In order to not disrupt the investigation with curious stares and a press circus, Olympia had been discreetly taken to the South City Police station.
A pair of muddy dove gray gloves, a hat pin with a citrine encased in a silver setting, a grey and yellow hat, the torched cap of the perfume bottle, and her client record at Bisset & Thibault were laid on the table, in full view, but away from the reach of her cuffed hands.
«Wendell didn't do anything», were the first words she had uttered.
«We will verify that but, for the moment, we are more interested in what you seem to have done», said Jack, seated alongside Phryne across the table from Olympia. Harker was observing the interview from the outside of the room, since he had thought best to have Miss Fisher and the Inspector interview her. In light of their previous acquaintance, they were probably more familiar with her demeanour to interpret her answers and to better grasp how to proceed next.
They had little doubt he hadn't been involved in Maxwell's death: his alibi was strong and since he had been told his wife had been arrested, he could only do little more that stare ahead and repeat her name from now and then, but they wouldn't clean that slate so hastily. Besides, Yates might not have participated in that particular death, but there were three others for which they still hadn't found the responsible.
«Let's start with Dr Maxwell's death», he continued.
Olympia might look slightly disheveled, but for the intensity displayed when advocating for her husband's innocence, she had been rather calm.
«These items you disposed of are connected with this murder, are they not?», said Phryne.
«I will not say anything further before I am assured Wendell is clear from any suspicion. As I said before, he has nothing to do with this», she said.
«You are not exactly in a place to make demands, Mrs. Yates, as you may have gathered already», Jack said.
«You don't understand!», snapped Olympia, banging her hands on the tabletop, a movement that made Constable Collins drop the pencil he was using to take notes.
«Then help us», Phryne said in a lower yet firm tone, «answer the questions we are asking.»
Olympia took a deep breath and ran her hands over her eyes, the handcuffs rattling as she did so.
«There's no need to lie anymore. I killed them all: Branson, Siddall, Logan, Maxwell… If only they had heard me and sold the club and the land», she said, looking wistful, even if her gaze couldn't fall on anything else but the beige wall of the interview room.
«How did you kill them?», asked Phryne. Many things had been conveyed in Olympia's sentence, but she had to start somewhere.
Mrs. Yates swallowed dryly before talking.
«Alan always had a bit of a crush on me. I never reciprocated it, not only because I'm married, but also because I never even entertained looking at him that way. But I made use of it this time: with some talk, a couple of gazes, and the unspoken promise of something more… he kept drinking and drinking and drinking. No one would imagine he would be so gullible, but it turns out he was. We drove around passing the flask back and forth but I only pretended to drink, so he finished it up by himself. When he was so inebriated he could barely sit straight, I told him I was feeling sick and needed to walk a little, but he could drive ahead, I would catch up. And so he did until he crashed the car and all I had to do was walk back to club. Sooner or later someone would find him», she said, looking at Phryne and Jack in the end. Before she did so, her eyes turned to the things on the table, but she didn't seem to be particularly concentrated on them.
Miss Fisher and Inspector Robinson were stupefied by that cold telling, but would never allow it to show on their faces and posture.
«What about Siddall then?», asked Jack.
«The oldest trick in the book. I adulterated the breaks», she said as motionless as before.
«Wouldn't it be dangerous for you?», asked Phryne. Whatever the motive that had lead her to kill four people, getting into a motorcar in similar circumstances could be considered almost suicidal.
«I followed him in my own vehicle. He liked to take the long way home after the meetings at the Elvsworth, lost control of the car in an isolated road. I waited for some minutes and he didn't seem to move. I went to check , he was unconscious but not dead yet, so I grabbed a cricket bat I had bought for my son and hit him in the head. He was found near dawn by a baker making his rounds», she said, pausing for a little afterwards. « A blow to the skull and just like that he was gone», Olympia said with a small shrug which oddly seemed more of resignation than dismissal.
«I wish I had done it with Logan as well», Olympia continued with a sigh, «fire is messy and maybe too cruel but he had been even more adamant about vetoing the sale because of a bird. A Bird. Cutting breaks had worked before, so why wouldn't it work again? But it wasn't enough. Not after he had accused me of wanting to bring the club down. So I told him I could show him the piece of land Arnold Newton wanted to throw in the deal I was interced-»
«Excuse me», Jack said, «but who is Arnold Newton?»
Olympia seemed to snap out of her trance and focused on his face.
«The developer from Sydney who wanted to buy the Elvsworth; He was probably still holding a grudge because we didn't consider his three-month-stay in Melbourne per year fitting as 'permanent residency', one of the criteria for being accepted. But didn't you know this already?», she asked, her countenance briefly lit by disbelief.
«We were aware someone wanted to buy the club, but our leads pointed to local candidates. Do continue, Mrs. Yates», said Phryne, hoping that the unexpected break didn't make her clam up.
«You never liked me, did you, Miss Fisher, Mrs. Jones, whatever your name is», Olympia said, looking solely at Phryne now. «You must be having a wonderful day.»
«I always do when justice is served whether I like the people involved or not», Phryne said steely.
«I brought a tin of gasoline with me and burned a man down. That's what you want to hear, isn't it? I then put some perfume on to cover up the smell, but the smoke got too thick, I started coughing and lost the cap in the middle of the weeds on the side of the road», she said without making time for any answer to her own question. «I looked for it for a while, but I couldn't stay there any more or sooner or later someone would see the fire and get the police and I would never risk dying there either, so I drove away once again. I was foolish enough to trust that everything around would burn before the firemen came but I guess I was wrong… Betrayed by the cap of a perfume bottle. It serves me well, I guess», she said with a nod, more to herself than to the people present in the room.
«Not only. There are the gloves, the hatpin, those small dark dots in the hat that I guess are blood transported by said pin. Why did you keep these things?», Phryne asked, genuinely puzzled. «You never struck me as a as woman to do things by half and, the dreadfulness of it aside, you appear to have managed to kill four men by yourself».
«I didn't want to toss them in the rubbish at the Elvsworth and I hadn't had the chance to dump them somewhere in Melbourne. Ironic, no?», she said with a dispirited shrug.
«How did you kill Maxwell?», Jack asked, somewhat startled by the repetition that afternoon. Even after all those years with the police, he had very rarely dealt with multiple murderers.
«I just wanted to talk to him once again and asked me to meet me by the lake, but he wouldn't hear it. He and Wendell were always so proud of that club. 'Even the King was here!', they said. Yes, nearly ten years ago and for an evening. They could have set the club here or in North Melbourne or in any other place in the region. He kept arguing about it and I stabbed him in the neck with my hat pin. He fell to the ground and I kept him face down in water for as long as I could. He tried to overturn me so I pressed his wound and even if at first he was trying to make me stop, I guess he was in so much pain eventually he didn't move anymore, neither to shake me away or to keep his head off the water».
As Olympia talked, a ghostly expression had fallen upon her face, almost like she was finally acknowledging the true scope of her actions. It seemed that the barrier she had put up to separate the person inside her able to kill and the person who had perfectly played the roles of wife, mother, and host had finally shattered and fallen to the ground, revealing to herself that they were one and only indivisible being.
«I moved the dirt around him in case in case something had fallen off my clothes or a strand of hair…», her voice trailed off, smothered by the weight of the secret she had been harbouring for so long.
«But I can't go back, I can't go back», Olympia repeated, her tone increasingly more desperate, her eyes bright with tears on the brink of falling down in her cheeks in a seemingly unending stream.
«Olympia», Phryne said, yet unable to catch her attention. «Olympia, what can't you go back to?», Miss Fisher tried again, speaking a little louder this time.
«To being poor», Olympia replied, crying now with the abandon of defeat.
Jack and Phryne sat in silence. Money and passion were the main motives for murder, so getting a confirmation that the first had been behind these crimes wasn't exactly a surprise. Yet, they couldn't say the same regarding the revelation Olympia had just made.
Phryne opened Olympia's handbag and looked inside for a handkerchief, handing it to her once she found it.
«Thank you», mumbled Olympia from behind the white piece of cloth and her tears.
She supported her head in her hands, moving them from her forehead to her face and then upwards again.
She had seemed ready to resume talking at least two times, but her efforts had been quickly thwarted by more tears. Phryne wondered if she had even allowed herself to cry over the past years.
The atmosphere in the room was heavy with consternation and discomfort and anticipation.
«Have you ever heard about the Connovers?», Olympia said at last, cleaning her eyes with a corner of the handkerchief, her voice still coarse from crying.
«I'm afraid not», replied Phryne. Even if she hadn't been directly addressed, the way Olympia had faced her for most of the question gave her the sense that it had been her intention.
«Exactly. That was my maiden name: Olympia Connover. My grandfather made the family fortune in the gold rush and consolidated it in commerce. My family was able to endure the depression in the 90s without many losses, but my father didn't prove himself a very worthy heir to his and he gambled the rest away years later ». Olympia was starting to get teary-eyed once again. «We had to sell the house and nearly everything we owned and move to Fitzroy when I was 14. My mother did her best to provide for me and my sister and we all did small sewing and needlework jobs, but up to very little time ago we had lived in a big mansion in St. Kilda Road with a staff to wait on ever every wish and whim. Do you have any idea how it hurt? Our life was turned upside down in a flash. My maternal grandparents wanted to help, but my father was the most stubborn, proud man and he never accepted it even if he kept drinking the little money he had away. They were respectable, but by no means rich, yet they wanted to help as much as they could and he never let it happen.»
Olympia stopped talking for time enough to dab her eyes with the handkerchief.
«Yet, if not for them helping in secret and a scholarship, I wouldn't have been able to proceed with my education at the Presbyterian Ladies' College. I mentioned having attended it when boarding school came up in conversation weeks ago because we wanted to impress you as well, but I was truly relieved when you said you had gone to Roedean instead, Miss Fisher. I'm very thankful for my education, but you can only imagine the humiliation of returning to a place you had once been the queen of. I lost many friends, whether because they drew away on their own accord or because their parents forbade them from continuing to be associated with me, and the few I kept it was always at arm's length. I wouldn't even dream of inviting them over after school as I had so many times before. I couldn't bear the embarrassment of the small house and the dingy rooms and the meager tea and my sister and my mother bent by the window as they embroidered the trousseau of a new bride with her married initials », she said, cleaning the tip of her nose.
«What about your son?», Jack asked. He could never condone her behavior, but he wasn't completely indifferent to her reasoning.
«As strange as it may sound, he's the reason I did all this. I couldn't risk him having to go through all I did and with the dismal state of the accounting office it was very likely it would happen. I wouldn't uproot my son from everything he knows, from the life that has been his own because of the mistakes of his father, of our mistakes », she said, close to losing it again.
«Give the nature of the crime, you may hang, you are aware of that», Phryne said. Given her own life story,to a certain degree, Phryne could understand why Olympia had done what she had, she could even believe that despair had kept her blind to the consequences, but she doubted it could continue so. «This will change your son's life.»
Olympia's shoulders sagged.
«Yes, Miss Fisher. I'm very aware of that, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. The reward would be bigger than the risk. If the sale went ahead, the board would get a small percentage and Newton would give 30 thousand pounds to each member of the board as a signing bonus. With that amount of money we could pay the debts at the office and the loan on the house and straighten our life from there», she covered her face again and took a deep breath.
«Edmond many never forgive me, but he has the best father he could have and that will help him. It won't resolve all the problems, but he'll always be by his side.. Bad business luck may have struck Wendell, but he's a good, loving, devoted, hard-working man. He could never kill anyone», Olympia said, her voice letting out the pain taking hold of her. «You know, before our lives fell apart, I could hear people tell my mother that I was so beautiful I would be the debutante of the year when the time came. I would be the best catch. Except it didn't. I was still beautiful and smart, but I didn't have that many men to choose from anymore. So I picked the one man I loved. Wendell had no fortune, just a good education paid for a great-aunt and the connections made while he attended good schools and university, like Bernard Maxwell, but we loved each other. Still do, I say, up to this point at least, we did. I know he may never forgive me either, but I don't regret having married him, never did even when we fought over money.», her eyes lit up for a moment, while she talked about him. « I worked at the luggage department at The Myer Emporium and he had come there to buy a good suitcase for a trip to Sydney he had to take. He had one, but it was battered and he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of his boss, who would undertake the trip as well. As you can see, we have been trying to not embarrass ourselves in front of rich people for a long time.»
When Olympia had revealed she had killed those men and why, Phryne had meant to ask her if she would go as far as murdering her husband, but it would be too cruel now; the other woman's heartbreak was answer enough.
«That's why you kept repeating you were sorry when Maxwell was found», said Phryne, more in acknowledgement than inquiry.
Olympia couldn't reply over her cries, sobs so intense they seemed to come from the deepest end of her soul.
A/n: And this is it, now there's only the epilogue left and, if everything goes according to the plan, I shall post it tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you think that the reasoning behind the crime makes some sense at least and that I managed to tie most loose ends. I tried.
I'm sorry if the chapter sounds too info-dumpy. I know it's something I have to improve, but, no matter my attempts, it's still not as up to shape as I hope it gets someday. As it happened in Once Upon a Time in Melbourne, yet not done in purpose, it also comes in a moment where the person can no longer keep a secret and I hope it can be seen as a pertinent explanation and motive to why it happened like this.
The Myer Emporium still exists today as Myer, one of the main department store chains in Australia. It was founded in Bendigo as a draper's business by two Russian brothers and it prospered into a second location in Bourke Street, Melbourne, after they bought the business of Wright and Neil. A new building was completed and opened in 1914. It was quite something in the retail landscape of the city since it didn't cater to wealthy customers only and it also made use of innovative ways to display merchandise and advertise it. While many department stores failed or got bought by bigger competitors, Myer still exists today around the country.
I know it may sound repetitive, but I do cherish the reviews you leave so don't feel shy if you feel like leaving one. I hope you enjoy what's coming up next. Thank you again for everyting.