on his way to retrieve the infuriating but beloved Candida.
Jack Leonard was controlling the big car with a minimum of effort. She was fleeing along this dirt road as softly as a spectre. Dot was handing out cups of thermos tea, and ham sandwiches. Jack bit into one absently. He kept the plane in the right-hand corner of the windscreen. He could not see the car which it was following, but that was according to Phryne’s orders. They would not just chase along behind and be seen, or seize the pick-up man and beat him to a jelly, because of Candida. Nervous kidnappers kill their charges. Molly drank her tea and ate two sandwiches without prompting. She was half-tranced by this midnight ride on the empty road, and was possessed by the odd illusion that all the outside world was flying past, and the car was still, at the heart of the darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bert and Cec had discovered the street repairs. Bluestones were stacked into a rough wall all along Paris Street, where the workmen were replacing them with cement gutters. Several local households had helped themselves to a wheelbarrow load to construct their own rockery or a garden wall.
‘This is the place, Cec. They’ve been here a few days, too, see, the grass is starting to grow over them. What’s the last item on our list, eh? Oh, yair, the kids. This looks like a good street for kids. There’s a gang of ’em now. . what have they got? A cat, is it?’
Cec was already running towards the group of five children who appeared to be tormenting a cat. Cec plucked the half-grown kitten out of their grasp and caught it under his arm so that he could examine it. It seemed to have sustained only a wounded front paw. One of the claws had been unskilfully cut.
‘Give me a bit of that rag,’ ordered Cec, pointing with his free hand to a pile of bandages on the ground. One of the children, a grubby girl, burst into tears and another bit the end of her plait. The smallest urchin began to howl.
‘It’s all right, kids, don’t go crook. We ain’t going to hurt you, nor take you home to your mothers neither. We just want some information.’
Cec had bandaged the cat’s front paw.
‘We weren’t going to hurt it, mister, but it wouldn’t keep still, and kept on scratching, so we thought we’d cut its claws. We didn’t know that they’d bleed,’ said a wiry little kid with a collarless shirt and knotted braces. Bert had caught up by now and was getting his breath back. The children stared at him righteously.
‘We didn’t know it was going to bleed, did we?’ repeated the kid. Heads all nodded in chorus. The grubby girl wiped her face on a far-from-clean calico petticoat. The plait-sucking child said nothing.
‘Are you the kids who play in McNaughton’s?’
They nodded again. The smallest one howled and one of the others stopped his mouth with a pre-loved rainbow ball.
‘That’s Mickey. He howls,’ said the wiry kid. ‘I’m Jim. This is Elsie,’ the plait-chewer nodded. ‘And Janey,’ the grubby girl made a bob. ‘And Lucy — she’s Mickey’s sister and she has to take him with her.’ Lucy grinned, showing that she had not received two front teeth for Christmas. Mickey was silenced by the gobstopper.
‘Listen, kids, I want some information and I’m willing to pay for it. What will it be? A deener’s worth of lollies?’
Mouths watered all around the circle. Jim considered. ‘That’s old Mother Ellis’s cat,’ he said. ‘We sort of borrowed it, and if she finds out that we hurt its paw, she’ll tell all of our mums and we’ll all get a hiding. If you can fix it with Mother Ellis, and give us the lollies, it’s a deal.’
Bert looked at Cec, who was cradling the cat. The cat, which was a fine midnight-black pedigreed short-hair and no doubt very valuable, had placed one paw on either side of Cec’s chin and was gazing lovingly up into his eyes.
‘Can you do it, mate?’
Cec nodded. Jim escorted him to the house and watched with admiration as Cec walked straight up to the front door and banged the knocker, loud. The door opened and Jim ran for his life.
Mrs Ellis was a vicious old bitch, who punctured footballs kicked over her fence and shot at trespassing dogs with an air rifle. She had never given back a tennis ball, either, or a kite, and the children believed that she sold them. Mr Ellis had thankfully given up the ghost twenty years before and no man who was not a relative had crossed her threshold since. The house was offensively clean and stank of carbolic. There was a trail of newspapers laid down the hall over the polished floor. The children called her a witch and her letterbox never missed its cracker on bonfire night.
Although the house was cold as a grave, no smoke ever trailed from its chimneys. The kids believed she had the fires of hell to warm her. She wore her thin web of hair scraped over her scalp and knotted at the back of her head, and was always dressed in black. Her face reminded Cec of a boarding-house pudding with currants for eyes.
‘Mrs Ellis?’ he asked in his soft, warm voice. ‘I’ve brought you back your cat.’
The black cat turned in his embrace and stared the old woman straight in the eye, as if daring her to start something. She saw the bandage on the paw.
‘What’s happened to him? Have those little devils hurt him? I’ll have all of their bottoms tanned if they’ve touched a whisker.’ Her voice rose to an eldritch screech.
‘The kids might have had nothing to do with it,’ said Cec reasonably. ‘It’s only his front claw that’s broken. He might have caught it in something. Does he like climbing trees?’
‘Yes, he does, the varmint,’ she said, patting her cat.
‘And it was the street kids who put the bandage on his paw and told me where he belongs,’ continued Cec, as if there was nothing in the world such as perjury. ‘He’ll be as good as gold after dinner and a sleep. The claw will grow again in about a month.’
‘You know a lot about cats?’
‘A bit,’ said Cec, who had inflicted six of them on his long-suffering landlady.
‘Come in,’ she invited, and Cec stepped inside. The watching children gasped in chorus.
Mrs Ellis took Cec into her kitchen, where an electric heater warmed the room. The four cats who had draped themselves over the dresser and chairs lifted their heads and pricked their ears. They were all beautiful. Apart from the midnight-black in Cec’s arms, there was a tortoiseshell, a silver tabby, a mackeral tabby and a ginger tom. They were all well fed and groomed. The old woman went to the ice-chest and took out two jointed rabbits.
‘Dinner, my dears,’ called Mrs Ellis. The cats rose, stretched, and approached their food with royal leisure. Cec set the black cat down by his plate and he began to eat hungrily. Mrs Ellis stroked it with her gnarled hands, and Cec found himself close to tears. He swallowed.
‘Well, Mrs Ellis, I must go. Hope that the little fellow recovers well. I’m sure he’ll be bonzer in a couple of days. Your cats are beauties,’ commented Cec. Mrs Ellis accompanied him to the door and thrust a penny in his hand.
‘Tell them kids not to make so much noise outside my house,’ she snapped, and slammed the door with less than her usual force.
Cec was met at the gate by Jim.
‘She gave me a penny for you,’ he handed it over. ‘She’s not such a bad old chook if you leave her cats alone.’
Jim stood open-mouthed. A man invited into old Mother Ellis’s house who emerges not only with his life but with a reward!
‘All right,’ said Jim, gathering his clan around the cabbies. ‘What do you want to know.’
Bert told them the story of poor Bill McNaughton, unjustly accused of killing his father. He reminded them that on that very Friday they were going to a party with Miss McNaughton, where they would be entertained and fed. Could they take the lady’s jelly and buns and ginger-beer and refuse to help her brother? Jim thought about it, and they drew off to confer. Elsie uncorked her mouth and said her first words. ‘Tell them, Jim. I trust them.’
This seemed to be some sort of talisman. Bert had the whole story in ten minutes. He marvelled at the perspicacity of Miss Fisher once again, and handed over the shilling. He had just got some new change from the bank, so it was a bright and shiny shilling. The children gazed at it as it lay in Jim’s hand. Unnoticed, little Mickey
