Kerry Greenwood - Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

‘No, Miss Fisher, except when Miss Henderson was removed. Why? Something missing?’

‘The cloth, the one that was laid over her face. It isn’t here. Perhaps they took it with Miss Henderson. Otherwise it looks just as it did. Now, see, Sergeant, look at these marks.’ The sergeant came fully into the compartment, which had two long padded seats. Both ladies had evidently been reclining, almost or fully asleep. A woolly rug was flung from the seat nearest the engine and was crumpled on the floor. The shawl on the other seat was thrown to the end, as though the sleeper had arisen hurriedly.

‘See, they were both lying here, heads to the outside wall, with the window open like that. At least I suppose the window was open. I must ask Miss Henderson. I heard her mother complaining about the window quite a lot, but she didn’t seem to have a preference really. She was just doing it to irritate. “She only does it to annoy, because she knows it teases’’.’

The sergeant, who was evidently unfamiliar with Alice in Wonderland , looked blank.

‘Then,’ continued Phryne, bending close to the windowsill, ‘see? Those scrape marks. She was pulled out the window after she was drugged — I hope — and. .’

‘And?’ prompted the sergeant with heavy irony, ‘carried up into the air by angels? Lifted up by aeroplane?’

‘Yes, that is a problem, I agree, my dear police officer, but it’s clear she was dragged. Look at the marks! Plain as the nose on your face.’

‘Yes, that is what they look like, as though something has been pulled through that window, and even a little of her hair has caught, Miss, I believe you are right. But what happened then I can’t imagine. She was thrown a long way, Miss.’

‘What if the murderer were on the roof of the train?’ asked Phryne suddenly. ‘Has it rained since last night?’

‘Well, yes, Miss, there was a shower at about five, quite a heavy one, that’s why everything is so soggy.’

‘Blast! That will have washed all the marks off the roof.’

‘But you could have something there, Miss! If he was on the roof that would account for the marks, and even for where the body was found. She was a light little thing.’

‘And the injuries?’

‘Maybe the doctor was just indulging a diseased imagination. Not much happens in Ballan, you know.’

‘So she could have been that damaged by such a fall?’

‘I reckon so, Miss. That train builds up speed. She’d hit the earth with a fair old thump.’

‘Well, there’s not much else to see in here,’ commented Phryne, noting that the old lady had a lurid taste in reading matter. Next to her place was an edition of Varney the Vampire , which Phryne remembered from her youth to be fairly blood-chilling. Miss Henderson had been beguiling the journey with Manon Lescaut , in French, the unexpurgated edition. By the bookmark she had nearly finished it. Phryne reflected that the woman who chose Manon and the woman who preferred Varney were hardly likely to be soul mates.

Most of the hand-baggage had been taken to the hotel, but Phryne picked up one parcel which seemed to contain paper and was addressed to Miss Henderson. She weighed it in her hands and put it down again — just paper.

The sergeant escorted her out of the train to the hotel. The constable was returning from what, to judge from the crumbs which he was brushing off his uniform, had been a very good breakfast.

‘Keep watch for a bit longer, lad,’ said the sergeant, and looked hungrily towards the kitchen. Phryne interpreted the glance correctly.

‘Good heavens, man, have you not eaten? You can’t deduce things on an empty stomach. Mrs Johnson makes an excellent omelette,’ she added, and gave him a push.

She then walked back to her own room to see if Dot had extracted any information from the unknown girl.

She had been comprehensively washed and was enduring a punitive combing of her long hair, and bearing it pretty well, it seemed. Dot had obtained a very plain skirt and blouse in a depressing serge dyed with what appeared to be bitumen, but even in these unpromising clothes the girl was rather pretty.

As Phryne entered, the hair was at last drawn back from her face and Jane sat up and sighed with relief.

‘I always hated having my hair dressed,’ commented Phryne. ‘That’s why I cut it short as soon as I could. How do you feel, Jane?’

‘Very well, Miss,’ said Jane calmly. ‘But I still can’t remember anything. It’s like there’s a hole in my memory. As though I was just born.’

‘Hmm. There are several things about you that we know. One is that you are an Australian; the accent is unmistakable. You speak English. And there are things that you have not forgotten: how to eat with a knife and fork, how to read, how to converse. I therefore conclude that you will get your memory back in time if you don’t worry at it.’

Jane looked relieved. Phryne left her to play a quiet game of solitaire, which she also remembered, it seemed, and drew Dot aside.

‘Dot, those clothes!’

‘Yes, Miss, I know, but that’s all they had in the general store, and I had to dress her in something. You would have liked the other clothes even less than these. They don’t have no style in the outback,’ said Dot, to whom all places more than four miles from the GPO were country. Phryne smiled and forebore to comment.

‘Never mind, they will last her until we get back to the city. How does she strike you?’

‘I reckon that she is telling the truth,’ said Dot twisting her plait. ‘Every time she tries to think about who she is she starts to tremble and to sweat, and you can’t fake that. Why she can’t remember is more than I can tell. She’s healthy, though skinny, and I reckon she’s about thirteen. There’s no bruise or mark on her and I couldn’t find a lump on her head. Her eyes are clear so I don’t think that she’s been drugged.’

‘If we can rule out trauma and drugs then I think it has to be shock, and that is something that wears off, it can’t be broken through. Like Mary’s Little Lamb, we leave her alone and she’ll come home, bringing her tail behind her.

‘Meanwhile the mystery deepens. I can’t imagine how Mrs Henderson was got out of the train — at least, she was dragged out of the window, but all the signs seem to indicate that she was dragged up, and unless the murderer was on the roof of the train, I don’t know how that can be. Any ideas, Dot?’

‘No, Miss, not at the moment.’

‘Very well, let’s have a brief chat with the others who were on the train and then I think that we shall go back to Melbourne. There’s nothing more to do here, and somehow I’ve gone right off trains, and Ballarat, too.’

‘Me, too,’ agreed Dot. ‘Next time, can we take the car, Miss?’

Phryne smiled. At last, her nervous maid had been converted to the joys of motoring. But it had taken a murder to convince her.

The surviving passengers were all grouped in the pink-and-black breakfast-room. The pregnant woman looked washed-out and leaned on a husband who had lost all of his bounce. Mrs Lilley’s appalling children had been stuffed with so many sweets and cakes by a distracted mother and a sympathetic cook that they sat, bloated and queasy, quiet for the moment. Miss Henderson had risen and dressed and was the calmest of the group. The burns had blistered during the night and she was obviously in pain. Mrs Johnson had served tea and coffee, and Miss Henderson was sipping milk through a straw.

Phryne took her seat and accepted a cup of coffee from the hovering landlady.

Sergeant Wallace came in — a massive presence which seemed to fill the doorway — and everyone looked up, falling silent. He raised a hand, embarrassed.