Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

She lowered the young man on to the couch, removed her fillet and cape, and surveyed the damage. The lassitude was explained by the fact that a razor-sharp knife had slit a long thin wound down the bicep, slicing through the leotard, and although it was minor compared to the wreckage produced by, say, an apache brawl, it was bleeding freely.

Phryne, aware that blood could not be removed from satin, threw off the beautiful dress, and found a towel and a newly washed stocking in the bathroom. She rang room service and ordered strong coffee and a bottle of Benedictine. Sasha returned to full consciousness to find himself being offered a drink by a young woman clad in black camiknicks, black stockings, high heels and a towel. There was a long smear of bright red across her breast, which he felt was just what the costume needed.

His arm hurt. He looked down, alarmed at the amount of blood, anxious that the muscles might be damaged; there was a stocking bound tightly around it.

‘You are not badly hurt, but to judge from the state of that jerkin you have lost a lot of blood. Your arm isn’t crippled; bend your fingers, one at a time. Good. Now clench your fist. Good. Now bend your elbow. Put your fist on your shoulder and keep it there, and you might stop bleeding. Now, drink more coffee, please, and keep your arm and side still. A young man in one’s hotel bedroom is capable of being explained, but a corpse is always a hindrance.’

Phryne, noting the young man’s eyes upon her and realising that her costume might be considered scanty, wiped the blood off her breast and wrapped herself in her mannish dressing-gown. Then she poured a cup of coffee, lit a gasper and waited for an explanation.

Sasha, feeling strength creep back into his weary body, drank coffee, sipped Benedictine and began to talk in French. That language came more easily to him than English.

‘It was the Snow,’ he said, investing the term neige, usually connected with French skiing lessons, with solemn horror. ‘I heard that there was to be a drop of the stuff at a certain place, so I went there, without telling my sister or la Princesse. They will skin me alive! Though there is little necessity, I have effectively punished myself. You are sure about the muscle? It is very tender.’

Phryne reassured him. She recalled that she had some styptic powder, fetched it from the bathroom, and applied it to the arm. She could not help noticing how muscular he was, his skin as smooth as marble. She slit the side seam of the leotard and removed it, wrapping him in the gown which she used as a peignoir. It was of dark green cotton and suited him well. Although he resembled his sister very strongly, Phryne had no difficulty in remembering that Sasha was male, even when clad in female garments. His charm was not at all androgynous. As the Princesse had said, had he exerted all of the charm which God gave him, she would have lain down in his arms and given him anything he wanted.

He leaned his head back against her thigh as she sat behind him on the arm of the chair, and she ran her hand through the curly hair.

‘Continue,’ she ordered. ‘So what did you do?’

‘I hid myself outside the gate,’ sighed Sasha. ‘And the car drew up as they had arranged, and a packet was exchanged. Then they saw me, and I ran, like a fool! Two of them chased me, on foot, luckily. I don’t know what became of the car. Then I realised that the one who had first seen me, who had lunged at me with a knife, he had wounded me. . I was failing. . then I saw you, and flung myself at your feet, and with great wit and a speed of thought to be marvelled at, you hid me and contrived to convey me here. Where is here?’

‘The Hotel Windsor. I think that you had better stay here tonight. The Princesse is coming in a few hours to take me to the Turkish bath of Madame Breda. I can smuggle you out with us. What is your address?’

‘We are staying at Scott’s; a good hotel, but not luxurious, as this one is. I should like to live here,’ said Sasha artlessly, reaching out his unwounded right hand for the coffee cup.

Phryne laughed. ‘I daresay you would. But you would shock my maid,’ she added, wondering what Dot would make of the visitor.

She dragged the quilt off her bed and made Sasha comfortable on the sofa, despite his preferred wish to sleep with her, ‘Like brother and sister, you know.’ Phryne knew that her will to resist temptation was weak. She turned off the lights, pinned a note on Dot’s door that said, ‘It’s all right, he’s a visitor, and anyway he’s hurt. Call me at eight with tea and aspirins, P.’. Then she put herself to bed, resolutely turning the key in her door more as a warning to herself than out of any suspicion of Sasha’s motives.

In any case, as soon as the lights were off, she slept like a baby.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Come down and relieve us from virtue Our Lady of Pain

Algernon Swinburne ‘Our Lady of Pain’

Phryne awoke, feeling unhuman. Dot was tapping on her door. She lurched out of bed, accepted the tray, and sat down to swallow aspirins and tea at top speed.

‘Run me a bath, Dot, please, with lavender salts.’

Dot stayed put. ‘What about ’im?’ she jerked a thumb back over her shoulder. Phryne had forgotten Sasha. It was very early in the morning.

‘Sasha? He was attacked in the street, and I brought him back here because it was too late for him to get back into his hotel. He’s hurt, Dot, and I want you to be nice to him.’

She joined her maid at the door and saw that Sasha had thrown off the covers as he slept and now lay sprawled, like a youthful faun wearied with one orgy too many, naked to the waist, fast asleep and heart-stoppingly beautiful. Phryne sighed.

‘But not too nice. Let him sleep, and if he’s still asleep at lunch, leave him here. He won’t do any damage,’ she added. Her private papers were on her person and most of her jewels were in the hotel safe. As for her other possessions, well this might be a good way of ascertaining if Sasha was a thief. Phryne Fisher had a taste for young and comely men, but she was not prone to trust them with anything but her body.

‘Run my bath, please, Dot, and remember this is your afternoon off. Are you doing anything interesting?’

‘I’m going home,’ said Dot, receding in the direction of the bathroom. ‘Then to the flicks. There’s a new Douglas Fairbanks.’

Phryne sat down to drink her tea, adding a judicious measure of Benedictine. She decided upon severe black trousers, a white shirt, and a loose, bloused, black jacket as suitable dress for a visit to a Turkish bath, and she loaded the capacious pockets with the usual accessories. Finding the pouchy velvet bag of the night before, she removed the little gun, surveyed it thoughtfully, and added it to her accoutrements. Her headache began to ease. Sasha rolled over, fast asleep, and moaned. Phryne laid a hand on his forehead, but it was cool. He did not seem to have sustained any lasting damage.

Dorothy returned with the news that her bath was run, and Phryne subsided into the steam with a deep groan. All of her muscles hurt. She resolved to take more exercise before she danced with Sasha again, and applied some cream to her face. ‘Too many nights like that, m’girl, and you’ll be getting haggard,’ she reproved herself, lathering her pale slender arms and breasts with Parisian soap. Despite the creaking of the tendons, she remained slim as the gunmetal nymph and completely unblemished. She sluiced herself down, dried and dressed, and accepted a light breakfast which Dot had ordered. The coffee completed her recovery. After further deep thought, she gave the small gun to Dot and ordered her to hide it. One cannot take much except intelligence and religious convictions into a Turkish bath, and one’s garments are available to be searched.

The Princesse arrived at half-past eight, dressed in a shabby linen outfit evidently made for someone who was much taller and stouter. She said little, but stalked off down towards Russell Street, and Phryne followed.

The streets were windswept and chilly. The only sign of life appeared to emanate from Little Lonsdale Street, where the late-night revellers were eating eggs and bacon in the company of girls far too skimpily clad for the climate. The Bath House of Madame Breda was but a hop, skip and jump from these scenes of bacchanalian fervour, and Phryne, cold and disgruntled, felt that the neighbourhood was hardly salubrious.

The bath was a large building, running the width of the block between Russell and Little Lonsdale. The stone was respectable and the doorway imposingly austere. Phryne was regretting her bed, possibly with Sasha in it, when the door was opened by a severe maid in black with a white cap. She ushered them in without a smile, and they entered a hall scented with the most ravishing, oriental steam. Phryne, after a little thought and several deep sniffs, analysed it as a heavenly compound of bergamot orange, sandalwood, and something rare and precious — frangipani, perhaps, or orchid — a seductive, slightly sour scent, quite ravishing to the unprepared senses. The