Murder on a Midsummer Night

by Kerry Greenwood

  ‘Jade Lady,’ said Lin.

  Phryne saw James Barton locked in for the night and led her family into the street for a soothing walk to Cafe Saporo, a Fitzroy Street restaurant run by the Patti family, Italian immigrants, which catered for simple people and large appetites. It was no use taking the girls to her favourite French bistro, Cafe Anatole, because they did not like French food. But Saporo would provide basic well-cooked English food for them and Dot, and pasta primavera and garlic prawns for Phryne and Lin.

  In spite of her late breakfast or early lunch, Miss Fisher felt that she had missed out on one meal today, and did not mean to miss out on another.

  The Saporo was pleased to see Phryne and her family. Signor Patti welcomed them in, sat them down at a table with a red-checked gingham cloth, and brought bread and glasses of grenadine without asking. Pasta primavera was produced, with steak, eggs and chips for the others. Dot was still expounding the mystery of the missing child as they ate and the girls hung on her every word. Phryne was content to let someone else tell the story.

  Phryne finished her garlic prawns, wiped her mouth on the napkin, and suggested mixed gelati for dessert. With it came a beaming Signora Patti and a bottle of grappa.

  ‘Signorina Prudenzia,’ announced Signor Patti. ‘Drink with us!’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Phryne. ‘But what’s the occasion?’

  ‘We heard that you found out that dreadful man who was butler to the Bonnetti. He beat my son, once, and he…attempted the virtue of my daughter who worked in the kitchen. But now he is in jail, and we do not have to kill him, so we rejoice.’

  ‘A good reason,’ approved Lin Chung, holding out his glass. ‘We have a saying. “If you seek revenge, remember to dig two graves.”’

  It was, of course, illegal for such cafes to sell wine. God forbid that anyone in Victoria should enjoy themselves after six o’clock, except in the Melbourne Club. But there was nothing to stop the delighted Signor from giving it away. This was special grappa which his cousin made and, although to Phryne it reeked of floor varnish, to the Signor and the Signora it was a precious taste of home. So Phryne drank and smiled.

  Then they tottered home, the girls and Dot to finish the last pages of their library books, Lin Chung to depart for his own house, and Phryne to beguile a sleepy hour or so with the latest Dorothy Sayers.

  In the middle of the night she woke, switched on her light, scrabbled for her notebook and feverishly flicked through the pages. Then she wrote a memo to herself in large letters and lay down again, not altogether sure what had triggered off that strange chain of thought.

  Pondering it, she drifted off again.

  Morning brought a series of florists’ vans. A large bunch of roses from Mrs. Bonnetti. Orange ones. A larger bunch of roses from Mr. Bonnetti. White. A sheaf of paradise lilies from ‘Bernadette and Julia’. And an orchid from a grateful policeman, who brought it himself.

  ‘A lovely thing, Jack,’ said Phryne, turning it around. It was royal purple, shading to pink, with striations of a darker magenta.

  ‘Yes, but I reckon you’ve got enough flowers for today,’ he said, looking at the array which Mr. Butler was carrying into the kitchen to be put in buckets until Miss Fisher could arrange them.

  ‘No, no, this is lovely. Come in. How clever of you to get them to flower.’

  ‘Taken me years to get that shade of blush in the middle,’ he confessed. ‘Just thought I’d see how you were going, and tell you about the Johns case.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please.’ Phryne popped the orchid into a cocktail glass of cool water and put it on the desk to admire it.

  ‘Well, he came back, as you know, and Constable Pinkus nabbed him real neat. Not so much as a stamp stirred in Mr. Rosenberg’s shop. Then we took him to the Bonnetti house and Pinkus heard every word he said. Then on the way back to the station after he was cautioned, he said it all again. He’s proud of it!’

  ‘What an unpleasant man,’ said Phryne.

  ‘Chatty, too. I was afraid that the family would want to keep it all hushed up, but now they’ve got their Julia back they seem to have cheered up a lot. All of them happy to make complaints, even that Johnson coot. I reckon Johns is looking at twenty years for blackmail. And we’ve got most of the money back. He never spent it. He just liked extorting it. No accounting for tastes. Now, how about the Manifold case?’

  ‘By early tomorrow morning, Jack dear, I expect to have it solved. Or perhaps I should say, if I can’t solve it with this trick, I will not be able to solve it. And that would be a pity, because mysteries make my teeth itch. This is the address.’ She scribbled it on a leaf of paper. ‘Perhaps you might like to send someone to lurk outside at about two a.m. or so? Just tell them to arrest anyone who leaves the house.’

  ‘For you,’ said Jack Robinson gallantly, ‘I shall come myself. See you tonight, then. When’s your kick-off?’

  ‘One in the morning,’ said Phryne. ‘When all the best ghosts, I am told, arise.’

  ‘Good-o,’ he said peaceably, and left.

  Phryne caught Dot as she and the girls were about to set out for the library.

  ‘Dot, I need you to run an errand for me. To the Atkinson house. You’ve got some leaflets about girls’ societies and parish meetings and things, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Phryne,’ said Dot, putting down her bag of books.

  ‘Then I want you to take some to the Atkinson house—take the car on after you’ve been to the library—and talk to Gertrude. I want you to find out something for me.’ Phryne told Dot what she wanted to know.

  ‘Might be a bit difficult to slip it into the conversation,’ she said. ‘But I’ll do it, Miss.’

  ‘I know you will,’ Phryne responded, and watched Jane and Ruth haul large shopping bags out to the car while Dot ran up to her room to collect some Improving Literature. ‘After this, ladies,’ she said to them, ‘we shall go on holiday. To the sea. We shall shut up this house and find a nice place to stay and you can send Mrs. Butler a postcard. Queenscliff, perhaps. I hear that it is very charming.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’ asked Ruth, eyes shining.

  ‘I do,’ said Phryne. ‘I am getting very tired of my fellow humans,’ she added. ‘I think I’d better get away from them for a while.’

  Ruth made no comment, as Miss Phryne looked a bit strained. Jane pressed Phryne’s hand. She had never been on a holiday. Then she frowned. She was calculating how many clothes she would have to leave behind so that she could take all her books. Cubic capacity of one suitcase…Gray’s Anatomy versus how many cotton dresses?

  Phryne, at a loose end, donned her own bathing costume and went for a vigorous swim, returned to a bracing cold shower, put on a housedress and spent the afternoon peacefully arranging flowers, which was so engrossing a task that she almost forgot about the Atkinsons. She was not looking forward to seeing them again.

  By the time the girls had returned and gone for their own swim, the house was filled with the scent. White roses and trailers of white jasmine lolling from a Fantin-Latour style silver epergne in the sea-green parlour. Orange roses and paradise lilies in a tall arrangement in the hall, surrounded with bamboo stalks. The orchid in a rotund brandy glass on Phryne’s little table. Phryne belonged to the Beverley Nichols school of flower arranging. Let them arrange themselves, no spikes, no torture. Just allow the beauty of the flowers to shine in the right vase and the right place. Beautiful.

  Dot admired them. She had also done as Phryne wished and had an answer to her question from Gertrude, the maid at the Atkinson house.

  ‘Puts them in to soak on Sunday night,’ she said. ‘Aren’t the white ones lovely?’

  ‘I made a little posy for your room,’ said Phryne, producing it. It was a few orange roses, with sprays of jasmine around them, in a squat terracotta pot. Dot turned the arrangement in her hands.

  �
�It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘You are clever, Miss Phryne! My favourite colours.’

  ‘The afternoon letters, Miss Fisher.’

  Phryne took the envelope from the silver salver and thanked Mr. Butler. She tore the envelope open and read the single sheet inside.

  ‘Telegram from Jack Robinson’s watcher. I’m told that the Atkinsons are going to a certain address in Maidstone tonight,’ she said, pleased. ‘Good! It worked. This is the effect of my anonymous letter, which said that if they held a seance in this place, they would find Blackbeard’s treasure. I’d better go up for a nap. This might be a testing evening.’

  ‘You will be careful, Miss?’ asked Dot.

  ‘Of course. I shall have Lin and Li Pen, and also the full backing of the Victoria Police. And this is my last throw, Dot, so if you feel like doing a little praying, I would appreciate it. In this production, I will need all the help I can get.’

  Dot bore her flowers away. There was just time to start a rosary of intention.

  Phryne lay down but could not sleep. So she got up.

  She passed the rest of the evening by eating an abstemious dinner with only one glass of wine and by playing a noisy set of games with the girls; Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, Chinese chess. She ended the session by losing seventeen pennies to Jane at Red Ace. Then she sent them to bed, ascertained that James Barton was sleepily reading Agatha Christie, and climbed the stairs. She put on trousers and a top of unrelieved black. Over that she had a petticoat pocket containing her gun and other necessities. Over that she had a loose Erté-inspired gown in violet and silver and a turban to match.

  Lin came to the door at midnight. He had borrowed a smaller car than his usual Rolls. He too was wearing unrelieved black and looked so attractive that Phryne had to clasp her wandering hands firmly in her purple and silver lap.

  Maidstone was sparsely inhabited. ‘We have a lot of market gardens down on the river,’ Lin told her. ‘I have borrowed a house which is at present empty. Did you speak to Detective Inspector Robinson?’

  ‘Yes, and he will be here, so tell Li Pen not to throttle him by mistake.’

  ‘As you wish, Miss,’ said someone in the back seat. Li Pen had made something of a specialty of not being seen and Phryne had not known he was there. She jumped.

  ‘And the same goes for anyone wanting to get into the house. Let them in. Just don’t let them leave.’

  ‘As the lady says,’ agreed Li Pen. Though he was a monk and had nothing to do with women, he approved of Phryne. They had once rescued Lin together and he admired her courage and resource. Besides, she had introduced him to his favourite food, Vegemite.

  Lin stopped the little Austin near a weatherboard house, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It had a street number but appeared to be the only house in that street. Which ought to mean that the Atkinsons would find it no matter what they had been smoking. Lin gave Phryne the basket which Mrs. Butler had put up for her.

  ‘There is a table and sufficient chairs in the main room,’ he told her. ‘We’re early. Will you be all right on your own?’

  ‘I will,’ she said, and walked up two steps to a front door. A single electric bulb was burning inside. Lin ushered her inside, kissed her, and melted into the darkness.

  Phryne walked through the bare dusty hall, past an unoccupied bedroom, and found the main room, where there was, indeed, a large battered table and a lot of chairs. She sat herself down with her face to the door and put the basket on the floor beside her. Good old Mrs. Butler! The basket contained a flask of coffee and Phryne drank a cup.

  There was almost no sound either inside or outside. The Maribyrnong River must be near, if this was a market garden, but it was modest and did not make itself obvious. The house smelt disused, of dust and creeping mould, and Phryne found that she was shivering. And afraid, though there was no one in the room, and the bare electric bulb was the essence of practicality. This must be Lin’s ‘biological’ effect. Either that, or she had entirely lost her nerve.

  There was a low humming noise, which lay just on the edge of hearing. A motor? Someone coming? She wished they would get on with it. Then she heard a short snatch of music, a flute or whistle, which was abruptly cut off.

  Moments before she felt that she had to get up and move, she heard the front door open, and a chatter of voices. Stephanie Reynolds talking about the masters. Blanche White murmuring some response. Veronica Collins complaining about a torn stocking. Gerald Atkinson bidding them all to be silent.

  They came in and looked at Phryne as she sat in her purple and silver and stopped in a clump. Then they smiled. Luke and Valentine took up their posts at the door. The others came forward and sat down in the chairs.

  ‘My dear Phryne, how lovely!’ said Gerald. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Anonymous letter,’ said Phryne. ‘And I don’t know anything more about it. I was just about to leave. This place is giving me the willies.’

  ‘You are not used to spiritist phenomena,’ explained Stephanie condescendingly. ‘I’ll take that chair, Blanche. You and Pris beside me on this side, Ronnie, Gerald and Phryne on the other. Luke, Val, you’ll have to join, the table’s too big to hold hands without you.’

  They did as they were told. Stephanie opened a hamper in which were candles in holders and various glasses and bottles. The company sat down, poured themselves a drink, and watched as the candles were lit. They were red shaded and gave a soft light in which it might be possible to develop photographs.

  But they weren’t comfortable. Luke kept watching the door. Priscilla was huddling close to Blanche White, whose dark eyes had dilated with fear. Gerald was tapping the table and seemed unable to stop. Veronica was twitching as though she was sitting on an ant hill. The biological method was working on them. Phryne still shivered. She drank more coffee, declining the various liqueurs circulating the table.

  Then Valentine put out the light. They all joined hands and sang ‘Worship the King’. The voices were off-key and Phryne thought this a bad choice of hymn. ‘His chariots of wrath the dark thunderclouds form, and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.’ Not comforting, though she had always associated ‘pavilions of splendour’ with cricket…

  Her mind was wandering. Her hands were being held by Gerald on her right and Luke on her left. Luke’s hands were shaking, Gerald’s were sweating. Phryne’s, she was sure, were as cold as ice.

  ‘Is there anyone there?’ asked Stephanie Reynolds. ‘Charging Elk, are you with us?’

  There was a long silence, then out of the mouth of the medium Phryne heard someone say, ‘How! Charging Elk comes back from the happy hunting ground.’

  ‘We want to find the spirit of Augustine Manifold,’ said Gerald. ‘To tell us where Blackbeard’s treasure is.’

  ‘Passed on,’ said the voice of Charging Elk. ‘Will ask.’

  Then he cut out and the people relaxed a little. It always took Charging Elk a few minutes to find the deceased in the afterlife. Phryne was aware of a smell. It was the house’s own scent of mould and dust, with something else…was it roses? decayed roses…something very decayed. Rotten meat and wet earth and decayed roses. The scent of a fresh grave. She shuddered. The women picked it up first. Priscilla buried her nose in Blanche’s shoulder. Blanche sneezed. Veronica coughed. Then Gerald and Valentine smelt it. Noses wrinkled, but they could not loose their hands. The smell grew stronger until it was a stench. Priscilla retched.

  A light was growing so slowly that Phryne had not noticed it. It grew from a spot to a circle. It got brighter. It got bigger. Charging Elk appeared in it.

  He was beautiful. He had the feathered headdress and across his bare chest were strings of teeth. Stephanie Reynolds cried out in love and longing. Then his voice came, louder and closer.

  ‘White man here,’ he said, and blinked out. Again the circle glowed. Gradually a picture formed. Phryne knew the fac
e. A plain man, with a weak mouth. She had not remembered that he had brown eyes and shiny brown hair.

  ‘Augustine,’ called Gerald. ‘Oh, my dear fellow!’

  ‘Augustine,’ said Stephanie. ‘It is you!’

  The graveyard stench was distracting Phryne. She was not going to vomit if she could help it, but fairly soon she was not going to be able to prevent it. Then a voice manifested itself.

  ‘You killed me,’ said Augustine.

  ‘No, no, my dear, don’t say that!’ cried Gerald, tears streaming down his face.

  ‘You killed me,’ repeated Augustine. ‘I never harmed you.’

  ‘We did just push you about a little,’ said Gerald. ‘Luke and Valentine did. I agreed. But killed, no, my dear, don’t say that. It wasn’t us! You went out, you know, and then something happened to you! What was it?’

  ‘Water,’ said Augustine. A splash and a struggle were heard, loud and horrible. The stamp and crash of a struggle, the panting of two fighters. Then the gurgling of a drowning man, shockingly vivid.

  ‘What about the map?’ asked Luke, chokingly.

  ‘I know of no map,’ said Augustine.

  The house door crashed open. Someone came in. He shoved his way into the room and yelled, ‘It’s all a trick!’

  Damn, thought Phryne, and we were going so well. She could loose her hand from Gerald’s feeble clasp and get to her gun fairly fast. Who was this intruder?

  ‘Simon?’ asked Gerald. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, it’s all electricity and gramophone records!’ cried Simon in triumph. ‘I’m pushing this screwdriver into this light switch. It’ll fuse the lights. Then see where your apparitions come from!’

  He laughed aloud. They saw him drive the implement into the switch, saw a flash as the household electricity was disconnected, and heard the crack as the fuse exploded. Simon stood as if rooted to the spot. He stared in utter disbelief.