'The one that stabbed you was called Eleanora, after his mother,' she informed Nicholas. 'And he kept a diary? Have you read it?'

'No, it's in code. I don't even know what language it's in.'

'Never mind. Tomorrow morning I will give you the person who hired the Joker. Now, I am going to bed. Are you staying here, Jack?'

'Yes, Miss, the housekeeper gave us a couple of rooms.'

'Good, then I'll see you in the morning,' said Phryne, and 261 *262 no appeals to her sense of honour proved strong enough to make her tell Nicholas or Robinson what she knew.

'She's like that,' said Jack Robinson, holding out his tea cup for a refill.

'And nothing to be done about it, I suppose,' sighed Nicholas.

'This time I am going to read you the saint's life,' insisted Dot.

The girls agreed, rather mutinously. They much preferred miracles to boring old bishops. 'This is the feast of Sylvester,'

said Dot.

Jane and Ruth attended as she recounted Sylvester's blame-less life. Jane pricked up her ears when she heard that he had cured the Emperor Constantine of leprosy. But they privately considered Sylvester a bore, and hoped that the next saint would be more intriguing.

262.

*263

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

Luke 15: 32 King James Bible Phryne slept late. When she woke, she limped to the bath and flung in a whole handful of the chestnut blossom bath salts, one scent which the unlamented Gilbert had never shared. She was soaking luxuriously and just beginning to feel her muscles unknot when someone tapped on the door. The sound was disturbing. As she suppressed her start, she realised that she had thought it was Gilbert, asking for her bath as usual. He had fooled her completely. But now that she analysed it, for Gilbert to have been right there when she emerged from the Iris Room, he must have been watching her like a hawk. She banished this meditation with alacrity. Gilbert was dead, and it had enormously improved him.

'Go away,' said Phryne firmly.

'If you can open the door, Miss Fisher, I have coffee,' said Nicholas.

263.

*264 'Oh, very well,' said Phryne grumpily. She hauled herself out of the bath and unbolted the door, leaving it to swing wide as she returned pointedly to the foam and felt the perfumed heat draw the pain from her bones once more.

'I have Mrs Truebody's best Arabica,' said Nicholas. 'And a little of the green chartreuse to act as a tonic.'

'You're almost forgiven for interrupting my ablutions,' said Phryne, drying her hands on the towel he held out and taking the coffee cup. 'How are you this morning?' she asked after a blissful interval, having drunk the coffee and the chartreuse in alternate sips.

'Bit stiff,' said Nicholas, wriggling a shoulder under his blue shirt. 'Stitches are pulling, I expect. And you?'

'Sore to the heels,' confessed Phryne. 'I never ran so fast or stayed so still in my whole life. I suppose you are used to this sort of thing?'

'Well, no, I don't know, this was my first mission. I'm very junior, you know.'

'Yes, they must have picked you up straight out of university. What did you read?'

'Humanities,' he said. 'Languages. At Cambridge, as you say. Wasn't much on offer for me except teaching. No friends of the family to get me into the diplomatic service. So when they offered me the chance, I jumped at it. And I owe you a great deal, Phryne. Pity they didn't recruit you, too.'

'Who says they didn't?' asked Phryne, and watched with pleasure as Nicholas's cornflower blue eyes narrowed. 'More coffee,' she requested. He refilled her cup.

'No, I really can't tell,' he said. 'Did they?'

'Neither confirm nor deny,' said Phryne smugly. 'How are the rest of the people this morning?'

264.

*265 'All of the acolytes who got the micky in the marzipan slept like logs and have woken refreshed. The ones with the hangovers are the ones who missed out on the marzipan but subsequently drank themselves catatonic trying to absorb the shock of someone wanting to kill Gerald. He and his sister appear to be well. I find it very hard to tell with those two.'

'Yes, they are something straight out of Mr Wells' books, aren't they?'

'Indeed.' Nicholas could not help noticing that more and more of Phryne was being revealed as the bath foam oxidised and slid down her admirable shoulders, her champagne breasts, her . . . he dragged his mind back to the subject. 'Or maybe a Greek myth. Or a Teutonic one. The house staff are still a bit jumpy, but Mrs Truebody has them well in hand. What a slave-driver that woman would make! The little girl Marigold is still asleep.

'Who else? Oh yes, the horsemen and the others, they never noticed a thing until the screaming began. Actually until it had been going on for some time. Then they all hotfooted it up to help and carried bodies and refreshments and ended up deciding that they ought to guard all those sleeping acolytes.

So they set up their camp just outside the tent, which attracted the attention of the jazz musicians. So they had an all-night party, along with the acolytes who were still awake and the medieval musicians, and are presently indisposed for interview.

They tell me that the New Orleans jazz version of "In Dulci Jubilo" has to be heard to be believed.'

Phryne laughed. 'I'd love to hear a jazz crumhorn,' she said.

'Help me up and give me my gown, please. I'll go and get dressed. Has Dot arrived yet? Send her to me, will you? All this adventure is very hard on the wardrobe.'

Not even trying to avert his eyes, Nicholas helped Phryne 265 *266 onto the bathmat and wrapped her in her terrycloth bathgown.

Then he conducted her, step by step, to the Iris Room, where an anxious Dot was already waiting with fresh clothes and a scolding.

'Miss, you said this wasn't dangerous,' she complained as she whisked Phryne inside and sat her on her bed. 'Let me just replace those plasters, they're peeling. I've brought you some clean clothes. Will you wear the rose or the cornflower shift?'

'The cornflower,' said Phryne. 'It wasn't really dangerous, Dot. The ones who got wounded weren't me. Those little pinpricks didn't even need a stitch.'

'That's not what that Sam has been telling Mr Robinson,'

Dot said severely, dropping to her knees to make sure that Phryne's feet were properly dry before fitting on her sandals.

'He says that you ran the killer ragged and then trapped him and never turned a hair.'

'Actually I think I must have turned handfuls of hair. Just look and see how many grey ones there are, will you? And if you wouldn't mind, Dot, my hair really needs attention.'

Dot sat Phryne in a straight chair and began a punitive brushing, muttering to herself.

'Where is Mr Butler?' asked Phryne.

'In the kitchen talking to his old friend. This hair's in a shocking state. Dry as a broom. You're going to need a proper egg shampoo when you get home, Miss.'

'I know, I was just thinking that,' responded Phryne. The brushing was very soothing. This is how a stroked cat must feel, she thought. I might even purr.

Finally Dot was satisfied with Phryne's appearance and allowed her to stand.

'You'll do,' she said, flicking off some dust. 'What can I do now?'

266.

*267 'Come with me,' said Phryne. 'We'll collect our policemen on the way.'

Mr Butler set down his tea cup. Mrs Truebody made very good tea.

'Nearly over now, Tom,' he said to his disconsolate friend.

'Just the one more night and it'll all be done.'

'No,' said a voice from the door. 'It's not over yet.'

'Miss Fisher!' Mr Butler rose respectfully to his feet. So did Mr Ventura.

'It's no good,' said Phryne gently to the quivering man.

'Gilbert told me all about it before he died. Adventures Limited? Who else could it be? Why did you want to kill Gerald Templar, Mr Ventura?'

Tom Ventura cast a panicky glance around the kitchen.

Mrs Truebody was standing by her small stove, frypan in hand.

Gabriel was sitting by the back door, sharpening a kitchen chopper with a whetstone. In front of him were three policemen. Nowhere to run. He let out a huge breath and sank down into his chair.

'It was Tom?' asked Mr Butler, staring. 'Tom, did you do this?'

'Yes, yes I did,' snarled Tom Ventura. 'I'm proud of it. He was wasting the money, wasting it, and he was never pleased.

He called me a small man who didn't understand magnificence. When I found out about the Joker and realised that he was an artist in his way, I told him to take away everything from the pompous bounder Templar and then kill him at the perfect moment. I was there to witness it. I saw the knife. Then you got in the way,' he snarled at Nicholas, who was standing with one hand on a concealed pistol. 'And you bitch,' he sneered at Phryne, 'you caught him and that mammoth Sam killed him.

267.

*268 And there went my sweet revenge, all wasted. And I paid him two hundred pounds, and passage money and expenses!'

Tom Ventura began to cry. Mr Butler reached out an uncertain hand and patted his shoulder. For a while nothing was heard in the kitchen but the gritty sliding noise of the whetstone and the sobbing of Tom Ventura.

Then he made a fast grab for his inside pocket and Phryne pounced. She twisted his arm and a paper of tablets fell onto the floor.

'No,' she said. 'I'm sorry. It might be the neatest way, but we need to know some things. Where is Tarquin?'

'Get off me!' screamed Mr Ventura, struggling wildly.

Phryne could not hold him. Mrs Truebody surveyed the situation, came to a conclusion, and brought her frying pan down hard on his head. He collapsed without a murmur.

'Might be more reasonable when he wakes up,' she commented, and put the pan back onto the stove.

'If I wasn't already married . . .' said Mr Butler in sincere admiration.

Mrs Truebody settled her apron with a pleased hand.

'I take that as a compliment, Mr Butler.'

'So you may, Mrs Truebody.'

Sergeant Collins gathered up the body during this exchange of old-world courtesies.

'What shall we do with him, sir?'

'Take him along to my room and sit with him,' ordered Robinson. 'I'll send the doctor along. He's still attending to one of those idiots who fell into the campfire. He's just scorched but he's creating a treat. Search him first,' he added, as the policeman carried Mr Ventura out of the room. 'Don't want him leaving us too soon.'

'I'll go as well,' said Nicholas. 'In case he feels chatty when he wakes up.'

268.

*269 'Now we have got to go and find out about Gerald's affairs,'

said Phryne. 'We'll need all the papers from Mr Ventura's room.

I don't think we have good financial news for him and Isabella.'

'Lucky if he's got a penny left,' agreed Jack Robinson.

'What with Ventura spending all that gelt on assassins and fares and expenses and probably trousering a reasonable amount for himself as a commission.'

'I expect so,' said Phryne. 'How are you at balance sheets?'

'I'm a shark,' said Jack Robinson. 'I was in the fraud squad before I got sent to homicide.'

'Wonderful,' said Phryne. She looked with affection at this unremarkable policeman. 'Let's go, then.'

'So he even spent my money on trying to kill me?' said Gerald, wrinkling his perfect brow. 'But why?'

'He hated you,' said Phryne.

'But why?'

'Because you told him the truth,' she said gently. 'You said he was a small man who lacked magnificence. And he was. He probably would have been all right,' she added, 'if he had never met you. He had the making of, say, a small town accountant.