Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (11 page)

‘Salmagundi,’ said Ruth. Phryne had never heard the word before.

‘What on earth is that?’ she asked, sitting down in her chair as Mr. Butler brought in the jugs of iced lemonade for the children and Dot, and a White Lady for Phryne. She sipped. Icy, lemony and perfect.

‘That hits the spot, Mr. Butler, thank you. Ruth?’

‘It’s a very complicated salad, all in jelly,’ replied Ruth, whose sworn ambition was to be a very good cook. ‘Only possible in this climate, Mrs. B says, with the invention of the American refrigerating machine. She didn’t trust it to start with, but she really likes it now.’

‘One must have a way of making ice in this hot place,’ said Phryne. ‘Jane? Lemonade? What are you reading?’

One of the things Jane loved about Miss Phryne was that she did not object to reading at the table, and had indeed caused a bookstand to be made for Jane.

Mrs. Butler strongly disapproved, but that was because she wanted people to appreciate her cuisine. Jane very often had no idea what she had eaten. Only that she had cut it up into small pieces, whatever it was, so that it could be eaten with a spoon and not interrupt her concentration. On the other hand, there was nothing that Jane didn’t eat. You could not call her picky, the cook told her husband. And that Tinker was so thin that he’d fight the dog for her bone if Mrs. Butler didn’t keep up the supplies. It was lucky Miss Fisher was so rich, or Tinker would eat them out of house and home.

‘Eugenics,’ said Jane. ‘It’s interesting. Restricting the breeding of the unfit. There is a basic flaw in their argument, I believe.’ She forked in some potato salad.

‘Which is?’ asked Phryne.

‘Who decides who is unfit?’ asked Jane.

‘There you have put your finger exactly on the nub,’ Phryne informed her. ‘Keep reading and I think you will find that the unfit will cover any group which the writer does not like—Catholics, Chinese, Jews, Presbyterians, Aborigines—and any group he is afraid of—the poor, for instance, who seem set to outbreed him. The only people allowed to breed freely will be—’

‘Him,’ said Ruth, proving that she had been listening.

‘And his mates,’ thus Tinker. Engulfing massive quantities of ham and salad evidently did not slow his mental processes, though it didn’t improve the clarity of his speech. Ruth leaned forward and wiped mayonnaise off his chin with a napkin. He flushed but did not resent the action as he might have done a day before. He had his own refuge now, where he could be as messy as he liked. He said, ‘Thanks,’ took the napkin, and cleaned his own face. Phryne was pleased and Ruth was amazed.

‘Just another way of doing down the workin’ man,’ observed Bert, who had been listening as well. ‘Cuttin’ down on the numbers which might rise when the revolution comes.’

‘On the other hand,’ said Phryne, ‘we have Mr. O’Hara and his eleven starving children.’

‘Yair, he ought to have tied a knot in it all right,’ said Bert.

Dot blushed. Bert apologised.

‘But contraception is not sterilisation,’ said Jane calmly, almost causing Mr. Butler to drop his tray. The code of his profession, stern as it was, had not accustomed him to such language in a lady’s house. The glasses tinkled, but nothing fell. Mr. Butler had his standards. He adhered to them rigidly.

‘True,’ said Phryne. ‘If Mr. O’Hara knew about such things, would he have used them?’ Phryne favoured the Socratic method of education.

‘No,’ said Ruth, after deep thought. ‘He doesn’t care. It would have to be something Mrs. O’Hara could do without him knowing. To protect herself.’

‘Poisoning her old man leaps to mind,’ said Bert.

Cec laughed.

‘And she can’t use those…things,’ objected Dot. ‘She’s a Catholic! The Pope has declared all such things anathema!’

‘Really? Why is it his business? Isn’t he celibate?’ asked Jane. She would have questioned Dot further, but Phryne raised a hand. Theological debate in her household was best done in private.

‘Jack dear, I’m sure you can’t find this diverting. How are things with you?’

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson had been silently working his way through a superb egg and bacon pie and thinking about his own problems. He came to with a start to find everyone looking at him.

‘Sorry, wasn’t listening,’ he said.

‘Never mind,’ said Phryne. ‘I’m sure eugenics are the last thing on your mind. Have you found the big black car which took Polly Kettle away?’

‘Not so much as a sighting of it,’ he said as gloomily as so full fed a man could manage. ‘Funny, that. It’s not a main street and there aren’t a lot of cars around that bit of the suburb. But no one’s seen it, and it’s school holidays, too. Cars like that usually attract the kids. I bet you draw a crowd everywhere you go in that big red monster of a thing.’

‘I certainly do,’ said Phryne. ‘So, no sighting of the car? Odd.’

‘I thought so.’ Jack Robinson crossed to the buffet to remedy his salade russe deficiency. ‘I’ve put Collins on to tracing every big black car in the area, but that’s a bit of an ask. I’m talking to the girl’s parents and her friends. She might have had a sweetheart.’

‘I recommend you have a conversation with Mr. Bates of the newspaper office,’ suggested Phryne.

‘Why? You think he had something to do with it?’

‘Not necessarily, but he hates everyone and will therefore tell you the things about Polly which a tactful or affectionate person would omit or soft-pedal. Those may be things you need to know.’

‘So they might.’ He spooned some potato onto his plate.

‘But we will have a full briefing after dinner,’ Phryne told him. ‘For now we appreciate the cuisine and make polite conversation. What do you think of this Bradman as a batsman?’

‘Ugly style,’ commented Jack, willing to do the civil.

‘So they say,’ said Phryne.

‘But effective,’ said Jack, relaxing a little. Missing persons made him nervous. Especially missing girls. They might have run away with a lover or taken a job on an outback cattle station or emigrated to New Zealand. Or they might be lying in a shallow grave in the Dandenongs. They could not be ignored, and most of the time they turned up a year or two later with a new baby and an unacceptable husband. But the tenth one didn’t. Girls, thought Robinson sourly, were pests. They ought to be safely locked up somewhere until they were twenty-five and had reached the age of discretion…

They adjourned to the sitting room, each with his or her favourite drink, and the children produced their notebooks. One by one, they recounted what they had seen and heard, and Phryne made notes in her own book on the case.

‘Ann Prospect,’ she announced. Information flowed in. ‘Bert? Did you speak to Mr. Prospect?’

‘Yair,’ said Bert. ‘He’s not like his missus. Brute of a bloke. Hands like shovels. Y’know, the kind of bloke who butts out his ciggie in his palm to show you how tough he is. He didn’t care that the girl had a bun in the oven. Wanted to keep her because she was earning. But his missus wouldn’t hear of it. I think he liked her all right. Asked me to tell her he’d have her back if I could find her. I reckon he gave his missus a belting when he found out she had sent the girl away.’

‘I thought so,’ exclaimed Dot.

‘Had he any idea where she might have gone?’

‘Nah,’ said Bert. ‘Didn’t know anything about her friends. Said she was a commo and maybe the commos stole her and sold her to a brothel. I put him right about that,’ he said complacently, looking down at a few new cuts on his scarred knuckles.

‘Had she any relatives?’ asked Phryne, eschewing comment. Mr. Prospect handed out enough beatings, it seemed only just that he received a little of his own medicine.

‘He said his sister hadn’t seen her,’ Bert told them. ‘She wouldn’t go to any relatives on his wife’s side. They’re all like her.’

‘Poor girl,’ murmured Dot.

‘And the father of the child?’ asked Phryne.

‘He didn’t know, or he would have put the black on the bloke.’

‘Lovely,’ said Phryne. ‘Well, we shall have to go to the factory and ask some questions there. Associates?’ she asked the children.

‘I reckon she was well out of there,’ said Tinker. ‘The kids think Mrs. Prospect’s cracked.’

‘Gentility,’ said Dot. ‘She’s mad about it.’

‘And those children and the maid in that filthy back room,’ said Jane. ‘Disgusting.’

‘Yes, I agree. All right. How about Mary O’Hara?’

The associates detailed everything they had learned about Mary O’Hara’s miserable situation. Phryne and Dot added their description of the household.

Jack whistled. ‘What are you doing to do about them, Miss Fisher?’ he asked.

‘I’ve set the Children’s Protection Society on them,’ said Phryne. ‘And Bert has mentioned the matter to the comrades. I suspect they will be all right. I still have to catch poor Mrs. O’Hara. She might know where Mary would go. She must have known, however, about her husband’s foul transaction with that appalling little man.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Dot. ‘She isn’t home much.’

‘She’s on the interview list,’ agreed Phryne. ‘Now, how about the Reillys?’

‘Poor,’ said Ruth.

‘Dirt poor,’ said Tinker. ‘Poorer than I used to be. No wonder they run.’

‘Ran,’ corrected Jane automatically.

‘Left owing rent and money at the milk bar,’ said Dot.

‘Possibly to Shepparton, according to their young neighbour,’ said Phryne. You might enquire there?’ she suggested to Jack Robinson, who made a note of his own. ‘Very well. Mrs. Ryan, the pious widow?’

‘Mean bitch,’ said Tinker.

‘True, but we don’t say “bitch” in company,’ instructed Phryne. ‘Only here with us. And she was indeed. Formaldehyde in her veins. What a cold vicious woman for poor labouring girls to have attending them. But not exactly a fount of information. What did you get from the son Patrick, Bert?’

‘He’s a lout,’ said Bert, lighting a cigarette. ‘Soft as butter, a mummy’s boy, all mouth. Never worked a day in his life. Would make a good bludger, though, keeping the door at a brothel. Big. Strong. Don’t know nothing about the missing girls. Stuck to his story about the big black car. I filled him up with the old juice and he still stuck to it, then he said, “But she’s mine.” I thought that was crook. I was about to give him a good belting—he’d spew all he knew, I know them blokes—but then he passed out and fell off his stool. So I left them to sweep him out with the sawdust and come here. I’ll get back to him,’ said Bert meaningly.

‘All right,’ said Phryne. ‘You keep an eye on him, and administer the said belting when you feel it would do the most good. I don’t like this, friends. Perhaps the reason why Jack can’t find that big black car is that there is no big black car. Perhaps Polly Kettle is still there.’