Murder on a Midsummer Night (21 page)

Dot admired them. She had also done as Phryne wished and had an answer to her question from Gertrude, the maid at the Atkinson house.

‘Puts them in to soak on Sunday night,’ she said. ‘Aren’t the white ones lovely?’

‘I made a little posy for your room,’ said Phryne, producing it. It was a few orange roses, with sprays of jasmine around them, in a squat terracotta pot. Dot turned the arrangement in her hands.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘You are clever, Miss Phryne! My favourite colours.’

‘The afternoon letters, Miss Fisher.’

Phryne took the envelope from the silver salver and thanked Mr Butler. She tore the envelope open and read the single sheet inside.

‘Telegram from Jack Robinson’s watcher. I’m told that the Atkinsons are going to a certain address in Maidstone tonight,’ she said, pleased. ‘Good! It worked. This is the effect of my anonymous letter, which said that if they held a seance in this place, they would find Blackbeard’s treasure. I’d better go up for a nap. This might be a testing evening.’

‘You will be careful, Miss?’ asked Dot.

‘Of course. I shall have Lin and Li Pen, and also the full backing of the Victoria Police. And this is my last throw, Dot, so if you feel like doing a little praying, I would appreciate it. In this production, I will need all the help I can get.’

Dot bore her flowers away. There was just time to start a rosary of intention.

Phryne lay down but could not sleep. So she got up.

She passed the rest of the evening by eating an abstemious dinner with only one glass of wine and by playing a noisy set of games with the girls; ludo, snakes and ladders, Chinese chess. She ended the session by losing seventeen pennies to Jane at Red Ace. Then she sent them to bed, ascertained that James Barton was sleepily reading Agatha Christie, and climbed the stairs. She put on trousers and a top of unrelieved black. Over that she had a petticoat pocket containing her gun and other necessities. Over that she had a loose Erté-inspired gown in violet and silver and a turban to match.

Lin came to the door at midnight. He had borrowed a smaller car than his usual Rolls. He too was wearing unrelieved black and looked so attractive that Phryne had to clasp her wandering hands firmly in her purple and silver lap.

Maidstone was sparsely inhabited. ‘We have a lot of market gardens down on the river,’ Lin told her. ‘I have borrowed a house which is at present empty. Did you speak to Detective Inspector Robinson?’

‘Yes, and he will be here, so tell Li Pen not to throttle him by mistake.’

‘As you wish, Miss,’ said someone in the back seat. Li Pen had made something of a specialty of not being seen and Phryne had not known he was there. She jumped.

‘And the same goes for anyone wanting to get into the house. Let them in. Just don’t let them leave.’

‘As the lady says,’ agreed Li Pen. Though he was a monk and had nothing to do with women, he approved of Phryne. They had once rescued Lin together and he admired her courage and resource. Besides, she had introduced him to his favourite food, Vegemite.

Lin stopped the little Austin near a weatherboard house, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It had a street number but appeared to be the only house in that street. Which ought to mean that the Atkinsons would find it no matter what they had been smoking. Lin gave Phryne the basket which Mrs Butler had put up for her.

‘There is a table and sufficient chairs in the main room,’ he told her. ‘We’re early. Will you be all right on your own?’

‘I will,’ she said, and walked up two steps to a front door. A single electric bulb was burning inside. Lin ushered her inside, kissed her, and melted into the darkness.

Phryne walked through the bare dusty hall, past an unoccupied bedroom, and found the main room, where there was, indeed, a large battered table and a lot of chairs. She sat herself down with her face to the door and put the basket on the floor beside her. Good old Mrs Butler! The basket contained a flask of coffee and Phryne drank a cup.

There was almost no sound either inside or outside. The Maribyrnong River must be near, if this was a market garden, but it was modest and did not make itself obvious. The house smelt disused, of dust and creeping mould, and Phryne found that she was shivering. And afraid, though there was no one in the room, and the bare electric bulb was the essence of practicality. This must be Lin’s ‘biological’ effect. Either that, or she had entirely lost her nerve.

There was a low humming noise, which lay just on the edge of hearing. A motor? Someone coming? She wished they would get on with it. Then she heard a short snatch of music, a flute or whistle, which was abruptly cut off.

Moments before she felt that she had to get up and move, she heard the front door open, and a chatter of voices. Stephanie Reynolds talking about the masters. Blanche White murmuring some response. Veronica Collins complaining about a torn stocking. Gerald Atkinson bidding them all to be silent.

They came in and looked at Phryne as she sat in her purple and silver and stopped in a clump. Then they smiled. Luke and Valentine took up their posts at the door. The others came forward and sat down in the chairs.

‘My dear Phryne, how lovely!’ said Gerald. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Anonymous letter,’ said Phryne. ‘And I don’t know anything more about it. I was just about to leave. This place is giving me the willies.’

‘You are not used to spiritist phenomena,’ explained Stephanie condescendingly. ‘I’ll take that chair, Blanche. You and Pris beside me on this side, Ronnie, Gerald and Phryne on the other. Luke, Val, you’ll have to join, the table’s too big to hold hands without you.’

They did as they were told. Stephanie opened a hamper in which were candles in holders and various glasses and bottles. The company sat down, poured themselves a drink, and watched as the candles were lit. They were red shaded and gave a soft light in which it might be possible to develop photographs.

But they weren’t comfortable. Luke kept watching the door. Priscilla was huddling close to Blanche White, whose dark eyes had dilated with fear. Gerald was tapping the table and seemed unable to stop. Veronica was twitching as though she was sitting on an ant hill. The biological method was working on them. Phryne still shivered. She drank more coffee, declining the various liqueurs circulating the table.

Then Valentine put out the light. They all joined hands and sang ‘Worship the King’. The voices were off-key and Phryne thought this a bad choice of hymn. ‘His chariots of wrath the dark thunderclouds form, and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.’ Not comforting, though she had always associated ‘pavilions of splendour’ with cricket . . .

Her mind was wandering. Her hands were being held by Gerald on her right and Luke on her left. Luke’s hand were shaking, Gerald’s were sweating. Phryne’s, she was sure, were as cold as ice.

‘Is there anyone there?’ asked Stephanie Reynolds. ‘Charging Elk, are you with us?’

There was a long silence, then out of the mouth of the medium Phryne heard someone say, ‘How! Charging Elk comes back from the happy hunting ground.’

‘We want to find the spirit of Augustine Manifold,’ said Gerald. ‘To tell us where Blackbeard’s treasure is.’

‘Passed on,’ said the voice of Charging Elk. ‘Will ask.’

Then he cut out and the people relaxed a little. It always took Charging Elk a few minutes to find the deceased in the afterlife. Phryne was aware of a smell. It was the house’s own scent of mould and dust, with something else . . . was it roses? decayed roses . . . something very decayed. Rotten meat and wet earth and decayed roses. The scent of a fresh grave. She shuddered. The women picked it up first. Priscilla buried her nose in Blanche’s shoulder. Blanche sneezed. Veronica coughed. Then Gerald and Valentine smelt it. Noses wrinkled, but they could not loose their hands. The smell grew stronger until it was a stench. Priscilla retched.

A light was growing so slowly that Phryne had not noticed it. It grew from a spot to a circle. It got brighter. It got bigger. Charging Elk appeared in it.

He was beautiful. He had the feathered headdress and across his bare chest were strings of teeth. Stephanie Reynolds cried out in love and longing. Then his voice came, louder and closer.

‘White man here,’ he said, and blinked out. Again the circle glowed. Gradually a picture formed. Phryne knew the face. A plain man, with a weak mouth. She had not remembered that he had brown eyes and shiny brown hair.

‘Augustine,’ called Gerald. ‘Oh, my dear fellow!’

‘Augustine,’ said Stephanie. ‘It is you!’

The graveyard stench was distracting Phryne. She was not going to vomit if she could help it, but fairly soon she was not going to be able to prevent it. Then a voice manifested itself.

‘You killed me,’ said Augustine.

‘No, no, my dear, don’t say that!’ cried Gerald, tears streaming down his face.

‘You killed me,’ repeated Augustine. ‘I never harmed you.’

‘We did just push you about a little,’ said Gerald. ‘Luke and Valentine did. I agreed. But killed, no, my dear, don’t say that. It wasn’t us! You went out, you know, and then something happened to you! What was it?’

‘Water,’ said Augustine. A splash and a struggle were heard, loud and horrible. The stamp and crash of a struggle, the panting of two fighters. Then the gurgling of a drowning man, shockingly vivid.

‘What about the map?’ asked Luke, chokingly.

‘I know of no map,’ said Augustine.

The house door crashed open. Someone came in. He shoved his way into the room and yelled, ‘It’s all a trick!’

Damn, thought Phryne, and we were going so well. She could loose her hand from Gerald’s feeble clasp and get to her gun fairly fast. Who was this intruder?

‘Simon?’ asked Gerald. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, it’s all electricity and gramophone records!’ cried Simon in triumph. ‘I’m pushing this screwdriver into this light switch. It’ll fuse the lights. Then see where your apparitions come from!’

He laughed aloud. They saw him drive the implement into the switch, saw a flash as the household electricity was disconnected, and heard the crack as the fuse exploded. Simon stood as if rooted to the spot. He stared in utter disbelief.

Augustine Manifold had not gone. Phryne saw Valentine and Veronica reach out and drag Simon into the circle.

‘It was you,’ said the apparition slowly. ‘You killed me.’

‘No!’ breathed Simon. So this was Rachel Phillips’ rotten younger brother, the disinherited waster with the greyish import of dubious goods. The trader with the motorbike who was simultaneously romancing Sophie Westwood from the Manifold shop, Gertrude the Atkinson maid and Veronica Collins.

The extent of the fraud which had been practised on Gerald Atkinson became apparent and was so ingenious that Phryne forgot about being sick. Simon had manufactured the Blackbeard plot, had used Augustine as a front without his knowledge, and was able to get into the shop because of Sophie. He knew what was happening in the Atkinson menage because of both Veronica and Gertrude. But why had he killed Augustine?

‘You murdered me,’ said Augustine, but this time it was the medium who spoke. The picture was still on the wall, but Stephanie Reynolds’ mouth was moving.

‘You wouldn’t tell me,’ moaned Simon. ‘You wouldn’t tell me where it was! I needed it! The Blackbeard story was just to get the money to go to Palestine.’

‘The Temple treasure,’ said Phryne, very quietly. Simon twitched at the new voice but went on whimpering.

‘I didn’t know,’ said Augustine. ‘You killed me for nothing. You filled me with whisky under the threat of your gun, then when I still didn’t talk, you drowned me in a washing tub, you bound my body to your own back and got onto your bike, you took me to the pier and threw me into the black water.’

The room filled with the thunder of waves.

‘But I needed it to show my father he was wrong about me,’ pleaded Simon. ‘I was clever! I seduced three tarts and knew everything that went on, I even had your stationery and your seal and these idiots believed everything when I said I came from you! Tell me where it is, Augustine! My father disinherited me! He showed me no respect! I wanted the Temple treasure to show him, he believes in all that Jewish stuff, he would have been—’

‘You are damned,’ said Augustine Manifold flatly. ‘Goodbye, Gerald, I’m going on. My dear . . .’

‘Oh, my dear,’ wept Gerald.

Gradually, the smell faded, the light faded, and Stephanie Reynolds shifted in her chair. Simon gave a sob, shook his hand free, and ran out of the house. Phryne heard a shout and then the sound of a car starting up. Not a motorbike. With any luck, Jack had caught his man. The feeling of imminent horror which had been so strong had also ceased. Phryne stood up.

‘I’m so sorry, Gerald,’ she said to him.

‘He called me “my dear”,’ wept Gerald. ‘He forgave me. Well, my darlings,’ he said to his disciples. ‘We know now. What’s the matter, Ronnie?’

Veronica was crying.

‘I thought he loved me,’ she said.

‘He was a greedy little swine of a pi-dog,’ said Blanche. ‘Come along, Ronnie. You can do better than him. It’s late and we need a drink. Are you coming, Miss Fisher?’

‘I need to sit and think for a while,’ said Phryne. ‘Leave me a candle, would you?’

The Atkinsons, expostulating, silent or weeping, saw themselves out.

Phryne got out the basket and found the flask of brandy, from which she poured a rather large drink. Lin joined her when the big cars had gone.

‘They got Simon. Li Pen caught him and Jack Robinson took him away, confessing freely.’

‘Good. Why did the manifestations continue when Simon killed the lights?’

‘That would be because of my generator,’ said Lin.

‘And the voice from Stephanie’s mouth?’

‘That would be the spirits,’ said Lin. ‘Is that brandy?’