Murder in the Dark (24 page)

‘I’ll have a mint julep,’ purred a Southern voice, and Phryne was delighted to introduce Nicholas to Nerine. She snuggled very close to him in order to see his face. This was fine with Nicholas.

‘You coming to hear me later, honey?’ she asked, and he agreed with unspoiled enthusiasm.

Phryne drifted away, paper in hand. The display of the dead fox meant ‘I am a better hunter than you’. And the note in its mouth said ‘Make your will’. Vicious, flashy and cryptic. She was beginning to really dislike this assailant.

She remembered that she and Nicholas had left their luncheon boxes under the tree, went to fetch them, and passed Sylvanus, also carrying two.

‘You did a lovely job with the consequences, Syl,’ Phryne told him. ‘How about a nice drink? Then perhaps we shall have charades while the hearties blast the landscape. It really isn’t safe outside with all these guns about.’

Sylvanus gave an affected shiver. ‘All too masculine for me, dear. Charades it is. What have you done with your young man? The one with the beautiful eyes?’

‘I left him with Nerine, the jazz singer,’ said Phryne. ‘She’ll take care of him.’

‘Half his luck,’ murmured Sylvanus, unexpectedly.

They deposited the boxes on the verandah. Phryne noticed something, and sent Sylvanus to the tent ahead of her.

Someone had replied to her message, ‘WHAT NOW?’. On a wearyingly familiar luggage label in the same old blue clerkly writing was another riddle: ‘No gold was ever wrought so fair/Yet no fair lady wears them in her hair’.

‘Damn,’ swore Phryne, and detached the label. Then she stuck up one of her own. It was on a piece of pink gummed paper: ‘If, by midnight, Tarquin isn’t in his place/Resign your membership of the human race’. Not perfect, perhaps, but it made Phryne’s point.

She went to find Nicholas and located him in the middle of a Nerine mint julep. He had the look of a codfish which, in the midst of an interesting thought, had been hit over the head with an anchor. Proximity to Nerine often had that effect. Not only was she gorgeous, but she was the acknowledged mistress of the non sequitur. For the susceptible, Nerine’s conversation was bad for the mind.

‘And make one for Lady Phryne,’ added Nerine, after instructing the barman again about crushing the mint into the sugar ‘real good’. The bar was loud with congratulatory hunting cries, although they did not even seem to have run down their hare. Several hearties in hunting pinks were roaring reminiscences of successful hunts into their fellows’ receptive ears. Phryne caught the word ‘Chink’ and stopped dead.

‘Not the same as the day we threw that Chink into the Thames, though,’ said one red-faced young man. Phryne marked him down.

‘No Chinks here,’ said another, with regret. ‘And there was that wog in Paris. “Let go of me, you cads!” he howled and then—upsadaisy! Splash!’

The others roared with laughter. Three of them. Phryne made careful mental notes. Tall and thin, smaller and thin, red-faced and embonpoint.

‘What are the names of those gentlemen?’ she asked a Grammar Boy, who looked embarrassed.

‘They’re not altogether the thing,’ he confessed. ‘British, of course, not some of us. Beldham, Belcher and Travis, I believe. Saw you riding Buttercup, Miss Fisher, good show! Ralph is boasting about how well you managed her. She’s a touchy beast.’

‘Yes, but very nice otherwise, lovely gait,’ said Phryne absently. Belcher, Beldham and Travis. They were in for a very wet surprise as soon as she could arrange it. And Ralph Norton would not be looking for her with blood in his eye, ranging for revenge for her high-handed assumption of his pony. That was good. ‘So, how did the hunt go? Did you kill?’ she asked in the correct form.

‘No,’ said the Grammar Boy. ‘But it was a glorious run. Everyone says that it’s much harder to catch a hare than a fox.’

‘Ol’ Miss Puss will give a run to Ol’ Marse Reynard, as a hunting friend of mine used to say,’ quoted Phryne.

‘Oh, absolutely, Miss Fisher.’

Phryne moved on before the young man could offer her a drink. She was not in the mood for huntsmen today.

On one of the larger tables a shaggy pony was standing confidently, balancing beautifully on its small hoofs, drinking something out of a bucket. Phryne hoped it wasn’t champagne. She recognised the Wonnangatta girls and long-legged Dougie. The pony was his mount, Mongrel.

‘I can’t imagine how you got him onto the table,’ said Phryne to Jill. ‘And how on earth are you going to get him down without breaking several legs—the table’s and his?’

‘Easy,’ yelled Dougie, and chirruped. It was a small sweet noise but Mongrel pricked up his ears, minced to the end of the table, and dropped neatly down onto the floor.

‘Amazing!’ called Phryne.

‘Always been a nippy sort of neddy,’ said Dougie, scratching Mongrel between his hairy ears. ‘I better get him out. That fizzy wine always goes to his head.’

‘They’re putting the polo match on tomorrow instead of Monday,’ Jill told Phryne. ‘You’ll be there?’

‘I certainly shall,’ she promised.

Jill and Ann went back to join the chorus of ‘More beer, more beer, more beer, more beer’ to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ which the Tigers were singing almost tunefully. The advantage of that sort of drinking song was that even the most profoundly sozzled could not forget the words. By the time Phryne fought her way to her own peer group, Nicholas had secured the mint juleps and they were on their way out of the tent.

Outside it was almost quiet. Nerine met her band, the Three T’s, and they all went to the jazz pavilion, where there were empty seats. Phryne saw that Nicholas had divined Nerine’s state of eyesight and was steering her efficiently.

The band had beer. Several large jugs of it. Phryne tasted her julep. It was the essence of mint, icy on the tongue. The Three T’s were constructing a song list.

‘“St James’ Infirmary”,’ said Tabitha. ‘Then “Kitchen Man”, and perhaps, Nerine, do you want to sing “St Louis Blues”?’

‘Oh, please,’ said Phryne. ‘I love the way you sing “St Louis Blues”. And Nicholas hasn’t heard you sing it.’

‘Then he surely shall,’ said Nerine, leaning a warm breast on the young man’s arm. Nicholas blushed.

‘Then we’ll do “Tiger Rag”,’ continued Tabitha.

Phryne sipped her drink.

The jazz concert was all that a jazz concert could be. Phryne knew that the hunters were trap shooting by the noise and whooping, and presumed that charades were preparing in the Templar tent whence she must shortly go, but in the meantime the day was drowsily warm, the mint julep was reposing on top of her lunch with perfect amity, and the music was wonderful.

‘St Louis woman, love her diamond ring,’ sang Nerine with aching perfection. ‘Drag my man round, by her apron string. If it weren’t for her powder and her store bought hair, . . . ’ Nerine clawed at her own glossy black locks ‘. . . that man of mine won’t go nowhere.’

Nicholas was as fascinated as a bird before a snake, with the added advantage that Nerine would not eat him. Well, probably not. At least, not all at once.

‘I never loved but three men in my life,’ Nerine told the enthralled audience. ‘T’was my father and my brother and the man who wrecked my life . . . Well I walked that floor and I wrung my hands and cried. Got the Saint Louis Blues and I can’t be satisfied.’

The last word was a whisper, but everyone in the pavilion heard it, even over the small war happening beyond. There was a silence before the applause began. Nerine bowed, clasping her hands. One of the French girls near Phryne exclaimed in either envy or admiration, ‘
Quelle poitrine
!’ What breasts!

Nicholas stiffened. Aha, thought Phryne, he speaks French. Better make sure. She leaned over to him.

‘But they are beautiful, don’t you think?’

‘Of course,’ he replied, clapping. ‘More! More!’

Nerine tottered on the edge of the dais and Tommy drew her gently back.

‘Gotta give the others their turn,’ she said, and was led away to thunderous applause.

‘I’m going to play charades,’ said Phryne to Nicholas. ‘Do you want to stay here? I’ll see you later.’

‘Mmm,’ he said, and Phryne slipped away.

The tent was full. Most of the acolytes did not favour strenuous or violent activity. Which meant they didn’t throw people into rivers, thought Phryne approvingly. She sat down near the door to watch the charade which was taking place on the stage in front of her.

Phryne had always liked parlour games. They had been the only harmless amusement of her childhood. Even her ne’er-do-well father had sometimes joined in. While not as exciting as robbing the pig bins outside the Victoria market, challenged by street boys and stray dogs, they had provided, for a little while, a factitious but cosy sense that the Fishers were actually a family, rather than the collection of bloody-minded self-absorbed individualists that they were . . .

A young acolyte was draped in a cowskin rug—where on earth had he got that?—and was making rushing, ramping movements, stamping on the stage and goring at the audience with two crooked fingers at his forehead as horns. Cow, or bull. First part of the word. The audience yelled, ‘Bull,’ and were affirmed. Second part. The bovine personage departed. Two people strolled onto the stage, one a very haughty young lady with a parasol and one a young man in a white suit and boater. He sat down on a seat. She strolled past him. As she did, he took off his hat and gave a massive grimace. The audience looked puzzled. The young lady—who was actually, Phryne realised, a young man, and wasn’t that Sabine in the flannels and straw hat?—gave an atrocious wink. Phryne had the word but didn’t want to upset the play.

‘Whole word,’ signalled the players. Now a man, stripped to the waist and wearing someone’s green theatrical tights, came on stage with a longbow made of a curtain rod. He raised an imaginary arrow—Phryne’s favourite kind—and aimed and fired into the wings. Someone there said, ‘Well done, archer! You win the cup!’ Then the players all came back to the stage and bowed.

‘Bull’s eye,’ announced Phryne. Sylvanus stood up from Gerald’s throne and caught sight of the speaker.

‘Oh, well done, most sagacious Miss Fisher. Will you favour us with a charade?’

‘I’ll just go and find some props,’ said Phryne, and went out as three people began to pull imaginary vertical ropes in what was probably the first part of a word beginning with ‘ring’. Phryne had a wonderful charade word. She had stumped her family circle with it. All she needed was the small carpet from her room, a comb, and something to approximate a gown and coronet.

When she came back, laden with her props and a borrowed theatrical costume (Iolanthe, if she was any judge), the second part of the word was being acted. A smiling gentleman was opening a door and ushering a lady into a house, perhaps, and accepting a large envelope with RENT written on it in big crayoned capitals. It was as Phryne had thought, but it was someone else’s turn to guess.

‘Ringlet,’ pronounced Jonathan. Sylvanus congratulated him and sent him off to assemble his own little play.

There followed a hilarious skit which involved a lissom Amelia, in sola topee, attempting to catch a butterfly with an invisible net. She danced very well, Phryne thought. The collector danced off to be replaced by Sad Alison in the sola topee as the Great White Hunter, scowling at a blacked-up boy who seemed to be reading out a list to him. As the audience remained entirely blank, the hunter stalked off to be replaced by a person who mimed, with accompanying noises, a cat being released from—a bag, of course. Phryne was not sure if sound was canonical.

The second part of the word involved the Great White Hunter relaxing after a long day’s shikar. He dispatched the blacked-up servant for a drink, sending it back repeatedly until the
trink-wallah
finally staggered in under the weight of a bucket, then packed and lit a soothing and well-deserved pipe. Whole word, and all the participants marched onto the stage, skirling and hooting in mime. Bagpipe, and Phryne had hopes of Sad Alison, who had unexpected thespian abilities. Her Great White Hunter had just the right blend of parody and acute observation which made him really comic.

An American voice near Phryne said very quietly through the laughter, ‘Well, will you look at that! The girl’s a natural.’

Someone else murmured, ‘Yes, sir, a natural.’

A man near Phryne nodded. Who were these people? Phryne didn’t remember seeing them before. However, the charades continued.

Jonathan had assembled a choir of four. They were all dressed alike in hastily gathered white garments and boaters. They signalled first syllable, and then began to make some sort of inaudible music. Not singing. Their lips did not move. But they were clearly making a musical noise.

‘Hum,’ suggested a bright spark amongst the women. This was correct. The hummers went off. On stage came a person dressed in an approximation of a soldier’s uniform (Iolanthe again?). He beat frantically with invisible sticks on an invisible drum. Whole word. Three people leaned back in chairs. A book dropped from one slack hand. Sewing lay untouched in a woman’s lap. The third player yawned behind her fan. The tedium was practically crystallising on the air.

‘Humdrum,’ said Sabine. There was general applause.

‘They’re good,’ said the American voice again.

‘That they are,’ said the second voice.

The third man just nodded.

Phryne went to the stage with her impedimenta. That might make a good charade word, too, she thought, as she faced the audience and signalled first syllable, squeezing her thumb and forefinger together.

‘First syllable, very small,’ said the audience. ‘In? An? On?’

Phryne signalled that ‘on’ was correct. Then she made the finger and thumb again.

‘Small? Smaller?’ as she squeezed them together. ‘A?’

Phryne nodded. Then she took out her comb and tried to comb her hair. She swore under her breath. Her hair really could have done with a good combing, and possibly a rosemary and egg rinse. Or beer, of course, there was a ready supply of beer. From the stage she could see the three Americans. One very well dressed, rather corpulent man with a watchchain, two followers in neat grey suits. They stood out like three black dogs on a white counterpane. The audience called out suggestions: ‘Tangle? Snarl? Mat?’