‘All back on the train,’ ordered the conductor. ‘This way, ladies and gentlemen, and we’ll soon have you comfortable. This is some sort of silly joke, and the Railways will be responsible for any damages. Might I offer you a hand, Miss er. .’
‘Fisher. The Hon. Phryne Fisher,’ said Phryne, allowing herself to lean on the arm. ‘I really am not feeling at all well. How long to Ballan?’
‘About ten minutes, Miss, if you’ll excuse the guard’s van, there being no room in the rest of the train.’
Phryne and Dot sat side by side on the floor, next to a chained dog and a cage full of sleepy chickens. The lady-companion was laid beside them, and the rest of the first-class passengers sat around the walls, surveying each other with discomfort.
‘I say, old girl, you look as if you’ve been pulled through the hedge backwards,’ opined the young husband in a feeble attempt at humour, and his pregnant lady rocketed into hysteria.
It took Phryne the ten minutes to Ballan to induce in the lady a reasonable frame of mind, and at the end of it Phryne was a rag.
‘If you have anything else to say that you think is funny, I’ll thank you to keep it to yourself,’ she snarled at the husband, catching him a nasty accidental-on-purpose crack on the shins. ‘I’ve got other things to do than calm the heeby-jeebies. Now we are at Ballan, Dot, I hope that we can get to the overnight things, for we really must have a hot bath and a change of clothes, or we shall catch our death.’
‘There’s a hotel in Ballan,’ said the mother, catching little Johnnie as, much recovered, he poked his fingers in among the chickens. ‘Come away, Johnnie, do!’
‘The Railways can pay for it, then,’ suggested the young man, with a wary eye on Phryne. ‘I haven’t got the cash for an overnight stay.’
‘I can advance you enough,’ said Phryne. ‘Not to worry. Here comes our nice conductor to release us from durance fairly vile.’
The conductor had clearly done wonders in a very short time.
‘If the ladies and gentlemen would care to break their journey for awhile, they may like to bathe and change at the hotel,’ he suggested. ‘The guards will bring your baggage. The hotel is about a hundred yards down the street, and we will carry the sick lady.’
Phryne took one child, Dot another, and they trailed wearily down the road to the Ballan Hotel, a guesthouse of some pretension. They were met at the door by a plump and distressed landlady who exclaimed over their condition and took charge of the children.
‘Room two, ladies, there’s a bath all ready for you. I’ll send the man with the baggage when he arrives. I shall have tea ready directly, and I’ve sent for the doctor. He should be here soon.’
Dot and Phryne gained their room, and Phryne began to strip off her wet garments. Dot located the bath, and gestured to it.
‘You first — you were worse affected,’ insisted Phryne, and Dot recognised inflexibility when she saw it. She took off her clothes in the bathroom and sank into the tub, feeling the aching cold ease out of her bones. She heard the door open and close as she lay back and shut her eyes, and presently there was Phryne’s voice.
‘Come on, old dear, you don’t want to fall asleep again! I’ve got the clothes and I’ve got some tea.’
‘In a minute,’ promised Dot, and exchanged places with her mistress.
They were dressed in clean clothes and thoroughly warmed when the conductor returned to advise them that the chloroform vapour was all gone and they could resume their journey, if they liked. Phryne was ready to go, and was called in to rouse the companion of the elderly lady.
The woman was much scorched or scalded about the nose and mouth, and the doctor seemed worried about her. She had not begun to rouse until the injection of camphor had been made. Then she opened her eyes all of a sudden and, hearing Phryne’s voice, asked, ‘Where’s Mother?’
And Mother was gone.
After that, there was no further chance of getting to Ballarat, and Phryne turned to the landlady.
‘There was another lady on the train, and she has definitely gone. We must call the police — perhaps she fell out the window. Is there a police station in Ballan?’
‘Yes, Miss, I’ll send the boy around now. What a terrible thing! We’ll have to rouse out some of the men to go searching.’
‘Dot, are you better?’ asked Phryne of her maid.
Dot replied, ‘I’m still a bit woozy, Miss. What do you want me to do?’
‘Go and make some tea.’
‘I can manage that,’ agreed Dot, and went out. The doctor was applying a soothing cream to the stricken woman’s face.
‘What burned her? Chloroform?’ asked Phryne, as she took the jar out of the doctor’s insecure hold and held it out for him to dip into. ‘Does it burn like that?’
‘Certainly. She has had a chloroform-soaked cloth laid over her face, and if you hadn’t woken them all up and got her out of the train, she would now be dead, and even so there may be permanent damage to her liver.’
‘What about the rest of us? Would we have all been affected just by the chloroform in the first compartment?’
‘No. The gas is heavy, much heavier than air, and very volatile. Someone must have poured it into the ventilation system. Someone wanted you all asleep, Miss Fisher, but I have no idea why. There now, you may stopper the jar. Poor woman, a nasty awakening, but she’s slumped back into sleep again. Can you watch her for an hour? I should go and see how those children are getting along.’
‘By all means,’ agreed Phryne, her conscience still tender in the matter of little Johnnie. ‘I’ll stay here. If she wakes, can I give her tea?’
‘If she wakes, Miss Fisher, you can give her anything you like,’ said the doctor, and hefted his black bag in the direction of the children’s room.
An hour later, at three in the morning, the woman awoke. Phryne saw her stir and mutter, and lifted her to moisten her lips with water.
‘What happened? Where’s Mother?’ came the cracked voice, prevented only by bodily weakness from shrieking.
‘Hush, hush now, you’re safe, and they are out looking for your mother.’
‘Who are you?’ asked the woman dazedly. She saw Phryne’s expensive dressing-gown, edged in fox fur, her Russian leather boots of rusty hue, and an aloof, pale, delicate face, framed in neat, short black hair and with penetrating green eyes. Next to this vision of modish loveliness was a plain young woman with plaits, dressed in a chenille gown like a bedspread.
‘I’m Phryne Fisher and this is Dot Williams, my companion. Who are you?’
‘Eunice Henderson,’ murmured the woman. ‘Pleased to meet you. Where is Mother? What is happening? And what’s wrong with me? I can’t have fainted. I never faint.’
‘No, you didn’t faint. We are in the Ballan Hotel. Someone chloroformed us — the whole first-class carriage. I knew that I should have motored to Ballarat, but I do like trains, though I’m rapidly going off them at the moment. Luckily, I was in the last compartment, and I am a very light sleeper. I broke the window, and then opened all the others and dragged everyone out. You I found lying on the floor of the compartment, with a spilt glass near your hand, and there was no one else there, I can assure you. The window was open — could she have fallen out?’
‘I suppose so — she is a thin little thing, Mother. I can’t remember much. I was asleep, then I heard this thump, and I felt ever so ill, so I got up to get some water, and. . that’s all I can recall.’
‘Well, never mind for the moment. There’s nothing we can do until the searchers come back. They have roused the railwaymen and they’ve all gone walking back along the track. They’ll find her if she is there. Why not go back to sleep? I’ll wake you if anything happens.’
Eunice Henderson closed her eyes.
‘Miss, she must have been the Eunice that the old lady was nagging all the time on the train,’ whispered Dot, and Phryne nodded. The journey had been made unpleasant not only by the children, but also by an old woman’s partially deaf whine in the forward compartment, as unceasing as a stream and as irritating as the mosquito which had caused Phryne’s sleep to be so light. She had reflected during the journey that the mosquito was the lesser hazard, because it could be silenced with a vigorous puff of Flit.
‘Eunice, the window is shut — you know that I hate stale air!’ ‘Eunice, the window is open — you know that I
