Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 Read Online Free PDF

dangerous area. This was a place of moonlight flits, pavement evictions, bruised women and undernourished children.
    Yet bougainvillea poured red and purple down the cuts and steps which connected one level to another. Jacaranda trees flowered azure as a Mediterranean sky in neglected gardens. Jasmine twined with roses over broken fences and terrible outside privies. Everywhere children quarrelled and fought and played cricket across the streets. Washing flapped on lines. Brawling, yeasty, unconfined life went on in the tumbledown houses and sheds and a thin dog chewed pineapple rinds in the gutter at Phryne’s feet.
    It was exotic and lively though, at ten in the morning, subdued. Dot and Phryne knocked at the door of Mrs Ryan’s Old Clothes Shop and heard a voice scolding, ‘Play nice, now,’ as the door was opened.
    Mrs Ryan was about thirty, a stocky woman in respectable black, hair neatly coiled on the nape of her neck, standing easily with a baby on her hip. The shop smelt musty, but the widow was redolent of yellow soap and the baby she was holding was shining with health, though dressed only in a washed-thin nappy and a sunbonnet. Two identical sets of dark blue eyes regarded the visitors.
    ‘Miss Williams, come in and have some tea, I’ll mash it directly. This is your Miss Fisher? Pleased to meet ye, Ma’am,’ said Mrs Ryan, making a suspicion of a curtsy. She led the way into a large kitchen, which was full of children, noise, and the smell of soup.
    Two infants detached themselves from a game involving a ball passed from hand to hand around a circle and ran yelling to Dot, colliding with her knees. ‘Auntie, Auntie!’ they cried. Phryne stepped back, inspected each indistinguishable infant as it was presented to her, and gave each of them a large lollipop, coloured red and green. Both Mary and Dorothy plugged these into their mouths. As the lollipops were passed around, silence fell in the kitchen.
    ‘Nice to hear yourself think,’ commented Mrs Ryan. ‘I’ve washed your two again this morning, Miss Williams, and little Dot’s ankle I’ve mended with some iodine—terrible to think of the poor creature being tied by the leg like a calf! But men will be men,’ she sighed. Phryne sat down at a scrubbed table and observed that this was true and would Mrs Ryan continue to mind the children until their mother returned?
    ‘To be sure,’ said the widow promptly. ‘I would have taken them in myself had I known that Mrs Thompson was away.’ She mentioned her terms, which seemed hardly enough. Phryne inquired politely. Mrs Ryan explained.
    ‘I’ve got the house, see, Mr Ryan finished paying for it before he was taken from me, and there was the Bridge money that the company paid because he fell while he was working for them, twenty pounds it was, I’ve got that put aside for a rainy day and the Burial Club buried him nice and proper with a stone and all. I just have myself and my two to feed. Not many people around here have any silver to spare.’
    Phryne, who did, added a sizeable payment to cover emergencies and Mrs Ryan closed a hand over the notes and stowed them in an old-fashioned petticoat pocket. Phryne made a mental note to obtain a couple of these admirable articles as soon as possible. None of her clothes had any pockets and she hated carrying a bag.
    ‘Now, Mrs Ryan, can you tell me anything about my sister?’ asked Dot, who had waited with ill-concealed impatience while the tea was made and poured into three matching Coles cups.
    ‘I didn’t know her well,’ said Mrs Ryan slowly. ‘She seemed a nice lady. That’s all I can tell you.’
    Phryne could take a hint as well as the next woman.
    ‘Dot, wouldn’t you like to take the children into the garden?’ asked Phryne. ‘It seems a pity to waste all this sun.’
    ‘Yes, take the little darlings to see the chooks,’ said Mrs Ryan. Dot went out obediently, shooing six toddlers out onto the back steps.
    ‘Now, tell me what you