Chapter Eight
The police car drew up quietly in Chessell Street, and the three occupants surveyed the scene, with differing reactions.
Sergeant Collins put on the brake, blinked at the rear view of the Hispano-Suiza, and closed his eyes. If he could have closed his ears as well, he would have done so, because for all Dottie's church allowed forgiveness for penance, he worried that the Inspector's language was going to need an awful lot of penance.
Detective Constable Lennox affected not to have noticed the Hispano-Suiza, and looked to the Inspector for instructions, while reaching surreptitiously for the door handle in case they were going to be orders date-stamped yesterday.
Detective Chief Inspector Jack Robinson told his subordinates firmly to Wait Here and got out of the car.
They waited obediently.
The warehouse was side-on to the street, a track leading up the side to what was presumably a loading bay. Jack edged along the wall, and stopped when he came to the corner.
A low voice floated towards him.
"Someone's still wearing my perfume from the Lord Mayor's Ball and I swear it's not me.
Hello, Jack."
He crouched and peered around the corner, to where Miss Fisher was also crouched, behind some sizeable waste bins. She raised a finger to her lips as he tucked himself in beside her.
It was an instruction destined to be ignored.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.
She rolled her eyes and whispered back. "Looking for champagne, of course. I could ask the same of you, but I won't waste precious time arguing." She turned back to look at the loading entrance. "It's shut, but I don't think it's locked, and there's been no sound for the past ten minutes. I'm going in."
She half-rose, but was grasped by the shoulder and dragged down again.
"You are not going in. You are going to wait here quietly while my men and I search the premises for possible evidence of a shooting."
She opened her mouth to argue, but found his finger placed over her lips this time. He narrowed his gaze at her. She narrowed hers right back; then slumped back against the wall and folded her arms sulkily.
Taking that as acquiescence, Jack summoned Collins and Lennox, and the three made their way cautiously to the door. They stood to both sides of the sliding doors, Jack and Hugh each grasping a handle. Jack gestured a 3-2-1 countdown and then both pulled on the handles.
The doors remained stubbornly shut.
They pulled harder.
Nothing.
Frustrated, Jack tipped his hat to the back of his head, and looked around for another entrance. An elegant finger tapped him on the shoulder.
"Can I perhaps be of assistance, Inspector?" asked Miss Fisher with studied politeness, waving a lockpick in one hand.
He sighed, and stepped back, watching with hands on hips as the lady effected a highly illegal breaking-and-entering manoeuvre. When she straightened and nodded to Hugh Collins, he hauled again on the door, which this time slid wide, with a loud rattle.
Jack thanked his stars that the premises were indeed deserted.
The warehouse was also almost empty. A few crates were tumbled on their sides, but there was no evidence of their former contents. One item, however, caught everyone's attention. Parked to one side was a large, brown, panel-sided truck. The sort a baker might use.
They sprinted across to it and Lennox, being fittest, got there first. He wrenched open the back door, then fell back, coughing and gagging.
There was no bread. There was, however, a large splattering of a reddish-brown substance covering the rear wall of the van's interior. A similar decoration covered one of the side walls, and at the foot of it slumped the body of a large gentleman with a series of bullet-holes decorating the front of his shirt.
Phryne gasped, and tucked her face against Jack's shoulder for a moment. He might not have bathed since the ball, but the scent of day-old perfume was a blessing compared to the reek of the decomposing corpse.
He hugged her tightly; he'd paled, but like Collins was managing to stay composed.
"Two shootings, sir?" suggested the sergeant.
Jack looked again, and nodded. "If the girl was shot in the van, then dumped in the gardens later, that explains why no-one heard the shot." His brow furrowed. "But who shot the shooter?" And more to the point, why?
The slightest sound had Phryne glance up, to see William Regent appear in the doorway.
"JACK!" she shouted, but as he swung round, Regent vanished, slamming the door.
"After him, Lennox!" yelled Jack, and the two sprinted for the door, which Regent had not paused to lock. As they cornered the warehouse, he was leaping behind the wheel of a car, and frantically pressing the starter.
Even as the engine coughed into life, though, Lennox was on the running-board, yanking open the door and dragging the man into the road. The method of kneeling on the centre of his back and pushing his face into the road was perhaps unorthodox, but it subdued him long enough for Collins to apply cuffs.
"Good work, Lennox," said Jack. "Collins, let's get him to the station. Lennox, stay here and guard the premises until we can get the Coroner over here."
"Would you like to take my car, Inspector?" asked Phryne, holding the driver's door of the Hispano open invitingly. "Then you can leave yours with Lennox."
He walked over to her. "And I suppose that means we have to take you with us to the station?" he muttered.
"Don't be a spoilsport, Jack darling," she chided. "It's either that or I stay here and give Lennox lock-picking lessons."
On reflection, Jack decided both he and Collins should squash into the back with Regent, leaving Miss Fisher to drive; which she did in such a manner as to render the prisoner even more deeply unnerved by the time they arrived at City South.