Kerry Greenwood - Blood and Circuses

‘I never heard of it,’ said Grossmith. ‘None of my telltales have told me anything about it.’ He was deeply ashamed. Robinson saw this and hurried into speech.

‘It hasn’t been mentioned in Brunswick Street, Terry, or it hadn’t until Harris here got the office from Garinic. If it had been, you’d have heard about it. I think that the ’Roy Boys might know more. Clearly they thought it important enough to kill for, if they snuffed poor Garinic, though we still don’t know that. He could have had a lot of enemies. But the smart money has to be on the ’Roys. Now. We have to stamp on this and stamp on it fast. You have read the papers, haven’t you? You know what’s happening in America. Gangs and bootleggers and machine-gun killings on the street. The police are helpless there and I regret to say that a lot of them have been bought and paid for. We aren’t going to let that happen here. We have been put off balance by the War, the whole nation has. To an extent, we have lost our nerve and there are a lot of people out there that the police surgeon reckons are potential loonies. If this Exit thing gets established, then bang goes law and order and it will be every man for himself. You remember the police strike, Terry? All the damage done in that was a few shops looted and a smallish riot. Can you imagine what would happen now, in 1928, if there was a police strike?’

Terence Grossmith thought about it. The nerves of the people had been stretched to breaking point by the Great War, and the succeeding generation didn’t seem to care about anything, or believe in anything. He shuddered. Robinson nodded.

‘Exactly. We’re on the edge of a knife all the time. Anything could push us over. So we aren’t going to allow that to happen. Are we?’

Constable Harris, much recovered, said, ‘How can we stop it, sir?’

Grossmith grunted and Robinson smiled. He had a peculiarly beautiful smile, which invited trust.

‘We will find a way. First thing is for you to tell me everything that Garinic said. And when you’ve finished, Sergeant Grossmith will tell me all about Lizard Elsie.’

Phryne Fisher was visiting Foy and Gibson’s and had bought an armload of clothes. Cotton dresses, patterned with flowers which never grew in any garden. Underclothes of the respectable poor; one pair of washing silk for Sundays, and the rest of cheap Sea Island cotton in a distressing shade of pink. She had also purchased three pairs of sandals, two pairs of soft dancing shoes, a couple of Sylk-Arto nighties, a straw hat, a cheap fibre suitcase and a down quilt. It had an apricot cover emblazoned with white daisies. Dot thought it rather nice.

‘I’ll need a costume, too,’ said Phryne. ‘I presume that it will be provided. I can hardly ask any of the usual people to make it up for me. This is going to be exciting, Dot! I’ve got too reliant on things and people. It will do me good to manage on my own for a while.’

Dot hefted the parcel and led the way out of the shop.

‘Have you ever managed on your own, Miss Phryne?’ she asked as Mr Butler piled the parcels into the car.

CHAPTER SIX

He smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel,

horses’ provender and sawdust and he

looked the most remarkable sort of centaur,

compounded of the stable and the play-house.

Charles Dickens

Hard Times

Phryne ate well, Mrs Butler having been invigorated by her niece’s wedding. There she had put down the pretensions of three of her most irritating relations by referring, in passing, to her employer the Honourable Miss Fisher’s rank as just below the relict of a duke and above the daughters of baronets. Mrs Butler’s relations had never seen a baronet, even at a distance, and had been properly silenced. Mrs Butler’s triumphs were always reflected in her cookery. Phryne finished the exalted form of shepherd’s pie and pushed a piece of lettuce around her plate.

‘Have you ever managed on your own?’ Dot had asked, and Phryne was now wondering if she ever had. She had been surrounded with people since birth. First her sisters, her brother and her parents in that small set of rooms in Collingwood. There she had been poor, hungry, sometimes, and always cold. There her younger sister had died of diphtheria one winter. Phryne had gone badly clad to Collingwood Primary School and learned the rudiments of literacy, and there had been people there, too, who could be charmed or coerced into helping the little girl with the strange name get what she wanted.

Then the great change had come and the family had been uprooted and dragged across the ocean to the counties and wealth, not because of any virtue in themselves but because the War had killed the younger sons of every family in Europe. Mr Fisher had been translated into a lord and Phryne had been sent sullenly to boarding school to be made into a suitable daughter of the aristocracy. At school she had been unpopular because she was wild and did not care about the things the school cared about; standards of behaviour and learning and sport. People again, all around her, in the dorms and on the playing fields. Malleable, useful people. After that, Melbourne had been easy. She had money and position, beauty and style.

She had never been alone.

Phryne allowed Mr Butler to take away the plate. What am I worrying about? she wondered. The circus was composed of people just as society was, just as school had been. There was always a man to be persuaded, bought, daunted or charmed.

‘And I’m the woman to do it,’ she said aloud.

‘Miss?’ asked Mr Butler.

‘Nothing to signify, Mr B.’ He hovered at her shoulder.

‘Another glass of wine, Miss Fisher?’

‘Thanks.’

He poured the wine, a rich red Burgundy, and retired to the kitchen.

Phryne looked around her dining room, which was hung with pale damask. The carpet, patterned with green leaves, had been specially woven for her. On the wall, opposite the big windows which opened onto her pocket-handkerchief front garden, hung seven oil sketches of dancing acrobats. They were freely drawn, light-hearted and perfect just as they were. Phryne had snatched them from the artist’s hands as they were completed, despite Mrs Raguzzi’s protests that they were not finished. Usually they refreshed her spirit. Today they looked as animated as dolls.

‘I shall do without luxury for a while,’ she said aloud. ‘Then it will all be lovely again. Alan is right. I am soft.’ She flexed her hands, which had acquired rope burns from getting on and falling off Bell’s patient back. ‘Hello, Dot, how did you go with the second-hand rag trade?’

Dot exhibited a nightie washed almost transparent and two pairs of thin unmentionables. She hung a ratty cardigan over the chair and sat down.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Miss,’ she said seriously. ‘I heard nasty things about that circus.’

‘Did you? Tell all.’

‘I was in Brunswick Street, Miss—that’s a good place for old clothes—and there were two women searching through the rags. Gypsies, Miss. You can’t trust people like that. The old woman said, “We can’t but go with Farrell’s. It’s not a long trip. But we need to get out to the sticks. The Jacks’ll move us on in two days.” The other one said, “They’re cursed, Farrell’s is got the evil eye,” but the first one told her that she knew the evil eye when she saw it and it wasn’t on Farrell’s. Then they went out and I didn’t hear no more. I wouldn’t take the word of a gypsy for anything. But . . .’

‘But?’

‘They know about curses,’ said Dot slowly, crossing herself. ‘So I bought you this.’

Phryne took it. Dangling from a leather thong was a round silver medal. On it was depicted a man fording a river, with a child on his shoulders.