hands that were innocent of a wedding ring across her artfully padded middle. She eyed the traffic, always heavy around Flinders Street Station, and noticed a battered cab, which she was sure she had seen pass only five minutes ago. It slid past again. She paced the pavement and looked into the hatter’s window, trying to control her breathing.
When she turned again there was the van as promised, and a tall man with short hair was beckoning.
‘You Joan Barnard?’ asked the man. Jones nodded. ‘You got the money?’ She held up her purse. ‘Come on, then, in the back,’ and she climbed into a musty-smelling interior, and sat down on the floor. She could not see out of the windows. They seemed to turn a corner, then another and down a long street with a few lurching stops. The gears were faulty, and grated. She could not see the driver.
The van stopped in a noisy street with a smell of cooking. The door opened, and she was grabbed roughly by the arm and dragged so swiftly that she only had time to notice that she was in Little Bourke Street, and the taxi she had noticed before had stopped nearby.
She was ushered through a blistered door and into a parlour. It was very old-fashioned, with a piano and easy chairs and a table with a wax bouquet under glass. Incongruously, there were two camp beds with old blankets on them in the corner away from the window.
‘Got the money?’ demanded the tall man with the cropped hair, putting out a dirty hand. Jones gave him the ten-pound note and he grinned unpleasantly.
‘Take off your underwear and lie down on the table and we’ll soon have you fixed,’ he said as he removed the wax flowers and the tablecloth off the dining table.
‘Lie down and I’ll take all your troubles away. Then you can go back to being a virgin again.’
He advanced on her, unbuckling his belt, and Jones backed until she came up against the table, fumbling for her purse as she went.
‘If you want to be relieved of your burden, girlie, I’m the one to do it. I’ll even give you a discount — if you please me. Ten per cent eh?’
Jones found her whistle, and blew hard. The whistle shrilled in the small room and Butcher George jumped, still clutching the glass dome and the tablecloth, then ran for the inner door. Jones, shaking with outrage, dived after him, tripped him, and sat down hard on his back, dragging his hands back and twisting his arms viciously. All the fight went out of him and he whimpered.
Three policemen broke down the door a minute later, and relieved Jones of her prisoner. They handcuffed his hands behind his back and led him out into the street.
The old cab was still there, and two men were standing by it. One was tall and blond and one was short and dark.
‘That’s him,’ remarked one to the other.
Cec approached Jones. ‘Is that George Fletcher?’ he inquired politely. Jones nodded. Cec took two paces, turned the head of the tall man towards him, and hit Butcher George with the best left hook seen in Little Lon. since the police strike. His heels lifted, his chin snapped back, and he fell poleaxed into the startled Jones’s arms. Bert and Cec got back into their cab and drove away. Jones and her colleagues loaded Butcher George into a police car and headed for Russell Street.
‘Who was that bloke with the hook?’ asked Constable Ellis.
‘I don’t know, but we are not going to mention it,’ replied Jones, settling her hair. ‘Are we?’
‘Is he really Butcher George?’
‘He is,’ replied Jones.
‘Then we ain’t going to mention it,’ agreed Ellis.
As she had promised, Phryne slept until noon, requiring Dot to turn the lovelorn Sasha away. Once she awoke, Phryne breakfasted lightly, then set off for the Melbourne baths. She obtained temporary possession of a towel, a locker, and use of the large swimming bath for a few pennies. She donned her brief black costume, without skirt or back, and pulled a rubber cap down over her hair, flung herself in, and began to swim up and down. She always found that swimming assisted her thought processes.
Her problems were twofold, she reasoned. First, there was Lydia, who did seem to be the subject of poisoning.
Dr MacMillan’s tests on the hair and fingernails obtained by the Irish maids would probably confirm that. Arsenic was the most likely drug — it had been fashionable for centuries in such matters, and was still, it seemed, in style. Andrews stood to inherit a fortune if Lydia died without issue, which made him the most obvious suspect. His dealings with Bobby were not going to yield him a profit — Lydia was right there. One could not trust Bobby Matthews. But then, could one trust Lydia? She was a clinging vine of the most insidious kind, but she had a financial mind that would be envied by most actuaries, and was shrewd in her assessment of people. And there was the other problem. What of the Bath House of Madame Breda?
Phryne reached the end of the pool, turned, and swam back. The water sluiced over her shoulders and swirled around her neck. There was no other lady in the swimming baths. Every splash she made seemed to echo.
Madame Breda. Impossible that she should be selling drugs. She was too honest and healthy. However, it was a big building, and it backed onto Little Lonsdale Street, that den of thieves. Phryne vaguely recalled a brass plate on the door as the maid had let her and the Princesse in. . what had it been? She turned on her back and floated, closing her eyes. Aha.
Madame Breda went to visit her patrons and Gerda went with her — that had been the case when Sasha had been caught in Toorak. Simplicity itself for Gerda to contact the person in the house who was addicted to
Temples brought Sasha, and sex, to mind. Hmmm. The bath-maiden at Madame Breda’s had caressed her in an intimate and sapphic manner, and seemed to be very practised at it. Was that why Lydia had not escaped elimination by becoming pregnant? Was she a lesbian? Andrews had, come to think of it, a frustrated manner, and his cruelty might be the result of being constantly rejected by his wife. Lydia might have been a sapphic since her schooldays, and her father had said that she lived with a rackety crowd in Paris. In that city, Phryne knew, there was a whole lesbian subculture, wearing men’s clothes, riding in the Bois, frequenting certain bars. Her old friend and gigolo Georges Santin had accompanied her to several such establishments. The women did not seem to resent Georges. Unlike most gigolos, he really liked women. Phryne had little leaning towards homosexuality, but she had liked the lesbian bars. They were free of the domination of men, creating their own society.
‘I wonder where I can find someone who knew Lydia in Paris?’ she said aloud, and the words came echoing back to her. No time.
‘I shall go exploring tonight, and see what I can find,’ decided Phryne, duck-diving to the end of the pool. But who was the rose? A person? A place? Presumably she was not being warned about an exploding bouquet. What were the common characteristics of roses? Scent? They came in all colours. Phryne gave it up, hauled herself out of the water, and went to the hot water baths for a soak.
She was back to the hotel at five, in time to receive a delighted phone call from Dr MacMillan.
‘My dear, they’ve caught that George the Butcher! The nice policeman just rang to tell me. He’s had to call in the police-surgeon. Yon Cec broke the bastard’s jaw.’
‘Was there a fight?’ asked Phryne.
‘No, I gather not. Cec just hit him. Well, that will be a load off my mind. And he’s confessing as fast as his wired-up jaw will allow, so there will be no need for Alice to give evidence. And what have you to say about these grisly relics ye’ve sent me?’
‘Hair and fingernails? Any arsenic?’
‘Chock-full, m’girl. From the examination of the hair shaft I’d say the person has been absorbing arsenic for about six months. Should you not call the police, Phryne? Are they from a cadaver?’
‘No, the lady’s alive. I shall notify the police, Elizabeth, but in my own time. You keep those samples safely
