Chapter Eleven

Dorothy having departed to return to her young family, Miss Fisher decided to recruit her flagging energy with a quick nap. It felt as though her eyes had barely closed when there was a gentle tap on the door.

"Miss Fisher? I have brought you some tea."

It was with a slight effort that Phryne cranked open her eyes to see Lin Soo, her maid, placing a tray gently down on the table beside her bed.

"Soo, thank you. I'm glad you're here. I've got something I want to ask you about. Sit down, do!" said Phryne cordially, as she propped herself comfortably against the pillows and reached for the teacup.

"How can I help you, Miss?" asked Soo politely. Soo was always polite, with the possible exception of the times when it was necessary for her to be monumentally rude. However, she had a keen eye for fashion, made perfect tea and had managed to avoid being shot by Jack Robinson the first time he met her, so Phryne regarded her as An Asset.

"You remember the first time we met, Soo?" asked Phryne, closing her eyes in bliss at the fragrant steam emanating from the cup.

"The first time, or the first time with my uncle, Miss?" asked Soo carefully.

"The first time," replied Phryne firmly. "You demonstrated remarkable skills on that occasion at gaining access to a building and searching it without causing unnecessary disruption. In, if you recall, the middle of the night."

"That is correct, Miss," Soo responded. Phryne wryly recognised the same inscrutable expression the girl's uncle often put to such good use.

"Well, I need you to do it again."

"Yes, Miss? Where and when?"

Phryne approved enormously. No ifs, buts or I-can't-possiblys. She'd known this was a maid worth keeping.

"Tonight, with me, at the Melbourne Stock Exchange. The Inspector has told me I may not go alone, so I plan to take you."

"Very well, Miss. I think your black drawstring trousers will be appropriate."

Definitely worth keeping.

The Inspector showed up shortly after five, and spent what an innocent observer might have thought an unconscionably long time in Miss Fisher's boudoir getting ready for his ceremonial dinner. In the event, though, neither of the observers there present was in the least bit innocent, so the fact that he was forced to run down the stairs slightly out of breath and with his bow tie still hanging loosely around his neck when Bert arrived with the taxi was in fact Perfectly Normal.

Miss Fisher dined in a leisurely manner and in solitary state, Jane having declared herself too hungry to wait and instead taken her meal around the kitchen table with Mr B and Lin Soo earlier. She then curled up with one of Jack's Zane Greys until darkness fell at around nine, and then allowed Soo to help her change into the black trousers, a high-necked black sweater and her favourite black woven beret.

As soon as they arrived at the Stock Exchange, she was glad of Soo's presence. With the best will in the world, she would have struggled to climb the rope to the first floor window which they observed to be slightly open and therefore almost certainly the best way to get in. Once the grappling-hook was in place, though her athletic little maid swarmed up like a monkey, and reappeared a few minutes later at one of the ground-floor windows, which proved a much less challenging entry route. Leaving it open by a crack at the bottom, they switched on torches and made their way up to the third floor. Here, it was left to Soo to keep watch while Phryne worked her way steadily through Armstrong's desk.

There was, as Jack had said, a raft of extremely mundane paperwork, and not a great deal else. One or two congratulatory letters from happy clients were stored in the top drawer, apparently re-read frequently. There was a single ledger where every single trade he had placed was recorded, and after a moment's thought, Phryne appropriated it. Then, after a very brief battle with her conscience, she went in search of Schultz's office, where she located a similar volume and helped herself to that too.

Dot, she reasoned, could quite happily take a closer look in the comfort of her own home; attention to laborious detail being more her skill than Miss Fisher's.

As she was closing the desk drawer, though, there was a hiss from Soo, who was stationed at the top of the stairs. Swiftly, she moved to the door and joined her maid in shrinking behind it, as they listened to someone climbing the stairs. Torchlight preceded the new intruder through the doorway, and they held their breath as he made his way to Armstrong's office, striding inside without hesitation.

Phryne was torn. She couldn't see his face, and wouldn't be able to shine a torch at him without alerting him to their presence. Equally, she didn't fancy a confrontation when she herself was unarmed. Eventually, she decided he must have entered by the same window they had used, and she could just as easily wait to see him in the light from the street lamps.

She nudged Soo, and the pair crept like mice around the door before making their way as quickly and quietly as possible back to the ground floor.

Phryne carefully climbed out of the window and paused for a moment to catch her breath. Really, this pregnancy lark was downright irritating when a girl couldn't canter down six flights of stairs and climb through a window without having to take a break.

As she straightened up, she turned to the Hispano – and stopped. Leaning against it was a gentleman in evening dress. She knew which gentleman it was, because her knees went a bit wobbly, and she cursed the Chief Commissioner for failing to ensure that his dinners went on to a respectably late hour.

Compressing her lips, she gave the return to her stylish vehicle her best sashay.

It didn't work.

"Busy night, Miss Fisher?" asked the Inspector sarcastically.

In the circumstances, she decided to dispense with her usual greeting to him – for one thing, it was a bit noisy, and for another thing she was a sucker for a man in a tail coat. Instead, she adopted the strategy that had worked well in forty-three out of forty-four times when she'd thought a man was cross with her and immediate reconciliation was required.

(On the forty-fourth occasion the man in question had turned out to be a woman in disguise, and they had laughed about it uproariously. Mac, in fact, still dined out on that particular tale.)

On this occasion, it worked beautifully. It wasn't as though she was wearing much lipstick anyway, and her mother had always told her to share her gifts.

He was about to offer to let her drive home when they both realised they were not alone. Phryne had momentarily forgotten that Soo was still inside the building; and Jack hadn't known in the first place.

It wasn't Soo, though, who was climbing out of the same window Phryne had so recently exited. Jack started, and gripped Phryne's arms to push her away.

At the same time, though, Phryne hissed, "Jack, up there!" He followed her gaze, and saw the faintest flicker of light on the third floor. The light was not of the electric variety, and the chances of anyone wanting a fire in the grate at that hour of one of the hottest nights of the year were slim.

Their eyes met, and instant decisions were made. Phryne gave them voice. "You get him, I'll get the Fire Brigade".

He nodded, and turned to run after the miscreant; but he didn't have to run far.

For some reason, the man was collapsed, with one foot still in the window and the other out, his head almost touching the pavement below. Jack stopped, hands on hips, to survey the poor soul dangling helplessly in front of him. A movement in the window caught his eye, and he was slightly startled to observe Miss Fisher's maid, dressed all in black, give him a grin and a wink, before flicking her hand at the man's ankle.

With a whirl, the weighted leather strap released the captive; having no warning of his imminent freedom, he wasn't as grateful as he should have been. Some people just didn't seem to have heads hard enough to cope with landing on paving stones.

The Inspector reflected that Felix Schultz was going to have a corking black eye when he woke up.