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‘Chin chin,’ said Dulcie, mixing herself a very large gin with a splash of tonic and sucking it down with pleasure.
Neil McLeod was sure that he had made no sound at all as he slipped into the camel stable and walked very gingerly across the straw-strewn floor. He reached into the left hand manger and found the envelope without making any noise that even a mouse would hear. He slit the envelope open with a tarry thumbnail and drew out five ten-pound notes.
He stood gloating over his fortune and was turning to go when a flat Scots voice said, ‘You blackguard,’ quite quietly.
Neil chuckled.
‘Is it you, then, old friend? I thought I saw you in the outcasts’ camp. Still playing that old fiddle, eh?’
‘You knew,’ accused James Murray. ‘You knew about Annie’s bairn and you never told me.’
‘Did I not? Must have slipped my mind.’ The tone was insolent.
‘And now you’re selling her for fifty pounds,’ said James.
His face was still.
‘She’s worth it to her mistress,’ said Neil. ‘Tell you what, for a clansman I’ll give you ten to go away and say nought. Fair offer, Jamie?’
‘I’m no clansman of yours,’ said James, and struck, grabbing Neil McLeod by the throat and half lifting his feet off the ground.
‘Where’s Ruthie?’ roared Bert, arising from a pile and shedding straw.
‘What’s this? You betrayed me?’ demanded Neil, half choking.
‘Betrayal? You talk about betrayal? You tell us where Ruth is,’ said James, ‘and I might not kill you. Mind, I’m making no promises.’
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‘Nah, mate, chokin’s all right for bastards, but it ain’t gonna make no impression on a bloody bastard,’ explained Bert. In exposition, he punched Neil hard in the stomach. All the wind in him came out in a rush and he doubled over, retching.
‘You may be right,’ said James, doing the same.
‘Then you gotta shame ’em, because bloody bastards ain’t got no balls,’ said Bert. He lifted Neil’s sweating face and slapped him, open handed, across the cheek. ‘Give us our girl back right now,’ he roared. ‘Or Cec is gonna tear you to bits.
He’s not nice like me and he’s very fond of little Ruthie!’
Cec stretched to his full height and patted Neil gently on the shoulder, as if range-finding for a blow. All the defiance drained out of Neil McLeod. ‘I’ll take you there,’ he said.
‘Did I mention,’ said Bert, ‘what we’re gonna do to you if you’ve so much as laid a finger on her?’
Bert occupied the time it took to walk through the circus to the horse lines in telling Neil, in careful, merciless, biologi-cal detail. By the time they arrived at the riggers’ tents, Neil was white and only able to stand because James and Cec were holding him up.
‘In there,’ he gestured.
Bert dived into the tent and they heard his roar of fury. He came out with a handful of cut ropes.
‘She’s not there,’ he said.
‘Are you being clever, Neil?’ asked James. ‘Because if you want any mercy, cleverness is not going to get it, and you are sorely in need of mercy at present. Where is the girl?’
Cec picked Neil up by his shoulders so that he was looking straight into Cec’s face. What he saw there did not reassure him.
Hebridean ancestors of his had seen eyes like that seconds before a horde destroyed the village. Cec only needed a winged helmet and an axe to be a Viking.
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‘Tell,’ said Cec. Neil babbled.
‘I left her here, sleeping. Just a mickey, nothing harmful.
She was upset and wanting to go home. So I sent her to sleep.
It was only going to be for a little while, I knew Miss Fisher would pay. I tied her hands and feet in case she came round.
Those are my ropes and my knots—Jamie, you know my knots!
Someone has taken her!’
‘Who?’ asked Cec.
‘I don’t know!’ wailed Neil McLeod.
Cec threw him away, disgusted. He flew through the air with the greatest of ease, hit the side of a tent and slid down into a sitting position. Hugh Collins plucked the envelope from his shirt and addressed his unconscious capture.
‘Neil McLeod, also known as Rory McCrimmon, I am arresting you for the crime of kidnapping. You have the right to remain silent, which is what you are doing. Pick him up, if you wouldn’t mind,’ said Hugh to Cec. ‘Jack Robinson isn’t going to be happy about this.’
‘You reckon he told us the truth?’ asked Bert of James, who had the cut ropes in his hands.
‘Yes. These are sailor’s knots and the rope has been cut—
no sailor cuts a bit of good rope. She might have escaped,’ he said. ‘She’s a stout-hearted girl.’
Bert brightened. ‘So she might—she’s clever, our Ruthie. She might even have beaten us home. Let’s get this bloody bastard into a nice safe cell before me feelings get the better of me.’
‘And mine too. He called me a clansman. I’m no clansman of his,’ snarled James Murray.
They left the circus. Phryne and Dulcie saw the proces-sion pass.
‘Now that’s a thing you don’t see every day,’ said Dulcie, a little fuzzily. It was her third gin. Neil lolled over Cec’s shoulder.
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Bert walked behind Cec, carrying his hat. Hugh and James flanked them.
‘No, most unusual,’ replied Phryne.
‘Do you think we ought to tell anyone? That man looks hurt.’
‘Not our business,’ said Phryne. ‘Well, I must leave you, Dulcie. You keep the rest of the bottle,’ she said. ‘And don’t get up. Your hair isn’t dry. See you later,’ breezed Phryne, and ran to catch up with the men as they neared the street.
‘Neil?’ she asked.
‘Neil,’ said Hugh Collins.
‘But where’s Ruth?’ demanded Phryne.
‘Been there. Not there now,’ said Hugh Collins dejectedly.
He did so like rescues and this one had fallen very flat.
‘Someone else stole her?’ asked Phryne.
‘Or maybe she escaped,’ said Bert. ‘The ropes was cut.’
‘A cheering thought,’ said Phryne. ‘Let’s get Mr McLeod out of my reach, shall we? There’s a thing the soldiers taught me with a long thin knife which I’ve always wanted to try on a suitable subject.’
Neil McLeod gave a moan and fainted.
Jack Robinson was pleased at the capture of one blackmailer and downcast at the continuing absence of Ruth.
‘She’d come home if she freed herself,’ said Phryne.
‘Wouldn’t she, Jane?’
‘Yes. I’m almost sure she would,’ said Jane uncertainly. ‘Or she might be so upset that she had been made a fool of that she’d hide somewhere. She has made an awful hash out of all this. It’s a mess,’ said Jane sadly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to Phryne. ‘I should have told you. I shouldn’t have promised to keep that secret.’
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Phryne hugged her and removed the ragged end of Jane’s pigtail from her adoptive daughter’s mouth. ‘It’s all right, Jane, I am not blaming you—really. Don’t you blame yourself either.
You aren’t your sister’s keeper. Guilt is a useless emotion and not to be indulged in. No. I am blaming Neil McLeod and it is rather a pity that Jack took him away so quickly. He might have had more to tell us, if properly persuaded.’ She shut her excellent teeth with a snap.
‘No,’ said Robinson. ‘I’ve met that type before. He spilled everything he knew after the first entirely unavoidable blow sustained in arresting him. He did resist arrest, didn’t he, Collins?’
‘Like anything, sir,’ replied Hugh without the flicker of an eyelash. He stood to attention and saluted, which looked odd with him out of uniform. Dot, who did not usually giggle, giggled.
‘Well, she’s either free and hiding or she’s captive again,’ said Jack. ‘If she’s hiding she’ll come home when she gets hungry—
that’s what my kids always did.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ asked Phryne, aching to be doing something.
‘Wait till tonight before we start looking for her,’ said Robinson. ‘Meanwhile, we’ve got the problem of Rose Weston and what actually happened to her.’
‘What did the pathologist say?’ asked Phryne.
‘Sand in her mouth was sea-sand and it did seem that her face was pressed into the beach, she’s got little scratches all over her face. But then, she’d been in the water at least an hour to get what they call gooseskin—you know, when you’ve been in the bath too long,’ said Robinson, who shared Miss Fisher’s view that almost all human ills could be healed by a long, hot, heavily soaped bath. ‘She’s got rings of bruises round her ankles and wrists, someone might have held her down in the water.
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‘Or grabbed her to throw her off a boat. She can swim, so she might have swum ashore and someone else hit her on the head.’
‘Six of one,’ murmured Phryne
‘And half a dozen of the other,’ finished James.
‘Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice,’ muttered Bert. ‘Well, I reckon we need to find Simonds and Mongrel.
They were on the spot and they might have been hiding her or maybe they snatched her in the first place.’
‘And they’d be happy to beat her to death if they thought she was a threat? Or do you think they might have been paid to kill her? Would they do it?’ asked Phryne.
‘For a zac and a glass of beer,’ affirmed Bert. ‘Bad bastards, them two.’
‘Too right,’ said Cec.
‘What are you thinking?’ James Murray asked Phryne.
‘She was a continuing threat to our good Mr Johnson and nice Grandfather Weston,’ said Phryne slowly. ‘She knew things which they couldn’t allow anyone else to find out. And she was unstable. She might babble. If those two knew that she was associating with Mongrel and Simonds, a few pounds in the right hand and that gets rid of Rose and her dangerous knowledge.’
‘Why did he employ you, then?’ asked Robinson.
‘Oh well, he could expect me to fail, he could be doing it to look good to the police, or maybe Johnson wants her back and Grandpapa is ordering her death. He is perfectly capable of it,’ said Phryne. ‘A really horrible old bastard.’
‘Hmm,’ said Robinson. ‘All right. I’ll order a general search for those two. I won’t put Ruth on the missing list before she has a chance to come home on her own. We need to do a rummage through the criminal classes,’ he said to Hugh. ‘And I’ll take my leave before you start discussing anything which,
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as a serving member of the Victoria Police in good standing, I shouldn’t hear.’
‘Take this,’ said Phryne. ‘This is Rose’s diary. I’ve copied it out—here’s the transcript. I’d like it in a safe place. They might burgle the house for it.’
Robinson flicked through the pages. The spidery beige writing hurt his eyes. Phryne’s transcript was written in black ink in her decided, educated hand. The first line that caught his eye was ‘spent the night with Johnson. Oh, the horror.
How can Grandpa do this? Johnson says he loves me.’
He gave a grunt of disgust, took both the script and the book, and left.
‘Now,’ said Phryne. ‘Where do we start?’
They mapped out a campaign over a few drinks. Dot took notes. Mr Butler provided his considering cocktail. Mrs Butler provided sandwiches.
‘Thing is,’ said Bert, ‘there ain’t that many criminals in Melbourne. I know,’ he said, raising a hand to still a protest from Hugh Collins, ‘there’s a lot of crime. But most of it is strictly amateur, like strangling your missus because you can’t stand her nagging, or crowning your old man with a skillet because you can’t take another beating or you’ve heard him tell you about the cricket once too often. Most crime’s in the family, so to speak. Right?’ he demanded, and Hugh Collins, veteran of a thousand domestic brawls, nodded. He fingered the small circular scar on his forehead which he had sustained from a sauce bottle when, as a young and enthusiastic constable, he had tried to intervene in a picnic which had turned into a brawl. He still felt vaguely aggrieved at the woman who had dealt it.
‘Then there’s the small fry,’ continued Bert, pausing for a refreshing swig of beer. ‘Shoplifters, petty thieves, people
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who bought it from a bloke at the pub and they can’t remember what he looked like, Officer, people who meant to return that radio to the shop and people who were on the way to the police station with that wallet they found when they was caught. Right?’
Hugh nodded again.
‘The main graft in town is in whores, sly grog and in SP
and betting,’ said Bert. ‘Sorry, Miss Dot. I mean ladies of the night, of course.’
‘I know what whores are,’ said Dot. ‘They’re in the bible.
Go on, Mr Bert.’
‘Er . . . right. That’s where all the big money is. Now Cec and me can’t get onto the high class blokes. We ain’t high class.’
‘But I am,’ said Phryne. ‘Tell me who, Bert dear, and I shall interview them.’
‘There’s really only three,’ said Bert, ‘since I don’t reckon we need to look too far afield. Rose Weston lived in Brighton, so does this Johnson, and the action’s happened in St Kilda.
The city’s divided into . . . I dunno what to call ’em . . .’
‘Fiefdoms?’ asked James. ‘Clans?’
‘Spheres of influence?’ asked Jane.
‘Yair,’ said Bert. ‘Everyone has his own patch, right? It’s only when someone gets too big for their boots that there’s trouble between them, see? And everything’s been quiet since Squizzy and Snowy passed on. Now gambling round here belongs to Mr Walker.’
‘The Ace of Clubs?’ said Phryne. ‘The man with the boat?’
‘Yair. That’s the place to be if you want to talk to Mr Walker. But you be careful, my girl,’ warned Bert. ‘He’s a powerful man. All the SPs and pub gamblers pay a percentage to Mr Walker, and he makes sure that there’s no trouble.