The Green Mill Murder (16 page)

Mr Butler had arrived in the nick of time, as Phryne’s explanation was becoming too explicit. Dot nodded and blushed.

‘Shell Oil, Miss, to convey the message that fuel will be waiting at Mansfield and at Talbotville on Friday.’

‘Super.’

‘Also, Hilliers have delivered a large box of chocolates.’

‘Good.’

Mr Butler cast a curious glance at the rubber tube, which Dot had thrust under a cushion, and took his leave.

‘Well, Dot?’

‘A very useful idea, Miss. Handy to take on a picnic, as the little girl said when she saw her brother peeing against a tree. There is a hole in your trousers, Miss, looks like a cigarette burn. Shall I mend it?’

‘Yes please, Dot.’

‘All the rest of the gear is in good condition, though the boots are wearing through on the outside edges. I reckon they’ll make one more flight. What do you want to pack, Miss?’

Dot was bearing up bravely under her fears for Phryne, and the least Phryne could do was cooperate.

‘Very little, Dot, weight is always a consideration in the air. Some undies and another shirt. That will do, I think. Cigarettes, of course, money, the little gun . . .’

‘You are expecting trouble?’

‘Only from passing snakes, Dot, don’t fret.’ Phryne did not mention that it was not unusual for pilots to carry a gun. It was generally thought that if one was crashing in a burning plane, one might have time for a suitable suicide. Phryne, in her earth-bound moments, considered it unlikely that in such a situation one would have the presence of mind to find, load, and fire a pistol, but airborne, the presence of the gun was comforting.

‘When are you leaving, Miss?’

‘Friday. I have to allow time for the oil company to convey my fuel. And it depends on the weather. Apparently there is a weather station of sorts on Buller; I shall be able to consult it when I get to Mansfield. I may be away for three days, Dot, or it may be a week or more, if the weather turns nasty in the mountains. You will go to that ball, Dot, and wear the sunrise dress?’

‘Yes, Miss.’ Dot’s voice sounded flat.

‘You promise?’

‘Yes, Miss, I promise.’ Dot added, ‘If you will be careful.’

‘I’ll be careful.’

‘Promise?’ Dot turned to glare at Phryne.

Phryne sighed. ‘Promise.’

She was studying the maps and
Regulations of the Operation of
Aircraft
(1920) after dinner that night when Iris Jordan was announced.

Iris swept in, radiating health as usual, pushing a frail girl
before her. ‘I thought you might like to see how Miss King was getting on,’ she announced. Phryne jumped to her feet.

‘Miss King! You are walking again!’

Miss King blushed, smiled, and demonstrated, walking to the end of the parlour and back with only a slight stiffness to betray the fact that she had almost danced herself into paralysis.

‘Very good, very good indeed! Miss Jordan, you are amazing.’

‘It was nothing. A matter of working with the body, not against it. If she had not been wearing a Louis heel we should have been all better yesterday. However, a little more work and Miss King’s cooperation and we shall have her dancing at her own wedding.’

Clearly the relationship between masseuse and massaged had become close.

‘Do sit down, ladies, and have some tea, or perhaps a drink?’

‘I can’t, Miss Fisher, thanks ever so, but Percy is waiting outside,’ said Miss King, blushing again. ‘We’ve got . . .’

‘. . . the car?’ finished Phryne. ‘Let’s go and have a look, then.’

She escorted Violet King down the steps, which she took like a two-year-old, and surveyed the bright white Austin. Percy McPhee was standing next to it, smoking a gasper which he threw away as soon as he saw Miss Fisher approaching.

‘Well, Mr McPhee, what a nice little car, and so new!’

‘Er, thanks, Miss Fisher, they delivered it today. You must have really put the frighteners on them, they registered it and all. I was saving up for the registration, now we’ve got some extra lolly. And Miss Jordan has been kind enough to unkink my legs, too, so we’re off to get married on Saturday and we’d like you to come to the wedding.’

‘Sorry, Mr McPhee, I’m flying off on Friday and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Thanks for the invitation. Is the exchange all made, then?’

‘I drove up yesterday and arranged it all. Bloke wants to start right off. He’s got a horse and cart so we’ll swap at my dad’s place, he can go to Queensland and we’ll have transport to the farm. Bonzer place. He just put in a hundred new pear trees. Cows are all in milk.’

Percy McPhee’s eyes were bright for a man who must have driven half a day to get to the farm and half a day back. Violet leaned on his shoulder with an expression of lamb-like trust which Phryne found very touching.

‘Well, good luck, then, and have a good journey,’ she said, stepping back. Percy McPhee grabbed her hand and Violet kissed her.

‘We couldn’t never have done it without you,’ said Violet.

‘No, my dears, you did it yourselves, by dancing yourselves to a nub.’

‘I wish we could do something for you,’ said Violet wistfully.

‘Oh, you can, you can,’ said Phryne quickly, aware of the burden which gratitude could be. ‘Do you have white peaches?’ Percy McPhee nodded. ‘They are my favourite fruit, I can never get enough of them, and most of the fruiterers prefer cling peaches. Send me a case of white peaches when they are next ripe. I have always wanted to have enough white peaches to bathe in. Goodbye,’ she added. Percy started the engine carefully and pulled away from the pavement.

Iris Jordan and Phryne watched the terribly new, bright little car drive away.

‘Well, that’s one happy ending,’ said Phryne. ‘Pity the others don’t work out so neatly. Come in, Miss Jordan, unless you are in a hurry?’

‘No, I’m not in a hurry. I just wanted to show you how Miss King had recovered. And to talk about . . .’

‘Yes, quite. But not on the street.’

Phryne seated her guest in the softest armchair and provided her with freshly squeezed orange juice, at her request. Iris coughed, took a sip of juice, started to speak, took another sip and finally said, ‘You know who did that murder, don’t you?’

Phryne nodded.

‘How can you just leave it like that?’ cried Iris, her ruddy complexion paling.

‘Why not? I’m not the Masked Avenger of the penny novel. I have no particular interest in Truth or Justice. I haven’t even got a good definition of Truth or Justice. There are always redeeming features. Bernard Stevens, the victim, was an unpleasant little person with a talent for blackmail. Because of Stevens’ death, I managed to avert a scandal which would have destroyed an innocent party; well, relatively innocent. Because Stevens died, McPhee and King won the dance competition and, possibly, their chance at happiness. On the other hand, presumably someone loved and will miss Stevens.’

‘But, you leave it.’

‘For the moment. As I see it, it is someone else’s problem.’

‘I should have stuck to massage.’ Iris rubbed her forehead. ‘Massage is simple. Just a matter of knowing how the muscles and nerves work, and encouraging them to heal. People are so complicated!’

‘Now, I’m going off flying on Friday. When I get back I will Tell All.’

Iris set down her glass and rose effortlessly to her feet from the depths of the chair.

‘It’s a mess, isn’t it?’ she asked sadly.

‘Yes.’ Phryne patted her muscular shoulder. ‘It is a mess, all right.’

CHAPTER TEN

When constabulary duty’s to be done,
to be done,

A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.

Gilbert and Sullivan
Pirates of Penzance

Thursday dawned bright and clear. Phryne sniffed the air delightedly as she took a morning walk along the seashore. No one on the beach but herself and a selection of the cleanest seagullNo one on the beach but herself and a selection of the cleanest seagulls she had ever seen. They followed her in swooping, squabbling curves, snatching up the bread she threw. She watched them with quiet pleasure. Ah, to fly like a gull, to feel the wind under her own flesh-and-feather wings, the lift, the swoop, the pressure of the air! A group of pelicans spiralled into an updraft, looping and gliding with unstudied grace. Phryne threw the remains of the bread to the gulls and reflected that it had been too long since she had flown. Even the presence of a noisy engine and the stench of oil and aeroplane dope and canvas could not detract from the intoxicating pleasure of flying above the world when all others were forced to crawl like ants on the surface.

Dot was packing the small case, hoping not to find anything more which might challenge her modesty.

‘What’s this? Darning needles and string?’

‘Yes, to sew on a patch. That tin is aircraft dope, don’t open it.’

‘But, Miss, you can’t sew!’ Phryne’s inability to embroider was legendary.

‘All you need to repair a plane is herringbone stitch, Dot, and I learned that from Irish Michael at the RFC base in England. It was near my school. I didn’t learn to embroider because I couldn’t see any point in it, but it’s different when there is a reason. If you want any herringbone stitched, I’m your woman.’

Dot folded a piece of canvas carefully and packed it around the miscellaneous contents. Spark plugs, a spanner, some spare undies, some compounded chocolate and raisins, a flask of brandy, needle and thread, aircraft dope, a powder compact, two screwdrivers and a nail file, a spare pair of socks and a silk stocking.

‘Why the stocking?’

‘Filter for aviation fuel,’ said Phryne. ‘Well, that’s everything. I’m going to study my maps again, Dot.’

North and east to Mansfield, Phryne considered, should not present too many problems. Up and over Kinglake and bearing east for Lake Eildon, which looked to be a sizeable bit of water, and Mansfield at the end of the top spur of the lake. It was after Mansfield that the flying would become dangerous. Some of the alps were over six thousand feet high. Air began to get thin up there, and it would be punishingly cold. Lumpy country, Bunji had said; lumpy meant lethal. Bunji had flown over the Himalayas, the roof of the world, and lived, but Phryne knew that Bunji was a much more skilled flier than she would ever be.

Nevertheless, Phryne was not in the mood to trek on packhorse at ten miles an hour across all that mountainous wilderness. People lived there. They must know the ways in and out. And all she needed for success was a cool head and a clear day. Over Buller would be best, she thought, counting the peaks; then fly between Speculation and Mount Howitt and follow the river valley of the Wonnangatta, turn sharp east across Mount Cynthia and Crooked River and down to Talbotville. She found the newsletter which Bunji had given her and settled down to read.

‘Hmm,’ she said aloud after five minutes. ‘Gold, eh? I thought all the gold rushes were to Bendigo and Ballarat and central Victoria. It just shows how much they didn’t tell me at school. I always suspected it.’ She read on. Gold had been found in Crooked River and Black Snake Creek; alluvial gold, close to the surface. There had been a rush and several towns were established: Grant, Howittville, Crooked River, Hogtown, Winchester, Mayfair. All of them had been deserted when the gold ran out, except Grant, which closed down in 1923 when the post office (Prop. Albert Stout) moved to Talbotville, the only gold town still in operation in the area. She saw that Talbotville was on the Crooked River, next east from Wonnangatta.

‘And, by the look of it, it’s the only town at all before Dargo,’ commented Phryne. ‘I wish this print were clearer! Talbotville seems to be the depot for all of this huge mountainous area! How isolated they must be, the settlers out there in—what did young Victor call it? The great silence. What lovely names they had for the reefs! Rose of Australia, Great Western, Morning Star, Good Hope, Pioneer, St Leger, Moonlight!’

Phryne dined alone and went to sleep, wondering about a gold reef called Moonlight.

Friday morning was cool and when Phryne arose and looked over the sea there was not a cloud in the sky.

The phone rang while she was breakfasting on kedgeree, toast, fried eggs and muffins. The prospect of danger always made her hungry.

‘Detective Inspector Robinson, Miss Fisher.’

Phryne took a quick gulp of coffee and went to the receiver. ‘Good morning, Jack!’ she said brightly.

‘Rang you to say that we are releasing your friend Charles Freeman.’ The policman’s voice was cold. ‘Thanks and all for finding him, but he couldn’t have done it. Two witnesses place him too far from the body.’

‘Oh, well, sorry about that, Jack dear.’

‘You know more about this than meets the eye, Miss Fisher. Now look, I been a good friend to you. I handed over them dirty pictures to get your nancy-boy off the hook, when I could have given ’em to Vice, and I should have, too. If you know who did this you could at least be a mate and tell me.’

‘Not now, Jack. I’m flying off to Gippsland today.’