Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (21 page)

***

Phryne returned to her house with Dr. MacMillan and fell indoors, battered by the weather, calling feebly for lemonade. She took the doctor, who must have been melting in her lounge suit, up to her own boudoir, where an ingenious arrangement of fans blowing over a block of ice made the air cold. Phryne stripped off her respectable garments and bathed in the cool breeze, and Dr. MacMillan went so far as to take off her jacket and loosen her tie.

‘You look like the nymph,’ commented the doctor, looking from the lamp made in the shape of a lady poised on her toes holding up a globe to the white figure of her friend. Phryne sprayed her face and torso with rosewater and then donned a silk robe as she heard Mr. Butler at the door with the cool drinks. He informed her that Hugh Collins was below and would she like to see him?

Phryne agreed that the sight of Hugh Collins was always amusing and sipped.

‘God, what weather!’ she exclaimed. ‘How are you managing, Elizabeth? This is a bit different from Edinburgh!’

‘I am thinking of adopting tropical dress,’ said the doctor. ‘But when I consider that at home I would now be wearing three layers of clothing, and freezing besides, I can cope with a little heatwave.’

Phryne giggled briefly at the idea of Dr. MacMillan in a solar topee, khakis and mosquito boots, then sobered instantly.

‘Something very bad is happening, Elizabeth. I notice you didn’t say a word at lunch. Was it to spare the delicate sensibilities of the gentlemen?’

‘It was,’ said the doctor, stretching her limbs in the coolness. ‘They have no truck with women, and would find gynaecological evidence upsetting. I was there mostly to hear what they had to tell you.’

‘So, what do we know?’ asked Phryne.

‘That someone is enticing or stealing girls. That this appears to be carried out by an agency in Lonsdale Street called Jobs for All. That Mr. Bates suspects white slavery and is angry with Miss Kettle for stealing his story. I believe it is called a “scoop,”’ said Dr. MacMillan, pleased with her mastery of vernacular.

‘It is. He certainly was,’ agreed Phryne. ‘Then again, he is usually angry. Being excavated from the ruined corpse of your only love can do that to a man. What have you to add?’

‘Over the last month I have had several requests to test girls for virginity,’ said Dr. MacMillan. ‘This is, as you know, not easy to ascertain. Not all women have a hymen at all and some break it by, for instance, horseback riding. It has always been my practice to give anyone who hasn’t actually given birth the benefit of the doubt.’

‘Because you don’t like what may happen to them if you make a contrary finding?’ asked Phryne.

‘Precisely. Now I am beginning to wonder if I did them any favours.’

‘Tell me about these girls,’ said Phryne.

Doctor MacMillan produced a list. ‘One was a Chinese girl, slip of a thing, brought in by a prospective mother-in-law. Ah Li, pretty little creature. Her mother-in-law elect had doubts about her chastity. I told the foolish bitch that the girl was as pure as the driven snow.’

‘Was she?’ asked Phryne.

‘Oh, yes. I believe it was just a ploy to drive down the dowry, not uncommon in the more traditional families. Such ways will die out in time, I expect. Australia seems to have a leavening effect. But I issued a certificate in the usual form. So they will have to pay for Ah Li’s virginity after all and the mother-in-law has had a loss of face, which should make the poor girl’s life a little easier. Then there was Muriel Clay. Brought in by a woman about whom I had my doubts.’

‘Why?’ asked Phryne, drinking more lemonade.

‘Just a feeling,’ said Dr. MacMillan. ‘She had a sly glance, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. Gave her name as Smith. Sounded like one of the Dublin Smiths. Said the girl was about to work for a very saintly family and they needed to be assured of her chastity. Muriel was very blonde and very dim. Foetal alcoholism, I suspect. Orphan, her escort said, from the convent. Fourteen years old and never, as far as I could judge, been kissed.’

‘All right,’ said Phryne.

‘Then Mrs. Smith came back again.’ Dr. MacMillan leaned forward, both fists on her knees. ‘With another girl. Another blonde, also fourteen, also lacking in the brain department, though I think Madge was just naturally daft. Also from the convent, but a bad girl from the Sacred Heart section, which runs the Magdalen Laundry. I gave her a certificate also. I am wondering if I did the right thing.’

‘Why?’

‘Because a policeman came to the hospital looking for the two of them, and said they were missing.’

‘Oh,’ said Phryne. ‘Oh, dear.’

‘Quite,’ said Dr. MacMillan.

‘You haven’t seen Mrs. Smith again?’

‘I have not,’ said the doctor. ‘If she turns up I shall give her in charge. In view of the information from your lunch at the Blue Cat.’

‘I still don’t see…’ began Phryne, just as Hugh Collins was shown in. He was uncomfortable in Phryne’s boudoir, but was attended by Dot, who gave him confidence. However, despite her reassuring presence, he always felt that he was at least a yard too tall and weighed as much as an elephant in such surroundings. And he seemed to have reached new heights in clumsiness and was always afraid to move in case he broke something irreplaceable.

‘Detective Inspector Robinson sent me to bring you this, Miss Fisher,’ he said stiffly.

‘Do sit down,’ invited Phryne, but the officer preferred to stand. Phryne perused the report. Her eyebrows rose.

‘Assaults?’ she asked. ‘Why bring this to me?’

‘I thought you’d know the names,’ said Collins, sweating in spite of the cool breeze from the new-fangled electric fan.

‘I see,’ said Phryne. ‘Jack Robinson is wondering if I, or my minions, dropped in on those wife-battering child-raping men and booted them in the balls?’

‘Er…’ Hugh looked around wildly. His eye was caught and transfixed by an erotic ink drawing which Picasso had done of the youthful Phryne.

‘There, there,’ soothed Phryne. ‘You can go back and tell Jack that it really wasn’t me, or on my orders, but whoever did it has excellent judgment. Each of these men—or the ones I know about—would be vastly improved by a knee where it would do most good. Thank you for coming, Hugh. How is the investigation going?’

‘It’s not going,’ replied Hugh. ‘Commissioner’s yelling, Boss is snarling and I haven’t got a clue.’

‘Then I’ll give you one, free and for nothing,’ said Phryne generously. ‘Tell Jack that he might have a look at an employment agency called Jobs for All in Lonsdale Street. They are employing actresses for dubious jobs in the Middle East. That, at least, will give him something to do and stop him from fretting.’

‘Thanks, Miss,’ said Hugh Collins. ‘And the assaults?’

‘Leave the list with me,’ Phryne replied. ‘And thank you. You can go now,’ she added.

Hugh Collins stood in the middle of the boudoir like Stonewall Jackson at First Manassas until Dot took his hand and gently led him away. Outside, he sat down on the top step and mopped his face again.

‘I’m glad you’re not like your employer, Dot,’ he said.

‘I’m not,’ said Dorothy. ‘I’d love to be that strong and that sure of myself and that beautiful. But I’m not,’ she finished sadly.

‘I like you just like you are,’ Constable Collins assured her fervently.

***

‘You were about to say?’ prompted Dr. MacMillan.

‘I was?’ Phryne was distracted.

‘About the young women and Jobs for All,’ the doctor reminded her.

‘Ah, yes. I really do have an odd effect on poor Hugh Collins. No, I was thinking that I am looking for pregnant girls. Your Arab brothels wouldn’t have any use for them. Not in view of those virginity tests. Such places set a high premium on virginity or the appearance of virginity.’

‘Alum,’ said Dr. MacMillan. ‘Or other such chemicals. Dries the vagina so that it bleeds when penetrated. Damages the tissue, of course, but they wouldn’t worry about that. Or about the pain. The clients are paying for pain.’

‘Erk,’ commented Phryne. ‘But to return to my point, I doubt Jobs for All and the sheiks would be interested in my heavily burdened ladies.’

‘Unlikely,’ said the doctor. ‘I believe that I will have a wee drop of that single malt which your Mr. Butler has so presciently brought to us, Phryne.’

‘Glen Sporran it is, my dear. What do you make of these assaults?’

‘Have any of the victims been examined by a doctor?’ asked the older woman, breathing in the peaty scent of home. For a moment, the island of Barra, machair and daisies and seagulls, flashed across her eyes. Her dearest friend Dr. Elspeth talking about sickly children. And a strange thought occurred to her. She paused, examined her mind, which boggled, and drank more whisky.

‘I believe that Mr. O’Hara was dragged off to some luckless medical practitioner,’ said Phryne.

‘Get his name. I would like to talk to him. Or her, of course. I have a theory which is so outré that I won’t even mention it to you, Phryne. And can you find out if the other men on that list have been connected with a sexual assault or a pregnancy?’

‘I can,’ said Phryne. ‘Why, in the name of Sappho?’

Dr. MacMillan did not reply but just sat there, drinking single malt and looking, Phryne thought, Scottish. She gave up. ‘All right, I won’t tease you. Keep your secrets! To other matters. What have you heard about this Groves of Bilitis?’

Dr. MacMillan chuckled. ‘Nothing whatsoever, but I love the name. And something about Bacchus Marsh is itching at the back of my head. In a magazine, perhaps?’

‘Do you take The Woman Worker?’

‘I do,’ said the doctor, taking another drappie.

‘There was something in that about a socialist collective in Bacchus Marsh.’ Phryne sorted the papers on her table rapidly, laying aside The Australian Home Beautiful and the Hawklet. She retrieved the Gestetner’d manuscript and leafed.

‘Aha. Isobel Berners. A fruit-growing collective on the socialist model. No name is given, but what do you want to bet it’s the Groves of Bilitis?’

‘No bet,’ said Dr. MacMillan. ‘When you go out there, Phryne, would you see if they’ve got any apple jelly? I do like apple jelly and the commercial product is all pectin and no fruit.’

‘I will get you some, if there is any to be had,’ said Phryne. ‘But first, I had better get on with my visit to the convent.’

‘Try to keep your temper,’ advised Dr. MacMillan. Without a great deal of hope. The conjunction of Phryne, the Magdalen Laundry and a lot of nuns made her thankful that she operated a women’s hospital and would not be needed to attend to blast injuries.

She drank her whisky, and chuckled.