'Karez,' said Nicholas, blushing. 'Or maybe the Arab party beforehand.'

'Likely,' said Phryne.

'Of course, he may be after you,' said Nicholas.

199.

*200 'Me? Why?'

'Upset some husbands? Annoyed some wives?'

'No,' said Phryne. 'I made a policy decision a long time ago, no married men. It has served me well in the enemy reducing department.'

'I see,' said Nicholas, and was about to add something when, from the bar tent, came a long, loud shriek of dismay and horror.

They were on their feet instantly, and running.

Bosom Caresser 1 part brandy 1 part orange curaao yolk of one egg teaspoon grenadine Shake together with ice.

200.

*201

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A little kindness-and putting her hair in papers-would do wonders with her.

Lewis Carroll Through the Looking-Glass The person who was screaming was Sabine, which was unlike her. The reason for her screaming was immediately apparent.

Laid out and nailed to the only timber structure in the tent, the actual frame itself, was a dead fox. Very dead. Dead and mutilated and crucified.

Phryne and Nicholas pushed to the front. Phryne bundled Sabine into Pam English's arms.

'Take her away and make her some valerian tea,' she ordered. 'Everyone get back, please, we shall have this cleared away in a moment.'

Ted and Rob, summoned by the screams, had materialised at her side. 'Take this poor creature down,' she said to them.

'Keep it carefully. And the piece of paper it is holding in its teeth.

Do this fast or we shall have hysterics and tears before bedtime.'

201.

*202 Ted, who was carrying a hammer and a canvas sack, agreed.

'We were just on the way to fix one of the horse pavilions,'

he said. 'So we've got all the tools we need. You keep the mob back a bit and let the dog see the rabbit.'

Phryne and Nicholas, now assisted by the bar staff and some of the hearties, pressed the shocked aesthetes back.

'Lots of drinks in just a moment,' said Phryne soothingly.

'What? Never seen a dead fox before?' demanded the hunters.

'It's just a dead animal, nothing to get all worked up about.'

'You saw the paper in its teeth?' asked Nicholas in an undertone.

'Yes, but I didn't want to draw attention to it. Ted and Rob will smuggle it to me. In fact,' she said, conscious of a discreet tug at her sleeve and opening her hand to receive a folded note, 'even now it may be winging its way towards me. Good work, chaps,' she said to the workers as they carried the shrouded corpse out of the tent. 'Now, what shall we drink?'

'I'll have a mint julep,' purred a Southern voice, and Phryne was delighted to introduce Nicholas to Nerine. She snuggled very close to him in order to see his face. This was fine with Nicholas.

'You coming to hear me later, honey?' she asked, and he agreed with unspoiled enthusiasm.

Phryne drifted away, paper in hand. The display of the dead fox meant 'I am a better hunter than you'. And the note in its mouth said 'Make your will'. Vicious, flashy and cryptic.

She was beginning to really dislike this assailant.

She remembered that she and Nicholas had left their luncheon boxes under the tree, went to fetch them, and passed Sylvanus, also carrying two.

'You did a lovely job with the consequences, Syl,' Phryne told him. 'How about a nice drink? Then perhaps we shall 202 *203 have charades while the hearties blast the landscape. It really isn't safe outside with all these guns about.'

Sylvanus gave an affected shiver. 'All too masculine for me, dear. Charades it is. What have you done with your young man? The one with the beautiful eyes?'

'I left him with Nerine, the jazz singer,' said Phryne. 'She'll take care of him.'

'Half his luck,' murmured Sylvanus, unexpectedly.

They deposited the boxes on the verandah. Phryne noticed something, and sent Sylvanus to the tent ahead of her.

Someone had replied to her message, 'WHAT NOW?'. On a wearyingly familiar luggage label in the same old blue clerkly writing was another riddle: 'No gold was ever wrought so fair/Yet no fair lady wears them in her hair'.

'Damn,' swore Phryne, and detached the label. Then she stuck up one of her own. It was on a piece of pink gummed paper: 'If, by midnight, Tarquin isn't in his place/Resign your membership of the human race'. Not perfect, perhaps, but it made Phryne's point.

She went to find Nicholas and located him in the middle of a Nerine mint julep. He had the look of a codfish which, in the midst of an interesting thought, had been hit over the head with an anchor. Proximity to Nerine often had that effect. Not only was she gorgeous, but she was the acknowledged mistress of the non sequitur. For the susceptible, Nerine's conversation was bad for the mind.

'And make one for Lady Phryne,' added Nerine, after instructing the barman again about crushing the mint into the sugar 'real good'. The bar was loud with congratulatory hunting cries, although they did not even seem to have run down their hare. Several hearties in hunting pinks were roaring reminis-cences of successful hunts into their fellows' receptive ears.

Phryne caught the word 'Chink' and stopped dead.

203.

*204 'Not the same as the day we threw that Chink into the Thames, though,' said one red-faced young man. Phryne marked him down.

'No Chinks here,' said another, with regret. 'And there was that wog in Paris. "Let go of me, you cads!" he howled and then-upsadaisy! Splash!'

The others roared with laughter. Three of them. Phryne made careful mental notes. Tall and thin, smaller and thin, red-faced and embonpoint.

'What are the names of those gentlemen?' she asked a Grammar Boy, who looked embarrassed.

'They're not altogether the thing,' he confessed. 'British, of course, not some of us. Beldham, Belcher and Travis, I believe.

Saw you riding Buttercup, Miss Fisher, good show! Ralph is boasting about how well you managed her. She's a touchy beast.'

'Yes, but very nice otherwise, lovely gait,' said Phryne absently. Belcher, Beldham and Travis. They were in for a very wet surprise as soon as she could arrange it. And Ralph Norton would not be looking for her with blood in his eye, ranging for revenge for her high-handed assumption of his pony. That was good. 'So, how did the hunt go? Did you kill?' she asked in the correct form.

'No,' said the Grammar Boy. 'But it was a glorious run.

Everyone says that it's much harder to catch a hare than a fox.'

'Ol' Miss Puss will give a run to Ol' Marse Reynard, as a hunting friend of mine used to say,' quoted Phryne.

'Oh, absolutely, Miss Fisher.'

Phryne moved on before the young man could offer her a drink. She was not in the mood for huntsmen today.

On one of the larger tables a shaggy pony was standing confidently, balancing beautifully on its small hoofs, drinking 204 *205 something out of a bucket. Phryne hoped it wasn't champagne.

She recognised the Wonnangatta girls and long-legged Dougie.

The pony was his mount, Mongrel.

'I can't imagine how you got him onto the table,' said Phryne to Jill. 'And how on earth are you going to get him down without breaking several legs-the table's and his?'

'Easy,' yelled Dougie, and chirruped. It was a small sweet noise but Mongrel pricked up his ears, minced to the end of the table, and dropped neatly down onto the floor.

'Amazing!' called Phryne.

'Always been a nippy sort of neddy,' said Dougie, scratch-ing Mongrel between his hairy ears. 'I better get him out. That fizzy wine always goes to his head.'

'They're putting the polo match on tomorrow instead of Monday,' Jill told Phryne. 'You'll be there?'

'I certainly shall,' she promised.

Jill and Ann went back to join the chorus of 'More beer, more beer, more beer, more beer' to the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne'

which the Tigers were singing almost tunefully. The advantage of that sort of drinking song was that even the most profoundly sozzled could not forget the words. By the time Phryne fought her way to her own peer group, Nicholas had secured the mint juleps and they were on their way out of the tent.

Outside it was almost quiet. Nerine met her band, the Three T's, and they all went to the jazz pavilion, where there were empty seats. Phryne saw that Nicholas had divined Nerine's state of eyesight and was steering her efficiently.

The band had beer. Several large jugs of it. Phryne tasted her julep. It was the essence of mint, icy on the tongue. The Three T's were constructing a song list.

'"St James' Infirmary",' said Tabitha. 'Then "Kitchen Man", and perhaps, Nerine, do you want to sing "St Louis Blues"?'

205.

*206 'Oh, please,' said Phryne. 'I love the way you sing "St Louis Blues". And Nicholas hasn't heard you sing it.'

'Then he surely shall,' said Nerine, leaning a warm breast on the young man's arm. Nicholas blushed.

'Then we'll do "Tiger Rag",' continued Tabitha.

Phryne sipped her drink.

The jazz concert was all that a jazz concert could be. Phryne knew that the hunters were trap shooting by the noise and whooping, and presumed that charades were preparing in the Templar tent whence she must shortly go, but in the meantime the day was drowsily warm, the mint julep was reposing on top of her lunch with perfect amity, and the music was wonderful.

'St Louis woman, love her diamond ring,' sang Nerine with aching perfection. 'Drag my man round, by her apron string.

If it weren't for her powder and her store bought hair, . . . '

Nerine clawed at her own glossy black locks '. . . that man of mine won't go nowhere.'

Nicholas was as fascinated as a bird before a snake, with the added advantage that Nerine would not eat him. Well, probably not. At least, not all at once.

'I never loved but three men in my life,' Nerine told the enthralled audience. 'T'was my father and my brother and the man who wrecked my life . . . Well I walked that floor and I wrung my hands and cried. Got the Saint Louis Blues and I can't be satisfied.'

The last word was a whisper, but everyone in the pavilion heard it, even over the small war happening beyond. There was a silence before the applause began. Nerine bowed, clasp-ing her hands. One of the French girls near Phryne exclaimed in either envy or admiration, ' Quelle poitrine!' What breasts!

206.

*207 Nicholas stiffened. Aha, thought Phryne, he speaks French.

Better make sure. She leaned over to him.

'But they are beautiful, don't you think?'

'Of course,' he replied, clapping. 'More! More!'

Nerine tottered on the edge of the dais and Tommy drew her gently back.

'Gotta give the others their turn,' she said, and was led away to thunderous applause.

'I'm going to play charades,' said Phryne to Nicholas. 'Do you want to stay here? I'll see you later.'

'Mmm,' he said, and Phryne slipped away.

The tent was full. Most of the acolytes did not favour strenuous or violent activity. Which meant they didn't throw people into rivers, thought Phryne approvingly. She sat down near the door to watch the charade which was taking place on the stage in front of her.

Phryne had always liked parlour games. They had been the only harmless amusement of her childhood. Even her ne'er-do-well father had sometimes joined in. While not as exciting as robbing the pig bins outside the Victoria market, challenged by street boys and stray dogs, they had provided, for a little while, a factitious but cosy sense that the Fishers were actually a family, rather than the collection of bloody-minded self-absorbed individualists that they were . . .

A young acolyte was draped in a cowskin rug-where on earth had he got that?-and was making rushing, ramping movements, stamping on the stage and goring at the audience with two crooked fingers at his forehead as horns. Cow, or bull. First part of the word. The audience yelled, 'Bull,' and were affirmed. Second part. The bovine personage departed. Two people strolled onto the stage, one a very haughty young lady 207 *208 with a parasol and one a young man in a white suit and boater.