Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (18 page)

‘Miss Fisher?’ asked the bishop, putting down his pencil.

‘The same. Good morning, Your Reverence.’ Phryne managed to keep an ironic edge out of her voice.

‘Good morning, good morning.’ Even his voice was as dry as deserts. ‘Your companion?’

‘This is Miss Williams,’ said Phryne.

Dot bobbed and kissed the amethyst on the dried talon held out to her. The fact that Phryne hadn’t done this registered on the bishop.

‘And you are not a daughter of the Church, Miss Fisher?’

‘I am a daughter of the aristocracy,’ said Phryne grimly. ‘Which is not the same thing, but can come in useful.’

‘This matter of Father Kennedy?’

‘Quite. A young woman called Annie Jordan gave birth in extremely unpleasant circumstances, and that priest was the father of her child.’

‘Do you have proof?’ he asked.

‘I have her word.’

‘The word of a fallen woman!’ he sneered.

‘Ah. Well, if that is your attitude, I am sure that my friends from the Hawklet and the Truth will be fascinated.’

‘They wouldn’t dare…’ he began.

‘Because your John Wren bully-boys will drop in and break the press? Good heavens, I wonder what the archbishop will think of that. I shall ask when I see him.’

The bishop was really paying attention to her now. Phryne thought it was similar to being examined by a crocodile. In Darwin, as she recalled. It had lain on its sandbank and summed her up the same way: threat, landscape or prey. Phryne had never, since childhood, been prey. And was far too active to be landscape.

‘You know the archbishop?’ he grated.

‘Oh, indeed, and he owes me a favour. Quite a large one, as favours go.’

‘Father Kennedy is a very well-thought-of priest,’ said the bishop.

‘Indeed, I am sure that he is charming. Otherwise he would never have been able to seduce devout girls. Possibly he finds them more amusing than the bad girls—more of a challenge. However, let that be as it may, he is going to be punished and Miss Jordan is going to be supported, is she not?’ Phryne said flatly.

‘I shall summon him,’ said the bishop. ‘I shall take his confession. If matters are…as you say, then he will be called to the closed community in Daylesford. They spend all day in prayer.’

‘No girls?’ asked Phryne.

‘No other people except monks,’ he said. Was that a small evil smile lurking at the side of the lizard’s mouth?

‘And Miss Jordan?’ asked Phryne.

‘Leave her details with my secretary and we shall make suitable arrangements. She will be supported. And her child of shame. Her parents will be compensated for her care and the situation explained. The usual story is a hidden marriage and an early bereavement. Papers will be provided to prove this.’

‘Neat,’ said Phryne admiringly.

He gave her a long look and blinked his hooded eyes. ‘It seems to be adequate. Was there something else, Miss Fisher?’

‘I need to visit the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Abbotsford. I gather I need your permission to question the nuns.’

‘You do,’ he said.

Silence fell. Phryne did not break it. Dot fidgeted. This was no way to talk to a prince of the church! If lightning struck Miss Phryne, Dot would not have been surprised.

However, no lightning fell. The phone rang outside in the secretary’s office. Outside the window a thrush disputed possession of a worm with another thrush who had seen it first. Still no one spoke. Dot was at screaming point. Phryne was perfectly composed, ankles crossed, knees on shameless display, hands in lap, seeming to be listening to the avian quarrel outside. She was thinking about something else and might easily sit there all day, occupying a part of the bishop’s office which ought to be tidily vacant. She was detestably calm. Finally, he broke.

‘Your reasons for questioning the sisters?’

‘Three girls left the lying-in home. I want to know where they went. Also, a reporter is missing, and the proprietors of that lying-in home have done a very fast moonlight flit. I would like to know their destination, too. The young woman may be in danger.’

‘And you think the sisters might know?’

‘They might.’

‘And you think that they might tell you?’ The ‘you’ was emphasised with scorn.

‘If you order them to comply, yes.’

Abruptly, the bishop gave up. ‘Very well, Miss Fisher. Ask Jenkins for the letter of introduction. I shall telephone the Mother Superior myself. Is that enough for you?’ He sounded ragged.

Phryne stood up. ‘Yes, that will be all for now,’ she said, and walked out. Dot fell in behind her.

They stood by Jenkins’ desk while he typed the letter of introduction, had it signed by the bishop (who was repairing his outrage at being outfaced with neat gin) and left.

On the street outside, Dot drew in a deep breath. ‘You’re brave, Miss!’

‘Nothing to be afraid of,’ said Phryne, leading the way back to the big car. ‘He’s not my spiritual superior. Or anyone’s. Now Mannix, he’s a different kettle of fish. But I was a little disappointed,’ she observed, getting into the car and pressing the starter.

‘Why?’ asked Dot, still amazed that something biblical hadn’t happened to Miss Fisher and everyone around her.

‘He didn’t even notice my knees,’ she said. The big car roared in answer.

***

At home, the telephone experiment had proved a failure. The few numbers which had been authentic had nothing to do with reporters, the Catholic Church, girls or escape, being an estate agent, a funeral home, several private houses of unexceptionable respectability and two police stations. But Jane was not downhearted.

‘We have proved that the hypothesis was not valid,’ she declared stoutly. ‘Now we need another.’

‘You are an example to us all,’ Phryne told her. ‘Why not think about another thing which the numbers might represent? I don’t think they’re a coincidence, or I would not have set you to such labour. Take the rest of the day off, darlings. And ask Mrs. B for a treat. What do you fancy?’

‘Ice cream,’ said Tinker and Jane in unison. They said ‘snap’ and grinned at each other. Phryne was pleased. Moving Tinker out of the house meant that he willingly spent more time inside. Odd but true.

She telephoned the lying-in home and found that Nurse Chappell had everything in hand. She had hired a helper, laid in reasonable food, and allowed Phryne to speak to Phoebe.

‘She’s let us bloody get up out of them stinkin’ bloody beds,’ said Phoebe. ‘Grouse food and all, chicken stew not bloody gruel. I’m feelin’ bloody better. The others is all bloody right. We heard that poor bloody Ellie is doin’ all right as well.’

Phryne told her about the bishop and suggested that Annie was about to be rehabilitated.

‘That’s a bloody miracle,’ said Phoebe.

Phryne was inclined to agree, told Phoebe to feel free to swear at the priest when he visited as much as she liked, and rang off with a feeling of a good job of blackmail well executed. She thought that it was a bit tough on the devout enclosed brothers to have a girl-seducing renegade foisted upon them, but perhaps he would be a challenge to their faith that they would effortlessly surmount. In any case, Father Kennedy would be as unhappy as anyone could wish. Phryne grinned.

Now to consider what on earth she was going to wear to lunch at the Blue Cat. What did a patently female person wear to a gathering of those who played so firmly for the other team?

She put this to Dot, who was considering the same thing, and had laid out several ensembles on Phryne’s moss-green bed.

‘I don’t know, Miss, to be sure,’ Dot worried. ‘You could wear the boy’s suit, of course.’

‘That might be thought sardonic,’ said Phryne. ‘Or even satirical. No, I think the good old subfusc garments, Dot dear, the black—no, the dark green skirt, the jade blouse, the green hat with the peacock feather. Blue shoes and nude stockings. And find me the big jade ring Lin Chung brought home from his last voyage.’

Only Phryne, Dot thought, would consider such a costume to be subdued. But dressed in it she was magnificent.

‘I am considering how well the colours will look against the red plush, the gilt and the marble,’ she told Dot. ‘Anything else and I might melt into the background, and that would never do.’

‘No, indeed,’ murmured Dot, who thought that most unlikely in any circumstances. Phryne had a way of claiming the foreground as if by right.

She left in a cloud of Jicky, and Dot tidied a little, tried a couple of new perfume samples that had come from France, liked one called Délice d’Amour, and pottered down to lunch with the children, who seemed to be playing a loud word game of some sort.

***

The Blue Cat once again admitted Miss Fisher as though she weren’t an alien, and the uniformed young man—Phryne wondered if they chose their waiters and attendants by height, they were all very tall—led her to the smaller dining room, Phryne trying desperately not to think of the manner in which Catherine the Great was reputed to choose her guardsmen. Such thoughts were not polite in this company. Or then again…

‘Miss Fisher,’ said Mr. Featherstonehaugh, taking her hand.

‘My dear Mr. Featherstonehaugh,’ she said, smiling.

‘If you would like to come this way…’ He led her to a high-backed, extravagantly carved chair at the head of a sumptuously dressed table. There were swags of linen and lace. There were also epergnes full of flowers. Tuberoses. Of course.

‘Now, before the gentlemen come in, Miss Fisher, I must have your agreement. No names must be written down. Not ever.’

‘I agree,’ said Phryne. ‘In fact, I swear.’

‘It’s not that we don’t trust you,’ he explained, as the attendant opened the far door and the company filed in. ‘But things written down can be read by all.’

‘I understand,’ said Phryne. She rose from her throne to meet her guests.

Several gentlemen she knew from various encounters, some licit, some illicit. There was a barrister, a banker, a famous football player, two actors, Dr. MacMillan of the Queen Victoria Hospital in her lounge suit (obviously another honorary gentleman), several merchants and…humping along, scowling, Mr. Bates of the Daily Truth.

Well, well. One truly never knew.

Phryne murmured greetings and shook hands. The gentlemen sat. Wine was poured, a fresh, fruity reisling from the Barossa Valley. Mr. Featherstonehaugh handed her a menu. On the club notepaper, it was written in exquisite calligraphy in the signature dark blue ink.