‘Yes, yes.’ He scrubbed at his forehead distractedly. ‘Of course, that’s why I asked you here, or one of the reasons, Phryne dear. Evelyn wanted to meet you. I owe all this to Evelyn. This was her house, her money.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘So I want to please her. This house party was her idea. I’d be perfectly happy to only ask just one or two people – you and Mr Lin for instance, people I like, like Tadeusz. But Evelyn was brought up in the old tradition, tennis parties, cricket parties. They don’t seem to match Australia, Phryne dear, you can’t get a biddable well- trained staff like you can in England. I mean, what would you do if you were offered a choice of working in the pickle factory, where you’d have money in your pocket and be your own mistress, or room and board and two and six a week out here in the bush with Mrs Hinchcliff watching your every move?’
‘The pickle factory,’ said Phryne promptly.
‘Exactly. So I’m practically running an asylum. All the bold intelligent children go to the city. The weak and wambling go into service. I’ve got Lina who’s a neurasthenic, Mrs Croft who has a fetish about cleanliness, Jones who’s got a criminal record, Willis who’s crippled, a housemaid with two illegitimate children and . . . you see? If I proclaim we’ve got a murderer amongst us they’ll all fall to bits so fast there will be shrapnel wounds. Even Mr and Mrs Hinchcliff are worried.’
Phryne patted his arm.
‘So we do it very quietly. I can just drift around and pick up gossip and Dot can do the same, that covers both worlds. And you should pay some attention to your own safety, Tom. Don’t be alone with Jack Lucas, try not to have arguments with Dingo Harry – I must meet him, he sounds most refreshing – and keep your head down. It might all be malicious mischief, not a real threat at all. And for God’s sake, either change your will or give Jack Lucas his money.’
Tom Reynolds stiffened but she went on relentlessly. ‘I’ve never known you to be unjust, Tom dear. It’s messy, leaving someone loose with such a good reason to kill you. If you fall off the house or something, the poor boy’ll be arrested before you can say Jack Robinson. Do something about it, even if he has got right up your nose to an alarming extent. Now I want to talk to Lina.’
‘She’s still having the vapours,’ objected Tom.
‘And she is entitled to have any vapours that she wants. But I want to talk to her. Come along. Take me to her.’
The
Doctor Franklin was closing the door when they arrived. Paul Black walked past, smeared and unhurried, trailing a bundle of electric flex.
‘She’s asleep,’ he said, in reply to Phryne’s request. ‘She’ll be awake by tea time, then she should be able to talk to you, Miss Fisher. She’s a nervous subject, however, and she’s still greatly shocked by whatever it was that happened out there.’
The Major, passing on his way to the parlour, greeted Phryne and his host. ‘Tom, Miss Fisher.’ His eyes lingered on Phryne. ‘How about a game of billiards, Tom? Do you play, Miss Fisher?’
‘A little,’ Phryne said, knowing that Tom Reynolds had honed his billiards-playing skill to shark levels as a journalist and hoping that he would skin the Major of his entire worldly wealth. ‘Not up to your standard, Major, I’m sure. You’ll excuse me. Tom, I might go and have a nap until tea myself. It’s a sleepy day.’
Dot was catching up the hem of Phryne’s broadcloth coat with tiny, skilled, invisible stitches when her mistress came in and let herself gently down onto her bed.
‘Well, Dot, I’ve been all over Cave House and my aesthetic sensibilities may never recover. How are you getting on?’
‘Very well, Miss. The food’s good and the company’s quite nice. That Mr Li knows a lot about the world. He’s been through the South China Sea with Mr Lin. And he was with him in Oxford. Did you talk to Mr Reynolds?’
‘Yes, after a fashion, but I don’t know if he was listening. Well, I’m going to have a rest.’ Phryne removed her outer garments and her shoes and lay down on her bed. Dot finished her seam, snapped the thread off, and hung the coat in the wardrobe.
‘I might go out for a walk, Miss,’ said Dot artlessly. ‘If you don’t need me.’
‘Oh, yes? With whom?’
‘Mr Li,’ she replied, and Phryne suppressed a number of indiscreet warnings.
‘Good. Have a nice time,’ she said, yawning. Phryne was asleep, snuggled into the eiderdown, when she heard the doorhandle turn. Without moving, she awoke fully. The person opened the door, letting in a streak of sunlight. It was still early, then. She had not slept long.
One footstep sounded on the wooden floor, then was muffled in the carpet. It was heavier than Dot’s tread and sounded like a man.
Phryne waited, breathing like a sleeper and wishing she had not tucked her head into her pillow so that she might be able to see who it was.
Outside, she heard birds singing. The intruder took a deep breath.
Phryne moved fast, flinging herself sideways and rolling off the bed, then leapt up and grabbed. She hooked his feet out from under him without difficulty.
A slim, light body, putting up no resistance, was flung onto the bed with Phryne’s knees on his chest. Someone grunted, ‘Golly, Miss Fisher!’ and she recognised the voice.
‘Gerald, what are you doing, creeping into my room?’ she asked, exasperated, removing her weight from his torso, so the young man could sit up. This he showed no inclination to do, remaining sprawled across Phryne’s bed like an odalisque.
‘You’re strong,’ he cooed, stroking her shoulder and down to the arm and wrist.
‘Good thing too,’ observed Phryne.
At this point the doorknob rattled as it was tried. Someone else was violating Miss Fisher’s siesta. For some reason, which she could not have explained, Phryne was suddenly very unwilling to be found by whoever was at the door.
‘Quick.’ Phryne dragged the young man down behind her bed, smothering his exclamation of surprise with her palm. After a second, he lay passively in her embrace, catching some of her disquiet.
The door opened. A man came in. Phryne could not identify him in the half-dark. He stood still for a while, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. Then he walked ten paces, saw that the bed was empty, turned and went out, shutting the door behind him.
Phryne snorted, Gerald sighed. He was lying back in her arms. She replaced herself on her bed and said, ‘I wonder who that was? Did you recognise him, Gerald?’
‘No. Just a shape and a movement. A man, though.’
‘Yes. A man.’ She was sure that it was not Lin Chung, who walked like a cat, but otherwise it could have been any male person in the house. ‘Now, Gerald, you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?’
‘Well . . .’ The feather-light fingers processed up her arm again and lingered in the hollow of her collarbone.
‘Well indeed,’ said Phryne, observing his flushed face, glistening eyes and the curly hair fallen back from a marble brow. ‘But it was unwise. I do not like being woken abruptly.’
‘No, you don’t, do you?’ said the young man, leaning up on one elbow. ‘Did your Chinese teach you to fight like that?’
‘No, an apache in Paris taught me – among other people. Get up, Gerald.’
‘But . . .’ he protested. Phryne kissed him firmly.
‘I think you’re absolutely beautiful,’ she told him, extending a hand to help him to his feet. ‘But this is not the way to approach me, Gerald. I’ve spoken to Tom Reynolds about Jack Lucas’s inheritance, although I don’t know what good it will do.’
He leaned into her embrace, trembling with some emotion – lust, perhaps, or gratitude – and whispered, ‘I’ll do anything for you, Miss Fisher.’
‘I’ll remember,’ said Phryne dryly, wondering why she was not seducing this absolutely decorative young man. She reflected that she was either acquiring ethics, which did not seem likely, or just had a preference for the delectable Lin Chung – if she could get him. ‘Perhaps it is time to call me Phryne. Now off you go,’ she said, and
