Miss Gay. All it generally needed was to explain the situation, that they were going to make a lot of money, from something more pleasant than domestic labour, and most of them agreed.’
‘And then what?’
‘When the girl was in the correct frame of mind, we would arrange for her journey, wiring ahead to the buyer.’
‘How much did you ask for each girl?’
‘One hundred and fifty pounds. Good girls, most of them. Though I only got a hundred for that little bitch from the Emily MacPherson. Of course there was a certain wastage — always is in that profession — suicide, alcohol and drugs, mainly, and of course venereal disease, but all I sent were clean and relatively new, my buyers know that.’
Phryne swallowed. Dot stared, open-mouthed. Cec reached for the nearest decanter and took three deep gulps, passing it to Bert. Mr Burton, full-fed and shiny, sat back, amused by their reaction.
‘Why are you so shocked? It is your nice society which demands that there should be whores and there should be nice girls. While there are nice girls there must be whores — all that I did was supply them.’
‘Being a whore should be a matter of choice,’ said Phryne. ‘And what choice did you give them? Did you ask Gabrielle Hart if she wanted to be raped and drugged? Now, Mr Burton, I have a proposition for you.’
‘I thought that you might have,’ smiled Mr Burton.
‘You remember Jane?’
‘Yes, whining little scrap, with her books and her Ruthie and her grandma.’
‘Yes. Jane. You hypnotised her, did you not?’
‘I did. She was on the train to Ballarat to join a very exclusive house there, run by a generous friend of mine, but she never got there. I put her on the afternoon train, and she was found on the night train. She must have got off somewhere, but I can’t explain what went wrong — she had explicit post-hypnotic instructions.’
‘I want you to give her back her memory,’ said Phryne quickly.
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then I fear. said Phryne, waving the little gun. Mr Burton observed that her attitude was negligent and her purple silk afternoon dress positively decadent, but her wrist did not droop and her finger was on the trigger.
‘Bring her in,’ he said, coughing into the handkerchief. ‘I will try. But she may not respond. I tell you, there has been another intervening event, a trauma of some sort.’
‘Did you always have sex with the girls, Mr Burton?’ asked Phryne.
He answered absently, ‘Oh, yes, Miss Fisher, it was part of the treatment, and part of the reason why I stayed in the business. There have to be some compensations for retiring from the stage. But this one, I recall, squealed, and then I recalled that the Ballarat brothel paid a fifty-pound bonus for virgins, so I relented. I didn’t like to hurt them, you know.’
Bert made a choking noise and wrung his felt hat to ruin. Phryne gave him a severe look.
‘So the trauma was some other thing, not a sexual assault?’ asked Phryne evenly.
‘Oh, yes, something quite unexpected,’ said Mr Burton, unconscious of any irony. Dot went out and fetched Jane, who came in warily, not knowing Mr Burton but not liking him, either. Phryne concealed the gun, and took the girl’s hand.
‘Jane, dear, you sit down here and look at this gentleman. You are quite safe. I am here, and I will not leave you.’
Ember stalked off Jane’s shoulder and onto Phryne’s lap, curled into a fuzzy black ball and purred. Jane relaxed. Mr Burton leaned forward, placing one thumb on her forehead.
‘You are sleepy, Jane, are you not?’ The magnificent voice was as deep as organ music. ‘Are you asleep, Jane?’
Jane’s eyes were open, but her voice was cold and characterless, like the voice of a ghost. ‘I am asleep.’
‘What were this man’s commands to you?’ asked Phryne, and Jane twitched a little at the unfamiliar voice, but answered: ‘To forget what he did to me.’
‘Jane, that command is removed,’ said Mr Burton, eyeing the pistol barrel within a foot of his face. ‘You are free and released from all commands, from me or anyone else. From the time that I count from ten you will begin to remember, and by midnight you will recall everything that has happened. Do you understand, Jane?’
‘I understand that I am free,’ repeated the mechanical voice, and even in deep trance it had a different quality. ‘I understand that I am not under your command anymore.’
‘Ten, nine, eight, stretch yourself, Jane, seven, six, five, four, blink, girl, you feel rested and refreshed, and you will recover your memory slowly until at midnight it will be complete, three, two, one, awake!’ He snapped his fingers in Jane’s face, and she blinked, focused, and drew back into Phryne’s embrace with a cry.
‘It’s him! The man who. . hurt me. He scratched at the window and made me let him in. Oh, Miss Fisher, don’t let him take me away!’
Phryne hugged Jane, and then transferred her to Dot, while Mr Burton stood up and smiled his satisfied smile. Dot clutched a frantic Jane and was scratched by a frantic Ember, who blamed her for being dislodged from Phryne’s knee.
‘Well, Miss Fisher, I have done what you wanted, shall we discuss payment?’
Cec growled, and Bert took two steps forward.
‘Payment?’ he shouted. ‘You filthy hound, I’ll break your bloody neck!’
‘One moment,’ said Phryne, holding off Bert with a gesture. ‘Are you willing to give yourself up to the police?’
‘Really, Miss Fisher, are you joking? And if you let your hired ruffian lay a finger on me, I’ll have an action for assault and battery. I am going to walk out of that door a free man, Miss Fisher. Do you know why? Because not one of those thirty-five would testify against me. They all love me like a father, the little fools, and in any case seven of them are dead.’
‘You are
‘Yes, Miss, got it all down pat,’ said the detective-inspector stepping out from behind the curtain. ‘I bet you weren’t expecting to see me again, eh, Henry?’
‘Robinson!’ gasped Henry Burton. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I’ve had you on suspicion for years, you bastard,’ the detective-inspector smiled his sweetest ‘come-along- with-me’ smile. ‘I’ve got the testimony of nine of those little girls, once their trance wore off, but it wasn’t enough, as there were great gaps in their memory. They couldn’t remember how they got into the grips of a portly, respectable gentleman with beautiful eyes. Now I know that Miss Gay got ’em from the asylums, it won’t be too tricky to connect it all up so that even my chief will have to believe it.’
Bert and Cec seized the Great Hypno.
‘Just one punch,’ pleaded Bert. ‘Just the one.’
‘No, I gotta get him back to headquarters. He’s a mine of information. He knows all about the vice rings and all the white slaving in Victoria. I don’t want him damaged!’
Diving under the arms of the struggling men as quick as a bird after a worm, Jane launched herself out of Dot’s embrace and flew at Mr Burton, fingers hooked into claws. She was mad with release and the intolerable rush of returned memory, and Ember, springing from her shoulder, clawed at whatever foothold he could reach as Cec restrained the struggling child and hauled her away from the ruin of Henry Burton’s face.
Ember fled to Cec, as all cats did, and tucked his small spade-shaped head in the crook of the tall man’s arm. Jane, her fury spent, buried her face in his shoulder, and he held her head down so that she should not have yet another horror to burden her memory.
Razor-sharp, kitten claws scrabbling desperately for a hold had done what no poor twelve-year-old whore had managed. They had dimmed Henry Burton’s magical gaze.
Shocked, Bert released the man, and Mr Butler, who had been an enthralled spectator throughout, telephoned for an ambulance. The room was silent, except for Jane’s sobbing and the muted bubbling snuffle of Burton, who had clamped his hands over his face. The ambulance came in ten minutes, during which time no one moved or spoke, and Robinson and his shorthand writer and his prisoner went away. The front door shut. Still no one moved. Cec stroked the kitten and Jane with equal gentleness, and Dot drew a deep breath and stood up.
