The band rotunda was white wrought-iron, and it stood out under the moon like the bare ribcage and spine of a fabulous monster. Phryne waited until her eyes had got used to the light, then began to creep, sloshing slightly with her bladder of fluorescent paint, across the invisible grass.
Luckily it was not yet frosty, although it would certainly be so before dawn. She told herself that she was as good and ruthless a hunter as the Egyptian cats, and paused with one hand on a tree. She stepped into shadow, rolling her foot carefully forward from the toe; not a twig cracked under her feet. She had reached the rotunda and was about to cross the path when she saw a point of light, and heard someone whistling softly. There was a man, sitting at ease on the rotunda steps and smoking. Phryne’s spirits rose. This did not look like a professional kidnapping. Of course he might not be the one — but what sane man would have been found sitting in a rotunda at midnight in the middle of winter?
She was confirmed in this opinion by his behaviour when the noise of the Hispano-Suiza was heard. He threw his cigarette away and crouched down below the railings.
Phryne also crouched. She heard the crunch of Molly’s feet on the gravel and the thud as the bag dropped into the hollow stump. Molly’s feet moved away again and there was the revving of a big engine.
Don’t get too carried away with my car, Jack Leonard, thought Phryne. Is this my man or not? Damn him, won’t he move? I’m freezing to the spot.
Sid moved at last. He sauntered over to the stump, extracted the bag, and ripped open the top. He stuffed a handful of fivers into his pocket and tucked the bag under his arm. He walked jauntily down the path towards the other side of the park and did not give the slightest thought to the shadow that moved when he did.
He was planning to go back to Queenscliff to eliminate the witnesses, not share the money. He still had five shots in his revolver. That would finish Mike, the woman sitting silently in the car, and the kid. He would leave the pistol in Mike’s hand, then catch a boat from Adelaide bound to anywhere, with five thousand quid in his kick. He licked his lips at the thought of the ten-year-old child slaves he could buy in Turkey, with that amount of money.
The Bentley was warm and he only needed to swing the starting handle before the engine caught. Sidney did not so much as glance at Ann as he got in and drove away.
Phryne had not had any difficulty in ensconcing her slight frame behind the rumble seat. She unwound the line from her waist and lashed herself to the back of the car, using the convenient lugs placed there for tying up luggage. Tonight, thought Phryne, he hasn’t got luggage, he’s got baggage. This feeble witticism amused her as she hung on when the Bentley rounded a corner. She had the bladder of paint in a sling contrived by Dot, placed on her right hip. All she needed to do to drop some paint was to give the bladder a soft thump. The excreted paint would shine on the black surface of the road as soon as the light from the plane touched it.
Phryne had not gone fifty yards before she began to curse her own cleverness. This was ingenious, but couldn’t much the same effect have been obtained by tying the bladder to the car? She supposed not. She had no way of timing because she could not spare a hand to hold her watch. Bear was safe and snug against her chest. Phryne banged the bladder and a drop of paint squeezed out. She began to sing under her breath as the car whizzed along and the cold wind slashed at her hands.
She thumped the bladder at the end of each line. Observing angels would have heard had they been hovering over her in the dark:
Phryne hoped that by this novel method she could space out the drops of paint so that the plane could follow them. Geelong was fleeting past. Soon they were out into the open paddocks again. The moon was high and the light bright enough for Phryne to read the engine specifications embossed on the Bentley’s rear.
She was exquisitely uncomfortable. She had bound herself as tightly as Andromeda to the rock, as she did not relish being flung off into the night. Struck at thirty miles an hour, the road was sure to be very hard indeed. Her fingers, in their leather gloves, were beginning to cramp. She eased the pressure by leaning into her line, and though it took her weight, it creaked rather alarmingly. Her feet were wedged above the bumper bar, where the maker of the car had decided to make a definite little shelf about ten inches long.
The car surged up and over a hump in the road, and Phryne lost her grip. Her clawing hand met the tail light and she hung on to it as though she had been glued while she scrabbled with her feet for the step. She found it and gave the bladder a hearty thump. Geelong was now not even a glow on the skyline, and the moon was westering. Where was the plane? Had the paint failed to work? That was not disastrous.
Phryne freed a hand to scratch her itching nose and reminded herself that poor little Candida was at the end of this wild ride. If she was still alive. Phryne banged the bladder again.
Phryne began again, when she heard the buzz of a plane engine. She strained her ears, and risked a brief glance over her shoulder.
Riding up, circling majestically, the Fokker came into sight in the moon-glow, gleaming as silver as a trey bit. A faint stream of light radiated from her belly. It had worked. Phryne cheered silently, and barked her knuckles as the driver turned off the main road.
The plane was being flown by an expert — Bunji was to be congratulated. Phryne saw that the slow, sweeping circles, the most dangerous and difficult of all manouevres to attempt at night, covered the road with light while not making it obvious to the drivers underneath. They had not, as it happened, seen any other motors, as the winter attracted few people to the coastal resorts, and the locals knew better than to be out at this hour in this weather.
The road surface had worsened. Phryne kept her face pressed against the car, as the big machine spurned the stones and flung them high. One sneaked through her guard and cut her over the eyebrow. She wondered how Candida, a well-brought up little girl, would react if she had to catch her before Phryne had a chance to wash her face. Probably scream and run.
She wiped some of the blood off to clear her eyes, and then remembered that she had goggles. The struggle to extract them from her pocket, keep thumping, and not fall off in the process took her mind off the pain for five miles of gravel and a mile-and-a-half of mud.
Relieved of the fear of road gravel in the eyes, she donned the goggles and looked for the plane. It was about a quarter of a mile behind, flying as evenly as an eagle. Bunji was credited with the ability to smell the ground. The sweeping swing would have taken a less brilliant pilot straight into the deck, and it was very hard to judge how much height had been lost at the edge of each circle. The mud road was more comfortable, and Phryne prayed that they did not get bogged.
She listened for the familiar sound of the Hispano-Suiza but could hear nothing above the roar of Sid’s car.
In the cockpit of the Fokker, Bunji Ross was examining her instruments by the light of a torch. Flying speed was satisfactory, they had plenty of fuel, and the moon was giving almost enough light to fly by. At the bottom of each swoop she dropped the plane to within fifty feet of the road, and waited for Henry to call, ‘Got it!’ before she took to the air again. The engine was running sweetly. Bunji took a swig of black coffee from her thermos and offered it to Henry.
Henry gulped the bitter brew and returned the flask. He was lying on his face with the binoculars out of the hole which Jack and Bill had cut in the superstructure. Bill had not turned a hair when Bunji had announced that this was the only way she could devise of seeing out of the bottom of a plane. Hard struts dug into all the sensitive portions of his anatomy, including some which he had not known were sensitive before, but he did not care. He was
