Chapter Thirteen

Amy sat on the hard chair of the interview room, weeping copiously.

"I was just helping him get on a bit!" she wailed. "He said that if he could put on bigger orders in the same stocks, he'd get a better price! And he was ri-i-ight!"

Her audience was unimpressed. Phryne sat in the chair opposite, and Jack leaned against the wall behind her, hands in pockets.

"And you didn't think Schultz would notice what was going on?" asked Phryne incredulously.

The girl blew her nose, and shook her head dolefully.

"Not even when he started to lose clients?"

She clearly had no answer for that, and simply looked scared.

"How did Duval know what prices Armstrong was getting?" asked Phryne.

Amy at least knew that one. "All the trades get chalked up on a board outside the Call Room. Anyone can come and see them."

Jack nodded, as the picture became clear in his mind. "Duval see Schultz do well, but also that there's someone doing consistently better. They'd be mad not to do something about it."

He looked coldly at Amy. "I wouldn't expect to keep your job at the Exchange after this, young lady."

That started her off weeping again; impatiently, he held the door open for her and she wandered blindly out of the station.

Schultz, brought from his cell for questioning, was sullen.

"It must have been galling," Phryne remarked. "Watching all your hard work being stolen. When did you find out Amy was passing on details of your Duval trades to Armstrong?"

He looked at her, startled.

"You didn't know?" asked Jack. Then he reasoned it out. "Of course you didn't know. If you had, you'd have got her sacked."

"Damn right I would!" Schultz exclaimed furiously. "The little bitch! So that's how he did it!"

"So when Duval Capital told you they were shifting their business to Armstrong, you went to his office to have it out with him." Phryne was building the picture in her mind. "It was a hot day. The window would be wide open. You started an argument. Then you shoved him. Then he shoved you back. He probably laughed at you, I expect."

Then Schultz was on his feet, his face inches from hers. Jack started forward, but Phryne didn't move a muscle.

"Yes, he laughed at me," snarled Schultz. "That incompetent, brazen fraud had the brass neck to laugh at me. He wouldn't know a good trade if it slapped him around the face, without me. Then he poked me in the chest and laughed a bit more. Then I shoved him, and he fell out of the window, and the world is a better place."

He sat down, filled with righteous anger, and looked from one of them to the other, one fist clenched on the table in front of him.

"The world's a better place, Inspector."

"The world may well be, Mr Schultz," replied Jack mildly. "But it's still manslaughter at the very least, and you're still going to jail."