truth.’
‘Good. Now I feel it only fair to tell you that I have left a full statement of your part in this ring: your attempt to murder your husband, plus samples of your wares; to be delivered to that nice policeman, whose name escapes me, if I don’t return to the Windsor at noon. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. More tea, please,’ requested Phryne. Lydia refilled her cup and sat staring at her.
‘Now where would you have left it?’ With that disagreeable suffragette doctor? Or in your room with your maid? I can’t get in to your room, the girl has bolted the door — no doubt on your orders. But I think that’s a blind. I think that the doctor is the one.’
‘Oh, do you? And where do you suppose I dined last night?’ misdirected Phryne.
Lydia paled. ‘Mr Sanderson’s?’
‘What do you think? Where would such a commission be safest? In the hands of a silly girl or an old woman, or with a parliamentarian and statesman, who moreover has a safe? Your goose is cooked, Lydia. Better give it up.’
Lydia stood up, rigid with fury. ‘Come,’ she snapped at the hovering men, and led the way out of the room.
Phryne waited until the door was shut and locked before she took the last sandwich and pulled it apart.
‘Plaster your burns with this, Sasha, and listen. I think I’ve got our Mrs Andrews’ weak spot.’
Sasha obediently smeared his burns with butter and listened.
‘It will not work,’ he said at length.
‘It had better,’ replied Phryne. ‘Or do you fancy being pressure-cooked into Sasha Surprise? She’ll send one to each: Sanderson, and Dot, and Elizabeth. They can all look after themselves, I hope. That leaves her to us. Will you cooperate or not?’
‘I am not at my best,’ admitted Sasha, smoothing down his hair. ‘But I shall try.’
Phryne began to listen at the door.
‘You go to the Windsor, Bull, and obtain the letter which Miss Fisher told us of. She is in suite thirty-three. Don’t draw attention to yourself and don’t come back without it, or I shall be very cross. Mr Billings: you will break into the Queen Victoria Hospital, threaten the disagreeable woman with whatever occurs to you, and get the samples and the script, if there is one. Then you, may kill her, if you like. And then you shall have a whole ounce to yourself when you come back. James, you will tackle Mr Sanderson. I imagine that the letter is in his safe. Be careful, all of you. And if you fail. .’ she giggled, ‘I shall be very cross indeed. You all remember what happened to Thomas, when he flouted me? I still have the very gun with which I shot him, and no one has missed him yet. Off you go,’ concluded Lydia.
‘I wonder,’ Phryne murmured in Sasha’s ear, ‘I wonder if she truly is a sapphic, or whether she just loathes the flesh? What do you think, moon of my delight?’
‘I do not think that she has any pleasures of the flesh,’ commented Sasha, his mouth against Phryne’s neck. ‘Is that shoe-polish which I can smell?’
‘Yes, I wanted to look unwashed. Not a sapphic, then?’
‘I do not think so. Her manner towards you is not. . not confiding enough. She is more like a child, with a child’s will and the single mind. She does not touch you, or me—
‘Frigid. Then all this is a substitute?’
‘No,’ whispered Sasha. ‘It is power that she loves. Did you see her eyes when she spoke of murdering us? They glistened like those of a woman in love. It is power she loves.’
‘And sex she hates.’
‘And on her hatred and loathing of sex our only chance depends,
‘
Dr MacMillan had had a hard struggle with the breech baby, and when that was safe, with the mother, who seemed obstinately set upon dying. It was nine o’clock before she was satisfied that they both intended to stay, and she could go upstairs for a bath, a cup of strong coffee and an hour’s sleep before the day’s work began. She had arisen from her bed and was dressed, combing her pepper-and-salt hair before the mirror, when a noise at the window attracted her attention. Someone was climbing the drainpipe. It was a lithe man, with a black silk scarf around his neck.
The doctor was used to the fact that any all-woman establishment attracts peeping Toms and perverts of all descriptions. She called to mind the hand-to-hand struggle she had once had with a drunken carter in Glasgow, and chuckled. Waiting until Cokey Billing’s head was crowning through the window, she struck him forcibly on the occiput with the washstand basin — which was of thick, white hospital china — and followed his downward course with a practised eye. She reckoned that a fall of two storeys would probably not kill him, and walked down to provide life-saving measures if necessary.
‘Waste of a good basin,’ muttered Dr MacMillan, regretfully.
The Bull found the Windsor without getting lost more than three or four times, and eyed the doorman sourly. He had been denied admittance with a fluency of language which he found wounding, and was now at a loss. If he couldn’t get in, how could he search suite thirty-three for this letter the boss wanted? Thinking always gave the Bull a headache. While waiting, he decided to have a drink at the nearby hostelry, where he could keep an eye on the door.
Gentleman Jim, stepping through the window of Dr Sanderson’s library, located the safe and rolled the tumblers between his fingers. His ears, trained to such work, found the first faint click that would begin to release the combination. He was only two numbers away from it when he was grabbed roughly by two policemen and handcuffed. Mr Sanderson had fitted his library window with the new telephone burglar alarm, which rang at Russell Street. As befitted a gentleman, he went quietly.
Dot became more and more alarmed as the clock ticked on. There had been no message from Phryne, but someone had inquired for her at the desk.
She had mended all the stockings, and was not com- fortable waiting with nothing to do. She was also very hungry, being unused to going without her breakfast since she had come into Phryne’s service.
It was ten o’clock in the morning.
Phryne laid herself out across Sasha’s knees as she heard the brisk clack of Lydia’s heels on the uncarpeted floor of the hall.
The door was unlocked, and Lydia, returning without companions, found a shocking spectacle to offend her eye. Phryne’s damaged dress was discarded and Sasha’s cut and bloodstained shirt lay on the floor. Phryne had ripped her camiknickers down to the crotch to allow free play for Sasha’s hands and was lying back, eyes glazed with desire.
Lydia stopped short and shrieked, ‘Stop that!’
The lovers paid her no heed. She flourished the gun, took another step, and shrieked again, spattering Sasha with spittle.
‘Let her alone!’ Her face distorted into a grimace. Teeth bared, she struck at Sasha with the gun, and at that moment Phryne flung the shirt over her head and seized the gun hand.
They rolled about the floor, Lydia grunting and attempting to bite while Phryne knelt astride her, bashing her hand hard down on the tiles at the edge of the swimming bath.
‘Help me, Sasha, she’s as strong as a horse!’ gasped Phryne, and the young man added his weight to Phryne’s.
Lydia released the gun, her hand being broken. Phryne rolled her over and tied her wrists with the remains of the mistreated dress. Lydia struggled silently and furiously until Sasha caught her ankles to tie her feet together, when she went as lax as a rag doll and whimpered.
‘What’s taken all the fight out of her?’ wondered Phryne, sucking a bitten finger.
Sasha shuddered. ‘She thought that I meant to rape her,’ he answered, his complexion greening.
‘You sit and watch her, Sasha, and don’t go any closer than that. Just watch — you don’t have to talk to her. I want a look around. I hope that the house is empty, but I don’t know. And you really have no talent for intrigue.’
Phryne opened the door carefully and listened. There was no one stirring. Overhead, she heard a slow
