Death by Water by Kerry Greenwood

do, after its second sherry.
    ‘No!’ she gasped. ‘Just ladies with no clothes on.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Phryne. Mr Forrester might have been taking anything from the sort of feelthy postcards one was offered in the Place Pigalle to Art Studies for the Connoisseur (ten shillings a packet, twelve different poses) or even real art.
    ‘And what about the elderly but charming Professor Applegate?’
    ‘They say she’s nice. She’s got a lot of Maori stuff in her cabin,’ said Dot, very thankful to have escaped the photographer and the nudes. ‘Caroline says that some of the things are tapu to her—she isn’t allowed to look at them or she won’t ever have any children—so another steward looks after the lady.
    Caroline was very serious about this heathen tapu nonsense.
    And she’s supposed to be a Christian.’
    ‘Never mind, Dot dear, haven’t I seen you throw salt over your shoulder? Refuse to open an umbrella indoors? Say “touch wood”?’
    ‘I suppose,’ said Dot grudgingly. ‘Well, let’s see. Mr Mason is the son of a famous lawyer. He doesn’t get on with his dad.
    He’s kept on a short allowance until he does as his father wants, which is to go to university and study law. But he wants to be a footballer. His father won’t hear of it. Says football is low. No one knows much about the Cahills, except he’s quiet and she does the talking. They say he’s a nice old bushie and his wife’s very moral, but all right really.’
    ‘That was my impression too,’ Phryne agreed.
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    ‘The Singers, they never go to dinner on the first night, but take a sleeping pill in case they get seasick, even though they never have,’ said Dot. ‘Mr Charles says Mrs is very wrapped up in Mr, but he doesn’t care for her so much. The old man, Mr Aubrey, everyone loves him. Always good-natured, never cross, lots of interesting stories. Mr Charles says that the company ought to keep him on every voyage just to make things pleasant for the passengers and crew.’
    ‘Did you hear anything about the musicians?’
    ‘Mavis and the Melody Makers? Only that they’re no better than they ought to be. But everyone thinks they are good at music. There’s one of them, Jo, a woman, she always wears men’s clothes, and they say—’
    ‘I can imagine,’ soothed Phryne, not wanting to watch Dot blush again.
    ‘Anyway, that’s about all. I stayed for a couple of games of pontoon, then I came back here, and I knew right away that someone had been in the room. And that’s how Scragger must have got in, of course. When the burglar opened the door.’
    ‘Thoughtfully bringing his own rat, too. I wish we could ask Scragger who our burglar was.’
    ‘We can ask him,’ Dot pointed out. ‘We just wouldn’t understand the answer.’
    ‘True,’ said Phryne. ‘So, the hunt begins, Dot.’
    Dot looked at her in comfortable dismay.
    ‘Here we go again,’ Dot agreed.
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    To Isaac Mcleod
    Mull
    Dear Brother
    Our brother John has sent the money for the tickets and we are sailing from Southampton on the morrow. Please comfort our mother as well as you can John. When we get to America it should surely not be long before we can bring her to us.
    Your loving sister
    Mari
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    CHAPTER THREE
    They hear a voice in every wind
    snatch a fearful joy.
    Thomas Gray
    Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College Friday
    Morning was announced very gently by Caroline knocking on the door and bringing in a beverage tray. Dot, who had slept the sleep of the virtuous (ensuring a continuation of that virtue by locking her bedroom door and putting a chair under the handle in case the burglar came back to finger her chemises again), was sitting on the private balcony, brushing her hair.
    Phryne was half awake.
    ‘Good morning,’ whispered Caroline. ‘There’s coffee made by Leo for Miss, he made it special