Chapter Twelve

Jack turned the car through the gateposts, and passed a sign "The University of Melbourne welcomes careful drivers".

"How rude," remarked Phryne. Jack's lips twitched but he thought it better to say nothing.

The door of the main building stood wide open, and examples of Australia's flowering youth flowed in and out in a convincing display of studious endeavour. The sleuths hovered in the entrance hall, and eventually a bearded and besuited gentleman took pity on them.

"Can I help you?" Jack showed his badge and performed the introductions.

"Ah, very well. My name is Evans. Bursar."

"Thank you, Bursar – can you tell us where we might find Professor Satterthwaite? Christopher Satterthwaite, that is?"

"CPS?" mused the Bursar. "That's what we call them to distinguish them. Enid is ERS. Initials. So helpful."

Phryne reflected that economy must be a bursar's stock-in-trade, even when it came to the spoken word. The economical Bursar was leading them into an office which was currently deserted, and surveyed a very busy wall chart.

"Let me see … CPS …. Ah yes, here we are, he'll be in his room. His tutorial finishes in … five minutes." He looked from one to the other. "Would it be vulgarly curious to ask what you need him for?"

"Just a few routine questions," replied Jack easily.

The Bursar clearly wasn't convinced. "Well, be gentle with him, won't you? The poor chap's had a lot to cope with lately."

"Well, quite," agreed Phryne. "It's not every day a politician dies in one's house."

"Indeed, indeed," said the Bursar. "I confess, though, I was more thinking about the not-insignificant matter of the Vice-Chancellor position."

"Oh?" asked Jack. "Is he to take the post?"

"All highly confidential, Inspector," demurred the Bursar, conveniently forgetting that it was he who'd brought the topic up. "But I suppose it will help you understand poor old CPS' predicament. It was all a dreadful misunderstanding. The junior typist who was writing up the minutes of the meeting of the University Council and just wrote 'Professor Satterthwaite'." He shook his head. "It's perhaps understandable that CPS took it as referring to him; however, it was actually ERS who was shortlisted for the position. A crushing disappointment for him. I must say, in the circumstances, he took it terribly well."

Jack made a suitably sympathetic response, and asked for directions to the Professor's study; the second they were out of earshot, Phryne grabbed his arm and whispered excitedly in his ear.

"This must have something to do with it, don't you think, Jack? He has his life's ambition snatched away from him, and by a strong woman who happens to be his own wife?"

They turned a corner and halted for a second; he nodded slowly, piecing the parts together.

"He can't bring himself to take out his anger on his wife, but has to find an outlet …" he mused.

"…so he targets other women of the same ilk. Come on, Jack, let's finish this!" She grabbed his hand and led him at a brisk pace to the huge door with Prof CP Satterthwaite engraved upon it. It stood slightly ajar, and as they approached, a young man came out, almost colliding with them. Apologies exchanged, he went on his way and they tapped on the door. After a moment's pause, a voice bade them 'Enter', which they did, to see the Professor standing at his desk, talking on the telephone. When he saw who it was, he beckoned them, and indicated the chairs by the desk, speaking all the while.

"Well, that's marvellous news, my dear. Such a relief. Give her my best wishes, and assure her she will be looked after. Tell her I said so." Putting the receiver back on its stand, he turned to smile at them.

"Inspector. Miss Fisher. Such excellent news – that was my wife. Our maid, Tillie – you remember Tillie? – she was involved in a nasty accident this morning, but my wife tells me that she has regained consciousness, and the doctor believes she is out of danger." He moved to the chair behind the desk, and sat down heavily.

"Perhaps not quite the words I would use, Professor," remarked Jack, calmly. "I would say that Tillie is in as much danger as she ever was."

The Professor looked at him in confusion. "Whatever do you mean, Inspector?"

"He means, Professor, that when Tillie gets out of hospital, you plan to "take care of her" exactly as you have tried to do today – and next time she wouldn't be so lucky," explained Phryne.

The man shook his head indulgently. "My dear, I really have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then let me explain." Phryne's smile was brittle. "You knew Tillie had seen you – she told you as much – so you gave her some money at breakfast."

"Saw me when?"

"When you passed the kitchen window, on your way back from murdering Caroline Conway." Phryne warmed to her theme. "I didn't get it at first – Tillie's response to my question about strangers in the garden. But she said that she hadn't seen any strangers, and that she would have seen anyone who'd been in the garden at the time. She looked up when she said it – and she saw you, didn't she? She was talking to you. You came into the room straight afterwards. Then the following morning, you make a show of giving her money 'to buy herself something nice' – when in fact, you were indicating your openness to a bit of blackmail."

Jack took up the tale.

"But you weren't open to it, were you, Professor? I'm guessing that if we check your vehicle, we will find the mark where you tried to run Tillie over – just after you shoved Miss Lawless down the stairs, I expect."

Phryne chipped in with a quick question. "Do you keep your gun here, Professor?"

"No, in my desk at home – oh."

Miss Fisher's smile at engineering his admission through the most basic of tricks was coldly victorious.

Suddenly, he was no longer an urbane academic; he was just a tired, sad man who looked older than his years.

"I saw my name on the shortlist. And it was … you have no idea, the joy. The feeling that at long last, all the study, the toadying, the utter tedium of pretending to be interested in the most self-obsessed boors on God's earth for years and years. And then to find out that I had in fact been passed over, for my wife, who has never shown the slightest interest in career progression of this kind."

He looked at them both.

"Unbearable. Unendurable. I had to do something, something to right the balance again. Then I saw that article in the paper about you." He glared at Phryne, who returned his gaze, utterly unmoved. "Lauded by the Chief Commissioner, no less. For what? Playing at policing."

"It's a game that we play as a team, Professor," she responded acidly, "and one that we are good at winning."

He carried on as though she hadn't spoken.

"That dreadful Conway woman. Women's rights? Dangerous, idiotic talk. I was so very glad to watch her die – and it was so easy. As soon as Tillie took my tray away, I left the door at my side of the house and passed along to the other end, through the kitchen garden. No-one saw me, I made sure of that; but on the way back, I was in a hurry – I could hear Enid approaching, so I simply had to leave the door open and run back around to the other side of the house. Her scream covered the sound of my re-entry to the building, and when I walked along the corridor to join them, I just pushed the door closed from the inside."

He showed no sign of hearing Jack enumerate his crimes as the handcuffs were placed on his wrists; they took him to the car, and Jack sat in the back with the prisoner. Phryne drove them back to City South in a manner which would not have been welcomed by the University.