Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

by Kerry Greenwood

  ‘Smells like a brothel, n’est-ce-pas? A Turkish brothel.’ Phryne’s experience of brothels was not extensive, and her knowledge of Turkish ones was non-existent; but this was certainly how a Turkish brothel should have smelt. She nodded.

  Madame Breda was advancing on them with an outstretched hand. Phryne stepped back a pace, for Madame was enormous. She stood a full six feet high and must have weighed fifteen stone; blonde and muscular, she could have walked on as a Valkyrie and gained nothing but applause. Her eyes were blue, her cheeks red, her complexion excellent, and her hair luxuriant; she was as strong as a goddess and very intimidating. And she was completely wrong for the part of King of Snow. She was the last person in the world whom Phryne could imagine selling any sort of drug. She was so oppressively healthy.

  They were led into a pink-tiled room, filled with the overpowering scented steam, and divested of their clothes. The actual swimming bath was a full fifteen feet long, about four feet deep, and half-filled with Nile-green water.

  ‘The demoiselles will begin in the steam-room,’ suggested the maid. She was unruffled, not a hair out of place, though the heat was reddening Phryne’s cheeks and slicking her hair to her skull. They followed the maid into the Scandinavian bath, where the air was suffocatingly hot. There they shed their towelling robes and sat naked on rather spiky cane chairs. Phryne noticed that the Princesse, though wizened, was as straight of limb as a woman of twenty, and was as healthy as a tree.

  ‘This reminds me of India,’ remarked the Princesse. ‘I was there with the Tsar’s entourage, you know.’

  Phryne was unaware of the visit of the Tsar to India, an imperial dominion which had every reason to be suspicious of the intentions of Russia. She doubted the story but nodded politely.

  ‘This is the distribution centre,’ remarked the old woman. ‘The maid will deliver the snow to me as we recline at the massage and hydro-bath. Watch.’

  And thereafter she chatted amiably of her extensive travels and her improbable amours. ‘I danced the dance of the seven veils for the Prince and Rasputin — such eyes that man had, like our Sasha, he could command a woman in all things — and when I get to the fourth veil, the Prince, he can stand it no longer, and he. .’

  Just when the Princesse had Phryne’s undivided attention, the maid interrupted, and moved them to a cooler room, where they were supplied with bitter herb tea ‘to cleanse the system’. Phryne examined the maid. Her name, it appeared, was Gerda, and she was Madame Breda’s cousin. Gerda had a washed-out, bony countenance and a pale, whispering voice, spiced with a little venom as she described her employer and relative.

  ‘Her! She works me to death! Gerda, clean the bathing-pool! Gerda, serve the tea! And I had a young man in Austria, and an eligible parti. She offered me employment here, and I came hoping to amass enough for a useful dowry, and now my young man has married someone else, and I stay here, my heart broken.’

  Phryne wondered how old this young man was, and how long Gerda had been in Australia. She was forty if she was a day, and a cold, sour forty, at that. Her iron-grey hair was dragged back into a vengeful bun, and her figure was not one which would attract the attention of any bathing-belle judges. She was built like a box; so much so that Phryne wondered if she might still have ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’ stencilled on her bottom. She decided that nothing could induce her to tip Gerda up and look.

  An attendant entered with unguents, and the ladies reclined for a massage. The masseuse was Madame Breda herself, and after a certain initial impression that all her bones were being torn loose from their sockets, Phryne relaxed and began to enjoy the pummelling of the hard, skilful fingers. She felt the knots in her calf muscles soothed and coaxed away, and the rubbing oil, which was of sandalwood, imparted an agreeable pungency. On the next bench, the Princesse grunted with pleasure. Phryne was wrapped in her towelling robe again, and sat to watch her companion undergoing the treatment, with the enjoyment of one who has already come through.

  Madame Breda clapped Phryne on the shoulder and boomed, ‘Now you have warm bath with oatmeal, to take out the oil, and then the cold plunge. You have been walking far lately? Or dancing? Yes, it would be dancing in one so young and beautiful. Next time, do not dance so hard. You may do damage to a muscle. I have not seen you before. You are a friend of the Princesse?’

  ‘My name is Phryne Fisher,’ said Phryne carefully, not at all sure that she was a friend of the Princesse. ‘I’m a visitor from England.’

  ‘You shall come again,’ declared Madame Breda, her rosy cheeks shining and her red mouth parting in a most daunting manner. ‘You will find yourself most refreshed.’

  This sounded like an order, but Phryne smiled and nodded. She was escorted to a luxurious bath, milky with oatmeal. The small attendant, a pretty girl only marred by a flat burn scar on one cheek, instructed her to lie back and be washed. Phryne felt like a Princess of Egypt being bathed in ass’s milk, while the girl rubbed her gently all over with a soft muslin bag containing more oatmeal. When she seemed to be concentrating a little too markedly on the nipples and then the female parts, Phryne did not open her eyes, but murmured, ‘No thank you,’ and the girl desisted. So that was one of the offered entertainments of Madame Breda’s. Pleasant, but not to Phryne’s taste. Possibly, however, to Lydia’s taste, thought Phryne, remembering how Lydia had looked at her. What an excellent opportunity for a little polite blackmail.

  She was assisted out of the milk-bath, rinsed with warm clean water, and led to the green pool. Madame Breda was there.

  ‘Jump!’ she instructed, and Phryne jumped.

  The water was cold enough to stop the heart.

  After gasping, choking and uttering a small shriek, Phryne duck-dived the length of the pool, turned and swam back. Madame Breda had gone; the Princesse and Gerda were entering the room. Phryne, though she strained her ears, could not hear what they were saying, but she saw a packet change hands, and Gerda tucked a considerable wad of currency into the dark recesses of her costume.

  The Princesse flung herself into the pool, climbed out and shook herself briskly. She and Phryne reclaimed their robes and went back to the dressing-room. The package was square, done up in white with sealing wax, like a chemist’s. As they dressed, Phryne asked, ‘Is that the stuff?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Princesse. Phryne put her hand in her pocket, and encountered a folded piece of paper which had not been there before, and a wadded something, containing a crystalline substance of the consistency of salt. She did not take either object out into plain sight, and she did not think that the Princesse had noticed anything.

  Dressed, they adjourned to Madame’s parlour to partake of more bitter tea. Gerda was there, with a large and loaded tray.

  ‘I will send your account to your hotel, mademoiselle,’ she observed respectfully. ‘But I am instructed to offer you our treatments. Here is the mud pack, the bain effervescent, tea for complexion and vitality, and beauty powders. Madame Breda is famous for her powders.’

  Phryne was familiar with this practice. Most beauty parlours made up tonics and headache cures, and sold them when the customer was at her most relaxed. In view of the transactions which she had just seen, however, she was not willing to risk anything.

  ‘No, thank you — but I shall come again. Ready, Princesse?’

  ‘Certainly. Give Madame Breda my compliments,’ said the Princesse with rare grace, and they left the Bath House.

  ‘Tell me, Princesse, what is your real title? And why do you use de Grasse?’

  ‘It is simple. I am the Princesse Barazynovska. When I came first to Europe they could not pronounce it. So I changed it. I have always liked Grasse. It is the centre of the perfume industry, you know, and has fields of lavender. . and you, mademoiselle. You have not been born to the blue, eh?’

  ‘Purple,’ corrected Phryne. ‘No, I was born in very poor circumstances. Bitterly poor. Then several people died, and I was whisked into fashion and wealth. I enjoy it greatly,�
� she said honestly. ‘There’s nothing like being really poor to make you relish being really wealthy.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Really wealthy?’ asked the Princesse, with every appearance of personal interest.

  ‘Yes. Why? You said last night that you did not want money.’

  ‘A little money would be pleasant, but I was speaking the truth.’

  ‘Good. Now, give me that packet.’

  The Princesse’s hand went protectively to her bag. ‘Why?’

  ‘I want it,’ explained Phryne hardly at all. ‘Shall I make you an offer for it? Or are you an addict yourself?’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘No! Make me an offer.’

  Phryne reflected that it was fortunate that Melbourne was not a French-speaking country, or this conversation would have unduly interested the policeman whom they happened to be passing. She said abruptly, ‘Twenty pounds.’

  ‘Done,’ agreed the Princesse, and handed over the packet. Phryne pocketed it, and stuffed notes into the Princesse’s shabby purse.

  ‘Well, I have shown you what you needed to be shown,’ declared the old woman. ‘And here I shall leave you. Farewell for now, dear child. I will send you my address. You interest me.’

  And with that, she left, trotting away into the crowd. Phryne immediately inquired her way to a post office, purchased brown paper and string, and, on the way, dropped into the Ladies’ public toilet, where she hoped to be unobserved. She emptied her pocket, and found the little crunchy package and the note.

  The package was full of a white powder, and the message written in greasy black pencil — perhaps eyebrow pencil — merely said ‘Beware of the Rose’.

  There was no signature and Phryne had no time to puzzle over it. She included the small package in her larger one, wrapped them up and addressed them to Dr MacMillan, with a brief note asking for an analysis, and only breathed a deep breath once the parcel had been stamped and consigned to the mercies of the post office.

  Wondering about the Princesse and if she were trying to frame her, Phryne went into a cash chemist and bought a packet of bicarbonate of soda wrapped in white paper and sealed with red wax.

  It was only ten in the morning, and Phryne was at a loose end. Eventually, she decided to see a newsreel as a painless way of passing the time, and spent a blameless hour learning about sterile dairies. One never knew when such knowledge might come in handy.

  At twelve Phryne walked back to the hotel, to dress for Lydia Andrews’ luncheon party. The weather was brisk and cool, and she chose a linen suit and draped herself in a loose cloth coat in dark brown, and called a taxi, all without waking Sasha, who was sleeping very deeply. Phryne wondered about this slumber, which seemed unnaturally profound, and was minded to jab her hatpin into him to see if it had some effect — but decided against it. One did not jab fauns with hatpins, and she expected it to be a trying afternoon; it was not a good idea to begin it with a bad deed on one’s conscience.

  She arrived at the Andrews’ address at ten past one, and saw that two chauffeur-driven cars were waiting outside. This pleased her. A tête-á-tête with Lydia was not an attractive proposition. Three ladies were seated at the luncheon table as she entered the neat, pastel-coloured house and gave her coat to a very small maid in pale blue. Phryne recognised only Lydia, sitting at the table with her back to Phryne. The two inconnues stared at her levelly. One was short and plump; one was short and thin. Their combined heights would not have reached the ceiling. They were both of indeterminate colouring, clothing and style, and Phryne had to keep saying to herself, even after they had been introduced, ‘Ariadne is the thin one, Beatrice is the fat one.’

  Lydia was overdressed in a pink Fuji dress, silk stockings, and a tasteless costume brooch in the shape of a flying bird that was enamelled in dark green and studded with stones so large that they must have been paste. She was tapping a pink pencil on a row of figures in a small notebook.

  ‘Tell your husband that I disagree with him,’ stated Lydia firmly. ‘There is no profit to be got from these chancy gold shares. He can obtain three per cent from the companies on this list and I will advise you further should you decide to invest. I put seven thousand into Greater Foodstuffs and the dividends are excellent. I recommend it. And don’t touch any share promoted by Bobby Matthews. He’s a confidence man if ever I saw one.’

  ‘You’ve always given me good advice,’ murmured Beatrice, ‘I put my little savings into the Riverina scheme and I’ve been very pleased with the result. If you say the Greater Foodstuffs is good, I’ll tell Henry to invest.’

  ‘You won’t regret it,’ said Lydia. ‘Look at these accounts.’ Beatrice scanned the list of figures. ‘That’s not much of a profit,’ she commented. Lydia glared pityingly at her innumerate friend.

  ‘Beatrice, that’s the telephone number.’

  Phryne coughed, and watched Lydia melt into a poor little girl in front of her very eyes.

  ‘Oh, Miss Fisher!’ simpered Lydia. ‘Meet my guests. .’

  A cocktail was provided for Phryne, though the others were taking sherry, a drink which Phryne abominated. She attributed this to having got drunk for the first time at the age of fifteen at a dormy feast on cheap sweet sherry; the memory of that hangover would have caused a girl with less courage to swear off alcohol for life. The smell of sherry still made her faintly nauseous.

  ‘Tell me about your family, Miss Fisher,’ gushed Lydia, and Phryne tried the cocktail — it had been made with absinthe, which she did not drink — and obliged with a full description of her father’s inheritance, his landholdings, his title and his house. Ariadne and Beatrice remained resolutely unimpressed, but Lydia was ecstatic.

  ‘Oh, then you must have met my father — the Colonel. He’s invited everywhere.’

  ‘Yes, I believe I may have,’ agreed Phryne. It was never wise to swear that one had never met a person when this could easily be checked.

  ‘But you are not drinking — is the cocktail not to your taste?’ added Lydia, and Phryne murmured that it was excellent. She was beginning to feel a little dizzy, and decided that one really needed to be in good athletic standing to indulge in Turkish baths. Phryne pulled herself together with an effort; the ladies had changed the subject, and were now discuss- ing the social event at Mrs Cryer’s last night.

  ‘They said that those Russian dancers were there,’ said Ariadne breathlessly.

  ‘And that one of the ladies danced a most abandoned tango with the boy,’ confided Beatrice, oblivious of Lydia’s attempts to catch her eye. ‘Disgustingly indecent, but skilful, I heard. I always think that too great a proficiency in dancing shows that a girl is really fast. Who was it, Lydia? Some flapper, I suppose.’

  Lydia, at length managing to capture her friend’s attention, pointed circumspectly at Phryne. Beatrice did not turn a hair.

  ‘I expect that you learned to dance on the Continent, Miss Fisher,’ was her only comment, and Phryne agreed that this was so. To Lydia’s relief, the luncheon was now announced. Lydia led the way into a charming breakfast-room with potted plants and ruffled curtains. Phryne, carrying the cocktail, decanted it unobtrusively into a potted palm against which she had no personal grudge, and hoped that it would not give her away by dying too rapidly.

  The luncheon was excellent — light and cool, salads and ham and meringues — followed by cup upon cup of very good coffee. The ladies lit cigarettes and the conversation became personal.

  All three of them, it seemed, had unsatisfactory husbands. John Andrews was cruel, crushing and often absent, Ariadne’s husband was persistently unfaithful, and Beatrice’s a habitual gambler.

  Lydia hinted, dabbing at her unreddened eyes with a perfectly white, perfectly dry handkerchief, at sexual perversions too grim for words. Phryne pressed a little, hoping that words might be found, but Lydia just shook her head with a martyred expression and sighed.

  Phryne attempted to ascertain John Andre
ws’ nature, but the picture of him gleaned through Lydia’s sighs was curiously unconvincing. Phryne knew that he was crude, cruel and a man who relished power, but she could not envisage him as intelligent enough to invent the complex tortures at which his wife hinted. Mr Ariadne was a banker; Mr Beatrice was an importer and stock-jobber. The litany of misery went on until Phryne could bear it no longer. She was sleepy, after the bath, and it was four o’clock. She stood up.

  ‘It is my turn next, Lydia,’ she said, patting the stricken woman on the shoulder and receiving that disagreeable frisson one gets from touching a fish. ‘Come to lunch with me at the Windsor tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, not tomorrow — I can’t come tomorrow. Besides, I expect that you are very busy. I’ll call you, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, do,’ agreed Phryne, rather bewildered by this abrupt unclinging of one whom she had diagnosed as an inveterate clinger. ‘Nice to meet you, ladies. Good day!’

  She resisted the impulse to run. The three women had seemed to be watching her closely. What was this all about?

  ‘Do you have any advice as to stocks I could buy?’ she asked, conscious of her speech blurring. She was tired; and Lydia was watching her narrowly.

  ‘Oh, Lydia is the person to advise you,’ gushed Beatrice.

  ‘My husband says that she has a mind like a man when it comes to money. Of course, she’s made her fortune in her own right — it’s all her own money, so she can spend it or invest it as she likes.’