Death by Water (16 page)

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‘Who could have done it?’

‘Anyone at the table. And the cooks and stewards. As to why, I suspect that it was to keep Dot away from the Imperial Suite until it had been searched again. Someone may have come in through the French windows while I was asleep.’

‘Must be a mountain climber,’ said Caroline. ‘Or a monkey, p’raps. There’s a ten foot gap between each private balcony, and a straight drop into the sea if you fall.’

‘Do-able, for a robust young man with a good rope and possibly a helper or two,’ said Phryne.

‘You mean Mr Mason,’ said Caroline.

‘Oh, if it is him, I am going to nail him to a mast. Possibly having to put one up for the purpose, but that can be managed,’ vowed Phryne. ‘You can get back to your duties, Caroline, thank you. I’ll stay here until Dot wakes again.’

‘If she’s not back with us by lunch time I can bring you some food,’ said Caroline, and went out.

Phryne sat down in Dot’s chair and considered. No great harm had been done to Dot, who could always do with a bit more rest, but it could have been very bad if she had fallen on something sharp, for instance. And what were they intending to do with her? Why take her down to Third Class and leave her at the head of a companionway? Were they hoping that she might fall and break her neck? If so, the stalwart Dorothy had foiled them. And Phryne was going to feed them to the sharks when she found out who the assailants were.

So that was all right. Phryne gathered up her Chaucer and her glass of gin and tonic and began to construe. As it happens, the ‘Pardoner’s Tale’. A merry discourse on death, greed, lust and sin. It was just to her taste.

The aged man whom the revellers accosted tapped his stick on the mother earth, the gate of death, and cried ‘Loving
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mother, let me in!’ but she would not, and Death would not take him, but he knew where Death was, all right. He directed the revellers to a pot of gold buried under a tree, and thus sealed their grisly but instructive fate.

Phryne read carefully, occasionally resorting to a glossary, while Dot slept peacefully, and the ship
Hinemoa
sailed on.

Phryne lunched lightly—a selection of excellent sandwiches.

The day was wearing past. Dot woke and lay, attempting to focus. Phryne was pleased to see that her eyes had pupils and she seemed only ordinarily dazed, as one who wakes from a day-sleep tends to be.

‘Hello, old thing! How do you feel?’

‘I’m all right,’ said Dot, rumpling her hair and hauling herself into a sitting position. ‘What’s the time?’

‘Getting on for afternoon tea time. Would you like some?’

‘I’d love a cuppa,’ said Dot thirstily.

Phryne picked up the phone and ordered tea. Dot got up and washed her face and put her hair into order, firmly suppressing any frivolous intentions as to waving or even curling by a punitive plait. The unnatural drowsiness had gone. Now Dot was beginning to feel angry.

Since she had arrived on the SS
Hinemoa
, she had been subject to a burglar who had ruffled through her intimate garments and an assault on her own person and she didn’t like it.

This was not what she had signed on for. She said so.

‘I know, Dot, but the trouble with travelling on ships is that it is rather compulsory. You go where the ship goes. But when we get to Invercargill I can send you home on another boat, if you like.’

‘Not on your life,’ said Dot. ‘I want to catch up with the bloke who did this. Then I want to have a word with him.’

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‘Me too. And I can always ask Caroline to lend me her friend Tui. He’s about the size of Sampson from the circus.

Watch what you eat and drink, keep close to Caroline and the Maori, and we should be all right. Now, I am going to a bal masqué on Tuesday night. What shall I wear?’

Miss Ann Wright

London

I do hope you can come down to Southampton on twelfth of April
to see us off, Ann. Though, of course, we are all very glad that you
have your own school now, the children will miss their Miss Wright
very much. And so will I, of course.

Valeria, Lady Scott

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CHAPTER NINE

Oh me! What eyes hath love put in my head
Which have no correspondance with true sight?

W Shakespeare

‘Blind Love’

Phryne loved masquerades. Since, with any luck, the persist-ent burglar had retired for the moment, muttering ‘foiled!’ in his teeth, which Phryne fervently hoped were all aching, she might as well plan a new dress.

‘What would you like to be?’ asked Dot.

‘You’re having a costume, too,’ Phryne insisted. ‘What would you like to be?’

Dot thought about this. She had never been to a costume ball. But so many surprising experiences had come her way since she entered Miss Fisher’s employ that she was almost getting used to them.

‘I don’t know for the moment,’ she temporised. ‘Let’s think about you first. You could do a Chinese lady. We’ve got the silk garments. Or a Japanese one. What will other people be wearing?’

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‘If I know cruises there will be three distinct classes. Those who are impeccably dressed because they just happen to have brought a Marie Antoinette costume, underpinnings and powdered wig with them. There will be people who contrive costumes out of what they have or can scrounge, like my Chinese lady—that is a good idea, Dot. Then there will be those, mostly male, who decline to wear a costume at all and turn up in ordinary gentleman’s evening dress with a domino.’

‘They ought at least to try to get a costume,’ commented Dot. ‘What’s a domino?’

‘A black eye mask.’

‘Oh. Not very interesting.’

‘Or enterprising, but there are always some. Now, the pyjama trousers and the long gown, with a few modifications, will make my costume. How about you? Glamorous? Gorgeous?

Highly painted? Film star? Lady Godiva?’

‘Oh, Miss,’ protested Dot. ‘I don’t reckon I could carry that off. I mean glamorous, not Lady Godiva.’

‘Well, what about a saint? Or an angel?’

‘I’m not sure . . .’ said Dot. Clearly she was thinking.

Phryne stopped teasing her.

‘Plenty of time. You said that the girls from the beauty salon were making costumes. What were they going to be?’

‘Nymphs, Miss. Dryads. And naiads.’

‘Would this have been Mr Forrester’s idea?’ guessed Phryne.

‘Yes, Miss, how clever of you. He wants to photograph them and they say that if it’s all five of them together he can’t

. . . I mean, it would be quite safe. I mean respectable.’

‘So what are the naiads and dryads wearing?’

‘Short loose shifts, and over them long gowns of mosquito net, dyed green and brown for the tree nymphs and green and blue for the river nymphs. And long ribbons in their hair.

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They’re going to look lovely. They’re very good with their hands, those girls. They were making papier-mâché for masks.

Jack Mason wants a mask.’

‘And in what character is the jovial Mr Mason coming to the revel?’ asked Phryne idly, buffing a fingernail.

‘Don’t know, Miss. They’re making a young lady mask for Mr Charles, who’s a bit, you know, and they asked me if I wanted an animal mask. They can do cats or dogs or anything.’

‘Would you like to be a bird, Dot? I can see you as a bird.’

‘That’s a thought, Miss.’

‘What’s your favourite bird?’

‘I’ve always liked cockies. They’re wise. And cheeky.’

‘Well, there’s a couple of days to think about it. I’ll just need some white make-up and some flowers for my hair. Now, I was thinking of going down to the shop and having a little look at the merchandise. Want to come?’

‘Yes, Miss. I have to take the teddy down to Third Class.

I reckon he’s battered enough now.’

‘Good. Off we go, then.’

Phryne put on her hat and found her Pierrot bag. Dot tucked the teddy under her arm.

‘All right, old thing?’

‘All right,’ agreed Dot.

Third Class was four decks down, and although it did not have the splendours of First Class, it was very comfortable. Phryne examined the spacious dining room and the games room where a number of men were playing billiards. Dot’s family was in the first cabin past the stairs. Dot knocked on a door marked ‘Ryan’.

A haggard woman opened the door, finger to her lips. ‘I’ve just got her to sleep,’ she said. ‘Doctor says if she doesn’t
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sleep he’ll dose her tonight. Oh, it’s you, Miss Williams.’ The woman’s tired face lit up as she recognised Dot. ‘Have you got him?’

‘Here he is,’ said Dot, producing the toy. ‘Right eye re-sewn, wobbly left ear, well hugged.’

‘Teddy!’ came a full throated demand from the cot set between the two single beds.

‘Here’s Teddy, Primmy,’ said Primrose’s mother. Primrose, a robust child with excellent lungs, had screamed almost inces-santly since
Hinemoa
left the dock without Teddy. Her mother handed over the toy and three people watched with bated breath for her reaction. Primrose, a stocky child with pale hair and blue eyes, examined the teddy closely. A spurious teddy had already been foisted on her once. She wasn’t going to let that happen again.

She found the wobbly ear. She noticed the re-sewn eye. She gave him an experimental hug and felt the furry body mould itself to her chest, unlike that horrible stiff new one which they had tried to fool her with. This one smelt faintly of a sweet perfume but that was all right. In fact, it was nice. Very nice.

She lay down in her cot, Teddy firmly wound in her arms, and shut her eyes. Getting Teddy back against such furious oppo-sition had really taken it out of her. She fell asleep.

Primrose’s mother let out a sigh of sheer relief. ‘Thank you so much, Miss,’ she said to Dot. ‘I was going out of my mind.

Now I can tell my husband that he can come back. He’s been playing billiards for hours to get out of the cabin, and he hates billiards.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Dot.

‘It’s not that she’s a bad little girl,’ said Mrs Ryan suddenly.

‘It’s just that when she loves things, she really loves them. And when she wants things, she . . .’

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‘Really wants them,’ completed Dot.

They climbed the steps towards luxury again and met no one they knew. But the shop was well patronised by First Class.

Mrs West was examining stockings. Mr West was standing behind her, looming. Professor Applegate was scanning the bookshelves. Dot went to look at the sewing materials. Mr Forrester was looking at postcards, Mrs Cahill was looking at dolls, and Mrs Singer was opening every boxed scarf, shaking it out, disapproving, and dropping it. Each one was then taken up by the clerk, refolded in its original folds, re-boxed and laid aside. They had apparently been doing this for some time, and Phryne detected fraying patience in the clerk.

‘Hello, Mrs Singer,’ said Phryne. ‘Can’t find one that you like?’

‘I wanted a blue,’ she said fretfully. ‘Jos likes me in blue.

But even the ones with blue at the edges have some other colour in the middle.’

‘They will all be multicoloured,’ said Phryne. ‘And you don’t have to unpack them. That’s why they have that little picture on the lid.’ Phryne sorted rapidly through the remain-ing boxes. ‘No, not a single one that is just blue. You might be able to get one in Dunedin, or Auckland. But they do have some nice blue beads over here,’ she said cunningly. ‘Let’s have a look at them.’

The clerk drew a breath of relief and gave Phryne a grateful glance as she guided Mrs Singer away. Phryne grinned back.

‘They are rather nice,’ said Mrs Singer. Her voice had an edge of perpetual discontent which was very irritating and Phryne strove not to be annoyed by it. The woman could not help her voice. Or her marriage to a man with dyspepsia.

Phryne ran long strings of glass beads through her fingers. They tinkled.

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‘Those amber ones are very pretty,’ she decided. ‘I think I’ll buy a strand. What about you? There’s three sorts of blue here. Aquamarine, sky blue and sapphire blue.’

‘I like that dark blue,’ said Mrs Singer. Phryne looked at her as she held the string of beads up to her bosom, looking into the round customer’s mirror. She was an ‘ish’ woman—

plumpish, palish, fortyish. Her hair had been kept long, against the fashion, and was originally brown, now heading towards pepper-and-salt. It was wound into an uninteresting bun. Her complexion was good, though she needed to wear less powder and more colour. The hands holding the beads were stubby and the nails chewed. She was wearing an unexciting skirt and jacket of blue serge and a grey shirt.

‘The blue looks very good on the grey background,’ opined Phryne.

‘I think I’ll have these,’ said Mrs Singer. ‘Or, no, perhaps the paler blue would be better. Have you ever been married, Miss Fisher?’

This was an unexpected and very personal question but Phryne answered anyway, despite Mrs Singer’s defiance of all social convention. ‘No, never,’ she said firmly.

‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,’ warned Mrs Singer with astounding candour for a conversation in a shop with a virtual stranger. ‘Take my case. I was a teacher. Never expected to marry. Then along came Jos. He’d been married before, had a wife and two little kiddies. All dead in some tragedy. I never liked to ask him about it. He decided he wanted me.’

‘And you decided you wanted him,’ encouraged Phryne, seeing that everyone in the shop was listening. Professor Applegate had frozen at the bookshelf. Mrs West was standing with a stocking in each hand. Mr Forrester seemed transfixed by a view of Milford Sound. Mrs Cahill was trying not to stare, Dot
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