📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: Unnatural Habits by Kerry Greenwood

Summary:

The decidedly raven-haired Miss Phryne Fisher returns to delve deep into the dark side of Melbourne, Australia.

It's 1929, and girls are going missing. Little, pretty golden-haired girls. And they're not just pretty. Three of them are pregnant, poor girls from the harsh confines of the Magdalene Laundry. People are getting nervous.

Polly Kettle, a pushy, self-important girl reporter with ambition and no sense of self preservation, decides to investigate and promptly goes missing herself.

It's time for Phryne and Dot to put a stop to this and find Polly Kettle before something quite irreparable happens to all of the missing girls. It's all piracy and dark cellars, convents and plots, murder and mystery...and Phryne finally finds out if it's true that blondes have more fun.

"Among Phryne's pleasantly dashing adventures, this one stands out for its emphasis on sexual orientation and institutional coverups." —Kirkus Reviews 

Chapter One

'Do you believe in clubs for women, Uncle?' 'Yes, but only after every other method of quieting them has failed.' Punch cartoon, 1890

The attack came suddenly. Out of the hot darkness in the notorious Little Lon came three thugs armed with bicycle chains. The tallest lashed his against the crumbling side of a building. It hit a metal sign advertising Dr. Parkinson's Pink Pills for Pale People, which rang like a drum.

'An ominous noise,' commented Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan.

'The natives are restless,' agreed her companion. She was the Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher, five-feet-two with eyes of green and black hair cut into a cap. They were not the target of this assault. They were blamelessly approaching the Adventuresses Club bent on nothing more controversial than a White Lady (Phryne) and a dram of good single malt (Dr. MacMillan) and an evening's exchange of views on weather, politics and medicine. But Little Lonsdale Street was always liable to provide unexpected experiences.

However, the person who was fated for a good shellacking appeared to be lone, female and unprotected, which could not be allowed. Phryne turned abruptly on her Louis heel and, putting both fingers in her mouth, whistled shrilly.

'Look out, boys!' she yelled. 'Cops!'

Usually, this was a sound strategy. As police always entered Little Lonsdale Street in parties of four, the thugs would be outnumbered. It was just their bad luck, this evening, that they were led by a foolhardy tough with no sense of self-preservation. News like Phryne got around. He should have recognised her. But instead of a tactical withdrawal, he swung the chain again and struck a sign advertising Castlemaine Bacon (none finer). He advanced on Phryne and the doctor. She looked at her companion.

'You can't say I didn't give them a chance to get away,' said Phryne apologetically.

Dr. MacMillan waved a Scottish hand.

'You did,' she admitted.

Phryne raised an arm and made a circling movement. Men dressed in blue cotton appeared out of the darkness. They fell on the chain wielder and his satellites. To the noise of crunching bone and flesh hitting walls and pavement, Phryne and the doctor walked through the lesson (do not attack the concubine of our master Lin Chung unless you have a tank and a Lewis Gun and probably not then) and spoke to the intended victim, who was still cowering against a dustbin with her arms protecting her face.

'Hello,' said Phryne. 'Did they hurt you?'

'Didn't get started,' said the victim in a cultured voice. Not a working girl, then. 'What did you do with them?'

'Over there.' Phryne directed her attention to the melee, which had almost resolved into three untouched Chinese men and a heap of damaged thugs, groaning for burial or at least a stiff drink and a few bandages. The young woman boggled at the sight.

'Who are the Chinks?'

Phryne winced. 'The Chinese,' she said coldly. 'They follow me when I wander around this bit of the city. Their master is concerned for my safety. Not that I cannot look after myself. What have you done to attract this kind of attention, I wonder?'

'Asking too many questions,' replied the girl. She was small and plump. Her hair was shingled as short as the doctor's and her clothes were expensive. And not what they had been, sartorially.

'Always unwise in Little Lon. Can we offer you a drink and a new pair of stockings? I'm Phryne Fisher, and this is Doctor MacMillan of the Queen Victoria hospital, and our club is just over there.'

'Oh, Miss Fisher!' the young woman gasped. She pinkened. 'Of course. Thank you! I am a bit of a wreck.'

Phryne caught the eye of the blue-clad warriors. She bowed with both hands pressed together in front of her breast and indicated the stone entrance of the Adventuresses Club. They nodded and bowed deeply in turn.

'Of course, having a bodyguard does endow one with a certain insouciance in dealing with the denizens of Little Lon,' Phryne told the girl. 'Might we know your name?'

'Oh, sorry. Kettle,' said the young woman. 'Margaret Kettle—but everyone calls me Polly. I'm a reporter.'

'You are not, I understand, hoping to write any stories about this club?' demanded Dr. MacMillan.

'No!' protested Polly. 'No, certainly not, that was not what brought me to Little Lon.'

'Lips sealed?' asked Phryne.

'Buttoned,' promised Polly earnestly. She could see her drinks and her stockings vanishing just as she thought that they were hers. And she really needed a drink. Gently brought-up girls seldom met thugs in noisome alleys, and she was shaken.

'All right, then. My guest, Molly,' Phryne told the female giant sitting in the porter's chair. 'Bung over the book and I'll sign her in. Quiet night?'

'Until you got here,' grinned Molly. 'I expect cops'll be along to scrape up the remains soon. Better get inside before anyone starts asking questions.'

They ascended the stairs. Outside, a ragged boy settled down under the verandah. He attracted no attention whatsoever, except from Molly, who gave him a pie left over from her dinner. It was a good pie, though he did not eat it with the galloping ferocity of the truly starved. But he ate it. It was a good pie.

* * *

Phryne watched Dr. MacMillan settle Miss Kettle into a padded chair while she ordered drinks and a brief lease on the Withdrawing Room. This was kept supplied with first-aid equipment and the means for repairing or replacing clothes, plus emergency brandy and a young woman who could be summoned for comforting the bereaved or supplying new garments, whichever was required. Her name tonight was Annie. She thought this the best job she had ever had, as emergencies were not common in the club. Annie spent most of her time in the kitchen, being fed tidbits by the cooks and drinking as much tea as she could hold. Summoned, she conducted Miss Kettle into the Withdrawing Room. There she sat the reporter down, sponged the mud of Little Lon off her knees and palms, provided her with new hosiery and allowed her to wash her face and comb her hair while Annie attended to her clothes.

Polly Kettle had not been so tended since she was six and had fallen out of a tree which she had been expressly forbidden to climb. She drank her sal volatile, her hot sugared tea and then her brandy obediently. Annie smiled at her.

'There you are, Miss, no harm done,' she told the patient. 'I just caught up the split seam and put back the hem.' She surveyed Polly critically. 'You'll do.'

'Thank you,' murmured Polly, in a medicated haze. 'Are you a ladies' maid?'

'No, Miss, they call me an attendant,' said Annie. Polly saw that she was a meagre underfed creature, perhaps eighteen years old, with a scarred face. No one else, perhaps, would employ her. There were plenty of unemployed girls. Annie noticed her look.

'Burns,' she explained. 'I fell into the fire when I was a child.'

'Do you like working here?' asked Polly, her reporter's instinct asserting itself.

Annie broke into a pleased smile, strangely distorted by the scars.

'Oh, yes, Miss, the ladies are very kind, the pay is good, and no one objects to the way I look.' She opened the door to admit Polly again to the Sitting Room. Polly went where directed, still bemused.

Dr. MacMillan and Phryne Fisher were ensconced by an open window. Phryne was sipping from a frosted glass. Polly licked her lips.

'Come and have a drink,' invited Phryne. 'And if you sit there you will share our cooling breeze. What would you like?'

'Gin and tonic, please,' said Polly. 'Thank you so much for looking after me.'

'Not at all.' Phryne waved her unoccupied hand. 'We are expecting you to enthrall us. Serena, a G and T for Miss Kettle, if you please.'

Serena obliged, and minutes later Polly was clutching a frosted glass of her own.

'Now,' said Phryne cozily, as she drew Polly down to sit next to her, 'do tell!'

'Girls are going missing from the Magdalen Laundry at the Abbotsford convent,' said Polly. Her hearers failed to gasp or exclaim. Polly, a little disappointed, took a deep gulp of her drink. It was strong and shocked a little pink into her pale cheeks.

'Yes?' prompted Phryne.

'Three of them so far. Mary O'Hara, Jane Reilly, Ann Prospect. Sent out to stay with a pious widow in Footscray and vanished.'

'Not just run away? I would, if I was sent to a pious widow,' said Phryne.

'Pregnant,' said Polly baldly, disdaining euphemism. 'Very pregnant. Within a month of delivery. The pious widow runs a nursing home in Footscray. My newspaper's Mr. Bates interviewed her and she was unable to tell him what had happened to the girls, or why they should run away when they were so close to their time. Ann Prospect has relatives. They have not heard from her. The same for the others. No one has heard from them. The police are not interested.'

'But you are?' asked the doctor.

'I am,' said Polly.

'Why?'

'I'm a reporter,' said Polly defiantly. 'I work for the Daily Truth. They only want female reporters to write about fashion and food and babies and turn in reports of flower shows (getting all the names correct). I want a scoop.'

'In order to prove to your proprietor that you are a real reporter?' asked Phryne.

'Yes!' said Polly.

'A laudable ambition,' said Phryne.

'No one cares about bad girls!' Polly burst out indignantly.

'They make one mistake and they are shut up in the laundry doing hard work. Their babies are adopted out. They are ruined. We ought to have got beyond that. What use is freedom—they told us that we fought that war for freedom—when the women are still punished and the men go on to seduce another girl?'

'Indeed,' said the doctor gravely.

'The cops told me that they had just run away to go on the street,' said Polly. 'Who is going to buy your body when you are eight months pregnant? It's ridiculous.'

'Certainly,' said Phryne. 'Have you enquired at the morgue?'

'The morgue?' Polly took another gulp of her drink.

'Well, the three girls are either dead or somewhere else, alive. That is the first thing you need to ascertain. I believe that there is a register of unclaimed bodies. Then, if they are not there, you need to ask at various hospitals. You keep a proper account of your patients, Elizabeth, do you not?'

'Of course,' said Dr. MacMillan. 'Come to the front desk and I will arrange for you to search the records. Of course, some of our patients do not use their real names. We discourage this but we understand it.'

'That is ... very kind of you,' faltered Polly. Life was becoming extremely real at present, she thought.

'And I will ask about who sent your assailants,' said Phryne. She finished her drink and sauntered out. Polly looked at Dr. MacMillan, who seemed reassuringly normal.

'Does she mean to go and ...'

'She does,' said the doctor comfortably.

'Is she always like that?' asked Polly.

'When she was sixteen she was an ambulance driver on the Western Front. I don't think she's been daunted by anything since then,' the doctor told her. 'She flew me into Hebridean crofts during the flu epidemic when she had to land on shingle and strand with sea on one side and cliff on the other and never turned a hair. Miss Fisher is a force of nature and there is never anything you can do about her. Have another drink and appreciate the show. That's what I do. I wonder, now, could any of your girls be at the Queen Vic? Do you have a description of each of them—or, better yet, a photo?'

'They were photographed when they entered the care of the convent,' said Miss Kettle, still bemused. 'I have them here.'

'Show me,' said Dr. MacMillan. 'There will be a reasonable explanation, I'm sure enough of that.'

'And if there isn't?' asked Polly.

'Then we will hand the matter over to Miss Fisher,' said the doctor, sipping her whisky. 'She's very good at the irrational.'

'Oh,' said Polly.

'But none of this is for publication without our permission,' added Dr. MacMillan severely. 'Death may be a public matter, but birth is a female mystery. What was your last line of enquiry, m'dear?'

'Brothels,' said Polly, eschewing euphemism again.

The doctor seemed unmoved.

'Few brothels would employ women in their last trimester of pregnancy.'

'Yes, that's why I wondered if ... They say there are brothels that have special interests. You know, boys, small children, women with one leg, that sort of thing.'

'The depth of male depravity is indeed bottomless,' said Dr. MacMillan. 'And after thirty years in the medical profession nothing now astounds me about evil and the temptations of the devil. But I suspect that I would have heard of such a place. And I haven't.'

Polly had never met anyone like the doctor—or Phryne. Among women of her nice respectable middle class she herself was considered unacceptably bold and even immoral for insisting on a career which did not include reporting on garden parties. Next to her was a group of ladies discussing strange tribal rites in New Guinea. And others were talking about a durbar where the elephants had got drunk and fallen over while curtseying to the governor. And a further group, rather elevated by cocktails, wondered aloud whether taking a lover is permissible only after one's husband has acquired a mistress, or if one could venture on a suitable man before, if the occasion seemed to warrant it. She took refuge in her drink.

Dr. MacMillan was examining the three photographs. She put on her wire-framed glasses and stared.

'No, can't recall seeing any of them,' she commented. 'Plain girls, aren't they? Not good prostitute material, though given those dreadful smocks and difficult situation I suppose they cannot look their best. The brothel market is rather overcrowded at present, you know. Employment is hard to get, even in the pickle factories and the dangerous trades, and so many young men didn't come home from the Great War. Girls who would have expected to marry some respectable tradesman will find no candidates except amongst the damaged and ruined, and that really only exchanges one set of cares for another. They have to work, but female wages are still much lower than men's, as though all of them were just finding a little piecework for pin money, not struggling for survival. So brothels are only accepting the young and pretty and winning. The poor drabs on the street are having a parlous time, I fear. They don't last long.'

Polly was shocked. Fortunately Phryne returned before she had time to burst into tears at the cruelty of female fate.

Miss Fisher was giggling.

'Miss Kettle, did you really ask about pregnant girls in the Blue Cat Club?' she said, sitting down and crooking a finger at the bartender for another White Lady.

'Yes, I heard they had strange tastes,' explained Polly. Phryne patted her hand.

'Yes, indeed, but exclusively male. You have been followed around town tonight by at least three fascinated observers, all watching, I fear, to see which of them was going to get you. The Blue Cat is far too soigné and careful of their manicures to inflict violence, luckily. But two others were dangerous. I should not go anywhere near Corsican Joe's in the near future. The far future, either. Or Madame Paris. I shall talk to her. It was the Corsican's men who tried to beat you. I am fairly confident that they will not attempt that again. And I will take to you meet Madame Paris in due course, if you like. But your enquiries need to go in another direction.'

'Why?' asked Polly. 'And why are you helping me?'

'Well, darling, one does not like to watch a nice little woolly baa-lamb go leaping and gambolling into a field full of large bitey wolves. It has a certain morbid interest, I agree,' said Phryne, sipping deeply. 'But it is basically a blood sport and I don't even like fox-hunting.' She gestured to the photos Dr. MacMillan was holding. 'Have you seen the girls, Elizabeth?'

'Not a one,' said the doctor.

'I thought as much. One of the Corsican's little pals mentioned that there is some sort of farm where pregnant whores have been sent. It sounds like it might be dire. Since even Lin Chung's minions couldn't get anything more out of him, I suspect that is the extent of his knowledge. Asking around,' warned Phryne, 'will be perilous.'

'I don't care,' said Polly stoutly, buoyed by company and gin. 'I'm a reporter with a name to make.'

'Up to you,' shrugged Phryne.

'A little advice?' suggested the doctor.

'Yes, of course,' said Polly.

'Sew your name and address into your undergarments,' said Dr. MacMillan. She observed Polly's look of incomprehension and did not smile.

'Makes it easier to identify your body,' explained Phryne. 'Assuming that they don't strip you naked, of course. Perhaps a tattoo might be better,' she added.

'Yes, dear, but think of the trouble when you changed addresses,' objected the doctor.

Suddenly it was all too much. Polly rose, straightened her new stockings, took her leave, and left. Phryne and Dr. MacMillan exchanged a speaking glance.

'How long do you give her?' asked the doctor in her soft, exact Edinburgh voice.

Phryne investigates the death of a teenager who attempted to escape a halfway house for girls run by nuns.

Release Date: November 22, 2013

Release Time: 52 minutes

Director: Tony Tilse

Cast:
Essie Davis as Phryne Fisher
Nathan Page as Detective John 'Jack' Robinson
Hugo Johnstone-Burt as Hugh Collins
Ashleigh Cummings as Dorothy 'Dot' Williams
Richard Bligh as Mr. Butler
Travis McMahon as Bert
Anthony Sharpe as Cec

Miriam Margolyes as Aunt Prudence

Neil Melville as George Sanderson

Dee Smart as Rosie Sanderson

Daniel Frederiksen as Sidney Fletcher

Joan Sydney as Mother Aloysius

Shayne Francis as Perpetua

Sally-Anne Upton as Sister Dominica

Alice Cavanagh as Mary

Paul Moder as Captain De Vere

Fantine Banulski as Joan

Kellie Trewin as Bernadette

Isabella Gilbert as Catherine

Cocaine Blues  /  Murder on the Ballarat Train  /  Green Mill Murder

Death at Victory Dock  /  Raisins and Almonds  /  Ruddy Gore

Murder at Montparnasse  /  Away with the Fairies  /  Queen of the Flowers

Blodd and Circuses  /  Murder in the Dark  /  Dead Man's Chest

Author Bio:

Kerry Greenwood is the author of twenty-eight novels and the editor of two collections. Previous novels in the Phryne Fisher series are Cocaine Blues, Flying too High, Murder on the Ballarat Train, Death on the Victoria Dock, Blood and Circuses, The Green Mill Murder, Ruddy Gore, Urn Burial, Raisins and Almonds, Death Before Wicket, Away with the Fairies, Murder in Montparnasse, The Castlemaine Murders, Queen of the Flowers and Death by Water. She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series. When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates' Court for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.

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Unnatural Habits #19

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📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: Dead Man's Chest by Kerry Greenwood

Summary:
Dot unfolded the note. "He says that his married couple will look after the divine Miss Fisher...I'll leave out a bit...their name is Johnson and they seem very reliable." Phryne got the door open at last. She stepped into the hall. "I think he was mistaken about that," she commented.

Traveling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza accompanied by her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth, and their dog Molly, The Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher is off to Queenscliff. She'd promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all.

An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and the mystery of a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably toward a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. But what information might the curious Surrealists be able to contribute? Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed, but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl-handled Beretta in the other, no one is getting past her.

CHAPTER 1
When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. --William Shakespeare As You Like It

Dot opened her eyes. Only because the Hispano-Suiza had, at last, stopped. It was a four-hour journey from Melbourne to Queenscliff, the holiday destination of the Hon. Miss Fisher, her maid and companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth, and their dog Molly. Miss Fisher wanted to make it a three-hour journey and she drove like a demon. Only Phryne, Molly and Jane had really enjoyed the flashing panorama of fields, trees, cows, little towns, fist-waving motorists and shouting traffic policemen — Phryne because she loved speed and Jane because she was calculating how fast the car was going by counting seconds between milestones. She had been given a wristwatch for Christmas. Sometimes the car's speed had exceeded eighty miles an hour. Jane was impressed. Ruth, who wanted to be a cook if she survived this trek, was feeling sick. She stared fixedly at the horizon and tried not to think of food. Dot had given up on courage and had just closed her eyes, crossed her maidenly breast and commended her soul to God. Molly had hung her head out the window and let the wind blow her ears inside out.

Dot saw that the car had arrived in the main street of a respectable little town. They were at the bottom of a steep hill. In the road three well-dressed youths were tormenting a dungaree-clad boy carrying a basket of fish for which some cook was undoubtedly waiting. Impatiently.

Phryne was getting out of the car. Dot closed her eyes. Miss Fisher was about to happen to someone again. She hoped that Phryne wouldn't get blood on her shoes. That glacé kid was a beast to clean. Ruth took a deep breath of relief as her sickness subsided and grabbed Molly. Jane wondered whether there would be any interesting injuries.

Phryne walked up to the group. Nice flannels, white shirts, blazers of a well-known and expensive public school. They had surrounded the young man and were pushing him from side to side, hoping that he would drop the basket so they could kick the fish all over the road and get the poor boy into trouble. Oafs, thought Phryne, disgusted. I just don't seem to be able to get away from oafs.

'Play time's over, chaps,' she said in a clear, authoritative voice. 'It's tea time, and Nanny's getting cross.'

'Who're you?' grunted an oaf with short blond hair, giving the fisherboy another shove.

'Phryne Fisher. Who are you?'

The curly-headed oaf was struck with an inconvenient memory when he heard that tone. He suddenly recalled a Maori storyteller from his childhood. One of their heroes had addressed an enemy: 'What name shall I put on the cup I shall make from your skull?' It had always made him shudder. He shuddered now, and began to back away.

'Kiwi, what's the matter with you?' snarled the blond.

'I never liked you, Fraser,' said Kiwi. 'Come on, Jolyon. This is a beastly sort of game.'

'Moral courage,' observed Phryne. 'How proud your school will be when I tell them how their alumni spend their holidays. Surfing? Good game of tennis? Torturing the peasantry?'

Fraser glared and retained his grip on the fisherboy's arm, twisting it behind his back. He winced but still did not speak.

'Let him go now,' said Phryne. 'Fun's over.'

'Oh, Lord,' whispered Jolyon, stout and red-faced. 'I know her.'

'Why, who is she then?' Fraser bared his teeth.

'She's the Hon. Miss Fisher,' muttered the boy. 'Like she said. My mother's been angling for an invitation to one of her parties. She's rich. And famous.'

'So? Your mater's a climber.'

'Kiwi's right,' said Jolyon with considerable dignity. 'I never liked you either. How about a game of billiards, Kiwi?'

'Let that boy go right now,' said Phryne, who had arrived somehow behind Fraser without him noticing that she had moved. 'Or you will be really, really sorry.'

He hesitated. Phryne, who was preparing to kick his feet out from under him and dance on his chest in her heavy driving shoes, observed the movement and caught his arm, putting him in the identical arm-lock but with a lot more skill.

'Not so fast. Those fish will have spoiled. Dig into those pockets, fellows, how much have you got?'

Such was her suasion that they assembled seven shillings and eight pence halfpenny and handed them over to Dot, who had left the car and was standing by to assist in any way, from yelling for the police to belting the nearest head with the tyre lever she held in her hand. She made Jolyon feel even worse. She was a plain young woman with a bun and a firmly fixed hat with orange geraniums in it. She looked so respectable!

Phryne released Fraser, shoving him away, and put a hand on the fisherboy's shoulder.

'Just a moment. We'll give you a lift to avoid any little recurrence of trouble. And boys, I'm going to be here for weeks, and if I see any of you so much as look sideways at an innocent man, woman, child or dog, expect retribution to set in with unusual accuracy and force. You hear me?'

They nodded, hangdog, beaten. Phryne took the victim by the shoulder and marched him to the car. Molly, excited by his delightful aroma of fish, licked his face. Ruth moved over to accommodate him. The big car moved off. Molly paused to bark scornfully at the three schoolboys standing amazed in the middle of the street.

The fisherboy, who was fairly sure that he was hallucinating, clutched his basket.

'I have to go to Mercer Street,' said the driver, an angel from heaven who had, doubtless for reasons of camouflage, appeared as a very well-dressed young woman. 'Turn left?'

'That would be right,' he said, finding his voice. All his aches suddenly made themselves felt. 'T'ank you, t'ank you, Missus! I thought I was gone and done for, so I did.'

'West of Ireland,' she commented. 'Gaeltacht?'

'Galway.' He was beyond amazement. Angels knew most things and, of course, they did go everywhere. 'Here's your house, Missus.' He pointed to a tall building a good height above the sea, unlit and shuttered.

'Thanks. If you have any more trouble with those louts, you come and tell me. What's your name?'

'Michael, Missus Fisher. Michael Callaghan. T'anks,' he repeated. As soon as the door was opened, he took his basket and alighted. He clawed off his flat cap and bowed. Phryne smiled at him. He was a wiry, red-headed boy with creamy Celtic skin much weathered at the wrists and neck. He gave her another clumsy bow and vanished, running, down the hill.

'Well,' said Phryne, 'that was stimulating. Is this the right house? It is. I have the key and the owner's note. No one appears to be at home,' she added, as the doorbell pealed in an empty space. 'Odd. What did Mr. Thomas say, Dot?'

Dot unfolded the note. 'He says that his married couple will look after the divine Miss Fisher ... I'll leave out a bit ... their name is Johnson and they seem very reliable.'

Phryne got the door open at last. She stepped into the hall.

'I think he was mistaken about that,' she commented.

The house was of a pleasant, if familiar, design. Two storeys: a long hallway into the main rooms, kitchen and bathroom at the back, up the stairs to bedrooms. The floor was unswept. Leaves and sand had blown in under the door. Ruth, who read a lot of Gothic romances, released Molly with shaking hands.

Molly ran barking down the hallway and into the kitchen, a place she could always find.

'Dot, keep the girls here while I go and see if there is any reason to worry,' said Phryne in a low voice. Dot nodded and herded the two young women into a search of the parlour and the withdrawing room.

Phryne, who sometimes hated the way her mind worked, walked down the unlit hall into the world beyond the green baize door, dreading what she might find. Corpses, perhaps? There was no smell except for the sea and an overlay of dust. Molly was barking hysterically — but that's dogs for you, she thought. Their solution to any problem was to give it a good barking.

The house was dusty, unloved and uncleaned, but not for very long. No trailing cobwebs caressed her face as she opened the door into the kitchen, the butler's pantry, the scullery. The house was making the usual creaks and groans of an old house but they were exaggerated by the still air. Phryne wished she had her little gun in her hand, though any peril must be long gone by now. She had left the gun in the car.

She was relieved to find nothing more frightful than an open back door. Beyond, the kitchen garden looked dry but not desiccated. A strong scent of herbs came to her. That mint bed could do with watering. Now, what had happened here?

The kitchen table was bare. The dishes from the last meal served here had been washed up and put away. The floor was damp because the ice in the ice chest had melted because the door had been left open. There was no betraying butter by which she could estimate anything by observing the depth to which the parsley had sunk. The sink was dry. The cupboards were void of anything, even salt, even tea. The kitchen had been looted. Cheap cutlery in the drawer, but the owner would not leave silver in a holiday house. There were plates, cups and glasses, and there was table linen in the linen press. The butler's cupboard, however, was empty of even a sniff of cooking sherry.

Molly came in from the garden grinning and panting. She had not found anything alarming.

Off the kitchen were the servants' quarters. These usually comprised a bedroom, a bathroom and a sitting room. They were quite empty except for a stripped bed, a wicker armchair which was unravelling quietly in the dusty sunlight, and some litter on the floor: a few crumpled papers, a bathing shoe, a scatter of coins and a broken shoelace. All the signs of a hasty — but thorough — departure. Phryne could see the man, sitting on the side of that bed, tugging angrily at a bootlace and swearing as it snapped in that charming way shoelaces have when one is in a hurry. No blood. No signs of violence.

She returned to the hall, where Dot was looking worried.

'There's a few things missing, Miss,' she said.

'And from the kitchen, which is quite empty. Mr. Thomas's married couple seem to have left abruptly, pausing only for a spot of pillage.'

'There's sheets and blankets and so on upstairs,' said Dot. 'But some ornaments and a painting are missing. You can tell from marks in the dust. What do you want to do, Miss?'

'I'm not having you housekeep while we loll around,' said Phryne. 'Oh, for my Mr. and Mrs. Butler! Tell you what. Let's bring the things in — I notice that our trunks are here — and settle in for the night, and tomorrow we can find some servants.'

'I don't reckon we'll find anyone free in the season,' said Dot. 'But I don't mind, Miss. Nice house like this.'

Phryne looked at Dot affectionately. She was mousy and quiet where Phryne was bold, devout where Phryne was outrageous, and good girl was written all the way through her, like Castlemaine through Castlemaine Rock. And Phryne relied on her as she relied on her own right hand.

'Good. Well, girls?'

'Nothing scary,' said Jane, who disliked Ruth's emotionalism and never read novels. 'Have they gone, Miss Phryne?'

'Yes, and taken a lot of little souvenirs to remember poor Mr. Thomas by.'

'Are we staying?' asked Ruth.

'What do you think?'

'I say yes,' said Ruth, her courage much restored by not being expected to drive in that frightful vehicle anymore. Leaving would mean getting back into the Hispano-Suiza and Ruth was presently contemplating walking home to St. Kilda rather than doing that.

'So do I,' agreed Jane. 'I wonder if the neighbours saw the truck?'

'The truck, Jane?' asked Phryne, who was getting peckish.

'They must have had a truck to take all the things they stole.'

'Good observation. Let's ask them. You two carry up your own things then make up beds, and Dot can come with me. You'll be all right on your own?' she asked, seeing a shadow on Ruth's plump cheek.

'Of course,' said Jane flatly, and led the way to the luggage.

'I might just close and lock the back door,' said Phryne. 'Come and have a look at the kitchen, Dot. And where's that note? Mr. Thomas said something about the neighbours.'

Assisted by Molly, the girls opened the first trunk and began to haul their own belongings up the stairs. Dot walked into the kitchen and stared.

'They've even taken the tea,' she said, shocked. 'And the condiments, and the flour — look, there's been a whole sack here. And if it wasn't them, Miss, who did?'

'Perhaps someone who needed the flour more than we do,' said Phryne absently. 'The back gate might be open, too.' She led the way into a rather bijou little herb garden.

'Only been a couple of days without water,' remarked Dot.

The back gate, a heavy wooden construction topped hospitably with broken glass, stood ajar. Phryne shut and latched it.

'Flour,' she said, noticing traces of white powder on the gravel.

'I don't like this,' said Dot quietly.

'No, on consideration, Dot dear, I don't like it either — but whatever has happened has already happened. Let's call on the ... what's their name?'

Dot consulted the note.

'He says that the lady on the left is a Miss Rose Sélavy, she isn't here all the time and he doesn't know her, and the lady on the right is a nice Mrs. Mason, who will be delighted to introduce you to the worthies of Queenscliff.'

'Then let's go and call on nice Mrs. Mason, and see if she can spare someone to summon the constabulary.'

*

Mrs. Mason, when they gained admittance to the spacious house next door, did not seem conspicuously nice. She was large, pink, suicidally blonde, bridling and suspicious, but it did not take Phryne long to divine the cause.

'And I suppose you know Mr. Thomas well?' she asked, keeping her visitors standing in the hall, which was not polite.

'Not at all,' said Phryne promptly. 'Only met him once, at a big party. He said he had a house to lend and I accepted.'

Mrs. Mason relaxed, smiled and ushered them into the parlour.

Dot exchanged a glance with Phryne. Nice Mrs. Mason, apparently, had hopes of a closer relationship with nice Mr. Thomas.

The sun parlour was spotless and comfortable, furnished with cane chairs and possibly just a thought too many wicker whatnots. A small maid came in with tea on a trolley, an innovation of which Phryne approved. The weight of the average tray of teapot, milk jug, hot-water jug, sugar basin, slop basin, strainer, and cups and saucers was far too much for any young woman. Not to mention what looked like a rather good pound cake, a succulent fruitcake and a mound of freshly made scones. Phryne was hungry.

She allowed Dot to explain the situation as she made a healthy attack on the cake and loaded a scone or two with plum jam and cream. Mrs. Mason, now relieved of her fears for her nice Mr. Thomas's affections, exclaimed in horror.

'The Johnsons not back! I can't believe it! No warning! No letter! That is not like them, really it isn't,' she said, raising her plump pink hands. Now that she was being nice Mrs. Mason, she had a pleasant, educated, alto voice. 'And the kitchen empty?'

'Not a crumb,' said Phryne, taking over the conversation so that Dot could have her turn at the cake. 'These scones are first rate, Mrs. Mason.'

'Thank you — my cook is very good,' said Mrs. Mason distractedly. 'I really can't imagine what might have happened! The Johnsons were on a week's leave — they should have been back yesterday! But first things first. We shall telephone that nice Constable Dawson. Then we shall telephone Miss Miller, who has the employment agency. She might have a few people on her books, but really, this far into the season, I fear all the good people will be taken. But there might have been a cancellation,' said Mrs. Mason bravely. 'Then of course you will dine with me tonight, and tomorrow the tradesmen will call as usual and you can order replacements. And you say that your daughters are still in the house and not a bite to eat? I shall order a hamper to be sent over immediately. And a bone for the doggie, of course.'

She bustled away. Phryne poured herself another cup of tea.

'I know what you are thinking,' she said to Dot, who was nibbling her second slice of cake.

'Yes, Miss?'

'You are thinking that I attract mysteries,' said Phryne, a little uneasily. She had promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea and absolutely no murders. Though the Johnsons might be alive and well and living on damper (made from Mr. Thomas's flour) on Swan Island, of course.

Dot swallowed and considered.

'Well, yes, Miss, you do. But I don't reckon this was anyways your fault,' she said generously, much restored by tea and pound cake, her favourite. 'We just walked straight into this one.'

Buried treasure and pirate legends bubble to the surface in the seaside holiday town of Queenscliff. Phryne finds herself at the pointy end of a Spanish dagger.

Release Date: September 20, 2013
Release Time: 54 minutes

Cast:
Essie Davis as Phryne Fisher
Nathan Page as Detective John 'Jack' Robinson
Hugo Johnstone-Burt as Hugh Collins
Ashleigh Cummings as Dorothy 'Dot' Williams
Richard Bligh as Mr. Butler
Travis McMahon as Bert
Anthony Sharpe as Cec
Ruby Rees as Jane
Julia Blake as Hilly McNaster
Dan Wyllie as Gerald McNaster
Reef Ireland as Kip
Tony Rickards as Sergeant Baxter
John Brumpton as Finlay Ellis
Jasper Bagg as Wally Stirling

Cocaine Blues  /  Murder on the Ballarat Train  /  Green Mill Murder

Death at Victory Dock  /  Raisins and Almonds  /  Ruddy Gore

Murder at Montparnasse  /  Away with the Fairies  /  Queen of the Flowers

Blodd and Circuses  /  Murder in the Dark  /  Dead Man's Chest

Author Bio:
Kerry Greenwood is the author of twenty-eight novels and the editor of two collections. Previous novels in the Phryne Fisher series are Cocaine Blues, Flying too High, Murder on the Ballarat Train, Death on the Victoria Dock, Blood and Circuses, The Green Mill Murder, Ruddy Gore, Urn Burial, Raisins and Almonds, Death Before Wicket, Away with the Fairies, Murder in Montparnasse, The Castlemaine Murders, Queen of the Flowers and Death by Water. She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series. When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates' Court for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.

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