Chapter Ten

Abandoning the car by the stage door, they raced in to find a rather grey faced deputy manager waiting for them.

"Through here please, Inspector ... Miss ..." He led them through a couple of corridors to the body of the theatre, then up the centre aisle to the foyer.

"It's here ..." He gestured, then seeing their expressions, followed his own arm with his eyes.

"Oh. That's ... odd."

As far as Jack and Phryne were concerned, he was gesturing to an artwork.

In what appeared to be tailor's chalk.

On the carpet.

In what would otherwise have been the work of Jack's team before they removed the body.

Phryne paused, and glanced round, then ventured,

"Something smells fishy, Jack,"

Jack looked at her, unusually exasperated – it wasn't often that his favourite lady detective wasted time and breath stating the blindingly obvious. She returned his gaze solemnly.

"I mean you need to smell the air. Fish."

She was right. But while they and the manager were wandering the foyer space, trying to trace the source, one of the glass doors was flung open and a flash bulb popped.

"A night at the theatre! Lovely!" sneered the journalist. As quick as his own flashbulb, Phryne grasped his wrist.

"Travis, a moment, please."

"Oh, hang on, Miss Fisher, all's fair in love and war, I need to get my picture developed for the morning edition," he said nervously.

"Indeed you do," she agreed smoothly. "And you can do so," Jack ground his teeth – any more such pictures would be heading to the print press only over another dead body and this time it would be his, "just as soon as you explain to us the remarkable coincidence that the last three times the Detective Inspector and I have been in public, you have been there with your camera? And furthermore," she was now warming to her subject, and Travis was finding himself painfully drawn into the centre of the foyer, "on two of those occasions, at a crime scene?"

"Only two, Miss Fisher?" the journo sneered. "You don't think it's a crime to be scarfing down champagne while murderers are running around killing innocent citizens?"

Jack decided it was time he got involved.

"Are you saying you know the precise time of death of either of the two murders we've been called to in the last few days, Travis?"

The journalist realised his mistake a fraction too late, but battled on valiantly.

"You can't expect me to reveal my sources, Inspector. That's my lifeblood as a journalist, that is. You can't have a free press without it."

Jack's smile of amusement at this sally failed to reach his eyes. "The only lifeblood I'm concerned with right now, Travis, is that of the two people whose own lifeblood ceased to fulfil its purpose when their hearts ceased to function and Miss Fisher is absolutely right – your presence in both cases is such a coincidence as warrants a longer chat. At the station."

At this, Travis started to gabble frantically.

"Here, hang on, you can't arrest me!"

"Did anyone say I was?" asked Jack coolly. "It's a wicked lie, Travis – though I know you wouldn't recognise those, never having printed one in your life. You're going to help us with our enquiry into the deaths of two Melbourne citizens, in an interview room, at the station." He twitched the camera out of Travis' hands.

"And this is evidence of the crime scene. Many thanks for your generosity in donating its contents to us, they will be returned to you as soon as we've solved the crime."

Phryne's expression was one of glittering satisfaction; Jack was awfully good at Masterful, she decided, happily. She piped up with her own contribution.

"I'll follow you there, if I may, Inspector – there's something here I want to check before I leave."

He inclined his head, and with an iron grip, escorted Travis to the police car.

Phryne turned to the manager.

"Now, I know this is all starting to look like an improbable fiction," at the reference, she got his attention, "but do you think you could show me where your sets get delivered?"

He agreed willingly, and together they sought out the delivery bay at the back of the theatre, which was entirely empty.

Except for a van, marked "Jones and Sons, Fishmongers".

Phryne allowed herself a smug smile, especially when she had a glance in the back; donning her gloves carefully, she hopped nimbly into the driver's seat and undertook a somewhat unorthodox delivery to City South Police Station.