Chapter Eleven

The first person Phryne saw when she drew up outside the range office at Williamstown was Teddy Higginbottom, pinning up some notices on the cork board outside the building. He greeted her warmly, but was aghast at her news.

She took him into the office and found the makings of a nice cup of sweet tea. Well, a cup of sweet tea, anyway. Well, there was a lot of sugar in it.

"So awful ... both those lovely girls gone," he muttered to himself. He looked up at Phryne and shook his head.

"At first, some people weren't sure about having women here. Some of the men who served in the war thought that target rifle was for people who'd fired a shot in anger, and in defence of their country. It's down to these girls that the attitude has been changing. Kate has been a fixture here – hardly missed a day in the last six months, and not at all in the past month."

He gazed morosely into his teacup.

Phryne tipped her head quizzically.

"Well, apart from the day Elsie died?"

He shook his head.

"No, not even then. Every day, she was here, practising hard."

Alert now, Phryne pressed him. "You saw her that day? Can I ask where?"

He looked out of the window in thought.

"Just the usual – leaving the club house with her gun and heading towards the range. Silly girl – oh, I shouldn't call her that," he was horrified with himself for speaking ill of her. Phryne squeezed his hand reassuringly, "she was late – they'd long since started at two hundred yards."

"Did you see her again that day, Teddy?" asked Phryne, as casually as she could manage.

He thought back. "No, I don't think so – mind you, once the police were here and questioning everyone, it was all a bit chaotic. They even questioned me, and I haven't picked up a gun since 1925," he complained.

He finished his cup, and she excused herself. Trying not to break into an attention-attracting run, she made her way to the club house. Gaining entry to Kate's locker was the work of less than thirty seconds, and she picked carefully through the accumulation of shooting detritus, looking for something – anything – to explain why Kate might have lied about her presence at the range on the day her sister died.

Buried in the midst of a stack of old scorecards, she found an opened envelope. It was of good quality, heavy paper and embossed with the name of a firm called "Stewart & Stewart, Brisbane"

Shamelessly, she extracted the letter contained therein, and scanned it.

Then she thrust it into her pocket and sprinted back to the office to borrow the telephone.

Stewart & Stewart were lawyers, and Jack needed to see this letter before he went to see Malcolm Dunbar.