Death by Water (12 page)

‘And if it’s entered into the log, it’s fact?’ asked Phryne mischievously. Mr Green’s earnestness was an almost irresistible provocation.

‘Certainly, Miss Fisher,’ replied Mr Green, looking affronted.

‘If you can’t rely on the log, what can you rely on?’

‘Indeed. Surely the
Jenny
can’t be the only ship to have been trapped in the ice?’

‘No, there was the
Octavius
,’ he said instantly. ‘Bound for China out of Portsmouth in 1761. Thirteen years later she was discovered drifting in open water off Alaska by the whaler
Herald
. Everyone was on board. All frozen and somehow perfectly preserved by the cold. Unfortunately the captain’s crew were so panicked by what they saw that one dropped the log into the sea. All that Captain Warren had was the last page. It said “we have now been enclosed in the ice for seventeen days.

The fire went out yesterday”. Then nothing more.’

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‘How terrible!’ Mrs West gave an exaggerated shrug of one white shoulder which dropped her neckline to a depth which would have provoked the censor into banning the film. Mr West reached out for the shoulder strap and replaced it, leaving his hand on her upper arm. She slipped out of his grasp and pouted. ‘I am amazed that anyone is brave enough to be a sailor,’ she cooed at Theodore Green. Phryne interposed her body. This dinner was proving to be something of a social minefield.

‘Much less dangerous than it was, eh, Mr Green?’ Phryne prompted. ‘With telegraphs and engines and so on.’

‘Oh yes, much less dangerous. Indeed some men grumble that the sea doesn’t have the mystery it used to have. Young men, mainly,’ he said, smiling indulgently. ‘We like to keep the mystery down to a minimum on P&O, actually. If you’d come up to the bridge one day, Miss Fisher, I’d be delighted to show you our navigation systems, charts, radio and so on. I do think that the Marconi telegraph is the most important invention, though. A cargo ship can get, for instance, instant medical advice from our doctor, as we saw today. A small boat can radio SOS and be heard and found when it’s buried in thick fog or a dark night. Makes a great difference, the idea that one can call for help in all this wide waste of waters. If there had been two Marconi operators on the
Californian
, for instance, instead of only one who had very properly gone off duty, the loss of life from the sinking of the
Titanic
could have been greatly reduced.’

‘How many telegraph operators are there on this ship?’

asked Mrs Cahill nervously.

‘Three,’ said the navigation officer. ‘The radio-telegraph is manned round the clock, Mrs Cahill, have no fear.’

‘I’ve had enough of all this talk,’ grunted Mr Singer. He stood up so fast that he caught a fold of tablecloth and had to
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be extricated, fuming, by his worried wife. She clucked after him as he strode away.

‘Indigestion does awful things to the disposition,’ commented Mr Aubrey.

‘If he has dyspepsia then he shouldn’t be drinking,’ said Professor Applegate acidly. ‘He had three glasses of beer and only ate part of his omelette. I’d say it was temper,’ she diagnosed.

‘And a nasty temper at that,’ agreed Mr Aubrey. ‘Never mind. He’s gone. How about some dessert, ladies? I can entirely recommend the ice cream.’

Phryne decided on hazelnut ice cream and pursued the topic of telegraphs. ‘Why was there only one operator on the
Californian
and what difference would it have made to the
Titanic
?’ she asked. Mr Green seemed to be regretting his rash words.

‘Well, you see, when the
Titanic
was sinking, the
Californian
was the closest ship, but it was proved at the inquiries, both of them, that the sinking ship couldn’t be seen, and ships then were only required to have one operator, and the operator on the
Californian
had gone to bed. The
Carpathia
only got the distress signal from the
Titanic
because her operator was lying in his bunk and lazily scanning the airwaves for someone to talk to. Sheer luck, if you can call it that. Now, we really ought to talk about something else.’

‘Very well,’ said Phryne. She smiled brightly on Mrs West.

‘Who’s your dressmaker, Mrs West?’ she asked, with a view to avoiding the woman at all costs. Such extremes of fashion as the purple shift dress which Mrs West was almost wearing was not for Phryne. She preferred her personality to supply the outrageous edge to her appearance, not her exposed bosom.

‘Brunton’s in Collins Street,’ replied Mrs West. ‘Of course, they’re terribly expensive.’

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‘An awful lot of money for not a lot of cloth,’ grunted Mr West, in what was almost a joke. Mrs West giggled.

‘Madame Suzette makes most of my things. What about you? That’s a very beautiful piece of silk.’

‘Madame Fleuri,’ said Phryne. ‘The silk is from China. It was dappled in the dyeing process. The silk buyer was about to throw it away until I grabbed it.’

‘And you were going to tell us about the sapphire,’ said Mrs West, her hungry eyes devouring the jewel.

‘So I was. Let’s take our coffee in the Palm Court and I’ll tell you all about it.’

Phryne wanted to give the rest of the party a chance to slide quietly away, but none of them did. Mrs West finished her double serve of sorbet de cassis and licked her soft red lips with her little red tongue, coloured with blackcurrant juice.

Seated in the Palm Court at a suitable table, Phryne took the chair facing the orchestra. At this early hour the musical entertainment consisted of Mavis at the piano, playing anodyne pieces designed not to offend. More bloody Brahms, thought Phryne.

‘This stone comes from India,’ she told the table at large.

‘It was one of two identical stones: the sapphire eyes of Krishna in a big important temple. Then the Indian mutiny came and war swept over the area. The priests fled or were killed. An English soldier broke into the temple and dug out one of the eyes of the idol.’

‘Why not both?’ asked Mr Aubrey. ‘Nothing to stop him.

Lots of loot got taken during the mutiny.’

Phryne shrugged. She had spent a lot of time on this story but she hadn’t expected to have to tell it to an old India hand.

‘The story says that he went mad and ran away,’ she said. ‘He
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ran back to his comrades and that night developed a very high fever and died. The men preparing the body for burial prised open his hand and claimed the jewel.’

‘Corpse robbing,’ said the professor dryly. ‘Never a fortunate profession.’

‘It wasn’t for them,’ said Phryne. ‘They were caught by their sergeant and put on charge and the stone went to their commanding officer. He was arranging to have it returned to the temple—the war was almost over by then—when he went down with malaria and his batman stole the stone. He sold it in the market in Bombay for one-tenth its worth. Enough for him to go home and live like a king, though, if he hadn’t—’

‘Been bitten by a snake?’ suggested Mr Aubrey.

‘You’ve heard the story?’ asked Phryne, raising her eyebrows.

‘I believe that I have.’ Mr Aubrey was smiling.

‘The stone was sold by the Bombay merchant to a mahara-jah, who presented it to his principal wife and called it the Maharani, the Great Queen. Then the maharani gave it to her son, who presented it to my grandmother. She was rather a wild beauty in her time, I believe. And when she died it came to me,’ Phryne concluded.

‘A remarkable story,’ said Mr Aubrey. ‘I believe that I did hear of this stone, indeed. And the curse does not worry you, Miss Fisher?’ he asked, taking more sugar in his spiced tea.

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘If I knew where the temple was, I’d send it back to them, but it’s not known where it was. It’s the same as a rather beautiful statue of Kwan Ying which I have, which one of my disreputable relatives pinched during the Boxer Rebellion. I’d give it back, but there isn’t a real government in China to give it back to. The Maharani is safe with me,’ she said, stroking the stone.

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All eyes were fixed on it. It was a cabochon, no facets, and in the heart of the indigo blue curve there dwelt a bright, star-shaped light. Mrs West tore her eyes away.

‘What a story,’ she said in a discontented tone. ‘I wish I had something like that.’

‘But you had a necklace of perfectly matched pink pearls,’

said Phryne. ‘Or so I understand. Wasn’t there a story attached to them?’

‘They belonged to some old lady who had once been a courtesan,’ said Mrs West. ‘They were supposed to have been a present from the Prince of Wales. But they’re gone,’ she said, sadly. ‘I’m going for a walk in the fresh air,’ she said to her husband.

‘I’ll escort you,’ said Mr West.

She patted his cheek. ‘No, I shall have . . .’ She scanned the available male talent. Her gaze lingered on Jack Mason, and the ambient temperature at the table rose markedly. Doctor Shilletoe smouldered angrily. Mrs West smiled. Phryne could have slapped the little minx. ‘Mr Green,’ she decided. She crooked a finger, and Mr Green rose reluctantly. He was enjoying the conversation.

‘And I shall join you,’ said Phryne. Professor Applegate rose at the same moment. ‘A turn around the sun deck, Mr Aubrey?’ she asked.

‘Delighted,’ he said.

Miss Lemmon slipped a hand through Mr West’s arm. He gave her a brief distracted smile, but it was a smile within the meaning of the Act.

‘Perhaps you would accept my escort, Miss Fisher?’ asked Mr Mason.

‘If you trip me, fall on me, or step on the hem of my dress it will go hard with you,’ warned Phryne, taking his arm. It was
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an agreeably muscular arm. The young man smelt of salt water and soap, a nice clean smell. The Cahills and Mr Forrester fell in behind as Mrs West and Mr Green, now reconciled to his fate, paraded up the Grand Staircase to the lido.

No sun on the sun deck, but a cool fresh breeze and a remarkable number of stars. They were as close as lanterns, blazing bright.

‘When this breeze drops it will freeze,’ commented Mr Green. ‘We’re going south, d’you see, Mrs West? Then across to New Zealand. The further south in these latitudes, the colder it is.’

‘Until you reach the ice,’ said Phryne.

‘Yes. Most of Antarctica is land, did you know? It doesn’t melt down to a reasonable size in the summer like the Arctic when the pack ice shifts. It’s just permafrost and very chilly.

Does any lady need a shawl?’

‘No,’ said Phryne, Mrs Cahill, Miss Lemmon and the professor.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs West. ‘Johnnie, can you get it? The dark grey cashmere one. Maggie will know where it is.’

Phryne watched Mr West disengage himself from Miss Lemmon and stalk down the stairs, and wondered what strange and possibly perilous game Mrs Jonquil West was playing. She nudged Jack Mason to draw her closer to the young woman and laid a hand on her arm. Bracelets slid under her touch.

‘Constellations,’ she said to Mr Green, meaningfully. ‘Tell us all about the stars, Mr Green, you’re a navigation officer, you must know about stars.’

‘The Maori say that the sky father came from there,’ said the professor, pointing to a roundish black gap in the Milky Way.

‘From the Coalsack nebula?’ exclaimed Theodore Green.

‘How very curious. The astronomer chappies are saying that
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the Coalsack is a very old universe which has collapsed in on itself. A black hole, they say.’

‘Really?’ asked Phryne. ‘So the father god came from outside. Makes perfect sense. And the earth is the mother goddess?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the professor. ‘Why does it make perfect sense?’

‘Because I bet the Maori are exogamous,’ said Phryne, who had not wasted her time since she left school. ‘Therefore fathers always come from outside the mother’s tribe.’

‘Very nice,’ approved the professor.

‘You can make a sky map,’ said Mr Forrester, ‘with a photo-graphic plate exposed all night. Not here, of course, the ship’s lights would overexpose it. The stars blaze trails across the sky.

Very decorative.’

‘Have you got one to show me?’ asked Phryne.

‘I believe so,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘I’ll look it out.’

Mr Green was assisting Miss Lemmon to sight along his arm to locate the pointers to the Southern Cross.

‘Our skies aren’t nice and neat like the Northern Hemi-sphere, where there is a star right in the middle of the sky,’ he told her. ‘To get the celestial pole you have to go up and across a bit. See the cross? Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and little Epsilon Crucis.’

‘It’s very beautiful,’ said Mr Aubrey solemnly. ‘I have always found the stars most uplifting. I remember being ill—a bad go of malaria—in a hospital in Poona and nothing to do but look out the window, and the stars comforted me very much.’

‘I know,’ said Phryne. ‘They are such a long way away from human pain and misery. And cruelty,’ she added. ‘And war.’

‘I’m tired of standing still,’ said Mrs West pettishly. ‘Let’s walk some more, Mr Green.’

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‘In just a moment, Mrs West, when I finish showing Miss Lemmon how to get to the pole. See, there is the ecliptic, where the zodiac dances around.’

‘And there is Jupiter, a planet, from the Greek
planetos
, meaning wanderer,’ said Phryne.

Mr Green gave her a slightly startled look, perhaps wondering if he was being mocked, but her face was perfectly innocent of a smirk. ‘Just so,’ he agreed.

Mrs West stamped her foot. ‘You take me, Mr Mason,’ she said.

‘Very well,’ said Jack Mason. He was about to lead Mrs West away when her husband came hurrying back with a shawl.