Kerry Greenwood - Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

‘Nothing new, ladies and gentlemen, but a couple more questions and then you can go on, or go back, whatever suits you. First: did anyone notice a young guard?’

Mrs Lilley looked up. ‘Yes, a blond young man, rather good looking? He passed me twice. The first time he stopped and said hello, then the next time that I saw him he seemed to be avoiding me, but I didn’t think anything of it.’

‘Why not, if he was pleasant the first time?’

‘Johnnie bit him,’ admitted Mrs Lilley shamefacedly. ‘He was being a dog and the young man wouldn’t pat him, so he bit him — I don’t know why my children aren’t like anyone else’s! — so after that, of course, I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t want to talk to us again. It would be different if my husband hadn’t died,’ said poor Mrs Lilley. ‘And he had shell-shock so he couldn’t discipline them. But oh, dear, I wish I had stayed home!’

Mrs Lilley burst into tears. The children, shocked, clustered around her and patted her, Johnnie delivering a fierce hack to the ankle of Sergeant Wallace, whom he perceived as a persecutor of his mother. The sergeant, to his credit, winced in silence and merely held the child in a tight but comforting grip.

‘You take a hold of yourself, young feller-me-lad,’ he admonished. ‘You be nice to your mum, now, and don’t drive her mad with all your pranks. Mrs J., perhaps you could come up with some sal volatile. Anyone else see this guard?’

Mr and Mrs Cotton shook their heads. They had been involved, it seemed, in an engrossing quarrel over whose duty it was to lock the back door, and this had kept them going until they had both fallen asleep. They had not noticed the young guard.

Mrs Johnson had produced the sal volatile and Mrs Lilley appeared to be recovering. She was, it appeared, taking her little demons to her relatives in Ballarat, and Phryne fervently hoped that they were prepared for the invasion.

‘Now, if you will all give me your names and addresses and a telephone number if you have one, you can all be on your way. I’ve hired the station taxi to take all the stuff and the Ballarat train will be through in an hour.’

‘Miss Fisher, can I ask you a question?’ asked Mr Cotton. ‘Did you see this guard? And do you think that he was the murderer?’

‘Yes, I saw him, and I think he might have been the murderer,’ answered Phryne carefully. ‘And I have a question for you. Has anyone seen this girl before?’

She nodded towards the door, where Dot was escorting Jane into the room. All the passengers looked at her narrowly, and she blushed and hung her head.

‘I call her Jane,’ said Phryne, making a broad gesture. ‘She can’t remember who she is. Can anyone help?’

The Cottons shook their heads. Mrs Lilley looked up from her sal volatile to sigh. Little Johnnie, however, gave a whoop of joy and ran forward to embrace as much of Jane as he could reach, which was about knee-level. Jane’s face lit up, and she lifted the child and embraced him.

‘Johnnie!’ she cried. ‘Your name is Johnnie!’ Then the young brow clouded, and she bent her head, as though the weight of her hair pulled it down. ‘But I don’t know any more,’ she mourned.

‘Mrs Lilley, did your children leave the first-class carriage?’ asked Phryne.

Mrs Lilley shrugged. ‘They were running around all over the place, dear, for quite a while, especially when I was changing the baby. I lost Johnnie for quite half an hour, I believe, when we got onto the train. I don’t know where he was; it was dark, and I was worried, but he turned up as good as gold, like he always does, bless him. He might have got out of the carriage. I’ll ask him.’

‘Johnnie,’ she began in a calm voice. ‘Tell Mummy where you met the girl.’

Johnnie, clinging tight to Jane, shook his head and shut his mouth tight.

‘Johnnie, Mummy won’t be angry if you went out of the carriage. Tell me, where did you meet the girl?’

Johnnie unlocked his lips long enough to say, ‘No,’ firmly.

‘I’ll give you this cake if you tell me,’ bribed Phryne, and Johnnie repeated, ‘No,’ in a deeply regretful tone.

‘Has someone told you not to tell?’ persisted Phryne, and Johnnie nodded.

‘A man in a uniform?’ asked the sergeant, and Johnnie nodded again. ‘Well, I’m a policeman, and you always have to tell policemen the truth, you know that, don’t you?’ Johnnie nodded again.

‘Well, where did you meet the girl?’ asked Sergeant Wallace, and Johnnie said, ‘Dark,’ and grabbed for the cake.

Phryne swung it up out of grasping distance and said, ‘Dark where?’

‘Paddock,’ said Johnnie. ‘Train stop. In paddock. She put Johnnie back on train. Chuff, chuff, chuff,’ he commented. ‘Cake now.’

Phryne gave him his cake. She felt that he had earned it. But the puzzle had become worse.

‘Cryptic infant,’ she commented as Johnnie ate about half of the chocolate cake and smeared the rest evenly over his countenance. ‘What do you think he meant, Mrs Lilley?’

‘Oh dear, Miss Fisher, he’s such a clever little boy, there’s no telling what he meant — I mean, he may be telling the truth, but he does make things up, I’m afraid.’

‘What sort of things does he make up?’ asked Phryne.

Mrs Lilley blushed. ‘Well, he said that there was a bear under his bed, and there simply isn’t room,’ she added, sounding imbecilic even to her own ears. ‘And he said that his father came and tucked him in and said goodnight, when his father has been dead for eight months.’

‘Did so,’ affirmed Johnnie. ‘Daddy came. Scared away the bear. More cake?’ he asked, with an unexpectedly charming smile.

‘Well, perhaps his father did come back to the precious pet,’ commented Dot, unexpectedly maternal.

Johnnie turned his face confidingly up to Jane. ‘Girl in the dark,’ he reiterated, as this had yielded cake before. ‘In the paddock. Outside the train. Johnnie climb down. Girl lift me up. Johnnie was scared.’

‘Of the bear?’ asked the policeman, gently.

Johnnie blushed, resembling his mother for the first time. ‘Bears in the dark,’ he agreed. ‘Girl put Johnnie back in the light. No bears. Nice girl. Johnnie likes girl. Down now,’ he requested, and Jane put him on his feet. He ran to his mother and buried his face in her skirt.

‘Jane, you must have got off the train for some reason, found Johnnie there, and put him back, that’s what he means by “into the light”, I expect. Does any of that ring a bell?’

For a moment the girl’s face had an intense, concentrated look, as if she were listening to a distant sound, but it died away. She shook her head.

‘Never mind — it will come. Now, who’s coming back to Melbourne with me? Miss Henderson?’

Miss Henderson looked pained.

‘I would be grateful for the company,’ she said with difficulty. ‘Mother and I have a house, you know, but it is all shut up for the winter.’

‘Good. The Melbourne train is in half an hour. Dot will help you to pack. Is there an account to pay, Mrs Johnson?’

‘No, Miss Fisher, the Railways is taking care of all that.’

‘Good. Here is my card. If you recall anything that might help, then please call me on this telephone number.’

She distributed a number of her own cards: ‘Miss Phryne Fisher. Investigations. 221B, The Esplanade, St Kilda’.

She had reached the door and was leaving when she remembered something, and beckoned to the sergeant. He joined her.

‘Did you find the cloth?’

‘The one with the chloroform? Yes, Miss. It’s in the station. Want to walk over there with me?’

Phryne laid one hand on his arm and he escorted her down the street to the small wooden building that housed the police station. It was bare but tidy, with ledger and telephone and desk. The sergeant produced a cardboard box, from which emanated a strong stench of chloroform. He held it out. Quickly, holding her breath, Phryne shook out a strip of common white pineapple towelling, such as is supplied in public toilets and at cheap hotels. It had a faint blue thread running through it that indicated that it had belonged to someone who had their laundry commercially done.