‘Could we have some more coffee, Mrs Johnson? Is Doctor Heron still here?’
‘Yes, Bill, the doctor’s watching over one of them kids. He’s worried about the youngest. I’ll get some more coffee in a tick — shall I fetch the doctor?’
‘No need at the moment, just catch him if he looks like going home. Thanks, Mrs J.’
‘I was reading one of my novels and Dot was asleep, and I dozed off over the pages with my light on, then I smelt chloroform. I woke up, and broke the window.’
‘Why did you wake up, Miss Fisher? Everyone else just seems to have got sleepier.’
‘I hate the smell of chloroform,’ said Phryne, lighting a gasper to banish the remembrance. ‘That sweet, cloying stench — ugh! I must have inhaled quite a lot, though, I could hardly move.’
‘How did you break the window, Miss?’
‘I hit it with my shoe,’ lied Phryne, who was not going to disclose the presence of her pistol unless she had to. ‘And I damaged the heel, blast it. A new shoe, too.’
Should the sergeant search, he would find Phryne’s high-heeled shoe with window glass in the leather and glass damage to the heel. Phryne had carefully ruined the shoe on the way to Ballan. She believed in being just as truthful as was congruent with sense and convenience.
‘Yes, and then what happened?’ asked the sergeant.
‘I staggered out and opened all the windows, and I pulled the communication cord.’
‘Yes, Miss, that was at 7.20 p.m. The guard looked at his watch — Railways policy, evidently — and how long do you think that opening the windows took?’
‘Oh, about ten minutes. I felt the train stop for a while when I was letting in the air.’
‘Ah, yes, Miss, that times it. Water stop for three minutes at 7.15 p.m.’
‘There was some sort of bump — I thought it came from the front of the train — but I was getting very wobbly by then.’
‘I’m sure you acted very properly, Miss Fisher. If you hadn’t broken that window, the whole carriage would have been gassed, and the doctor says that some of them kids would have been dead before the train got to Ballarat. A terrible thing, and Mrs Henderson dead, too.’
‘Can she have fallen out of the window, do you think?’
‘Fallen or been dragged,’ said the sergeant grimly. ‘Here’s the coffee. Thank you, Mrs J.’
Mrs Johnson withdrew reluctantly — it was not often that anything interesting happened in Ballan — and the sergeant poured more coffee for Phryne.
‘What did you see, Miss, when you opened each compartment door?’
He got out his notebook and licked his pencil.
‘In the compartment nearest me were Mr and Mrs Cotton. They seemed to have fallen under the influence together, for he had his arms around her and she had her face buried in his shoulder. They were half-conscious. Then there was Mrs Lilley and her frightful children — she was stirring and moaning, but the children were all dead to the world. . what an unfortunate metaphor, I beg your pardon. In the first compartment the window was open, Mrs Henderson was gone, and Miss Henderson was lying on the floor, prone, with a cloth half-over her face.’
‘What was she wearing?’
‘A skirt and blouse, and a woolly shawl. She had a spilled cup near her hand, as though she had dropped it where she fell. The smell of chloroform in that confined place was awful, it stung my eyes until I could hardly see.’
‘And then what did you do, Miss?’
‘I pulled the communication cord and the guards came, and we got everyone out of the train. Where is the train, by the way? You can’t have left it sitting on the line all this time, not if you haven’t closed the rail link altogether.’
‘No, Miss, we haven’t closed the line, not now we’ve found the body. The rest of the train has gone on to Ballarat, but the first-class carriage is still here in the siding, in case we can find a clue. You didn’t happen to notice anyone you didn’t know walking through the train, did you, Miss? After you came back from the dining car.’
‘Only a rather good looking young guard — blond, he was, with a very nice smile.’
‘A young man, Miss? I saw all the guards on that train, and there was none of ’em under forty.’
‘Are you sure?’ demanded Phryne, who had a clear recollection of a rather ravishing young face under the cap: unlined, smooth, tanned, and certainly not more than twenty-two or — three years old.
‘Quite sure,’ responded the sergeant. ‘Would you know this man again, Miss?’
‘I think so,’ temporised Phryne. ‘Perhaps. But you’d better start looking for a blond young man, Sergeant, because I think that he might be your murderer.’
CHAPTER TWO
Lewis Carroll
There was nothing to be done for the rest of the night but to recruit as much strength as possible. Phryne curled up in an armchair, and Dot went to lie on her bed. Miss Henderson awoke at intervals, was reassured, and lapsed back into sleep. Gradually the cold, before-dawn grey light seeped into the room, and Phryne dozed off.
Her dreams were most uncomfortable, and she was glad to wake. All through and around a peculiar series of events constructed by her bewildered subconscious was the picture of the old woman as she had last seen her: the broken limbs, the pathetically twisted fingers, bare and broken. . Phryne said, ‘Rings!’ and woke herself up.
‘Thank God for waking, I could not have stood that dream much longer. Her rings! All those emeralds, and they are gone. I must tell that nice sergeant, but first I must have a bath and some breakfast and find some clothes. I wonder how long we shall have to stay here? And how is Miss Henderson?’
Phryne bent over the patient, and found her sleeping normally, her face still and peaceful under the burns. Her heartbeat was strong and regular. Fairly soon she would have to know that her mother was dead, but with any luck Phryne would not be the one to tell her.
Phryne tiptoed into the room allotted to herself and Dot, and found that her maid was awake and had run a bath, set out Phryne’s clothes, and was herself washed and dressed.
Phryne shed her cream velvet and fox fur dressing-gown gratefully, pulled off her silk pyjamas, and subsided into the steam, scented with Phryne’s favourite bath oil, Reve du Coquette.
Afterwards she dried herself thoroughly, as though she could scour the memory of death off her skin with the hard hotel towelling, and dressed for what looked to be a cold, nasty winter’s day in trousers of black fine-loomed wool, a silk shirt in emerald green, a jumper knitted with rather amusing cats, and the black cloche. She pulled on her red Russian boots and took a red outer coat of voluminous cut with deep pockets.
Dot was dressed in a long warm skirt and a woolly jacket in fine undyed fleece. She had a wheat coloured shirt and thick lisle stockings, but was still pinched and shivering.
‘You should wear trousers, Dot, they are the only sensible clothing for this sort of weather.’
‘Oh, no, Miss,’ was all that Dot would reply through chattering teeth, so Phryne gave up and led the way into the breakfast-room. It was eight-thirty in the morning, and someone should surely be stirring.
The breakfast-room (which Phryne was sure would double as the dining-room) was a large room with bay windows, now looking out onto miserable cows and battered scrub. Every leaf was hung with dew, as the early fog condensed, and it was grey and chill, a suitable morning for the aftermath of a murder. However, the chafing dishes were set out next to a tall coffee-pot and all the makings for tea, and a scent of toast and bacon was in the air. The room was decorated in pink and black, jazz colours, and tall vases of gum leaves lent the air an outback scent. It was modern and stylish without being so
Miss Fisher was pleased to approve, and to load her plate with eggs and bacon and toast. Dot joined her, equally hungry, and they were drinking their second cup of tea before they had time to speak.
‘You know that they’ve found the body, Dot?’
‘Yes, Miss, that cop told me. How did she die?’
‘I’d say a massive fracture of the skull, but she was extensively damaged, Dot, I hope and trust after she was dead. And her rings are missing — all those emeralds.’
‘Robbery?’ asked Dot.
