Flying Too High Read Online Free

Henry, do! I have a nasty feeling about this.’ Henry, alert at last, rummaged his way through the ground floor of the small house which he had recently bought. It had been so complete a windfall that he was still not altogether sure that it had happened. Most of the belongings were still in boxes, and it was not difficult to scour the places where even a cunning and vindictive six year old might secrete herself.
    ‘Try the roof,’ suggested Molly.
    There was a ring at the doorbell. Molly ran down the passage and snatched the door open.
    ‘You bad, bad girl,’ she said, and realized that the caller was looking rather puzzled. It was her husband’s old crony, Jack Leonard.
    ‘I say, Molly, what’s afoot? Been through the wars?’
    ‘Candida’s missing!’ exclaimed Molly, bursting into tears. ‘The spanking I shall give the little madam when I find her, she won’t sit down for a week. Oh, Jack did you come in a car?’
    ‘Yes, got the old motor outside. Do you want me to look for her?’
    ‘Oh, Jack, please. She’s only a little girl and I’m worried. She could have been gone for an hour.’
    ‘Cheer up, old thing, that kid is as tough as…I mean,’ amended Jack Leonard, seeing a furious light in Molly’s eyes, ‘she’s clever, Candida is. She won’t come to any harm. I’ll have a scout about. I’ll find her, never fret. I say, Henry, this is a nice house. Bought with the…er…proceeds, I expect?’
    ‘Yes, with the new plane and the money in the trust fund for the kids, I’m nearly as broke as when it happened. Molly hasn’t even had time to unpack all the new furniture and things yet, and the garden’s not even planted. All right, Molly,’ said Henry Maldon hastily, detecting signs of combustion in his red-headed spouse. ‘We’ll go out directly. Come on, Jack.’
    ‘Saw the most amazing thing this morning,’ commented Jack Leonard as he piloted the car out from the curb. ‘This spiffing young woman turned up at Bill McNaughton’s school and spun a Moth.’
    ‘They will spin, if you mistreat ’em bad enough,’ agreed Henry Maldon absently. He was beginning to wonder about Candida. Usually she was reliable, but she had a strange, wilful streak and might wander anywhere, if it struck her as a compellingly good idea. ‘Amateur, was she?’
    ‘No, old boy, an expert. It was a controlled spin down to three hundred feet, then she zoomed out of it, and all with good old Bill in the dickey. Then she upped and waltzed out onto the top wing and walked from one end to another. I tell you one thing, Henry, if I could find a woman like that, damned if I wouldn’t marry her. But she wouldn’t have me. Poor Bill, he was as white as a sheet when Miss Fisher finally let him take the crate down. Nearly kissed the runway. You aren’t listening, are you, Henry?’
    ‘No,’ agreed Henry. ‘I can’t see her anywhere.’
    ‘Miss Fisher?’
    ‘Candida!’ he snapped. ‘Drive round again, Jack, and do stop talking. I want to think.’ Jack Leonard, although childless, did not take offence, and turned the car yet again.

Chapter Two
To be poor and independent
is very nearly an impossibility
Advice to Young Men, William Cobbett
    Phryne whisked Dot into town, taking St Kilda Road at a sedate twenty miles an hour.
    ‘Are you all right, old thing?’ she called. Dot, huddled into her blue coat, did not answer. Phryne pulled up outside a small house on The Esplanade, which was her newest acquisition, and turned off the engine.
    ‘Dot?’ she asked, shaking her maid by the shoulder.
    Dot turned on Phryne, her face still blanched with shock.
    ‘You nearly scared me to death, Miss. When I saw you climb out of that machine I thought…I thought…’ Phryne enveloped Dot in a warm hug.
    ‘Oh, dear Dot, you mustn’t start worrying about me. I’m sorry I scared you, my dear old bean…there, dry your eyes, now, and don’t concern yourself. I’ve done that trick thousands of times, it’s easy. Anyway,