Chapter Eleven
"How can he possibly not know?!"
Miss Fisher was in Jack's office, in her best clothes and incandescent.
The clothes were because she was fresh from a final fitting and she thought the new frock deserved an outing. The visit to Jack's office was because she'd fully expected to get the scoop on Dawlish's arrest. The fireworks were because she was disappointed.
"I'm afraid to say I believe him," Jack shrugged. "If there was any doubt before in my mind, it's long gone. Seth Tombs is a beautiful manipulator with an eye to the long game - after all, it's almost a year since they first met Rose - and Tombs has wrapped Dawlish around his little finger. Reassuringly expensive, too."
"Hence the need for the insurance job, I suppose," concluded Phryne, slumping into his guest chair and propping a gloomy face on a sulky fist.
"No doubt. But the fact of the matter is that Tombs decided he was better lying low."
"Don't call me, I'll call you? I can well imagine. After all, it would take him a while to wash the blood from his hands," she muttered. "The swine. I've seen some brutality, but to cut the tattoo from Rose's chest just so that his identity could be confused?"
"We've got someone in the house," soothed Jack. "If the telephone rings, or there's post, or anyone calls - we'll know. Right now, Tombs doesn't know anything's wrong. If things went to plan, the cheque would have been lodged in their account by now and the two of them would be hightailing it out of here."
Phryne scowled, then froze.
"The two of them?" she asked no-one in particular. "Jack, what do we know of Seth Tombs so far?"
"That he's a beautiful, self-centred murderer?" offered Jack sardonically.
"Quite." She sat up and raised her eyebrows. "Just the type of person to hang around waiting for the likes of Dawlish when there's a small fortune sitting in a bank account waiting to be lifted and recycled by a beautiful ne'er-do-well with his own best interests placed firmly front and centre."
Jack sat back and stroked his jaw pensively. "So, if the money doesn't turn up in the account, what does he do then?"
They both paused for thought. Phryne was the first to speak.
"He panics. And then he makes a run for it."
The words weren't even out of her mouth before Jack was out of his chair and commanding all those within earshot to get people at the airport, seaports, train and bus stations with a description and ideally a photograph of Seth Tombs.
He then stood, hands in pockets, in the centre of City South and gazed out of the window. How else might a murderer make for the hills?
It was a great day for a walk; consequently, a very bad day for Melbourne's taxi trade. Cec and Bert had been waiting outside Flinders Street for fully half an hour, with never a whisper of a fare.
Cec glanced around, wondering if it would be frowned upon to suggest a quick cuppa, when he saw a figure by the news stand that made his eyes start out of his head.
"Hang on, that's him."
"Who?"
"The dead bloke. That's him, over there."
"Cec, I know you're a bit uptight about the wedding and such, but if you're seeing ghosts …"
"THERE! Beside the paper shop!"
"Wha … bloody hell."
"What do we do?"
"We take him to the Inspector, Cec, mate. Nice and quiet, like." Bert, having grasped the challenge swiftly, explained the plan. Cec listened, liked and smiled that very endearing smile he could conjure up when he knew there were fisticuffs in the offing.
"Beaut" was his only reaction, though, and he went to circle round behind the suspect.
It was, in the event, so very simple.
"Here, is your name Tombs?" asked Bert. His tone may have been belligerent. The jury, had the issue arisen, would have forgiven him.
His audience started, glared, and took a swing at his interlocutor.
Bert, expecting it, dodged and got away with a nasty bruise on his arm.
Tombs turned to run, as any sensible murdering fraudster might.
He was then met with the immovable object of Cec's famous Left.
Losing the battle, he collapsed into Bert's waiting arms; Cec swept up the legs in one hand and the suitcase in the other.
It wasn't the cheapest fare the City of Melbourne Police had ever refunded to a taxi driver, but it definitely offered better value than the rest.
It only remained to negotiate the reward; and while at least one of the red-raggers was starting to entertain slightly higher hopes, they seemed destined to be dashed.
"On Tuesday? I'm sorry, Cec, it's out of the question," said Phryne firmly.
"Told you so," said Bert with morose satisfaction. Cec's shoulders slumped.
"Unless you let Jack drive."
"Eh?" Both red-raggers' heads were raised in unanimous confusion.
"You idiots," explained Phryne patiently, "Tuesday is Jack's birthday. Didn't you know?"
They admitted that they didn't. Bert privately wondered whether anyone other than the man's parents and Mrs Robinson did, given that his personal mascot, Elizabeth Jane, was still a bit fuzzy on dates.
(Oh, and Mr Butler, of course, but he knew everything).
"It's quite straightforward," Phryne warmed to her topic. "Alice can ride to the church in the Hispano, as long as Jack is allowed to drive her. He loves driving that car, and I've arranged for him to have the chance to take it to the race track and give it a proper outing. I tell him he has to drive Alice to the church. He agrees, in that lovely, biddable manner of his," (at this both the red-raggers exchanged glances that recalled several utterly unbiddable moments of Inspectorly Ire, but thought it best to Remain Silent), "and having watched Cec and Alice get hitched, and taken them on to the wedding breakfast, we excuse ourselves to … well, celebrate."
She smiled in a way that encouraged her audience to entertain mildly wistful thoughts, even if one was already spoken for and both were too frightened to have done anything about it anyway.
The plan was applauded with enthusiasm, and the party broke up.