Murder in Montparnasse (21 page)

Hugh felt that, after all, there was something to be said for Food Reform.

‘Miss?’ asked Dot, coming in to the drawing room at about three o’clock. ‘Can I help?’ she added, seeing the bits of paper strewn all over the desk. Phryne was not being assisted by Ember, who had an uncanny ability to ascertain which book, reference or note she was going to need next and then sitting on it. This meant that Phryne had to politely request that he move and stroke him before retrieving her information.

‘You can remove Ember,’ she said.

Ember, who had picked up quite a lot of English, drew himself onto his paws and stalked out of a room where the barbarians did not appreciate his company. Besides, he had heard the clang of the ice-box door and knew that Mrs Butler was preparing dinner.

‘Never mind, he’s removed himself.’

‘I think he understands every word we say,’ said Dot dotingly.

‘Probably. At least, as far as it concerns him. Dot, I am trying to find a passenger who came in on the
Stranraer
, and I don’t know where to start. He’s here for a while and he has his wife with him, so he’s probably rented a house.’

‘Or maybe a room,’ said Dot, looking at the scatter of papers. ‘There must be hundreds of people renting rooms in Melbourne.’

‘Yes. Where do we begin?’

‘At the beginning,’ said Dot briskly. ‘Where did he go when he got off the boat? Station Pier is the place to start. Would he have friends in Australia?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Phryne. ‘Never had any while I knew him.’

‘Don’t aliens have to register with the police?’ asked Dot.

‘Quite right, Dot, they do. Here are his registration details.’

‘René Dubois,’ read Dot. ‘Place of birth, Riom, Auvergne, France. Date of birth, 21st February, 1890. Occupation, gentleman.’

Phryne snorted. ‘I wonder what they do to you for lying to Customs,’ she mused.

‘Probably something nasty. Why, isn’t he a gentleman?’

‘René Dubois is many things,’ said Phryne grimly, ‘but he isn’t, and never has been, a gentleman.’

‘Oh.’ Dot didn’t feel that she needed any more information. The trouble with Phryne was that if you asked her for further details, she would probably give them, and Dot knew that she didn’t want to know. ‘Well, the new arrivals usually go to one of the hotels on the foreshore. Just until the ground stops rocking under their feet and they’ve got their bearings. The Port Melbourne, that’s the biggest. Then there’s the Maritime and the Sailor’s Rest.’

‘If it’s René, it’ll be the cheapest, and the nearest to any source of sly grog. I don’t know those hotels.’

‘I should think not,’ said Dot tolerantly. ‘But Mr Bert would.’

‘So he would. But can you imagine any hotel clerk giving Bert any confidential information?’

Dot giggled. ‘I bet he knows all of them,’ she said. ‘Very close together, those Port people. All in the family, like.’

‘You have a point. I don’t want to ask him, Dot. I’d be putting him in danger. I think René is the murderer. It’s an absolutely groundless suspicion, and I can’t really tell Jack Robinson, because when he asks me for my proof, I haven’t got any. And when he asks me how I know this Dubois, and I tell him that he broke my heart in Paris in 1918, then he’ll laugh.’

‘He wouldn’t,’ said Dot indignantly.

‘Your clever Hugh has found out that a small, dark Frenchman was talking to poor Thomas MacKenzie just before he was murdered. And the man signed the hotel register as René Dupont. Dupont is the French form of ‘Smith’. And don’t people who take on false names usually keep their initials and sometimes their first names? Something to do with losing their identity.’

‘Mr Robinson would accept that,’ said Dot.

‘Maybe. I want some more proof before I go to him with such a mad idea, though.’

‘Were there any other Renés in the list of people coming into Australia?’ asked Dot.

Phryne ran her finger down the list. ‘No. Lots of Jean-Pauls, Jean-Baptistes, Jean-Lucs, Michels, Edouards, Raouls and a sprinkling of Henris and Guillaumes, but no other Renés,’ replied Phryne, scanning the list again.

‘I think Mr Bert could find out,’ said Dot. ‘And he won’t be in danger if he knows about it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Phryne. ‘You’re right, I suppose. Let’s get Bert on the phone and ask him.’

After the usual difficulties of persuading a willfully deaf landlady to locate Bert and usher him to the phone, Phryne put the matter to him.

‘So you think this Dubois character is our murderer?’ demanded Bert gruffly.

‘I think so, but I’ve got no proof and only a lot of guesses. We need to find him, and Dot suggested that you might be the person who could get information out of the clerks at the Station Pier hotels.’

‘Yair, well, as it happens, Cec’s cousin’s nephew is clerk at the Port, Cec’s brother’s daughter is a housemaid at the Maritime, and me auntie works at the Sailor’s Rest. But there’s a lot of boarding houses round here. P’raps we try the hotels first. And you don’t have to tell me to be careful, Miss Phryne, in case you was thinking of it.’

‘Well, actually, Bert dear, I was thinking of asking you not to kill him until we find out if he’s the murderer. Not because I don’t think the world would be a cleaner, sweeter place without René, because I do, but because if you should, quite without meaning to, sort of bludgeon him to death and he
isn’t
the murderer, then we’d be back to the beginning with a false sense of security. If you follow me.’

There was a pause while Bert sorted this out.

‘I follow yer,’ said Bert at last. ‘Good point. I’ll make sure we don’t do him, carelessly, until we know it’s him. I’ll take Cec with me to mind my back. It’s not as if we haven’t done that trick before, and it’ll give us something to do. These other blokes are drinking us out of house and home. It’s like the good old days round here. I’ll call yer when I know something. Bye,’ said Bert, and hung up.

‘But there’s another thing we could try,’ said Phryne.

‘Yes, Miss?’ Dot was pleased to see the light of curiosity back in Miss Phryne’s eyes. She’d been miserable the last few days, crying out in her sleep. Dot had learned that she was worried about Mr Lin, and the Butlers’ defection, and something to do with Paris. Dot had tried to express her sympathy by service; mended stockings, nice baths, choice of dresses. But she felt helpless against this avalanche of memories. However, now it appeared that Miss Phryne had gotten over whatever it was that had been giving her nightmares. Her green eyes were sparkling, her cheeks were pink, her hair was a shiny, patent-leather black and she looked like an animated Dutch doll, which was how she should look. Her frank conversation with Bert did not shock Dot as it might have done in her early days with Miss Phryne. If Phryne said that the world would be better without a certain person, then she had a reason. Anyway, she had been asking Mr Bert
not
to kill someone. Dot’s conscience, never particularly elastic, could accept that.

‘Music,’ said Phryne. ‘I cannot imagine René abandoning music. It was the only thing he loved. He and that button accordion were joined at the hip. He even used to go to bed with it—no need to look shocked, Dot dear, just in the middle of winter to keep the reeds from freezing. Assuming that he has moved with the times, where would we find him in these jazz conscious days?’

‘You know all the best places,’ said Dot. ‘But you shouldn’t go alone!’ she added quickly.

‘Quite,’ Phryne replied. ‘I propose taking you and Hugh with me. Hugh for decoration and you to back me up in case there’s trouble. Real French accordion players are worth their weight in plantinum. Isn’t Hugh supposed to be back by now?’

‘On the train today,’ Dot replied. ‘Mr Robinson said.’

‘And Jack is going to raid the house in Acland Street tonight, so it may be a fatiguing evening,’ said Phryne. ‘I might retire for a nap. The bookshop should have sent some more detective stories. Is Ruth still reading those ghastly romances, Dot?’

‘Yes,’ said Dot. ‘But I don’t think they’re doing her any harm, miss.’

‘And it’s better that we know what she’s reading rather than have her boggling at
The Awful Adventures of Maria Monk
under the covers, I suppose,’ said Phryne. ‘But she’s always seemed such a sensible girl.’

‘She’ll grow out of it,’ said Dot firmly. ‘We all do.’

‘I never started,’ said Phryne. ‘But if a sensible person like you read them, Dot dear, then I shall stop worrying.’

‘Oh yes, I went through all of the romances in Miss Mudie’s Lending Library,’ said Dot. ‘And all them three-volume novels too—
The Rosary
and
The Daisy Chain
. They didn’t do me any harm. You’ll see. After a while she’ll find out they’re like eating too much Turkey lolly. All sweet pink fluff and no food. And she’s keeping up her studies, she got an A for her chemistry exam yesterday.’

‘Excellent.’ Phryne picked up
The Clue of the Skeleton Key
and went out of the room, collecting a glass of water on the way. This evening would require a clear head.

She debated as to whether she should call Mr Chambers and tell him not to pay the ransom, but continued her climb towards her own apartments. It was never wise, she had found, to count her chickens before they had tapped their way out of the egg.

Bert and Cec did not bother with the front door of the Port Melbourne Hotel, which was their first destination. They did not like front doors. They went straight to the kitchen door and asked for Jimmy Clarke. The kitchen was such a scurry of white aprons and seething, steaming, boiling and roasting that they were driven back into the anteroom where the vegetables awaited their transformation into food. Bert leaned on a sack of potatoes.

‘My old man told me, never get into a trade where you have to feed people,’ said Bert.

‘Like being a taxi driver,’ commented Cec. ‘Changed minds, contrary cusses and lots of going crook.’

‘S’pose,’ agreed Bert. ‘But a hotel can’t just tell their customers to shut up and pay up or walk home.’

‘Yair, but a taxi driver can’t drop fag ash into the soup,’ said Cec, watching a cook do precisely that.

‘True,’ agreed Bert. ‘Bloody heavy, the murphies,’ he added. ‘I remember being black and blue necking them hundred and forty pound bags.’

‘Worse’n wheat,’ agreed Cec. ‘Even though wheat’s heavier. It sorta moulds to your back, where the murphs are all knobs.’

‘You reckon the wharf strike’ll be over soon?’ asked Bert, taking a butt from behind his ear and lighting it.

‘Nah,’ Cec replied. ‘I reckon it’ll go on for a year. Ah, here’s the young feller. Jimmy Clarke, is it?’

‘Who’s asking?’ The boy had long outgrown his suit. He was an anatomy lesson in wrists and ankles. He had a belligerent cock to his fair head and the remote Scandinavian ancestor who had bequeathed his pale blue eyes and flaxen hair had also handed down a reasonable modicum of Viking aggression.

‘Me, I’m your sort-of-cousin Cec.’

‘Oh yair. I saw you at Betty’s wedding. What can I do for you, gents?’ The clerkly manner was quite convincing.

‘I want you to go and look at the register and find out if you had a René Dupont or Dubois staying here on the night of the fifth.’

‘I can’t take the register away from the desk,’ he protested.

‘You don’t need to,’ urged Cec. ‘Just go and flip through it and see who came in off the
Stranraer
. You can do that,’ said Cec encouragingly.

‘Yair, all right.’ The boy was evidently convinced. ‘Back in a tick.’

Bert sat down on the potatoes. He pinched out his cigarette. The kitchen resounded with shouted orders.

‘I wouldn’t do this for quids,’ he said.

‘What, finding out things?’ asked Cec, helping himself to a piece of bread from a tray.

‘Nah, working in a kitchen.’

‘Too right.’

They waited patiently until Cec’s relation came back with a scribbled list.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘No French people at all. I’ve made you a list of everyone off the
Stranraer
.’

‘Thanks, son,’ said Bert.

‘Give my best to your dad,’ said Cec.

They left the kitchen, avoiding a flying pot by inches.

The Maritime proved more difficult. Cec’s brother Aub’s daughter was called Terebinthia, a fact which Cec explained by telling Bert that her mother ‘had fancies’ and had been reading a romance in which the main character was called by this name at the time young Terebinthia made her appearance. She was known generally as Bintha. The staff in the kitchen of the Maritime did not appear to wish to cooperate in calling her, and as Bert was trying not to attract attention, he restrained himself from more forceful methods and went around to the front.

‘Bloody unfriendly place, this,’ he commented to Cec. ‘Good afternoon, miss,’ he said to the woman at the desk. ‘We want to see Miss Terebinthia Yates, please. She’s a housemaid here.’

‘Who’s asking?’ The glasses slid down a ski-run nose. The lady had grey hair ironed into waves and glacial grey eyes. She looked Bert and then Cec up and down and it was clear that their advent in her nice clean hotel gave her no pleasure.

‘Cecil Yates,’ said Cec quietly. ‘I’m her uncle.’

‘Even so,’ said the Manageress, Mrs Jones, ‘I can’t call the girl away from her work just because someone off the street comes asking for her. Is it an emergency?’

‘Yes,’ said Cec. His limpid eyes and air of sincerity apparently won his point. The Manageress rang a bell and ordered a boy to find Bintha and bring her here right now. Bert examined the foyer.

The Maritime was the second hotel in Port Melbourne, but it did not try harder. It had been built in the spacious days when half an acre of foyer was just about adequate, and decorated by someone with a lot of plush, gold foil, cupids, naked marble statues and a forest of aspidistras to spare. The chairs were spindly and gold-legged, and Bert was unwilling to trust his frame to any of them. There was an air of about-to-be-shabby genteel about the Maritime which Bert did not like and he was glad when another tall, long-legged and blonde member of the extended Yates clan came hurrying out, wiping her hands on her apron.

‘Yes, Mrs . . . oh, hullo, Uncle Cec!’ she said, her face lighting up. Cec had always been her favourite uncle, one who could be relied upon to advise on the feeding of baby birds fallen out of the nest and to be properly sympathetic when they died, which they always did.