Kerry Greenwood - Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

Dot had revived the parlour fire, and Lindsay cast himself down on the hearth rug and closed his eyes. He was smeared with leaf-mould and blood, and was as bruised as Phryne was, from the grasp of those terrible hands. Mr Butler brought him a drink mixed to the identical recipe. When he had absorbed this and another, a little pink came back to his face and he was able to focus again.

He saw Phryne decorously divested of her jacket and trousers, and dressed in a flowing woollen gown, grey-green as gum leaves, after Dot had sponged the mud and blood spatters from her face and hands. Lindsay was treated likewise by Mr Butler, who washed his face as though he was five years old and still unreliable with chocolate. He gave up his tweed jacket, damaged (he feared) beyond repair, and his smeared trousers, and assummed a dressing-gown and slippers. He was back in his place before the fire, newly washed and dressed, feeling as he had when he was a child and his nanny had brought him into the drawing-room for an hour before dinner.

Phryne cradled a steaming cup of strong black coffee in both hands, and Lindsay took his with a bewildered thank-fullness, as though he had been woken out of a bad dream. A sip taught him that it was Irish coffee made with very good whisky. He drank a little, wondering why his throat was so sore, then became aware that Phryne was telling a story.

‘He thought that Eunice Henderson’s mother had a lot of money,’ she was saying, staring into the depths of the cup. ‘He was wrong, as it happens; the old woman was broke, she lost all her fortune in the Megatherium crash. Eunice has money of her own. She was supporting her mother. He read Eunice all wrong,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘She didn’t like her mother — well, no one could — but she was content to wait until nature took its course. She didn’t want to kill the old lady. I think that Alastair expected Eunice to be grateful, not mournful. He certainly didn’t expect her to hire me to find out who killed her. That upset him. I thought he was just jealous of me because I seduced his friend.’

‘Here, I say, Phryne!’ objected Lindsay, waking up a little. Dot was smiling at him. Mr Butler was refilling his cup. The policeman, who had evidently dressed in a hurry, as the bottoms of his pyjamas were visible beneath his trouser hems, was unmoved. Lindsay subsided. He was too tired, anyway, to worry about the rags of Miss Fisher’s reputation.

‘But I was wrong. He wasn’t jealous — at least, not in that way. He was annoyed that any woman could take him on — could be so impudent as to attempt to fathom his motives! But I did. I caught sight of that guard’s face, you know, and even with the scar and the cap I almost knew him. Then when he produced that alibi I was convinced that I must have been wrong, and then Lindsay exploded his Mills Bomb right under my chair. They are identical to a physical description.’

‘You should have seen it,’ said Lindsay sleepily. ‘She swung down the boathouse porch like a monkey and drove back here like a demon. It was like riding the whirlwind.’

‘Well, I didn’t think we had time to spare,’ Phryne drained the Irish coffee, touched her throat, and winced. ‘And we didn’t, either. Are the girls all right?’

‘Yes, Miss, I checked, both as cosy as bugs in a rug, them and their cat.’ Dot took one of Phryne’s feet into her lap and began to rub it. She was sensible of the fact that while there were two sets of masculine arms to fall into, and one of them her current pet, Phryne had fallen into Dot’s. Phryne’s beautiful feet were colder than stone. Dot rubbed assiduously.

‘I found out how he knew that little Jane knew him, Miss Fisher,’ admitted Jack Robinson, vainly attempting to haul up his pyjama hem without seeming obvious. ‘He overheard our conversation. My end of it, I mean. He was at the counter, signing the bail book, when I was talking to you. It won’t happen again, I tell you,’ he added fiercely. ‘They will have to give me a phone in my office when I tell ’em about this. You could have been killed, Miss, not to mention the girls. What happened when you got to the house?’

‘Well, I knew that he wasn’t far ahead of us, because he’d been at the boathouse earlier, and I also knew that he could not get into the house. I had those windows fitted with strong diagonal bars, ever since Ember arrived and I realised how dark and little overlooked that sideway is. I thought that he would be prowling about the house, seeking those whom he might devour,’ she shuddered and swallowed painfully. ‘And I thought that Lindsay and I would be a match for him. And we almost weren’t, eh, Lindsay?’

‘If you hadn’t shot him,’ opined Lindsay, ‘he would have killed me. And I’m his oldest friend. Makes a man think, that does. Will he live, Detective-inspector?’

Jack Robinson laughed grimly. Three o’clock in the morning was not his favourite hour, and he was not in the mood to mince words. ‘He’ll live to hang. Miss Fisher wasn’t trying to kill him, so she didn’t. He’s got the constitution of an ox.’

At that moment, the telephone rang. Mr Butler went to answer it. ‘Miss Henderson, Miss Fisher,’ he intoned. Phryne leaned on Dot’s arm and staggered out to the phone.

‘Hello, Eunice, what can I do for you?’

Phryne listened for a long moment; she thought that they might have been cut off. Then Eunice whispered, ‘You know who killed Mother, don’t you, Phryne?’

‘Yes, my dear, I know.’

‘I know too. It was Alastair, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew his back, you see. I saw that blond guard, and I didn’t recognise the face or the voice, but I knew his back. I’ve known all along, Phryne, and hoped it wasn’t true.’

‘Yes, Eunice.’

‘Have they caught him?’ The whisper was desperate.

‘Yes, they’ve caught him.’

‘Why?’

The voice was a wail. Phryne was too tired to think of a tactful reply, and talking hurt her throat.

‘Money.’

‘And Mother didn’t have anything to leave but this house,’ Eunice began to laugh. ‘I would have given him everything I had.’ There was a pause. ‘Well, that’s the end of that,’ she said sadly.

‘Eunice, have you no one to stay with you?’ urged Phryne.

‘No, dear, I don’t need anyone. I shall be all right. I am on my own now — no mother, no relatives, no lover. It might be a rather interesting experience. I won’t keep you in the hall on this cold night, Phryne. Thank you for everything.’

‘Goodnight,’ said Phryne, and Eunice hung up.

‘That was Eunice Henderson,’ she told her company. It seems that she suspected it was Alastair all along. Well, that’s the end of that, as Eunice says. Give me some more of that Irish coffee, Mr B., and then I think that we can all go to bed, again.’

‘You’ll be in touch, Miss Fisher? Have to make a statement about the capture of the felon,’ said Jack Robinson. ‘Nice work, Miss Fisher. We shall have to get you in the force, ha, ha.’

‘Ha, ha,’ agreed Phryne waspishly. ‘Is it proved by evidence, Jack? Have some of the coffee, it puts heart into you. Are you all right, Lindsay?’

‘Yes, I’m all right, just a little dazed by the pace of events.’

Phryne laughed. Jack Robinson accepted a cup of Irish coffee and said, ‘Yes, well, they found the old woman’s rings in his rooms. He escaped without leaving any traces, you know. He leapt down from the water tower onto the old woman’s body, and thence to the track; there weren’t no mud on him, so he didn’t leave a mark. Then he coiled up his rope, walked down the track to the next station, changed his clothes and dumped the guard’s uniform and the cap, peeled off his scar, and put on his own clothes again — he was carrying them all the time, in a knapsack like soldiers use. Relic of his climbing days, I assume. Then he took the train back to town. It was a good plot, though stagey. We might never have laid a hand on him if it weren’t for you, Miss Fisher. I hope that you are not too uncomfortable.’