Kerry Greenwood - Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

Dot obtained an omelette and Mrs Butler set the tray daintily, including a napkin in a ring and a vase of flowers.

‘She’ll likely be overset, poor thing, with her mother killed and all that, not to mention being hurt,’ she fussed. ‘Don’t you drop that tray, now, Dot!’

‘I’ll be careful,’ promised Dot, and carried it steadily. She watched her patient eat, removed the plate, and brought in a small cup of custard and a pot of tea.

‘I did not mean to insult you when I said that Miss Fisher must be a trial,’ explained Miss Henderson. ‘I was very fond of my mother, and she was a trial. How old do you think I am?’ she went on, and Dot shook her head.

‘It’s hard to tell with all them burns, Miss. You sound young.’

‘So I am. I am twenty-seven. Younger, I guess, than your Miss Fisher, but Mother was convinced that I would never marry. “You’ll be with me until I die, Eunice,” she used to say — and now it’s true, poor Mother, though she never meant it like that. She was furious when Alastair came on the scene and wanted to marry me, and she did her best to get rid of him, but he proved to be of sterner stuff than the rest. She told him that she knew he was marrying me for my money, and he just smiled and agreed with her.’

‘So you’ve got money, Miss?’

‘Oh, a modest competance. It yields me three hundred a year, and the house is mine now.’

‘More tea, Miss? Do you want me to call this Alastair, then? We are on the telephone.’

‘He must be frantic,’ gasped Miss Henderson, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘And he wouldn’t know where I am! Oh, Lord, Dot, please, can you call him at his rooms, and tell him that I am quite safe and he can visit me? How could I have forgotten?’

‘It’s been a tiring day, Miss,’ said Dot, writing down the telephone number. ‘I’ll ring him, Miss, don’t you worry. You all right to be left? I’ll do it now.’

‘Yes, yes, please do it now,’ begged Miss Henderson, and Dot went out and closed the door.

Dot conveyed the message through the medium of a phone which appeared to be in a fish-and-chip shop somewhere in Lygon Street, Carlton. A young man’s voice came on the phone, breathless.

‘Hello, hello? Damn this instrument! Hello? Are you there?’

‘This is Miss Williams. I am calling for Miss Henderson,’ repeated Dot patiently for the fourth time. ‘Are you Mr Thompson?’

‘Yes, Alastair Thompson here, Miss Williams. Where is Eunice?’

‘Take down the address,’ said Dot. ‘221B, The Esplanade, St Kilda. Call tomorrow about three.’

‘Is she all right?’ bellowed the voice. Someone in the background was shrieking in Italian.

‘She’s burned her face with that chloroform and she’s upset about her mother. Come at three,’ yelled Dot and hung up.

Phryne had largely cured her of her dread of telephones, but she still thought them a clumsy means of exchanging ideas. She went back to Miss Henderson and advised that the young man would call the next day, and Miss Henderson looked even more alarmed.

‘I can’t let him see me like this!’ she wailed.

Phryne, having finished dinner, walked in at this point and heard the whole story in three minutes.

‘Simple, my dear, you shall have a veil. Perfectly proper and it will stop you from alarming your young man. What does he do, Miss Henderson?’

‘Please call me Eunice. He’s in final year Medicine, he will be on the wards next year. He’s twenty-five,’ she said simply, ‘And he wants to marry me.’

‘Very nice,’ said Phryne. ‘Here’s your medicine, Eunice. Drink it up like a good girl and I’ll see you in the morning. How do you feel?’

Eunice patted the pillow, luxuriating in more comfort than she had ever enjoyed and shocked at herself for being so pleased. ‘I feel fine,’ she sighed, swallowed her chloral hydrate (which tasted foul) and fell instantly asleep.

Dot allowed Phryne to drag her into the sitting-room.

‘Come into my parlour,’ said Phryne, grinning wolvishly, ‘and tell all. Who is this young man?’

‘He’s her intended, Miss, and her mother didn’t like him. That’s all I know about it. Give over pulling me, Miss, I didn’t get no more out of her, except that she seems to have had a fair old time with her mum. Not a nice old lady, Miss.’

‘No, she wasn’t. However, the plot thickens. I shall be delighted to meet this excellent young man. Care to play a game of cards, Dot? It appears that our Jane also remembers how to play chess, though she won’t beat Dr MacMillan.’

‘No, thanks, Miss, I want to have a bath and go to bed. It’s been a long day and I think I’ve a cold coming on.’

‘Poor Dot! Get Mrs B. to make you a whisky toddy, and take a really hot bath. I shall read, then — there’s a new novel I haven’t even glanced at. The bookshop really are hopeless — I don’t even recall ordering it.’

Dot climbed the stairs to her bathroom with her whisky toddy steaming in her hand. The last she saw of Phryne for the night was her concentrated, Dutch doll face bent over a book. But it was not the latest novel. It was Glaister, on poisons.

Jane slept soundly for about three hours, and then awoke to hear a small, odd sound. She lay frozen, gripped by a fear which was all the worse because she could not tell why she should be afraid. Something was scratching at the window. Jane, trembling, was in such an agony of fear that she could not bear to lie still any longer. She threw back the quilt and put her feet to the carpet, hoping that the bed would not creak. It creaked. She froze again. The room was as cold as ice. Nothing happened. Then the scratch came again, and an odd sound like an unoiled hinge. Was someone trying to open the window? That was too much. She leapt at the window and snatched back the curtain, unlocking the latch and thrusting at the frame. The window grated open with a gush of cold sleet and something small, cold and black half-fell into Jane’s lap. She shut the window again and locked it, cradling the creature in her arms. It was a kitten, perhaps six weeks old, thin as a little bag of bones and almost as cold as the weather. Jane clutched it to her bosom, shivering and laughing under her breath.

‘Oh, kitty, you gave me such a fright! You’re as cold as ice. Come on, kitty, you can come back to bed with me, and then we shall both be warm.’

Still trembling, Jane carried the icy bundle of wet fur back to her brightly patterned bed with the peach sheets, the Onkaparinga blankets and the quilt, and replaced herself in the small hollow in which she had formerly lain.

The kitten, warming into life, began to wash itself with precise licks, curled under the blankets, nestling under Jane’s chin. It was an unobservant animal, or it might have wondered why its rescuer cried herself to sleep.

Miss Eunice Henderson, tended by Dot, was washed and breakfasted by the time Phryne came in with a selection of veils and an armload of nightgowns.

‘That’s a perfectly sensible gown you’ve got on, Eunice, but you will need a change. Perhaps you’d like to borrow some of mine? And I’ve brought a few hats, we should be able to cobble something together.’

Eunice touched the fabrics reverently. Crêpe de Chine, silk, satin, all the luscious delicacy and flowing draperies of a whole harem-full of houris. Eunice tried to imagine herself in one of these extravagant garments and utterly failed.

‘I can’t wear any of these beautiful things, really, Phryne, I just wouldn’t look right in them.’

‘Oh, yes you would, you have a lovely figure — do you swim? — long legs and a swan neck. Something with a high neck, I think, to show off that jaw line, especially since we are going to conceal your face. What about this?’