Murder in the Dark (5 page)

With a skilled, clawed, faster than light right hook, he slapped the snake out of the box and onto the carpet. As it fell, he leapt beside it, his black body flowing through the air, seized its neck in his jaws, and bit as hard as he could. Then he spat out the dead body and batted it a little as it writhed and twisted its coloured corpse. There might be some amusement to be gained out of this, he thought, swatting it again. Come along, little snakey, want to play?

It just lay there. He threw it into the air a couple of times but it came down as unresponsive as a rubber band. Bored, he left the snake and retired to the arm of the chair again, from whence he was removed by a distracted Miss Eliza, who poured him a whole saucer of cream. Humans were odd. First they took the cream away, then they brought it back. Still, cream was cream, thought Ember, and licked and licked at this bounty while it lasted. Lady Alice, who loathed serpents, joined Eliza on the floor with the cream jug, hastily revising her previously hardline views on the uselessness of cats.

‘That’s a coral snake,’ said Jane through numb lips. ‘It’s in my natural history book. It’s really, really venomous. One bite . . .’

She leaned on Ruth, who embraced her.

‘It’s dead now,’ said her sister, feeding ginger biscuits to Molly, who was still barking at the dead snake. ‘Do shut up, Moll, it really is dead.’

‘But who sent it?’ asked Miss Eliza. ‘There’s a good, clever, alert, brave, beautiful, intelligent cat,’ she added, replenishing the cream.

‘Well,’ said Phryne, ‘let’s see.’ She took up the coral snake with the fire tongs and placed it on a saucer. Then she probed the box and a small card fell out. It had a jolly scene of robins in snow on one side. The other said, ‘Stay away from the Last Best Party or it will be your Last’.

‘From a well-wisher, I expect,’ commented Phryne. ‘Lady Alice, break out the liqueur tray, will you? We all need a drink. Isn’t it lucky Dot wasn’t here? She hates snakes. Mind you, I’m rapidly going off them myself. What a very nasty trick. Someone is going to be sorry that they played it. Jane? Can you get a glass jar and some metho? And just pop our specimen in. I might need to exhibit it.’

‘Yes, I’ll fetch them,’ said Jane, and hurried off to raid Mrs Butler’s cleaning materials. Lady Alice got up off the floor and poured liberal doses for all: muscat for the girls and Highland Park whisky for the ladies. They sipped, watching Ember lap cream and Jane bottle the coral snake in a metho-filled jam jar. Jane screwed on the lid very firmly. The creature looked totally improbable. Bottling it had the effect, however, of convincing Molly to stop barking, which was a relief. The dog wagged her tail and accepted another biscuit from her Christmas box.

‘Are you going to call the police?’ asked Miss Eliza. ‘That was an attempted murder, you know, only foiled because of this valiant, beautiful, skilled, clever cat.’

Ember purred as more cream was vouchsafed to him. Miss Eliza wondered distractedly how much cream one cat could hold. Ember had always wondered the same thing, and was willing to experiment.

‘No need to bother the police,’ replied Phryne. ‘The trickster will be at the party. And when I find him,’ she bared her teeth, ‘then he shall learn that I know a few tricks of my own.’

The Joker considered his disguises. The lady’s dress with the high
heeled shoes always attracted the right sort of attention. If anyone
had been there to see him, they would have seen his mouth—
always a little dry, like a serpent’s mouth—curve.

CHAPTER THREE

White Lady
2 parts gin
1 part Cointreau
1 part lemon juice

Shake with a dash of egg white.

Wednesday, 26th December
Boxing Day was notable for returns. Dot came back delighted but rather fatigued by her large family, glad to be home in the relative peace of Phryne’s house. Mr and Mrs Butler returned pleased to have their own space again and noting that they had lost the knack of ignoring a crying infant. After a fast review of her kitchen, Mrs Butler was delighted to congratulate Ruth on her cooking and Miss Fisher on her dishwashing. (‘Who would have thought?’ she said privately to her husband.) Nothing had been broken and when Ruth, in dead secrecy, confided the tale of the whipped cream, Mrs Butler laughed and said she would have done the same herself. ‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over,’ she told Ruth. ‘And least said, soonest mended.’ This was a great relief to Ruth’s mind.

Boxing Day was also the day when Mrs Butler made up baskets of Christmas cheer, including her incomparable mince pies, for the domestic workers, who arrived on and off all day to receive their basket and Miss Fisher’s Christmas card and bonus. Miss Fisher’s generosity was well known so there was a stream of visitors all day, from the window washer to the knife sharpener to the ladies who obliged with rough scrubbing and polishing.

Jane read her
Anatomy
, occasionally raising her eyes from a diagram to consider any human within sight in a dissecting sort of way which, Dot said, gave her the willies. Phryne read her detective stories. Dot did the same. Ruth helped in the kitchen wearing her new cook’s apron. It was a quiet, sleepy day, always notable for rissoles made of yesterday’s poultry and a sense of comfortable inertia. Phryne played more Christmas carols because she liked Christmas carols and the pudding tasted just as good cold with chilled brandy sauce. The Advent picture which Dot uncovered showed a sky full of angels singing.

At three in the afternoon a special messenger delivered an unexpected package, and Phryne took it into the jasmine bower to open it. Dot, who had been shown the bottled coral snake, stood beside Phryne with a broom, ready to repel reptiles.

The string was removed and the leaves of the box were opened gingerly with the tongs. Nothing lethal was disclosed within. Phryne tipped the box on its side and a cascade of coloured leaflets, books and party favours spilled onto the table.

‘It’s my guide to the party,’ she told Dot. ‘The Last Best Party. Let’s see. Here we have a room key, the Iris Room, sounds nice. A map of the grounds. A ticket to park the car. A rather detailed guide to events and personalities. A mask for the
bal
masqué
. Lots of stuff. But none of it dangerous, Dot dear.’

‘This party . . .’ Dot began.

‘Yes?’ Phryne looked at her through a cat mask.

‘You’re taking me, aren’t you, Miss Phryne?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Phryne candidly. ‘It might be dangerous and it will certainly shock you. And I might want to be shocking myself, you know. I really don’t think your young man would approve of you being within a hundred miles of this party, Dot.’

‘No sin except in intention,’ argued Dot. ‘A saint sat on the steps of a brothel for days and she was unstained. My Hugh knows I’m a good girl, and if he doubts me then he’s not the man I thought him—and not worth having. Anyway, who’s going to look after your clothes?’

‘I’ll tell you what. Drive down with me tomorrow, and we’ll have a look at the situation. If it’s too, too vile for a nice girl, Mr B shall take you home and bring you back each morning with clean clothes and so on. That will mean that I don’t have to leave the car where one of those hearties might steal it. Besides, I shall be working. Someone doesn’t want me to come to this party, and I want to know who they are, and why, and many other useful things. Cheer up, Dot. You know you don’t like wickedness.’

‘No,’ said Dot. ‘If you’re sure, Miss Phryne.’

‘I’m sure.’ Phryne repacked the box and carried it inside. Dot followed, relieved at not having to preside over too much sin, and a little wistful at losing so much interesting gossip to share with her sister Joan. Joan taught deportment to Tilly Devine’s girls in Sydney, and always had such a lot of highly coloured things to tell.

Phryne sat down in her boudoir and examined the printed book. Bound in limp purple leather, very tasty, with gold embossings. It purported to be a complete guide to the Last Best Party, which had been meticulously planned, down to the finest detail, probably by poor, overworked Mr Ventura.

First day: arrival of guests after lunch. Cocktails at five in the Great Marquee. Dress: optional. That was irritating. One ran the risk of being over- or underdressed. Of the two, Phryne always preferred overdressed. Dinner and dancing on the lawns, boating on the lake. Phryne considered a moment. What was the blight of all outside entertainment anywhere near water? Mosquitoes. She made a note to replenish her supplies of citronella oil. On the one hand one smelt like a slightly chemical lemon grove. On the other hand, one was not covered in large itchy bumps. Phryne decided on a couple of stronger perfumes which might combine well with the citronella and read on.

Oh, my. Each day was themed and costumed, probably from the Victorian Opera. A Day at the Court of the Mikado of Japan. One Thousand and One Nights with Sultan Al-Jabira. The Feast of Fools with the Lord of Misrule. Lord have mercy. No way to prepare for all that, thought Phryne and decided on minimal clothes, a shady hat or so, and her wits, which had been reliable in the past. Who didn’t want her to go to this bash? And why?

‘Someone who doesn’t know you very well,’ said Jane, when Phryne proposed the question to the table at dinner.

‘How so?’ asked Phryne.

‘Well, Miss, the best way of getting you to do something is to forbid you to do it. You’re contrary,’ said Dot, then blushed. ‘I mean . . .’

‘Yes, you’re right, I am contrary,’ agreed Phryne.

‘Tell us about these golden twins,’ urged Jane. ‘I’ve just been reading about twins. They are fraternal, of course, not identical.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Ruth, with her mouth full of shortbread.

‘Because one’s male and one’s female, silly,’ said Jane.

‘So they are,’ said Phryne, intervening before they could bicker any more. ‘Gerald and Isabella Templar, both tall and slim and blond and blue-eyed. They took Paris by storm with a series of astonishing parties.’

‘What sort of parties?’ asked Dot suspiciously.

‘Well, there was the
fête du clochards
, a beggar’s ball, where everyone had to dress like a tramp. There was the Festival of Virgins, where everyone had to wear white and tell the story of how they lost their virginity. It is a measure of their social importance that the Princesse de Cleves turned up to that party dressed in red and they sent her home to change. And she went,
etonnant
!’

‘And are they fabulously wealthy?’ asked Ruth, captivated.

‘Tolerably fabulously, I believe. They are the very last of a rather illustrious English family. Their father and both their brothers were killed in the Great War, and their mother expired of grief not long after—which left them alone, in possession of a huge fortune. They are running through it at a rate, though. There can’t be a lot of it left. That may explain what they are doing in Australia. This might be the Templars’ last best party, too.’

‘And you don’t think they’re going to settle down to life in the suburbs, do you?’ asked Lin Chung in a low voice, waving away a refill of soft Rhine wine.

‘Not likely,’ said Phryne, making a shushing gesture. ‘How are your obsequies going?’

‘Very well. Everyone has visited, old people hobbling along who knew the ancestor when he was a child on the goldfields. I had no idea so many of them were still alive. Grandmamma has been most gratified. Are you still determined on this party, Phryne?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne, and that was the end of the discussion.

Thursday, 27th December
After lunch Mr Butler started the Hispano-Suiza with his usual facility and pleasure. The big car, its coachwork buffed to a gleaming finish, squatted redly by the kerb. It purred, he declared, like a tiger. Miss Phryne and Dot climbed aboard.

‘Werribee ho,’ directed Phryne, and Mr Butler engaged the gears. The big car slid out into the traffic like a shark into tropical waters.

It did not take long to leave the city behind and soon they were looking at a flat treeless waste of thistles and boulders. Milestones flew past.

‘Ugly country,’ commented Dot.

‘Might have looked better before they chopped all the trees down. If it ever had trees. And, of course, it would be prettier if it was green.’

‘I suppose,’ said Dot. She did not like the countryside at all. It was undisciplined, spiky, and might harbour snakes. Dot always felt that picnics were best enjoyed inside a nice house with tables and chairs and a reliable stone flagged floor.

‘Here’s the government farm—and there’s the sign,’ said Phryne.

Mr Butler indicated to other road users that he was intending to turn. Majestically, the Hispano-Suiza slid across the road, only to halt with a shriek of brakes as an impudent Austin dived under its bonnet. It kept going down the carriage drive to the house with a cheery braying of klaxons and Mr Butler so forgot himself as to swear. Phryne heartily agreed with him.

‘Quite so,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope we can arrive alive. You stay with the car, Mr Butler, and defend it with someone else’s life. I’ll send Dot back to you as soon as I can. Hello! Livestock.’