For the first time Miss Lee's voice faltered.
'Oh, dear,' she said sorrowfully. 'I was really beginning to do quite well. Now what will become of my shop?' she wailed, and put her hands to her eyes.
Phryne moved to allow Dot to supply a handkerchief and a hug, and presently Miss Lee recovered herself. That had been a cry straight from the heart, Phryne thought, and yet some scant five minutes later Miss Lee was back in firm control of her face and voice, though her hands gave her away, clenched together.
'I'm so sorry,' Miss Lee apologized. 'Well, Mr Michaels. He came in, asked about the Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum, which is still on its way from France, then wandered over to the Great Unsaleables.'
Phryne laughed and Miss Lee smiled. 'You know how it is at auctions, one has to buy a lot of rubbish to gain the thing one requires? Well, I have my share of volumes which no one will ever want, but one never knows in the book trade, so I keep them on display in a case. Then—well, then it happened. I was doing some accounts, and I heard him make a strange little sound, then I caught him, he had some sort of fit, and then he died. The rest you know. I went next door, the ambulance was called. They took the body away. I knew he was dead. There's an absence in death, the person isn't there any more. I was shaken, so I cleaned the shop, reverting to type, perhaps. I swept the floor and re-shelved the books and then the police came and here I am.'
'Did you have a cup of tea that day, Miss Lee?'
'No, I didn't have time.'
'And you didn't leave the shop that morning?'
'No,' said Miss Lee. Phryne looked at her. She was trying to conquer something—distaste? Finally she managed it.
'Of course, I had to go to the lavatory, and I asked Gladys to mind the shop for the time I was away—five minutes, perhaps.'
'Because of your condition,' hinted Phryne. Miss Lee blushed as red as a poppy.
'Yes. Of course, I had a packet of necessities in my desk. Oh, Lord, and that policeman must have found them.' Miss Lee tried to cool her cheeks with her hands.
'And that's why you didn't tell him you had left the shop and why he thinks you're lying,' said Phryne, triumphantly. 'Miss Lee, I must go, thank you for your time. I will have you out of here as soon as may be. Meanwhile, if Jack Robinson comes back and asks you if you left the shop, tell him. He won't be shocked, he's a married man. By the way—what happened to that packet of rat poison that you bought?'
'The policeman asked me that. I don't know. I left it under the sink. The corn chandler's shop attracts rats, and I came in one morning to find a huge great brute scurrying behind the shelves. So I bought some poison, but I hadn't even opened the packet.'
Dot made a note of this reply. Miss Lee asked gravely, 'Miss Fisher, don't give me any false comfort. Do you really think that you can prove me innocent?'
Phryne took the offered hand. 'There are more gaps in Jack's theory than in Mercator's projection,' she said. 'I will prove you innocent, Miss Lee, even if it means finding out how poor Mr Michaels died. You can trust me. I'll be back,' she said.
'I shall always be in when you call,' said Miss Lee.
Phryne gave a slightly startled laugh and Miss Lee was escorted out. The office door opened and Phryne and Dot walked in and stood before an acre of desk.
'Look after Miss Lee. My advice is that you supply her with remand comforts, visits, clean linen and put her to work in the library, strictly no floor scrubbing,' Phryne told the governor of the prison, a bleak woman in grey. 'She didn't do it.'
Three
Nigredo is called the Raven.
Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum 1689
Phryne swept past Mr Butler and paused in the doorway of her own sea-green, sea-blue parlour in her bijou Esplanade house. She needed a bath to rinse the prison smell off her person and she wanted to sit down and take off her rather tight shoes, but it was a very pretty picture.
Dot's policeman, Hugh Collins, who had been a faithful kitchen visitor, had been let into the parlour, probably on the urgent petition of the girls, to tend to something which whimpered. Phryne could not see into the grocer's box, but both her adopted daughters were deeply concerned. The fairer Jane's countenance was creased; the darker Ruth was biting the end of her plait, which she always did when she was worried. September holidays had brought the girls home from school, and they were dressed in the warm colours they affected when at home rather than the severe school uniform, designed to iron out from any female body the slightest shred of sexual attraction. Jane was in green and Ruth in red, and the fire lit their faces: Hugh's sharpened with concentration, the girl's with concern. They looked like Rembrandt figures, strange in the modern parlour like the inside of a shell and surrealistic. Phryne stood still until there was a sharp yap. Hugh said, 'There, that's done it, poor little bitch,' and the creature in the box stopped whimpering.
'Miss Phryne,' exclaimed Ruth, leaping up and dragging Jane with her. 'Look what we found. Mr Collins fixed her leg. He reckons someone kicked her! How could anyone kick a poor little thing like that?'
'There is always someone willing to kick puppies,' said Phryne, kneeling down next to the carton. A wretched scrap of damaged black and white fur shivered on an old jumper.
'Girls, I don't ...' she began, to be met by two shocked faces.
'Oh, Miss Phryne, please,' said Jane, catching at Phryne's hand. 'She's only a little dog.'
'Little dogs grow up,' said Phryne reluctantly 'I really don't want a dog, girls.'
Jane recovered first. She gave the puppy a final caress and stood up. 'Come on, Ruthie,' she said to her adoptive sister, clearly resigned to the loss of the animal as she had been resigned to other losses.
'She's only a puppy, and if we put her out she'll die,' protested Ruth. Phryne was entirely unprepared for this assault on her emotions. Reflecting that the object of the argument was not only an infant but injured, could conveniently decease any moment and might as well do it in comfort, she patted the girl's shoulder.
'All right, Ruth dear, as long as you and Jane look after it you can keep it. Now tuck the box in the chimney alcove, injured creatures need heat. Have you got a name for her? Hello Hugh, how nice to see you again. Perhaps we should have some tea, it's a vile day outside, an early north wind, and ...' she continued, and was embraced by both girls, their faces against her own. She caught sight of the group in the mirror: the laughing Ruth and the exultant Jane, embracing Phryne, Jane's unplaited hair flowing like silk across her broadcloth shoulder and breast, supporters to her Dutch-doll face. She turned and quickly kissed each glowing cheek, coloured as gracefully as geranium petals. She hadn't actually wanted a dog, but then she hadn't wanted daughters either and they had turned out to be very interesting and hardly any trouble at all, considering.
'Thank you, Miss Phryne,' said Jane. 'She won't be any trouble. We'll walk her and wash her and Mr Collins thinks she's a sheepdog so she won't grow too big.'
Despite a private feeling that she had heard that tune before, Phryne allowed them to help her into her chair and remove her shoes and Mr Butler handed her one of his special cocktails, which she savoured quietly. A hint of almond, perhaps? Was that noyau, certainly cherry brandy, and ... as always, she gave up. Mr Butler's cocktails were his own sacred mystery The girls sat down on the floor with the box and Hugh Collins resumed his place at Phryne's wave. Dot sat on the arm of his chair, an impropriety which she would never have allowed herself if the friendship had not progressed to consideration of marriage.
'How did you get involved in this, Hugh?' asked Phryne, sipping her cocktail. Constable Collins and Dot had tea.
'I was coming to deliver a parcel for Dorothy, Miss Fisher, and the girls said they'd found a puppy. Poor little thing had a dislocated hip, but I've put it back. Some mongrel kicked her, I expect.'
'Oh, well, poor little creature,' said Phryne. 'Make sure that she's fed, won't you, Ruth?' Ruth was the sensible one, who had engineered her own escape from bondage and serfdom. Jan
e, more intellectual and destined perhaps for the medical career she craved, would be thinking about something else. Jane always was. It was part of her slightly distracted charm.
They did her credit, Phryne thought, looking at Dot refilling Constable Collins' tea cup. Dot was well dressed and solidly respectable, though at her first encounter with Phryne she had been desperate, dishevelled and heavily armed. Ruth, rescued from slavery in a boarding house, was clean and combed and becoming delightfully plump, her devotion to food destining her for a domestic career. Mrs Butler said that she showed promise as a cook, but was 'too bold' with spices and heavy handed with pastry, though she made excellent soup and was an angel with anything involving yeast. Jane, rescued from far darker bondage, was thinner and paler and clever in an offhand vague way which alternately exasperated her adoptive parent and astonished her. As long as someone was around to make sure that Jane got on the right tram with the right change and then got off at the right stop for her examinations, Phryne was convinced that all available academic honours would be hers. The boarding school, which also housed princesses and diplomat's children, had accepted the orphans without surprise; after all, their background might be dubious, but they were the adoptive children of the Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher, well known to be extremely rich and exceptionally well-connected, being the daughter of a Duke. She was also socially adept to the level of Ipsissimus and not to be crossed by any organization that wished to remain in the mode.
Therefore Ruth the slavey and Jane the whore's daughter mingled with the daughters of the upper classes, and quite liked each other, each side considering the other unbearably exotic.
And although the north wind scoured the unreliable spring outside, inside Miss Fisher's parlour everyone was getting on splendidly.
The girls had settled down on the hearth rug. Ember the black cat had walked in, sniffed the canine scent, hissed briefly, then analysed it as a small dog with no immediate desire to chase cats. Ember had ascended to Phryne's knee with a precise leap and was now sitting in sphinx pose, nose to the fire, blinking occasionally and looking, as Jane said dotingly, perfectly Egyptian.
'Nice to see you, Hugh dear, are you off duty or have you left the force?' asked Phryne. The large man grinned. He owed Phryne a lot. Because of her he had entered for his detective's exams with his Sergeant's recommendations and was on the way to becoming Detective Constable Collins.
'No fear, Miss Fisher, I'm on nights. Just dropped in for a word with Dot and one of Mrs B's ginger biscuits when the girls came in with that poor little mutt. I'm glad you're going to let them keep her, Miss Fisher. Nice little stocky body, I reckon she's a crossbreed, not too big and going to make a good guard dog. Need a guard dog in St Kilda, with all them alleyways behind the houses.' Constable Collins basked under the affectionate regard of everyone in the room except Mr Butler, who instinctively knew who would walk, brush and care for the new acquisition, and Phryne, who was conscious of being manipulated. Then she remembered Hugh's mention of a parcel.
'Oh, of course, it's your birthday next week, Dot dear, isn't it? We've an appointment with Madame tomorrow, don't forget, for your suit. If you really insist on a suit?'
Dot nodded. When offered a handmade garment of her choice as Phryne's birthday gift, she admired all the beautiful evening dresses that Madame Fleuri constructed for the fattest purses, if not the best figures, in Melbourne. But what she wanted was a dark brown wool suit made with Madame's exquisite tailoring, finish and style. Dot wanted a garment that she could wear for the rest of her life. Oddly enough Madame, who was really French, understood this desire. 'If you still 'ave this garment, Mademoiselle,' she told Dot at her first fitting, 'you can be married in it, and even buried in it in the fullness of time, and while you 'ave my suit, you will never be without something respectable to wear.' Phryne was delighted to see the Parisian couturiere and the lady's maid smile at one another with perfect understanding.
However, puppies and constables and handmade suits aside, there was the case and Phryne wanted the opinion of her family. She told the story of the young man dead in the bookshop, Miss Lee and the prison interview, and the Jewish connection as seen by everyone involved in the matter, Jack Robinson and Mr Abrahams alike. The girls thought about it. Dot leaned against Hugh Collins, who shyly embraced her. The fire crackled. The puppy snored faintly in her exhausted sleep. No one spoke. Then Ruth commented, 'There are Jewish girls at school. One of them's terribly clever—Jane talks to her. Mostly they're standoffish, stick together and don't talk to the gentiles—they're all very rich, of course. One of them's Mr Abrahams' niece, I think, if he's the man who owns half the Eastern Market, she was talking about it, eh, Jane?'
'Mmm?' Jane had been staring into the fire.
'Pay attention, can't you? Rebecca Levin, isn't she Mr Abrahams' niece?'
'Yes, I believe so. I like Rebecca. We were talking about Euler's Grand Equation, you know, which links the five fundamental numbers. It's such a pretty thing,' said Jane, who had never been induced to regard clothes with anything but passing interest. Ruth sighed affectionately. 'Becky wants to do science at University, she's fascinated with numbers. She told her father that it's well known that there's a whole system of prediction based on Kabala, which is a Hebrew invention, so there's no reason why she should be doing something anti-religious by going to University to study pure mathematics. She says that her uncle will pay her fees if her father won't. They're all expected to learn, you know, even the girls. We met Mrs Levin, remember, Miss Phryne, at the school concert? With Becky's sister, Anne.'
'Oh, yes, voluble lady in puce, as I recall, very chatty about how pretty her girls were. I'm glad they're clever,' replied Phryne, whose memories of the school concert were not compelling enough to feature in her autobiography when she got around to writing it.
'Yes, really clever,' agreed Ruth. 'But nice with it. Anne has to make sure Becky has breakfast and walks the right way home, just like I do with Jane. Mrs Levin invited us to tea last week, but we were going to the dentist so we had to refuse.'
'Accept for this week, or would you rather invite them here?' asked Phryne.
'We've never seen their house, so we'd rather like to go there, Miss Phryne, but it depends on which would help your investigation,' said Jane, still staring into the fire and appearing to think about something else—perhaps Euler.
'Go to their house, and tell me all about it,' said Phryne. 'What did you make of Miss Lee, Dot?'
Dot, suddenly conscious of being embraced by Hugh Collins, sat up abruptly and blushed. 'I don't think she did it, Miss. I'd be lonely living like she does, but I reckon it's what she's always wanted. She wouldn't be likely to fall for any man, tall, dark or handsome, but if she did I reckon she'd pick well. Even if it all went wrong, she'd retreat back into her room and shut the door, not go looking for revenge like someone on the movies. The story's silly, Miss, like you said, a movie script. And there hadn't nothing been spilled on that floor, I'd swear my life on it. But there's something missing—how did he get the poison? And who killed him and why? I reckon that Miss Lee's the easiest target, Miss, and it's real hard to prove a negative, like Jane was explaining to me the other day. We have to find out who that man was and why someone killed him—and how they did it—before the law's going to let Miss Lee go.'
'Aren't you being a bit hard on Detective Inspector Robinson, Dorothy?' asked Hugh uneasily. Dot removed herself from the arm of the chair and sat down on the couch with Phryne.
'No,' said Phryne quickly, before Dot could reprove her friend. 'We understand his position entirely, he needs a murderer and Miss Lee looks good on a superficial inspection. But we don't think she did it and we need to look at Mr Michaels very hard. Now what other information can we get, hmm? I've seen the scene of the crime but it had been extensively tidied. Nothing out of place—Miss Lee is a neat woman. Nothing unusual in the shop that I can think of offhand.'
'You need the autopsy report,' said Hugh.
'Ca
n I get it?'
'I don't see why not,' said Hugh Collins, redeeming himself instantly and causing Dot to return to her perch. 'I'll just borrow a copy from the file.'
'Not yet,' said Phryne. 'I'll ask Jack for it. Then if he refuses you can borrow it for me and I shall get it back to you as soon as I can get it photographed. Also I need to know what was in his pockets, where he lived, and everything known about him—but I'll ask Jack, Hugh dear. Let me keep you in reserve in case official channels fail me.'
Phryne smiled at the young Detective Constable to be. She did not want to blight his career unless it could not be helped. But she was determined to remove Miss Lee from the custody of the law.
The telephone message which was delivered just before lunch confirmed her resolution. Miss Lee, allowed comforts, had a request for some books to while away the hours in her cell. She had never had time before, but she was being lodged and fed without any effort of her own, so she was intending to learn Latin.
Phryne resolved that the books would be collected that afternoon and went back to the fire.
After a good lunch—the weather might be unreliable but the new asparagus was bang on time and Phryne adored asparagus, lightly steamed and dipped in melted butter—she called Jack Robinson and asked him to adorn her dinner table. He declined, pleading pressure of business.
'Where are you going this afternoon, Jack dear?' asked Phryne.
'Back to the Eastern Market. Tell you what, Miss Fisher, why don't you sort of accidentally meet me there by Miss Lee's shop at about three? I've got all the neighbours to speak to and it's an interesting place, you'll like it and you might see something that I miss.'
'What a nice proposition,' said Phryne. 'See you there.' She rang off, called for her coat and hat, and walked through to the kitchen. The girls were occupied with a cooking lesson, and Phryne went out on Jane's learned discourse on the chemical interaction of water and bicarbonate of soda in scone dough.
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