Chapter One
"I'm worried about Aunt Prudence."
The Honourable Phryne Fisher's gaze was focussed on her manicured finger as it traced the rim of her glass. Detective Chief Inspector Jack Robinson's was focussed on it too, because he'd had a long day and it was the only thing in the room – apart from the candle flame – that was moving. The room was warm, and the motion had a hypnotic quality.
A response, though, seemed in order, so he did his best.
"Why?"
It wouldn't have won any awards from the literary centres of excellence, but it had her gaze lifted to his and the smile was decidedly bankable.
"She's fighting too hard."
He was genuinely nonplussed. "Fighting? Fighting who?"
An elegant shoulder, clad in rippling velvet, shrugged. "Everything. Everyone. Life. Us."
She leaned on her forearms, and tipped her head at him. "You must have seen it. Ever since the awful Ambrose tried to trick her into marriage, she's withdrawn into herself. She's lost her confidence, and I hate it."
He wanted to converse. He really did. He even had an inkling that what she was talking about was right, and worth discussing. But his day had started at 3.20am when the telephone rang and there was a knife crime and he had to be there and then there had been the problematic process of taking a politician's spouse into custody and getting a statement that was likely to stand up in court and … and … he summoned up the energy from the place usually reserved for the last punch in a street fight.
"Can we do anything about it?"
There it was. That smile again, and his spine straightened a little and his heart lifted and who needed sleep anyway? All because he'd said we.
"Perhaps. I thought I might try to get her involved in some sort of fundraiser for the Women's Hospital. Something a bit different, that will take all of her energy, and she won't have the chance to brood."
"A party?"
"Ye-es … actually, no. She has so many parties, she could hold one in her sleep."
Sleep. Marvellous. Oh, wait, no, not yet.
"What else? A gala of some sort?"
"Yes! Something big. But she has to take a central role."
Phryne relapsed into thought once more.
"What sort of role?" he ventured to ask.
She brooded in silence for a moment, then her smile broadened.
"Jack, I've got it. Aunt P's going to play the role of her life. We're going to do a show – a benefit. We'll get Bernard to put it on at His Majesty's."
Her shoulders shook as she rejoiced in her own audacity. She took his hand, and he tried not to whimper as her enthusiasm and energy swept over him.
"Jack. There are some roles a woman was born to play. For my Aunt Prudence …"
She paused for dramatic effect. He took her other hand and drew her to her feet, for getting-closer-to-the-pillow effect.
"… it's Lady Bracknell."
Rarely had a Modern Major General been more disarmed. Fortunately for all concerned, his wife managed to retrieve the situation, and did it very well, if truth be told. He was standing to attention in no time.