Murder in the Dark (21 page)

The hunt belted off after the hare. This struck Phryne as plain silly. She waited until the closest rider was out of rifle reach and turned the pony’s head towards the mansion. Just then she heard three thumps in the bush and Buttercup reared, front hoofs beating the air. Phryne kept her seat as if glued to her mount. She could not see what had scared the beast so badly. A snake? A piece of paper? Existential angst? The more highly strung the horse, the more likely it was to see monsters.

Then the monster hopped meekly across the ride. Grey-brown, paws folded like a maidservant clutching her shawl around her shoulders, eyes averted like a nun. The most inoffensive of creatures, anxious only to escape notice and get her baby home unperforated.

‘Down,’ said Phryne to Buttercup, doing things with heels and reins. ‘It’s a wallaby. They seldom, if ever, eat horses. There, now, it’s gone. Calm, Buttercup, calm. You really haven’t seen one of them before, have you? It’s gone now, and we’d better go too, before more wildlife hops along to frighten the wits out of you.’

She rode at a sedate pace back to the horse lines and surrendered Buttercup, her borrowed boots and the overall.

‘They lost the deer,’ she told the stableman. ‘Now they’re hunting hare.’

‘That ought to keep ’em busy,’ he commented. ‘Ol’ Miss Puss’s a lot harder to catch than Ol’ Marse’ Reynard. They’ll be hours and come back blown, I’ll warrant,’ he said, running a diagnostic hand down the pony’s heaving flank. His severe expression hardened into very severe. ‘You been riding her hard, Miss?’

‘No, she panicked when she saw a wallaby.’

‘Ah,’ said the stableman, examining the pony’s mouth.

‘In the old days the Chirnsides used to leave the fillies and colts three months in the paddock next to the old house, so that they’d get used to kangas and wombats and such. Just like we used to leave them in a field next to a train line, so they could get used to the fact that the train never left its track. That was when I used to work for the Duke of Northumberland, that was. We had patience in the old days, not to shock or ruin a young horse. Now it’s all rush, rush, rush. These young men all want instant results without putting in the time or the training.’

‘True,’ said Phryne, wishing only to find some privacy in which to treat her partly skinned inner thighs. The stableman gave her a smile.

‘You get some liniment on them limbs, now,’ he told her, ‘or you’ll be stiff as a plank in the morning.’

‘Thank you,’ said Phryne, and limped back towards the house. The guns were still rattling. If someone was going to be shot, Phryne felt that it served them right. She liked hares, too.

Phryne washed her honourable wounds and put on suitable snooping gear. But she was foiled. In every tent, one piker or another was reclining or drinking or playing cards. It was not going to be a lucky day for sleuthing.

Phryne blew out a frustrated breath and decided that what she needed was to cool down, though the day was only pleasantly warm. It was still too early for lunch and she wanted to think about her riddle, preferably without sounds reminiscent of the gunfight at the OK Corral. She was floating in the middle of the cold lake water when a splashing alerted her to company. It was Nicholas.

‘Hello,’ said Phryne with some reserve. She disliked people wantonly keeping secrets from her.

‘No one got shot,’ he told her.

‘Oh, good.’

‘Are you cross with me?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, floating quite still, an elegant red accent in the grey lake.

‘Well, can we swap information? That’s not the same as telling secrets.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Nicholas, forcing his conscience back into its box and jamming on the lid. He could hear it squeaking, but it was possible to ignore it. Phryne decided to cooperate.

‘Two old friends of mine, wharfies, sent word that someone had hired a gunman to assassinate someone here. No more than that, and I admit it isn’t all that helpful.’

‘I got the same information. Just that there was a killer and he had a gun. Murder for hire isn’t something we want to see introduced into Australia.’

‘Quite,’ said Phryne, smothering a private smile at the ‘we’. ‘Well, that explains why you were up a tree. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously?’

‘No,’ admitted Nicholas.

‘Neither did I. Although I don’t call chasing off after an innocent hare sane behaviour.’

‘They’ll have another chance after lunch. Then there’s trap shooting.’

‘Using pigeons? I shall alert the RSPCA.’

‘No need, not unless they’re interested in the clay sort. And then, targets. All good chances of making a terrible error: gun went off when I dropped it—misadventure, your Honour,’ said Nicholas with a touch of bitterness.

‘Yes. It’s going to be a busy day. Let us therefore lie here quietly and contemplate the riddle. Quarried, carried, carved and holed/Doomed to perpetual wet and cold. Stone, perhaps? But why would it be always cold? I haven’t been riding for a while and I am sore in several private places.’

Nicholas found his mind contemplating how those private places might be made more comfortable and blushed bright red. Phryne smiled and let her mind wander to Lin Chung, and silk sheets, and icy air blown by a fan.

Then she sat up, sank, coughed, and hauled herself ashore on the little island.

‘I think I’ve got an idea,’ she said.

The house was quiet. A large stack of luncheon boxes reposed on the verandah, ready for collection. Clothed again in another of her bright cotton shifts, Phryne was waiting for Nicholas to return from his tent in the usual habiliments of a gentleman on holiday: his customary flannels and loose shirt. She contemplated the luncheon boxes. They were very pretty, Phryne noticed, well made of light wood and painted inside and out. Each one had a different identifying picture on its lid: horses for the polo persons, sports motifs for the hearties, flowers for the Lady’s Own, a cheerful bunch of vegetables for the vegetarians, three classical Greek gods for the Templars, little deco pictures for the others, in case they had forgotten how to read . . .

Phryne could smell egg and bacon pie. Her stomach growled. Nicholas arrived suitably dried and dressed. His stomach answered hers. He looked at her imploringly.

‘Can’t we just find our lunches?’

‘No, because we will want them later. But,’ she said consolingly, ‘we are going to the kitchen. I’m sure Mrs Truebody will organise a smallish banquet or two for a boy with beautiful eyes.’

‘Yes, that’s all right for him, but what about me?’ grumbled Nicholas, revealing to Phryne another man who did not know he was attractive.

‘Just come along with me,’ she said firmly.

Mrs Truebody was pleased to see them and offered tea, coffee, biscuits, sandwiches and perhaps ‘a sip of my special punch’. Nicholas settled down with a happy sigh and Mrs True-body looked at him fondly.

‘So nice to see a young man who can eat,’ she commented. ‘Some of those out there wouldn’t touch a ham sandwich if they were starving. One of them gave me a lecture on how wicked I was to serve meat and how long meat—’ she lowered her voice ‘—remained in the lower intestine! Was that a thing to say to a decent woman, I ask you? In her own kitchen?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Phryne, taking a sandwich which had been lovingly built on a base of ham, to which had been added French mustard, thinly cut gruyère cheese and shredded lettuce. The next one she selected was a voluptuous concoction of cream, chives, perfectly almost-hard boiled egg on paper-thin brown bread. ‘Probably inaccurate, too. I mean, how do they know? And if they do know, the experiments must have been too, too indelicate. It’s a religion, Mrs Truebody, and religions are not sensible. How is your patient this morning?’

‘Slept for three hours last night, Minnie says. She’s eating like a pig, poor little thing. I started her off on soft food, you know, soup and so on, but now she just eats everything.’

‘Let her do so,’ said Phryne, ‘if she’s hungry. I can’t think of a better diet than this for someone who was so long starving in the dark.’

‘Worse things happen at sea,’ said Mrs Truebody. ‘I reckon she’ll come round soonish. She’s still got Sam. Never thought he had the makings of a sick nurse but he’s been really good with her. Not coddling her temper, but very comfortable to be with.’

‘Like a father gorilla,’ said Phryne, taking another egg sandwich. ‘Might personally be a bit grumpy with the little gorillas but they live in the confident knowledge that anyone who attacks them will be thoroughly dismembered. It reminds me of a quote from
The Water Babies
by Charles Kingsley. We might read that to her next. Now, am I mistaken in thinking that you have an American refrigerating machine?’

‘No, Miss Phryne, we do have one. Mr Ventura insisted. It’s in the back kitchen. I don’t go near the thing. Gabriel looks after it. Not that it isn’t very serviceable. Keeps everything ice cold. I’ve made my sherbets and ice cream for the Arab feast tonight and they are already firm. But I don’t know if I like these new inventions.’

‘I will leave my friend here to refresh the inner man,’ said Phryne, ‘and just go and have a look. I’ve got one in my own house, and my housekeeper says that it is a great convenience.’

Phryne collected Gabriel, in case the machine should prove inimical to human inspection, and saw that it was, indeed, a larger version of her own ice-maker. It squatted, puffing, its blue pilot light casting an eerie glow in the dark back kitchen, which contained nothing else but an abandoned tea-trolley, a scarred butcher’s block and an array of very old and rusty pots.

‘Open the left hand door for me, will you?’ she requested, and Gabriel hauled against the seal. The interior was stacked with shallow trays full of different coloured fruit derivatives. No sign of the luggage label. ‘Now the right,’ instructed Phryne, and the heavy door came open, revealing a miscellany of articles. Gabriel grabbed a frozen orange, which he pocketed with a wink. Frozen oranges were new to the huge man’s diet and he wanted to become used to them.

‘The little girl likes that stuff,’ Gabriel informed Phryne, pointing out best milky ice flavoured with chocolate.

‘Good, well, get me a spoon and a dish and we shall take some to her,’ said Phryne, and Gabriel left her alone with the machine. It puffed. She rummaged.

Just as Gabriel returned with a dish and a spoon in a pot of hot water, Phryne found the luggage label. Small, white with blue edges. And the writing on it was dripping away, readable only as ‘the smear’. Phryne smiled a self-satisfied smile. The riddler had made a mistake at last.

‘Good, Gabriel. Now, I’ll hold the bowl and you scoop. That ought to be enough,’ she said as a small mountain of chocolate ice cream grew under his energetic and wristy spoon action. ‘Don’t forget to replace your frozen orange with an unfrozen one. I’ll just go and say hello to the child.’

‘All right, Miss,’ agreed Gabriel. As she left she saw him rip the frozen fruit apart with his bare hands and suck eagerly at the icy juice. They built them strong in Werribee, she reflected. Must be all that fresh country air and healthy exercise. And, of course, Chirnside butter, cream, eggs, cheese, home killed meat and home smoked bacon, home baked bread made from home ground flour and fresh fruit from the orchards.

Marigold had left her bed and was sitting in the small courtyard. She still wore the flannel nightgown and her feet were bare. Sam was sitting at her side, deck of cards in hand, teaching her to play . . .

‘Five card stud?’ asked Phryne. ‘You’re teaching her poker?’

‘And she’s a real shark,’ grinned Sam. ‘She’s won almost all me matches.’

‘I’ve brought some ice cream,’ said Phryne to the girl. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’

Marigold was flushed with the triumph of beating Sam at his own game. She accepted the ice cream. Sam rose and lumbered away, saying that he would return in a jiff or two.

‘I’ve remembered something,’ said Marigold, spooning busily. ‘I never had ice cream before I came here. It’s bonzer.’

‘Mrs Truebody is an artist,’ agreed Phryne, taking Sam’s chair and picking up his cards. The deck, she felt as she handled it, had been adroitly stacked. Sam was playing to lose, which is quite as hard as playing to win.

‘What is all that noise outside? It sounded like guns,’ said Marigold nervously.

‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ Phryne told her. ‘They’re hunting. So far all they have caught is a cold. All they are likely to catch, too. What have you remembered?’

‘A smell,’ said Marigold. She began to tremble. Phryne took away the empty bowl and put her arms around the girl. Marigold shuddered strongly but she had control of her mind, and her voice as well. This was a child with stainless steel courage. But all the colour had left her face.

‘Sweet,’ said Marigold. ‘A sweet smell, like flowers. That’s all. I don’t feel as well as I thought I was,’ she said to Phryne. ‘I’d like to go back to bed, please.’

Phryne conducted her back to the narrow iron bed and tucked her in.

‘You’ve been very brave and you don’t have to think about it anymore,’ she said. ‘Now, settle back and listen.’

Phryne found the bookmark and announced, ‘“He is indeed the best of animals,” observed the Rat. “So simple, so good natured and so affectionate.”’ By the time Sam came back, Phryne had read almost a chapter and Marigold was asleep.

Phryne borrowed some things from Minnie, collected Nicholas, obtained writing materials and some glue, and affixed the illegible label to the verandah, above the lunch boxes, in the manner made notorious by the martyrdom of Bill Posters. On her own sheet of paper she had printed WHAT NOW? in capitals.

‘Where did you find it?’ asked Nicholas.

‘In the ice-maker. The answer was ice.’

‘Oh,’ replied the young man. Phryne patted her own notice.

‘That ought to produce something,’ she said. ‘Now, we are going to make sure that the remaining people stay in their tent, and then I am going to search this house from top to bottom. I’m tired of being led around by the luggage label. It was diverting for a while but if that child’s in durance vile it is time he was released.’