Free Murder on a Midsummer Night by Unknown

removing Ember from the disordered bed so that it could be made. This was always a touchy manoeuvre. But on this morning he rose unbidden, stretched all of his elegant black limbs and sauntered to the door, intent on breakfast.
    Dot made the bed with five skilled flicks and opened the window. Then she shut it again on a gust like a furnace exhaling.
    ‘Going to be hot,’ she ventured. ‘I’ll pull the curtains as soon as you’re dressed, Miss Phryne.’
    ‘Wouldn’t opening the window be better?’ asked Phryne, towelling her hair.
    ‘No, Miss, if it’s going to be really hot you need all the shade you can get, to keep the cool in,’ Dot instructed.
    Phryne accepted this, donned a loose cotton shift and went down to breakfast. There she ate poached eggs and crispy bacon with grilled tomatoes and advised her household of the nocturnal caller. She ordered a visit from an ironmonger to replace the bars, and watched Mr Butler wrap the jemmy for dispatch. The girls had already breakfasted and were agog. Their reactions were distinctly different. Ruth, who had not much imagination, was a little excited. Jane, who did, was a little afraid. But both of them were restrained from interrogating Miss Phryne at table by Dot, who agreed with Jane. Burglars should not be tolerated in a lady’s house.
    This might also have been Mr Butler’s opinion, but this could only be guessed at by the keen observer, who might have noticed an intensifying of his customary impeturbability from that of a stunned mullet on ice to that of a stuffed, as it might be, moose. He supplied Miss Fisher with more coffee and said nothing.
    ‘Today, Dot, we are going to visit Sister Immaculata,’ said Phryne. ‘She’s teaching at an infants’ school in Port Melbourne. I’m hoping that she might be able to impart some family secrets and save us from having to dig deeper. Eliza is going back to Mr Manifold’s shop to assist Sophie and poke around a bit.’
    ‘School’s out,’ observed Ruth, with some satisfaction. ‘The teachers are on holiday, like us.’
    ‘Sisters,’ said Dot severely, ‘are never on holiday.’

    There, it appeared, she was wrong. On arrival at the bluestone reformatory, it appeared that the school was indeed closed for the summer. It was deserted except for the sound of scrubbing and shrill conversation, which indicated that a few of the congregation had been strongarmed under threats of eternal damnation into scouring the place with sand soap and carbolic, to judge by the scent. The convent next door had a dread portal doorway with a wicket gate inside it. Phryne knocked, clutching at her straw hat which the wind was trying to steal, and made her request.
    ‘Sister Immaculata?’ repeated a plump, sweating young nun, clearly perishing beneath her wimple. ‘She’s on holiday in a boarding house in Williamstown. I can give you the address. She’s been a bit unwell and the doctor ordered sea bathing,’ said the portress, scribbling on a spare service card and handing it through the bars. ‘Gosh! I wish it was me! Going to be another scorcher, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’m afraid so,’ agreed Phryne.
    She took her leave and ordered Mr Butler to drive to Williamstown. It was still early and the day promised, at least, a pleasant lunch at some seaside cafe. Or cool hostelry. The hostelry, perhaps, might be better. In Phryne’s experience, the hostelry was always better, due to the patrons voting with their feet if the lunch wasn’t up to scratch . . .
    Dot was outraged when she mentioned this.
    ‘Miss, we can’t take a nun to a pub!’ she objected. Phryne had tried her very high. Her employer really was a Godless heathen.
    ‘Of course not, how very silly of me.’ Phryne patted Dot’s hand. ‘That’s why you’re here, you see? To stop me making terrible errors.’
    ‘All right, then,’ muttered Dot, still quivering. Her own early education had given her a great respect for nuns. Some of this respect had been