Away With The Fairies (17 page)

‘Anyway, since you’re paying for the story, you can fill me glass again. We didn’t know nothing about any trouble till they shut the engine room off and we changed course. Heading for Bias Island, we were. We heard shots. They grabbed a lot of women and children and sent ’em crawling up the companionway to the deck and from there to this grille which shut off the bridge, begging the captain to let them in. He refused and the pirates threw ’em all overboard. Babies and all. They screamed as they fell but by then the water was full of
tiburones
. You know what
tiburones
are?’

‘Nah.’ Bert was finding the fast cockney-Australian voice hard to follow.

‘I know,’ said Cec. ‘Sharks.’

‘Yeah,’ said Pirates. ‘They followed us all the way after that. Good table for a shark, where pirates are. They just didn’t care about people, not at all. They was tryin’ to find the comprador, the liaison officer between the Chink crew and the officers. Ten coolies they lined up and asked each one, “Where’s the comprador?” And they all knew he’d blacked his face and was hiding in the engine room, and they all said they didn’t know, and they all went over into the mouths of the sharks. You know they turn belly-up when they surface to eat you? Pale bellies like tripe.’

‘Have another drink,’ said Bert, a little unnerved.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Pirates.

Phryne had bathed, dressed and eaten dinner, of a sort. The girls had elected to stay in the kitchen with Molly and Mrs Butler. Dot saw that it was no use urging Phryne to keep her strength up. Her mistress was in a cold, dangerous rage and although Dot was not frightened of Miss Phryne, she was not stupid either. She murmured some quiet banalities as Phryne sipped a glass of wine, ate two spoonfuls of soup, three mouthfuls of poulet ragout, a taste of Apple Charlotte and one chocolate mint. With all that rage inside her there probably wasn’t room for anything more, Dot thought. No wonder she had scared the girls. They hadn’t seen her like this before. Neither had Dot. She was concerned about what Phryne was likely to do. Nothing seemed beyond the scope of such magnificent fury. In such a mood she might take on the entire pirate population of Bias Island, wherever that was. And she might win.

‘I have brought a box of letters home,’ said Phryne at last.

‘Yes, Miss?’

‘We need to find out who “Desperate” was, and Anne, and the others. Someone killed Miss Lavender carefully, with planning, on purpose. And I need to talk again to the people who live in the apartments. They all, it appears, have secrets and Miss Lavender liked secrets. She may have collected them because she was lonely and felt it connected her to the real world. Or because they gave her a sense of power.’

‘Or because she was an interfering old busybody,’ said Dot.

‘That, too. I’ve got her dossier in the box as well. Jack delivered it just before I left
Women’s Choice.
Dot, I don’t want to wake any painful memories, but when you were kidnapped by anarchists, how did you feel?’

‘Scared,’ said Dot instantly. ‘Of course. But I knew you’d be coming for me.’

‘And as the time went on and I didn’t come?’

‘I knew you would,’ said Dot with simple faith. ‘I passed the time playing with the firing pin of that big gun and that gave me something to do. I just waited.’

‘Lin Chung doesn’t have that consolation,’ said Phryne.

‘Of course he does,’ said Dot briskly. ‘He knows you’ll come, and he also knows his family will come. Very loyal, them Chinese families. They won’t leave him there. If you don’t get anything sensible out of old Madame Lin, you can always go to Hong Kong and get the British to take some action. They’ve got warships.’

‘Send a gunboat?’ asked Phryne with rising inflection.

‘Why not?’ replied Dot stoutly.

‘Why not indeed?’ repeated Phryne. It could be done. She was rich and titled, she had influence, and the British might have been waiting for a reason to clean out the nest of pirates only fifty miles from Hong Kong.

‘You make me feel better, Dot. I can get to Hong Kong in a couple of days if I organise it with Bunji’s flying chums. But I mustn’t buzz off half-cocked into the blue without sufficient information. “
Ek sal en plan maak
”, as Peter Pienaar says in John Buchan. And the situation is very John Buchan, isn’t it?’

Dot, who only read detective stories and devotional works, didn’t know, but nodded. Phryne was losing some of her blue-tinted, cold aloofness and this was good. Dot ventured further.

‘So maybe we can look at those letters, Miss, and then you’ll take that sleeping draught Doctor Watson left for you last time?’

‘I’ll sleep,’ said Phryne, pouring herself another glass of the good brandy. ‘All right, Dot, bring on the letters and let’s see what we shall see.’

Dot obeyed. Mr Butler cleared the table and Phryne spread out the dossier on Miss Lavender.

‘Birth certificate. Marcella Joan Lavender born in Carlton on the seventeenth of September, 1877. She wasn’t as old as I thought, Dot. Only fifty-one. Looked at least twenty years older than that. Father was a schoolteacher, mother also. That would explain the system of child-raising which caused her to break out in fairies in later life. Her parents were fanatical about facts, Mrs McAlpin says, and didn’t allow any stories or religion at all.’

‘No religion?’ gasped Dot.

‘Not a single bible story. Not one parable. Not even a fable, not a Mother Goose rhyme, nothing to soften the hard edges of reality. I see that Papa Lavender wrote a book.
On Scientific
Child Rearing
. Jack hasn’t been able to locate a copy. Miss Lavender might have had one, though I doubt it. Deservedly out of print. They only had one child. They turned poor Miss Lavender into a fiction-starved adult and then they died and left her, at twenty—yes, both death certificates in the same year, 1898. What do you think happened next, Dot?’

‘She married a rotter,’ said Dot. ‘No religion, no principles. No priest to ask advice from. No relatives, by the look of it. No aunts.’

‘What use are aunts?’ asked Phryne, who considered herself over-aunted.

‘They tell you what’s wrong with your young man,’ said Dot, and blushed. ‘And I suppose that sometimes they’re right.’

‘But not in the case of a certain Hugh Collins?’ teased Phryne.

‘No,’ said Dot.

Phryne smiled. This surprised her. She didn’t think she was likely to smile at present. But Dot was right. Aunts and cousins acted as a chamber of review for family decisions. However much they might irritate the advised, they did at least relentlessly advise. And even though their advice was mostly ignored, it was another point of view. Marcella Lavender was alone in the world and seemed unlikely to have formed many friendships. When a pretty young man with no principles strayed her way, she was going to fall and fall hard.

‘Here’s the marriage certificate,’ said Dot, extracting it. ‘Captain James West, profession: gentleman.’

‘Another word for idle layabout,’ said Phryne. ‘In some cases,’ she added, seeing Dot’s shocked look. ‘Miss Lavender had a reasonable competence. I wonder how long it took the good captain to run through her fortune?’

‘Not very long,’ said Dot. ‘This police brief says that she lived with him for about eight months. Then he left her and his whereabouts are unknown. She got a divorce for desertion seven years later. Then she took her own name back. In between she was living for a while in a spiritualist community in Eltham. When she came back to Melbourne she sold the family home and put the money into Funds. She was living in a private hotel in South Yarra for most of the time before she moved into Mrs Needham’s.’

‘Why did she move?’

‘Here it is,’ said Dot. ‘The brief says that she needed more space for her art work. She was making a reasonable living with all that fairy stuff. They say she was good. Took classes in botanical drawing at the Mechanics’ Institute and got top marks.’

‘Yes, she was good, but only technically. See, look at this one.’

‘A waratah,’ said Dot. ‘Just like a real one.’

‘It’s a really accurate waratah. Every petal just as nature painted it. Every leaf in place, every serration delineated perfectly. But it’s got no life, Dot. Even the fairies are flat. Now you may not like May Gibbs, but her characters have life. Sentimental, sugary life, I admit. But they vibrate.’

This went entirely over Dot’s head. As far as she could see, a good waratah was hard to draw and Miss Lavender had managed it. In matters of art, Dot liked to know what she was looking at.

‘If you say so, Miss,’ she agreed. Phryne thanked her stars that she was not trying to explain surrealism to Dot and went back to the dossier.

‘Well, well, never mind. What else do we know about Miss Lavender?’

‘Just that she’s been getting a substantial payment from Marshall and Co. The police are still trying to find out about them. All the other payments come from her art work and her magazine work. Her account is at the Commonwealth Bank and it’s healthy. She had a separate account for the Marshall and Co. payments. She might have been saving up.’

‘She might have been blackmailing someone,’ said Phryne.

‘Do you really think so, Miss?’ Dot was a little taken aback. She was feeling sorry for Miss Lavender. It seemed like a sad, aimless life.

‘She liked secrets,’ said Phryne. ‘She liked to know what was happening. That can be a harmless fascination with other people or a lucrative trade. We really must find out about Marshall and Co., Dot. Well, that’s Miss Lavender. Hello! What’s this?’

‘A photograph,’ said Dot, wondering if Phryne’s wits had gone astray.

‘But what a photograph,’ said Phryne.

Miss Lavender sat in an old-fashioned studio, one hand on a plinth, a violent thunderstorm behind her. But this was a modern photograph, taken in an instant. The photographer had clearly been talking to the model, for what was surprised on Miss Lavender’s face was a pursed expression of shrewish ferocity.

‘She’s screwed up her face,’ said Dot. ‘Probably that flash.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Phryne slowly. ‘She hasn’t shut her eyes. What a picture! She looks like an inquisitor who’s just found a whole village riddled with witchcraft, ordering the gallows to be built. And I know who took the photo,’ she added. She told Dot the name before her assistant could turn it over.

‘Right you are,’ said Dot. ‘McAlpin.’

‘I wonder if I could get her to take me?’ said Phryne. ‘On second thoughts, not. She has a habit of taking pictures of souls and I don’t think I want mine exposed this clearly.’

Dot, who had no idea what Phryne was talking about, opened the box binder. It contained letters.

‘Half each,’ said Phryne and they opened and read in silence for some time.

‘Miss?’ asked Dot anxiously. ‘I’ve found another letter from “Moderne”. She says sorry for being cross and her husband has come back so it’s all right now and she likes the new decor. And I’ve found Anne.’

‘Good. I’ve found “Desperate”. She shouldn’t be here, of course. Her letter should have been returned or destroyed. Possibly the person who extracted the letter bunged it in here for destruction later. Surprised, perhaps, in the act. It hasn’t got an envelope. What was wrong with “Desperate”?’ Phryne read for a moment, then said, ‘Oh dear.’

Dot accepted the letter. It was written in wavery pale ink. Each line drooped sadly down at the edge of the page.

‘“I’m so tired all the time”,’ Dot read. ‘“I find it hard to get out of bed. I sleep all the time. I’m so miserable that nothing seems real. The house door, sometimes, is like a portcullis, keeping me prisoner. When I lie down to sleep sometimes I feel that the room is spinning and I am being dragged down into a black hole. The world is all grey. I have no joy. I keep going because of the children but I can’t bear it much more. Help me. ‘Desperate’.” Poor thing! What happened to her?’

‘She died, Dot, and I suspect she was a suicide. Those are all symptoms of depression.’

‘Well, she could have taken a tonic,’ said Dot.

‘No, Dot, I’m talking about serious depression. The world is grey and there is no joy, only unplumbed despair. A few years like that and anyone would decide that death is preferable. We’d better find out who she was.’

‘The envelope you discovered at Miss Lavender’s had a post office box,’ said Dot. ‘The cops can find out who it belongs to.’

‘All right. What’s Anne’s problem?’

Dot pinkened. ‘Her husband can’t …’

‘Can’t what?’

‘Just er … can’t. Here, you read it.’ Dot handed over the letter. Phryne scanned it quickly.

‘“I entered a companionate marriage. I didn’t know what I was doing. My husband is an older man and he always said he didn’t want children. Neither do I, so I went to the clinic and got some instructions and a contraceptive device. I told him about it and he didn’t seem interested. What should I do?” Good question. I wonder if Miss Lavender gave her advice on how to seduce a man?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Dot. ‘I don’t expect she knew a lot about it. She was only married for eight months and she must have been unhappy.’

‘She would know about the mechanics,’ said Phryne. ‘That relentlessly factual education she received would have taken in the biological details. But there is a great deal more to it than that,’ said Phryne.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Dot, trying not to blush. ‘Do we have the answer to Anne’s letter?’

‘No, and it’s another thing which does not belong. This box was supposed to contain the unattributed or unaddressed letters for destruction. It has, Dot dear, been salted. Can we find Anne?’

‘There’s an address on the letterhead,’ said Dot. ‘It’s embossed. She’s scribbled it out but I might be able to read it in a good light.’

‘If you can’t the police laboratory probably can. One more mystery. We don’t even know what the lady with the Kew postmark was going on about. Empty out the binder, Dot. It’s likely to be at the bottom.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you are trying to hide something, you instinctively push it to the bottom of the box and pile all the rest of the stuff on top. That way your secret is not disclosed to a casual survey. Anything from Kew which might draw forth a death threat for an unhelpful reply?’