‘Were you lucky, deah?’ Miss Phipps called effusively.
‘Didn’t get a damn thing.’ The Stray’s nose was red with cold. She rubbed her hands in front of the fire. ‘You lazy — —, sitting there while I tramp me feet off. Last place I went to they loosed the flamin’ dog on me.’
‘Deah, that language!’
‘Oh, shut up!’ The Stray removed her shoes and tenderly rubbed a blister on one heel. ‘Chuck over the tobacco, Snow. I brought a noospaper for you to read.’ The Stray could only read with the greatest difficulty and could write little more than her name. She always brought back a newspaper and coaxed Snow or the busker into reading the more sensational divorce evidence.
Her manner told Snow she was concealing something, that she was excited and pleased. But not until Miss Phipps had retired behind her tree did the Stray divulge the secret.
‘Hey, Snowy!’ She beckoned frantically. ‘I got somethin’ good. Don’t tell that bitch of a woman. She’ll want to cash in on it.’
‘What?’ Snow and Duke moved cautiously round to her side of the fire.
‘Look!’ She turned up the hem of her skirt to expose a very beautiful peach-satin petticoat inset with lace. ‘Look!’ She dived down her neck and triumphantly produced more lace and satin. ‘I put ’em on right away. And that ain’t all. There was a fur coat. I stuffed it up a tree. We could sell it.’
‘Why didn’t you bring it back?’
‘And have ’er fasten on to it? No chance. An’ there was stockings and pyjamas and hats. Tons of fings.’
‘Where’d you get ’em?’
‘I found ’em.’ The Stray looked round cautiously to see if Miss Phipps was listening. ‘They was in a big leather sootcase someone must’ve lost out of a car. Hidden it was, down in a deep gutter by the road, under some tree roots. “Hello, I says …”’
‘Where is it?’ Snow rose to his feet.
‘Back there. Too big it was to carry.’
Duke was also impressed. ‘Good on you, Stray,’ he encouraged.
The Stray flared up. ‘Don’t you dare call me that. You Busking Bum! My name’s Dancy, and don’t you forget it.’
‘I was heading into town, anyway,’ Duke said with a yawn. ‘I’ll go along with you, Snow, and have a look. Which tree did you leave the fur coat?’
The Stray described it. ‘And don’t you forget,’ she threatened. ‘Them fings belong to me. I found ’em. An’ I don’t want her havin’ none.’
‘Don’t be a goat. I’m going into town to get her a lift out of here.’
It was late afternoon before the busker returned, smelling of rum, and once again his eloquence had served them well. Before his story of a poor, broken-hearted girl, penniless but called to the bedside of a dying mother in Sydney, the local hotelkeeper had melted completely.
‘I tell you what, me boy,’ that open-hearted citizen had said finally. ‘There isn’t any commercial going through to Sydney, or even part of the way. But if this poor girl is out of luck the way you say, why, I’ll pay her fare back to Sydney meself. I’ve got daughters,’ he added, ‘and I’d hate to see any of them left in a fix like that. Only’ — his caution came uppermost — ‘I’ve got to see the girl and put the ticket in her hand. I’ll even see her to the station.’
So there was nothing left but to convince their succubus that her best interests would be served by taking the hotelkeeper’s generous offer. Miss Phipps was obtuse.
‘I’d rather stay with you deah people,’ she announced.
‘But we’re going way out on the plains, Phippsy, to trap rabbits, and you’d hate to see animals maimed and killed. The camp would be full of dead rabbits all day.’ That settled it.
‘I’ll go,’ Miss Phipps announced, her eyes gleaming curiously.
She’s got something up her sleeve, the busker decided; but he kept his premonition to himself.
The train for Sydney left at six in the evening, and the kindly hotelkeeper took time off at his busiest period to escort Miss Phipps to the train, buy her a ticket which cost him over two pounds, and see her aboard the train for the three-hundred-mile journey. He even pressed ten shillings into her hand on parting, but hurried back to the bar before the train left.
The Stray and the busker had also come in to see Miss Phipps off, leaving Snow to mind the camp and read his paper in front of the fire. Miss Phipps did not seem any too anxious for them to linger.
‘You get back,’ she urged, some time before the train started. ‘You get back. I’ll be all right now.’
They also felt there was no need to linger on the cold, windswept platform, having seen her into the train with their own eyes, and made sure she had the ticket to Sydney.
‘Well, that’s the last of ’er,’ the Stray rejoiced as they trudged back in the cold and darkness to their camp a mile out of the town. ‘I never been so glad in all me life.’
Snow was even more relieved than they were. The air of the camp seemed cleaner. They laughed and swore in unrestrained enjoyment. Snow had brought in the hidden store of beautiful garments, and they spent a happy time reckoning how much they could get by selling them, after the Stray had made a selection of things she wanted to keep.
‘Why, it’s a reg’lar trousseau,’ she declared, her eyes shining. ‘Gee, Snow, I gotta have that fur coat.’
She had decked herself out in a coat and skirt very much too big for her, with the fur coat over all. Snow looked up from his paper and expressed frank admiration.
‘With some teeth in an’ your ’air done up and some gory paint,’ he said, ‘you’d be almost good-lookin’.’
The Stray beamed at him. But he quickly forgot her and turned to his paper again.
‘Read it to me, Snow,’ she coaxed, anxious for more attention. ‘Go on, read it.’
‘There ain’t nothin’ in it,’ Snow said contemptuously. ‘On’y politics and wars. The p’lice think they got another clue of that viaduct murder.’
‘That was the body,’ the Stray said with relish, ‘what was so battered about they couldn’t tell oo she was.’ The Stray, for all she could not read, took a gruesome pleasure in what she termed ‘a real good murder’.
‘It says here they’re traced the cove they’re after to this very district.’ He read laboriously: ‘Police report they have so far traced three hundred missin’ girls in an effort to es-tablish …’ He stopped.
‘Go on. Go on,’ the Stray urged.
‘Analyst’s report. The deceased was a dark, stout woman …’ He broke off again. ‘They’re tryin’ to trace her gold tooth.’
‘Oh, read it,’ the Stray pleaded angrily.
‘What’s the good?’ Snow wanted his tea. ‘That stoo ought to be about ready.’
‘Throw over that paper, Snow,’ the busker said thoughtfully. Something in his tone made Snow look at him keenly.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I was just wondering.’
‘Wonderin’ what?’
‘Who those clothes belonged to?’ Duke said ominously.
The Stray gave a horrified scream. ‘You don’t fink them was hers?’ she shrilled.
‘Why not? She left Brisbane with a bloke in a blue sedan car. They’ve traced him through this district. What’s more likely that he got scared and threw her things away?’
The Stray’s blue eyes bulged as she feverishly began flinging off the fur coat and the underlying clothing. ‘An’ I got ’em on,’ she screamed hysterically. ‘I’ve got ’em on me.’
‘Hey, get behind the van,’ Snow advised, shocked, ‘if you want to take them clothes off.’
‘I never want to see ’em again. Never! Oo-er! They been on a Body.’ The Stray had reached an embarrassing stage of undress; and Snow and the busker in gentlemanly accord turned their backs.
‘But there’s the reward,’ the busker went on, taking no notice of the Stray’s hysterical blubberings. ‘There’s the five hundred pounds reward.’ He gripped Snow’s arm excitedly. ‘Halves,
Snow.’
‘Hey, where do I come in?’ The Stray for the moment forgot her fit of the horrors. ‘Who found them fings, anyway? You split fair.’
‘That’s true,’ Snow agreed. ‘We won’t see you left for your share.’ He was roused to excitement. ‘Why, I could get a new van.’
They hardly waited to eat before rushing to the town to the police station. Snow and Duke were for leaving the Stray in charge of the camp; but Dancy, thoroughly hysterical now, declared she was not going to be left alone in the dark for no one. ‘Ghosts would get her.’ This unreasonableness irritated both her friends; but they were forced to put the horse in the sulky and take the Stray and the suitcase, carelessly repacked, with them. Snow and Duke even had to pack the woman’s clothing themselves, because the Stray declared she ‘wasn’t going to touch nothin’ that had been on a Body.’
They hammered at the door of the sergeant’s residence; and, pouring out an incoherent story — the Stray’s interpolation that ‘them cloves was all over bloodstains’ was later proved inaccurate — roused the sergeant from a pleasant after-supper nap. He ushered them into the charge-room and investigated the contents of the suitcase himself, saying, ‘Hum, yes,’ in the cryptic manner of a doctor about to call in an expensive specialist. Secretly he was excited. Then, turning very abrupt and authoritative, he sent Snow to find his constable. The constable was on his beat down the town; but it was unlikely that any crime would be committed in the few minutes he was absent, and the sergeant felt he must have some kind of support in this hour of glory.
The constable, when he came, was one of those dour, unimpressionable men. He was also in a position to send the sweet dreams of the assembled company vanishing into nothingness.
‘I meant to tell you, sergeant,’ he said. ‘A chap by the name of Wood ’phoned through from Currawong this afternoon to ask if anyone had found a suitcase dropped from the tonneau of his car. He and his wife are on a honeymoon trip.’ He picked up a handful of dainty lace in his big hand. ‘That’s it, all right.’
The look of mortal anguish on the face of the three before him had no effect. ‘Didn’t say anything about a reward,’ he added reflectively. ‘The chap said he didn’t suppose he’d get the stuff back, but his wife was particularly upset about the fur coat. A valuable fur coat.’ He picked it up as though he had found it himself.
The sergeant, who had had visions of his name in the papers in big type and a move to a bigger town, turned on his constable and gave him a severe reprimand for neglecting to inform his superior of important telephone messages. He then dismissed him to his beat again and, unruffled, the constable went. The three reward-seekers turned dumbly to follow him, but the sergeant had awakened from his after-supper drowse as well as the visions of wealth and fame.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said sharply, and the three halted, while the sergeant fished out an official-looking paper. ‘Just while we’re on the subject of this murdered woman.’ He read rapidly from the sheet: ‘Dora Phipps, dark, stout, believed to have left Little Millpond, near Melbourne, April 4th. Anyone knowing …’ He stopped at the expression on the Stray’s face.
‘But that’s Phippsy,’ she cried. ‘She was travelling wiv us.’
‘Is that so?’ the sergeant said, his suspicions aroused. He glanced keenly at the unprepossessing trio. They looked as they could murder a rhinoceros without turning a hair, much less a woman, stout, dark, and answering to the name of Dora Phipps. He also noted that the big man had kicked the girl sharply on the ankle and frowned at her.
‘Well, where is she now?’ he asked.
‘We dunno,’ Snow volunteered. He added for good measure: ‘We ain’t seen ’er or ’eard of ’er.’ Snow considered it always best to know nothing if a policeman asked you.
The busker came in glibly with his version. ‘We put her on a train this afternoon for Sydney, sergeant.’
The sergeant considered. He was not in a pleasant temper, having been brought from his fireside on a cold night. ‘I’ve a good mind to arrest you all on suspicion.’ Then, remembering that this would probably overcrowd his tiny gaol, he said judicially: ‘You be back here in the morning, and I’ll go into it thoroughly. Don’t think you can sneak off, because it’ll be all the worse for you if you do.’ He might have probed the matter further had it not been so icy cold. ‘And don’t come back here with any cock-and-bull story,’ he admonished on parting. ‘I want to know just what happened to that girl.’
The recriminations between Snow, the busker and the Stray began as soon as they were in the sulky.
‘Well, you two flamin’ mugs,’ the Stray burst out, ‘givin’ away my cloving and my fur coat.’
‘Who told the copper Phippsy was travelling with us?’ Snow retorted. ‘Why can’t you keep your mouth shut?’
‘Well, you’re the man got us all in bad, telling the sergeant we’d never seen Phippsy,’ the busker flung at him.
In this rancorous frame of mind they continued through the town.
‘Hang on a moment,’ Duke said suddenly. ‘I want to go to the railway station.’
‘Why? Ain’t we had enough muckin’ about for one night?’
‘I just want to check up that she really went, that’s all.’
‘But the pub-keeper bought her ticket.’
‘I know. I still want to check up. We’re going to be in a pretty mess tomorrow, but I want to know for sure.’
The station was in darkness, so Harley trudged across to the stationmaster’s house and hammered on the door. He desperately besought that official to remember a dark, fat woman who bought a ticket to Sydney.
‘Came up with O’Hara who keeps the Royal?’
‘That’s her.’
‘Well, he bought her ticket all right. Then at the last moment she came and persuaded us to take it back and give her the money. Said she had to get out at Currawong. She’d forgotten something she had to do there. She seemed to be pretty upset, so, although I shouldn’t have done it, I took the ticket back and sold it to the next passenger. The woman you’re after took a ticket to Currawong.’
Duke shook the stationmaster’s hand and again assured him that it was a matter of life and death, or he would not have bothered him.
‘I thought as much,’ he crowed triumphantly, as he remounted the sulky. ‘She’s not mad. She’s just as cunning as the Horehound.’ He related his discovery. ‘That leaves her with about two pound clear, and she’ll be living at the hotel at Currawong on the fat of the land until it’s gone. Not that it’ll last her long, but she’ll have a spree on it.’
‘How did you work it out?’ the Stray said, with grudging admiration.
‘I just thought what I would have done myself,’ Duke said modestly. ‘She didn’t want to go to Sydney. I could see it in her eye. She might have had to work.’
They spent an uneasy night, the Stray insisting on sleeping with Snow, despite that gentleman’s expostulations. She was scared of ghosts, and twice in the night she woke them with nerve-racking screams.
The busker was outside the police station bright and early. He had insisted that the others ‘leave it to him.’ ‘One of us is enough,’ he argued. ‘You’ll only be putting your feet in it. Let me manage it.’
‘So she’s at Currawong, is she?’ the sergeant said sourly. ‘She’s not in Sydney, and she’s not travelling with you. She’s in Currawong. Well, Constable Stacey’ — he indicated his dour underling — ‘is going to drive you over to Currawong to locate her.’ Harley stared at him dumbly. ‘That suit you?’ the sergeant barked.
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Right. You can start now.’ He handed his constable a sheaf of papers. ‘Give those to the postmaster while you’re there, Stacey.’
The forty miles between Currawong and Bylong flashed past the smooth, shining body of the car. When Duke thought how wearily those miles had dragged, how it had taken three days for them to dawdle from one town to the other, he felt he had moved into a different world. It was
miraculous to be travelling in a car again. There was nothing in this snail-crawling mode of horses and vans. Only dullards travelled so. A longing came to him for speed, for action, for swift change. What was he doing dragging about with a turnout and a horse? In the midst of these reflections the car whirled into the town of Currawong.
‘She’ll be at the best hotel,’ the busker directed.
‘How do you know?’
‘I know Phippsy.’ She was not at the best hotel, however; Miss Phipps had not known which was the best, and she had misguidedly chosen the second best. There the barman informed them that a Miss Bowen had checked in the night before.
‘Let’s have a look at her,’ the constable requested. She was not in the hotel, but she would be back to lunch.
‘Has this place got a women’s beauty parlour?’ the astute Duke enquired. ‘You know? One of those places where women get their hair dolled up.’
‘Ah.’
‘Where is it?’
The barman gave directions.
The lady lessee of the ‘Madame La Mode’ beauty-shop was not at all pleased by the apparition of a strange constable and an evil, dark tramp. ‘Well?’ she said acidly.
‘I’m looking for a dark, stout woman with one gold tooth,’ the constable said humbly.
‘Very plain,’ Harley added in an explanatory tone.
‘How dare you!’ demanded a voice from within a chastely curtained cubicle; and Miss Phipps, her hair a steely mass of curl-pins, thrust her head out.
‘Are you Dora Phipps?’ the constable asked.
‘I had a perfect right to use the money any way I pleased,’ Miss Phipps said indignantly. ‘And, anyway, you can’t get it back because it is … er … disposed of. I bought myself a new hat — a real bargain — a new pair of shoes, a set of …’
‘That’s enough,’ the constable said hastily. ‘All I wanted to know is are you Miss Phipps, of Danks Street, Little Millpond, Melbourne, daughter of James Phipps, grocer and small-goods merchant?’
The Battlers Page 6
