Away With The Fairies (4 page)

‘How kind,’ said Phryne, managing to break off a corner of a toffee and putting it in her mouth. The taste of brittle Eton toffee brought back her own youth with a rush.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Wendy Opie,’ said the sailor hat proudly. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Miss Fisher,’ said Phryne.

‘Pretty lady,’ commented Wendy dispassionately. ‘Pretty hat.’

‘You are wearing a very stylish one yourself,’ Phryne returned the compliment.

‘Goes with my sailor suit,’ said Wendy. She turned around slowly so that Phryne could admire the full beauty of the costume.

Matters were developing nicely when a harassed woman ran round the corner and grabbed Wendy, sweeping the child clean off her feet. Wendy, startled out of her composure, began to cry.

‘You bad girl, Mummy’s been so worried!’ said Mrs Opie into the wailing face. ‘I told you to stay and play quietly and I’d take you for a walk myself! ’ ‘But the garden door was open and I followed a bird and he came here and I met Miss Fisher,’ Wendy pointed out. Her tears had been stemmed as soon as the initial shock was over. The child obviously felt that she had right on her side.

‘I do beg your pardon,’ said Mrs Opie, putting Wendy down and tucking a strand of pale hair back behind her ear, from which it instantly slid loose again. ‘I’m Helen Opie. I was especially busy this morning and then when I looked around Wendy wasn’t there and I’ve been searching all along the road for her. She usually goes out the house door. I didn’t realise that the garden door was open. I hope she hasn’t been bothering you.’

‘Of course not,’ soothed Phryne, who had caught a glitter of emotion from Wendy which told her that the door hadn’t been open until Wendy had found a way to open it.

‘Isn’t it terrible about Miss Lavender?’ said Mrs Opie, sagging down on the bench. ‘You can go and look at the fishes, Wendy.’

The alacrity with which the child obeyed told Phryne that her reason, or one of her reasons, for escaping from her mother was to go and look at the fish. Mrs Opie swatted at her dusty apron. She was a thin woman with prominent grey eyes and hair which would never hold a bobby pin. She had shingled it out of desperation but it was still always falling into her face.

‘So, have you decided to take the apartment?’ asked Mrs Opie artlessly. ‘It’s a bit overdecorated but you can always have it done in something more stylish.’

‘I haven’t decided,’ said Phryne. Mrs Opie was sitting right next to Miss Lavender’s box of letters, which was open. One hand was trailing, dropping to the edge. Phryne made a suitable comment about the weather. Mrs Opie replied conventionally, never taking her eyes off Phryne.

Miss Fisher was endowed with excellent peripheral vision. She could see Wendy leaning over the lower basin, trailing her fingers in the water. She could also see Helen Opie’s fingers as they savoured the chocolate papers and the envelopes, seeking the right one.

There was a splash behind her, but Helen Opie did not react. The moment poised on a knife’s edge. Would retrieving a letter or saving the life of her daughter win?

It was rather a disappointment when Mr Bell shouted at Helen to get a move on before the child hurt his fish. The hand recoiled, empty, and Helen Opie jumped to her feet with appropriate exclamations of dismay and retrieved her offspring, dripping wet.

As Mrs Opie bore Wendy away from a watery grave, Phryne saw a smile of perfect satisfaction on the child’s face, and nothing but blank despair on her mother’s.

CHAPTER THREE

Kau shows a female who is bold and strong. It will
not be good to marry such a female.

Hexagram 44: Kau
The I Ching Book of Changes

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ exclaimed Phryne with Alice. There was a Wonderland feel to this house, cut off by its great wall, supplied with a secret passage, and populated by entirely too many gnomes. She left the lid of the box open and invited Mr Bell over to sit with her by an inclination of the head which stronger wills than his would not have been able to resist. Mr Bell did not try. He dropped a strand of couch grass into a trug and wiped his hands on his apron as he walked.

A good-looking young man, or he had been, before getting burned. Phryne wondered how extensive the burns had been, how they had happened, and how he had adjusted to the world after the war. He walked easily.

‘Shall I ask for some tea, Miss Fisher?’

‘Not for me, thanks. I’ve just breakfasted. They create a lovely effect in the sun, those blue and white Della Robbias.’

‘I’ve arranged the brighter ones in the shade,’ he answered. ‘Hard to get anything to grow against that wall. The house overshadows it. But it isn’t wet enough for ferns. What are you doing here, most decorative lady?’

‘Pure curiosity,’ said Phryne lightly.

‘Killed the cat,’ said Mr Bell.

‘So they say,’ said Phryne, never taking her eyes from his.

‘Why should you care who killed the old chook?’

‘Who says that anyone killed her?’ asked Phryne in a low, flat tone.

‘But … I assumed … with the police here …’ stammered Mr Bell, looking away at last and blushing. His burn scar blushed differently from the rest of his skin and for that moment he looked seriously deformed—white scar tissue on olive skin.

‘This is presently called a “suspicious death”, Mr Bell,’ Phryne informed him. ‘Detective Inspector Robinson called me in to have a look at the apartment, because he’s at length noticed that I’m female, and females notice things about other females which a man would never see.’

‘And have you?’

‘Ah, that would be telling,’ teased Phryne. Mr Bell laughed unconvincingly.

‘No, but really, did someone kill Miss Lavender?’ he asked after a pause in which bees hummed in the marigolds and goldfish surfaced. The sun glinted off gold, white and blue in a scent of cut grass.

‘I don’t know,’ said Phryne. ‘We’ll have more information after the autopsy.’

‘And will you tell me about it?’

‘Depends,’ said Phryne. She wasn’t flirting. She was wondering how far she could push Mr Bell before he lost his temper. Someone who lost their temper was always informative.

Phryne had not pushed him far enough. He got up, bowed slightly, and stamped back to the weeding. Phryne hid a smile. She must find out much more about this young man. And, of course, the terrified Mrs Opie. What was in this box that she needed so badly that she might almost have let her little daughter drown while she searched for it? How did she mean to identify it by feel? By size of envelope, by shape, by texture, by frank or embossing, by sealing wax? Or was she not looking for a letter at all, but something else which might be in the box?

Phryne felt that this would be an interesting investigation, even if Miss Lavender hadn’t been murdered.

She was staring abstractedly across the sunken garden when she saw a serge-clad arm waving at her. It was an urgent ‘come here’ gesture from the apartment behind Wee Nooke. Phryne took the box and carried it with her. The arm belonged to a short, stumpy woman wearing a version of a man’s suit and the sort of frilly apron made for someone a lot slimmer and given to tripping onstage in red slippers exclaiming, ‘Ooh, la la!’

‘You’re Miss Fisher, aren’t you?’ she demanded in a gruff voice. ‘Seen you in
Table Talk
.’

‘You have the advantage of me,’ said Phryne, bowing slightly.

‘Grigg,’ said the woman, shaking Phryne’s hand vigorously. ‘Come in and have some coffee. I approve of most of Needham’s cuisine but not her coffee, which is dishwater with a coffee bean dipped in.’

Phryne followed her through a small garden in which tomato plants towered in cages of wicker mesh and the air was heavy with the scent of foreign herbs—basil, oregano—and some familiar ones, like mint, summer savoury, lemon balm, borage and thyme. Bees hummed industriously through the blue borage flowers and the yellow tomato flowers.

‘This smells like Italy,’ said Phryne.

‘Similar climate,’ said Miss Grigg shortly. ‘Lived there for years. Came back to this dull food, sausages, chops, steak, eggs, tomato sauce made of red lead. Only way to get real taste is to grow our own herbs. Good soil, too. Loam. A handful of this and that makes even Needham’s solid unimaginative stuff taste alive. And we’re making a red rather like chianti, too, in the Barossa Valley.’ Her voice was approving. ‘Could even be in Rome on a hot night with the tomatoes and herbs and a glass of red.’

‘And without the fascisti, the crowds, the motor exhaust and the danger,’ prompted Phryne. Miss Grigg snorted.

‘That Mussolini ought to be horsewhipped. If I’d had a horsewhip I would have done it myself. Stupid, puffed-up oaf, oozing self-importance from every unshaven pore. Italy is not the Roman Empire, and it never will be again. Fools! They’ll get themselves slaughtered if they start taking on someone like the Greeks or the Turks. They play for keeps, as the children say. Do sit down, Miss Fisher. Have you been to Italy?’

‘Not recently, though I wandered around there for a year after the war. I agree with you. One can see the contrast if one comes from Greece; the beaky, craggy faces of the Greeks and the soft
bella figura
boys straight out of a pastoral romance.’

‘Pretty boys,’ said Miss Grigg, pouring boiling water into the top of the coffee pot, sealing it, and watching the machine tip over to begin percolating. ‘Precisely. How do you take your coffee, Miss Fisher?’

‘Black,’ said Phryne. Miss Grigg was nervous, despite her abrupt manner and her telegraphic speech. The cups rattled as she placed them in saucers.

Phryne looked around. The decor was Italian. The floor was slate with rush matting. The walls were whitewashed and decorated with brightly painted plates. The table was plain wood, the cloth plain white and the crockery majolica, handmade in the grotesque style, all arabesques, trailing vines, and odd, wicked little faces on impossible animals. Miss Grigg had doffed her frilly apron and sat down. She had salt-and-pepper hair, cut neatly short, faded blue eyes and a brick-red gardener’s complexion. Her hands were square and gnarled with labour. But there was a blue stain, ingrained to the bone, on her third finger, which elevated her from drudge to writer.

The coffee was superb and Phryne said so. Then, instead of asking questions, she sat silent and waited. Miss Grigg drank her coffee with pleasure, set down her cup, and said, ‘I like a woman who isn’t forever chattering. That’s what’s wrong with most women—they must be always talking, talk, talk, talk. And they never say anything worth hearing either.’

Phryne smiled and nodded.

‘I need to ask you a question,’ said Miss Grigg. ‘Miss Lavender. Was she murdered?’

‘I don’t know. Enquiries, as Detective Inspector Robinson would say, are continuing.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘Best I’ve got,’ said Phryne. ‘There seems to be something funny about the matter. She was perfectly healthy one day, apart from headaches, and the next, dead. That’s a suspicious death. The police are required to investigate. Why do you ask?’

‘I’m interested, naturally.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Phryne. She waited. Miss Grigg stared at her for a long moment. Phryne returned the stare, bland as cream.

‘Work for a women’s magazine,’ said Miss Grigg. ‘
Women’s
Choice
. You might have seen it.’

‘Yes, I take it,’ said Phryne.

‘Do you? Strike me as more of a
Table Talk
girl,’ said Miss Grigg. ‘Thing is,’ she added, dropping her voice to a confidential bark, ‘thing is, you see, I see that you took that box of letters, and Miss Lavender, she …’

‘Grigg? You there?’ called a musical, feminine voice. Miss Grigg cursed under her breath. Then she yelled, ‘In here, Gally!’

‘Such a fuss outside,’ complained the voice, getting nearer. ‘Policemen all over—oh!’

Phryne saw with considerable interest that Miss Grigg and Miss Gallagher, though housemates, were of the contrasting style of female friendship rather than the identical. Miss Gallagher wore a red cotton skirt with at least one petticoat, a ruffled, white embroidered blouse and a headscarf. She tossed her black curly hair back over her rounded shoulders and pouted when she saw Phryne.

‘Miss Gallagher,’ said Phryne, rising and putting out a hand to be taken in a soft, childish grasp. ‘I’m Phryne Fisher.’

‘Oh!’ gasped Miss Gallagher again. The white frilly apron, thought Phryne, was definitely hers. The headscarf turned towards the seated woman. ‘What’s she doing here, Grigg?’

‘I asked her in for coffee. Do sit down, Gally. Would you like coffee?’

‘Tea,’ said Miss Gallagher vaguely. ‘I’ll make some.’

Phryne reflected that if one could not avoid confrontation directly, one could easily avoid it by drifting around a kitchen picking things up and putting them down again. This Miss Gallagher did. Miss Grigg looked at her with amused tolerance. Phryne watched in silence. Eventually, she thought, Miss Gallagher would have to actually find the pot, the tea, the kettle, the cup and saucer and strainer and teaspoon, the sugar and the milk. For how long could she draw out the process? With tea, the making of which was already a complex ritual, it could be hours, and Phryne wanted to get back to Robinson.

‘Are you going to take the garden apartment?’ asked Miss Gallagher.

‘I don’t know,’ said Phryne truthfully.

‘It’s very nice. You could get rid of all the fairies,’ suggested Miss Gallagher, picking up an apostle spoon, examining it, and putting it down again.

‘Possibly,’ said Phryne. ‘Do you work at
Women’s Choice
also, Miss Gallagher?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Gallagher, staring at a saucer as though trying to redesign the grotesques in her head.

‘She’s cookery and preserves,’ said Miss Grigg. ‘I’m vehicle maintenance, home repairs and trades. Mrs Opie in seven is Your Child. She has one to practise upon, of course, which does help. Pity. She was a medical student before her Giovanni left her and she married that louse Opie.’

‘Grigg!’ exclaimed Miss Gallagher. ‘Not before … our visitor.’ She angled a look at Phryne under long eyelashes. Phryne did not react. The pert mouth drooped in disappointment. Miss Gallagher, thought Phryne, is a terrible flirt.