Chapter Ten
Jack had his latchkey out as they ran up the path of 221B, but the door was flung wide by Mr Butler as they approached.
"Sir, Miss, it's all right, she's fine," he said quietly, calmly. "We're all – fine."
As he spoke, the nurse Mary-Lou came through from the direction of the kitchen, carrying a small bundle in a pretty blue sailor dress, who squealed with excitement at seeing her mother and her father. She flung her chubby arms wide, almost hitting Mary-Lou in the face, but the nurse only smiled and handed the child into her mother's waiting arms.
Phryne reminded herself not to hug too tightly, and closed her eyes to keep the tears of relief at bay. Jack had no such pride, and Elizabeth's hair was a little damp when he released them both from his all-enveloping embrace.
He then turned to Mr Butler with a question in his eyes; the factotum inclined his head towards the parlour doors which stood slightly ajar. Jack took a couple of paces, to survey the room; wherein he found Lin Soo calmly supervising two gentlemen who were lying on their faces, arms and legs securely bound and gags preventing what would otherwise doubtless have been some fairly colourful curses reaching any of the ladies' ears. The maid held a gun with deceptively loose grip, trained on them both.
Jack returned to the front door and gave a two-fingered whistle in the direction of the waiting police car. An enquiring head appeared at the passenger window.
"Sergeant, come here and bring your constable with you."
Sergeant Collins sprung out of the car and reported to the Chief Inspector for duty.
"Relieve Miss Lin, please, Collins – but don't take the prisoners away just yet. Miss Fisher and I will want a word, just as soon as we've settled our daughter."
Collins saluted smartly, and Soo relinquished the firearm, joining Jack and Phryne in the hallway.
"Will you and Tobias wait for us in the kitchen please, Soo?"
"Of course, Mr Jack," she gave a graceful little bow and headed for the kitchen, flexing what appeared to be aching arm muscles as she went. Jack observed her movements with a frown, but then followed Phryne, who was already heading up the stairs with Elizabeth in her arms.
She appeared reluctant to give her back to Mary Lou, until the nurse whispered, "It's all right, Ma'am. Really it is. She was never even in the same room with those two crims. Mr Butler and Miss Lin did it all."
Still, it wasn't until bath time was well under way that they could tear themselves away, and only then because the need to find out how on earth their child had been placed in danger was so urgent.
A fresh pot of tea was sitting on the kitchen table, and all those present took a cup gratefully.
"Mr Butler, please sit down," said Phryne firmly.
"Miss, I …"
"Yes, you can. I need to talk to you and I'll get a crick in my neck if you don't come down to my level."
Thus admonished, Tobias Butler Sat In The Presence Of Miss Fisher. The absence of thunderclaps and lightning strikes suggested that the world wasn't instantly about to end; but the chair-back at no time was troubled by him leaning against it.
"Right," said Jack. "What happened?"
Soo and Tobias exchanged glances. In the end, it was she who spoke up.
"The vermin came to the front door. They were foolish. They had not assessed the ground or their enemy, and thought to take us unprepared and so win the fight."
Phryne recognised a student of Sun Tzu when she met one, and felt fear and anxiety dissipating into her more usual state of interested calm. Almost unconsciously, she relaxed a little in her seat, and listened as though to a lantern lecture.
"Tobias answered the door, and they threatened him with a knife." From her expression, one might have surmised that the knife was the cardboard sort that a child would play pirates with. "He spoke to them very loudly, so that I could hear from the kitchen. I left, and went to the nursery."
"Through the hall? Didn't they see you?" asked Jack, confused.
"No, through the window," she corrected him calmly. "I took the nurse and the child to your bathroom, because to have them leave the house would have meant the nurse climbing down, and she cannot do that."
Phryne thought of Mary-Lou's statuesque frame, and agreed with a twitch of the lips.
"They were to remain there in quietness – the child has a mouse game that they play. This is very good."
Jack thanked his stars for the second time in two days, this time that Elizabeth adored playing hide-and-seek.
"I then went to the garden. Tobias saw me approach and allowed them into the hallway, where they were trapped. So they were caught, and bound. That is all."
Jack and Phryne exchanged glances, and she reached for Mr Butler's hand where it encircled his teacup. Examining the knuckles, she found them to be grazed and bloodied. Soo's eyes followed the gesture, and with an exclamation of disgust, she jumped up to fetch the kitchen's First Aid box. Ignoring proceedings from then on, she began to apply salve and dressings to the wounds, muttering a constant scold all the while.
Mr Butler allowed her to do so, his colour only a little heightened.
Jack cleared his throat. "Did … they say anything about how they found us?"
Mr B looked up from his fixed gaze at Soo's handiwork. "Only the slightest reference in passing, sir. One of them said they'd been told to look out for the policeman – I'm assuming they meant you, sir – and that they knew you were 'shacked up with that society dame'." He was given back his hand, duly dressed, and after only a little prompting, reluctantly presented the other one, which was in almost as bad a state.
"I'm afraid I don't know what they hoped to achieve by taking Miss Elizabeth, though," he said apologetically.
"Don't worry, Mr B, I think I'm starting to have an inkling about that," said Phryne briskly. Rising to her feet, she dragged her husband into the dining room, closing the kitchen door behind her. He looked at her quizzically. "Oh, come on, Jack, let's give them a bit of privacy so that she can tell him off properly!" she whispered.
"I still don't know how you cope with having your domestic staff pursue one another romantically," he said hopelessly.
"Jack, you're starting to sound like Aunt Prudence," she accused. "And they're your staff too. The answer is, they're human beings and they're living their lives. Oh, and they have just saved our daughter from a horrid fate, so I'd say that's worth a few minutes with the kitchen door closed, don't you?"
Duly chastised, he changed the subject as quickly as possible. "So, what's your idea about the kidnappers?"
She paused, and leaned back against the window-ledge. "It's just an idea, but I think it's worth exploring with those two low-lifes in there. What if Fitzhugh was actually the bad guy in all this?"
Jack frowned, then raised his eyes to hers, alert. "On the balance of probabilities, the idea of there being more than one villain among the Duke's party has to be unlikely?"
"Precisely. What if Fitzhugh was the one who'd been leaking information to the left, and the others took it on themselves to – well, take him out of the equation?"
"But before they did, he'd already told the activists about me and – by extension – you." The words were out before he'd thought them through – she could see it happen, and also see what happened when he realised what he'd said; the implication of the danger to his family purely as a function of his job.
The shutters came down. The jaw clenched. He averted his gaze.
She moved in, but only far enough to place a hand on his where it rested on the back of one of the dining chairs.
"That's for later, Jack – if we're right," she whispered. "I think we should go and make sure we've got it right first – don't you?"
When he didn't immediately respond, she moved a little closer and touched her cheek to his; and simply stood, quietly warming his soul via the medium of his heart. At length, he took a deep breath and drew back.
"Very well, Miss Fisher," he said, in chilly tones that told her the battle hadn't even been joined. "Let's go and ask some stupid men some clever questions."