Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (36 page)

‘She’s in the infirmary, real sick; she miscarried. Poor little mite. Not a day over fourteen. They left her there on that ironing-room floor for three hours, until the shift changed. She coulda bled to death. She’ll be all right now, though.’

‘Do new girls come in every day?’

‘Often, my lady, not every day.’

‘So I could join them?’

‘Oh, no, Miss,’ said Dot, dead-heating Agnes, who objected, ‘No, my lady, you don’t look right. They’d know you wasn’t never a tart. Nor a factory girl.’

‘You should have seen me yesterday,’ said Phryne, ‘But you’re right, I need to get in and have some freedom of movement, which the laundry girls don’t have. Could you get me a nun’s habit?’

‘They don’t own their own kit, so it wouldn’t be noticed if it didn’t fit right. But they all know each other, my lady. You’d never get away with it.’

‘And you’d never pass,’ said Dot firmly, her rosary almost falling from her nerveless fingers. ‘You’d never pass as a nun, Miss! You don’t know how nuns are supposed to behave. Even in the right clothes. There’s the walk. They sort of glide. And they never look you in the face, not even when they’re hitting you. And you don’t know the prayers.’

‘All right, then, how am I to get in? Because if Polly Kettle is there, I need to find her. I have arranged a way out for her.’

‘How?’ asked Agnes.

‘Never you mind,’ Phryne told her. ‘What about the black gowns you wear? They would be very disguising.’

She had noticed that each auxiliary looked like a sackful of wet spaghetti tied up ugly, as Bert would say. No shape could be discerned under all that black cotton. The hair was covered by a cap and a veil, all black. A cheerful costume.

‘I’m an auxiliary, my lady, a sort of helper, not a sister. I’m a widow. They pay me and I get free lodging and food at the convent. And I help out with the nursing—my brother was a doctor and I used to help in his practice. My old man left me nothing. He was a gambler and a drinker. I had to sell his best suit to get him buried proper,’ said Agnes bitterly. ‘But it’s a big risk, my lady. What if Sister Dolour catches you?’

‘What can she do to me if she does?’ asked Phryne lightly. ‘I shall be scolded and thrown out. That won’t raise a blister. It wouldn’t be the first time, either. I can offer you a pound for general expenses, and if you do get sacked, come and see me and I’ll find you something equally holy to do which doesn’t involve oppressing children.’

‘And you’ll expose them?’ asked Agnes eagerly.

‘Oh, indeed, if I have to start my own newspaper.’

‘Good,’ said Agnes. ‘It’s not right.’

It was dawning on the audience that Agnes wasn’t very bright. However, once she had an idea, she worked it to death. And she had been kind to Julie Reilly with her burnt hand.

‘Now, is there anywhere in that convent where they could hide a prisoner?’ asked Phryne, conscious as she asked that the question smacked of melodrama. The minions pricked up their ears. Tinker had just finished The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, recommended by Ruth and not to be mentioned to Miss Dot, and was ready to believe anything at all about convents.

‘I suppose so,’ admitted Agnes. ‘They have punishment cells. But they’re only for sisters. I couldn’t get to them, my lady.’

‘Ah, but I shall. Now, if you’ve finished your breakfast, you shall sit down in the parlour with Jane, our best draughtsman, and draw a map of the convent for me. Ruth will do the labelling. Tinker will examine the map and work out the best route from the laundry to these punishment cells. And you, Agnes, can assure me that you will bring me a set of those dreadful black rags this afternoon, and show me how to put them on.’

‘All right,’ said Agnes, a little breathless, an effect which encounters with Miss Fisher often had. ‘All right! I will!’

‘Bravo,’ said Phryne, and took a piece of toast.

While the drawing was going on, Phryne was summoned to the telephone. It was Jack Robinson.

‘So you’ve found those three missing girls,’ he shouted into the receiver. ‘Bert said.’

‘Yes, all happy and healthy. No need to worry about them anymore,’ Phryne assured him.

‘And the reporter?’

‘Still looking, and you don’t actually need to shout, Jack dear, I’m not at all deaf.’

‘Nothing on them assaults?’

‘Not a word, just a lot of rather unseemly amusement and hearty cheers from every woman I have asked. I can’t get the records. How have you been proceeding with getting them?’

‘Stymied,’ said Jack gloomily. ‘The commissioner said I can’t even ask.’

‘Catholic, is he?’

‘Yes.’ The firm note indicated the end of that line of enquiry.

‘Oh, well, I may have another way of finding out.’

‘Are you doing to do something unwise?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘How well you know me,’ purred Phryne in a tone which Ember might have produced on being presented with smoked salmon within easy claw reach. ‘Unwise but not dangerous. On the other hand, Jobs for All is downright inadvisable and I will need some reinforcements. Come to a conference about them tomorrow? I’ll ask Bert and Cec. Would lunch suit or would you prefer one of Mrs. Butler’s dinners?’

‘I’d love one of Mrs. B’s dinners, but I promised the wife I’d be home tomorrow night—got to finish tea early because it’s the orchid-growers’ meeting. Lunch? Twelve?’

‘Twelve it is. Will you bring your constable?’

‘Collins? He’s enough to turn a man’s stomach at the moment. He’s gone all moony over your Dot.’

‘I think it’s sweet,’ Phryne told him. ‘Bring him. I might need his assistance. Twelve sharp, and cold steak and kidney pie shall be yours.’

‘Deal,’ said Jack Robinson, who could bear even the presence of a romantic policeman for steak and kidney pie.

Phryne arranged by phone that Bert and Cec would come to lunch, informed Mrs. Butler of the same, and went back into the parlour.

‘That’s about the best we can do,’ said Jane. ‘The place is huge. We’re a bit vague about the edges, but it’s pretty correct.’

‘You’re right, the place is huge. I think we can discount the farm,’ said Phryne. ‘Too many people go there who wouldn’t be in on the secret. And the orphanage, St. Euphrasia, that’s too populated as well. And the laundry is, you should forgive me, a closed shop. Same goes for the old ladies and the school. No, if she’s really in durance vile, she’ll be here, where the nuns live, or in the actual laundry itself. Now, before you go home and fetch me some garments, Agnes, tell me under what circumstances one of the auxiliaries might leave the laundry during working hours.’

‘If there’s been an accident,’ said Agnes, thinking it through. ‘Someone has to report to Mother if there’s an accident. Didn’t help that poor little girl, though—didn’t get her up off the concrete any sooner.’

‘Terrible,’ said Dot sympathetically. ‘Go on, Agnes.’

‘If something breaks down. We’ve got gas irons, we’ve got big boilers and mechanical mangles and pressers. And we’ve got contracts. If something goes wrong, we have to tell Mother about it, so she can get it repaired fast.’

‘Because the most expensive brothel in Melbourne is waiting for its pristine sheets,’ said Phryne bleakly.

‘What?’ demanded Agnes, shocked.

‘Never mind,’ said Phryne. ‘Any other time you might be loose in the convent?’

‘Just coming from our lodgings and going home,’ said Agnes. ‘And going to church, of course. We can go out any time we like,’ she said proudly.

‘Wonderful,’ said Phryne, in such a flat tone that Dot took Agnes to the front door herself, told her she was doing the right thing and that God would approve, and gave her sixpence for the bus.

‘I,’ said Phryne, ‘am going out for a long walk,’ and she rose, ran up the stairs, dressed and, descending, slammed her way out of the house.

‘What’s wrong with the guv’nor?’ asked Tinker, worried that it might be his mistake in not locking the gate.

‘Miss Phryne,’ said Jane affectionately. ‘She wants to fix everything, and it makes her cross when she can’t. I don’t think even Miss Phryne can fix that convent.’

‘It’ll know it’s been in a fight, but,’ said Tinker admiringly.

***

Agnes, whatever her private misgivings, arrived at about two with a bundle of black cloth. The garments were, indeed, very disguising. With a baggy shift (black) belted around the waist with a cord (black), a cap (black) and veil (black), which was pinned firmly to the scalp (ouch)—the ensemble would have reduced Theda Bara to a nonentity. All to the good, thought Phryne.

‘Now, Miss, you have to remember that you’re in a holy place. Don’t shout, don’t raise your voice, don’t touch that skirt except to go up steps,’ instructed Dot, who was torn between excitement and the distinct feeling that she was going to do penance for this. ‘Do whatever Agnes tells you to do. And if you see awful things in that laundry,’ she said uncertainly, ‘don’t do anything. You can’t help them by making a scene.’

‘I know,’ said Phryne softly.

‘And when a nun speaks to you, do exactly as she says. Without a word.’

‘That,’ said Phryne, looking at her face in the mirror, surrounded by unrelieved mourning, ‘ought to be interesting.’

Dot’s feeling of disquiet increased.

‘Can we come too, Guv’nor?’ asked Tinker, viewing her with great interest. ‘You look real different, Guv.’

‘That was the idea. I’d take you anywhere, Tink, but you’d rather stand out in a nunnery.’

‘Like a dog’s balls,’ he agreed.

Dot blushed. Tinker’s lessons on polite conversation had not advanced to any great extent.

‘Mitigate your language, Tink dear; you’re embarrassing the innocent. Dot, ask Mr. Butler to bring the car around. Here is a note. If I am not back by dinnertime, you will take it, yourself, to Raheen, and give it into the hands of Dr. Mannix. Only him. Take Jack Robinson with you.’

‘Why?’ asked Dot, clutching the letter.

‘Because it will mean that something is extremely wrong in that convent, and he had better come along himself and get me out. Or when I do get out, his church is going to have a lot of very loud questions to answer. But I don’t for a moment think you will need it,’ she said. ‘While I am away, minions, I want you to consult everything we know about Jobs for All. Don’t go and look at them, because I don’t want them to recognise you. Formulate a few ways we can get in and nail the bastards. Bye.’ And she was gone.

The minions looked at each other, then trailed down the stairs to inspect the mass of information on Jobs for All. And, in Tinker’s and Dot’s case, worry.