‘When do you reckon that cop will let us go?’ asked Dot, taking some marmalade. Phryne was right — it was excellent.
‘Have to be fairly soon, Dot, after all, they’ve found the body and none of us could have killed her. . except me, of course. I wonder if he suspects me!’
‘Suspects you, Miss!’ Dot was indignant. ‘You wouldn’t go through all this mucking about if you wanted to kill someone. Like a play, this is, not like real life.’
‘You are very acute, Dot. That is exactly what it is. Just like a play. Elaborate, theatrical and stagey. Hello! Here comes our policeman now. Who has he with him?’
Sergeant Wallace came into the breakfast-room, leading a girl by the hand. She was about twelve or thirteen, with two long plaits of brown hair and a skimpy, too-tight dress in shabby winceyette. She was carrying a battered leather attaché case and a felt hat, the elastic of which was frayed by chewing. The sergeant led her over to Phryne’s table and said:
‘Well, Miss Fisher, Robbo said that you have a talent for mysteries, and here’s one that I can’t solve. This young woman was on the train, that’s clear enough, for she had a ticket to Ballarat in her pocket, done up with a safety pin. She was found standing on the platform at Ballarat. No one came for her, and no one knows her, and she can’t remember her own name. She can’t tell us anything at all about herself, and I don’t mind telling you I’m stumped. Perhaps you’d do me the favour of taking charge of her for the moment, until we can get the Welfare onto it?’
At the mention of the word ‘Welfare’, Dot had gone pale, and Phryne did not fail to notice this, feeling rather the same herself. In her childhood of straitened circumstances, the Welfare who took children away so that they were never seen again, was a hideous phantom.
‘No, no, there is no need to trouble them,’ she said hastily, taking the girl’s hand and sitting her down beside Dot. ‘We will be delighted to look after the poor little mite, won’t we, Dot?’
Dot nodded and went to fetch a fresh cup and a plate for the girl. The sergeant was about to leave when Phryne seized his arm.
‘There’s something I forgot to tell you,’ she whispered. ‘Her fingers were bare, weren’t they? And when I saw her first, they were loaded down with rings — valuable ones, mostly emeralds and diamonds.’
‘Thanks, Miss Fisher, that is a help. Robbery might be the motive, then, though I can’t imagine how that advances matters. How is the daughter?’
‘I left her sleeping peacefully. I’ll send Dot to help her with her toilet as soon as she’s finished breakfast. Dr Heron had better see her again before she gets up, she was very deeply drugged.’
The sergeant agreed and went away. Phryne came back to her table to find that the girl had been helped to eggs and bacon and toast and tea, and was eating as though she was famished.
‘Slow down, old thing, there’s plenty more,’ she said, and the girl looked up, smiled, and laid down her knife and fork to take a gulp of tea.
Phryne let her eat in peace as she observed her. Neat table manners, someone had taught her well; and if she had plaited her own hair, she was a tidy creature. She could not help the winceyette dress, which had been made for someone less coltish and thinner, and Phryne resolved to get rid of that dress as soon as possible. Though she had not spoken, she had understood what Phryne had said. Therefore she spoke English, which was a help. There were permanent blue shadows under the eyes which spoke of childhood illness, but she seemed sturdy enough. The nails on the large well-formed hands were bitten to the quick.
The girl finished her breakfast, pushing back the plate with a satisfied sigh, and Phryne poured her some more tea.
‘I’m Phryne Fisher, and this is Dorothy Williams. What’s your name?’ she asked quietly, and the girl’s brow puckered.
‘I can’t remember!’ she said, and began to cry.
Dot hastily supplied her with a handkerchief and a hug, and Phryne said quickly, ‘Never mind. We’ll call you Jane. Would you like to come and stay with me for a while, Jane?’
Jane stopped crying and nodded, drying her face. Phryne smiled.
‘Good, that’s settled. Now I have to go and talk to that nice policeman again, so why don’t you find yourself something pleasant to pass the time. There are books and games on that shelf. Dot will help you. See you in an hour or so, Dot.’
Phryne slung her red coat around her shoulders, checked that cigarettes and money reposed in her pockets, and sauntered out into the chilly yard to find the sergeant.
She found him staring mournfully at the stable door, from whence two well-dressed men were carrying a stretcher.
‘Going for autopsy in Melbourne,’ he said in answer to her question. ‘I hope she was dead when all that happened.’
‘So do I. And I haven’t got far with the new puzzle, either.’
‘No? She don’t remember?’
‘She don’t. I have called her Jane. Was she definitely on that train?’
‘Why, yes, Miss, she was seen on it, second carriage from the end. Second-class ticket, single. Nothing on her to identify her, so the Ballarat people shipped her back, thinking that the two mysteries must be connected.’
‘That is not necessarily the case,’ said Phryne. ‘She could have nothing to do with it.’
‘And that’s true too,’ agreed the sergeant, in deepest gloom.
‘Well, they’ve taken the body away, and now I have to break it to Miss Henderson. Hang on a tick. It would come much better from a woman. I don’t suppose that you. .’
Phryne sighed. She had thought that this might happen.
‘All right. I’ll tell Miss Henderson if you take me to see the scene of the crime.’
‘Deal,’ agreed the sergeant, and Phryne returned to the hotel.
Miss Henderson was sitting up in bed and taking a little toast and tea when Miss Fisher arrived. Dot had taken the child Jane into the bathroom and was abjuring her to wash behind her ears. Miss Henderson took one look at Phryne’s solemn face and said, ‘Mother’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid she is.’
‘You know, I thought she must be.’
Miss Henderson began to cry, in a helpless way, seeming to be unaware that she was still holding a piece of toast in one hand and her cup of tea in the other. Phryne took away the cup and the toast and gave Miss Henderson a handkerchief, three of which she had prudently provided.
Miss Henderson wiped her face and leaned forward, grabbing Phryne’s wrist in a fierce grip. ‘You are a detective, are you not? I read about that case of the unspeakable little man you caught in Queenscliff. And the Spanish ambassador’s son’s kitten. You’re clever. You can catch him for me.’
‘Catch whom?’ asked Phryne, fighting the urge to free her hand. ‘Calm yourself, Miss Henderson.’
‘The murderer, of course.’
‘Do you really want to hire me? Think about it. I may find out the truth.’
‘That’s what I want you to find,’ said Miss Henderson firmly. ‘I know that Mother was a nuisance. I have quite often felt like killing her myself, God forgive me, but that does not mean that I did it or contrived it. Murder is such a monstrous thing. And why? Why? The person she injured most was me — hounding me, nagging me, day after day, hour after hour, until I thought I’d go mad! If anyone had reason to kill Mother, it was me, but I didn’t. And now I don’t know what to do or where to turn.’
She sobbed for a few minutes, then took control of herself again, putting down the handkerchief.
‘So I want to hire you, Miss Fisher, to find whoever killed my mother. Find out the truth.’
‘All right,’ agreed Phryne, sitting down on the end of the bed. ‘On condition that you drink the rest of that tea and don’t get up until the doctor has seen you.’
‘I’ll be good. Miss Fisher, tell me — did she suffer?’
‘No,’ said Phryne, thinking of the great blow the old woman had taken to the head — surely no awareness could survive tha
t. ‘No, I’m sure she did not suffer.’
‘How did she. . die?’
‘She was hit on the head very hard,’ said Phryne. ‘One heavy blow. But her body was much damaged after she was dead — the fall from the train, possibly.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘No, the body has gone to Melbourne for post-mortem. You can see her later. She looks fine. Her face is quite untouched. She will not shock you.’
‘She shocked me enough when she was alive,’ commented Miss Henderson wryly. ‘I doubt that she’ll shock me that much now that she is dead.’
Phryne left Eunice Henderson to her tea and found Dot, who had Jane’s clothes over her arm.
‘Well, any name tags or laundry marks, Dot?’
‘Nothing at all, Miss. I tell you one thing, she’s a cleanly little madam, but she ain’t used to a bath. She’s been cat-washing since she was a baby, I reckon.’
Phryne recalled cat-washes, because she had taken them herself until the death of some young men had dragged her upwards into the world of running water and bathrooms. One obtained a bowl of hot water and, standing on a mat and removing one article of clothing at a time, one washed first face and hands, then the upper body, removing the shirt, then the lower body, removing and replacing the skirt, until finally one stood both feet in the basin (assuming that they would fit) having washed the whole person in about two pints of hot water, or one kettle-full. It was satisfying in an economical sort of way, but was nothing like the joyful sensation of sinking into a hot, scented bath. Phryne almost envied Jane the pleasure which she must be experiencing.
‘What about the clothes themselves?’
‘Hand-me-downs,’ said Dot without hesitation. ‘See — hem’s been let down twice, and the colour’s faded with a lot of washing. Homemade,’ she added, exhibiting the inside collar where no label had ever been attached. ‘And not very well, either. Her singlet and bloomers are wool, but old and scratchy, and thin enough to put your fingers through.’
‘Well, she can’t put those back on,’ commented Phryne. ‘Can you find something of mine that will fit?’
‘No, Miss, I’ll go out directly and buy her some suitable clothes,’ said Dot, shocked that this waif should be clothed in Phryne’s silk underwear. ‘That would be better, Miss.’ Phryne gave Dot enough money to purchase clothes to last Jane until she got back to Phryne’s own house, and dragged herself away to find the sergeant yet again. He was still standing in the yard, gloomily smoking a cigarette and communing with the crows who were gathered on the milking shed fence.
‘Well, I’ve told Miss Henderson, and it’s time for you to keep your part of the bargain,’ she said brightly. The crows, alarmed by the extreme redness of her coat, rose flapping in a body, making raucous comments.
‘Very well, Miss Fisher, I’ve got a car, come along. It’s not far,’ added the depressed sergeant. ‘And blessed if I can see how she was got out. I’ve walked every inch of the line, both with a lantern and in daylight,’ he said, helping Miss Fisher into the battered Model T and cranking the engine into a sputtering semblance of life. ‘And there isn’t a footprint or a mark of where she fell.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘So young a child,’ said the gentleman sitting opposite to her (he was dressed in white paper), ‘ought to know which way she’s going, even if she doesn’t know her own name!’
Lewis Carroll Alice Through the Looking Glass
‘That’s where they found the body,’ said the sergeant as they stood beside the track. ‘A good ten yards. She can’t have fallen that far, and there is not a mark, Miss Fisher. . look for yourself.’
Phryne stepped away from the track and surveyed the ground. The water tower with its wooden scaffolding stood about fifteen feet high, with the cloth funnel that fed the train hanging down. The ground was firm but moist red clay, the consistency of an ice-cream brick, and certainly there was no sign of anyone walking on it. Further away, along the path, were the multiple tracks of the searchers, the clay reproducing their bootmarks and even the round indentation where someone had set down a lantern, and the cup-shaped prints of knees next to the body. There were multiple marks there, but the ground was all cut up, churned and confused by the searchers so no individual print could be discerned.
‘She was trodden into the mud,’ said the sergeant. ‘They near had to dig her out. Over there, Miss Fisher, you can see.’
‘Yes, what a mess! No chance of finding anything there. Have you walked along a bit further?’
‘Yes, Miss, a good half-mile, but this is where she landed, however she got out. A bit further back I found the glass where you broke your window, and that must mark the beginning of the whole thing. Before that, Mrs Henderson was alive.’
‘Hmm, yes. Has anyone climbed the water tower?’
‘Yes, Miss, I thought of that, but the canvas funnel isn’t long enough to catch, and the train-men were using it to refill the boiler. There’s nothing unusual up there, Miss.’
‘It was just a thought. Well, we might go back to Ballan, then, Sergeant, and have a look at the first-class carriage.’
‘All right, Miss. Er. . how did Miss Henderson take the news of her mother’s death?’
‘She was very distressed. Not that I think that she liked her mother at all; indeed, the old lady was fretting the life out of her. But she has hired me to find out who killed her, and I don’t think that she did it, I really don’t.’
‘Hired you, Miss? Will you take the assignment?’
‘Oh, yes, I think so. I want to find the murderer too. I don’t like having my journeys interrupted by chloroform.’
The Model T made the short journey to the rail siding without shedding any of the more essential of its parts, and they shuddered to a halt. A very large constable was on guard next to the train. He stood up hurriedly when he saw the sergeant and endeavoured to hide his doorstep cheese sandwich behind his back.
‘Anyone been about, Jones?’ asked the sergeant, elaborately not noticing the sandwich. ‘All quiet?’
‘Sir, that Mrs Lilley came and collected some of the children’s clothes, but I made sure that she only went into her compartment, sir.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘All right. You can go and get some breakfast — take half an hour, you must be hungry.’ The sergeant smiled laconically, and allowed Phryne to precede him onto the train.
‘The smell’s almost gone,’ she commented. ‘Thank good- ness. Here’s where I was sitting, and Dot. Nothing there. Here is the lair of those awful children. Mr and Mrs Cotton were here. . tell me, has anything been touched?’
‘No, Miss Fisher, except when Miss Henderson was removed. Why? Something missing?’
‘The cloth, the one that was laid over her face. It isn’t here. Perhaps they took it with Miss Henderson. Otherwise it looks just as it did. Now, see, Sergeant, look at these marks.’ The sergeant came fully into the compartment, which had two long padded seats. Both ladies had evidently been reclining, almost or fully asleep. A woolly rug was flung from the seat nearest the engine and was crumpled on the floor. The shawl on the other seat was thrown to the end, as though the sleeper had arisen hurriedly.
‘See, they were both lying here, heads to the outside wall, with the window open like that. At least I suppose the window was open. I must ask Miss Henderson. I heard her mother complaining about the window quite a lot, but she didn’t seem to have a preference really. She was just doing it to irritate. “She only does it to annoy, because she knows it teases’’.’
The sergeant, who was evidently unfamiliar with Alice in Wonderland, looked blank.
‘Then,’ continued Phryne, bending close to the windowsill, ‘see? Those scrape marks. She was pulled out the window after she was drugged — I hope — and. .’
‘And?’ prompted the sergeant with heavy irony, ‘carried up into the air by angels? Lifted up by aeroplane?’
‘Yes, that is a problem, I agree,
my dear police officer, but it’s clear she was dragged. Look at the marks! Plain as the nose on your face.’
‘Yes, that is what they look like, as though something has been pulled through that window, and even a little of her hair has caught, Miss, I believe you are right. But what happened then I can’t imagine. She was thrown a long way, Miss.’
‘What if the murderer were on the roof of the train?’ asked Phryne suddenly. ‘Has it rained since last night?’
‘Well, yes, Miss, there was a shower at about five, quite a heavy one, that’s why everything is so soggy.’
‘Blast! That will have washed all the marks off the roof.’
‘But you could have something there, Miss! If he was on the roof that would account for the marks, and even for where the body was found. She was a light little thing.’
‘And the injuries?’
‘Maybe the doctor was just indulging a diseased imagination. Not much happens in Ballan, you know.’
‘So she could have been that damaged by such a fall?’
‘I reckon so, Miss. That train builds up speed. She’d hit the earth with a fair old thump.’
‘Well, there’s not much else to see in here,’ commented Phryne, noting that the old lady had a lurid taste in reading matter. Next to her place was an edition of Varney the Vampire, which Phryne remembered from her youth to be fairly blood-chilling. Miss Henderson had been beguiling the journey with Manon Lescaut, in French, the unexpurgated edition. By the bookmark she had nearly finished it. Phryne reflected that the woman who chose Manon and the woman who preferred Varney were hardly likely to be soul mates.
Most of the hand-baggage had been taken to the hotel, but Phryne picked up one parcel which seemed to contain paper and was addressed to Miss Henderson. She weighed it in her hands and put it down again — just paper.
The sergeant escorted her out of the train to the hotel. The constable was returning from what, to judge from the crumbs which he was brushing off his uniform, had been a very good breakfast.
Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher Page 36
