly ashamed.

‘Oh, good. An artist, is he?’

Miss McNaughton’s pale eyes glowed. ‘He’s a sculptor. He is in the forefront of modern art. Father would not have spat on him, because he is a foreigner.’

‘I have always been interested in art,’ agreed Phryne. ‘What sort of foreigner?’

‘An Italian. Paolo Raguzzi. You will have heard of him, if you are interested in art.’

‘I haven’t investigated the Melbourne art world at all, Miss McNaughton, I have only been here for three months. However, are you now intending to marry?’

‘Of course.’

‘You must invite me to the wedding. Now, perhaps we had better get your mother home. I’ll come too, and have a squiz at the scene of the crime. What is the name of the investigating policeman?’

‘I can’t remember . . . Barton, was it? No, Benton. Detective-inspector Benton.’

‘Right. How did you get here? Do you have a car?’

‘Yes, I took Father’s Bentley. He didn’t know that I could drive. We’d better call back that doctor.’

Phryne rang the electric bell. When Mr Butler appeared, she asked for Dr Fielding. He came, in offended silence, certified Mrs McNaughton safe to drive, and carried her out to the car. Phryne saw that, although he was tall and clumsy, he carried the not inconsiderable burden of the unconscious woman without apparent effort.

Phryne took hat, gloves and coat from Dot and dismissed her at the door. ‘You stay here and mind the phone, Dot. Call me at the McNaughton’s if anything interesting happens. Stay home, I might need you. Do you have Bert’s number?’

‘Yes, Miss. Be careful, Miss.’

‘I’m not going flying again today, Dot, I promise. Have a nice cosy evening, and tell Mrs B. that I shall be dining out.’ Phryne sailed down the steps in a red cloth coat with an astrakhan collar, which made her look as though she was wearing a sheep around her neck. Her hat was black felt and her boots Russian leather. Dr Fielding straightened up from depositing Mrs McNaughton in the car and came face to face with her. She smelt bewitchingly of ‘Jicky’.

‘Do not be offended, Doctor. One is prone to be sharp when one is upset. I beg your pardon, and I hope to see you again in a less clinical circumstance. Come to dinner on Thursday at seven.’

She gave him a dazzling smile and her strong, scented hand. He floated off down the street to his Austin in a strange state between insult and adoration. Phryne smiled after him, satisfied with the impression she had created, and hopped into the Bentley next to the sleeping woman.

Miss McNaughton was a good, if reckless driver, and Phryne had nothing to do during the drive but to cushion Mrs McNaughton against the bumps. Amelia McNaughton took corners as though they were a personal affront.

After about half an hour, during which Phryne sustained a number of bruises, the car turned and swept up the paved drive of a big, modern house. Miss Amelia leapt out of the car and ran into the house to find aid in carrying her mother. Phryne eased herself out of her position between Mrs McNaughton and the door, and got out.

It was three o’clock on a fine, breezy winter’s day. The beech and elm trees that lined the drive had lost all of their foliage, but the house evidently kept a gardener, for there was not a leaf to be seen lying on the smooth lawns. The house was of a modern shape; cubist, with a mural consisting of slabs of rainbow colours over the front door. The mural was reminiscent of art deco jewellery, and Phryne liked it, especially against the smooth, flat planes of the building. Without the decoration the house would have been just a collection of different sized boxes in a cool grey brick.

The designer of this residence had decided that privacy was the keynote, and had placed the house in the very centre of the available space and surrounded it with a formal garden on one side, a kitchen garden at the back, and rolling park-like garden with tennis-court on the sides facing the road. No other houses could be seen. The house appeared as a little island of habitation in a wild and possibly dangerous wood. Even the traffic could not be heard, and at the bottom of the garden was the Studley Park rift. This was a deep valley with the river at the bottom and untouched forest occupying the slopes. It would be a very lonely place for the nervous. Phryne wondered how Mrs McNaughton liked living there and whether she had been consulted at all in the building of it.

Amelia returned with a gardener and a stout woman in an apron. Together they lifted Mrs McNaughton, and bore her into the hall and up the stairs to a small room with a narrow bed.

‘Surely this isn’t her room?’ asked Phryne in surprise.

‘Yes, since she stopped sleeping with Father. He wouldn’t let her have another room. He said that she could stay with him in the big room or have this, so she chose this. She says it makes her feel safe; there are no windows, just the light from the stairwell. But she doesn’t have to lock herself in anymore,’ said Miss McNaughton as she straightened her mother’s limbs and composed them for further slumber. ‘And here’s one door he won’t batter against again.’

She stepped out of the room, leaving the stout woman to sit by the bed, and pointed to dents and cracks in the wood. The door had done nobly in fending off the master of the house. The timbers had cracked a little, but they had not broken.

‘Ah,’ said Phryne, deeply disgusted and wondering whether she wanted to find out who killed Mr McNaughton.

‘He used to hit her—and me, too,’ said Miss McNaughton matter-of-factly. ‘But he stopped hitting me because I said I’d leave and that I’d take Mother with me. That frightened him; he was terrified of scandal, and I could have made a very impressive one. He didn’t beat Mother while I was here, but I wasn’t here very often. I am at the Gallery School, you know.’

‘Yes, your brother told me you were an artist. And Bunji still has your watercolour of a plane on her wall.’ Phryne was fishing. In all this time Miss McNaughton had not mentioned her brother.

‘Bill didn’t think that I could paint. He has the artistic sensibilities of an ox. And he called Paolo a greasy little dago. But he didn’t kill my father,’ stated Miss McNaughton, stopping on the stairs with one hand on the bannister. ‘If Bill had killed Father he would have announced it to the world. He would not have run away. He takes after Father—everything he does has to be right. He and Father never made a mistake or offered an apology in their lives. Bill would have stood over the body and announced that he had a perfect right to kill his own father if he liked, and would anyone care to argue about it? I don’t know who killed Father, but it was not Bill. I don’t care if you don’t find who killed him. In fact I’d rather you did not. Father had thousands of people who rightly hated him and any one of them is more valuable than Father. I loathed him and I hated what he did to me and my mother; do you know, after he had pounded on Mother’s door and been refused, he used to come and make an attempt on me?’

‘Did he succeed?’ asked Phryne gently. Miss McNaughton stared through Phryne with her pale blue eyes.

‘When I was younger,’ she said quietly. ‘He managed to catch me in the bathroom. Twice. After that I put a chair under the handle. He used to stand outside and bellow at me to let him in. I considered it, because it might have calmed him down, but I couldn’t, I really couldn’t. That’s why Paolo is the only man I have ever loved—could ever love. He took such pains with me, he was so patient when I flinched and cried, and . . . and . . .’

‘I know,’ observed Phryne quietly. ‘But it happens to a lot of women. You and I are fortunate in that we have found lovers who could coax us out of our shells. Come down, Miss McNaughton, and let’s get warm. Then you can show me your work.’

‘Please call me Amelia,’ said Miss McNaughton suddenly. ‘You are the only person apart from Paolo that I have told . . . come and sit by the fire in the drawing-room, and I’ll bring the stuff down. You might not like it,’ she warned, and ran upstairs again.

Phryne was shown into a fine big drawing-room with Chinese furnishings. The ceiling was lacquered red and the walls were hung with scroll paintings and embroideries. Several brocade garments decorated the chimney piece, and the chairs were pierced and decorated blackwood, with silk cushions and legs carved with lions and clouds.

On the mantleshelf stood one free-standing jade sculpture of a rather self-satisified dragon devouring a deer. The deer’s eyes reminded Phryne uncomfortably of Mrs McNaughton’s and Phryne turned away from it to study the silk painting by the square, latticed window. She recognised it as a copy of a famous artist. It was ‘Two Gentlemen Discoursing Upon Fish’. ‘Look how the fish disport themselves in the clear water,’ enthused one gentleman. ‘That is how the Almighty gives pleasure to fish.’ ‘You are not a fish,’ objected the other. ‘How do you know what gives pleasure to fish?’ ‘You are not I,’ replied the first. ‘How do you know that I do not know what gives pleasure to fish?’ And that, of course, was unanswerable.

What did any of us know about the other, mused Phryne. If she had met the late and entirely unlamented Mr McNaughton, would she have known that he was a domestic tyrant who, when refused by his wife, had sexually assaulted his daughter?

Amelia came in with a rush, and shoved a portfolio of impressive proportions into Phryne’s arms. ‘I’ll see about the tea,’ she muttered, and rushed out again. Phryne diagnosed artistic modesty.

She emptied the folio onto the blackwood table and spread out the contents. There were watercolours, a few oil sketches, and charcoal and red chalk drawings. They were good, Phryne found with pleasure. It was always easier to genuinely praise than to try and find something nice to say about rubbish.

There were three watercolours of aeroplanes, with a pale wash of sky behind them. There were sharp, clear pencil drawings of flowers and birds, exhibiting signs of a Chinese phase. There were several rather muddy landscapes and a clever cubist house; but Miss McNaughton’s real skill was in portraiture. With chalk or charcoal she could catch a likeness more clearly than a photograph. Here was Bill in flying togs, hulking and self-confident, but with a hint of reckless good-humour which Phryne had also seen. Here was her mother, in pastels, worn and lined, with the fluffy, harried look so familiar to Phryne. It was evident that Amelia’s skills were not yet perfect—she was prone to a certain lack of confidence in her lines and some of her colours might have been bolder. Phryne searched through the portraits with delight. Here was a group of children, somewhat after Murillo but nonetheless charming. Here were eleven studies of a cat; she had caught the creature’s elusive muscularity under the fur. Here was a swarthy man, thin and intense, with deep eyes and charming faun-like face; he had pointed ears, and the whole gave an impression of power and patience. Phryne was reminded of a Medici, and wondered if it was a copy of a Renaissance work. She turned the oil over. ‘Paolo’. Aha. Good looking, but not beautiful. Deep, and a strong personality. Such a man must have made a potent impression on Amelia, who was not familiar with any powerful man who did not brawl and rape. She looked forward to meeting him.