Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

her, affected him profoundly. She could combine the grace of a queen with the style of a demimondaine, and he had never seen anything like her in his life.

‘Oh, if I could ’ave ’er!’ he whispered, and the serving-maid rapped him sharply with the spoon.

Dancing with Sasha, Phryne decided, was almost as exciting as doing a loop-the-loop in a new plane in a high wind. He was graceful, and she could feel the ripple of excellent muscles beneath the leotard which fitted him like a second skin; he was exceedingly responsive to her slightest movement, but he led with confidence; she had no fear that he would drop her, and he smelt sweetly of a male human and Russian Leather soap. Her emotions were stirred, but she could not afford to become infatuated with him. She was explaining patiently to herself that she was not infatuated, but merely sensibly attracted to one who was personable, graceful and an excellent dancer, when they swept to a synchronised stop, and bowed to the applause which broke out all around them.

Sasha was holding her hand and drawing her down into yet another bow. Phryne woke up, resisted the pull, and removed her hand from his, not without an inward pang. The boy turned her gently by the shoulders as the band lurched into a foxtrot, and Sasha said his first words.

‘You dance very well,’ he commented. ‘I have seen you dance before.’

‘Oh?’ asked Phryne, resisting the urge to move into his embrace. He had the muscular nervousness of a highly bred horse; intensely alive, and reacting to every touch.

‘Yes, in the Rue du Chat-qui-Peche,’ continued Sasha, ‘with Georges Santin.’

‘So it was,’ agreed Phryne, wondering if the young man was attempting to blackmail her. ‘It was Georges who taught me to tango, and it cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you. I saw you in Paris too, with the Compagnie des Ballets Masques in the old Opera. Why did you leave so suddenly?’ she asked artlessly.

If the young snake was intending to ask embarrassing questions, then he would learn that Phryne had a fair battery of them too.

‘It. . it was expedient,’ said Sasha, missing a step and recovering instantly. He spoke thenceforward in French, in which he was fluent, but with a heavy Russian accent. Phryne’s French was suitably Parisian, but in her Left Bank days she had picked up a number of indelicate apache idioms, and used them with alarming candour.

‘I find you very attractive, my beautiful boy, but I cannot be blackmailed.’

‘The Princesse told me that it would not work,’ admitted Sasha ruefully. ‘And I should not have persisted against her wisdom, but I did, and see what a fool I am revealed to be? Beautiful, charming lady, forgive your humble suppliant!’

‘Before I forgive you, tell me what you wanted,’ said Phryne.

Sasha paused, quivering, then led her to where the old Princesse sat perched on a golden metal chair, nibbling caviar russe and surveying the dancers with a sardonic eye, like an old parrot on a perch. She eyed Sasha and Phryne, and cackled.

‘Et puis, mon petit,’ she cackled. ‘Next time you will listen to me. Always I am right — infallibly right. It runs in the family; my father told the Tsar to attend to Rasputin and not declare war, but he did, and came to a bad end. As did poor Russia. And now I come to think of it, me. And you. Foolish boy! Is mademoiselle still speaking to you, worthless one? I told you she is not one to yield to pressure! But she might have reposed in your arms and agreed to your every wish had you used what charm the Lord God saw fit, for some reason, to endow you with!’

Phryne, observing that her partner was thoroughly chastened, and rather at a loss as to how to react, claimed a cocktail and some of the Princesse’s caviar russe, and resolved to wait until the old woman’s attention could be diverted from the hapless Sasha to explain.

‘I still might — they are very pleasant arms to repose in,’ she agreed placidly. ‘But I need more information. What do you want? Money?’

‘Not precisely,’ said the old woman. ‘We have a thing to do, and we believe that you can help us. You are investigating the strange illness of that female in rose, are you not? Colonel Harper—’e is an old friend of mine.’

‘I can give you no information until you reciprocate,’ temporised Phryne through a mouthful of the excellent caviar. The old woman cackled again.

‘Bon. You suspect the snow, do you not?’

‘Cocaine?’ asked Phryne, thinking that it was a surprising question. It had not entered her head that Lydia was a drug-fiend.

‘We came from Paris in pursuit of the trade,’ stated the old woman calmly. ‘We of the Compagnie des Ballets Masques are chasing the king of the trade. We believe that he is here — and you will help us find him. You cannot approve of it?’

Phryne, recalling the haggard cocaine-addicts, twitching and vomiting to an early grave through torments not surpassed by the Inquisition, shook her head. She did not trust her interlocutor, and she had difficulty believing anything which she was hearing, but both of them seemed serious.

‘Is this a personal vendetta?’

‘But yes,’ said the Princesse. ‘Of course. My daughter died of it. She was these children’s mother.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Phryne asked.

‘Tell us if you find anything. And come with me, in the morning, to Madame Breda’s Turkish Bath.’

‘But I do not suspect snow,’ said Phryne.

‘Perhaps you should,’ said the Princesse.

Phryne agreed. The Princesse pierced her down to the undergarments with her old, needle-sharp eyes, nodded, and clipped Sasha affectionately across the ear.

‘Go, fool and dance with the mademoiselle again, since your feet are better on the floor than in your mouth,’ she chided. Sasha held out his arms, and Phryne walked into them, where she fitted comfortably, and they danced until her attention was claimed for dinner. Sasha faded away with a backward glance to join his sister and the Princesse high up on the left-hand side of the table. Phryne was seated between Lydia and the affable Robert Sanderson, MP, two seats from their hostess.

It was hours before they would allow her to sit up, and even then she was so tired by the movement that she drooped over her tray. Cec had visited, bringing chrysanthemums, and he had spoken kindly to her, unlike some of the nurses, who were abrupt, cold and disapproving. She liked Cec. Her mother had come to weep over her narrow escape from death, and marvel that such damage could be wrought from a grazed knee.

Alice wondered what she looked like. They had cut off her hair, which she thought her best feature, and it was short and curly around her head, but she had got so thin that she could almost see through her wrists.

She had talked to the policeman, who had taken down everything she had falteringly said, in a black notebook. Unfortunately, she did not know much. She had been taken from the railway station in a vehicle with blacked windows — some sort of van, and she had been so hustled into the house that she had not been able to identify the street. It was narrow and cobbled, badly lit and noisy. She could smell cooking sausages and beer, as well as a chemical smell. She had given a description of the room, but it was so ordinary that it could have been one of a thousand innocent parlours, with piano and fireplace and antimacassars. She could not remember how she got out onto Lonsdale Street, after spending two days in a spare stretcher bed in the corner of the room, along with another girl, who said nothing, but moaned in a foreign language.

She did not know why they had kept her so long, except that the foul George had seemed to want her there. He had only become panicky when he felt how hot she was.

A pale, well-dressed lady had looked into the room once, and then hastily shut the door. She had been dressed entirely in dark blue and had been very pretty.

The policeman had seemed disappointed and had gone away, begging her to call him if she remembered more.

Meanwhile, she had nothing to do but drink her egg- and-milk and sleep. All of her life she had worked. Being idle was a strange sensation.

Having been brought back to life, she had no temptation to give up again, although she was so tired and thin and listless. Besides, Cec visited her every day and sat by her bed. He was silent for the most part, but there was something comforting about his silence, and he held her hand as if it was an honour. Alice was not used to this.