Ruddy Gore (20 page)

faint scent of hyacinths. ‘And here is a photograph of the baby,’ said Miss Mobbs.

Phryne turned the photograph of an undistin-guished naked infant lying on a fur rug over and noted that it had been taken by Colonial Photo-graphers, The Strand, London. She passed the photograph to Dot, who liked babies. Phryne always considered that they resembled rabbits in the market when newborn, and uncommonly alcoholic drunks when a little older. Also, despite the pride of their mothers, she could never tell one baby from another, except that some were ugly and some were merely exceptionally plain.

‘Miss Mobbs, to whom did you give Dorothea’s baby?’

‘I . . . can’t recall,’ said the old woman with perfect composure.

‘Miss Mobbs, please. I believe that the baby is in danger. I think someone has found out something – Lord knows what! But there have been two murders and I need to know.’ Miss Mobbs was silent for three minutes. Phryne watched the hand of the ormolu clock give a little shudder as each measured interval died. It was quite silent in the parlour.

‘A family called Pearson,’ said the old woman at last, laying a cold hand on Phryne’s arm. ‘They were emigrants.’

‘Where to?’ Phryne hoped it wasn’t Canada.

‘Australia, of course. Dorothea would have liked that. She was born here, you know. Her father was a failed emigrant, dragged his family back to 197

Wapping and drank himself into his grave – and not before time, either. We brought her back – in a coffin full of hyacinths. She’s buried in Melbourne Cemetery. It’s an elaborate monument –

she would have liked it. It has been a long time since I could walk that far.’

‘Miss Mobbs – can you imagine why Dorothea has come back?’ asked Phryne, and the old woman answered, ‘Why, she’s found out that he killed her.

And she wouldn’t brook anyone killing her, not my fierce Dorothea. She would be a very nasty ghost. She’s come back to hound him to ruin.’

‘Who?’

‘Bernard Tarrant, I expect. I believe that Charles Sheffield drank himself to death years ago. Tarrant’s the only one it could be. But I wouldn’t have thought it of him – I think he really loved her, you know, though it is thirty years and my memory is not good. I thought that she loved him, too. My poor Dorothea.’

‘Who looks after you, Miss Mobbs?’ asked Phryne.

‘A girl comes in every morning,’ she answered with dignity. ‘But I can manage most things. If your companion will do me the favour of filling my kettle that will be all I need. A full kettle is too heavy for me now.’

‘Dot, would you mind? May I borrow this photograph, Miss Mobbs?’

‘If you come back and tell me what happens. I’m very near the edge now – very near – I begin to see the shapes and the lights over the water, over 198

the deep river that divides life and death. I expect soon to see some people I’ve been waiting for, waiting all these weary years. My mother told me that only the dying see ghosts. But I’d love to see her . . . to see Dorothea . . . again . . . ’

The head drooped back against the back of the chair. Phryne stowed the photograph and went into the kitchen, which was also immaculate, cold, and clean.

‘No wonder she can’t handle that kettle, it weighs a ton,’ said Dot, banking the slow combustion stove and rattling the fender until the flames subsided. ‘There, that’ll be hot come teatime. How is Miss Mobbs?’

‘She’s asleep,’ said Phryne. ‘We’d better go, we’re tiring her out.’

‘Miss Mobbs,’ said Dot, ‘we’re going now. But we’ll come back and tell you what happens.’ Miss Mobbs muttered an assent and they left the house.

‘Lockets and missing babies,’ said Phryne as they got into the cherry-red car and she pressed the self-starter. ‘Dot, I have the strangest feeling that I’m caught up in a Gilbert and Sullivan plot.’

199

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Did ever maiden wake

From dream of homely duty

To find her daylight break

With such exceeding beauty?

The Pirates of Penzance
, Gilbert and Sullivan MEANWHILE AND regardless of ghosts, there was a bath, and the necessity to dress for dinner. It was Thursday and a certain young Chinese man was coming to dine and, with any luck, to explain.

Phryne poured a generous dollop of essence, which smelt bewitchingly of chestnut blossoms, into her deep bath and lay back in the hot water, thinking.

If Gwilym Evans was not Dorothea’s child, and it seemed unlikely in view of what Miss Mobbs had said about the destination of the adoptive parents, then baby Pearson was not involved in the problems at the Maj, which came as a relief.

Phryne hoped that Dorothea’s child had taken up 200

a nice safe trade like plumbing, preferably in Tierra del Fuego or even Yarraville, and had never been tempted near a playhouse.

Herbert had put the dye in the whisky and Leila had secreted her own gloves. Either Miss Webb or Miss Wiltshire – thinking it over, Phryne favoured Miss Wiltshire as having a much sorer heart – had arranged the meeting of the two rivals and had undoubtedly hoped to watch the taller and stronger Dupont beat the faithless Gwil to a pulp.

Phryne could only applaud this attempt to extract something out of his hide.

However. She rubbed languidly at her knees with the sponge and considered further. If Leila was hiding her gloves then perhaps she had also torn up her own telegram and done the other things. She could certainly have stolen the bag and planted it on Selwyn Alexander – but why? And why Selwyn Alexander?

This she could not answer. She wondered if she could find a suitable alienist to diagnose the actress as having dementia praecox, which was the only motivation Phryne could see, and ducked her head under the warm green water.

By the time she came up she had hurled all the problems relating to the Maj into storage, whence she could retrieve them when she needed to consider them again.

‘Is this a . . . nice young man, Miss?’ asked Dot, supplying underwear of the finest washing silk.

‘Oh, no, Dot, not you too.’ Phryne was at a loss dealing with those who considered other races to 201

be inferior. She herself dealt with everyone from an attitude of effortless superiority, but there were no ranks in the rest of humanity. To Phryne, a stupid Englishman was just as much an affront to her as an obstructive Hindu or a foolish Greek.

And while the world was positively littered with beautiful men of all races Phryne thought that it would be criminal to neglect one because he happened to be of a different hue.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss.’

‘You don’t consider the Chinese to be savages?’

‘No, Miss. Just different,’ said Dot innocently.

‘But they’re heathens. We send them missionaries.’

‘This one has certainly been to university, Dot.

Despite that, I doubt he’s a heathen.’

‘Well, that’s all right then, Miss. Only I thought I saw a Chinese watching the house.’

‘When?’

Phryne sat down to pull on her black stockings.

‘Last night, Miss.’

‘Yes, I saw him too. I think this has something to do with that fight that Bunji and I dived into.

They haven’t made any threatening moves, Dot dear, and I’d rather like to know what we have got ourselves into before we go calling the cops.

I’m expecting that Mr Lin will be able to explain.

If not, then I will have to do something – I can’t have an escort everywhere I go.’ She stood up and Dot dropped the dress over her head.

Phryne turned to the mirror and saw a perfectly simple, perfectly plain gown of draped black creˆpe, which had cost a crown princess’s ransom. Her 202

neat head was crowned with a fillet of twisted silver wire, from which depended one black ostrich feather that curled down almost to her shoulder.

She made up her face with speed and efficiency and blew a kiss to her reflection.

‘Not too severe, Dot?’

‘No, Miss.’ Dot summoned up her laboriously learned French. ‘
Chic. Très chic
.’

‘
Bon
,’ said Phryne, flicking the feather back.

‘Now, a little scent and down we go. Your accent really has improved. Dot. You’ve been practising.’

‘Hugh,’ said Dot, blushing. ‘He learned French at school and he’s better than me, so we talk.’

Phryne wondered what they talked about, Dot and her large and delightful police constable –

French being notoriously the language of love and confidences – but firmly did not ask.

Lin Chung, waiting in the parlour, heard a step on the carpeted stair and turned quickly, then was frozen in his place.

Descending was the silver lady, all in black which caught no light. Her gown draped over breast and hip, artfully suggesting the body underneath. He was struck again by how Chinese she looked, except that she could never be Chinese.

She was altogether unique and other.

Following her was a young woman who made no impression on him at all.

Phryne extended a hand, laden with a heavy silver ring, and he kissed it.

He was very good-looking, she thought, and well-mannered as he ushered her through the 203

dining room door and stood until she was seated.

On the other hand he was not talking at all and she did not want to have so great an effect that she rendered her guest mute.

As Mrs Butler’s excellent bouillon was served, she said, ‘Tell me, what should I call you? If you are Lin Chung then you ought to be Mr Lin, I suppose.’

‘That is correct, Miss Fisher.’ His voice was very English. ‘But all the fellows at school called me Lin, Chinese customs being beyond them. I would be honoured if you would do the same.’

The dark eyes bent on her, leaning over to touch the very end of the black feather. ‘You are very beautiful, Miss Fisher. I thought you so when I saw you swooping to my rescue in the lane, but now . . . ’

‘Now?’

‘You could almost be one of my own people,’

he said, trying desperately not to give offence. ‘The Manchu princesses had your carriage, the proud set of your head, and they had black hair and red mouth like you. But you have green eyes, and there is more colour in your hair, and yet . . . ’ He dried up again. Phryne decided that she could not get through dinner on compliments and said, taking up her spoon, ‘How did you come to be at school in England?’

‘Ah, well, my father is a follower of Sun Yat Sen. He believes in education. I was born here, Miss Fisher, and was sent to Cambridge to study. Then I went to live in Shanghai to practise 204

my Cantonese and to learn . . . what may be learned in Shanghai.’

Phryne grinned. She had been to that notoriously wicked place on a cruise, and remembered the quasi-Western hotels, the walks along the Bund, the glittering dresses on the pretty girls for which the city was famous, and dancing the foxtrot in the Star Ballroom. And the slim young men in Western dress, avid for Western ways and Western women. Somehow she had avoided involvement, but they had been undeniably attractive. In fact, she was wearing, in honour of Lin Chung’s visit, the silver ring she had bought in Shanghai’s most exclusive jewellery shop.

With a shock, she also remembered a sign in the private park belonging to one of the embassies.

‘No dogs or Chinese allowed.’ Or was that Hong Kong? She felt a pang of shame that she had not even torn down the sign and jumped on it.

‘China is a very old country, Miss Fisher,’ Lin Chung was continuing. ‘That does not mean that it is always wise. The pattern of history has been that the mandate of Heaven is withdrawn from a corrupt dynasty, a new regime takes over and the new destroys the old. Then it becomes old and wicked in its turn and is again invaded and destroyed. Western interference during the rebellion of Righteous Fists kept the Manchu on the throne when they should have been swept aside.

That was bad for China. Now Japan is threatening us again – our old enemy – and where will help come from? In any case China has only ever 205

depended on itself. My family came here when we still called Australia the Second Gold Mountain.’

‘What was that?’

‘The gold rush, Miss Fisher. The First Gold Mountain was California. We have been here ever since.’

‘All that time?’

‘Indeed. We try not to attract attention, Miss Fisher. Safety lies, the Elders taught us, in proper behaviour and in care. There were anti-Chinese riots during that gold rush and many of us died.

There was an upsurge of nationalism in the 1890s, prompted by the
Bulletin
crowd, who said that they wanted a white Australia, though most Australians are white in the way that white elephants are white, and there might have been riots then, too. So we are always careful. We do not display our wealth. We try not to directly compete with Australians.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You have seen the hawkers in the city?’

Phryne recalled a man in a collarless shirt and felt hat with a yoke over his shoulders, walking down beside the Queen Victoria hospital. ‘Yes, I have.’

‘What do they sell to the factories and the shops?’

‘Tea and ginger and roasted peanuts. I buy them when I am shopping, sometimes. They warm the hands.’ She recalled clutching cold fingers around the hot peanuts in their little paper bag. Delicious.

‘And what do the barrows in the city sell?’

206

‘Fruit and flowers.’

‘Yes. We do not compete unless we have to. We import most of the the tropical fruit in Melbourne; we also grow very good vegetables. These we trade in direct markets. Even there some people call us dirty yellow scum and complain that we are under-cutting their prices. My family, Miss Fisher, imports silk and porcelain. Others import paper products, china, and fancygoods, mainly to supply Chinese families already here. We try never to come up flat against opposition, because that is not the way to survive, and above all things we are required to survive.’

‘I see.’ Mr Butler brought in a fricassee of veal and attendant vegetables. Phryne continued, ‘Tell me, Mr Lin, what did Bunji and I interrupt in Little Bourke Street the other night?’

He smiled nervously. ‘Merely a family quarrel.