flushed, her hair appeared darker because it was wet, and her eyes shone.
Phryne opened a little door and said, ‘Would you like to go straight to bed? This is your room, and here is the key — you can lock yourself in, if you like.’
‘I’ll sit up a little, Miss, if I may.’
‘Very well. I’ll order tea.’
Phryne picked up the house phone and did so, then returned to her seat at the desk, while Dorothy paraded up and down, enjoying the swish of her gown.
‘Did you mean it, Miss, about me being your maid?’ asked the girl, turning when she reached the wall to parade back.
‘Yes, I need a maid — you can see the mess my things get into. . Phryne indicated the sitting-room, which was liberally strewn with her belongings. ‘But only if you want the job. I’m here on confidential business, inquiring about a lady on behalf of her parents, so if you want to work for me you must never gossip or tell anyone anything about what you might overhear. I need someone of the utmost discretion. We may be staying in grand houses, and you must not, on any account, say anything about my concerns. You’re free to talk about me,’ she added, grinning. ‘Just not my business.’
‘I promise,’ said Dorothy, solemnly wetting her forefinger and inscribing a careful cross on the breast of the satin gown. ‘Hope I may die.’
‘Well, then, all you have to do is to look after my clothes, find things that I’ve lost, answer the phone if I’m not in, and generally look after me. For instance, tomorrow someone has to take a taxi and deliver all those cards to people I’m supposed to meet in Melbourne. How about it?’
Dorothy’s chin went up.
‘If I’ve a new dress, I can do it.’
‘Good stuff!’
‘What about wages, Miss?’
‘Oh. I don’t know what the going rate for a confidential maid and social secretary is. What were you getting?’
‘Two-and-six a week and me keep,’ said Dorothy. Phryne was shocked.
‘No wonder they’ve got a servant problem here! What were you doing for that?’
‘Everything, Miss, but cooking. They kept a cook. And the washing was sent out to the Chinese. So it wasn’t too bad. I had to go out to work. We can’t live on what Mum earns. Of course, you wouldn’t know about that. You don’t know what that’s like, no disrespect meant. You ain’t never had to starve.’
‘Oh, yes I have,’ said Phryne grimly. ‘I starved liked Billy-o. My family was skint until I was twelve.’
‘Then how. .?’ asked Dot, folding a dressing-gown. ‘How. .?’
‘Three people between Father and the Title died,’ Phryne said. ‘Three young men dying out of their time, and the old lord summoned us out of Richmond and onto a big liner and into the lap of luxury. I didn’t like it much,’ she confessed. ‘My sister died of diphtheria and starvation. It seemed too cruel that we had all those relatives in England and they hadn’t lifted a hand until Father became the heir. But don’t tell me about poverty, Dot. I ate rabbit and cabbage because there was nothing else, and I confess that I’ve not been able to face lapin ragout or cabbage in any form since. Oh, you’ve found the blue suit, I had forgotten I brought it.’
The tea arrived on a silver tray. There was also a teacake, which Phryne cut and buttered immediately.
‘Never mind my history, come and help me eat some of these cakes,’ said Phryne, who hated teacake. ‘White tea, is it? And two lumps?’
Dorothy sniffed, was about to wipe her face on her gown, then remembered herself and retreated to the bathroom to find her handkerchief. While she poured the tea, Phryne reflected that Dorothy must be very tired. Revenge and release is just as much of a strain as hatred and murder. She palmed a small white pill and dropped it into the tea. Dorothy needed the sleep.
The girl returned and made a promising inroad into the teacake before she took up her cup.
‘I’ll ring an agency in the morning and find out how much I ought to pay you,’ said Phryne. ‘And tomorrow we shall buy you some clothes. The uniform will be paid for by me, and you can have an advance to buy your own clothes. We shall also pick up your box from the station.’
‘I think I’d better go to bed now,’ observed Dorothy thickly, and Phryne helped her to the small room, tucked her in, and before she closed the door, noted that the girl was fast asleep.
‘Two-and-six a week and her keep,’ said Phryne. She poured another cup of tea and lit a cigarette. ‘The poor little babe!’
Alice Greenham woke in a white bed, strangely docile, and floating above her tortured body on a cushion of morphia. Women clad in big white aprons came by, periodically, to do things to the body, which Alice felt belonged to someone else. They soaked it with cold water and laid a wet sheet over it. This looked comic, and she giggled. The baby, at least, was gone, and she could go back to her church-going, respectable home, unburdened of proof of her shame.
She had not believed that five minutes could change someone’s life. She had gone to a church-run dance, and had been enticed out into the bike shed by a boy she had always thought nice, a deacon’s son. They had leaned against the creaking wooden wall while he had fumbled with her clothes and whispered that he loved her and would marry her as soon as his father gave him a half-share in the shop. From that joyless, clumsy mating had come all this trouble. He had not seemed to know her when they next met, avoiding her eyes, and when she had told him about the baby he had shouted, ‘No! not me! You must have been going with plenty of blokes!’ And he had struck her across the face when she had persisted.
The nurses — she had identified them by their caps — were gathered around the body now. A woman in trousers was filling a syringe. Alice sensed that this was a crisis. She was sleepy and airy and light, and they were trying to drag her back to that suffering, twisting thing on the bed below. Well, she wouldn’t go. She had been hurt enough. That oily man, George, and his foul hands all over her. No, she wouldn’t go back, they couldn’t make her.
Now they were holding the body down. It struggled.
The woman in trousers was injecting something into the chest. The body slumped, and the nurses clustered around it.
She was unable to avoid a shriek as the body dragged her back and her poisoned womb convulsed. She opened her eyes, looked directly into Dr MacMillan’s face, and whispered, ‘It’s not fair. . I was all light. .’ before her words were extinguished in a long, hoarse scream. The fever had broken.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘The Old Hundredth’ Church of England Hymn
Phryne was poring over the newspaper’s society columns at breakfast when she heard Dorothy in the bathroom. Presently the young woman emerged, looking much refreshed. Phryne selected a knitted suit in beige and handed it over, together with a collection of undergarments and a pair of shoes. Dorothy dressed biddably enough, but Phryne’s shoes were too big for her.
‘Put on your slippers again, for the moment, and we’ll get you some shoes tomorrow — today’s Sunday. Listen to those bells! Enough to wake the dead!’
‘I s’pose that’s the idea,’ observed Dorothy, and Phryne looked up from her paper, reflecting that there was more to Dorothy than met the eye. The girl had ordered herself a large breakfast on Phryne’s instructions, and now sat placidly absorbing a mixed grill at eight of the morning as though she had never lain in wait with murder in her heart.
‘What do I have to do when I deliver them cards, Miss?’ she asked, painfully swallowing a huge mouthful of egg and bacon.
‘Just tell the man to wait, walk up to the front door, ring the bell, and give the card to the person who answers. You don’t need to say anything. I’ve put my address on the back. Can you manage it?’
‘Yes, Miss,’ agreed Dorothy thickly, through another mouthful.
‘Good. Now, I am lunching with Dr MacMillan at the Queen Victoria Hospital, and to fill in the time I shall go to church. So when you get back, see if you can introduce a little order into the clothes, eh? I shall return in the afternoon. Order whatever you like for lunch, but perhaps it would be better if you didn’t leave the hotel until I get
