don’t catch anything on the wing.
She had judged it nicely. The man’s body fell out of vision. A pale flower blossomed, cutting off her sight of the luminous cross. Right on target. Bunji drank another mouthful of the luke-warm coffee and looked for a place to set down.
Candida, who occasionally did as she was told, had taken Bear out to the road and was sitting quietly on the running board of the Bentley. She looked at the road. It was glowing.
‘They must have awful big snails here, Bear, to leave a trail like that. Big enough to ride on. Perhaps we can catch one and ride home.’ She yawned. It had been an exciting evening.
Dropping out of the sky into the centre of the snail tracks came a man clad all in leather. Candida froze. He cursed a bit as he loosened the parachute cords, and Candida and Bear edged closer. The voice was familiar. Then the man tore off his flying helmet and she saw his face in the lights that were now streaming from the house.
‘Daddy!’ shrieked Candida, and flew to him, scaling his body and settling back into his embrace. She held him as tight as a limpet for five minutes as he stroked her hair, then she looked up.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked severely. ‘Why did you let those people steal me?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
P.B. Shelley
Phryne found a bottle of rum and two glasses, and lit her first gasper in hours. She leaned back on the draining board and smoked luxuriously.
‘You’d better hit the road, Mike. Don’t forget to report the car stolen.’
Mike, dressed in a clean shirt and combed and shaved, looked like a respectable working man. Phryne peeled off a hundred pounds from her wad of notes.
‘This should take care of you for a while. I’ll look after Candida. Her family will be arriving soon.’
Mike knocked back the rum and pointed at the bundle, which was Sid, on the floor.
‘What about him? He’ll sing like a canary.’
‘I’ll take care of him,’ said Phryne quietly. Sidney, hearing her, winced.
‘Don’t look back,’ she advised Mike. ‘Keep going. There’s the right woman, and children, waiting for you yet. If you need any help with a job, come to me.’ She tucked her card into his pocket with the money, and let him out the front door.
They were both arrested by the sight of what appeared to be an angel, fallen from the sky. He stood tall and shapely, draped in his billowing wings. Candida and Bear were in his arms.
‘Mike,’ squealed Candida. ‘Daddy’s come.’
Mike walked over to her and took her hand.
‘Well, everything’s worked out then. I’ve got to go, Candida. I’ve come to say goodbye.’
Candida, who always associated goodbyes with kisses, turned her cheek. Mike bent and kissed her. Then he took Henry Maldon’s hand and shook it firmly. He turned away and walked into the night.
‘Mike!’ cried Candida, ‘you’ll get lost in the dark.’ But his step did not falter.
Phryne walked over to Henry. ‘I think you’d better get off the highway, dear man, or you’ll be run over by the rescuers. Excuse me for a moment.’
Phryne went back into the kitchen and propped Sid up against a cabinet. ‘I want to talk to you,’ said Phryne. ‘What will you take for keeping your mouth shut?’
‘Why should I? I’ll swing as soon as the cops lay their hands on me.’
‘Yes, you will. But I might be able to gratify any last wish.’ Her voice contained a hint of perversion.
Sidney licked his lips. ‘Can you smuggle me a girl before I go to the gallows?’
‘I think so,’ said Phryne.
Sid wriggled. ‘I mean my sort of girl. A child.’
‘Perhaps. How old?’
‘Twelve at the most.’
Phryne thought of her friend Klara, a lesbian who got a great kick from getting money out of men. Especially men like Sid. She dressed in a gym slip and looked almost prepubescent. The child-molesters who constituted most of her clientele fuelled her loathing, and it would not be the first time her little-girl’s body had been purchased by one who was about to die.
From her extensive knowledge of the underworld Phryne knew that it was no great matter to smuggle anything into a prison. All that was needed were a few timely words and more than a few coins of the realm. She recalled that the orgy which preceded the death of the Carlton murderer Jackson had been described to her in great detail by the prison guard who let the three girls in, disguised as prisoners. He said he had stayed to ‘supervise’ and fend off any inquiries. What had been his name? Briggs, that was it, a Northern Irishman of flexible morality and an ever-open palm. He volunteered for the duty which the other warders avoided; sitting up with the man to be hanged on the morrow. Stranger things than Klara had been taken into Pentridge for the comfort of those about to die, though the strangest was probably a bushranger’s horse. He had wanted to say farewell to it in person.
‘I think I can manage that, yes,’ she agreed.
‘In the death cell?’ bargained Sidney. Phryne wondered how long he had been in love with death. Perhaps the desired culmination of his whole career would be his judicial execution at the hands of stronger men. She poured out some rum and helped him drink it. Sidney, dispossessed of his gun, was a pathetic creature.
Ann was less pathetic because she was so very dead. Phryne stood over the corpse and looked down on her. The expression of surprise had faded. She looked now as if she was asleep. The thirsty spirit had gone, presumably back to its maker. Phryne collected up the few personal belongings that pointed to a second man having been present and stuffed them in her pockets. Then she went to sit on the front step and wait for the car. She was aching and bruised and tired out but pleased with the night’s work.
Phryne offered Henry a cigarette and lit her own. Candida and Bear were wrapped up in the parachute. They were awake, but warm. The lights of the big car approached. Tree trunks sprang into visibility.
‘Here they are at last,’ said Phryne. ‘I’d kill for a cup of tea. Look, Henry, it’s picanninny daylight. The sun will be up in an hour.’
The car drew up, and disgorged Dot, Molly, Jack Leonard and Bunji. They saw two bedraggled figures sitting on the front step of the small house. They were smoking. Next to them was a bundle of white silk, in which one could see a straggling head of pale hair and a bear.
‘Is it all right, Miss?’ asked Dot, breaking the silence. Molly flew to Candida, who embraced her frantically.
‘Daddy came down out of the sky and the lady brought Bear so I knew that it was all right,’ she informed Molly. Then she wriggled down and laid herself out across Molly’s knees.
‘What are you doing, Candida Alice?’ asked Molly fondly.
‘I want my spanking, and then I want my lollies!’ said Candida.
Molly laughed, sobbed, and delivered five moderate slaps. Candida sat up and Dot put her bag of lollies into her hands. The child checked through them carefully. The whole threepence worth was there, even if somewhat muddy. Candida filled her mouth with mint leaves and began to cry.
They all piled into the car as the sun was rising and took the road for the town. Phryne laughed aloud at the sight of them, all dusty and streaked, and reflected she must be the most bedraggled of them all.
‘What’s the best hotel in Queenscliff?’ she called to Molly.
Molly could not reply because she had unwisely accepted Candida’s offer of a toffee and her teeth were glued together.
Henry said, ‘The Queenscliff Hotel is the best, but we can’t go there looking like this.’
‘Yes we can,’ said Phryne flatly. ‘You should have seen the state in which we once entered the Windsor. I’m positively overdressed by comparison.’
Dot remembered it well. Phryne looked a lot more respectable in her present attire.
They drew up outside the Queenscliff Hotel and climbed the stone steps wearily. There, Phryne’s money, charm and air of authority obtained three rooms, one with a bath, and breakfast as soon as it should be laid. Phryne saw that her guests were settled in front of a hastily lit fire in the drawing-room, then sent a boy out for a roll of brown paper and some string. She wrapped Sid in the paper, using knots taught to her by a young sailor she had
