PART ONE - Cocaine Blues

She wasn't exactly sure what it was that made her do it. Boredom after her three month voyage or the mixture of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie novels she'd been reading recently. Or perhaps it was just her childhood predisposition for sticking her nose curiously into places it shouldn't go, returned to her by the short conversation with her unchanged aunt.

For whichever reason it was Phryne found she couldn't help herself from ducking past a bumbling Constable and sneaking away to the bathroom where the body of Mr Andrews had been found. Closing the door behind her she relished in the small thrill bubbling through her. She'd always loved to have a good snoop.

She was interrupted, as she'd known she would be, after only a few minutes by a loud knock on the door.

"This lavatory's fully occupied!" she announced.

"Police; open up."

Phryne ignored the command, pausing to reapply her lipstick before striding over to the door.

She opened it with a charming smile across her face. "You must be the Inspector." She said as she opened the door to the faces of the Constable she'd sidestepped to get here and the superior he'd said he'd collect. "Apologies for my urgent call of nature."

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson blinked.

Constable Collins had asked him about a lady needing to use the facilities of the house before she could leave, and of course when he'd returned to the stairs to speak with this lady, she had gone. A heavy knock on the door of their crime scene and the woman was revealed.

She was just over five feet tall, dressed in an outfit of pink and red, a smile on her painted lips as she tried to bat her eyelashes at him to remove herself from trouble. Jack ignored her wiles, stepping into the room to speak with her plainly.

"This is the scene of a crime."

"Well," She said, holding her hands up in front of her, "lucky for you, I'm wearing gloves." She smiled sweetly and Jack frowned.

There was something strange about this woman, something... almost familiar.

Before he could consider this the woman pulled one of her white gloves from her hand and eyed him expectantly as she introduced herself. "Miss Phryne Fisher!"

Jack met her gaze. The name was completely unfamiliar to him, but there, in the twinkle of her eye and the curve of her smile... she knew him.

He took her hand, his fingers warm and calloused against her own rather dainty ones, but didn't return the introduction. "I assume you weren't close to the deceased," he said instead.

"Never had the pleasure, but by all accounts he was charming." Miss Phryne Fisher turned to his Constable, "Do you think it was poison?"

"Most likely-" the young man began to say, but Jack cut over him firmly with a warning stare.

"We are yet to determine the cause of death." He turned back to the matter at hand, "Miss Fisher, I appreciate your curiosity for crime-" He began to step toward her, forcing her to step back to the door.

"Well every lady needs a hobby," she said with a smile. What was it about that smile?

"-but please-" Jack leant his arm against the door to block her way, but she simply ducked beneath it and began to speak again.

"Given the lack of bloodstains I assume it wasn't a violent death, unless of course it was strangulation, but the foetal position of the victim outline, although not terribly well executed, indicates a degree of pain rather than the flailing limbs one might associate with a struggle. And then of course there's the fact that death occurred after breakfast according to Mrs. Andrews," Jack saw his Constable writing in his notebook and stared at the man until he stopped, "which suggests something... ingested?" Miss Fisher finished, looking at the pair.

"All wild surmise of course." She added for good measure.

"Of course-" Jack stepped forward to shepherd her out again, but her eyes lit up and she stepped forward eagerly.

"Do you have a card?" she asked him, moving closer still and staring him right in the eye, trying to make herself appear as small and vulnerable as possible. "In case I need to call the police."

That was it. Those wide open eyes now so close to him, her face long and relaxed... A memory invaded Jack's senses. He could hear the gunfire; smell the mud and the death in the air. He could see her face, her eyes staring up at him as he ducked behind the sandbags, hunched over her, protecting her as he took shelter from enemy fire.

"They'll stop soon, won't they?"

"They might."

"And if they don't?"

"Because," her low voice pulled him from the memories, and he watched as she tucked back a faint strand of her short black hair. "I'm a woman alone, newly arrived in a dangerous town..."

He kept her gaze and reached into his pocket, pulling a business card from his pocket. "I plan to make this town less dangerous, Miss Fisher."

"Good," she said, dropping her vulnerable act to slide easily into flirtation as she accepted the offered card, "I do like a man with a plan."

She looked at the card in hand and read; "Detective Inspector," her eyes returned to his, "Jack Robinson."

She walked past him, closer than was necessary, fanning herself with his card and roaming her eyes over him as she went.

Constable Collins closed the bathroom door behind her, and Jack sighed heavily.

She was, without a doubt, the woman that had invaded his dreams for so many years after the war. His Nightingale. Miss Phryne Fisher. And he had no idea how to proceed.