case, he felt downhearted and tired. There was so much evil in the world. ‘O cursed spite! That ever I was born to set it right,’ he quoted to himself. The Mechanics’ Institute English literature classes which his wife had taken him to, much against his will, had been very useful. A man could always rely on Shakespeare to hit the nail on the head. Robinson wondered how he had done without him.
He came into a clean corridor lined with coconut matting. The door of the third room on the left was broken and two panting constables were pulling the wreckage away. It had been a good stout door, Robinson observed as he paused at the threshold. Not this modern flimsy stuff, but the solid carpentry of last century, which held that a door was not a door unless it weighed half a ton and was wood all through. He observed the shattered remains of an iron bolt, which had resisted the efforts of two constables and a crowbar for ten minutes. Evidently the murdered man had valued his privacy.
The room was lofty, though small. It had been calcimined light blue, the ceiling a dingy shade of cream. There were water spots where the roof had leaked and stained the plaster, but otherwise the fabric seemed in good condition. The floor was uncarpeted except for a square in the middle. Blood had spurted onto the walls but most of it was pooled on the floor beside the bed, whence it had dripped down through the cracks to spill into Mrs Witherspoon’s tea. Robinson hated the smell of blood. ‘Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?’ thought Robinson, with Shakespeare.
There was a wardrobe, a dressing-table laden with cosmetics, a chair with a gentleman’s dressing-gown laid over it, and a large trunk with chris/cross painted on it in gold and black. The walls were decorated with two small prints of English landscapes and an oil sketch of a beautiful girl riding a white horse.
Jack Robinson became aware that he was surveying the room so as to avoid looking at the body. He had never been able to cultivate a taste for corpses.
‘Hi!’ the police surgeon summoned him. ‘Come and look here, Robinson! This is supposed to be a man’s room, isn’t it? And the occupant a man? Well, I can tell you one thing. The person in this bed is certainly dead. Stabbed through the heart, I’d say. But this corpse isn’t a male.’
He peeled back a blood-soaked blanket and revealed the chest of the corpse. Under gentlemen’s pyjamas were small but perfectly formed breasts.
CHAPTER TWO
George Gordon, Lord Byron
Phryne Fisher was lazily contemplating Sunday from a horizontal position. She thought about rising from her green sheets and doing something energetic, like swimming or a brisk walk along the foreshore at St Kilda. She thought about it again and snuggled back into her pillow.
She was bored. Her favourite, Lindsay, was doing law exams which he really should pass this year and was locked in his own rooms with a torts textbook, subsisting on black coffee and panic. Her adopted daughters were still at school. Her communist friends Bert and Cec were involved in the strike on the waterfront. Bunji Ross the aeroplane pilot was away with a flying circus and there was no pretty young man in the offing. There seemed to be no reason to get up and go through the process of being dressed when there was no one she wanted to see and nothing she wanted to do.
It was five o’clock and she had done nothing whatsoever all day; however, she was hungry. She sat up, smoothed her perfectly black, perfectly straight hair and went to take a cold shower.
‘Dot!’ she called. ‘Drat!’ she added, remembering that Dot would be in church.
Thoroughly put out, Phryne showered, dressed in a light cotton dress and sandals and went downstairs to find out if there was any chance of a late lunch or an early dinner. Awaiting her was a table laid with a cold collation and a note pinned to the muslin netting which protected the food from flies.
Dear Miss Fisher,
Mr B and I have gone to my niece’s wedding, as we arranged last week. We’ll be home before midnight.
Mrs Butler
Phryne whisked off the cloth and a wineglass, caught by the edge, toppled and crashed to the floor. It was one of a set which she had brought from Venice, with a delicate green twisted stem. Irreplaceable.
Phryne swore, which made her feel better. She went to the broom cupboard, found a pan and brush and flung the fragments into the rubbish bin. She fetched a kitchen glass.
‘I shall sit down and have some salad and then I shall go for a walk,’ she said aloud. ‘I am completely out of sorts today and not fit for human company, even if there was some. Which there isn’t.’
A touch on her knee made her jump. On inspection it proved to be the black cat, Ember, politely intimating that he would like some ham too.
Phryne was glad to see him and offered him ham in strips, so that he had to take it from her hand. He did, with a delicacy which enchanted Phryne, allowing her to stroke his smooth black back and to lift his chin to look into his leaf-green eyes. After tolerating her handling for a while, he turned away to begin washing. Phryne watched him as she ate the rest of the ham and some cheese. He polished each paw with precise licks, then rubbed them alternately over the opposite ear.
Phryne had poured herself a glass of dry white wine and was engrossed in watching Ember’s ablutions when he stood up, pricked his ears and gave the hallway a sharp glance. Then he rose and walked to the kitchen door. The audience was over.
The doorbell rang.
Phryne waited for a moment before she remembered that there was no one else in the house. She put down her glass and went into the hall. It was evidently going to be a trying day.
When she swung the door back, she was confronted with a mountain of clothed flesh. Peering around it was a woman with red hair and a snake about her neck; behind her was a dark and beautiful male face. Phryne sighted upwards and said joyfully, ‘Samson! Come in, but look out for that lintel, it’s a bit low. And Doreen and Alan Lee. My dears, how very lovely to see you.’
Samson came into Phryne’s hall, which had never seemed tiny before. Alan Lee and the woman with the snake followed. They stood in a huddle, overawed by luxury, until Phryne drove them into the parlour like a farm- wife mustering chickens and sat them down. Only the sofa was big enough for Samson and it creaked as he settled himself.
‘This is a lovely house,’ sighed Doreen, unwinding her snake and allowing him to drop to the carpet. ‘Look at all them soft curtains and the paintings and all that blue and green. Feels like it’s under the sea.’ She stared at a painting, a full-length nude called
‘What would you like to drink?’ asked Phryne. ‘I’ve got beer and wine.’
‘I’ll make a cuppa,’ said Doreen. ‘What about you fellers?’
‘Wine,’ said Alan Lee. ‘If you please.’
‘I’ll have a drop of beer,’ said the strong man.
Doreen went off to the kitchen, where Phryne heard the kettle clang onto the stove and the pop of the gas. She supplied Samson with a bottle of beer and gave Alan Lee her own glass of wine. She had once spent the night with him, in a caravan when the carnival had camped on Williamstown Road, and she had pleasant memories of the encounter. She had also solved a small problem in detection for him, foiling an attempt to frame his sister for theft. She smiled at him and Samson impartially, pleased to see some people. Phryne did not like to be alone.
