The band rotunda was white wrought-iron, and it stood out under the moon like the bare ribcage and spine of a fabulous monster. Phryne waited until her eyes had got used to the light, then began to creep, sloshing slightly with her bladder of fluorescent paint, across the invisible grass.
Luckily it was not yet frosty, although it would certainly be so before dawn. She told herself that she was as good and ruthless a hunter as the Egyptian cats, and paused with one hand on a tree. She stepped into shadow, rolling her foot carefully forward from the toe; not a twig cracked under her feet. She had reached the rotunda and was about to cross the path when she saw a point of light, and heard someone whistling softly. There was a man, sitting at ease on the rotunda steps and smoking. Phryne’s spirits rose. This did not look like a professional kidnapping. Of course he might not be the one — but what sane man would have been found sitting in a rotunda at midnight in the middle of winter?
She was confirmed in this opinion by his behaviour when the noise of the Hispano-Suiza was heard. He threw his cigarette away and crouched down below the railings.
Phryne also crouched. She heard the crunch of Molly’s feet on the gravel and the thud as the bag dropped into the hollow stump. Molly’s feet moved away again and there was the revving of a big engine.
Don’t get too carried away with my car, Jack Leonard, thought Phryne. Is this my man or not? Damn him, won’t he move? I’m freezing to the spot.
Sid moved at last. He sauntered over to the stump, extracted the bag, and ripped open the top. He stuffed a handful of fivers into his pocket and tucked the bag under his arm. He walked jauntily down the path towards the other side of the park and did not give the slightest thought to the shadow that moved when he did.
He was planning to go back to Queenscliff to eliminate the witnesses, not share the money. He still had five shots in his revolver. That would finish Mike, the woman sitting silently in the car, and the kid. He would leave the pistol in Mike’s hand, then catch a boat from Adelaide bound to anywhere, with five thousand quid in his kick. He licked his lips at the thought of the ten-year-old child slaves he could buy in Turkey, with that amount of money.
The Bentley was warm and he only needed to swing the starting handle before the engine caught. Sidney did not so much as glance at Ann as he got in and drove away.
Phryne had not had any difficulty in ensconcing her slight frame behind the rumble seat. She unwound the line from her waist and lashed herself to the back of the car, using the convenient lugs placed there for tying up luggage. Tonight, thought Phryne, he hasn’t got luggage, he’s got baggage. This feeble witticism amused her as she hung on when the Bentley rounded a corner. She had the bladder of paint in a sling contrived by Dot, placed on her right hip. All she needed to do to drop some paint was to give the bladder a soft thump. The excreted paint would shine on the black surface of the road as soon as the light from the plane touched it.
Phryne had not gone fifty yards before she began to curse her own cleverness. This was ingenious, but couldn’t much the same effect have been obtained by tying the bladder to the car? She supposed not. She had no way of timing because she could not spare a hand to hold her watch. Bear was safe and snug against her chest. Phryne banged the bladder and a drop of paint squeezed out. She began to sing under her breath as the car whizzed along and the cold wind slashed at her hands.
She thumped the bladder at the end of each line. Observing angels would have heard had they been hovering over her in the dark:
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the (thump)
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the (thud)
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the (thump)
But his soul goes marching (thud)!
Phryne hoped that by this novel method she could space out the drops of paint so that the plane could follow them. Geelong was fleeting past. Soon they were out into the open paddocks again. The moon was high and the light bright enough for Phryne to read the engine specifications embossed on the Bentley’s rear.
She was exquisitely uncomfortable. She had bound herself as tightly as Andromeda to the rock, as she did not relish being flung off into the night. Struck at thirty miles an hour, the road was sure to be very hard indeed. Her fingers, in their leather gloves, were beginning to cramp. She eased the pressure by leaning into her line, and though it took her weight, it creaked rather alarmingly. Her feet were wedged above the bumper bar, where the maker of the car had decided to make a definite little shelf about ten inches long.
The car surged up and over a hump in the road, and Phryne lost her grip. Her clawing hand met the tail light and she hung on to it as though she had been glued while she scrabbled with her feet for the step. She found it and gave the bladder a hearty thump. Geelong was now not even a glow on the skyline, and the moon was westering. Where was the plane? Had the paint failed to work? That was not disastrous.
Phryne freed a hand to scratch her itching nose and reminded herself that poor little Candida was at the end of this wild ride. If she was still alive. Phryne banged the bladder again.
The grand old Duke of (thump)
He had ten thousand (thud)
He marched them up to the (thud) of the hill and he marched them (thump) again.
And when they were up they were (bang)
And when they were down they were (slosh)
And when they were only halfway (thud)
They were neither up nor (bump)
Oh, the grand old Duke of (thump)
Phryne began again, when she heard the buzz of a plane engine. She strained her ears, and risked a brief glance over her shoulder.
Riding up, circling majestically, the Fokker came into sight in the moon-glow, gleaming as silver as a trey bit. A faint stream of light radiated from her belly. It had worked. Phryne cheered silently, and barked her knuckles as the driver turned off the main road.
The plane was being flown by an expert — Bunji was to be congratulated. Phryne saw that the slow, sweeping circles, the most dangerous and difficult of all manouevres to attempt at night, covered the road with light while not making it obvious to the drivers underneath. They had not, as it happened, seen any other motors, as the winter attracted few people to the coastal resorts, and the locals knew better than to be out at this hour in this weather.
The road surface had worsened. Phryne kept her face pressed against the car, as the big machine spurned the stones and flung them high. One sneaked through her guard and cut her over the eyebrow. She wondered how Candida, a well-brought up little girl, would react if she had to catch her before Phryne had a chance to wash her face. Probably scream and run.
She wiped some of the blood off to clear her eyes, and then remembered that she had goggles. The struggle to extract them from her pocket, keep thumping, and not fall off in the process took her mind off the pain for five miles of gravel and a mile-and-a-half of mud.
Relieved of the fear of road gravel in the eyes, she donned the goggles and looked for the plane. It was about a quarter of a mile behind, flying as evenly as an eagle. Bunji was credited with the ability to smell the ground. The sweeping swing would have taken a less brilliant pilot straight into the deck, and it was very hard to judge how much height had been lost at the edge of each circle. The mud road was more comfortable, and Phryne prayed that they did not get bogged.
She listened for the familiar sound of the Hispano-Suiza but could hear nothing above the roar of Sid’s car.
In the cockpit of the Fokker, Bunji Ross was examining her instruments by the light of a torch. Flying speed was satisfactory, they had plenty of fuel, and the moon was giving almost enough light to fly by. At the bottom of each swoop she dropped the plane to within fifty feet of the road, and waited for Henry to call, ‘Got it!’ before she took to the air again. The engine was running sweetly. Bunji took a swig of black coffee from her thermos and offered it to Henry.
Henry gulped the bitter brew and returned the flask. He was lying on his face
with the binoculars out of the hole which Jack and Bill had cut in the superstructure. Bill had not turned a hair when Bunji had announced that this was the only way she could devise of seeing out of the bottom of a plane. Hard struts dug into all the sensitive portions of his anatomy, including some which he had not known were sensitive before, but he did not care. He was on his way to retrieve the infuriating but beloved Candida.
Jack Leonard was controlling the big car with a minimum of effort. She was fleeing along this dirt road as softly as a spectre. Dot was handing out cups of thermos tea, and ham sandwiches. Jack bit into one absently. He kept the plane in the right-hand corner of the windscreen. He could not see the car which it was following, but that was according to Phryne’s orders. They would not just chase along behind and be seen, or seize the pick-up man and beat him to a jelly, because of Candida. Nervous kidnappers kill their charges. Molly drank her tea and ate two sandwiches without prompting. She was half-tranced by this midnight ride on the empty road, and was possessed by the odd illusion that all the outside world was flying past, and the car was still, at the heart of the darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When in doubt, win the trick
Hoyle’s Games: Whist 24 Short Rules for Beginners
Bert and Cec had discovered the street repairs. Bluestones were stacked into a rough wall all along Paris Street, where the workmen were replacing them with cement gutters. Several local households had helped themselves to a wheelbarrow load to construct their own rockery or a garden wall.
‘This is the place, Cec. They’ve been here a few days, too, see, the grass is starting to grow over them. What’s the last item on our list, eh? Oh, yair, the kids. This looks like a good street for kids. There’s a gang of ’em now. . what have they got? A cat, is it?’
Cec was already running towards the group of five children who appeared to be tormenting a cat. Cec plucked the half-grown kitten out of their grasp and caught it under his arm so that he could examine it. It seemed to have sustained only a wounded front paw. One of the claws had been unskilfully cut.
‘Give me a bit of that rag,’ ordered Cec, pointing with his free hand to a pile of bandages on the ground. One of the children, a grubby girl, burst into tears and another bit the end of her plait. The smallest urchin began to howl.
‘It’s all right, kids, don’t go crook. We ain’t going to hurt you, nor take you home to your mothers neither. We just want some information.’
Cec had bandaged the cat’s front paw.
‘We weren’t going to hurt it, mister, but it wouldn’t keep still, and kept on scratching, so we thought we’d cut its claws. We didn’t know that they’d bleed,’ said a wiry little kid with a collarless shirt and knotted braces. Bert had caught up by now and was getting his breath back. The children stared at him righteously.
‘We didn’t know it was going to bleed, did we?’ repeated the kid. Heads all nodded in chorus. The grubby girl wiped her face on a far-from-clean calico petticoat. The plait-sucking child said nothing.
‘Are you the kids who play in McNaughton’s?’
They nodded again. The smallest one howled and one of the others stopped his mouth with a pre-loved rainbow ball.
‘That’s Mickey. He howls,’ said the wiry kid. ‘I’m Jim. This is Elsie,’ the plait-chewer nodded. ‘And Janey,’ the grubby girl made a bob. ‘And Lucy — she’s Mickey’s sister and she has to take him with her.’ Lucy grinned, showing that she had not received two front teeth for Christmas. Mickey was silenced by the gobstopper.
‘Listen, kids, I want some information and I’m willing to pay for it. What will it be? A deener’s worth of lollies?’
Mouths watered all around the circle. Jim considered. ‘That’s old Mother Ellis’s cat,’ he said. ‘We sort of borrowed it, and if she finds out that we hurt its paw, she’ll tell all of our mums and we’ll all get a hiding. If you can fix it with Mother Ellis, and give us the lollies, it’s a deal.’
Bert looked at Cec, who was cradling the cat. The cat, which was a fine midnight-black pedigreed short-hair and no doubt very valuable, had placed one paw on either side of Cec’s chin and was gazing lovingly up into his eyes.
‘Can you do it, mate?’
Cec nodded. Jim escorted him to the house and watched with admiration as Cec walked straight up to the front door and banged the knocker, loud. The door opened and Jim ran for his life.
Mrs Ellis was a vicious old bitch, who punctured footballs kicked over her fence and shot at trespassing dogs with an air rifle. She had never given back a tennis ball, either, or a kite, and the children believed that she sold them. Mr Ellis had thankfully given up the ghost twenty years before and no man who was not a relative had crossed her threshold since. The house was offensively clean and stank of carbolic. There was a trail of newspapers laid down the hall over the polished floor. The children called her a witch and her letterbox never missed its cracker on bonfire night.
Although the house was cold as a grave, no smoke ever trailed from its chimneys. The kids believed she had the fires of hell to warm her. She wore her thin web of hair scraped over her scalp and knotted at the back of her head, and was always dressed in black. Her face reminded Cec of a boarding-house pudding with currants for eyes.
‘Mrs Ellis?’ he asked in his soft, warm voice. ‘I’ve brought you back your cat.’
The black cat turned in his embrace and stared the old woman straight in the eye, as if daring her to start something. She saw the bandage on the paw.
‘What’s happened to him? Have those little devils hurt him? I’ll have all of their bottoms tanned if they’ve touched a whisker.’ Her voice rose to an eldritch screech.
‘The kids might have had nothing to do with it,’ said Cec reasonably. ‘It’s only his front claw that’s broken. He might have caught it in something. Does he like climbing trees?’
‘Yes, he does, the varmint,’ she said, patting her cat.
‘And it was the street kids who put the bandage on his paw and told me where he belongs,’ continued Cec, as if there was nothing in the world such as perjury. ‘He’ll be as good as gold after dinner and a sleep. The claw will grow again in about a month.’
‘You know a lot about cats?’
‘A bit,’ said Cec, who had inflicted six of them on his long-suffering landlady.
‘Come in,’ she invited, and Cec stepped inside. The watching children gasped in chorus.
Mrs Ellis took Cec into her kitchen, where an electric heater warmed the room. The four cats who had draped themselves over the dresser and chairs lifted their heads and pricked their ears. They were all beautiful. Apart from the midnight-black in Cec’s arms, there was a tortoiseshell, a silver tabby, a mackeral tabby and a ginger tom. They were all well fed and groomed. The old woman went to the ice-chest and took out two jointed rabbits.
‘Dinner, my dears,’ called Mrs Ellis. The cats rose, stretched, and approached their food with royal leisure. Cec set the black cat down by his plate and he began to eat hungrily. Mrs Ellis stroked it with her gnarled hands, and Cec found himself close to tears. He swallowed.
‘Well, Mrs Ellis, I must go. Hope that the little fellow recovers well. I’m sure he’ll be bonzer in a couple of days. Your cats are beauties,’ commented Cec. Mrs Ellis accompanied him to the door and thrust a penny in his hand.
‘Tell them kids not to make so much noise outside my house,’ she snapped, and slammed the door with less than her usual force.
Cec was met at the gate by Jim.
‘She gave me a penny for you,’ he handed it over. ‘She’s not such a bad old chook if you leave her cats alone.’
Jim stood open-mouthed. A man invited into old Mother Ellis’s house who emerges not only with his life but with a reward!
‘All right,’ said Jim, gathering his clan around the cabbies. ‘What do you want to know.’
Bert told them the story of poor Bill McNaughton, unjustly accused of killing his father. He reminded them that on that very Frida
y they were going to a party with Miss McNaughton, where they would be entertained and fed. Could they take the lady’s jelly and buns and ginger-beer and refuse to help her brother? Jim thought about it, and they drew off to confer. Elsie uncorked her mouth and said her first words. ‘Tell them, Jim. I trust them.’
This seemed to be some sort of talisman. Bert had the whole story in ten minutes. He marvelled at the perspicacity of Miss Fisher once again, and handed over the shilling. He had just got some new change from the bank, so it was a bright and shiny shilling. The children gazed at it as it lay in Jim’s hand. Unnoticed, little Mickey edged close to him and made a sudden grab.
‘Quick, he’ll swallow it!’ screamed Lucy. Bert, the eldest of six children, acted with dispatch. He seized Mickey and turned him upside down like a chicken to be slaughtered, then gave him a hard thump in the middle of the back. Out shot the shilling. Elsie dived on it and tied it into her handkerchief. She stowed the hankie in the leg of her bloomers. Bert put Mickey down on his feet. He howled. It seemed to be his forte.
‘Lost my rainbow ball!’ he screamed. Lucy found it on the pavement and stuffed it back into the gaping mouth. Bert shuddered, but then reflected that children, like ostriches, seemed to be able to digest anything.
‘All right, kids, we’ll see you at Miss McNaughton’s party on Friday. Not a word until then, eh?’
Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher Page 30