Chapter Ten
The romantic hero was apparently fixing his interest with the chief bridesmaid.
The judge had his eye on the bride (the younger, prettier Tarrant), having 'put away the rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter'.
Jack mainly had his eye on the door. He was not enjoying the evening he'd expected. To be fair, the evening he'd expected wasn't exactly on the management's list of planned entertainments; but he'd had reasonable hopes of distracting Mrs Robinson sufficiently from the fascinating (her) or deadly (him) qualities of G&S.
Instead of an extended programme of sensory exploration, to the accompaniment of the cheesiest of harmonies, he'd been focused on trying not to be observed by Malcolm Dunbar. It was particularly galling to discover at one point during the plaintiff's aria that the person he was trying so hard to avoid wasn't actually in his box.
The evening wasn't truly ruined, though, until Senior Constable Collins scratched on the door of their box (Collins knew that this was an off-duty night for the boss and was smart enough not to seek out ways to embarrass them all further, so his approach was appropriately cautious) and whispered to Jack that his presence was required at a murder.
Jack briefly debated what sin he could have committed in a former life – he was pretty well acquainted with the count in his current existence – to deserve this, and excused himself with a whisper.
Fat chance. Phryne stood, snagged her furs from the hook and followed him out into the corridor.
"Little Lon, sir. Nasty business, throat slit. Deceased looks pretty well-to-do, though; the shoes and clothes are good. Nothing she's carrying that can identify her, except that she'd got Miss Fisher's card tucked into her sleeve."
Phryne perked her ears up at this, and immediately demanded to be taken to the scene. It was only a couple of blocks at a brisk trot, after all. She had no problem identifying the victim, but the shock was considerable. Her head jerked back and she reached instinctively for Jack's hand.
He gripped it, and noted that this was another first. Progress.
Kate Dunbar had, it appeared, possessed a healthy circulation – at least until it circulated most of the blood out of her system and onto the streets of one of Melbourne's less attractive thoroughfares.
Jack crouched at her side; the cause of death was obvious and the expert to narrow down its timing would be there shortly. Phryne, apparently recovered from her initial jolt appeared opposite him, and sniffed meaningfully.
"Gin, Jack – lots of it."
He nodded, even as he straightened to greet the police doctor and the rest of the social accoutrements the State of Victoria deemed necessary to really make a suspicious death go with a bang, although the coroner's representative appeared to have forgotten his party hat.
"Collins?"
"Sir?"
"Who called it in? Do we have any witnesses?"
"No, sir. The, er, proprietor of Bloody Mary's says she let someone use the phone but she couldn't give a description on account of it being dark."
Jack resignedly accepted the inevitable – he couldn't run the risk of Mary (or Moll, as she was known to most of the less salubrious parts of Melbourne, although rarely featuring on his charge sheet) shutting down any such calls in future, which was exactly what would happen if it became known she'd squealed to the police.
"Jack, I could …"
"No, Phryne, really. It's not worth it. We don't even know whether the person who called it in wasn't just an innocent passer-by, and there's every chance someone would make the link between you and the police at the worst possible moment."
She wasn't happy having to accept his logic, and cast around for something else she could do. Sitting on one's hands wasn't much of an occupation. Inspiration hit.
"Say what you like, Jack, but I'm going back down to Williamstown tomorrow. I know some people there now, and I'm going to talk to them. And she's got a locker I can have a look at."
He hoped his relief that she wasn't about to start an accidental war in Little Lon wasn't too obvious.
She patted him on the head.
He outranked the coroner's man but the police doctor blinked a bit.
He cleared his throat, stood up again and gave a series of determined instructions that left no-one in any doubt as to who was In Charge Of The Scene; although Miss Fisher obviously missed the briefing, because she was already chatting to a weepy dero who'd just woken up to find his chosen doss-spot for the night far too crowded. In the darkness of the alley, Jack had seen only a pile of rags – trust Miss Fisher to poke her nose more deeply into unsavoury corners.
He left her to it, and a few minutes later she rejoined him and his constable.
"A small success, Jack," she asserted. "He says it was a grocer."
The policemen exhibited matching expressions of disbelief. Phryne smiled.
"I think what he means is that he saw someone in a brown overall – you know, the kind of thing a caretaker wears."
Jack's brow cleared and he sent Collins over to try to get a coherent statement.
That done, and time of death estimated as being "within the last couple of hours, sir - we'll have more for you on the weapon tomorrow" they decided there was little more they could do, and wandered back to the theatre – just in time to see the audience spilling out of the doors.
Catching sight of Dunbar, Jack pulled Phryne back into a convenient doorway. They watched as he got into a car alone and drove away.
"Should we have stopped him, Jack?" asked Phryne. "We've just found his cousin dead."
He shook his head.
"Not here, too public. And in any case, I don't like the coincidence that he's so close by. I want to wait until the morning."
He met her eyes.
"Part of me wants to know if he reports her missing."
Phryne thought, then shrugged. "He might just take the view that she's an adult, and can make her own choices?"
Jack concurred, but still refused to go anywhere but home at that point. There was only so much ruination of a night off he was prepared to suffer. Besides, he had decided she looked hot in her dress, and wouldn't she be much more comfortable without it?