‘It really is lovely to clean out all this old rubbish,’ said Eunice as they passed the workers on the way to the kitchen. ‘But are you sure that anyone would want all this stuff? Look at that glass bowl over Great-Grandma’s wedding bouquet! What an excresence!’
Cec, who had earmarked the glass bowl as a present for his sweetheart, commented, ‘Real good glass, this. Made by a craftsman,’ and Miss Henderson smiled warmly.
‘Take it and enjoy it,’ she recommended.
Cec grinned.
Bert called from the door, ‘Are you coming, mate? A man hasn’t got all day!’ and Cec grabbed the glass dish and went.
Phryne and Eunice had their cup of tea, and surveyed the sterling work which had already been done. The floors were swept clean, the windows open, the fires burning, and the house smelt pleasantly of wood smoke and furniture polish.
‘It is very kind of you to help me, Phryne,’ she observed, ‘This will all be finished in one day, and I can sleep in my own bed tonight.’
‘You won’t mind being here on your own?’
‘No, dear, what could harm me? I am exorcising the ghosts of all of my family, and I shall be quite happy alone. I’m only keeping the basic furniture, and all of those ornaments and feathers and dead birds and seashells and small tables can go. I am throwing out the firescreen made by Aunt Matilda, whom I always hated, and dear Cousin Nell’s petit point chair, and Uncle John’s butterfly collection. It’s a fine empty feeling,’ she continued, a little intoxicated by all that space. ‘It’s a nice house, if it wasn’t all cluttered. And the curtains. I have always hated those heaped-up lace curtains.’
‘Don’t throw them away, you need something to cover the windows,’ objected Phryne. ‘Cut them off.’
‘Cut them off?’
‘Yes, just snip them level with the floor.’
Eunice Henderson flung herself at Phryne and kissed her soundly.
‘Oh, Phryne, why did I never think of that? In all that time when I hated the idea of all that lace lying around on the floor for the sole reason of demonstrating that you could afford to have lace lying on the floor, and I never thought of that! Quick! Where’s the scissors?’
They snipped with a will, and the yards of superfluous lace joined a century’s gleaning of costumes in the chaff-bags. Dot claimed armloads of delicate undergarments for her own; Jane and Ruth found a store of satins from China and were allowed to keep them all; Bert took a fancy to a huge conch, and took it for a present to his landlady. It took eleven trips of the rickety van to various destinations before the detritus of seventy years was removed from the house, and Phryne marvelled that it still looked full. The linen-room was bursting with Irish sheets, there were beds and tables and chairs and fire irons and paintings, but only one ornament remained in the entire mansion: a tall blue vase, quite unfigured, which some pirating ancestor had picked up in the Boxer wars.
‘It’s the only thing of Mother’s that I wanted,’ said Eunice, as they sat around the kitchen table sipping afternoon tea. ‘I want you to have it, Phryne. It will go beautifully with your sea-green and sea-blue salon.’
‘Oh, Eunice, I couldn’t, it’s much too valuable. .’
‘Yes, you could. Otherwise I shall break it. I don’t want to see another ornament in my entire life. I shall have a study in the breakfast-room, which looks out onto the garden. I shall be very happy. And I am still employing you to find out who killed my mother.’
‘Yes, I know, old thing, and I haven’t the slightest idea at the moment. However, something will turn up. Are you sure you are all right to be left?’
‘Perfectly,’ asserted Eunice, as she stood bidding them farewell in her scoured, cold hallway. The wind had been from the west and the house smelt of the sea. Behind her in the swept-clean morning-room a bright fire glowed, and her supper was laid out on the one remaining small table. Phryne kissed her goodbye, and allowed Bert to give her a lift home in the truck, in which she sat nursing the blue vase as though it was a child.
Phryne dined early with Dot, Jane and Ruth. Jane was preoccupied, and between the egg-and-bacon pie and the chops Phryne asked her what the matter was.
‘I’ve remembered,’ said Jane. ‘What sent me off — what broke his power. It was something I saw. You know about my gran? She hanged herself, my gran did, at the window of the upstairs at Miss Gay’s.’
‘What did you see?’ asked Phryne. ‘Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘I saw an old woman hanged,’ muttered Jane. ‘She was pulled out of the window by her neck; just like my gran’s, her head was.’ Jane’s head flopped sickeningly sideways in demonstration. ‘It was bright moonlight, like it was the night my gran died. That’s what set me off. That’s why I went queer.’
‘Where was this, Jane?’
‘By the tower, the thing that the trains get water from. And there was a man there, Miss Fisher, a man.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘Pulling on the rope. The body rose, and so did he; he climbed over her and onto the water tower, then he swung her and dropped her on the grass. It was horrible, and I hid my eyes. Then he jumped down. .’
Jane broke off. Ruth caught Jane in her arms.
‘Ruthie! It was awful!’
‘You just tell Miss about it,’ commanded Ruth, and Jane obeyed. ‘He landed on her body and. .’
‘I know what he did, Jane. No need to go on. Then what did you do?’
‘I was watching out of the window of the ladies, Miss, and I heard a terrible scream behind me, and then the train started again. I just stayed where I was, Miss.’
‘Would you know the man again, Jane?’
‘Yes, Miss. I expect so.’
‘Good. Now you and Ruthie sit down and eat some chops, and let’s get on with the dinner, for I am famished.’
Ruth paused with a fork halfway to her mouth and asked the question that had been concerning her since her arrival. ‘Miss Fisher, what are you going to do with me?’
‘I’m not going to do anything with you, if you mean by that, something to you. What would you like me to do?’
‘Jane says that you are sending her to school.’
‘That is true.’
‘And that you like intelligent girls.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you adopted her.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Phryne, wondering what was coming.
‘I’m intelligent and I can work hard and I have always looked after Jane. What’ll she do without me? You should take both of us, Miss, not just pick one like kittens out of a litter.’
Jane laid her hand on Ruth’s shoulder and looked at Phryne. Ruth bit the end of one plait reflectively. Then she took up her fork and swallowed the piece of chop impaled on it, as though she was not sure when she would get another meal.
Phryne smiled. ‘Two are better than one,’ she said. ‘I was wondering how Jane would manage in this rackety house on her own. All right, Ruth. You too. Any relatives?’
‘No,’ affirmed Ruth, and took some more bread, thankful for the first time in her life that she was an orphan.
‘I’ll call that irritating solicitor tomorrow and get it all put through legally. But you will have to go to school, girls, through term, and you can come back here in the holidays. You can do anything you like, as long as you are willing to work for it. And you must never say anything about my cases, nothing at all, do you understand?’
Both heads nodded. They understood. Ruth grinned a huge grin and slapped Jane on the shoulder.
‘No more Miss Gay, Jane, no more Seddon, no more of the Great Hypno and, best of all. .’
‘Best of all?’ asked Phryne.