Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (6 page)

‘One in the family is enough,’ he said. ‘And I need a wife who doesn’t fret if she’s left alone while I’m chasing a story. Give Ariadne a book and she’s happy. Can’t cook or housekeep worth a damn, so we’ll live in a serviced flat. We ought to be happy,’ said Mr. Downey.

Phryne thought that indeed they might. She finished her gin and tonic, paid her score, and went home for lunch. Polly’s only enemy in the newsroom looked to be Mr. Bates, who hated everyone. He would bear investigation.

Chapter Three

Don’t be afraid of cold meat…there are hundreds of appetising ways to serve it…some men like it, but cold mutton has wrecked many a happy home.

Blanche Ebbutt, Don’ts for Wives

Lunch was going to be excellent, as usual. But Mrs. Butler always made a special effort for Miss Fisher’s sister Eliza and her titled companion. To the cold steak and kidney pies with homemade tomato sauce and green salad she added a potato salad of particular succulence, the sliced tomatoes and onions laced with olive oil that Miss Fisher liked, and egg and bacon pies made with their own eggs and Castlemaine bacon (none finer).

Tinker, Jane and Ruth were to eat their lunch in the kitchen with the Butlers, as the conversation was likely to be of topics which nice young ladies should not discuss. Although they were confident that Phryne would tell them about it later, if she needed their help. They were reconciled and, in Tinker’s case, relieved not to have to look to Jane for an indication of which fork to use.

The Hon. Miss Eliza Fisher had been flung out of her family, to her great relief, by a father unimpressed by her socialism (and he didn’t even know about her devotion to Sappho). In Australia she had found many persons of like mind and also had set up house with her close companion, Alice Harborough, a woman who had relinquished her own title and dedicated her life to Doing Good among the lost, stolen and strayed. Melbourne had an ample supply of waifs. They were very happy.

But, Phryne thought, regretfully, frumps. She had never managed to persuade her sister into anything more becoming than the brightly printed shift dress she wore, made of cheap sea island cotton printed with macaws. Phryne was sure that no natural macaws, in themselves a brilliant bird, came in quite those shades of baby’s bottom pink and shrieking green. The hat was orange straw, to add insult to injury. Lady Alice was no better, in washing blue with eye-watering yellow stripes. They had evidently attended the same sale at Coliseum Treadways. Phryne felt positively underdressed by comparison.

‘Well, this is very nice,’ observed her sister, after she had engulfed half a pie and a lot of salad. ‘But to what do we owe the honour of this invitation?’

‘The pleasure of your company, of course, and my need for some insight into the underworld.’

‘For a lunch this sumptuous,’ said Lady Alice, ‘you have our undivided attention.’

‘I am looking into the disappearance of three girls from a lying-in home, sent there from the Abbotsford Convent,’ said Phryne, ‘and the kidnapping of a reporter who was trying to find out what happened to them. The reporter is a young woman with all the sense of self-preservation of a concussed dormouse. The girls were very pregnant, which rather rules out brothels, unless there is one which caters to very peculiar tastes.’

Lady Alice dabbed at her lips with her napkin. ‘There are some of those,’ she said. ‘Base exploiters of the working class. Very young girls, or girls who can seem very young. One-legged women are strangely popular. Very fat women, too. And dwarves. The slang name for that house is the Freak Show, and it is. I suppose they are providing employment for women who might otherwise be homeless or in some institution. But I never heard of one which wanted women in…such a state. Have you, darling?’

Eliza swallowed her mouthful of potato salad. The only thing she envied about her sister’s life was her employment of such a marvellous cook.

‘No, never,’ declared Eliza. ‘Of course, no one has ever plumbed the depths of male depravity, but even for the male sex that seems extreme.’

‘I agree,’ said Lady Alice. ‘You say they were at the convent?’

‘Yes, the convent sent them to a lying-in home,’ said Phryne, allowing Mr. Butler to pour her another glass of South Australian riesling, which was young but rather sophisticated for its age.

‘The only reason I can think of for them leaving before they gave birth is—’

‘They wanted to keep their babies,’ capped Eliza.

‘Sorry?’ asked Phryne, who had gone to considerable lengths to avoid the whole question of fertility.

‘The convent will allow them to work there until they reach term,’ explained Eliza. ‘And will care for them when they give birth. But they never leave that convent with their babies. The baby is taken away and they never even see it, never hold it. It is adopted out as soon as it is born. Or kept in the orphanage, as there are so many spare children. These girls wanted to keep their children. While this is unusual, it is perfectly understandable. There are many women still in mourning for the babies they never saw.’

‘They seem to have left their lying-in home together,’ said Phryne.

‘Which argues that they had somewhere to go,’ said Lady Alice. ‘Collectively. They must have had a destination.’

‘Why do you think that?’ asked Phryne. ‘Do have some more wine.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Butler.’ Lady Alice sipped deeply, her plain face distressed. ‘Because otherwise they would have been found.’

‘Not in hospital, not in the morgue,’ Phryne confirmed.

‘You see, then. They knew that once they went into labour at that place, they would be helpless and their babies would be stolen. So they left as soon as they could.’

‘And where would they go?’

Lady Alice thought about it, taking another celery curl and crunching it. But in a very aristocratic manner, as Dot observed. She took a celery curl herself and tried to eat it in the same way.

Finally Lady Alice answered, ‘Do you know, dear, I haven’t the faintest idea. Not to one of the shelters; they would do the same as the convent. And not as nicely. Certainly not to a…house of ill-repute. Not to their relatives?’

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘The police have enquired.’

‘Then I really can’t offer any advice,’ said Lady Alice. ‘Eliza?’

Eliza Fisher swallowed more egg and bacon pie. ‘No,’ she said regretfully. ‘I can’t think of anywhere either. And you’d think that if there was a shelter taking in pregnant girls, we would have heard of it.’

‘There being so many,’ agreed Lady Alice.

‘And we haven’t,’ said Eliza. ‘We have thought of starting one,’ she added. ‘But there is the expense, and I am running out of sapphires and I won’t get my money from the family for some time.’

‘And even then you will need something to live on,’ Phryne pointed out. She believed in charity. Up to a point. Not if it deprived her of her house and her staff and her beautiful clothes and good food. That was taking virtue too far, she considered.

‘Well, yes, there is that,’ agreed Eliza. ‘Now as we haven’t been able to help with the girls, how about this reporter? When you say no sense of self-preservation, Phryne, how naive is she?’

‘She asked Mr. Featherstonehaugh at the Blue Cat if he was harbouring pregnant girls.’

There was a gale of laughter, which died away into crumb-spattering coughs. When Mr. Butler had poured Miss Eliza a glass of water, and her lover had pounded her on the back, Phryne continued, ‘And she threatened to set the police on Corsican Joe.’

Dot had never heard of this person, but she saw both dowdy ladies exchange significant looks.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Eliza.

‘Quite,’ said Phryne. ‘She was abducted in a big black car from outside the lying-in home. By three big men, though that may be the witness’ excuse for not doing a damn thing about it. Jack Robinson was not impressed by his valour.’

‘Big black car,’ mused Lady Alice. ‘Do we know anyone with a big black car, my sweet?’

‘There is the mayor,’ said Eliza. ‘Probably not him. Though I wouldn’t put it past him, mind. But he’d never use his own car. Big black cars are not common. Most people prefer colours—like your red Hispano-Suiza, Phryne. I have a feeling that I have seen a big black car about…but I can’t remember where. Sorry. I’ll telephone if I can recall it.’

‘Good. Then may I tempt you to a little lemon meringue pie?’ asked Phryne.

‘Always,’ said Eliza.

***

Phryne left the lunch table to usher her visitors to the door, feeling full but unsatisfied. If Lady Alice and Eliza didn’t know of a shelter, then it didn’t exist. Where, then, had those girls gone? Phryne picked up the telephone and ordered a notice to be put in the ‘absent friends’ column of both The Age and the Daily News. Then she sat down in her parlour. She got out her file and looked at their photographs. Mary O’Hara. Probably had blonde hair, pale skin, possibly blue eyes. Pretty. She looked like a child in her school uniform. Couldn’t be more than fourteen years old. She checked the date of birth. Yes, barely fourteen. Julie Reilly was plump, brunette and possibly sentimental—she had the look of a girl who cherished lost dogs and rescued forlorn kittens. And Ann Prospect had a very firm chin and gaze to match. Nothing at all in common except that they were pregnant. And unmarried. And missing. Phryne sighed. She opened the police briefs and began to read.

Mary O’Hara. Characterised by her mother as a good girl, very fond of the children. She had—Lord help us—eleven siblings. Characterised by her father as a liar and a bad girl and good riddance. Interesting. Phryne took up the next file. Ann Prospect. Eighteen years old. A self-willed girl who worked in the pickle factory and turned over her wages to her father, as was only right, but objected to him spending her money on drink. Which was not her place. When found to be in a state of disgrace she refused the perfectly reasonable marriage offered to her and went to the convent saying very blasphemous things about the Church. Would not be welcomed back to her family’s bosom. Sounded like a very prickly bosom, Phryne thought. She herself would not want to repose in it.

She looked at the last file. Julie Reilly. Seventeen. Studious. Had been very upset when her father refused to allow her to stay at school, though she had won a scholarship. She wanted to become a teacher. Instead her father had required her to work in the woollen mills. Obediently she went to work there, but had fallen pregnant and been banished to the convent as her father said he wouldn’t pay good money to support bastards. And he didn’t want her back, either. Charming.

Phryne thought about it, then summoned her minions.

Tinker, Jane, Ruth and Dot came into the parlour and took their seats. Phryne laid a hand on the police briefs and delivered a concise summary of their contents. Then she asked for comments.

‘They don’t seem to have known each other before the convent,’ observed Jane. ‘I mean, different suburbs, different ages, different jobs.’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne. ‘They must have met in the Magdalen Laundry.’

‘They must have been desperate,’ said Ruth.

‘Why do you think that?’ asked Phryne.

‘Because however bad the convent was, there was food and a bed and a roof,’ replied Jane. ‘The same goes for that home.’