‘Yes, Mum. That’s what we’ll tell him. Because we don’t want the village gossips talking about me and what goings-on there might have been up at the bottling plant, do we?’
Her mother (a thin, mousy woman with faded hair) stared at Helena. ‘A bridal argument?’ she said hesitantly.
‘Yes, Mum. Because Aubrey and I are getting married next summer.’
The maternal face turned to Aubrey. His face was set, his jaw was square, and he looked like a man who had been offered two separate lifelines: his beloved’s rescue, and the chance to secure parental permission at pistol-point. He had no intention whatever of letting go of either of them.
‘Yes, we are,’ he stated with finality.
‘And Vern will stay at the pub in future,’ Phryne added, to head off any more dispute. Vern gazed adoringly at her for a moment, and bent his head to the last of the pie. ‘Sid didn’t want to have to pay for Vern’s keep at the pub, you see, so he kidnapped Helena so Vern could look at her instead of the women he would meet at the pub. A mad scheme, you may say, and you would be right. But Sid is not a nice person.’
‘Mean as a dunny rat,’ Dulcie pronounced.
‘Miss Phryne, are you going to let Sid out?’ enquired Dot.
‘No. He can find his own way out. Or someone will rescue him, in due course. And he won’t say anything. He can’t. Not without getting arrested for kidnapping. I think he will be a new man when he is released.’
‘A penitent sinner?’ Helena’s mother looked sceptical.
‘I doubt it. But being locked up overnight in his own prison isn’t going to be pleasant. He’s a small, mean bully. He won’t recover from this.’
‘I’ll keep an eye on him, Miss,’ Vern offered. ‘What he did was bad. Mum wouldn’t’ve liked it. I’m not gonna listen to him anymore.’
Phryne inclined her head. ‘You stick to it, Vern.’
The celebrations went on late into the night, by rural standards. It was around ten when the party broke up. Vern had been dispatched earlier to the Station Hotel, where presumably he would be settling in and looking at all the girls he wanted to, within reason. Alice finished the washing-up and retired to bed with a loving kiss from Dulcie, who seemed to want to talk. Phryne was happy to oblige. After the excitements of the evening she felt relief, but also curiosity.
‘Cup of tea, Phryne?’
‘Something a trifle stronger, I think.’
Dulcie grinned and produced a bottle of cognac. She poured two glasses and handed one to Phryne.
‘To Aubrey and Helena.’
The glasses chinked together satisfactorily, and Dulcie sat down in her armchair. Tamsin immediately leaped from the floor and curled up in her lap.
Phryne sipped at the fiery liquid gold and sighed with contentment. ‘Dulcie, I really must remember that about emerald green. I couldn’t see you at all. I have much to learn about concealment, it appears.’
‘Everyone thinks that black is the best disguise for night-time, but it really isn’t. Black doesn’t occur in nature, except in burnt trees.’ Dulcie set down her glass. ‘What was it put you on to the bottling plant?’
Phryne shook her head. ‘There was nowhere else around here that was sufficiently secluded. Everywhere else has busy, enquiring eyes and people coming and going all the time. I got the right place, and more or less the right motive. But I thought it was Vern—even though everyone has been telling me ever since I got here that Vern is utterly harmless. It was only tonight that I realised it was the appalling Sid, who is a complete waste of space and beyond doubt one of the most revolting specimens I have ever met. And I’ve met a few.’
Dulcie stroked the cat in her lap without speaking for a while. Phryne admired the gentleness of her hands. This was a woman well-accustomed to manual labour, but her caresses were as light as thistledown. ‘Phryne, I have heard a rumour that one of our local secrets is a secret no longer. May I ask what you are intending to do about it?’
‘Would this be related to knitting?’ Phryne enquired, looking artlessly at Dulcie, who gave a single, emphatic nod. ‘Why, nothing at all. I don’t know anything about knitting. Do you?’
Dulcie grinned. ‘A little. We country people like to keep a few secrets.’
‘I think that is very wise. But there is one secret I would like you to divulge, if you have a mind to. It won’t go any further.’
Dulcie eased herself back in her chair and gave Phryne a look of suspicion. ‘Oh yes?’
‘I truly hope that it isn’t relevant to—to the other matter I am investigating. Really I do. And I certainly won’t be sharing it with Inspector Kelly or—God forbid—Sergeant Offaly.’
‘But what if you felt you had to?’
Phryne’s mind was racing now, but it was as if the wheels were slipping in a pool of mud. To gain time, she sipped again from the cognac glass. ‘If it turned out to be relevant to my murder investigation, then I might have to. But I’m hoping like hell it has nothing whatever to do with it.’
‘And if it turned out not to be germane to your investigation? What would you do then?’ Dulcie’s eyes were still boring into her, and it felt most uncomfortable. Not too dissimilar, she felt, from looking down the wrong end of a gun. Dulcie would be a formidable enemy, she realised. She never raised her voice, but she would act without hesitation if she felt she needed to.
‘If it turned out to have nothing to do with these murders, then I would consider that the police—or anybody else, for that matter—should keep their noses right out of it, on the grounds that it was none of their flaming business.’
This seemed to have hit the spot, for the tension in Dulcie’s slight body relaxed visibly. ‘All right, Phryne, ask away. I think I already know what it is you want to know.’
‘Do you now? All right. You know how eager Alice was to go to the dance. Do you know whom she met there?’
Dulcie rolled her eyes and laughed softly. ‘Well of course I do, Phryne! And I think it’s very sweet of them. They aren’t lovers, you know.’
‘No?’
Now Dulcie was completely at ease. ‘No, not by a country mile. But they like each other. A lot. His name is Robert Fitzgerald. He comes of Good Family back in Melbourne. Money to burn, I gather. He’s an ex-school friend of Alice’s.’
‘Oh I see.’ Phryne leaned forward in her chair. ‘And would I be right in suggesting that Robert, while not entirely immune to Alice’s obvious beauty, actually prefers the company of men?’
Dulcie nodded. ‘Got it in one, Phryne. He was sent to live in the country after a scandal at school. All hushed up, of course, because that’s what the rich do. Alice knew. Of course she did. And because she prefers the company of women, it gave them something in common. So now he lives … elsewhere … and he comes in to see her every now and again. And we look after him and shield him from the world’s harsh judgements.’
‘In the same way that you shield the knitting fraternity?’
This produced a grim smile. ‘Oh yes. Not quite the same, but close enough.’
‘Dulcie, I may add that I thought he was utterly charming. We didn’t exchange a word, but I noticed him with the other girls. His manner was everything it should have been: polite, courtly and playing no favourites. Apart from Alice.’
‘That’s him. Beau of the ball wherever he goes. Terribly shy, but he hides it well.’
‘I can believe it.’ Phryne finished her drink and stood up. ‘All right, Dulcie. I just wanted to know if he might be a suspect for our murders. I thought not; and now I know he isn’t. This is going absolutely nowhere. Not even Dot needs to know. And I’m happy to leave it there.’
Dulcie rose also, and Tamsin got up and stretched with maximum ostentation. ‘And your murder cases?’ she asked.
‘Enquiries Are Continuing.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Up from Earth’s Centre, through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel’d by the Road
;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.
Edward Fitzgerald,
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr
Tinker was having a good day. By the end of morning break he had, by dint of some discreet questioning, managed to find two suspects at Lonsdale Technical School. He had wantonly started a dispute by pretending to be full of himself about his fine house on The Esplanade. From his school friends who knew him, this produced surprise and a certain level of disappointment. However, by fuelling the flames with outrageous bragging he had managed to elicit the home suburbs of a wide cross-section of his fellows. His main suspects were Tim, who lived in East Hawthorn; and Tom, who lived in Kew. During a spectacularly dull mathematics lesson, he considered them. Tim was in most of his classes. He had bragged of this and that to do with girls and his success therewith, but the details, when he was pressed, were regrettably vague. Tinker crossed Tim off his list, diagnosing immature boasting. If ever there was a lad who told and didn’t kiss, Tim was surely it. Which left Tom, who was in the other classes for everything except woodwork and electronics. He thought hard about Tom. He was a quiet boy: good-looking, but reserved. Just the sort of young man that a girl like Claire might easily fall for.
At the same time, how likely was it that Claire’s mystery boyfriend went to his school? he asked himself. Would she not rather have set her heart on a boy from Scotch, or Carey, or even Grammar? Lonsdale Technical School was, considering the rampant snobbery of the middle classes, a highly improbable—and possibly even discreditable—place of schooling. But the more Tinker thought about it, the less unlikely it seemed. Consider the evidence. Claire was pretty much a social outcast, shunned and humiliated by the Fashionable Ones at her school. She would not even get an introduction to the high-status rich boys her fellow students would set their hearts on. Over breakfast, Sergeant Collins had laid considerable emphasis on this.
‘I don’t imagine a girl like Claire would ever get invited to the sort of parties the snobby girls go to, Tinker. Ruth and Jane have told us how the in-crowd at her school had no time for her. And even supposing one of those rich young blokes fancied Claire, they’d get hooted down by their sisters. And there was the capacity-thing the girls found beneath her window. They don’t go for anything related to the trades at those posh schools. That does point more towards someone at your school, doesn’t it?’
Indeed it did, and so Tinker had put on the mask, and provoked a response. And here was Tom, who started with a T and lived in Kew.
By the time lunch hour arrived, Tinker was ready with his plan. He would watch Tom and see if he was sitting by himself; if Tom really was the mystery lover whose girlfriend had just been found dead, the rowdy horseplay of his fellows would not be for him. If he was alone, Tinker would go and share his lunch with him.
There were three impromptu cricket matches underway in the asphalt schoolyard that lunchtime, but Tom was not among those present. Tinker could not see any point in cricket, being over-filled with hearty good humour and uncouth shouts of ‘’Owzat!’ He retired towards the back of the school grounds, where overhanging trees provided a measure of shade for a rough-hewn park bench. And there was Thomas, in his school uniform, sitting in a brown study and staring disconsolately at his tinplate lunchbox. His face was pale (where it wasn’t sunburned), his mouth was shut tight, and he looked as though he had just been told that he had six months to live.
‘Can a bloke join ya?’
Tom looked at him, sighed, and made room.
Tinker sat down and drew out his own lunchbox. ‘What’d they give ya today, mate?’
Tom sighed again and opened the box.
Tinker inspected the contents. ‘Jeez, mate, ya don’t wanna touch that stuff. It’d kill a brown dog.’
Tom’s sandwiches were of white bread cut diagonally. Between the slices, a suspicious-looking greyish substance oozed menacingly. ‘It’s fish paste, apparently,’ Tom confessed. ‘Want some?’
Tinker sniffed one corner and shook his head. ‘Bet it tastes like library paste.’
Tom’s mouth creased in what might have been a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I have made it absolutely clear that I loathe the stuff, and Mum gives it to me at least twice a week. What’ve you got, Tink?’
At that moment, Tinker realised that they were no longer alone. A small tabby cat was rubbing its scrawny body around his ankles. He looked at his companion. ‘Mate, if you give yours to the cat, ya can have some o’ mine. I always make me own, and I reckon me eyes are bigger’n me stomach.’ He showed the contents of his own tin.
Tom looked with palpable interest. ‘What’ve you got there? It looks like cheese, honey and roast beef.’
‘Yep. Tom, you should make yer own lunch. That way ya’d get what ya wanted. Three halves each, and the cat gets the library paste?’
Tom nodded. ‘Deal.’
Tom wolfed down his three halves, while the cat, delighted at having found such an excellent provider, ate the fish paste sandwiches bread, butter and all, then promptly disappeared under the fence.
‘Poor little feller,’ Tom said.
‘Yair. But he’s good at foraging. ’E’ll be right, I reckon. Hey, Tom, we’ve got electronics this arvo. You know how we’re makin’ crystal sets?’
Tom looked sidelong at Tinker. ‘Yes?’
Tinker allowed himself a smile of quiet pride. ‘I’ve made one already. Want to see it? It works. I’ve tried it out and all.’
Some animation crept into Tom’s haggard features. ‘Yair, I’d like that.’
‘Come home with me this arvo after school and you can see it.’
‘Won’t your parents mind?’
Tinker laughed. ‘No, they won’t, ’cos they’re a long way away. I live with a lady and a couple of girls she’s adopted. And the butler and housekeeper, o’ course.’
Tom stared at Tinker with his mouth so wide open he seemed to be in danger of catching flies. No doubt he was on the verge of saying that he had scarcely pictured Tinker as possessing such grandeur as the presence of both a butler and a housekeeper. As if realising just in time that this would be extremely rude, he closed his mouth with a snap. ‘And the lady?’
‘She’s away—and she wouldn’t mind anyway. All right, I’ll see yer after school, mate.’
Tom nodded. ‘Sure. And thanks for the lunch.’
The afternoon passed pleasantly enough. Tinker helped out the gormless Tim with his electrical circuits and wondered briefly why so many of his classmates seemed to take going to school for granted. Afterwards, he met Tom at the school gate. Tom looked nervous; his shoulders twitched, and he passed his school satchel from hand to hand as if uncertain what to do with it. Tinker felt a small glow of satisfaction. The suspect was now in the desired condition.
‘Where to, Tinker?’ Tom enquired.
‘Tram to St Kilda, of course.’
Tom coloured. ‘Oh, right. You said you lived on The Esplanade. Yair.’
As the tram barrelled down St Kilda Road, the shouts and flurries of uniformed scholars drowned out any possibility of in-depth communication. Tinker noted that Tom’s uneasiness was increasing. His necktie was askew, and his nostrils were twitching. Doubtless he was finding the scent of unwashed proletariat overwhelming. Tinker himself was at ease with it. Anything was better than the everlasting reek of stale fish which had marked his own childhood. All around them youths were laughing and talking nonsense of the usual sort. Tinker was watching Tom and listening with only half an ear. When the tram reached Kerferd Road the carriage began to empty, and Tom hunched down in one of the seats. Tinker was about to open the conversation by asking about Tom’s home life, but he was forestalled by Tom, who turned to look at him with apprehension.
‘Tinker? You said you lived with a lady. Is it Miss Fisher the lady detective?’
‘Where’d you get that idea, mate?’
‘One of the blokes in class told me.’
Tinker nodded slowly.
‘Yair. That’s right. She adopted me as well as the girls.’
At the word ‘girls’, Tom’s shoulders shook, and his hands clasped into fists. This looked like naked fear now. ‘What girls?’ he asked.
‘Ruth and Jane. They go to PLC.’
Tom now stared straight ahead, closely inspecting the wooden back of the seat in front of him. The suspect was now trying not to react. He knows I’m on to him and doesn’t want to give himself away, Tinker surmised. But he’s still playing along. That’s fine. The fish is hooked. Now we give him more line.
The tram ground into the terminus, and the boys disembarked. The bay was a pale blue in the afternoon light. The beach was ochre yellow, and the afternoon bathers were out in force. Tom looked at the prospect with dry lips.
‘D’you swim there much, Tinker? It must be great being next to the sea.’
‘No, mate. I’m from Queenscliff. I grew up by the sea. It’s just there. Maybe one day. The girls like swimming, but.’
Again the twitch of the shoulders.
They strolled in silence until number 221B stood before them. Mr Butler was outside, watering the garden with a large galvanised-iron bucket. He inclined his head with solemn gravitas. ‘Afternoon, Tinker. Young sir.’
‘Mr B, this is my friend Tom from school. I’m gonna show ’im my crystal set.’
Mr Butler ignored Tom’s obvious embarrassment. ‘And would you be requiring any refreshment?’
‘Later on, maybe.’ Tinker turned to Tom and indicated the way forward. Tom slunk into the portico. The door was open. ‘Come on through, Tom. I live out the back.’
They passed through the house. Tinker led the way, but was vaguely aware that Tom was looking around at the high ceilings, the paintings on the walls, and the general air of unimaginable luxury. Ember the cat rubbed her face around Tinker’s ankles, and he paused, bending down to stroke the little cat’s features. ‘Sorry, Ember. Tucker comes later, mate. You know that by now.’ Ember gave Tinker another nuzzle, on the grounds that possibly this time it might be different, but stiffened as a fusillade of barking erupted at the back of the house, then disappeared with alacrity. Tinker opened the back door and Molly stood up on both hind paws and pushed Tinker hard in the chest. You’re home! You’re HOME! And I’m here! I’m HERE!!! Her tail whacked Tom hard in the stomach and he staggered. ‘It’s okay, mate. She’s friendly,’ Tinker assured him. ‘It’s fine. Come on.’
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