The Green Mill Murder (12 page)

‘Least I could do, mate, after you kept the bullets off me,’ said Cec laconically, and Bert laughed.

‘I don’t remember nothing about it until I was in a clearing station and the doctor was telling Cec, “I’m sorry, he’s dead.” Cec went blue and fell over me, and the doc thought he had two corpses on his hands. He got the shock of his life when I swore at him. They sent us back to England.’

‘You remember what you said when we was in the ambulance?’ asked Cec. Bert chuckled. ‘He was lying there under about a ton of field dressings and he beckoned me to come closer and he said, “No fair, mate, those bastards are using live ammunition.” I nearly laughed meself into another heart attack.’

‘Yair, so they put us on a hospital ship. We stayed in London for a while until they said that me knee would always be dicky and I couldn’t march on it, and that Cec had soldier’s heart and might pop off any moment. Thanks a lot, you blokes, they said, you might as well go home. So we came home.’

‘And Poziéres?’

‘Bad,’ said Bert. ‘We saw ’em come into the hospital, before they sent the poor bastards off to the loony bin. Barmy. Some of ’em were deaf, dumb or blind, though they didn’t have a scratch. Some of ’em had visions. The shell-shock blokes couldn’t stand noise. They’d go off pop if they heard a truck backfire. But your bloke’d be all right out in the bush, there ain’t much noise bar the odd thunderstorm. If he was alive after the war then chances are he’s still alive. Well, that was the Great War. Roll up, roll up, and get your block knocked off. But we won,’ said Bert. ‘Australia will be there. Even if it was a capitalist plot, which it was. Eh, Cec?’

‘I still feel bad about it,’ said Cec softly. ‘Leaving them there. Our mates. On that damned cliff.’

‘Yair,’ agreed Bert. He drank his beer in silence.

‘Let us talk about something more cheerful,’ suggested Phryne. ‘How is the taxi business?’

‘Good,’ said Cec. ‘Since the waterfront is still on strike we’ve been working double shifts. The clients like the bonzer new cab.’

Later, as Phryne farewelled her guests at the door, Bert was struck by a sudden thought.

‘You be careful,’ he said seriously. ‘Them shell-shock patients could turn very nasty. And strong! If you need to find him, maybe you’d better take a gun.’

‘To defend myself?’

‘To put the poor bugger out of his misery. Beg pardon. Padre always told me me language was sulphurous. But you shoulda heard him when he fell in a shell-hole! ’Night, thanks for dinner.’ Bert and Cec left.

Phryne, shaken with horrible images, called for more port and sat down again by the fire.

Dot hung up the sunrise dress on her door, where she could see it from her bed, and fell asleep. Dot’s father and two uncles had been in the Great War. She had heard it all before.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Florence:
It’s not my fault.

Nicky:
Of course it’s your fault, Mother,
who else’s fault could it be?

Noel Coward
The Vortex

The doorbell pealed. Phryne looked at her watch. Eleven o’clock.

‘Charles!’ she exclaimed.

Mr Butler admitted a trembling figure and supplied it with a drink.

‘Charles, there you are at last!’ Phryne saw that Charles had not borne stress well. His normally pink face was white. At some time he had bitten his lip hard enough to draw blood, and his mouth looked swollen and bee-stung. As he put out a hand she noticed that all his fingernails had been gnawed to the quick.

‘You said that I had to come,’ he faltered. ‘So here I am. I suppose they are going to lock me up?’

‘Yes, Charles, for a while. But only until I can find out who really did it. Have another drink and we shall talk. Where have you been?’

‘I spent the first night at a hotel. Then, you won’t believe this, Phryne, but Ben Rodgers has been hiding me.’

‘Ben Rodgers? But you tried to steal his girl! Why should Ben hide you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Charles drained the brandy and soda and held out his glass for another. ‘He’s making arrangements to get me onto a ship, he’s been really helpful. Only a week ago he was threatening to kill me and I thought he meant it. I was scared to death of him. Then he passed the word around that he was willing to help and came and got me from the hotel. I’ve been in his flat. The police had already searched it, you see. I explained about Nerine. The stupid tart had told Ben that I was trying to seduce her. He’s fiendishly jealous. When I explained what I wanted of her, Ben became quite polite. Said he had mistaken my intentions. Also said that Nerine wouldn’t leave his band, which is true. Of course, he despises me. But he’s been very good. If you hadn’t persuaded me to give myself up I would have been on a cargo carrier to New Zealand tonight.’

‘I spoke to Bobby,’ said Phryne, still puzzled by Charles. Every time she spoke to him his character seemed to flicker.

‘And you said that Vic was alive.’

‘Yes. Or he was alive, until 1920. He was in Gippsland. He came back from the war shell-shocked. I don’t know how long he was in Melbourne before he went bush.’

‘Oh, I can tell you how long. About six months. I have always wondered about that interval. My mother kept me away from home for six months in the spring and summer of 1916. That was when she told me that Victor had died. And she never stopped taunting me with him. Vic was brave, I was not—and I’m not. Vic was clever, and I’m not—that’s right again. The only thing I had that Vic didn’t have, apart from being alive, was the business. I’m good at business. My factory makes very good blankets. But blankets are not glory. I suffered because of Vic. And my mother knew that he was alive all that time, the bitch. The conniving old bitch! How could she do that to me?’

‘A good question, to which I don’t know the answer. But there is a further complication. Your father’s will left you the business, and the house and the money to Victor. He never got around to changing it, apparently, or perhaps he knew that Vic was still with us. So Vic must be found, or proved dead. Do you see?’

Charles saw. He tossed down his drink and held out the glass for yet another refill, fizzing with outrage.

‘So it’s not enough that I’m to be accused of a murder I didn’t commit, but Victor must turn up and steal my inheritance! It’s too much! Why does everything always happen to me? Why didn’t he have the grace to die like a hero?’

‘Charles dear, do stop asking unanswerable questions and pay attention. What about the murder of Bernard? Did you know him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you knew that he had incriminating photographs of you?’

‘Yes.’ Charles took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it with a jazz-striped lighter.

‘And you were at the Green Mill to watch him take part in that ghastly dance marathon?’

‘Yes. Mother was nagging at me to go out with you and I thought that as long as I had to go, I might as well see Bernard in the marathon and watch him break a leg, with any luck. But I never have any luck. If someone was going to kill him, and there must have been hundreds of people who wanted him dead as much as I did, why did they have to choose the night I was there? It looks bad, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes. But there are points in your favour. One is the fact that you faint at the sight of blood. The other is the weapon. It still hasn’t been found.’

‘Did they search all those musicians?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because they were all over the body like a rash. Tintagel Stone and Ben.’

‘Yes, but neither had any reason to kill Bernard. Also, they only came down to see what had happened after he fell, and he was dead when he hit the ground.’

‘They’ll hang me, won’t they? The hangman will come up in a mask and put a bag over my head and a noose around my neck and they’ll kill me, they’ll kill me!’

Charles’s voice had risen to a scream. Phryne slapped him, hard, across the cheek. He gaped at her.

‘You hit me!’ he gasped. ‘You
hit
me!’

‘And I will hit you again if you don’t pipe down. You’ll rouse the house. You have overlooked the factor that is going to preserve your miserable life.’

‘What?’ asked Charles, hand still cupping his reddened cheek.

‘Me,’ said Phryne immodestly. ‘I am a vital factor. I will find out what happened and I will get you out.’

Phryne found a gasper and Charles leaned forward to light it.

‘That’s a pretty lighter, I’ve not seen one similar.’

‘Ben made it. He used to be a jeweller. Makes rings and jazz bracelets as well, though not the sort of stuff you’d wear. Nerine likes gold. He gave it to me, I lost mine.’

‘Does Ben know that you are giving yourself up?’

‘No, well, he wasn’t there, so I left him a note.’

‘I see. Well, I’ll just call the cops and get you safely into a nice quiet cell for the night. Now don’t worry, Charles. I will find out who did it and then they will release you.’

‘You promise?’

‘I promise.’

Charles, watery around the eyes but bearing up reasonably well, was taken away half an hour later by a polite but very large sergeant, who agreed that the prisoner should be lodged alone and that Miss Fisher and his family could visit him in the morning. Phryne watched him go with mixed emotions. Who on earth
had
killed the unfortunate and scarcely missed Bernard?

A taxi screeched to a halt, narrowly missing the van which was taking the prisoner away. Ben Rodgers leapt out, scarlet with fury, and raced up the steps.

‘Where’s Charles? Have you got him?’

‘No,’ Phryne replied, moving back a little and getting a grip on the neck of the vase which stood by the door. ‘The police have him. He has given himself up. He didn’t do it.’

‘How do you know?’ snarled the trumpeter. ‘He had reason.’

‘Reason, but no means. And I shall prove it,’ she added, securing the vase in case this brass player lived up to his billing.

‘You will?’ he sneered.

Phryne smiled. ‘I will,’ she said confidently. Ben Rodgers glared his best hundred-watt glare at her, spat at her feet, and ran down the steps again. Only once he was safely in his taxi and gone did Phryne close the door.

‘That being so, I shall put myself to bed. Pity there’s no one in it but me, but there it is.’

Suppressing a pang for the loss of Peter Smith, most passionate of anarchists, she obeyed her own order and was soon asleep.

In the early morning she dreamt about the roses again. A black, shiny snail slithered into the heart of them. Phryne woke, told herself firmly that it was her subconscious trying to tell her something, and went back to sleep to give it another chance.

It appeared to have shot its bolt, however, and she woke at the usual time unenlightened and with the knowledge that she was going to have to visit Mrs Freeman again. This did not improve an already depressing day. The skies wept.

‘Bother, bother, bother!’ exclaimed Dot, as Phryne’s shoelace broke in her hands. ‘It is not going to be a good day, Miss.’

‘I agree. Charles Freeman is in the hands of the cops and I’m going to have to see his revolting mother again to get more information about Victor. Have the photographs come from Jack Robinson?’

‘Yes, Miss.’ Dot tugged at a second lace and it also broke.

‘Perhaps I’ll wear another pair of shoes, Dot,’ said Phryne gently. ‘I don’t seem to be getting on with inanimate objects today. I’ll do a sweep; Mrs F and Bobby. One of them will be pleased to see me.’

Bobby answered the door in his dressing gown.

‘I’ve got a present for you,’ said Phryne, and he snatched at the packet of photographs, clutching them to his bosom.

‘Thank you, Miss Fisher, how can I ever thank you? Since I spoke to you, I feel free of Charles. He’s lost his hold over me. I can’t invite you in. I . . . er . . . have company. Perhaps you’ll dine with me tonight?’

‘I have an engagement,’ Phryne said, smiled, and walked out of his life.

‘Dot was right,’ she said to herself as she turned the car. ‘It is not going to be a good day. But if I’ve missed the gratitude I’ve also missed being wept over again. Ah well. Ho for Mrs Freeman.’ At least it had stopped raining.