The Green Mill Murder by Kerry Greenwood

Author:Kerry Greenwood [Greenwood, Kerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000, FIC050000
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Published: 2012-01-24T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Away! Away! For I will fly to thee

John Keats

‘Ode to a Nightingale’

Phryne slept the night without dreaming, and the next morning took up the packet of letters from Victor to his father. She read them again, then looked at the photograph, which Dot had placed on her bedside table. Not a pretty face, but, as Dot had said, one you could trust. His letters were painfully honest, and his father’s importunities doubly selfish. She began to think that Mrs Freeman and her spouse had deserved each other. She was as self-centred as a compass. So was Charles, always wailing, ‘Why should this happen to me? How could anyone do this to me?’ in that distressing way. Phryne did not like questions without an answer, and the only answer to those questions was, ‘Why not?’ which was not satisfactory, however true. Poor Victor, recovering his balance in the cold silence, happy with his mountains, nagged by his father to return when there was nothing for him in the city. His mother disliked him, his brother thought he was dead, and he had said himself that he was no good at business. His father can only have wanted him back to be his companion, or possibly as a pawn in a power struggle with his wife. Charles did not even know that Victor was alive. How thoughtless, to continually demand Victor’s return! Why did his father not go and visit him, or meet him in one of these towns with outlandish names, Talbotville or Dargo, instead of writing to require the boy’s presence?

Perhaps he had visited. Phryne wondered as to who would know. Mr Freeman did not seem to have been a confiding man. Mrs Freeman had not even known that he had corresponded with Victor.

Phryne went down to the hall and obtained an operator, who connected her after considerable delay to the post office in Talbotville.

‘Yair?’ a strong, confident man’s voice said.

‘I want to speak to Victor Freeman.’

‘To Vic? He ain’t . . .’ the voice changed suddenly. ‘I ain’t heard of no one of that name.’

‘You have, you know.’ Phryne was nettled. ‘I don’t mean him any harm but I need to talk to Victor Freeman.’

‘No one here of that name,’ snarled the voice, and the line went dead.

A mystery, Phryne thought, suddenly angry. What had been going on in Talbotville? Well, she would find out. Phryne did not like being cut off when she was inquiring with the best of motives. As soon as I can find some suitable maps, she resolved, I shall take the Moth up, and fly to wherever the place is, and look for Victor. And if I find him and he wants to stay unfound, then I shall leave him alone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.