Away with the fairies by Kerry Greenwood

Author:Kerry Greenwood [Greenwood, Kerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-02-22T22:00:00+00:00

‘Desperate’.” Poor thing! What happened to her?’

‘She died, Dot, and I suspect she was a suicide. Those are all symptoms of depression.’

‘Well, she could have taken a tonic,’ said Dot.

‘No, Dot, I’m talking about serious depression. The world is grey and there is no joy, only unplumbed despair. A few years like that and anyone would decide that death is prefer-able. We’d better find out who she was.’

‘The envelope you discovered at Miss Lavender’s had a post office box,’ said Dot. ‘The cops can find out who it belongs to.’

‘All right. What’s Anne’s problem?’

Dot pinkened. ‘Her husband can’t . . .’

‘Can’t what?’

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‘Just er . . . can’t. Here, you read it.’ Dot handed over the letter. Phryne scanned it quickly.

‘“I entered a companionate marriage. I didn’t know what I was doing. My husband is an older man and he always said he didn’t want children. Neither do I, so I went to the clinic and got some instructions and a contraceptive device. I told him about it and he didn’t seem interested. What should I do?”

Good question. I wonder if Miss Lavender gave her advice on how to seduce a man?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Dot. ‘I don’t expect she knew a lot about it. She was only married for eight months and she must have been unhappy.’

‘She would know about the mechanics,’ said Phryne. ‘That relentlessly factual education she received would have taken in the biological details. But there is a great deal more to it than that,’ said Phryne.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Dot, trying not to blush. ‘Do we have the answer to Anne’s letter?’

‘No, and it’s another thing which does not belong. This box was supposed to contain the unattributed or unaddressed letters for destruction. It has, Dot dear, been salted. Can we find Anne?’

‘There’s an address on the letterhead,’ said Dot. ‘It’s embossed. She’s scribbled it out but I might be able to read it in a good light.’

‘If you can’t the police laboratory probably can. One more mystery. We don’t even know what the lady with the Kew postmark was going on about. Empty out the binder, Dot. It’s likely to be at the bottom.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you are trying to hide something, you instinc-tively push it to the bottom of the box and pile all the rest of 149

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the stuff on top. That way your secret is not disclosed to a casual survey. Anything from Kew which might draw forth a death threat for an unhelpful reply?’

‘This one’s about greasy hair and this one’s about chicken-pox scars,’ said Dot. ‘This one’s about a child that won’t eat its nice rice pudding and this one . . . perhaps it might be this one,’ said Dot, handing over a small piece of paper written in the same square handwriting of the unsigned threat. Phryne held the two letters together and compared them. Same paper, same handwriting.

‘A match, I think?’ she asked. Dot nodded.

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