A/N: Hello! Sorry, about the wait, it took me a bit longer to get this chapter right. However because I've been doing the 30 minute writing challenge daily that means that I've got most of the next chapter written so I can post the next chapter fairly quickly.
Which you'll find is a good thing, because this ends with yet another cliffhanger.
But thanks to my husband, who tried to help me with the scene I had trouble with (he didn't manage it, but he did his best) and Old Ping Hai, who succeeded in getting the last scene to its current state.
Love you both!
"We're going to have to start looking at people outside of the party and the household. Expand our search to include migrants and transients. Find out where people in the town were that might have not been at the party, find anyone else that might have a motive to kill the victim," Greg admitted, tossing the file on the murder on the desk between them.
Jack put his hand's in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "There's always the possibility that she had caught someone trying to rob the estate and had gone up to stop them. They fight on the top of the stairs where she falls to her death."
Greg rubbed the bottom of his lip and then tossed his hand out, "I honestly don't know. I wasn't joking earlier when I said we would need a confession to break this case. Our prime suspects both have alibis with each other. Which they can't admit to because it could get them jailed, almost certainly castrated, and at the very worst, put to death. This is a copper's worst nightmare."
Jack nodded, "Any word from the family?"
Greg put both hands on his hips, "No. I haven't been able to get through their army of solicitors. And they apparently have one for everything. I ask a question about any enemies she might have had or her father might have had and one of them answers. I ask about their finances and a different one replies. And of course they threaten me with slander every time I bring up her blackmailing scheme."
"That's odd," Jack said, "Don't they want the murder of their daughter solved?"
Greg scoffed. "More concerned with appearances than their own blood. That, and it's highly likely that her father got his money illegally."
Jack moved to sit on the edge of the desk, "Well, that would go with what we know about the daughter, 'like will to like', after all."
"The only thing I did manage to get out of them was a list of Mary's close associates," Greg said, pulling out his notebook and flipping to the most recent page.
"I can't image that would be very long," Jack commented, "I never saw her with anyone else while we've been here."
Greg cocked his head to the side, "It's longer than you'd think." He handed the notebook to Jack to have him look it over.
Jack scanned the list of fifteen or so names. "John's on the top of the list, no surprise there."
"No, and you should have heard them, they were broadly trying to suggest that he killed her, too."
Jack frowned, "Also no surprise." He tapped on a name, "David Lancaster. He is one whom I did see her with and often. They would both come play tennis with us."
"Us?" Greg asked.
Jack cleared his throat, "Phryne and I would join them."
Greg chuckled, "Collins mentioned. It's just funny to think of you in tennis whites."
"I have all sorts of depth, Detective Inspector," Jack replied.
"Let's get back to David Lancaster, what about it him?" Greg asked, folding his arms.
"It was pretty widely known that Mary was seeing a couple of men before John proposed; one of them was David. Was he at the party? I don't recall seeing him there."
Greg pulled the file closer to himself and began to flip through it. He stopped on the list of guests. "Nope, and he wasn't invited either."
Jack really frowned and came around behind Greg to look at the list. "That's strange, aren't the Lancasters a big family in these parts?"
"Very," Greg said. "But perhaps Mary or John asked that he be kept off the list. After all, I wouldn't want my fiancee's former flame at our engagement announcement either."
"Still, it's something that we should look into," Jack pressed.
Greg raised his hands, placating. "No, I agree."
Phryne knocked on the open door and then strolled into the room, John following close behind. He was a different person than the one who had tailed behind Phryne to the cell like a man on his way to the noose.
Greg and Jack were so surprised by the transformation that their jaws dropped.
Jack raised his eyebrows, "Now how did you manage that?"
John blushed.
"Now that would be telling," Phryne said with a grin.
"Phryne!" Mycroft bellowed from the front of the police station. "I want to go home! Now!"
"One moment!" Phryne cooed. She walked to the reception desk and took a blank sheet of paper. She searched for a pen a moment before Hugh offered her his. She wrote something on the paper and folded it in half, then handed the pen back to Hugh. She held out the letter to Jack, who had followed her out of the office.
"What's this then?" Jack asked, taking it from her.
"Sherlock's alibi and I leave it up to you what you do with it." She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "I'm trusting you'll do the right thing, Jack Robinson. You always do."
She turned to the crowd assembled, "Let's go; you coming, Hugh?"
Hugh looked at Jack, who smiled, "Go on, you're on your honeymoon for Christ's sake!"
Hugh practically leapt over the reception desk to take Dot's hand. She smiled up at him and gave him a kiss. "You know, that's something I admire about you, Hugh. You are sweet." She kissed him again and the constable turned bright pink.
"Aww, Dottie," he replied.
Phryne turned to John, "Can we give you a lift somewhere? I've got room for one more."
John looked over at Mycroft, who nodded his approval. "I'd like to see Sherlock, so where you're going will be fine with me."
As they walked to the car he said, "The world is a little brighter today than it was yesterday."
"I'm glad," Dot said.
"Me, too, Dot," Phryne added.
Just as the door closed, Jack opened the note and cursed, "Oh for Christ's sake!"
Greg walked up to him, "What does it say?" He took the paper from Jack's limp fingers and read out loud, "Charlie Freeman? Who's Charlie Freeman?"
Jack bit his lip. Did he really want Greg to know? He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. "It's another one of Phryne's and my earliest cases. A murder at a jazz hall. He was the prime suspect, mainly because the victim, like this current case, was a blackmailer."
"And this man was being blackmailed?" Greg asked.
Jack nodded tightly. "The victim in that case had pictures of him in a compromising position."
Greg frowned for a moment, "Since Phryne was talking to John when she got Sherlock's alibi, I'm guessing the pictures were of Charlie and another man?"
Jack looked down at his feet and sighed, "Rather than throw those two boys in jail, and strongly influenced by Phryne, I handed over the evidence for her to dispose of as she saw fit."
"Because it was the right thing to do?"
Jack looked Greg squarely in the eye and said, "Yes."
Greg sighed and sat down in his chair, "That's quite a relief to hear, honestly."
Jack looked at him surprise, "Oh?"
"If I went around arresting homosexuals in this town, I'd have to start with myself, and considering I don't have a constable at the moment, it would make for a very awkward booking, don't you think?"
Jack smiled, "I suppose it would."
"You and Miss Fisher don't have anything to fear from me regarding the alibis of Sherlock and Dr Watson," Greg said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, with those two safely out of the running for our killer, it's time to get back to work, don't you think?"
"Indeed."
John wedged himself in the back seat with Hugh and Dot, Hugh with a possessive arm around his wife as she sat between them. John smiled at the constable and shook his head. He knew what it meant to want to send a warning to everyone and anyone who might even look at his love, that this person belonged to him.
And that person had always been Sherlock. He should have been possessive around Mary especially when it came to her other paramours. He knew she had been sleeping with other men long after the two of them should have been exclusive. But he had asked Mary to marry him to fill the hole in his heart left by wanting the one person he couldn't have. Sherlock. Beautiful Sherlock with his bright eyes, dark curls, and mischievous grin.
No, if he was to have fallen for any of the three ladies that had come to stay, it would have been Phryne. But her heart, like John's, had been taken far before they had even met. His lay with Sherlock and Phryne's with Jack.
They were approaching the house, having walked from the old carriage house that now held Mycroft's collection of cars and aeroplanes, when they heard a cry for help coming from the veranda.
They all broke into a run. John's cane lay forgotten on the driveway as his solider instincts kicked in. As they neared, they could make out that the voice belonged to Sherlock, and then John's limp completely melted away into nothing as his only thought was of saving Sherlock.
A woman's voice was heard screaming, "Quiet! You'll be quiet, you hear me? There is no one here to rescue you, so save your breath!"
John didn't even register what was going on when he charged in, rushing the person with the gun before she could whip the weapon around to the noise of them arriving. It was only after John bore her to the ground and began to wrestle for the gun that he realized that he was fighting Anthea, Mycroft's wife. Anthea's MI6 training warred against John's military expertise. Anthea was smaller and had long hair, while John had the injury to both his shoulder and his leg. Anthea used the butt of the gun as well as her nails, aiming for the eyes and soft parts of the body. John used his fists, pounding anything he could reach.
Mycroft and Dot ran to Sherlock to make sure he was all right. He practically leaped into Dot's arms and began to sob, like a child clinging to its mother. Mycroft put his arm around Sherlock and began murmuring assurances.
Hugh picked up a chair from next to the door and held it aloft. Once Anthea was on top of John and it seemed like she had finally got the upper hand, Hugh smashed the chair over her back. Anthea dropped and then rolled off John, still clutching the gun tightly in her fist.
She struggled to get back up and had propped herself on her elbows, when she heard a cold voice above her say, "Drop it." She looked up straight into the barrel of Phryne's pearl-handled revolver. Anthea paused for a single moment and then dropped the gun. She let her body go slack and her head hit the floor.
"Good choice," Phryne said.
John picked up the gun and pointed it at Anthea, "If you even so much as twitch his direction," he said, indicating Sherlock with his chin, "I will shoot you and I won't lose sleep over it."
Anthea looked over at John and then back to Phryne. "It doesn't matter anymore."
John looked at the gun in his hand and cursed. "This is my gun. This is my service pistol. You were going to shoot Sherlock with my gun?" The anguish in John's voice was palpable.
"Why?" Mycroft asked. "Why kill Sherlock? Why use John's gun? Why, Anthea? Hasn't there been enough tragedy?"
Anthea squeezed her eyes shut and a single tear slid from her eye to wet the hair on her temple.