Read Online Murder in the Dark by Kerry Greenwood - Free Book Online

Unchanging Ones, there were the Lady’s Own, presently all spread out to provide a constant stream of cool air over the flawless body of Isabella Templar. She was lying supine in a string hammock, supported at each end by two of her admirers, and fanned by three others with Cecil B DeMille peacock fans. And she was surpassingly beautiful, this sister of the aureate Gerald, in quite an opposite way. Where he glowed as golden as Apollo, she was as icy and severe as Artemis. His hair was Hyacinthine ringlets of precious metal; hers was as colourless as flax, hip length, perfectly straight and shining like the moon. Her eyes were the colour of a cold Scandinavian sky. Her skin was as pale as pearl and in the half-light she seemed to glow like an undersea creature, edged with phosphorescence. Phryne noticed that even her feet were perfect—high arched, glossy, with pinkly glowing rounded nails and not a scar or a bunion to deform their elegant shape.
    It would be pointless to feel envy, Phryne thought, and didn’t. As well envy a Botticelli madonna. Isabella waved a languid hand at Phryne and turned her face to the cool air again.
    ‘Tarquin, a chair for Miss Fisher,’ said Gerald. Making a fearful face, the boy fetched a chair and slammed it down at the foot of Gerald’s throne. ‘Naughty,’ said Gerald.
    ‘And if the wind changes your only prospect of employment will be as a gargoyle,’ agreed Phryne. Tarquin scowled at her. Gerald patted the boy on the shoulder.
    ‘You should listen to Miss Fisher,’ he told him. ‘She’s certainly the wisest person I know. Well, perhaps not the wisest,’ he added, ‘but the cleverest.’
    Tarquin scowled again but did not demur.
    ‘So, you’ve imported the whole circus?’ asked Phryne, observing the Unchanging Ones as they lay, half slain by heat and hashish.
    ‘Unkind,’ chided Gerald. ‘You always were unkind.’
    ‘But clever,’ put in Phryne. ‘Why did you come to Australia, Gerald? Not for the climate,’ she said. ‘Isabella hates the heat. Some trouble in Paris, was there?’
    ‘You are acute, and unkind, as I mentioned before,’ said Gerald ruefully. ‘Let us just say that we felt we needed some fresh woods and pastures new. Here, I suspect, there is great scope for us, and also living is less expensive. But the Unchanging came with me of their own free will.’
    ‘And the Lady’s Own of theirs,’ scoffed Phryne gently. ‘Let us have less talk of free will in that context! I hope you brought enough hash for all of them.’
    ‘Suitable supplies have been organised,’ said Gerald blandly. ‘Will you smoke?’
    ‘Just cigarettes,’ said Phryne. ‘I prefer my own.’
    Tarquin, nudged by Gerald’s bare foot, rose and lit Phryne’s Virginian cigarette without setting fire to her hair or garments, much as she felt the little monster desired to see her burn. She had never felt such jealousy radiating off a human.
    ‘And Tarquin?’
    ‘He is an orphan,’ said Gerald. ‘I found him in the Infants Home in Melbourne on my first day here. He is my boy now, eh, Tarquin?’
    Tarquin flung himself at Gerald’s feet and embraced his legs. Phryne watched, a little uncomfortable at such a lavish display of devotion.
    ‘I never suspected you of sentiment,’ was all she said.
    ‘I am many things which you have never suspected,’ said Gerald grandly. ‘My sister is still not speaking to me. She got a little girl at the same place, one Marigold, a sweet little thing, but she ran away as soon as we got here. Now Isabella grudges me my Tarquin.’
    ‘Because she has lost her girl?’ asked Phryne.
    ‘Because Tarquin loves me,’ said Gerald. ‘Now, to business.’
    ‘Business, Gerald?’ she asked, astonished. ‘You?’
    ‘Go down to the kitchen,’ Gerald instructed Tarquin, untangling him gently. ‘Stay there until the housekeeper can give you her word that the menu will be strictly adhered to, then come back as quickly as you can. I am trusting you,