I want to thank all who commented on my first fanfic here, The Gentleman Caller. Thank you so much, I feel very warmly welcomed!
Here is another lighthearted story about our favourite detectives. This is the first fanfic I ever wrote. Hope some of you might enjoy!
Detective Inspector Jack Robinson slowly realized he was worried. This was not an unfamiliar feeling for him. There had been times when he had been derided for being a 'worrier', although over the last year he had slowly – though not without lapses – learned to not worry over Miss Fisher, his investigative partner of sorts. The woman had proven to him on ample occasions that she wasn't someone who needed rescuing. He had noticed, though, that his backup was a great relief to her after the initial fray, which made him still inclined to overthinking in her presence.
Now, Inspector Robinson had a feeling that something was not as it should be. When he racked his brain, he was certain he hadn't seen Miss Fisher for at least ten days, which was quite a long time. He was waiting for her to sashay into his minimal office and ask him if he had missed her, and realized that this time he wouldn't be able to quip back that she never gave him the time to miss her. It seemed she had finally managed to do so.
The inspector hadn't more than had that thought, before he heard voices outside and recognized one of them as Miss Williams's. After a minute, he decided there were such things as happy coincidences, grabbed his tea cup and headed out to see if he could get a briefing on Miss Fisher's whereabouts. He made sure to make a sound at his door and then wait for a couple of seconds, so as not to embarrass his constable by walking in on a kiss. His instincts proved to be perfectly timed, as he met a Miss Williams with slightly red cheeks, slightly out of breath, and with a happy smile, but otherwise perfectly collected.
"Good day, Miss Williams," he greeted her with a nod.
"Good afternoon, Inspector," she answered, without her inward-oriented happy smile vanishing. Good, he thought. Perhaps Miss Williams was becoming less intimidated by her fiancés boss.
The inspector went to fill up his cup of tea. About to reenter his room he turned and asked, completely in passing as if he just thought of it, and in a way that fooled exactly noone: "And how is Miss Fisher these days? She hasn't been around for a while."
Miss Williams looked curiously guilty. "Fine. Miss Fisher is fine," she answered.
"No murders lately, it seems?"
"Oh, no, no cases at all at the moment, Inspector."
Jack Robinson felt he had made all he could out of the tea fetching excuse, and returned to his room. This didn't sit right with him. What was happening at Wardlow that made Miss Fisher's companion look uncomfortable with his question?
After some pondering he managed to come up with a flimsy excuse and decided to use it for a visit to Wardlow, as soon as his shift ended. But when Mr Butler answered the door, the old man amicably answered that Miss Fisher was unfortunately not available for visitors, and Jack had to go home none the wiser.
On his next try two days later, he could hear voices from the parlour and recognized Phryne's voice strike up a yell, somewhere between laughter and annoyance.
"Nooo, half double! How could I forget that!? This is all hopeless!" She sounded upset, but Mr Butler smiled his enigmatic smile and made excuses for the lady not being able to receive the inspector, and closed the door on him.
Jack stood perplexed. Usually, Miss Fisher would receive him when he called on her, and that was something he took some pride in. She seemed to appreciate his company, even desire it. Why would she turn him down now? He brooded as he walked the path back to the waiting car, and came to a conclusion. Opening the car door he muttered to himself: "Please, please, tell me she has a new lover. There must be a new shiny lover that has her spellbound, mustn't there? That must be it."
Jack could only think of two solid reasons for Phryne not to even come out and say hello to him – if she wasn't mad at him, at least, and he figured he would know about that. Either she had an especially absorbing lover, or she was preparing a dangerous undercover assignment that she didn't want him to interfere with, because she knew he would just try to talk her out of it. The first thought made his stomach turn more than he cared to admit even to himself, but the second made him genuinely frightened. Of course, Miss Williams would tell him that there were "no cases", and it wouldn't even be bending the commandments very far, since the case would be worked by Phryne under another name.
The next day, Jack eavesdropped on the visiting Miss Williams with only a small nagging sense of shame; it was after all for a good cause. He gleaned the words "hard case", "too tight" and "I'm afraid she'll never make it". This did not bode well.
When Miss Williams had gone, Jack summoned his constable.
"Collins! What is the matter with Miss Fisher?"
"Nothing is the matter, sir," Constable Colllins said. Did he look slightly flustered or was it just Jack's imagination? Jack's lifted eyebrow – usually an excellent way to get more information from Collins – did not have the desired effect.
"No new acquaintances in the household?" Jack said, trying not to notice he was prying into someone else's private life.
"Acquaintances?" Collins answered, and then seemed to understand.
"Ah, you mean new visitors? Like, overnight guests?" Jack could see how the young man's pride in deciphering the meaning of the question turned into the slightly enlarged eyes that told Jack he was surprised at his superior asking this. Then came the troubled, almost shocked, look when he reached the conclusion why the inspector would be interested. Hugh Collins really was like an open book, and Jack Robinson was a little bit afraid to read it.
"Is that… is that something that… concerns you?" Collins managed to ask, not without sounding concerned himself. "Is that… a problem?"
"No, of course not Collins. I shouldn't have asked," the inspector said. He felt he had betrayed things he didn't even admit to himself, and he was slightly disconcerted at the thought of young Collins being the one who managed to drag it out of him. The cunning of the innocent lambs.
Jack Robinson stood at a kind of crossroads. He could let the problem be, and hope that Phryne wasn't planning on some extremely dangerous undercover assignment. Or he could try to get hold of her, and probably both annoy her and show too much of his hand for it to be entirely comfortable.
Phryne Fisher was exasperated and more than a little annoyed. She was used to being able to manage everything. She could fly a plane, she could fire a gun and hit a target from a distance of 100 meters, she could drive her car too fast with precision, she could make love to a man while only touching the wall, and she could speak more languages than anyone else knew she could. But she didn't seem to be able to crochet. Half doubles, singles, chains – it just didn't come out right. And the patterns! How could anyone read them and make sense of them? Of course, she knew she wasn't the best at following rules, and she wasn't always the one for finer details – there was a reason her spoken Russian was so much better than her reading skills, all those cyrillic letters walking about the sheet. This pattern was something similar.
She couldn't count the times she had thrown the piece of crochet work into the wall. Or she could, but she didn't want to because it sounded too much like a defeat. She had told Mr Butler not to allow any visitors, and she was pestering the patient Dot with pleadings and accusations and dramatic sighs. Kind, sweet Dot with her delicate touch, who could sew so you couldn't see there even was a mending and knit a sweater in a day or two. But turn Phryne into a crocheter, that was an entirely different kind of work, and demanding an entirely different kind of patience. Dot found to her surprise she might not be as patient a person as she had always thought.
"I'm not leaving this house until I can crochet a shawl," Phryne exclaimed for the upteenth time. "A wager is a wager!"
"I am sure Aunt Prudence wouldn't want you to pine away inside your house just for a silly wager," Dot answered, also for the upteenth time.
"This is not for Aunt P!" exclaimed Phryne. "This is to prove a point." Never mind she had forgotten the exact point; it had something to do with being a real woman, having a wide range of skills, and Prudence not being impressed enough with Phryne's mastery of a gun. Phryne was used to mastering everything, and learning things very quickly. To be subdued by a ball of yarn was not to her liking. Neither was being taunted – however friendly – by her aunt.
Dot covered a sigh and set forth to again explain how the pattern corresponded to the woollen reality in Phryne's slightly clenched fists. She had to find a way to solve this conundrum before it got out of hand. Or rather, before it got more out of hand, she thought as she remembered the phone calls she had had to make to excuse Phryne's absence at social gatherings, and even at an arranged dinner with an admirer. The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher was nothing if not stubborn.
The next day, Hugh Collins stopped by at breakfast and told Dot of the conclusion he had drawn of his boss's feelings towards Miss Fisher. His large, incredulous eyes were a wonder to watch, and they made Dot's heart beat slightly faster. Dear, sincere, loveable Hugh Collins. Dot was not as surprised as her fiancé was, as she thought she had seen some evidence in that direction, but nevertheless it was a break-through. It also gave her an idea of how she might get her normal life back, if that was a reasonable designation for it; a life she dearly missed.
Later in the day, after having forewarned Mr Butler, Dot checked that Miss Phryne was not within earshot so she could call City South. When Hugh answered, she managed to convince him to let her speak with the inspector with only a short delay.
"City South, Inspector Robinson. "
"Inspector, this is Dorothy Williams. "
"Miss Williams! What can I do for you?"
"It's Miss Phryne. She is... having troubles," Dot said, trying to phrase her speech so it wouldn't technically be a lie, but so it would still entice interest.
"Troubles? What kind of troubles?" Jack answered, not managing to keep out a little shake in his voice.
"Well, it isn't urgent, but there is something that you maybe could… speak her out of. If you wouldn't mind coming by later this evening."
Jack gave a deep sigh. He had been right, she was planning something dangerous. Dangerous enough that even Miss Williams was concerned. And dangerous enough to make Miss Williams turn to him to change Phryne's mind. Not the lover theory then, but the undercover one. He was both relieved and appalled at being relieved, and then on top of it all worrying.
"I'll come by after work, Miss Williams."
Jack Robinson entered Wardlow with ten prepared arguments about why a dangerous undercover stint was a bad idea, and twenty images of what kind of undercover attempt it might be. Posing as a bartender, a loose woman, a British tourist, a dancer, a horse rider… he had thought of them all.
Just as he entered the parlour, he saw Phryne sitting in one of the chairs, in her black embroidered kimono and a fully concentrated face, just to suddenly stand up and throw something in his direction, nearly hitting him in the stomach.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Jack! – Jack, what are you doing here?" She sounded slightly surprised – not prepared by Miss Williams then – but also a little bit pleased, as she usually did when she said his name. That was the reason he had been so put out by not being admitted, he realized: the discrepancy between not being allowed to come in, and her voice when she said his name.
He picked up the woolly blueish thing she had hurled in his direction and handed it to her.
"I have come to dissuade you from your latest endeavour, Miss Fisher."
"You have? Why?" She sounded genuinely surprised now.
"In the name of safety. And I know you don't like me to interfere, and that you don't need to be rescued, but please… when you plan to do this kind of dangerous thing" – he gestured vaguely, as he realized he hadn't got the slightest idea what she actually was up to, or even sure how dangerous it was, but he quickly decided the only thing for him now was to continue to presume – "I beg of you, please see to it that you have backup, and people behind you, me, behind you".
He trailed off, no longer managing to meet her eyes, that looked filled to the brim with laughter. Somehow, something had gone wrong but he had no idea of what or when.
"You think I need backup? And that I might need you. In this… predicament?" She made the same sort of extremely vague gesture he had made.
"… Yes?" His statement turned into a question in just one syllable.
Her eyes sparkled in a way that made them seem like jewels – emeralds, perhaps, his brain thought for him while he felt he might have lost his direction in the conversation.
"You might be right," she said, almost-laughing, sitting down and gesturing for him to sit next to her.
Feeling somewhat relieved about perhaps being right, and happy to have gotten back his footing, he sat down and turned to her.
"What was it this time? There's no circus around at the moment as far as I know, but I was fearing there might be some shabby bar you had set your eyes on, or maybe an attempt at impersonating a British heiress?"
Phryne looked at him without answering, her eyes full of mirth and softness.
"Just what kind of predicament do you think I am in?" she finally asked.
"I… gathered… something dangerous at least. Miss Williams seemed to think..."
"Ah, Dot. I fear the predicament might be hers." She heard steps in the hall and called for her companion. "Dot. It seems you brought in the cavalry?"
Dot had the sense to blush, and answered:
"I… it seemed to be the only way."
"The only way to what?" Jack interjected.
"To bring me back to my senses. To stop me from trying to show that I can knit and crochet and do needlework just as well as I can drive, and fly, and shoot," Phryne said, excluding the mention of lovemaking for the benefit of her delicate company. She held up the woollen ball and then tossed it aside, but without anger this time. Her left eyebrow arched, and her lips curved in her characteristic combination of teasing and laughter. "Dot seems to think you might be the man for it. Are you?"
Jack looked between the two women, and the wool. He might still not know exactly what had happened, but he wouldn't mind being able to say yes to that question.