Murder in the Dark (7 page)

‘Ann,’ she said. ‘I like goats. But we’re here with horses. Polo, you know. Gunna show them la-di-da boys how to play the game.’

‘And I’m sure you will,’ said Phryne. She had never seen better riders than Australian stockmen, and that reminded her of the girl at the gate.

‘Are all your team female?’

‘Nah, just me and Jill. Y’see, not so many of the boys came back from the Great War, and when they needed a polo team they sort of had to let us play. We got big money on us,’ said Ann, taking a swig of beer.

‘I shall venture a small wager myself,’ said Phryne. The goat nudged her for the last leaf of mint. Passing gentlemen laughed. Ann drank more beer. Then a rasping voice breathed in Phryne’s ear, ‘You got me goat!’

‘I assure you, it was mutual,’ said Phryne, considerably startled but suppressing her reaction. ‘Who are you?’

‘Call me Madge the Goat Lady’, said the apparition, half emerging from the bush behind the wooden seat. She was dressed in cast-offs, with broken canvas bathing shoes on her bunioned feet and a wide hat which must have been straw, because why else would the goats have been chewing it? Phryne hauled her goat to her hoofs and presented the tether to the goat lady.

‘Here you are. Large as life and twice as natural.’

‘What you been feeding Mintie?’ asked the old voice with intense suspicion.

‘Mint. It was what she had in mind,’ explained Phryne.

‘Hmph,’ said the goat lady, and woman and goat vanished abruptly, leaving but a gamy effluvium behind.

‘Mad,’ commented Ann, after a pause for thought. ‘Oh, there’s Jill. Can you talk to her for a moment, while I go get more beer? And can I get you another drink?’

‘Thank you,’ said Phryne, relieved to have respectably disposed of her goat. ‘Get me another White Lady, if you please. Hello,’ she said to the other young woman in moleskins and white shirt, ‘I’m Phryne. Your friend Ann has gone for more beer.’

‘Bonzer,’ said Jill. She was taller, older and heavier than Ann and flushed with heat and exercise. ‘Nice to meet yer. Drink’d go down good. We been eatin’ dust all day. But they got the horse lines well arranged, say that for ’em.’

‘When is the game?’

‘Monday. We’re playing an exhibition tomorrow, though. You want to come and watch. We’re not bad at all.’

‘And your opponents?’

‘They’re some city team,’ she said dismissively. ‘Lots of money and four remounts. They could wear us down. We mostly only got one neddy each, though I’ve got two ponies. But we’re pretty tough,’ she added.

‘Where are you from?’

‘High Plains, Gippsland,’ said Jill. ‘We’re called the Won-nangatta Tigers.’

Ann returned with an armload of beer bottles and a White Lady for Phryne. Jill levered the tops off two of the bottles with her teeth and spat out the crown seals. Ann giggled. Phryne was impressed and reminded herself to put a wad of cash on the Tigers for the polo cup. She took a gulp of her drink. It was delicious.

The crowds had been ebbing and flowing through the red tent, and now Phryne could see that the marquees were mostly occupied and a lot of the cars and conveyances had gone. Now the purple tent was buzzing with thirsty partygoers. She thought of proposing a walk to the riders. The area was getting very crowded.

‘You Phryne Fisher?’ asked a high voice. The method of address was so very impolite, especially coming from a younger person to an older one of higher estate, that Phryne did not speak. The demand came from a young boy, dressed in jerkin and hose of cloth of gold. He had a gold cap with wings on his curly dark head and little shoes with wings on his heels. Eros, perhaps, or Hermes. His pretty face was curdled with contempt.

‘And who is asking?’ said Phryne curiously.

‘Tarquin Southam,’ snapped the boy. ‘Only the master wants Phryne Fisher and he sent me out to find her. Is it you?’ he demanded again. ‘Only they said you liked low company so I came here.’

Phryne grabbed Jill’s wrist to forestall the clip over the ear that she was about to deliver to this pouting slipgibbet who was so clearly in need of just such personal attention. And might, indeed, be the better for it.

‘My name is Phryne Fisher,’ she said, getting up. ‘When you address me again, Master Tarquin, you will add an Hon. and a Miss to it. Clearly Gerald likes you mannerless or he would not employ you, but I don’t. See to it.’

‘Yes, Hon. Miss Fisher,’ said Tarquin insolently.

‘Better than nothing,’ said Phryne. ‘Good luck with the game, Jill, Ann. I’ll see you there.’

Tarquin turned on his winged heel and she followed his stiff, offended, golden back through the throng to a tent of special magnificence. It had streamers all over it. It had hangings. It had decorations on its tasselled decorations and frescoes all along its sides.

Tarquin stood by the door and announced, ‘The Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher!’

Phryne pushed aside the hanging bamboo curtain and went in.

‘Saint Stephen,’ announced Dot, opening the book. The girls and Molly settled down obediently. Jane found the anatomical details of martyrdom interesting. Ruth just liked stories, and Molly just liked company. ‘Stephen had a revelation of the birth of the baby Jesus. He was Herod’s serving man, and he said to Herod, “There is a child born in Bethlehem who will save us all.” But Herod scorned him, saying, “That is just as likely as this cooked capon—”’

‘What’s a capon?’ asked Jane.

‘It’s a chicken,’ said Ruth, who didn’t feel that she fully understood the term ‘castrated cock’ and that Miss Dot would definitely not want her to explain it if she did.

‘As likely as this cooked chicken rising up and crowing.’

‘And did it?’ asked Ruth.

‘It rose up in the dish and flapped its wings and crowed “
Christus natus est!
” Which means “Christ is born”,’ said Dot triumphantly. Jane was about to comment on the unlikelihood of this but Molly trod heavily on her lap in an endeavour to steal a biscuit and the moment passed.

‘Then what happened to Stephen?’ asked Ruth.

‘They took him out and stoned him to death,’ said Dot. ‘And his soul ascended to join the Father in heavenly bliss.’

Ruth accepted this. Jane began to calculate. How many stones of, say, a pound each would you need to lethally disable an average saint?

Dot sighed. She feared that the girls were growing up to be heathens, like Miss Phryne.

CHAPTER FOUR

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep;
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Ben Jonson
‘Hymn to Diana’

She stood still, allowing her eyes to get used to the dimness. Oddly enough, she felt sure that she could hear running water. The air was cool and scented with sandalwood, a bracing, masculine scent. There was an overscent of hashish. The acolytes had started smoking early this evening. The flooring was soft under her hot feet. In the dim light she could see a figure occupying one of a pair of carved, throne-like chairs at the far end. She went towards him, suppressing the urge to genuflect.

Tarquin raced ahead of her and threw himself at Gerald Templar’s feet. The seated man’s hand came down and rested gently on his curly head with its winged cap.

‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘Phryne, my dear.’

‘Gerald,’ said Phryne evenly. This took an effort. Gerald Templar’s beauty struck her afresh each time she saw him, and it was extreme enough to take the breath away. He was not just made like a Greek boy, all long limbs and light muscles. It was not just that his face had the fine-cut purity of a marble by Michelangelo, though others spoke of a Canova Eros in Venice. His eyes, admittedly, were like sapphires and his hair—a little too long, reaching his collarbones—like spun gold. He was a veritable masterpiece of the Divine art. But mere beauty alone would not have been enough to enchant a sceptical, irreligious city like Paris, as he had done. Gerald rose and came to take her hand, and Phryne felt it again. A flood of love, of attention, a focused wave of empathy. His charisma preceded his person by at least ten paces in every direction. Gerald could have led an army to free Jerusalem.

‘How kind of you to come to my little party,’ said Gerald. He led Phryne forward, through a collection of semi-recumbent bodies. Their faces turned towards him as he moved, as fish turn towards a spring of fresh water in a stagnant pond.

The source of the coolness was now revealed. A fountain had been set up, spraying cold water into the humid air. Gerald’s acolytes were all dressed in white cotton shifts called, as Phryne remembered, caftans, embroidered round the neck and sleeves with pale arabesques. There were always thirty of them in the Unchanging Ones. When one died, dropped out, found marriage or God, or inherited his father’s hog-slaughtering business or just got bored with adoring Gerald, he or she was instantly replaced. There had never been a dearth of devoted admirers of Gerald Templar.

To balance the Unchanging Ones, there were the Lady’s Own, presently all spread out to provide a constant stream of cool air over the flawless body of Isabella Templar. She was lying supine in a string hammock, supported at each end by two of her admirers, and fanned by three others with Cecil B DeMille peacock fans. And she was surpassingly beautiful, this sister of the aureate Gerald, in quite an opposite way. Where he glowed as golden as Apollo, she was as icy and severe as Artemis. His hair was Hyacinthine ringlets of precious metal; hers was as colourless as flax, hip length, perfectly straight and shining like the moon. Her eyes were the colour of a cold Scandinavian sky. Her skin was as pale as pearl and in the half-light she seemed to glow like an undersea creature, edged with phosphorescence. Phryne noticed that even her feet were perfect—high arched, glossy, with pinkly glowing rounded nails and not a scar or a bunion to deform their elegant shape.

It would be pointless to feel envy, Phryne thought, and didn’t. As well envy a Botticelli madonna. Isabella waved a languid hand at Phryne and turned her face to the cool air again.

‘Tarquin, a chair for Miss Fisher,’ said Gerald. Making a fearful face, the boy fetched a chair and slammed it down at the foot of Gerald’s throne. ‘Naughty,’ said Gerald.

‘And if the wind changes your only prospect of employment will be as a gargoyle,’ agreed Phryne. Tarquin scowled at her. Gerald patted the boy on the shoulder.

‘You should listen to Miss Fisher,’ he told him. ‘She’s certainly the wisest person I know. Well, perhaps not the wisest,’ he added, ‘but the cleverest.’

Tarquin scowled again but did not demur.

‘So, you’ve imported the whole circus?’ asked Phryne, observing the Unchanging Ones as they lay, half slain by heat and hashish.

‘Unkind,’ chided Gerald. ‘You always were unkind.’

‘But clever,’ put in Phryne. ‘Why did you come to Australia, Gerald? Not for the climate,’ she said. ‘Isabella hates the heat. Some trouble in Paris, was there?’

‘You are acute, and unkind, as I mentioned before,’ said Gerald ruefully. ‘Let us just say that we felt we needed some fresh woods and pastures new. Here, I suspect, there is great scope for us, and also living is less expensive. But the Unchanging came with me of their own free will.’

‘And the Lady’s Own of theirs,’ scoffed Phryne gently. ‘Let us have less talk of free will in that context! I hope you brought enough hash for all of them.’

‘Suitable supplies have been organised,’ said Gerald blandly. ‘Will you smoke?’

‘Just cigarettes,’ said Phryne. ‘I prefer my own.’

Tarquin, nudged by Gerald’s bare foot, rose and lit Phryne’s Virginian cigarette without setting fire to her hair or garments, much as she felt the little monster desired to see her burn. She had never felt such jealousy radiating off a human.

‘And Tarquin?’

‘He is an orphan,’ said Gerald. ‘I found him in the Infants Home in Melbourne on my first day here. He is my boy now, eh, Tarquin?’

Tarquin flung himself at Gerald’s feet and embraced his legs. Phryne watched, a little uncomfortable at such a lavish display of devotion.

‘I never suspected you of sentiment,’ was all she said.

‘I am many things which you have never suspected,’ said Gerald grandly. ‘My sister is still not speaking to me. She got a little girl at the same place, one Marigold, a sweet little thing, but she ran away as soon as we got here. Now Isabella grudges me my Tarquin.’

‘Because she has lost her girl?’ asked Phryne.

‘Because Tarquin loves me,’ said Gerald. ‘Now, to business.’

‘Business, Gerald?’ she asked, astonished. ‘You?’

‘Go down to the kitchen,’ Gerald instructed Tarquin, untangling him gently. ‘Stay there until the housekeeper can give you her word that the menu will be strictly adhered to, then come back as quickly as you can. I am trusting you, Tarquin.’

‘The Lady Isabella has already talked to the old bidd—the old chook—the old . . . woman,’ protested Tarquin.

‘Even so,’ said Gerald. Tarquin poised on one foot, like the Eros of his costume, half inclined to argue some more and half inclined to show Gerald how fast he could run. Finally he took to his heels with no more noise than a large bird taking off, and was gone through the bamboo curtains in a breath.

‘He’s fast,’ commented Phryne.

‘Good thing too, or he might not have been able to outrun his alcoholic father or his beastly mother,’ said a voice close to her ear.

‘My dear,’ said Phryne, patting a fat cheek with an affectionate hand. ‘My dear old Sylvanus, I should have known that you would be here.’

‘Just going to get a refill, darling girl. Can I get one for you, too? Gerald? Not smoking that vile weed, you see, I get terribly thirsty.’ Sylvanus posed briefly, hand in waistcoat pocket, mouth drawn down, other hand extended in a begging gesture.

No one doubted that Sylvanus had modelled himself on his hero, Oscar Wilde. He had run to fat as Wilde had, concealing the fact in loose robes or well cut gentleman’s sporting waistcoats. Rumours that he wore a corset had never been disproved. Or proved, of course, Phryne conceded. He had less hair than Oscar, it was true, but more head to put it on. His eyes were almost black, and could be very penetrating. Most of the time he affected a lazy grace which competent critics might have thought overdone in a hibernating sloth.