Free Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood Page A

thrown it into the fire; it had fallen behind the grate. I taxed him with the forgery and he admitted it. I beat him half to death with my cane. But it didn’t help. I could have killed him, but it wouldn’t have brought the dear girl back again.
    He went downhill after that. He wasn’t very good, Dorothea had carried him; with her gone he couldn’t manage. He went back to the chorus and took to the drink and I don’t know what happened to him. Died in the gutter, I expect, which was too good a fate for him. It’s an old story,’ he added, wiping his eyes, ‘and my Dorothea is thirty years dead. However, consider the happenings in the theatre. The missing gloves – she was always proud of her hands. And the hyacinth perfume, her favourite flower. Leila says the ghost has black eyes and is dressed as Rose Maybud. It looks like Dorothea hasn’t forgiven me.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ said Robinson instantly. ‘There are no such things as ghosts.’
    ‘Jack, please.’ Phryne did not like generaliza-tions. ‘Let us consider this dispassionately. Why should she come back now, Bernard? Why not before, if she’s returning to haunt you?’
    ‘First time I’ve had anything to do with Ruddigore since 1898,’ he replied. ‘It isn’t played much, because the sets are so expensive and hard to move. It’s not a show you can easily take on tour – the second act has the ancestors in their frames, it’s got to be a solid construction because the actors have to stand in it. Large cast and musically complex and audiences don’t go out 73
    whistling it like they do Pirates or Pinafore . It hasn’t been played in Australia before and I doubt I’ll ever do it again.’ He buried his face in his white handkerchief, overcome with emotion. Presently he blew his nose and continued, his voice cracking.
    ‘She died playing Rose Maybud. She’s still playing her. Besides, who knows how time goes on the other side of the veil? It may have been just the blink of an eye to Dorothea while I’ve dragged through thirty years since she left me. What’s more, I bought a few things from the Savoy when I came over. One of them was the Rose Maybud costume. Leila is actually wearing Dorothea’s dress. Not the one she died in, of course, but a dress Dorothea wore.’
    ‘It’s interesting . . . ’ began Phryne, when Jack Robinson growled, ‘Spooks! It’s not enough to have actors but I must have spooks as well.’ He looked up to heaven as if remonstrating with the Deity and snapped at Mark, ‘What do you think, Doctor? You’re a scientific man.’
    ‘I don’t know, but it seems very unlikely.’
    ‘Unlikely does not mean impossible, gentlemen,’
    said Phryne. ‘If someone else knows about this then it gives our trickster a script, doesn’t it? Think about it. Excuse me,’ she added, and went to the door, where Mrs Butler was beckoning.
    The kitchen was warm and bright, Ember was sleeping on the rag rug in front of the stove and Mr Butler was pouring boiling water into the kitchen teapot.
    ‘Sorry to interrupt, but you told me that you 74
    wanted to look at the fruit, Miss,’ said Mrs Butler.
    ‘This is what he has.’
    A Chinese man stood at the back door, a flat woven basket in his arms. He was dressed in the standard dark suit with shirt but no collar, and he had a shapeless felt hat on his head. She could not see his face.
    ‘The Chinese have the best fruit, Miss. Always the earliest, and brought right to the door.
    ’Course, they never carry seconds or yesterday’s or specked fruit, but we don’t use them anyway,’ said Mrs Butler. ‘Which would you like, Miss?’
    The basket held a variety of perfect fruit, a handful of peas and beans, a head of cauliflower, a carefully polished carrot and a flawless onion.
    The trader broke a pea pod with one hand and slit it with his thumbnail. Peas as firm as pearls gleamed through the shell.
    ‘Pound of peas,’ said Mrs Butler instantly.
    ‘Pound of carrots,