The Green Mill Murder (3 page)

Detective Constable North flicked a glance at his superior, who waved a hand, and then padded off to the cloakroom, trying not to squeak.

‘I think we had better be properly introduced,’ said Tintagel Stone, impressed by her standing with the constabulary. ‘I’m Tintagel Stone and these are the Jazz Makers. Ben Rodgers, cornet and trumpet.’ A sullen young man with a fixed cigarette, dark eyes, and a lock of dark hair, Paderewski-like, over one eye. ‘Jim Hyde, trombone.’ A thin, wiry boy with pale hair and eyes who smiled like a slightly blue angel and must, Phryne thought, have lungs like bellows. ‘Iris Jordan on bass.’ A tall, slim, strong young woman who looked so formidably healthy that Phryne wondered what she was doing in jazz, a music redolent of late hours and smoky atmosphers. ‘Clarence Davies on drums.’ A muscular man with slicked-back brown hair, brown eyes, and a rather practised charming grin. ‘Me, on banjo and guitar.’ Tintagel bowed. ‘And Hugh Anderson, saxophone and clarinet.’ A wary smile from a terribly young man with longish brown curly hair who looked like he should not be out so late at night.

‘Didn’t you have a singer when I saw you last?’ asked Phryne idly, wondering what Detective Inspector Robinson was making of the information he was receiving from the lady in puce and her husband. Instantly she knew that she had said something important. The band froze. The only one to move was Iris, who glanced at Ben the trumpeter, and then quickly away.

‘Nerine,’ said Stone at last, with a patently false air of unconcern. ‘She isn’t here tonight.’

‘And why isn’t she?’ asked Ben angrily, flinging down his cigarette and stamping on it, then grinding the ashes into the Green Mill’s expensive parquet. The question did not seem to have received an answer, so Phryne asked it again.

‘Well, why isn’t she?’

‘Arr!’ snarled Ben, and turned away. ‘I’m gonna walk around. They can’t ask a man to stay still this long!’ He put down the cornet with loving care and flung off to circle the great ballroom, stalking like a caged creature. Phryne reflected that if Signor Antonio ever required lions for a Colosseum show, Ben would make a good acquisition.

‘Don’t pay any attention,’ advised Iris, dragging a strong hand through her short blonde hair. ‘He’s not a bad old cuss but he’s a trumpeter, and you know what they are like.’

The others nodded, as though at some received wisdom. Phryne didn’t know what trumpeters were like, but she was willing to learn.

‘What are they like?’

‘They reckon that the brain gets starved of oxygen because they blow so hard.’ Tintagel smiled. ‘So they get bad-tempered and niggly. It’s a showy instrument,’ he added.

‘But that would apply to trombone players even more, wouldn’t it?’ asked Phryne, looking at Jim Hyde. ‘Aren’t you niggly too?’

‘No, Miss, but I think that’s just nature.’ Jim was certainly calm and gave the impression of being reliable, which is always an underrated commodity. ‘Some of us have the temperament to be a trumpeter and some of us haven’t, and that’s a fact. How long do you think this cop is going to keep us?’

‘He’s just going to see the other marathon dancers. Poor things, they must be dead. Oops, I mean, they must be worn out.’

Detective Inspector Robinson was having some difficulty waking Percy and Violet, and, once they were awake, getting any useful answers.

‘Did you see anyone near you when the chap collapsed?’ he asked again.

Violet rubbed her face hard and tried to compel her escort’s attention. He was sleeping quietly with his head pillowed on her shoulder and he appeared determined to stay that way. Jack Robinson was reminded of faces he had seen at some disaster: white, set, shocked by pain or grief into shapes which they would not resemble when thawed into life again. The girl was not pretty, but had nice eyes, now red with lack of sleep. The man was good-looking, with delicate bones in a face too thin from present exhaustion and past privation. He did not open his eyes when he murmured, ‘There were the other two and a pretty lady in blue and a stout lady in dark red and that’s all I can remember.’

Violet agreed. ‘We were in front of the band. I saw the stout lady in cherry-red, and a dark-haired lady in blue, and then he just dropped; we realised that we’d won and we fell down in a heap too, and that’s all we saw. Can we go home?’ she asked piteously. ‘We’re all in. We can come and see you tomorrow. Please?’

It would be sheer cruelty to keep them, Jack Robinson thought. He took their addresses and sent them under escort to be taken home in a taxi.

The police surgeon had arrived, solemnly announced that the corpse was indeed dead, and been summoned to attend the corpse’s partner, who still lay on the sofa, wailing at intervals.

‘Well, Doctor?’

‘Well, Robinson?’ snapped the little doctor, who did not like policemen much, and who had been called away from a fascinating rubber of bridge just as he was about to squeeze his opponents out of three tricks which they should not have had anyway. ‘The dead one is dead, and this one is almost dead. I’ve called an ambulance and I’ll take her to hospital right
away, unless you have anything to say about that?’

His moustache bristled, indicating that Robinson better not have anything to say about it. Jack knew the signs.

‘If I might just ask one question . . .’

‘No questions. I’ve given her morphine. She has a broken bone in that foot, for a start, or I’m no judge, and she’s been dancing on it for two days. Later, Robinson, you can talk to her. Much later.’

Jack Robinson gave up, and went back into the hall in time to catch Detective Constable North returning to report.

‘I’ve searched the Gents and the rest of the place,’ he announced quietly. ‘That’s why I’ve been so long. I found one side door open, and a few attendants, but I ain’t found the missing gentleman. Miss Fisher’s partner, Sir, appears to have done a bunk.’

CHAPTER TWO

I went down to St James Infirmary

And I saw my baby there . . .

So cold, so white, so bare

‘St James Infirmary’

(folk song)

‘Gone? well, well, I never thought the man had the least particle of initiative.’ Phryne stared at Detective Constable North in some surprise. ‘Certainly never showed any before,’ she added,
a little disappointed. ‘Charles gone? Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ said the policeman. ‘I’ve searched the whole place, kitchens and the usual offices and all. He ain’t here.’

‘Can you account for this, Miss Fisher?’ Robinson had stiffened, like a hunting dog sighting lawful prey.

‘No, except that he was terribly upset by the corpse. He ran off to the lavatory to be sick, I think.’

‘Yes, he was very shaken,’ agreed Iris. ‘Staggered back from the dead one to sit down on the stand and kept whispering, “I’ve never seen a corpse before.”’

‘Thank you, Iris. Yes, he was so put about that he might just have run home to mother. And what she is going to say to me for allowing her little darling to be confronted with a corpse, I dread to think.’

‘It ain’t hardly your fault, Miss,’ said Robinson. Phryne sighed and put back her hair.

‘That will not make the slightest difference to Mrs Freeman, who has never even been introduced to the concept of justice. Oh well, not to worry. Another problem for another hour, that is. Well, Jack, do you want to question us?’

‘Yes, Miss, if you please, one at a time, and then you can all go home.’

‘All right, who first?’

‘Begin with the band, if you don’t mind, Miss. You first. Mr Stone, is it?’

Phryne resumed her seat on the bandstand, lit a gasper, and offered her cigarette case to the group. Miss Jordan refused indignantly, Hugh Anderson politely, and Ben Rodgers snatched one as he passed. The others accepted, and they smoked in silence. Phryne was casting about for something to say.

‘How long have you been together, then?’ she asked idly, wondering what Mr Stone was telling Robinson, and where the idiot Charles had gone. Jim Hyde reached behind him for an illicit and hidden bottle of beer and slurped.

‘Trombone players have a terrible thirst,’ he explained. ‘You could blow out your soul in a trombone. How long? Ooh, must be two, three years. I was playing with the Melbourne Symphony, very little scope for trombone. Then I heard some jazz, New Orleans jazz it was. We play Chicago, but what that man could do with that horn! And Tintagel was there, wanting to set up his own band, so I joined. We are actually making a living,’ he added with faint astonishment. ‘It’s the new craze, jazz. People can’t get enough of it.’

‘I came over with Ten,’ said the drummer, taking the bottle out of Jim Hyde’s grasp. ‘He comes from Cornwall, like me. We just got here and we met Iris, and then we got Jim, and Hugh wandered along—he’s a medical student—and then we got Ben over spirited bidding from Tom Swift. I don’t reckon he’ll stay long, though, not since Nerine . . .’

‘Look, what happened to Nerine?’ asked Phryne impatiently. ‘Did someone murder the girl?’

The band muttered. Hugh took the beer from Clarence and doused his blushes. Phryne waved a hand.

‘Never mind, never mind, forget I asked. Doubtless all will become clear in time. Or at least clearer than it is at the moment. Off you go, Jim, the policeman is calling you.’

Jim obeyed the constabulary summons, and Ben Rodgers completed his ninth circuit and flung himself down, grabbing the bottle roughly out of Hugh’s hands.

‘What an interesting cornet,’ said Phryne, noticing he automatically picked up the instrument. ‘It seems to have extra bits.’

‘Echo cornet,’ said Rodgers in a deep, flat voice. ‘It’s got a mute built into the tubes.’

‘So that’s how you got that whispery sound in “Bye Bye Blackbird”. I thought I didn’t notice a mute.’

‘No, well, I don’t need one with this cornet. There’s a valve on this side which cuts in the mute.’

‘Can I look?’ Phryne stretched out a hand, and he reluctantly allowed her to examine the cornet. It had a valve set low down on the left side, and a curl of brass tubing which ended below the bell, its outlet narrow and unflared.

‘I bet it takes a lot of breath to blow that,’ commented Phryne, trying not to mar the perfect surface of the highly polished instrument with her fingermarks. ‘Fascinating.’ She returned it to Rodgers, who breathed on it and polished it with his handkerchief, as though her foreign touch might have damaged it.

‘You interested in jazz, Miss?’ he demanded. ‘You heard much?’

‘Yes, I am interested. No, I haven’t heard much jazz, unless you count a standing invitation to a New Orleans night in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.’

That’d be the Doctor,’ commented Clarence Davies. ‘Imagine you knowing someone like that, Miss!’ He gave Phryne a smile which twisted wickedly at the corners. ‘Imagine that, now.’ Fortunately Clarence was summoned before he could develop his theme. Phryne did not mention that her last case had required her to be more familiar with brothels than she would have liked. Instead she said, ‘How long have you been playing?’

Rodgers replaced the cornet in its case with loving care. ‘Ten years or so, what’s it to you?’

‘Nothing, nothing. This is called Civilised Conversation. I thought that you could do with a few lessons. We are trapped here until Detective Inspector Robinson has completed his inquiries. If you would prefer to prowl and snarl, my dear Mr Rodgers, don’t let me detain you.’

The band held their breath. Rodgers stared at Phryne as though she had dropped in from another planet. He drew a deep breath, as though about to bellow, then changed his mind and flung off to circle the dance floor again.

‘You took a risk,’ commented Hugh Anderson. ‘He’s got a foul temper, but trumpeters . . .’

‘Are like that. What about you, Mr Anderson?’

‘I’m a medical student at Melbourne University, Miss Fisher, and I fell in love with jazz.’

‘And he’s very good,’ added Iris. ‘A natural with clarinet and sax. Only trouble is getting him to study enough to pass the exams. Then he’ll be a real Doctor Jazz.’

Hugh blushed again. Iris smiled fondly on him.

‘And you, Miss Jordan?’

‘I’m a physical culture teacher,’ said Iris, straightening her back and flexing a few muscles. ‘Swedish massage and hydrotherapy and food reform, you know.’

‘I’ll never get a chance to practise on Iris,’ said Hugh sadly, then recognised his double entendre and blushed afresh. ‘I mean, she’s so healthy. A bacterium wouldn’t dare go near her.’

‘Got my own practice,’ added Iris Jordan. ‘Old ladies and athletes, both obsessed with their bodies. A few months with me and they are healthy, all right.’

Phryne could believe it. Iris looked perfectly capable of forcing someone into health by sheer example. ‘And I heard some jazz from one of my patients—Jim Hyde, who had trouble with his hands. So I gave him some exercises, and then I came along. The bass isn’t so hard to play, though I still need music. The others just improvise. Why this cop wants to talk to all of us, I can’t imagine. I didn’t see a thing until Ten stopped us and went down to see what was wrong. I think he’s calling me at last.’ Iris crossed the floor to where Robinson waited with his constable and his note book.