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Praise for Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series
‘Deft, sharply observed, funny, refreshingly ghoulish at times and, after a prolonged tease, surprisingly sexy.’
The Sydney Morning Herald
‘Greenwood's strength lies in her ability to create characters that are wholly satisfying: the bad guys are bad, and the good guys are great.’
Vogue
‘Nobody does this better than Greenwood.’
The Age
‘Phryne Fisher is the souffle course of the gourmet detective dinner. A consummately light and airy confection which entrances the moment and sweetly vanishes, it is the evanes-cent product of considerable artistry.’
The Adelaide Advertiser
‘Scented, dangerous, and highly enjoyable.’
The Weekend Australian
‘A joy to read.’
Newcastle Herald
‘Independent, wealthy, spirited and possessed of an uninhib-ited style that makes every one move out of her way and stand gawking a full five minutes after she walks by – Phryne Fisher is a woman who gets what she wants and has the good sense to enjoy every minute of it! Dipping back into the Phryne books is like returning to an old friend, the like of which I have never met, but would desperately love to.’
The Geelong Times
‘Greenwood is a gifted storyteller with a light, sharp touch.’
Australian Book Review
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Ruddy Gore Prelims & Ads 1/3/04 1:12 PM Page ii KERRY GREENWOOD is the author of twenty-seven novels and the editor of two collections.
Previous novels in the Phryne Fisher series are
Cocaine Blues
,
Flying too High
,
Murder on the
Ballarat Train
,
Death at Victoria Dock
,
The
Green Mill Murder, Blood and Circuses
,
Ruddy
Gore
,
Urn Burial
,
Raisins and Almonds
,
Death
Before Wicket
,
Away with the Fairies
,
Murder in
Montparnasse
and
The Castlemaine Murders
.
She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series.
When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates’ Courts for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.
Ruddy Gore
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Ruddy Gore Prelims & Ads 1/3/04 1:12 PM Page iii RUDDY GORE
A Phryne Fisher
Mystery
Kerry Greenwood
Ruddy Gore
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Ruddy Gore Prelims & Ads 1/3/04 1:12 PM Page iv This edition published in 2004
First published in 1995 by McPhee Gribble Publishers Copyright © Kerry Greenwood 1995
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The
Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax:
(61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web:
www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Greenwood, Kerry.
Ruddy Gore.
ISBN 1 74114 314 4.
I. Title. (Series: Phryne Fisher).
A823.3
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Ruddy Gore
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To my sister Janet Greenwood,
for her courage and her delightful spirit.
Ruddy Gore
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Ruddy Gore Prelims & Ads 1/3/04 1:12 PM Page vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With thanks to Jean Greenwood of the tireless feet, Foong Ling Kong, Jenny Pausacker, Richard Revill, David Greagg, Themmy Gardner (ol’ pal, ol’ buddy), Laurie (cariad) Horner, Matthew Gordon-Clark and the inimitable Jan Gordon-Clark, Tim Daly, Dr Andrea Walker, Brian Di Caffa, Sarah Jane Reeh, Stuart Reeh, Arnold Pears, the memory of my great-uncle Gwilym Davies, the Chinese Museum, the Performing Arts Museum, the management of Her Majesty’s Theatre and the archives of the Victoria Police.
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‘They do it with mirrors, my boy.’
Colonel Pewter in Ironicus,
Arthur Horner Ruddy Gore
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Ruddy Gore Prelims & Ads 1/3/04 1:12 PM Page viii Please note that all Chinese names in this book are derived from the sixteenth-century classic
Outlaws of
the Marsh
. The 1928 cast of
Ruddigore
did not include any murderers. No identification with any persons alive or dead is intended or should be inferred.
Ruddy Gore
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CHAPTER ONE
‘How’s
Bloodygore
?’
‘It’s
Ruddigore
.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it?’
‘Does that mean when I say I admire your ruddy countenance, it means I like your bloody cheek?’
Conversation with W. S. Gilbert (attrib.) THE HATCHET flicked past, end over end, and struck a wooden shutter with a hollow thud. Light gleamed along the polished blade.
Phryne Fisher closed a leather-gloved hand on the handle and extracted it with one strong pull. She hefted it. An admirable weapon, well-balanced, not too heavy, wickedly sharp.
‘Were you trying to attract my attention?’ she asked politely.
An Asian face turned to her out of the mass of struggling bodies. He saw the black hair and pale face, the body shining silver like a Taoist goddess, and screamed at her, ‘
Jau
!’
This meant nothing to Phryne, who had seen an 1
old woman go down without a cry under three attackers clad in dark blue. Little Bourke Street was chill, empty and dark. Sodium glare from the widely spaced street lights turned every puddle on the slick cobbles into a mirror and left black velvet pools of night in between.
In one of these some sort of street fight was occurring. Phryne was on her way to a gala performance of
Ruddigore
at His Majesty’s in celebration of Bert Hinkler’s triumphant flight. She was beginning to wonder whether taking a short cut had been such a good idea as it had seemed ten minutes before.
Bunji Ross gasped, ‘There’s an old lady in that crowd of Chink blighters!’ She ran toward the fight and vanished into it like a fly in a frog’s mouth. Something would have to be done.
Phryne stepped lightly to a corner, yelled, ‘The cops!’ and watched as two blue-clad toughs scram-bled up and ran away. The other one stopped to kick the recumbent old woman again, and Phryne could not allow that. He had had his chance. She walked quickly up behind him, waited until his head was in the right position, and clipped him neatly with the hatchet, considerately using the back. She was clad in an outrageously expensive dress and did not want to get blood on it.
He collapsed with a satisfactory moan. A returning blue-clad person grabbed him and dragged him off. The soft scrabbling footsteps died away and Phryne hauled Bunji up by the arm. She was much disarrayed but seemed uninjured.
2
Phryne brushed Bunji down, found her hat, and said, ‘I wish you weren’t so hasty, Bunji dear. This looks like a private fight, you know. And that is –
it was – a rather nice new dress.’
‘Yes, yes, and I’m sorry about the dress old thing, but we can’t allow old ladies to be attacked.
It might start a fashion,’ panted Bunji, rubbing her midsection. ‘Ooh, drat, that hurts! One of those thugs punched me in the stomach. Don’t they know you aren’t supposed to hit a woman? I got him a good one, though. He’ll know how I feel about this sort of thing.’
‘Unchivalrous in the extreme,’ agreed Phryne, sighing. Bunji Ross, who was good friend and a brave and determined flyer, was very hard on clothes. Since everything that Phryne had ever lent her had come back ruined, Phryne had paid for a new dress for her short plump companion. It had been a flowing but restrained dark plum velvet sacque with matching hat and shoes, but a roll in the gutters of Little Bourke Street had not improved it. Bunji was wet and muddy and had holed both her stockings.
The young man got to his feet, supporting the old woman. She straightened slowly, wiping a shaking hand over her bruised face, then fastened her eyes on Phryne.
She saw a small woman dressed in silver; a brocade dress which fitted close to her slim body, a cap of the same material with wings at each side, and on her small feet silver kid boots with wings at the ankle. Over the dress, she was draped in a 3
flowing velvet coat with a yoke of brocade. She had a pale face and startling green eyes, and black hair barely longer than the cap. The hatchet swung loosely in her gloved hand. The old woman, creak-ing in all her joints, bowed. It was possible, she considered, that she had been rescued by a spirit, doubtless sent by the ancestors.
The young man, who knew that there were no spirits, saw through his one functioning eye a woman of surpassing otherness, immensely attractive, supremely alive and shining from head to heel.
Phryne abandoned the attempt to make Bunji elegant and decided that she would be acceptable if most of the mud was removed. Someone spoke to her and she turned.
‘
Ngo zhang lei koh yan cheng
,’ said the old woman, speaking to Phryne’s knees in a soft, cultured voice.
‘My grandmother thanks you,’ said the young man. ‘She says that we are deeply in your debt, Madame.’
‘Not at all,’ said Phryne. ‘Is your grandmother hurt?’
‘She says it is nothing to signify,’ the young man bowed in turn. ‘I am Lin Chung; it is the Lin family you have rescued in so timely a fashion.’
His accent, to her astonishment, was pure Eton and Oxford. Phryne took the offered hand and looked appreciatively at him. She could not tell if he was handsome, as the recent altercation had split his lip and blackened his eye. However, he 4
was not much taller than herself, beautifully compact and sleek, the hand in her own strong but gentle. She was intrigued.
‘Mr Lin, I have an engagement at the theatre. I really must restore my friend to respectability –
can you provide us with a wash and brush up?’
He nodded and walked to a nearby door. It opened to his tap and the old woman hobbled inside.
‘I say, Phryne, is this safe?’ whispered Bunji.
‘They aren’t white slavers or something, are they?’
It was too dark for Phryne’s withering glare to have any effect, so she settled for saying, ‘Don’t be so silly, Bunji. Besides, I’ve still got this hatchet.’
They were in an anteroom to a warehouse, piled with bundles which oozed such pungent and alien scents that Phryne sniffed with delight. Saffron, she was sure; but what was that strange antiseptic reek, and what on earth could anyone use those evil-looking dried eels for?
‘In here, if you please, Madame,’ said Lin Chung. ‘I will send someone to attend you.’
He conducted Phryne and Bunji into a small room of such elegance that Bunji exclaimed, ‘By Jove!’ and Phryne gasped.
The walls were hung with red silk – bolts of it must have gone into the decoration. It was figured with small medallions of thread which, from the soft gleam, Phryne decided must be pure gold.
Bunji stood on a priceless silk carpet carved with phoenixes and did not dare to move.
5
‘I say,’ she whispered, ‘what have we got ourselves into?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s very pretty.’
A door opened in the silk-clad wall and a young woman as distant and aloof as a porcelain doll entered. With her came a stout elderly woman in a print dress and apron.
Unspeaking, the woman and the girl laid a sheet on the floor, poured hot water into a huge T’ang bowl decorated with horses, and produced fluffy towels and soap. They divested Bunji of her dress, which was taken by an unseen person outside the door, and then dabbed gently at the mud stains and a small graze on Bunji’s knuckles.
Bunji stood in exquisite embarrassment, not wishing to interrupt what appeared to be a ritual, as she was cleansed, dried, and provided with new stockings and wrapped in a padded silk gown.
While the old woman took the washing things away, the girl produced a decanter and poured a stiff brandy for each woman, still mute. She looked about sixteen and had evidently been in bed, for her waist length hair was still in its night-time plait. Phryne accepted the glass and said,
‘Hello.’
The girl looked at her for the first time.
‘Hello,’ she replied sulkily. ‘Is this the sort of thing you drink? Only Grandmother said to look after you because you rescued her and I’ll get into trouble if it isn’t right.’
‘It’s just what we wanted. Thank you. What’s your name?’
6
‘Here they call me Annie. I’ll go and get the dress. Po Po’s maid is cleaning it.’
‘Annie, what did we interfere in?’
‘I can’t tell you.’ The composure broke and Annie’s black eyes flashed. ‘I’m not going to tell you. Why did you have to come along just then?’
‘Fate,’ said Phryne, nettled. ‘Can you find a safe place for this?’ She handed over the hatchet. Annie took it.
‘Grandmother wants her address,’ she pointed to Bunji.
‘Oh, why?’ Bunji’s thoughts had clearly turned to white slaving again.
‘So that she can send you a present. To thank you for rescuing her.’