Free Death at Victoria Dock by Kerry Greenwood Page B

emnities here, but we continue them. Just today I spoke to three people, on whom the claws of the old battles are still fixed. It makes me very sad to think of them. Poor men. They have no chance of succeeding; and they are cowards, also. They should fight their battle in Latvia, not here. What use can a bank robbery here have for the fall of Stalin? How long can such a man as Stalin last, anyway? So, I spoke to all of them, attempting to ascertain the name and allegiance of the young man who was killed in madam’s presence. I do not know his name, but a woman will go and identify him tomorrow, at Russell Street, and if madam were to befriend her…’
    ‘Madam takes your point.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘However, there is something else.’ Phryne sat down on the hearthrug at Peter’s feet, looking up at the strained face.
    ‘Yes,’ admitted the man. ‘There is something else. I will tell you, Phryne. I trust you.’
    ‘So you may.’
    Peter Smith looked down into Phryne’s countenance, then up into the pink mirror which showed him his own face wreathed in green ceramic vine leaves. Even in the salons of the Grandes Horizontales in Paris where he had once been as a young and disapproving revolutionary, he did not recall such pervasive eroticism. The demi-mondaine had been stupid, with intellectual pretensions. Sitting at his feet was a very intelligent woman.
    He sighed, closed his eyes, and continued, ‘A bank robbery is planned for the near future. This week, I believe. The group which is carrying it out is armed. They have, among other things, a Lewis gun.’
    ‘A Lewis gun ! A machine-gun? Are you sure?’
    Phryne had heard Lewis guns in the Great War. It was a portable machine-gun with drum magazine and its power over a line of innocent civilians did not bear thinking of. Phryne sat up and put an urgent hand on Peter Smith’s knee.
    ‘I am sure. I have seen it. They showed it to me. They were proud of it. Fools! Did they not learn anything in London? The Houndsditch massacre, the Tottenham outrage, the Siege of Sidney Street? They were burned to death in that house…’
    He stopped suddenly. The moment poised on a knife’s edge. Phryne held her breath, biting back the question, ‘Were you in the siege?’ One wrong word and Peter Smith would shut up like a clam. He stared into the mirror. When he spoke again it was in a calm voice.
    ‘They have learned nothing. Anarchists are devoted to nothingness. Do not misunderstand me. I still hope for the Revolution. I have given to it my mother and my sister and the young woman whom I was to marry, and my village was bombed flat by the big guns. But outrages in Melbourne will bring political repression, and we will lose those freedoms which make Australia dear to me. And they will not listen. I am no longer at the forefront.’ He took Phryne’s hand in his. ‘I cannot control the strong passions of the young.’
    ‘And you cannot tell me any more?’ asked Phryne gently, expecting his reply.
    ‘I cannot tell you any more. But if you find Maria Aliyena, she will be susceptible to your charm. The dead young man, I am told, was her cousin, and she was very fond of him.’
    ‘Why did they kill him?’
    ‘He got drunk in the Watersider Hotel and told the whole bar that he was a bank robber and had a machine-gun.’
    ‘And they killed him for that?’
    ‘They killed him for that.’
    Peter Smith sagged down into Phryne’s arms. It was not until she felt tears on her neck that she realized he was weeping. His back was knotted, his hands clutched her, and when his lips found her mouth he kissed her as though he was clinging to a plank in a shipwreck.
    Surprised, but pleased, Phryne hitched a hip forward so that she was lying at full length on the sheepskin hearthrug and responded to bottomless kisses, his mouth hot and wet and demanding.
    They lay together for almost an hour. Phryne was delighted by the kisses and the emotional depth which he exhibited, but she had no