Kerry Greenwood - Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

‘Indeed. Well, that’s about all that we can do at present. Oh, Jack, I forgot to tell you. I have an eyewitness to the murder, who saw what happened and can identify the murderer.’

‘An eyewitness to the murder, Miss Fisher? Who?’

‘Jane, I told you she had remembered. Listen.’ Phryne told the story of Jane’s grandmother and the manner of her death.

‘It appears that the old woman hanged in a noose against a lighted window is what shocked the child out of the trance your harmless Mr Burton had put her into, and she saw the man on the water tower.’

‘She saw him?’ exclaimed Jack Robinson. ‘To know again?’

‘So she says,’ replied Phryne. ‘I’ll bring her tomorrow to look at photographs. All right?’

‘Tomorrow,’ agreed Jack Robinson.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

He had softly and silently vanished away. .

Lewis Carroll The Hunting of the Snark

Ruthie and Jane had so much to catch up with that Phryne suggested moving Ruth’s camp-bed into Jane’s room. She knew that they would talk all night, but thought that they might as well do it in comfort. Jane was regaining her past in large chunks, and Phryne hoped that it would not prove too indigestible.

Ruth, Jane and Ember partook of a light supper of bread-and-butter and hot milk, then they all snuggled into Jane’s bed so that they could talk without being heard. It was a cold night, but the girls and the kitten were warm in their nest under the eiderdown with the jazz-coloured cover. Phryne looked in on them as she was going out.

‘Goodnight, my dears,’ she said, and heard the chorused ‘Goodnight, Miss Fisher’ from the heaped covers. She smiled and closed the door.

‘Dot, I’m going to this glee club do, only because I promised to bring the beer. Go to bed, old thing, and don’t worry. Mr B.! All the crates safely stowed?’

‘Yes, Miss Fisher, all secure.’

‘All right, I’m off — I may bring company home, but I shan’t need you again tonight. Everyone can go to bed. We’ve all had too much excitement lately. All the locks and things up, Mr Butler? Good. Well, sleep tight,’ said Phryne, and sailed out into the night, a furry cap on her head, huddled in the sheepskin coat, and looking like a rather dapper member of the Tsar’s entourage of female soldiers. She started the Hispano-Suiza without trouble, steered her carefully into The Esplanade, and turned her nose for the city. The wind whipped her face, tearing at her hair, and she laughed aloud into the rainy dark. It was fine to be on the road with all this power at one’s fingertips! She leaned on the accelerator, and the car leapt like a deer under her hand.

She rolled carefully down the unmade road to the boathouse, and it was obvious that there was revelry afoot. The boathouse, a rather rickety two-storey construction with a balcony, was lit with lanterns, as were several of the surrounding trees. There was a measured chorus of voices singing Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’. Phryne stopped the car and listened. It was perfect. The rain drifted softly down, the river ran with a slap and gurgle, and the voices, from highest sop to lowest bass, were blended as finely as a Ritz Hotel cocktail.

Bring me my bow of burning gold

Bring me my arrows of desire

Bring me my spear, Oh! Clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

Blake really was an excellent poet, Phryne reflected, lighting a cigarette and leaning back on the leather upholstery, though regrettably mad, as poets so often are.

The song finished. Several people came out onto the balcony, and one girl exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, somewhat affected by gin, ‘Oh, I say! What a spiffing car!’

‘That must be Miss Fisher,’ someone else commented. ‘I hope she’s remembered the beer!’

‘I have remembered the beer,’ she called up. ‘But you’ll have to carry it yourself.’

There was a clatter of feet, and several young men erupted out of the boathouse and down the steps.

‘Oh, Miss Fisher, I’m so glad that you could come. Let me help you out, what an amazin’ car! Very kind of you to bring some refreshments for the lads. . and the girls, of course, I was forgetting. Connors, you and Tommy Jones get the beer, will you? Do you remember me, Miss Fisher?’

Phryne accepted the eager clasp and extracted herself from the driving seat, summoning up the name to match the bright, intelligent face.

‘Of course I remember you,’ she temporised. ‘Aaron Black, that’s who you are. Well? What about the bet?’

‘You can call on me for a row down the river in a real boat,’ he confessed, grinning. ‘They know several much ruder songs than we have heard. But we are learning. We think that we should put the two societies together, Miss Fisher, I mean, silly, isn’t it, in these days of equality, females all over the shop, I mean, women students in Medicine and even in Law; silly to have separate singing, when all parts in music are of equal value. What do you think of it?’

Phryne allowed herself to be led up the stairs by this charming young man, past a series of boats stored in racks like coffins, and up onto a plain dancing floor, with a servery in one corner and the balcony at the end.

‘It’s a bit of a crush,’ apologised Connors, panting past with a crate. ‘I always think that the balcony is not going to make it through another party, but it has managed so far.’

‘Beer?’ cried a huge young man, seizing the crate and extracting a bottle. He bit off the cap and gulped half the contents before his outraged friend regained possession.

‘Beer!’ he said with a delighted smile, and grabbed for the bottle again.

‘Behave yourself, oaf! This is Miss Fisher, donor of all that amber liquid and some plonk for the ladies, so be civil.’

The huge dark young man took up Phryne’s gloved hand with wincing delicacy and bestowed a respectful kiss.

‘Madam, your kindness overwhelms us. . can I have my bottle back now, Aaron?’

Aaron returned the bottle, seeing that Phryne was amused, and the chorus began on a sad tale of a young maid who was poor (but she was honest). Phryne sighted Alastair across the room, scowling, and the beautiful and diverting Lindsay near him, looking embarrassed. Then two young women claimed Phryne’s attention and a bottle of her wine, and she elbowed her way out onto the balcony, where there was a wicker garden-seat.

‘What do you think of this idea of putting the two societies together, Miss Fisher?’ asked the blonde girl, gnawing at an ink-stained fingernail. ‘They are pretty rough types, these Glee-ers.’

‘Nonsense, Marion,’ retorted her companion, who was thin and stylish and would be elegant when she started wearing stockings. ‘They’re nervous around us. Once they see that we aren’t put off by the vulgarity they’ll be all right. And we need some basses if we are to put on that B Minor Mass you’re always talking about.’

‘I suppose so. The world has a lot of men in it, doesn’t it? It won’t do just to pretend that they don’t exist. Miss Fisher, we are devoted admirers of yours. We read all of your cases. Are you engaged in one at the moment?’

‘Why, yes, I am engaged in the cases of the vanishing lady and the appearing lady; one died and one is alive.’

‘Ooh, a riddle! Let’s see if we can guess it. Do you want some of this wine? It’s rather good,’ said Marion. ‘Let’s get Alastair onto it, he’s frightfully good at riddles.’

‘Alastair!’ shrieked the other girl, but Alastair did not seem to have heard her. He turned his back to the balcony and was arguing with Lindsay.

‘What’s wrong with him lately?’ demanded Agnes. ‘He’s terribly shirty at the moment. Used to be a good enough chap, too, though a shark for the books.’