‘It’s me, dear lady,’ said Lindsay’s voice from the floor, where he was lying out of sight of his fellow choristers. ‘Have you forgotten me so soon?’
‘No, dear boy, I haven’t forgotten anything at all. Come and sit next to me, or do you like it there on the floor?’
‘If they see me I shall be dragged off to sing — I like it better here. How smooth your legs are. Smoother than anything I can think of, except your thighs.’
‘You are an impudent young man,’ said Phryne, catching her breath. ‘What were you quarelling with Alastair about?’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Lindsay, laying his head in her lap. ‘Will you take me away and ravish me again tonight?’
‘Perhaps, if you merit ravishing. What was the quarrel?’
‘How tiresome you are, I shall be jealous of Alastair, you are so interested in him. If you must know, he wants to move out of my house, and he has packed up all his things. I was asking him where he was going to go, and he took me up uncommonly short and told me it was none of my business, which, of course, it isn’t.’
‘When is he to go? Stop fooling, Lindsay, this is important.’
‘Tomorrow,’ replied Lindsay, hurt. ‘I don’t know where he’s going but I think that it might not be unconnected with the not-so-blushing beauty and the money. Funny, you know, that was the night I spent in the jug.’
‘You
‘Oh, I hadn’t done anything wrong,’ protested Lindsay. ‘Old Alastair used to have spiffing ideas, you know, before he went strange.’
‘Did he?’ asked Phryne in a tone so compelling that Lindsay got up from the floor and faced her. ‘What did old Alastair suggest?’
‘Well, it was like this,’ he stammered, staring into the face of a fury, cut out of marble, with eyes of green ice. ‘He said that if I was going to be a lawyer I ought to understand about prisons, and the only way to really understand a prison is to be in one, and he said that I should get myself taken up for drunk and disorderly and be locked in overnight. Everyone gives a false name, you know. For God’s sake, Phryne, what’s wrong? What have I done?’
‘Where’s Alastair?’ she asked through numb lips, and scanned the room; an easy thing, since Alastair should have been with the tenors, and he was not there.
‘Come,’ cried Phryne. She shinned down the verandah pole, leapt and raced for her car, with the young man behind and gaining fast. Phryne threw herself into the driving seat and jabbed the self-starter. The powerful engine turned over with a roar.
‘Where are we going?’ yelled Lindsay.
Phryne cried, ‘We are going to prevent another murder — if we get there in time.’
Lindsay hung on as the Hispano-Suiza, howling on all cylinders, rocketed over the lumpy track and into the road.
Lindsay did not know that cars could go that fast. Phryne, when roused, could drive like a demon, having taken lessons from Miss May Cunliffe, the Cairo to London Road Race winner. Phryne had strong nerves and wiry wrists, and the engine of the Hispano-Suiza had been built for racing. The rain drummed on the roof and the windshield; the lights smeared as though marked with vaseline.
Lindsay hung on, cheering, exultant; Phryne clutched the wheel and bit her lip and hoped that she had guessed where the murderer was going.
After ten minutes, Lindsay said, ‘Phryne, we are going home, I mean, to your house, are we not? What do you think is going to happen there?’
‘I don’t know,’ snapped Phryne, skidding around a slow trundling truck. ‘Reach into the side pocket, will you?’
‘My God, Miss Fisher, a gun?’
‘Can you use it?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Lindsay dubiously. ‘I’ve fired one before.’
‘Good. Just try not to kill anyone with it. Now, listen. When we get to the house I want you to walk noisily down the left sideway, and I’ll go down the right. Make a lot of noise. Sing, if you like. Be genial and drunken if he is there. Hold him until help comes. Can you do it?’
Phryne felt, rather than saw, the spine stiffen and the jaw harden. There was good stuff in the young man.
‘I can do it. Why is he going to your house?’
‘Because he’s found out that Jane has seen him before.’
The car rolled to a silent halt in the cold street. Rain washed the cobbles and slicked the asphalt. Phryne buttoned her coat and pulled her cap down over her eyes, leaned over, and kissed Lindsay hard on the lips.
‘Good luck,’ she said, and got out of the car.
‘Over the top,’ said Lindsay, remembering a hundred woeful movies.
He tasted Phryne’s kiss on his lips all down the dark alley at the side of the house.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lewis Carroll
There were no lights in the house, and it was getting on for one in the morning. It was so quiet, except for the swish of the rain in the leaves, that Phryne could hear Lindsay on the other side of the house, singing in his pleasant tenor ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’ interrupted by the occasional hiccup. He really had a talent for acting, which his arrogant friend would never suspect. It was dark, and wet, and Phryne had not realised how many lumpy objects, just at shin height, were stored in her sideway. She banged into what seemed to be a spade, to judge by the clatter, and caught it up, using it to mark her steps and make as loud a noise as possible.
Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps he had gone to call on Eunice, perhaps he had taken a female glee-er into the bushes (though surely even students were not that lusty on a night like this), or perhaps he had gone blamelessly home to bed.
A branch struck Phryne across the face and blinded her; when she could see again she had been seized in a bone-breaking hold and there was a hand over her mouth.
She did not struggle, since this was futile; she gave a gasp and allowed herself to go limp. Her attacker was not expecting this; he had to change his grip to bear her up, and he grabbed her around the waist, leaving her hands and her mouth free. She was carried for a few paces, the strength of her captor surprising her. Phryne was a light weight, but this man carried her as if she weighed no more than a feather.
‘Fainted, have you?’ snarled a distorted voice. ‘Miss fine-airs Fisher, stealing my friend away like a poor dog to a flaunting bitch. I’ll show you, Miss Fisher, who thinks you are so clever. Then I’ll kill you, and leave you lying splayed for your lover to find. I can hear him, stumbling and singing, the drunken loon. Playing hide and seek, were you? First you, then him, then the little bitch, and the money is all mine.’
He dropped Phryne on her back and began to tear at the buttons of her sheepskin jacket. Phryne was cold with horror; the man was ten times stronger than she, and she had little time before she would be pinned like a moth.
Quickly, neatly, she rolled, drew up her legs, and kicked out with all her strength. She felt her heels sink into something soft. Her attacker gave a roar like a wounded boar and fell to his knees, catching Phryne’s neck with his right hand. His agony was measureless, his grip like that of an ape, and Phryne tore at the fingers. His one hand was not wide enough to encompass her throat, but he had his thumb on the carotid, and the air began to redden before her eyes.
‘Oh, there you are, Alastair, old chap,’ burbled Lindsay, a little breathlessly. He had heard the shout and had broken the land speed record for running around houses in the dark.
‘A fine night, isn’t it? Oh, I love these cool nights, to repose on the pale bosom of winter,’ he carolled, lifting his full bottle, which he had found in the car. ‘Have you seen Miss Fisher? Lovely girl. Oh, there she is.’ He stared owlishly at Phryne’s purpling face. ‘Sorry, old chap,’ he added, and brought the bottle down with all his force on his housemate’s head.
