Blood and Circuses

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They assumed to be mighty rakish and

knowing, they were not very tidy in their

private dresses, they were not at all orderly

in their domestic arrangements . . . yet . . .

there was a remarkable gentleness . . . an

untiring readiness to help and pity one another

deserving of as much respect . . . as the everyday

virtues of any class of people in the world.

Charles Dickens

Hard Times

Once Phryne had demonstrated that she could stand on Missy’s back steadily, despite complaining flyers, tumbling Catalans, roaring lions, two clowns playing a violin in a choice of keys, and a wire walker bashing two saucepans together, she was dismissed for the afternoon and told to get some sleep.

This was not an easy matter, although she was so tired that she could have lain down on a barbed-wire fence. The affair with Matthias the clown was known, so she could not sleep in his bed. Someone had found and removed her gun, so they knew where she slept in the girls’ tent, which meant that she couldn’t sleep there either. By an association of ideas she crossed the circus grounds and curled up under Bernie’s awning, next to Bruno. He was affected by the weather, which was hot and somnolent. He lay down beside her, laying his formidable head on her hip, and whickered softly through his nose.

It was the first time that Phryne had ever been lulled to sleep by a snoring bear.

She was woken by Bernie. Bruno scrambled onto all fours, hoping for biscuits. Phryne sat up and rubbed her eyes.

‘You look like something out of a fairy tale,’ commented Bernie. ‘Dinner’s on. Mr Thompson must have bought his wife flowers or something. She’s had a rush of blood to the head and dished up a quite decent Irish stew. For a change. Don’t waste this opportunity, Fern. It may never come again.’

Phryne splashed her face in Bruno’s drinking water and felt refreshed.

Mrs Thompson’s Irish stew, though it would not pass at the Ritz, was pleasant and filling. She perched on a bucket near the heat of the cook tent, and various people greeted her as they passed.

‘Ah, Fern,’ carolled a voice like buttered toffee. ‘Fern, Fern, makes my head turn. “For beautiful Fern I groan and . . . er . . . girn.”’ Matthias looked at her severely. ‘Don’t laugh. It’s Scotch. Probably Burns. “Fern will teach and I will learn. I gave my heart to beautiful Fern.” There. Can I have some stew, Mrs T?’

‘If you promise not to make any more poems,’ said the older woman. Matthias laid his hand on his heart and promised solemnly. Phryne saw that he had his other fingers crossed behind his back. She grinned up at him.

‘Help me carry this?’ he asked. ‘I have to take some back for Toby.’

Phryne slung her tin plate into the washing-up water and accepted the dish. ‘What’s wrong with Toby?’

‘He’s gone off again,’ said Matthias sadly. ‘Poor Toby. Gone funny, you could say. He doesn’t see or hear. Come in,’ he invited as they reached the caravan. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Fern. I have to feed him.’

Toby sat where he had been placed in a comfortable chair in his own caravan. His eyes were open. He seemed to be breathing. That was his only sign of life.

‘How do you know something’s wrong?’ asked Phryne, cutting up the solid bits of the Irish stew. The ugly face with the beautiful grey eyes turned to her.

‘You were seen fighting off Jones behind the lions. You were molested by Miss Younger. You flattened a roustabout who said something nasty to you. Then you were found by Dulcie who took you to Mama Rosa. After that you vanished into the carnival, possibly with a diddikoi called Lee, or the strongman, Samson. Then you rode Missy in practice, took her back to the lines and groomed and fed her, then fell asleep with Bruno. Open your mouth, Tobias. It’s din-dins time.’

‘Do you know everything?’ asked Phryne, astonished.

‘No. But I want to know about you. I’m worried, Fern. Something is brewing.’

‘You bet,’ said Phryne. She wanted to say more but Toby’s open mouth and expressionless eyes worried her. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said uneasily. ‘You finish feeding him and then we can go into your caravan.’

‘Don’t go out,’ he said quietly. ‘Toby won’t tell, will you, eh Tobias? Swallow, now, there’s a good fellow. It’s kosher. It’s mutton and onion and potato. Eat up, Toby.’

He spooned stew into Toby’s mouth until he finished his ration. Matthias gobbled his own dinner and turned Toby to face the wall.

‘Now,’ said the clown, ‘if you trust me, tell me.’

Phryne, in a low voice, began to tell him about the murder of Mr Christopher, the accidents on the road, which could all have been done for a central purpose and were attributable to the three roustabouts, the half-share of the circus owned by Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd, the names of the company’s officers, and the strange hint in Jack Robinson’s letter.

‘Exit,’ mused the clown. ‘I seem to have heard it before. Then again, it’s a word you see a lot. On every theatre wall, for example. But death is an exit too. Could that relate to funeral parlours? Tell me your real name,’ he said and Phryne leaned towards him and slid her hand behind his head to catch a handful of the ragged silvery-brown hair. She breathed her name into his ear.

‘A name that tickles,’ observed Matthias. ‘It’s clear that those three are responsible and that Jones is their paymaster. He wants to ruin Farrell, for some criminal reason. Why shouldn’t we just . . . er . . . lose them? Your Samson could tie them into Turk’s heads and leave them out in the bush somewhere. No?’

‘No,’ said Phryne. She was firm on the ethics of assassination as a tool of practical problem solving.

‘We could at least tell someone,’ said Matthias. ‘That Jones has got it in for you, Fern. I don’t like the way he looks at you.’

‘I don’t like the way he looks at me, either. I’ve got some help and more coming, I suspect.’ She looked into the grey eyes. ‘And there’s time.’

‘Time for what?’

‘For things to develop,’ said Phryne.

The clown’s mouth curved up into a smile. He kissed her gently on the shoulder that showed through the boat neck of the lime-green shift.

The bell announced showtime. Phryne accompanied the clowns to the girls’ tent, where Dulcie gave her the scarlet tunic, a feather headdress and a pair of tights, which had been mended. Jo Jo, carrying two violins, a bow, and a heavy bag which clanked, walked his brother into the canvas antechamber and stood him against the wall.

‘First act: the Thompson-and-Dog Turn to warm up the crowd,’ he commented. ‘You can see through here, Fern.’

The ring was brightly lit. Thompson, in baggy trousers and huge shoes, was encouraging his fox terrier to leap through a hoop. It wouldn’t. He lowered the hoop. It refused. He laid the hoop on the ground. The dog was impassive. Finally he picked up the hoop and tried to leap through it himself. He stuck. The dog began to dance on its hind legs. It seemed to be amused. Thompson with the ring around his knees and elbows, frog-jumped out of the ring. The audience laughed and applauded.

‘Liberty horses,’ said Jo Jo. ‘Hold still, Toby.’ He was applying white paint to his brother’s immobile face.

Into the ring ran ten horses, all perfectly white. Phryne was close enough to see where whitewash concealed the occasional unmatching sock or ear. In response to Farrell’s whip, they walked, cantered and ran. Then they all stopped and bowed. A boy ran along the line, attaching a cloth with a number to each back. Farrell selected one horse out of the throng and blindfolded it with a black bandanna. He turned it around tail to nose three times and then let it go.

‘Ladies and gentlemen! These horses are so highly trained that number three will find her own way back into order blindfolded.’

He set the horses to cantering again. The blindfolded mare, listening with her ears pricked, hesitated for perhaps ten seconds, then joined in the canter around the ring, slotting herself in neatly between number two and number four. The crowd applauded and the horses left.

‘The Catalans,’ muttered Jo Jo. ‘Third billing, and they 188 are worth it.’

Phryne applied her eye to the peephole again. In ran nine men and a boy, turning somersaults. They rolled and tumbled, encouraging each other with shouts in what was presumably Catalan. One man stood on another’s shoulders, who took another on his own. The pile walked calmly across the ring, fell apart and the three rolled safely in the sawdust.

Two boys brought in balancing poles. The Catalans play-fought with them, their voices harsh and mocking. Then four of them lined up, arms linked, and three more leapt to their shoulders and balanced there. The structure wobbled a little, then was still. Two men climbed up, shoulder to foot to shoulder and linked their arms, poles held out. The structure firmed again. Phryne reflected on the weight which the men at the bottom must be carrying. She wondered what else would happen.

With a cry, the boy ran at the pile of men. No hands reached for him. He swarmed up three stories of humans and planted his feet on the two top men’s shoulders. Slowly, he stood up.

For a moment he was perfectly still, arms outstretched. He looked like a bronze image of some heroic child from a Greek legend. The electric lights made a halo around his sleek black head. Applause rocked the tent. Then the pyramid fell quietly apart, the boy was lowered from the top, and all ten of the Catalan Human Pyramid were on solid sawdust again.

‘High wire,’ said Jo Jo the clown. ‘Hold this mirror for me, Fern.’ Phryne held the mirror over her shoulder, her eyes glued to the peephole. ‘One moment,’ said the clown. He kissed her on the ear. ‘Last chance before I paint my mouth,’ he added hopefully. Phryne did not move.

A line had been rigged twelve feet off the ground. A man was walking out along it, sliding his feet, until he was in the middle. He yawned, stretched and sat down. Then he lay down and closed his eyes. Unable to get comfortable, he rolled over onto his stomach, twisted around and then rolled onto his back again. Giving this up, he sat on the rope. A roustabout with a long pole fetched him a chair. He took it, set it on the rope and sat down, fumbling for a cigar, which he lit. Then he leaned back, blowing smoke rings. The chair tipped. The audience held their breath. The chair tipped further and fell.

Just as it seemed that a broken back was inevitable, the high-wire artist twisted, regained his feet and stood on the rope, the chair in one hand and the cigar still in his mouth. The audience sighed with relief. There was something odd about them, Phryne thought. Their eyes were bright, their mouths wet. They licked their lips.

‘They want him to fall,’ said Jo Jo’s voice next to her ear. ‘They always do, the crowds. That’s why he does that pratfall. Keeps them on the edge of their seats. Now, Toby, are we ready?’

He gave his brother a brisk brush down and produced the violin and bow. Toby took them.

‘Ready?’ asked Matthias. ‘We’re on, brother. Time to give them a chance to bring in the lions.’

Tobias’s eyes seemed to fill with personality, as though it was being poured into him from a jug. He gulped and said, ‘Yes, Matt.’

‘Break a leg,’ said Phryne, and the brothers Shakespeare entered the ring on the receding wave of the tightrope walker’s applause. Dulcie wandered in and looked over Phryne’s shoulder.

‘Jo Jo and Toby!’ announced the ringmaster and cracked his whip. Jo Jo looked hurt. Toby took exception to the ringmaster. He walked up to him and gestured at the whip. The ringmaster cracked it again. Toby bared one thin arm and shook his fist at him. Farrell menaced him with the whip and he went back into the middle of the ring. He produced his violin and put it to his shoulder.

Jo Jo was interested. He tried to take the violin away from Toby and Toby knocked him down. He got up and Toby knocked him down again. He sat in the sawdust and cried. Then he was visited by an idea. He rummaged in the battered bag and found a violin of his own. Toby drew the bow across his instrument and a sweet long note sounded. Jo Jo copied the movement, without a bow. He rummaged in the bag again. In succession, he attempted to play the violin with a cricket bat, a stretched out stocking, a pencil, a sponge and a saw. Toby began to play a Bach air so sweetly that Phryne wondered why he was a clown, not a concert performer. A sawing noise ruined the sound. Jo Jo was finding out that you couldn’t play a violin which was cut in half.

He sat down and howled, holding one half of a violin in each hand in a pose that seemed to contain tragedy. The audience screamed with mirth. His brother ignored him and continued to play. Ravishing music poured from the violin. After a while, Jo Jo put the two halves of his instrument together again and plucked the strings with his fingers. The music was sweet beyond belief.

Jo Jo was led sobbing out of the ring, overcome by the music. The crowd laughed and clapped.

While the clowns were performing, the cages of lions had been brought in. Now the iron walls had been built and Amazing Hans summoned his beasts to appear.

As he called them by name, they sat up and snarled. ‘Sarah, Sam, Boy, King, Queenie, Prince!’

Phryne had seen lion tamers before. And she really did not like the lions. The clowns paused in the antechamber.

‘You’re marvellous,’ said Phryne. ‘Really terrific.’

‘Did you hear that, Toby?’ asked Jo Jo. He touched his brother’s cheek and waved a hand in front of his eyes. ‘Oh, dear, he’s gone again. Now, Fern, what about you? Can’t go on with a naked face, it’s indecent. Let me just stand Toby over here and I’ll paint you. We might as well match, eh? Tip up your chin. Now stay still.’

Matthias could not have been more professional. He smoothed greasepaint numbers five and nine into Phryne’s skin, carefully blending it in the palm of his hand. Then he drew in her eyes, provided red for her cheeks and lips and tucked a stray wisp of black hair under the feathers.

‘Pretty bird,’ he said. ‘Look at yourself.’

Phryne surveyed the face in the mirror and did not know it. The paint abolished features with which she was tolerably familiar and transformed her into a circus rider, born in a trunk and exactly the same as all the others. She smiled, then frowned. She was looking at a stranger.

A whip cracked in the big top. The lions were removed and it was interval. The crowd came streaming out, in search of fairy lollies and saveloys and ice-cream in tubs.

‘I’d better put poor old Toby back in his box,’ said Matthias. ‘Back later, Fern. Don’t miss the flyers. They are very good.’

Phryne learned that she was required to stay within the purlieus of the tent. She obtained a cup of tea and sat down on the grass to consider her situation.

There was too much that she did not know. She could pin down most of the accidents at Farrell’s Circus to the abominable Jones and his three henchmen. The tall one, the dark one, and the man with the sticking plaster on his hands. That was clear. What was not clear was why. If Jones wanted his half-share, he now had it, at the cost of three hundred pounds. What if Jones was the appointee of Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd? Phryne presumed that he was. He wielded too much power over Farrell not to have some financial or other very strong stake in the show. Mr Burton, a very shrewd person, thought it was money. So Jones, or Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd, had their half. Why should they keep on? And why should they kill Mr Christopher? If they had?

Phryne felt wrath glow in her insides about Mr Christopher. Christopher/Christine, he had been billed. Criss/Cross, the man–woman, perfect complement to poor Miss Younger. She would never find another man like him. Phryne was desperately sorry for Molly Younger.

‘Heads up, Fern,’ warned Dulcie. ‘The Bevans are on.’

The trapeze was occupied. Two young men, one at each end of the tent, were stretching and bending on gear slung from the king poles. They were clad in fleshings and tunics and they glittered with spangles. From the ground they seemed to have naked legs, chests and arms. They unslung the trapezes and swung out lazily, sitting on the bar like children on a swing, far over the audience’s heads.

One slid down and swung. The other slid as well, with a 192 heart-stopping jerk which Phryne hoped was done for effect. They swung by one hand, by one leg, backwards and forwards.

A young woman in a cloak was climbing a rope as easily as walking up a ramp. She reached the flies, unclasped the cloak and dropped it fluttering to the ground. It seemed to fall very slowly. It was a long way down. The audience’s eyes followed it. Two more men swarmed up ropes to the ceiling, just under the hot lights.

‘Now,’ she heard the biggest man call, hanging upside down by his knees. Some kind of cuff attached his ankle to the trapeze.

Swinging gently, the first man lazily let go of the bar with his knees and flipped himself into space. Just as lazily and with absolute timing, the catcher locked his hands onto his wrists. The crowd screamed. The catcher swung back and deposited the flyer on the perch. The next Bevan performed a somersault. The third did a double somersault. Five people changed places between trapeze and perch, moving with the assurance of birds in their native element. The young woman Lynn flew nonchalantly through the air, her lithe body a streak of blue, glittering as she turned, and was snared by her catcher’s safe hands.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen!’ announced Sam Farrell. ‘Silence if you please. Miss Lynn Bevan will now attempt, for your astonishment and delight, the most dangerous feat ever to be done by an aerialist. The triple somersault!’

The audience clapped. Phryne winced away from their hot eyes.

‘Called the death trick,’ continued the ringmaster, ‘thought to be humanly impossible. Now, could I have complete silence please.’

The drum rolled and was still. The blue-clad girl appeared to be impossibly high and impossibly delicate. She could not defy gravity for long enough to roll three times. Phryne held her breath. So did the crowd.

The catcher and the girl, hanging by their knees, began to swing. They were carefully out of phase. One movement seemed to be wrong and ugly because it did not reflect the other. Only when Phryne had begun to gnaw the greasepaint off her lips did the girl leave her perch and spin like a ball in the air. Once, twice, thrice and her hands came out of the last roll. The catcher had her safe, or as safe as she could be hanging by both wrists high above unforgiving sawdust. From up there, Phryne thought, the net must look like a pocket handkerchief. The crowd roared with relief and admiration. Miss Bevan was decanted neatly onto the stand and the Flying Bevans slid down ropes to take their bow.

‘While they get the net folded, we have jugglers,’ said Dulcie. ‘One of which is, come to think of it, me.’

She ran into the ring, catching balls tossed to her by her tall handsome partner. He smiled at her as she tossed back objects of different sizes and weight. There were balls, a matchbox, a club and an orange. Dulcie managed them without appearing to concentrate. The pair moved around the outside of the ring, tossing objects and quips, as the roustabouts rolled up the safety net and carried it out.

Then they took the centre. A boy ran in with a bundle of lit kerosene flambeaux. Dulcie and Tom took one each and passed them. Then two each and finally three. The flames flared and streamed as they were passed with precision from one hand to the other, so that Phryne was dazzled. She wondered how burned they had got, practising this dangerous trick. Finally, they caught up three each and brandished them.

Bernie entered, with Bruno in tow, passing Dulcie and Tom. The bear took a scooter away from a clown and got on it. He pushed off and scooted around the ring with solemn dignity, then dropped on all fours and was fed a ginger biscuit. He sat down, sat up and rolled over on request. Then the band struck up a waltz and he bowed to Bernie and waltzed him confidently around the ring to the strains of an out-of-tune Blue Danube. Bernie fed him another ginger biscuit. Phryne suddenly thought that this was a terrible thing to do to a wild creature.

Sultan and Rajah lumbered in to stand on tubs and awe the audience with their hugeness, and Phryne remembered that she was on soon. She had better go and look for Missy.

She found her standing quietly with the other horses. Feathers nodded between her ears and her harness was glittering with stones. The elephants walked out, and in came Mr Sheridan the magician. He wore immaculate evening dress and carried only a small wand. Phryne watched him pass, disliking his manner. She pinned down the cause of her distaste. He was a parvenu, an affected social climber. She recalled that his father was reputed to have been a grocer and wished his son had stayed a counter-jumper, where he belonged. Dulcie, in tights and a spangled costume, came behind him, bearing a collapsible table. Behind her were two stagehands carrying the disappearing box.

Phryne patted Missy and gave her a carrot. The dark passage was full of horses and girls. The hot air smelt sweetly of greasepaint and it was stifling. Phryne went back into the tent and looked through the peephole again.

‘I conjure,’ announced Mr Sheridan, ‘a dagger!’

Out of the air a dagger came floating down towards him. Phryne was close enough to see that it was suspended by nearly invisible fishing line.

How Shakespearean, thought Phryne. Parlour stage craft. She was not interested in Mr Sheridan. The audience, however, were enthusiastic.

‘We’re on,’ said Miss Younger’s voice. ‘Mount up.’

Phryne ran her hands over Missy’s back and the horse flinched and kicked.

‘What’s the matter, Missy?’ she asked. When she peeled back the tinselled riding blanket, something pricked her finger. She pulled it out. It was a splinter, fully two inches long. If she had leapt onto Missy’s back without knowing of it, her weight would have driven it into Missy’s flesh, which the mare would have pardonably resented. She put the splinter into the webbing belt, smoothed down her skimpy tunic and got up. Missy did not shift.

‘On we go. One circuit, knees. Next circuit, on the signal, stand. Three more circuits, standing. Then down and off and follow the parade. Go,’ said Miss Younger and rode Bell up the ramp and into the ring.

Phryne and Missy followed third in line, nose to tail with the next horse, up the incline. The ring was brighter than sunshine. Phryne blinked. The horses began to walk, then canter, at their smooth pace. Miss Younger cracked her whip. Obediently ten girls in feather headdresses rose to their knees. The whip cracked again and Phryne was standing with the others and the ring and the faces were flashing past. Missy was moving without fault, as smooth as cream.

Phryne felt a smile balloon up onto her face. She felt the strange force holding her on and upright. This is how a billy of tea feels when you spin it round your head, she thought as they completed the last circuit and slipped down to ride astride out of the ring and the tent, to turn and follow the tail of the procession.

In the crowd, Constable Tommy Harris picked out the third girl in the rush as Miss Phryne Fisher, only because he had been told that this was Fern Williams. He was dressed in his own clothes, elastic-sided boots, a clean white shirt, moleskins, a waistcoat and a pale wide-brimmed felt hat. He was fascinated. He had always loved circuses.

Detective Inspector Robinson was also somewhere in the crowd. He was difficult to spot in any gathering because he seemed to melt and blend, so that it was hard even for his friends to remember exactly what he looked like. He had no memorable features.

Sergeant Grossmith, under Robinson’s orders and profoundly out of place away from his precious Brunswick Street, was in Rockbank waking up the local constable. Jack Robinson meant to make a clean sweep of the circus. He had already spotted one man he knew—the little man with the sticking plaster on his hands, assiduously sweeping up horse droppings.

‘Ronald Smythe, or I’m a Dutchman,’ he breathed. Since he had definitely been born in Richmond, he was sure of his identification.

The grand parade was just starting when a hand plucked at Constable Harris’s clean white sleeve.

‘You looking for Fern?’ asked a voice behind him, in the gloom above his seat. ‘Come down here, then. She wants to talk to you private.’

Constable Harris had only been in the police force for eight months. He jumped softly down into the dark and, after a short and painful interval, knew no more.

Phryne rode Missy out of the tent and allowed a handler to take her away. She looked around for Dulcie or Matthias and could not see them. It was dark after the lights in the big top and she stood still to let her eyes adjust. Soon people would be streaming out of the tent again, to play games in the carnival and eat more ice-cream. They were merely the audience. She was now part of the show. She pulled off the feathers and ran her hands through her hair, hoping to cool her head.

At which point someone flipped a sack over her and scooped her off her feet. She was too astonished to scream. When she started to struggle, someone shoved a sharp blade through the sack. The point was icy on the hot flesh of her back.

‘Say one word,’ grated a voice, ‘and it’ll be your last.’