Dead Man's Chest Read Online Free PDF

did, in the cool clean ocean and the know- ledge that the boy Tinker had lit the pilot light for a reliable supply of hot water.
    The girls dog-paddled out a reasonable distance and allowed the tide to swish them back towards the shore.
    ‘I’m cooking dinner!’ murmured Ruth.
    ‘I know,’ said Jane kindly. She loved her adoptive sister and could recognise a fulfilled ambition when she saw it. ‘I’ll help you any way I can.’
    ‘Will you do the carving?’ asked Ruth. ‘You’re good at carving. I want to do the roast duck with cherry jelly.’
    ‘Certainly,’ said Jane. ‘That is a nice house,’ she added, as they idled in the cool water. ‘Lots of books.’
    ‘Oh, books,’ said Ruth. ‘Anything interesting?’
    ‘I haven’t had time to search through them yet,’ said Jane with the happy complacency of someone who knew that, by the end of the holiday, she would have read them all. ‘Did you like your cookbook?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ruth. She turned over in the water to embrace her sister. ‘Thank you!’
    ‘Delighted,’ said Jane, hugging her. Pleasures, as Miss Phryne said, were always intensely personal.
    They returned salty but happy for a sumptuous bath and a restoring but unfortunately warm gin squash (Phryne) or cup of coffee (the rest of the inhabitants) before walking next door for dinner with Mrs Mason.

CHAPTER THREE
    I like children (except boys).
    Lewis Carroll
    Phryne surveyed her little family as they waited for the door to be opened. Jane and Ruth, clean and combed, in their holiday cotton frocks (one lavender, one rose, with matching hair ribbons). Dot in her standard beige dinner dress with terracotta-coloured jacket in case of draughts, and an orange geranium in her bandeau. Phryne in her loose purple silk shift with jazz-coloured scallop-shell appliques—silver, black and green. Her headdress was a silvery crown of wire with a soft black plume depending from it. She never took jewellery on holidays so wore none.
    ‘Very chic,’ murmured Dot, catching her glance.
    ‘Indeed, we are a handsome group,’ replied Phryne.
    The door opened. They were conducted into a reception room by a thin butler who looked like he had just bitten an unripe persimmon. His whole face seemed to be contracted with disgust. Phryne awarded him a cool glance which at least averted his gaze. She had been stared out of countenance a few times, when much younger, and did not mean to have this happen ever again.
    Mrs Mason, on the other hand, was pleased. She bustled forward, took Phryne’s hand, and conducted them into a parlour. Drinks, it seemed, were to be served. The butler enquired as to the ladies’ pleasure as though requesting in- formation on their choice of arsenic or cyanide. Phryne allowed him to construct a sidecar for her. The girls had half a glass of muscat each, and Dot took sherry with her usual thrill of the forbidden. She had, after all, signed The Pledge when she was twelve. Mrs Mason had a sidecar also; by her giggle, not the first of the evening. Phryne tasted. Good. Strong on lemon juice, a fine brandy and icy cold.
    ‘Well, now, what are you going to do on your holiday?’ asked Mrs Mason of the girls.
    ‘Read,’ replied Jane with perfect truth. ‘Mr Thomas has a very good library. I wonder if there are more books in that locked room?’
    ‘Oh, I expect so,’ said Mrs Mason. ‘He’s a very learned man, you know. But of course if he locked the room it must stay locked. Even I don’t have the key.’
    ‘And you such an old friend,’ murmured Phryne. Should she venture on another glass? Why, in fact, not?
    ‘Yes, we’ve been close friends ever since my husband died,’ said Mrs Mason, affecting a sob and wiping with a miniscule handkerchief at a perfectly dry eye. ‘Such a dear clever scholar and such a comfort to have a man nearby when one is all alone in the world.’
    Phryne caught, just for a second, a flicker on the butler’s contracted face. Unseen by Mrs Mason,