Dulcie considered this. ‘We’ll go and ask,’ she said. ‘But quietly. Everyone’s asleep.’
Samson, Alan Lee, Robinson and Matthias the clown, still in clown gear and makeup, followed Dulcie through the canvas lanes.
Phryne jackknifed away from the hands. She pulled her feet free and kicked Jones full in his most threatening part. As he screamed and fell to his knees, Phryne doubled up and brought her bound hands to the front. Damien Maguire aimed a slap at her, which connected with the side of her head. She fell against the caravan wall, dizzy, and was grabbed and shaken. She bit at the passing hands, managed to catch one and shut her jaw with all her force. The hand slid back into her mouth and her back teeth closed on the hand between the thumb and the wrist. She bore down until she felt a bone crack. Blood rushed into her mouth and she had to let go or choke. Jones glared at her as Maguire dragged her off her feet and into a headlock. The sneering roustabout was nursing his hand, holding it between his side and his arm and moaning.
‘She’s a wild beast,’ Jones snarled from his crouch. ‘And you know where we put wild beasts. In a cage.’
Phryne, naked and choking, clawed with bound hands at the steely forearm which was crushing her throat. Then she was back in a bag, jogging up and down as she was carried.
Vengefully, she gloated that the blood wasn’t hers.
Miss Younger was not asleep. She stared at Dulcie. ‘No, she isn’t here,’ she said flatly. I haven’t seen her. Why? Is she missing?’
‘She might be,’ Dulcie temporised.
‘Well, she’s a tart. She’s probably looking for customers in Rockbank.’ Miss Younger slammed the door. The policeman, the carnies and the circus folk looked at each other.
‘What now?’ asked Dulcie.
‘We’d better search,’ said Alan. ‘I don’t like this. Fern’s no tart. She wouldn’t just go missing. Not when she’s got at least two good reasons to stay.’ He looked at Matthias and grinned in a brotherly fashion. Jo Jo the clown smiled uncertainly at the carnie. ‘I don’t like this,’ repeated Alan.
‘Nor me,’ agreed Robinson. ‘She’s reliable, Phr— Fern is.’
Mr Sheridan the magician had packed all his goods away, secured his caravan and started the engine. It purred. He got out and pulled several pegs, unlatching hidden hinges. The decorated sides fell away and he stacked them neatly on the ground. He left the one proclaiming his name, ‘Mr Robert Sheridan, the Great Magician’, uppermost. He looked at the resulting neat Bedford van, painted an unobtrusive shade of grey. It was clearly a tradesman’s truck, full of tools and odds and ends of plumbing.
He took out a large envelope and laid it on the pile of sidings, putting a stone on top. Then he got into his van and drove towards Melbourne, which was only twenty-five miles away.
Phryne was shoved into a steel cage. Someone cut the bonds on her wrists. She heard the door clang behind her. A bolt was shot. The darkness was absolute. She could see nothing. Her legs were free and she had no gag. Her mouth still tasted of blood. The reek of the carnivores was all about her. In front of her, something stirred.
Fur brushed iron and claws sounded on the wooden floor. Something stood up and shook itself with a sound like a beaten carpet.
Phryne had been told that the moment before the prey was seized by the predator, it went limp. It ceased to fear or care. An archaeologist friend had talked about the moment when a lion’s teeth closed on his shoulder. Dreamy, he had said. The world had ceased to matter. The last mercy, he had said, to creatures destined to be dinner was that they went down sweetly and gently to death, reconciled to their place on the menu.
‘I am not reconciled,’ muttered Phryne. She tried to think. Screaming would only alarm the lion and she did not want it alarmed. She squeezed herself into as small a compass as she could, drawing in her limbs and making herself into a ball. Fear almost overcame her. The primitive Phryne who had run from lions on the Pleistocene grasslands was taking over what remained of her mind.
‘Nice kitty,’ said Phryne, afraid that her voice might have devolved along with her courage.
Police Constable Harris had found a rough edge on a tent peg. It had taken him almost an hour and his wrists had not been improved, but he had weakened his ropes enough to break them. He tore with swollen fingers at the other lines and stood up, staggering. He felt at the walls. They were canvas. He could hear the cough and smell the cigarette smoke of the man who was placed at the tent flap to prevent his escape. Tommy felt in his pocket, took out a pen knife and fumbled it open. They had not even bothered to search him. He slashed at the tent wall. It gaped. Constable Harris walked through the rent and into the circus-scented dark.
Ronald Smythe did not notice that he was gone.
Matthias, Robinson, Samson, Dulcie and Alan Lee had covered the horse lines and the jugglers and tumblers. They interrupted Mr Burton in his study of Shakespeare’s sonnets and he was cross.
‘No, I don’t know where she is. But I do know who she is. Why? Is she lost?’
Jo Jo the clown nodded. His face was already painted into sad lines but now the underlying flesh echoed them.
‘She didn’t come when she said, Matt?’ snapped Mr Burton. ‘This is serious.’ He walked out along his caravan’s driving seat and stepped onto Samson’s shoulders. The huge man accepted the small added weight without comment. Mr Burton settled himself comfortably. ‘Well, come on.’ He tweaked Samson’s hair as though it were a rein. ‘To the rescue.’
Jones, favouring his groin, got to his feet. ‘We’d better do something about the hayseed,’ he said roughly. The others followed him to the tent. Ronald Smythe was on guard, chain smoking. ‘I heard a scream,’ he said nervously. ‘What . . . er . . . happened?’
Damien Maguire laughed. ‘She kicked Jones in the balls and fought like an animal. So we put her where she belongs.’ He peered into the tent. ‘Hey, you there?’
Maguire lit a match. Apart from some shredded ropes, the tent was empty.
‘You idiot!’ Jones cuffed Smythe. ‘You let him escape!’
Tommy Harris was lost. He blundered around in the dark until he came out into a relatively lighted stretch. A grotesque creature was approaching. It was nine feet tall and had two sets of arms. He gulped. Then it passed him and he saw it was a little man sitting on a big man’s shoulders. Detective Inspector Robinson said curtly, ‘Ah, Harris. Where the blazes have you been? Where is Fern?’ Constable Harris was about to protest that he had done rather well in freeing himself, all things considered, but this was not the time. He said, ‘They got her. Jones and the others. They took her towards a caravan.’
‘Where?’ snapped Mr Burton.
Constable Harris looked around helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It all looks the same in the dark.’
Detective Inspector Robinson swore in a way that would have gained Lizard Elsie’s admiration.
Darkness blanketed Phryne’s eyes. She was not cold. She was considering death. There was not much chance that she would get out of this cage alive. She stank of blood. She was sure that she was oozing terror. She was losing what grip she had on her wits and she could not reach the bolt. Every time she moved, the creature shifted and came a little closer. She looked and smelt like prey.
‘I don’t want to die,’ she mourned softly, hearing her voice as small as a child’s. ‘I don’t want to die yet. There are a lot of things I haven’t done.’
Even the reeking dark in the lion’s cage seemed precious and infinitely preferable to whatever lay beyond. She would go out like the flame of a candle. Where does the candle flame go when the candle is blown out?
She laid her painted face against the iron bars and bared her teeth at death.
‘What could you see?’ asked Robinson urgently. Harris shook his head.
