‘Well?’ Phryne was getting cold and had finished her coffee. ‘What happened to Rodgers?’
‘He’s vanished. He could have shipped aboard any of half a dozen tramps going all over the world. I ought to run you in for obstructing the course of justice, so I ought.’
‘Try,’ said Phryne icily. Silence fell on the other end of the line. Phryne could imagine the boiling fury Jack Robinson must be feeling, and wondered what he was going to do. She felt slighted. She had found his murderer for him, and arranged for a confession and the evidence to be delivered to his very door. She had spared him the humiliation of an unsolved case and had pointed him unequivocally towards the right man. Was she to be blamed for not capturing Ben Rodgers and binding him hand and foot? Were the police to have it all their own way? Besides, she had partly done it for Nerine. Phryne liked Nerine, although she made Phryne feel so plain.
Ben Rodgers would have taken Nerine with him. And Charles Freeman was dead by what was near enough to his own hand, and all in all it seemed to Phryne as close to a happy ending as could be expected in an imperfect world.
‘Well, er,’ said Jack Robinson, jolting Phryne out of her reverie, ‘er, well, yes. We should have been watching him, I suppose. We’ve put out an all-ports warning, so we should get him all right.’
That was as close as Phryne was going to get to thanks or apology, so she murmured a goodbye and hung up. She decided to go back to bed and see if more sleep would improve her mood.
As she was leaving the hall the phone rang and it was Jack Robinson again.
‘By the bye,’ he sounded more controlled, ‘that band leader is in the clear. The confession says that it was all Rodgers’ own idea. And it appears that it was not Bernard Stevens, but your Charles Freeman that he was trying to kill. What happened to him, is he back with his mum?’
‘No, he’s dead. He died in an accident, in the mountains. He was looking for his brother.’
‘His brother? Did he find him?’
‘No,’ said Phryne with finality. ‘No one will ever find him now.’
And she trailed up the stairs and put herself back to bed.
That evening she dressed for the Jazz Club again. More music was needed to take the taste of murder and lost mountain men out of her mouth.
Tintagel was pleasant, with a sense of release which Phryne accounted for by the escape of Ben Rodgers.
That he had escaped was fairly plain. He had made the arrangements for Charles; he had merely to take advantage of them himself. Phryne wondered if Tintagel was angry with her.
‘Tintagel, are you furious with me for losing you the best trumpeter in Australia?’
‘No, Phryne, I’m not. Couldn’t be helped.’
‘Why are you so pleased with yourself?’ she asked, and watched his mouth curve into a secret smile.
‘You’ll see,’ he promised.
The usual group was sitting at the usual table; it included a back which was familiar. Nerine turned her blind eyes towards Phryne as she was seated beside her by the hovering Tintagel Stone.
Nerine had been weeping for hours. Ben Rodgers had gone and abandoned her. Phryne was mortified. The bastard, she thought, the cold-blooded bastard. He’s left her and run like a rabbit, and I could have handed him over to the law. I should have let him hang.
‘Oh, Nerine, I’m so sorry . . .’ she began, and the singer smiled a wobbly smile.
‘It ain’t none of your doin’, honey,’ she said in her beautiful voice. ‘That rat of a man has taken a run-out powder and I reckon by now he’s in New Orleans. Don’t you pay it no never-mind, honey.’
‘Miss Fisher, this is Tim Stamp, our new cornet player.’
He was young and fresh-faced, with short, curly red hair, and he blushed whenever one of the group addressed him.
‘You’ve got a new trumpeter already?’
‘Yes. Pity about Ben but he really was a beast to play with. Hogged the centre, upstaged poor Jim, had a savage tongue.’
‘And he killed people,’ Phryne reminded him.
‘Yes, that too,’ agreed Tintagel absently. ‘Tim, this is Miss Fisher, who is indirectly responsible for us being short a trumpeter. Would you like to show her how you can play?’
Tim Stamp took Phryne’s hand and then did not seem to know what to do with it. Phryne decided to take it back. The young man unearthed his trumpet from under a pile of gear and touched Nerine respectfully on the shoulder. She put her hand on his arm and was led onto the stage.
The room fell silent. Tim Stamp raised the trumpet and began ‘Downhearted Blues’. He was not as brash and authoritative as Ben Rodgers had been, but the tone was sweeter, softer, and he placed each note exactly. Nerine blinked her reddened eyes and lifted both hands to her breast.
‘I’ve got the downhearted blues,’ she sang, with such power that Phryne was forced back in her seat. Tim’s trumpet embroidered behind the voice, never demanding, never intruding. Tintagel gripped Phryne’s hand.
‘Isn’t she amazing?’ he breathed. Concentrated sorrow flowed from the stage. Conversation stopped. Impossible to order coffee or complain about the service when Nerine was tearing her heart to pieces and strewing it like confetti.
‘I ain’t never loved but three men in my life,’ she sang to the entranced audience, who did not dare move. ‘’Twas my father and my brother.’ She paused while the trumpet wove a melody around the next note. The concluding line came with biblical force: ‘And the man who wrecked my life.’
‘How long can she go on like this?’ Phryne whispered. ‘She’ll do herself an injury!’
‘No, no, listen.’ Tintagel was enthralled. Nerine reached the last verse.
‘I walked that floor, and I wrung my hands and cried,’ she mourned. ‘Got the downhearted blues and cain’t be,’ a breath, a wail from the trumpet, ‘satisfied,’ she concluded. The room rocked with applause.
‘I may have lost the best cornet player in Australia,’ said Tintagel proudly, ‘but I’ve got the best blues singer in the world.’
‘She’s remarkable,’ agreed Phryne as Nerine began on ‘Empty Bed Blues’. Tintagel listened, entranced. Phryne put her hand on his sleeve, still obscurely troubled about his degree of complicity.
‘Pity about Ben,’ she suggested softly, as Nerine and the trumpet came down an excruciating tone, reeking of despair.
He replied absently, ‘Yes, I should never have let him try it at the Green Mill,’ and then snapped out of the song. Blue eyes like a blowtorch met Phryne’s green gaze.
‘You knew he was going to do it,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he answered simply. His hand closed over hers, tight enough to hurt.
‘I thought so.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
Phryne considered. ‘Listen to the music,’ she replied.
Nerine concluded the song, and wavered down to the floor again. She picked up Tintagel’s coffee and drained it at a gulp.
‘I reckon I owe that bastard Ben this, anyway,’ she reflected without a smile.
‘What?’ said Phryne, her hand still clasped in Tintagel’s. She was shaken by his confession, and profoundly disturbed by Nerine’s despair.
‘He taught me how to sing the blues,’ said Nerine. ‘Tim, honey, get me some coffee. Yes,’ she added, patting the clasped hands, ‘he taught me to sing the blues real good.’
Phryne let go the breath she had been holding and started to laugh.