Blood and Circuses

CHAPTER NINE

Where have they cast me and to whom

A bondmaid?

Euripides (translation, Gilbert Murray)

The Trojan Women

Joining the police force had supplied elements which had hitherto been missing in the life of Tommy Harris, who had led a blameless existence before he left his home in the country and came to the city in search of adventure. He had found excitement, suspense, more people than he had previously known to exist, and doses of carbon monoxide and alcohol that put a city patina on his over-healthy system.

He remained, however, a country boy and discovered that the methods he had previously used to subdue over-anxious horses worked perfectly well on his clientele. Now, taking his lead from his sergeant, he was trying to acquire subtlety. He was looking for Miss Minton, intending to observe her and draw deductions from her behaviour. He had heard that she was having an affair with a well-known theatrical producer, a point that could be checked. Tommy was in plain clothes and alone and was looking forward to an intellectual exercise in scientific police work.

But when he came into the Blue Diamond and found the owner’s large friends beating Lizard Elsie, he felt that subtlety was out of place and that strong and immediate action was needed.

To simplify the situation he waded into the crowd, hauled off one man and threw him against the wall, fatally injuring the decor. He tripped another so that he slid across the room and collided with a pile of chairs. He pulled the old woman out from under a pile of bodies and saw that Elsie had her teeth fixed firmly in one attacker’s ear.

‘Let go, Elsie,’ panted Tommy Harris. ‘I’ve got him. Let go!’

Elsie muttered something and refused to unclench. Her victim was white and screaming.

‘Get her off me!’

‘Let go, Elsie!’ commanded Constable Harris. The woman growled like a mastiff, her skinny hands clawing for the man’s more delicate parts to complete her victory. The victim clutched at his groin and screamed again. He was a lot bigger than Elsie but this did not seem to be of much assistance to him.

The patrons of the Blue Diamond had all withdrawn out of reach and were watching, fascinated. Constable Harris noticed a party in theatre-going clothes. One of the men was smoking a fat cigar, and Tommy was put in mind of a ferret which had been his constant companion during his youth. It had been a good ferret, called Bandit, but it couldn’t help biting. Once, when faced with the prospect of his sole offspring spending a lifetime with a ferret clamped to his finger, his father had found a novel solution. Deciding to apply it, Tommy leaned over, plucked the cigar from the man’s lips and blew a cloud of strong Havana smoke into Elsie’s face. Then he returned the cigar to the patron and dragged Lizard Elsie onto her feet as she sneezed and released her hold.

‘There we are,’ said Tommy in his butter-soft voice. ‘That’s better, Elsie girl.’

Her victim was sitting on the floor, holding his outraged ear with one hand and caressing his outraged genitals with the other.

‘She’s mad!’ he yelled. ‘She came in here asking for a drink and we was just showing her the door and—’

‘Takes three of you to throw me out, you fucking bastards,’ snarled Elsie. ‘Three of you! It would have taken bloody four when I had me strength. I’m fifty years old and it took three of you to get me down.’

‘Now, now, Elsie,’ soothed Constable Harris. ‘Let’s you and me sit down and have a drink, eh?’

‘That’s what I was fucking trying to do.’ Elsie was not pleased. ‘When these curs jumped on me.’

‘Well, well, these misunderstandings will happen,’ said Tommy. ‘Come on. You sit down here and have a drink and I’ll have a word to the manager.’ He took a bottle from a waitress’s tray and put it down in front of the old woman. ‘That’s right. Want a glass?’

‘A glass? What for?’ asked Elsie scornfully, applying the bottle to her lips.

Tommy left her and went to intercept Mr Albert Ellis, who was advancing across the ruined club with blood in his eye.

‘Mr Ellis, is it?’ asked Tommy easily. ‘Had a little trouble?’ He surveyed the owner and did not approve of what he saw. Albert Ellis was overdressed, had teeth like a rat, and altogether too much pomade on his hair. He offended Tommy’s taste in a way which Lizard Elsie did not.

‘Constable Harris,’ said Ellis, recognising him. ‘You going to arrest that bitch?’

‘No, why should I?’

‘She comes into my club, breaking my fittings, assaulting my staff . . .’

‘If your staff can’t deal with one old lady I reckon you should hire more,’ said Tommy easily. ‘And your decor ain’t nothing to write home about, either.’

This was undeniable. The Blue Diamond was furnished with chairs and benches that seemed to have come from an old cinema. Its walls, what could be seen of them, were painted pink and covered with old posters of film stars. Small tables made of packing cases, and a bar constructed of an old ticket box completed the ambiance. People did not go the the Blue Diamond for luxury. It was licensed to serve drinks with food until midnight. A supper at the Blue Diamond consisted of one ham sandwich. The ham was transparent and local legend said that the same sandwich had been in use for as long as the club had been open. It was now fossilised. In future times, museums might bid for it.

The Blue Diamond would undoubtedly be closed down for violations of its liquor licence, to open a month later under a new name. Cigarette butts littered the floor and the hot air was heavy with smoke. A dance band was tootling away in one corner, and on the pocket-handkerchief dance floor people had been dancing before the fracas with Lizard Elsie had provided a more interesting show.

‘I’m not having her in my club,’ said Albert Ellis. ‘Take her away.’

Lizard Elsie heard this and screeched, ‘You pox-rotted mongrel! You promised me ten bottles of ruby port, you fucking cur!’

‘Shut her up!’ snapped Ellis, and two of the fallen rose groaning and closed on Lizard Elsie. Tommy recognised Wholesale Louis on the floor, and Cyclone Freddy and the Mad Pole rising from the half-dead. They were both big and dangerous and they seemed to be rather cross with Elsie. Tommy was alone. He reached for the old woman and gathered her into his arms.

‘Come on, my girl,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’

‘Ooh, sailor,’ crooned Elsie, nursing her bottle. ‘Been a long time since anyone swept me off my feet.’

Tommy backed towards the door and it swung behind them. He was out in Brunswick Street before the boss could react. Still, it wouldn’t take them long. He hefted Elsie, who was surprisingly light, and began to run.

He had been so delighted with the idea of plain clothes work that he did not even have his whistle. However, he thought as he settled into a fast gallop, he must meet the beat policeman fairly soon. Then his colleague could summon assistance before Tommy and Elsie got the pummelling of a lifetime.

He heard voices behind them, and then feet. A shot pinged past him and buried itself in the door of the butcher’s shop.

‘They’re shooting!’ said Tommy with an astonished gasp. ‘Else, they’re shooting at us! We’ve gotta get off the street!’

Elsie, who had been hanging over his shoulder and watching behind, croaked, ‘There’s three of ’em, and that mongrel Louis’s got a gun.’

‘Elsie, what have you got yourself into?’ wondered Tommy Harris aloud. ‘It must be something big for them to risk shooting in the street—or shooting at all. It’s like Robinson said. Gangsters.’

‘Turn here!’ shrieked Elsie uncomfortably close to his ear. Harris paused. At that moment some force slammed him back against the wall at the corner of the lane. He staggered and dropped his burden. Elsie landed lightly and pulled him around the corner by the arm.

‘In here, sailor!’

She dropped to her knees and crawled under a fence. Tommy followed, feeling suddenly weak.

‘Lie here and don’t squeak,’ she ordered and slid back. She reappeared with a soaked and muddy shirt, which she dropped beside him.

‘Bit of shoosh,’ she suggested.

Tommy Harris felt for his side and found that his hand came away warm and wet. I’ve been shot, he thought. He was in no pain and his principal emotion was amazement.

Feet clattered down the lane and past the fence and paused. A cigarette lighter clicked and yellow light flared over the corrugated iron fences. A dog began to bark. Tommy Harris held his breath, feeling Lizard Elsie’s thin hand close on his shoulder. A voice said, ‘Nah. No trace. And we winged him and there’s no blood on these cobbles. Try the next lane, boys.’

The footsteps retreated.

‘You’re shot,’ said Elsie calmly. ‘I wiped up the blood with me second-best shirt. Crawl a bit back and we can have a light and I’ll have a look at yer, sailor.’

Tommy, strangely weak, hauled himself back across what felt like razor-blades and lay back in a nest of musty rags.

A match scratched and a small kerosene lamp was lit. Tommy found he was in a galvanised iron lean-to, manufactured out of bits of an old water tank. Lizard Elsie had furnished her little humpy with two old mattresses and several tattered quilts. She had some cooking gear, an old Coolgardie safe, and a battered leather handbag stuffed with what looked like papers. She put the lamp on the safe and rummaged among her belongings for a sheet. When she found it, she began to tear it into strips.

‘Let’s get that coat off,’ she said. ‘Yer shirt’s ruined.’

‘I’m all right, Else. Just let me lie here for a while and I’ll get up and call . . .’

He tried to sit up and found that he couldn’t. His muscles refused to answer.

‘No you ain’t,’ she said calmly. ‘You’re shot and if you don’t let me bloody look after you, you’ll fucking bleed to death all over me fucking bed.’

Tommy did not resist as she peeled off his coat and shirt and wadded old linen against his side. She sloshed some cold liquid into the wound. It stung. Her hands were sure and she seemed to know what she was doing.

‘Is it bad?’ he asked, hoping that his voice did not tremble.

‘Nah. Just winged you and tore away a bit of yer skin. You’ll be all right, sailor. Now, I’d brew you a cuppa but the fucking night-watchman’ll be around in a tick and if he sees me he’ll throw me out.’

‘Is this where you live, Elsie?’ The bandaging was tight and comforting and he still felt no pain. He was lazily interested in the pattern which the streetlights made through the holes in the galvanised iron. It couldn’t be very weatherproof, he thought.

‘Yair. This is me little nest. Between sailors, like. I’m gonna have to lie low. Who’da thought that bastard Albert Ellis’d have guns?’

‘They shot Reffo,’ Tommy pointed out. ‘At least, I think it was them.’

‘Yair.’ Lizard Elsie was subdued. ‘Yair. Outside the Provincial. They bloody shot Reffo all right.’

‘Why did Albert Ellis owe you ten bottles?’ asked Tommy hopefully.

‘He fucking owes me more than fucking that,’ said Lizard Elsie cryptically.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Enough fucking questions. Everyone’s got a question,’ snapped Elsie. ‘Now, we can either get out of here, through the factory gate once bloody old Smithy’s made his bloody rounds, or we can stay out of sight and see what daylight’ll do. Whaddaya think, sailor?’

Tommy Harris tried to sit up and found that his body had returned to his command. With this came a return of sensation. He clamped his mouth shut to stifle a groan. Red-hot wires seemed to have been run through his nerves and he could feel the throb of his own heart. Every beat hurt. Systole and diastole, they pounded on his senses until his eyes swam.

‘Later,’ he said and Elsie caught him as he fell back.

‘Later,’ she agreed. She shoved him a little aside and lay down beside him, suckling contentedly on the bottle which Tommy had grabbed at random. It was Napoleon brandy, kept in the Blue Diamond for the manager’s own personal guests. Elsie was lulled and soothed. She wrapped her arms around the large form of Police Constable Harris, breathing in his fresh healthy scent of male human, tweed and shaving soap. Fevered and exhausted, he laid his head on her breast.

Such darkness as was to be found in Fitzroy echoed with the sound of leather-clad feet as the ’Roy Boys searched all the lanes and byways for Lizard Elsie, the sailor’s friend, and her new protector.

Phryne Fisher rose from her green sheets, collected her lover and her circus gear, and faced her staff. They all looked worried.

‘I don’t know how long I’ll be away,’ she said, adjusting a turban over her black hair. ‘It might be days or it might be weeks. If anyone comes looking for me you are to say that I am in the country for a rest-cure and I have left no forwarding address. Here is a list of towns where I’ll call at the post offices for letters. Remember that I am called Fern Williams.’ She glanced at Dot apologetically. ‘Sorry, Dot dear, but I couldn’t think of another name at short notice. If you really need me write to me, but use cheap stationery and a Coles envelope. If I need anything I’ll write, or I’ll telephone, supposing I can find a phone that isn’t in the general store. If I need to be rescued, Mr Butler can bring the Hispano-Suiza and just whisk me off home. This is Mr Lee,’ she added, presenting a sleek and glowing young man. ‘Mr Alan Lee. He’ll know where to find me and his orders are mine.’

‘Miss,’ said Dot, ‘what about Detective Inspector Robinson?’

‘What about him?’

‘Are you going to tell him where you are going and all?’

‘That’s a good idea, Dot. You ring him and tell him. If he wants me, then he can follow the same routine. If he really wants me, tell him to get someone to arrest me. I can’t be seen to be on good terms with the cops.’

‘Yes, Miss. Good luck, Miss Phryne.’ Dot kissed Phryne on the cheek. ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

‘Yes, Dot, I will. I promise.’

Mrs Butler stepped forward and offered Phryne a bottle.

‘What’s this?’

‘Goanna oil,’ said Mrs Butler. ‘If you’re going to keep falling off a horse, Miss Fisher, then you’ll need it.’

Phryne took a last look at the anxious faces and said, ‘Thank you. I’ll be off then.’

No one moved.

She went out of her own back door, taking a last look at the solid, well-known and well-loved house.

‘Right?’ asked Alan Lee, running a caressing hand down her back. ‘You want to leave all this and come to the circus, Fern?’

Phryne shivered pleasantly and kissed him very gently and lingeringly on the mouth. She would not be able to kiss Alan Lee again while she stayed with Farrell’s Circus and Wild Beast Show.

‘Right,’ she said.

Half an hour later Alan Lee parked his truck near the carousel and Phryne leapt out, clutching the brown suitcase. Her dress was once-washed and a blinding pink. Her head was bound up in a closely fitting pink turban. Her only unusual attributes were hidden. Around her waist, in a custom-made webbing belt, was her card case, some coins and twenty pounds in notes. In a compartment in the cheap suitcase was her Beretta and a box of ammunition.

The circus was breaking up. Two trucks had been loaded with planks and seats. Phryne stowed her suitcase on the truck designated by a laconic rigger. He was dressed lightly in a blue singlet, army-issue shorts, boots, and a fixed hand-rolled cigarette.

‘What are they doing?’ she asked him nervously, expecting to be snubbed. He smiled indulgently down at the pink turban.

‘You’re the new rider, ain’t you? Never seen this before? Well, first we take down the canvas,’ he said, as gangs of sweating men passed him, unlacing and folding the sides of the tent. ‘Then we take out the guys and dismast the king poles.’

‘Which are they?’

‘The two highest ones. They’re jointed so we can carry them. But they gotta fall careful-like, ’cos they cost a fortune. So we slows the fall all the way with lines.’

‘But what takes the strain?’

‘Rajah,’ he said, gesturing with a thumb. Rajah the elephant, in harness, was holding the lines which stretched up to the king poles without shifting her feet. Phryne noticed three men in a group, leaning against the guys and smoking.

The head rigger noticed them too. ‘Hey, you blokes! Come and lend a hand.’

One of the group made a rude gesture and the rigger strode off into the collapsing tent. Lifting the man off his feet, the rigger swung him out from under the canvas. The man stood rubbing his arm with one sticking-plastered hand.

‘You wanna work in a circus,’ the rigger said calmly, the cigarette never moving from its position on his lower lip, ‘then you work.’

‘Mr Jones said—’

‘I don’t give a . . .’ The rigger noticed Phryne and did not finish the sentence. ‘I don’t care what Mr Jones said. He ain’t head rigger and I am. Now carry canvas or get out.’

Sulkily, the three men moved away. The rigger spat out his cigarette and ground it slowly into the dust with the heel of his boot.

‘Now, you watch,’ he said. The tent came down with a gusty sigh, ballooning gently, as the king poles toppled. Rajah trundled out as it fell and stood patiently waiting until someone undid her harness. An army of men fell on the flattened saucer-shaped mass and dissected it into laced sections of canvas, miles of line, poles, tent pegs, electrical equipment and wires.

‘You’ve got electric lights, then,’ commented Phryne.

‘Yair, boss bought a generator. That’s the generator truck. Much better than the old flares. Petrol vapour, they were, and bloody dangerous. The electric ones are beaut. But the flyers say that they’re too bright and they get too hot up in the air. Flyers,’ he chuckled, ‘they don’t come more temperamental than flyers.’

It struck Phryne that she was talking to the most important man in the circus. Without this tall and competent rigger, the temperamental flyers would have no trapeze, the circus would have no cover, no lights and no ring. He seemed to bear his responsibility lightly. His eyes, however, missed nothing.

Horses neighed, camels hooted and bubbled. Rajah was unharnessed and led through the crowd by one ear. The air was full of smoke as all manner of trucks revved and either started or did not start. The air was also filled with curses.

‘Miss Fern,’ said a voice at Phryne’s hip. This time she did not look up and around but dropped to one knee immediately. The dwarf seemed nervous.

‘Mr Burton,’ she said. ‘Good morning.’

‘Would you care to ride with me?’ he asked diffidently. ‘The Catalans and I travel in convoy. Or perhaps you have a companion already?’

Phryne’s body ached suddenly with remembrance of Alan Lee’s touch. She banished a treacherous thought of what it might be like to make love in a moving caravan.

‘Am I supposed to travel with the rest of the girls?’ she asked.

The rigger commented, ‘Nah. The girls spread ’emselves wherever there’s a place. You go with Mr Burton, girl. You’ll get a more comfortable ride with him.’ He grinned. ‘Safer, too.’

Since Mr Burton had drawn himself up to his full four feet (advertised height, three foot, seven inches), Phryne interposed her body.

‘Thank you for telling me about the tent,’ she said hurriedly to the rigger. ‘Most interesting.’ He gave her a puzzled look and she realised belatedly that she had used the wrong voice.

‘Gotta go,’ she added and accompanied the dwarf across the disintegrating camp to his own caravan. It was drawn by a large and patient horse, who was being backed into the shafts by one of the Catalans.

‘Hola,’ he encouraged. ‘Il vaut mieux aller seul qu’en mauvaise compagnie. It is better to travel alone than in bad company,’ he added, viewing the pink dress with disapproval. He recognised Phryne as she came closer and muttered an apology. Phryne grinned. The dwarf climbed the side of the caravan and took the reins.

‘Merci, Benet,’ said Mr Burton. ‘Will you sit beside me, Miss Fern?’

The solemn dark boy boosted Phryne up onto the wagon and she sat down beside Mr Burton, clutching at her turban.

‘It all vanishes so fast,’ she said breathlessly.

The circus, which had looked so permanent, came apart and packed itself up with astounding speed. The horse lines were empty. Phryne caught sight of Miss Younger, sitting astride Bell with effortless ease, ordering the riders of the liberty horses into convoy. The lions’ cages had been loaded onto two trucks, with Amazing Hans driving one. Phryne caught sight of his flowing mane of hair. The first trucks, carrying the tent and the seating, were already out of sight. Behind, in a straggling line which was nevertheless perfectly ordered, came the riders, the camels, Rajah and her friend Sultan, the flyers and tumblers and clowns. There followed the Catalans and Mr Burton, then after them in a long line the riggers and the lions and the roustabouts, cooks and boys. After them, separated by a little space came the carnival and after them, also separated, the gypsies.

The wagon jolted onto the tarmac surface of Williamstown Road. ‘Would you like to make some tea?’ suggested Mr Burton. ‘There is a spirit stove inside.’

Phryne climbed back into an immaculate little room. Everything was dwarf-size, from the four-poster bed with the satin quilt to the tiny wash-stand and the miniature wardrobe. It was all decorated in English cottage style and must have been very expensive.

She managed to persuade the spirit stove to light. While she waited for the kettle to boil, she looked out of the chintz-curtained window at the passing scene. Children whooped and ran along the pavements. Adults stood and stared. Once she had watched a circus go past in this way. Now she was inside one.

A bubble of delight burst in her chest.

She called to Mr Burton, ‘How do you like your tea?’

‘Two sugars. Black,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to keep driving; can you bring it out here?’

Phryne managed to crawl back through the caravan hatch without spilling too much tea. Mr Burton gave her the reins while he drank. The big horse plodded on after the others in perfect four-four time. Clop, clop clop clop. Clop, clop clop clop. Phryne felt suddenly very relaxed, almost sleepy. The creature needed no guidance from the reins. He knew where he was going.

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Burton, putting down his empty cup in a niche evidently designed for it. ‘Why not have your tea now and perhaps a cigarette? This is always my favourite part of the journey. The beginning. Who knows what lies ahead?’

As Phryne sipped her tea and lit a gasper, the small man continued without change of tone, ‘And what are you doing in Farrell’s Circus, Miss Phryne Fisher?’