Dead Man's Chest (18 page)

‘Have a drink,’ said Phryne, and Dot flew off in search of the beer she had stowed in the bottom of the icebox. ‘And light a smoke, and tell me all about it.’

Hugh Collins didn’t smoke, the smell made him sick, but he wished he had a pipe at moments like this. His boss smoked Capstan, a strong tobacco apparently compounded of tar and horsehair, and it seemed to comfort Jack Robinson in times of trouble. Such as now. Possibly by restricting blood flow to his head, as Miss Jane had said when she reproved old Bert for smoking.

Dot opened the beer with an adroit flip of the opener and Hugh engulfed the bottle in his huge hand and emptied it at a draught. It was a good morning for fraught drinkers in Miss Fisher’s parlour. Constable Dawson also grabbed and glugged. Dot leaned on the back of Hugh’s chair and he put up his free hand to pat hers.

‘You see, it’s like this,’ Constable Dawson began. ‘It would be a real feather in my cap if I could find the pigtail snipper soon. Geelong’s sending down a man tomorrow and he’ll get the credit. I want to get out of Queenscliff and into town—there’s no scope for a policeman in Queenscliff—and this is a real good opportunity for me.’

‘Understood,’ murmured Phryne. Her personal view, that Constable Dawson was several sandwiches short of the full picnic and would vanish in the flames of a tough station like burnt paper, need not be expressed. The boy had his dreams.

‘We thought we had ’em when those boys confessed,’ said Hugh. ‘But you were right, Miss Fisher, it ain’t them, the young hounds. Now I heard that you let Miss Jane and Miss Ruth go down to the filming. Them film people are buying a wig off Miss Leonard this moment. And this is happening when all of Queenscliff is sure that any girl that’s in that film is in danger of getting her throat cut. And I’m sure as I can be that you wouldn’t let Miss Jane do anything dangerous. Therefore,’ said Hugh, approaching his point with slow majesty, ‘I thought, Miss Fisher knows who the snipper is, and she don’t think he’s a danger anymore. So I says to Tom, we’ll go ask Miss Fisher, and maybe she’ll tell us, and maybe we can clear the case up and get you your promotion.’

‘Dot, your young man does you credit,’ exclaimed Phryne. ‘He is a stalwart and valuable member of his proud force. You only had to ask, Hugh dear. Go get Tinker, Dot, and we’ll clear this up before lunch.’

‘Why do you need Tinker?’ asked Hugh, lumbering to his feet.

‘You’ll see,’ said Phryne. She collected her hat and her bag, her minion and her escort, and directed the constable to drive to Hesse Street, without the use of that big bell which was mounted on the roof of the car.

Stopped several yards from her target, Phryne briefed Tinker and sent him into the shop. He came out in a few minutes and waved them to an alley at the side of the establishment.

‘He’s got a shed in the back of the yard,’ Tinker told Phryne very quietly. ‘The boss says he’s been locked in there ever since Lily got sent to hospital. P’raps I’d better go first, Guv?’

‘Let’s locate him and see how he is,’ said Phryne, equally quietly. ‘In silence, gentlemen, please. Hugh, you go to the right, Dawson to the left, Tinker will call him outside. No noise, no sudden moves, please. He’ll be in a perilous state. We want him alive.’

‘To hang,’ muttered Constable Dawson. Phryne disliked him. She sent a warning look to Hugh to keep a hand on his excitable colleague.

Hugh nodded. He was something of a veteran of what Robinson called the ‘Red Indian stuff’ and preferred his victim to walk quietly into a trap, rather than scream and fight. Especially in view of the number of edged weapons at this one’s disposal. This yard stank of blood and death. The ground was greasy with tallow.

Tinker knocked at the door of a wretched shed and called, ‘You there? Only the boss is askin’,’ in just the right dispassionate tone. Phryne could have kissed him.

There was a mumble from inside. Tinker spoke a little louder.

‘Come on, come on! Front and centre! Boss is creatin’ out here!’

The shabby door sagged open on its hinges and Amos the butcher’s boy crept out. He was holding a long skinning knife. Its edge was so sharp that it seemed to bend light. It was stained. He saw Phryne standing behind Tinker and moaned.

‘Oh, no,’ said Amos.

Grief had not treated him well. His eyes were like coals, his hair like straw, his skin blotched with tears. His loose mouth gaped. Phryne was sorry for him, then remembered Lily transformed by film into a goddess, all her dreams wasted and gone, and hardened her heart.

‘Give me the knife,’ she said firmly. ‘Come along, we haven’t got all day.’

Constable Dawson twitched and was suppressed by a look from Hugh. Tinker had frozen in position. Phryne nodded at him.

‘Is that the knife you did it with?’ he enthused, taking it gently from Amos’s grasp. ‘Jeez!’

‘Was it just her hair?’ asked Phryne. ‘Did you mean to kill her?’

‘She turned her head!’ sobbed Amos, crumpling down into the crouch of a tortured animal. ‘I thought if I cut her hair she’d . . .’

‘Stay with you?’ asked Phryne.

‘She was going away!’ wailed Amos the butcher’s boy, wringing his blue and white striped apron. ‘The film people told her she would be a star and she’d never look at me and she’d never come back to me . . .’

‘Come along,’ said Phryne, taking his arm and handing him to Hugh, who flanked him as they walked down the filthy alley and into the street. Tinker handed the skinning knife to Hugh, who wrapped it in his handkerchief. ‘Better get the doctor to have a look at Amos, Constable Dawson, and keep a close watch. He’ll kill himself now, if he can. Now, Hugh, Tinker and I will walk back, and you will, I trust, come to lunch, after you have assisted the constable in securing his . . . prize.’

And she stalked away with Tinker at her side.

‘That wasn’t nice, Guv’nor,’ he said, almost running to keep pace with her swift stride.

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘It isn’t like that in Sexton Blake,’ he complained, and Phryne laughed and slowed down.

‘So many things aren’t, you know, Tinker.’

‘How did you know, Guv?’ he demanded.

‘I watched the films. You saw them, too. In every shot there was Amos, staring at Lily. He’s probably always stared at Lily.’

‘Yair, ever since I knew him. Few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, Amos. Few pennies short of the full shilling, you know? And everyone knew that he was mad about Lily. She couldn’t stand him. She was always tryin’ to send him away and laughin’ at him.’

‘And he was always there, so no one saw him. And if he had blood on him, it was part of his trade. And those appalling louts gave him the idea of cutting Lily’s hair to ruin her career. Which wouldn’t have worked while there are wigs in the world . . .’

‘At least he didn’t mean it,’ said Tinker, who was feeling battle-scarred. He had talked Amos out of his knife! He was good at this! Equally, his hitherto reliable stomach was making odd gurgling noises and he didn’t feel very well. Imagine living in that hut in that stinking yard. The butcher had done all right out of Amos.

‘That’s what he says now,’ said Phryne.

‘Guv . . .’ Tinker touched Phryne’s hand. ‘Will he . . . will Amos . . .’

‘Hang? No,’ she assured him. ‘He’s not even fit to plead. They’ll lock him up in a nice safe mental home for the rest of his life. Amos will be all right,’ she added.

Tinker cheered up. It was lunch time, and suddenly he felt that he might just be able to manage a slice of Ruth’s egg and bacon pie. Or maybe two. And then Miss Fisher had a scheme, and he didn’t want to miss that.

Phryne shelved all philosophical speculations on horror, pain and tragedy, washed her hands of Amos the butcher’s boy and Lily with rose-petal soap, and went into luncheon. It might not have been well done, but at least it was done.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back When gold and silver becks me to come on.

William Shakespeare
King John

Dot was so proud of her fiancé and her employer that she was almost bursting with goodwill, which made lunch a much cheerier event than Phryne had expected.

Tinker and Máire had elected to eat in the kitchen, where both Molly and Gaston were valiantly guarding the remains of the roast leg of lamb which Ruth had provided for sandwiches. Both dogs had their hearts set on the bone. Fortunately there were two bones which, after the meat had been largely removed, would provide a big bone for Molly and a smaller bone for Gaston and ought to prevent any domestic discord. Tinker adored roast lamb. In between bites he regaled the horrified Máire with the tale of Amos the butcher’s boy, to gratifying gasps and cries of ‘Holy Blessed Virgin Mary, protect us!’ The lurid tale, however, did not seem to affect their appetites.

‘I’ll just make a few bites for the young ladies,’ Máire observed. ‘Miss told me to pack them a picnic basket. This very afternoon you’re to go to Miss Jackson’s and buy three army knapsacks and three thermos bottles, so milady says, and the money’s on the table in that purse, so it is.’

‘What does she want all that gear for?’ asked Tinker with his mouth full.

‘That she didn’t tell me. Would you be coming with me to the filming to deliver this basket? I’d not like to go there by my lone.’

‘Yair. Delighted,’ said Tinker. No one had ever wanted his company before. No one had ever glimpsed in his grubby bosom the soul of a true knight. He grinned around his doorstop sandwich. Sir Edward the Brave. He liked that idea.

Phryne sighed and pushed away her fruit salad.

‘I couldn’t eat another bite,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve never had fruit salad with coconut milk—wonderful. That Mrs Leyel was a discovery.’

‘Not just coconut milk,’ said Dot primly. ‘I’m sure that was rum I could taste.’

‘Very Queensland,’ said Hugh. ‘Bundaberg rum.’

‘Now, Hugh dear, I need your confidence,’ Phryne said, putting one spoonful of amusingly coloured coffee crystals into her cup.

‘Miss Fisher?’ he asked, suddenly not as comfortable as he had been.

‘I am planning a caper of sorts in Queenscliff,’ she said. ‘And I need to know if you are also planning an action against, as it might be, the Ellis brothers and their smuggling operation. Everyone knows about it, by the way. Rum and, I suspect from various evidence, tobacco from those extensive Queensland fields. What I am planning might cause a stir, and I don’t want to upset anything you might be doing. Do you trust me?’

‘Indeed,’ said Hugh, running a finger around a collar which was suddenly too tight.

Dot looked from one face to another. She was disappointed in her betrothed.

‘Hugh!’ she reproved. ‘Miss Phryne found you your slasher. That idiot constable is headed for his promotion and it won’t do your career any harm, either. If she hadn’t helped you there might have been a fight and someone could have been hurt.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Hugh, breaking out into a sweat. ‘But, Dot, I can’t . . .’

‘You can,’ she said sharply. ‘I never heard of such . . . ingratitude!’

‘Calm, Dot dear, calm, no need to differ with your fiancé,’ said Phryne. ‘I don’t need to know the whole plan, Hugh, I’m sure you have been sworn to secrecy. I just need to know when.’

‘I can’t tell you . . .’ Hugh began. Dot stood up abruptly. He took her hand and she snatched it back. ‘No, no, Dot, don’t be cross. I can’t tell you what is happening, Miss Fisher, but I can tell you when, provided the news doesn’t leave this room. Promise?’

‘We promise,’ agreed Phryne.

‘Thursday,’ said Hugh. ‘At dawn or before.’

‘That should give me ample time,’ said Phryne, and smiled.

‘Are you going to tell me what you are planning?’ asked Hugh humbly.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Phryne. ‘You would be required to disapprove. I really cannot do with any disapproval at the moment. Nothing illegal, I assure you. Well, not very illegal. I expect. Have some more fruit salad.’

Dot had allowed him to reclaim her hand, so Hugh sighed and had some more fruit salad. It was very good fruit salad, with pineapple and mango. Miss Fisher would do what she felt was best, and there was nothing to be done about it. Queens- cliff would just have to cope.

Tinker had escorted Máire to the filming, which was in Swan Bay, and found the girls at the centre of a large crowd. Mr Cutts the Family Butcher was a gossipy man, as butchers so often were, and the news that the phantom pigtail snipper and slasher of Lily had been marched off to the station by Constable Dawson—who would have thought? I believed he was a fool, just goes to show, still waters—had spread like lard on the griddle on which he was cooking sausages (‘Best Pork!’) for the delectation of the crowd. Penny each, on thick slices of bakery’s bread, tomato sauce and onions halfpenny extra. Sensational news free. He was mobbed.

Queenscliff was not a foolish town, and deductions were made quickly. Who had Mr Cutts seen walking down his side alley, emerging a moment later with poor Amos? That Miss Fisher, that’s who, the titled lady who had taken Mr Thomas’s house, rich, beautiful, private detective from Melbourne, very well-connected, knew all the best people, but had only so far visited the Masons, who were next door after all, and Miss Sélavy, the mystery woman. Seen respectably clad at Mrs McNaster’s viewing. Bathed every day and swam like a fish in a very shocking costume. No scandal about her private life so far but her maid and companion had been seen walking out with that visiting policeman. One of her two adopted daughters was brave enough to take on Lily’s role in the film. Altogether it was clear that Miss Fisher had solved the attempted murder. Queenscliff approved. This fact also confirmed the general opinion about the intelligence of Con- stable Dawson, as well. He would never have been able to find Amos on his own as he would be hard put to locate his own backside with both hands.

Tinker noted and listened as he and Máire wriggled their way through the crowd and arrived at the space in which Ruth was sitting on the sand and Jane was being dressed in Lily’s costume. It was suspiciously damp around the bodice, where it had evidently been recently washed. Jane could not suppress a slight shiver, though she reminded herself she was not at all superstitious.

The mob in the pirate ship were growing obstreperous. The cameraman yelled, ‘Get on with it!’, echoed by the crowd. Mr Applegate instructed Jane, ‘All you need to do is stand by that rock and look out to sea. Don’t move, don’t wave. Just stand and stare and remember that you are being abandoned at the edge of the world.’

Jane thought that she could do that. The dress was voluminous and uncomfortable. The wig was heavy and itchy. She had got used to having short hair. But completing this task would buy her the
Encyclopedia Britannica
, with the two pounds she already had saved. For those twenty-four volumes she could dare anything.

She hefted her garments and found her position and stared out to sea.

There was a fight going on between two ships, the
Revenge
(pirates, a disguised
Black Oak
) and the
Consolation
(Royal Navy, or close imitation thereof, a disguised
Mary Duke
). Conflict was part of the plot but the sailors, tired of fishing with lines and stoked on Mr O’Malley’s cache of Bundaberg rum, were in no mood to accept direction. Before the signal came, Johnnie Taylor, ordinarily a patient crayman, fired the small cannon, and the wad of the blank hit the
Revenge
and knocked Mr O’Malley down.

Roaring, ‘Erin Go Bragh!’, he ordered Gráinne to hoist the black flag which meant No Quarter and flung out grappling lines.

‘Oh, that’s not in the script!’ mourned Miss George.

‘It’s fantastic,’ whispered the cameraman, grinding gleefully. ‘Magnificent! Go on, boys!’

The crowd on the foreshore, munching their sausages, had never seen such a wonderful show. They cheered. Jane stood like a pillar of salt, watching the clouds of smoke from the blanks and calculating the trajectory of the cannon balls, had there been any. This was difficult and required her to concentrate, and she was as still as a rock in the corner of the frame as the ships banged and flashed and men screamed Gaelic war cries and swarmed onto the deck of the
Consolation
.

‘No, no, the pirates can’t be winning!’ cried Miss George. ‘They have to lose!’

‘Change the story,’ suggested Ruth. ‘Both ships can go down. You’re going to have to make that bit up, anyway.’

‘More, more!’ screamed Queenscliff. ‘Look out, Johnnie, here comes the boarders!’

‘Must have been the porridge at breakfast!’ yelled a wit. The gathering laughed. This was jolly, and amusing, and free.

Finally, just before the camera ran out of film, Johnnie Taylor put a match to the firework which was to mark the end of the encounter. He threw it up and it exploded in a huge cloud of black, stinking fog, which covered both ships and reduced the pirates to coughing and groping.

‘Terrific,’ said the cameraman, and let the film run through and wind clicking onto its reel. ‘That’s it, Mr Applegate. You, girl, go and bring your sister back, she was wonderful, didn’t move an inch; I’ve got her in the edge of every shot. What a film this will make!’

Ruth went and brought back Jane by the hand. She was thinking about something, Ruth knew. Ruth herself was starving and hoped that the basket brought by Máire and Tinker contained a lot of food. This film business was interesting, but these people seemed to have forgotten poor mutilated Lily.

Tinker laid out the cloth and the two girls sat down on the sand. Jane was divested of her dress and wig and shook her head with pleasure. She sank her teeth into a roast lamb and chutney sandwich. Then she looked out into the bay.

The ships had not disengaged and come in for their wages. They were still fighting. Máire saw her sister Gráinne, scarfed and laughing, swing from one ship to the other and kick Johnnie Taylor overboard with the force of her momentum, hitting him in the chest with both feet. Her father was grinning and bellowing in Irish. The
Consolation
was about to be taken. Most of her men were in the water.

Máire hoped that her father would then remember himself and not slaughter the captives and sail off for the South Seas. Saint Patrick preserve us, she wouldn’t put it past him, the old reprobate . . .

Tinker poured tea from the thermos and seized an orange as his lawful booty. He loved a good fight.

The film people were signalling the ships to come ashore, and finally the fight was over. Dinghies darted about fetching the partly drowned and extremely drunk. Costumes were removed in the fishermen’s shelter and a long line formed on the pier, hands out for their shilling apiece.

‘How was it, being in a film?’ asked Ruth.

‘Uninteresting,’ said Jane. ‘Is there any more of your egg and bacon pie?’

After that, they trailed home for a wash and a rest. Tinker and Máire carried the picnic basket, now much lighter, between them. Jane held in her hand the rolled banknote which would purchase her limitless oceans of knowledge. Ruth was still feeling shaken. She had looked into Amos’s avid, loose-lipped face several times when she had been at the filming with Jane. He had seemed both stupid and harmless. He had been stupid, but very far from harmless. Ruth wanted to tuck herself up in that big soft chair in her room, preferably with Molly, and read her romance and eat humbugs until she felt better.

She mentioned this to Jane and they detoured to obtain barley sugar for Jane, humbugs for Ruth, marshmallows for Máire and a packet of peppermints for Tinker from the lolly shop. The girl behind the counter threw in a free surprise packet and some licorice bootlaces in thanks, she said, to their Miss Fisher for discovering the assailant. Ruth and Jane nodded and accepted graciously.

‘How does everyone know?’ asked Jane. ‘That arrest only happened this morning.’

‘This is Queenscliff,’ said Tinker smugly. ‘We know things before they happen. Sometimes long before they happen,’ he added.

‘Don’t be silly, there is no such thing as prophecy, no scientist would . . .’

Jane and Tinker wrangled. Ruth felt comforted. Máire ate her marshmallows and reflected that it had been a strange day, and it wasn’t over yet, Lord have mercy.

Dot went out, smiling, to dine with Hugh. Máire went back to Fishermen’s Flat to listen to tales of derring-do on the fairly high seas. Tinker had carried home the fish and chips, which had been consumed down to the last little burnt crispy scrap chased along the inner wrapping paper with an enquiring forefinger. Drinks had been distributed. After dinner Phryne produced her leather bag and emptied the contents onto the dining table. The company stared.

‘Coins,’ said Jane. ‘Old coins.’

‘Absolutely. Now, we are going to borrow a few of Mr Thomas’s bones—Jane can sort out the ones which he doesn’t need for his wretched thesis—and we are going to persuade Queenscliff that we have found the pirates’ treasure.’

‘Yes, Miss Phryne, but why?’ asked Ruth, who was uncomfortable with bones of human origin. In fact, except in her work as a cook, she didn’t like to contemplate bones at all.

‘Because we need to find the Johnsons.’

They looked at her. Phryne grinned.

‘I’m up for it, Guv’nor,’ declared Tinker, who was getting an inkling of what his eccentric patron meant.

‘Us, too, of course,’ said Jane slowly. ‘But . . .’

‘Simple, it’s simple. All you need to do is follow my little plan, and we shall see what we shall see,’ explained Phryne hardly at all.

‘All right, Guv,’ said Tinker. ‘What’re the coins?’

‘These gorgeous gold ones are doubloons,’ said Phryne. ‘See the pillar on the back? Eight escudos, minted at Lima.’

‘Gosh, doubloons?’ said Jane. She fingered the fine milled edge. ‘Lovely. Gold has a shine to it, doesn’t it?’

‘It does. And these are American silver dollars.’

‘And what are them ugly pewter ones?’ asked Tinker. ‘They look broken.’