tolerated a fold out of place. She was correct. Everything was in order and a small but hot fire burned in the grate in the peach and green room.
The door opened, and Mr Butler entered, carrying Miss Henderson with apparent effort, and Dr MacMillan turned back the bed.
‘Find her a nightdress, Phryne, the poor woman’s worn out with shock and pain. Thank you, Mr Butler,’ she added, and that invaluable man left the room. ‘I’ve written a prescription for a cocaine ointment which should help. There’s nothing more consistently painful than a burn, and I’ve given her some chloral so she should sleep for a few hours. By then she will be feeling better, I think, but she should keep to her bed for at least a week. Are you prepared to keep her, Phryne?’
‘Certainly, poor woman, she can’t go home to a bare house and no care. We can look after her, Dot and me. What should we look out for?’
‘I’ll come each day to dress her face; we must be careful that she does not break the blisters by scratching, or she may have a scar. Otherwise she will be sleepy and sad, and will need a warm bed, plenty of liquids, and light nourishing food, which I dare say your admirable Mrs Butler can manage. There, I’ll just tuck her in, and we’ll leave her alone. Is that fire safe?’
Phryne accompanied the doctor back to the sitting-room, where Jane had mopped her tears hastily and was now studying ‘Glaister on Poisons’. Dr MacMillan observed this with pleasure.
‘You’re a keen study,’ she commented. ‘But you’d better read
‘Have you read
‘Certainly I have, and recently, too. A fine book to keep your perspective,’ she bit into the scone. ‘Child, could you go into the kitchen and ask for some more tea? I’m parched with all this work.’
Jane went out, delighted to do something to help. Dr MacMillan laid an urgent hand on Phryne’s shoulder.
‘You must keep that child safe,’ she whispered, spattering Phryne with crumbs. ‘She’s been molested, and I fear that is why she lost her memory.’
‘Raped?’ asked Phryne, turning sick.
‘No. Mishandled, however, and attempted, I’d say, and not too long ago. Maybe a week.’
I’ll keep her as my own rather than let anything like that happen to the poor little thing.’
‘Good. That is what I hoped to hear.’
‘But what if she recovers her memory?’
‘You must find the man,’ said Dr MacMillan. ‘I think she may have come from an orphanage. They send their girls out when they are twelve or thirteen, and rape or worse is the fate of many of them. Perhaps she should be photographed. Someone should remember her.’
Jane came back with more tea, and they read
CHAPTER FIVE
Lewis Carroll
Five hours of sleep, and Miss Henderson awoke in pain and in fear, gasping for air.
‘Where am I?’ she whispered, and someone leaned over and turned up the bedside light. Dot helped Miss Henderson to sit up against her arm and found the little jar which Dr MacMillan had instructed the pharmacist to compound.
‘Don’t you try and talk yet, Miss, until I can put some of this stuff on your mouth. Doctor says that it might make your face a bit numb but that’ll be an improvement, eh?’
Dot smeared the cocaine ointment freely over the burns, using the little spatula supplied for the purpose, and then helped her patient to a drink.
‘There, that’s better, isn’t it? You’re in the Hon. Phryne Fisher’s house, and I’m Dot.’
Dot wondered fleetingly if Miss Henderson, too, was losing her memory, but this did not appear to be the case. The woman swallowed the barley water and smiled crookedly.
‘Yes, of course I remember, how nice this all is! What a lovely room, and a fire and all. And that is my favourite shade of peach,’ Miss Henderson took a little more of the cooling drink. ‘I can sit up on my own, really.’
‘All right, Miss, is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry?’
‘Why,’ said Miss Henderson. ‘I believe that I am hungry. Indeed, I don’t think I have had anything to eat for ever so long. Can you fetch me something?’
‘Yes, Miss. How about a nice omelette, now? A little toast?’
‘That would be lovely,’ sighed Miss Henderson, relaxing into a pile of feather pillows — in all her life she had never had more than one pillow, as her mother had considered it unhealthy — and smiling a creditable smile.
Dot obtained an omelette and Mrs Butler set the tray daintily, including a napkin in a ring and a vase of flowers.
‘She’ll likely be overset, poor thing, with her mother killed and all that, not to mention being hurt,’ she fussed. ‘Don’t you drop that tray, now, Dot!’
‘I’ll be careful,’ promised Dot, and carried it steadily. She watched her patient eat, removed the plate, and brought in a small cup of custard and a pot of tea.
‘I did not mean to insult you when I said that Miss Fisher must be a trial,’ explained Miss Henderson. ‘I was very fond of my mother, and she was a trial. How old do you think I am?’ she went on, and Dot shook her head.
‘It’s hard to tell with all them burns, Miss. You sound young.’
‘So I am. I am twenty-seven. Younger, I guess, than your Miss Fisher, but Mother was convinced that I would never marry. “You’ll be with me until I die, Eunice,” she used to say — and now it’s true, poor Mother, though she never meant it like that. She was furious when Alastair came on the scene and wanted to marry me, and she did her best to get rid of him, but he proved to be of sterner stuff than the rest. She told him that she knew he was marrying me for my money, and he just smiled and agreed with her.’
‘So you’ve got money, Miss?’
‘Oh, a modest competance. It yields me three hundred a year, and the house is mine now.’
‘More tea, Miss? Do you want me to call this Alastair, then? We are on the telephone.’
‘He must be frantic,’ gasped Miss Henderson, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘And he wouldn’t know where I am! Oh, Lord, Dot, please, can you call him at his rooms, and tell him that I am quite safe and he can visit me? How could I have forgotten?’
‘It’s been a tiring day, Miss,’ said Dot, writing down the telephone number. ‘I’ll ring him, Miss, don’t you worry. You all right to be left? I’ll do it now.’
‘Yes, yes, please do it now,’ begged Miss Henderson, and Dot went out and closed the door.
Dot conveyed the message through the medium of a phone which appeared to be in a fish-and-chip shop somewhere in Lygon Street, Carlton. A young man’s voice came on the phone, breathless.
‘Hello, hello? Damn this instrument! Hello? Are you there?’
‘This is Miss Williams. I am calling for Miss Henderson,’ repeated Dot patiently for the fourth time. ‘Are you Mr Thompson?’
‘Yes, Alastair Thompson here, Miss Williams. Where is Eunice?’
‘Take down the address,’ said Dot. ‘221B, The Esplanade, St Kilda. Call tomorrow about three.’
‘Is she all right?’ bellowed the voice. Someone in the background was shrieking in Italian.
‘She’s burned her face with that chloroform and she’s upset about her mother. Come at three,’ yelled Dot and hung up.
Phryne had largely cured her of her dread of telephones, but she still thought them a clumsy means of exchanging ideas. She went back to Miss Henderson and advised that the young man would call the next day, and Miss Henderson looked even more alarmed.
