Away With The Fairies (7 page)

‘Have you heard from Lin Chung?’

‘Not recently. He arrived in Macao and purchased the silk, though there have been troubles in China, as you may know.’

Phryne nodded. ‘Troubles’ was a serious euphemism for what was happening there.

‘He was supposed to be taking ship on the
Gold Mountain
, South China Navigation Company, for the voyage to Hong Kong. We do not know if he is aboard. There is no reason to assume he is not. He drew a draft on our Hong Kong bank for the silk and other things. But there is no post from China at the moment,’ said Jane Lin. ‘We are sure that he is safe.’

‘How can you be sure that he is safe?’ asked Phryne, reminded of her dream.

‘It is not a safe world,’ said Jane Lin. ‘But he has Li Pen with him.’

‘That should preserve him against all ordinary perils,’ agreed Phryne. She remembered Li Pen. A quiet, unassuming, respectable man from the Temple of Confucius in Peking. A dedicated Shao Lin priest, a terrible fighter with the heart of a tiger. Li Pen the hunter. He would level whole cities rather than allow Lin Chung to come to harm.

‘That is the situation,’ said Jane Lin. ‘Grandmother wishes to ask a question in return.’

‘And what does Madame Lin wish to know?’

‘Have you heard from Chung?’

‘Only a note from Hong Kong six weeks ago, before I went to Sydney.’

‘Nothing since?’

‘No, nothing. But I will make a deal with Madame,’ said Phryne, rising.

‘Miss Fisher?’ Jane Lin was a little shocked. Ordinary mortals did not make deals with Madame Lin, matriarch of the Lin family and mistress of all she surveyed. But then, this was the Silver Lady, Lin Chung’s rich woman. No concubine, this, though her hair was Chinese black and her skin Manchu white and her mouth the colour and shape of a rosebud, as the ancient authors required of a beautiful woman. But her eyes were green, disconcertingly, alarmingly green as green jade. Those eyes were now fixed on Jane with a considering stare which reminded the girl strongly of her grandmother.

‘If I hear from Lin Chung, I will tell her. In return, if she hears from him, she will tell me.’

‘I am sure that this will be acceptable,’ said Jane Lin helplessly.

CHAPTER FIVE

Sung intimates that although there is sincerity in
one’s contention, yet he will meet with obstruction
and opposition.

Hexagram 6: Sung
The I Ching Book of Changes

Phryne walked quickly back to the
Women’s Choice
offices, her heels clicking in a precise 6/8 which would have been the joy of any listening jazzman.

Think about something else, she told herself. What about the death of Miss Lavender? I really don’t know anything about her, but she was strange. That odd house—all fairies and tinsel downstairs, all business upstairs. Did that mean that the fairies were just a pose? In that case, what was she hiding? Who hated her enough to kill her?

She paused to buy and eat a fine Tasmanian Ladies in the Snow apple before facing the return to the office. The apple was crisp, clean, delicious and far removed from pain and trouble. She drew a deep breath on the corner of Hardware Lane, listening to the city. The bird shop was loud with canaries. Phryne wondered what they were saying. It might be a mistake to learn the language of birds. They might easily be shouting ‘Go away!’ or ‘I’m the best,’ or even ‘Shut up, you blokes, I’ve got a splitting headache!’ An old clothes merchant dragged past a barrow on which were bundled, shabby and ashamed, the fashions of yesteryear. He seemed rather well dressed for a humble puller of barrows. Few labourers wore watch chains.

‘Miss Fisher, yes?’ he grinned around his cigar. Phryne dropped her apple core.

‘Good heavens, Mr Katz,’ she exclaimed. Then she fumbled for some suitable expression of regret that the person she had last seen as a prosperous cabinet-maker was reduced to manual labour of this type. He held up a hand.

‘No, no, no need for the “Good heavens, Mr Katz”, Miss Fisher. I’m helping out my cousin. He’s moving his stock, rent’s gone up through the roof, poor Sol.’

‘A
mitzvah
,’ said Phryne, smiling. ‘A good deed.’ She had always liked Mr Katz.

‘And the reward for the chance of a
mitzvah
? Another
mitzvah
. Nice to know that I can still haul a barrow,
nu
?’

‘Strong as an ox,’ agreed Phryne.

‘Oy, don’t tell my Minnie that you saw me, Miss Fisher! She’ll
plotz
. Hey, you’re going into there?
Women’s Choice
, maybe?’

‘I’m doing their fashion notes,’ said Phryne. Mr Katz leaned on the handle of his barrow. She suspected that however strong he was, he was glad of a chance to rest.

‘Tell them to buy second hand,’ he said. ‘Lots of good
schmutter
around. Here, see …’ He burrowed through his load. ‘This, it’s Worth, see, the label? Little work, sew on a few more sequins, good as new, better than new. Prewar fabric, you don’t get satin like this any more. For you …’ he grinned again, as his mercantile nature warred with his sense of obligation. ‘For you, nothing at all.’

The Worth label was plain to see. The dress had been a full skirted, heavy Edwardian ball dress in a startling shade of plum, which had faded to an enchanting bluish purple under its torn muslin overlay. It definitely had possibilities. The material, as Mr Katz had said, was of superb quality.

‘How much would you charge for it in the shop?’ asked Phryne.

Mr Katz shrugged. ‘Two pounds, maybe three if the customer was exigent. Solly believes in spoiling the Egyptians. Only the rich can really afford bad manners.’

‘Here’s three,’ said Phryne. ‘No, I insist. You’ve given me an excellent idea and the dress is worth it for the fabric alone. Give me the address of Sol’s shop, too, if you please.’

Mr Katz extracted the dress, loaded it into Phryne’s arms, and said, ‘Solly’s just along from you in Hardware Lane, Miss Fisher. Come in and have a look! No obligation to buy,’ he concluded, as Phryne opened the street door and he took up the handles of the barrow again. ‘Mind you don’t tell my Minnie, Miss Fisher!’

The office was in its usual uproar when she climbed the stairs. Miss Grigg had returned and was slowly and grimly pecking away at a Smith Addison as though it was a bear trap which at any moment might snap shut and injure her. Miss Herbert was typing quickly, angling her head so that gasper smoke flowed past her eyes. Miss Phillips was surveying a lot of broken crockery, making notes in a small book with a sharp pencil. Mrs McAlpin was polishing lenses and placing them back in their padded boxes as placidly as a church committee worker polishing the communion plate. To add to the illusion, she was singing softly as she worked. ‘Oh worship the King, all glorious above, we gratefully sing, his power and his love.’

Miss Prout was arguing with Mrs Charlesworth.

‘It’s the way magazines are going,’ she said loudly. ‘More gossip, more advertisements, more photographs, more games— cartoons, even. Look at this.’ She flung down a volume with a bright cover emblazoned
New York True Confessions
. ‘See? How many readers can we drag in—shop girls, clerks, factory girls—if we could run “The Mad Elopement” or “The Diary of a Lonesome Girl”? This is real life, Mrs Charlesworth. You can’t expect those girls to read nothing but “The Lives of Noble Women”!’

‘Can’t I?’ asked Mrs Charlesworth gently. Mrs McAlpin picked up another lens and sang a little louder. ‘His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form …’ Miss Phillips concluded her notes on the shattered china and started loading it back into its box. This she tied up with string. Then she stood up and headed for the door, dead-heating Miss Nelson, the office girl, who knew the signs as well as anyone and had discovered an urgent errand at the printer’s. Phryne dumped her Worth dress, took her seat and watched, fascinated. Miss Prout, it appeared, had a minimal sense of self-preservation. Mrs Charlesworth might look cushiony and soft, but she ran a monthly magazine and had done so for some time, which meant she must have a whim of iron.

‘Let’s see what we could put into our Australian magazine to give it popular American appeal, shall we?’ asked Mrs Charlesworth gently. ‘“Her Morning After”? “Dope”? The news that—let me see—the notorious nightclub keeper Kate Meyrick has been jailed for six months? That the Comtesse de Janzé has been put on trial for attempted murder of Mr Raymond de Trafford at Nice? That the Reverend Francis Bacon has been tried for supplying poisonous drugs to women? Nice, very nice. Sin, suffering and sorrow, all with a neat little moral plaited into the end. Don’t behave wildly. Toe the line. Be a good girl and you’ll be happy. Is that what you want us to tell our readers? That old lie?’

‘And dark is his path on the wings of the storm,’ sang Mrs McAlpin.

‘We could have the whole state reading us!’ objected Miss Prout.

‘Poisons are attractive,’ said Mrs Charlesworth. ‘This, this drivel is as attractive as the drug in that story and twice as addictive.’

‘So you agree that I’m right. That readers would eat this stuff up,’ insisted Miss Prout.

‘Oh, yes, they would. And vomit it right back. Read without reflection and forgotten, except for the moral stain. Are we going to produce articles on the lives of flibbertigibbet film “stars” and make our respectable women envy them? Are we going to tell girls that sex is forbidden, and make it doubly attractive? These rags are designed not to inform, but to titillate, and thus to promote the very actions which they pretend to protest against. They are poisonous, evil, corrupt and for the last time, Miss Prout, I will not have it!’

‘But the advertisers—’

‘Oh, yes, I can just see how Ovaltine will react. We might be all right with Tangee lipstick, they’re selling sexual attraction, after all, and perhaps some of the face creams. But Salus? They take at least two half pages every issue for their Nutrax Nerve Food. I can’t see the godly, sober and righteous being impressed with “Her Morning After”, can you?’

‘We could get other advertisements—we could attract a different market,’ said Miss Prout stubbornly.

‘Of course,’ Mrs Charlesworth’s voice was kind. ‘Brothels, gin palaces, movies, there’s a plethora of grubby little industries which would leap at the chance. Why not make up a list of them, Miss Prout? I’m sure that the Board will be interested. The meeting is on Thursday. I’m not trying to crush your enterprising spirit. But the furthest I am willing to go with gossip in
Women’s Choice
is the riveting news that little Princess Elizabeth has learned how to curtsey. No, Miss Prout. That is enough for today. I still have an editorial to write and someone has to check over “Hilda and the Flower Fairies” and then take it down to the printer. You strike me as needing a little innocent diversion. Get Miss Fisher to help you—she could do with some, too, and a cup of tea, by the look of her. Now, silence, ladies. Complete, utter silence.’

She went back into her office and closed the door with a final click.

‘Phew!’ whispered Miss Prout.

‘Come out,’ said Phryne. ‘Let’s get some tea, maybe some lunch. Before we tackle Hilda and the fairies.’

‘Tea!’ scoffed Miss Prout. ‘I need a drink!’

‘Very well,’ said Phryne. ‘Then we’ll go to my club.’

‘The Adventuresses Club was formed in 1919,’ Phryne instructed Miss Prout as they walked quickly down Little Lonsdale Street and mounted the steps into a three-storey building, solid bluestone with sea-green tiles on the floor. ‘Women who had done all sorts of things in the war—driven ambulances, climbed mountains, flown planes, written novels—could not find life comfortable without a few like-minded friends to talk with. In fact, Miss Elspeth, who started it, was a quiet woman with a very respectable husband. She said she could stand the respectability all week but occasionally needed to remember, in suitable company, what being unrespectable felt like. She bought this building meaning to open a small hotel. When several of her exploring friends came to dinner here and had a wonderful time, Miss Elspeth converted it into the Adventuresses Club. It was going through a decline when I came to Melbourne and I was able to put a bit of capital into it. There’s a quiet room where silence is absolute. No talking at all. In a woman’s life, silence is the rarest commodity there is. There’s a large room for parties and lunches, there’s a few small bedrooms for visitors and there’s an End of Tether room.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Miss Prout, agog.

‘It’s soundproofed. One can scream and not be heard. Space to scream is another thing that’s severely limited in modern female life. We keep a fairly good table, which will improve when I can lay my hands on a good well-trained female cook. At the moment we have M’sieur Paul, and he is very temperamental. Hello, Kate. One guest for lunch, I’ll sign her in. This is Kate, doorman and chucker-out. Who’s in for lunch, Kate?’

Massive Kate rippled a few muscles complacently. She was dressed in a military style uniform with frogging.

‘Not much company, Miss Phryne. Miss Alice said you won’t forget the Directors’ meeting on Friday?’

‘I’ll be there. Have we found a cook yet?’

‘Miss Joan reckons she’s got a good prospect.’

‘Jolly good. Come along, Miss Prout.’

‘Is everyone called by their first name?’

‘Yes. Have you ever thought that by losing your own name in marriage you lose a good portion of your identity? That to become Mrs George Smith is to be entirely obliterated except as an adjunct to, or relict of, Mr George Smith? The one name left is the one you were christened with. Besides, no one who is voted into the Adventuresses cares a straw about titles. We’ve got quite enough status to be going on with. So everyone is Miss Whoever.’

‘My first name,’ said Miss Prout shyly, ‘is Laetitia.’

‘And mine is Phryne. Long story.’

‘You’re a private detective, aren’t you? I’ve heard of you.’

‘Yes, but I prefer not to mention it. This way.’

Phryne led Miss Prout into a modern electric lift. She pressed the button marked ‘three’ and they were whisked skywards at alarming speed.

‘We got a modern lift to cut down the expense of keeping an elevator operator and to make getting to lunch faster. Some of us don’t have a lot of time.’