Kerry Greenwood: Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

‘To the hospital,’ said Cec quietly. ‘You’re crook.’

‘No!’ she struggled feebly and flailed for the door handle. ‘Everyone’ll know!’ Bert and Cec exchanged significant glances. Blood and foul-smelling matter were pooling in the lap of the blue, cheap-and-showy dress she had worn to her abortion. Cec grasped the hand firmly and pressed her back into the seat. She was panting with effort and her fingers seemed to brand his wrist. She was only a child, Cec realised, perhaps no more than seventeen. Haggard and fevered, her dark feathery hair escaped from its pins and stuck to her brow and neck. Her eyes were diamond bright with pain and fever.

‘No one’ll know,’ soothed Bert. ‘I know one of the doctors there — you remember, Cec, the old Scotch chook with all the books who came with the toffy lady? She won’t say nothing to no one. Just you sit back and relax, Miss. What’s your name?’

‘Alice,’ muttered the girl. ‘Alice Greenham.’

‘I’m Bert and that’s Cec,’ said Bert as he skidded along Exhibition Street, dragged the taxi into Collins Street and gunned the failing engine up the remains of the hill to Mint Place.

They dumped the cab outside the hospital, and without apparent effort Cec carried Alice Greenham up the steps to the front door. Bert hammered with clenched fist and pounded on the bell. Cec stepped inside as the door swung open, while Bert turned on the nurse who had admitted them and barked. ‘We got an emergency. Where’s the Scotch doctor?’ Nurses are constitutionally incapable of being daunted. The woman stared him in the eye and was silent.

Bert, at length, realised what she was waiting for.

‘Please,’ he snapped.

‘Dr MacMillan is in surgery,’ she announced. Bert drew a deep breath, and Cec spoke while offering the girl in his arms to the nurse.

‘She fainted in our cab,’ he explained. ‘We came for help,’ he added, in case he had not made his meaning clear. Cec did not talk much, finding in general that words conveyed nothing of what he wanted to say.

Alice Greenham moaned.

‘Bring her in here,’ the nurse relented, and they followed her into a bare examination-room, painted white. Cec laid her down on a stretcher bed.

‘I’ll fetch the doctor,’ said the nurse, and vanished. Bert knew that nurses did not run, but this one walked very fast. Bert and Cec looked at each other. Cec was striped with blood.

‘I spose we can’t just go and leave her,’ faltered Bert. Jeez, Cec, look at you!’ Cec brushed fruitlessly at the bloodstains. He sat down next to Alice and took her hand.

‘She’s only a kid.’

‘She’s in some grown-up trouble.’

Bert did not like hospitals, and was about to suggest that they had done their duty and could now leave, when Dr MacMillan bustled in.

‘Well, well, what have we here? Fainted, did she?’ she demanded. ‘Is she known to you?’

Cec shook his head. Bert piped up, ‘A bloke put her into our cab in Lonsdale Street. Gave me ten shillings to take her to Richmond. Then she keeled over, and Cec noticed. . the blood, and we brung her here. She didn’t say much, but her name’s Alice Greenham.’ Dr MacMillan smiled unexpectedly.

‘Sister will give you a cup of tea,’ she announced, ‘and you will wait until I come back. We must talk about the man in Lonsdale Street. Sister! Give these gentlemen tea in the visitor’s room, and send Sister Simmonds to me immediately.’

Phryne reached the Block Arcade, from which shone a soft, seductive light, out past the severe, dark stone Athanaeum Club with its pseudo-Roman decoration. The Arcade, by contrast, was entered by charming portals fringed with delicate iron lacework, and the floor, such of it as could be seen beneath the scuffling feet of thousands of loafers, was tiled most elegantly in black and white. Phryne drifted along with the crowd, observing with detached amusement the mating habits of the locals; the young women in shocking pink and peacock blue, dripping with Coles’s diamonds (nothing over 2 s .6 d .), painted, and heavily scented with Otto of Roses. The young men favoured soft shirts, loose coats, blinding ties and Californian Poppy. With the reek of burning leaves drifting in from some park, motor exhaust and the odd salty ozone tang produced from the trams, the Arcade was suffocating.

The shops, however, were engrossing, and Phryne purchased a pair of fine doeskin gloves, and a barrette for her black hair, sparkling with diamantés and formed in the shape of a winged insect.

She arranged that these purchases should be wrapped and delivered to the Windsor, and decided that she could cope with a cup of tea. She caught sight of herself in the mirror-shiny black pillar of the glove shop, and paused to tidy her hair. In the reflection she noticed the set, white face of a girl, standing behind her, unaware of Phryne’s regard, who was slowly biting into her lower lip. The horror on that face gave Phryne a start, and she spun about. The girl was leaning on the opposite pillar. She was dressed in a light cotton shift of deep, shabby black, and her legs were bare. She was innocent of gloves, hat or coat and had scuffed house-slippers on her feet. Her long, light-brown hair was dragged back into an unbecoming bun, which was coming adrift from its pins. Her blue eyes stared out of what would have been a fresh, milk-maid’s complexion, if she had not been tinged heliotrope by some illness or internal stress. On impulse, Phryne crossed the Arcade and came up to the girl, wondering what it was she held concealed in her hands close to her body. As she approached, she identified it — it was a knife.

‘Hello, I was just going to get some tea,’ she said casually, as though meeting an old acquaintance. ‘Would you like to come too? Just over here,’ she added chattily, leading the unresisting girl by the arm. Now, sit down, and we’ll order. Waitress! Two teas, please. Sandwiches?’ she asked and the girl nodded. ‘And sandwiches,’ added Phryne. ‘I think that you’d better give me that knife, don’t you?’

The girl handed over the knife, still mute, and Phryne put it in her pocket. It was an ordinary kitchen knife, such as is used to chop vegetables, and it was razor-sharp. Phryne hoped that it would not slit the pocket-lining of her new coat.

Tea was brought. The Moorish arches, hung with artificial flowers and lanterns, were soothing, and the light was not harsh. Phryne dispensed tea and sandwiches, and watched her companion becoming more lively with each mouthful.

‘Thanks, Miss,’ said the girl. ‘I was famished.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Phryne easily. ‘Some more?’

The girl nodded again, and Phryne ordered more food. A jazz orchestra was damaging the night somewhere, but not near enough to preclude speech. The young woman finished the sandwiches, leaned back, and sighed. Phryne offered her a gasper, and she refused rather indignantly.

‘Nice girls don’t smoke,’ she said trenchantly. ‘I mean. .’

‘I know what you mean,’ smiled Phryne. ‘Well, what about it? What are you doing here?’

‘Waiting for him,’ said the girl. ‘To kill him. I come from Collingwood, see, and I got a job as a housemaid in this doctor’s house. The doctor’s missus, she was a very good woman.’

Phryne had a feeling that she had heard this story before.

But her son, see, he kept following me about, mauling me, and he wouldn’t leave me be. Tonight, it all got too much for me, and I told him what I thought of him, and that I’d tell his mum if he didn’t leave me alone. He came back when the old lady was having her afternoon nap, and threw me down. I donged him one, and he gave me such a belt I could hardly see, but I got my knee into him, and he let go, and ran away. Then the missus calls me in after dinner and tells me that I’ve been “shamelessly pursuing her son”, and that she was putting me out of the house, “a low, vulgar wench”, that’s what she called me. And she gave me no character and no wages. And him sitting there grinning like a dog, being a good boy. So I took me things to the station and I stole the peeling knife out of the kitchen and I was going to kill him. ’Cos I can’t go home. Me mum’s got seven others to keep, and she depends on my wages, see? So I’ll never get another job. He’s made me into a whore, that’s what he’s done. He deserves killing.’