Chapter Eight
Compton was already at the table when Phryne arrived in the restaurant at the Windsor. He stood to greet her, and they bussed cheeks with genuine affection.
"It's Mrs Robinson these days, I hear?" he remarked lightly, with a teasing smile.
"It is," said Phryne composedly.
"So, not so much ballast as all that, it turns out?"
She cast her mind back to the time she'd made that observation to Compton at a very warm reunion, despite the draughtiness of its location in another aircraft hangar, and smiled reminiscently.
"We didn't get the chance to load any on board, in the event – which is perhaps for the best." She gave him a direct look.
"You may wish me happy, Lyle. I certainly plan to be."
He raised his glass in solitary toast.
"As happy as you deserve, Phryne – which is very, very happy indeed." He sipped his champagne and replaced the glass on the table, at which point the waiter came to take their order. A chilled Vichyssoise and Tournedos Rossini were agreed upon, and then Compton leaned back in his chair, surveying his lunch companion quizzically.
"You said you had some questions for me. So, ask away, Mrs Robinson."
She decided to refrain from telling him she'd retained her maiden name for professional purposes – after all, it was going so well – and leaned forward, elbows on the table in a manner that would have infuriated her decorous Aunt Prudence and chin on her fists.
"How are you on aerobatics, Lyle?"
He inclined his head.
"I've done a little. It can be fun seeing what the frame will take. Why?"
She frowned into middle distance. "There's something I'm not entirely happy with about the case we're currently working on, and I wanted to check with someone who knows."
"Phryne, pity a poor flyboy – I can't keep up with you and Jack in your detection activities and well you know it!" he pleaded.
She laughed. "Believe me, Lyle, you are far more expert than Jack or me on this one."
She explained the events of the previous day, and as she outlined the way in which the death had occurred, his brow furrowed. Noticing it, she nodded.
"You're thinking the same thing as I am, aren't you? The centrifugal force should have been just enough to keep Pallister in his seat at the top of the loop?"
"Yes, but …" he waved her to silence for a moment, lost in thought. Then he inclined his head, alert. "What did the pilot do after the body fell?"
She tasted the soup and thought back. "Rotated straight back to level flight. Had a bit of a battle to do it, I think. And remember, the body struck the tail on the way down."
He pursed his lips.
"There's a way he could have done it. Think it through, Phryne. Over a normal loop, you're being very lightly pushed into your seat in the top of the loop – you're almost floating over the top while upside down. You would stay in your seat. If the pilot wanted to eject the passenger, though, a little push on the stick would turn the light positive force into a negative one, and the passenger would fall."
They were both silent for a moment, absorbing and checking the science, and then her eyes were on him, shining in a way that made him wholeheartedly regret that bloody Jack Robinson's luck.
"So the pilot almost had to have been complicit for it to have happened the way it did? It couldn't just have been an accident as it looked?"
"If the passenger had fallen during the roll, that would have looked more like an accident. But if the harness had withstood that, and the pilot decided he had to have another go, and didn't want to risk the frame in another roll, this would be a way to do it." Compton shook his head in unwilling respect. "It would take a helluva pilot with a helluva nerve, mind you."
"I think we may only be starting to understand how much of a nerve the pilot had, Lyle – thank you."
If Jack could have witnessed Phryne's demeanour for the remainder of the lunch, he would have laughed long and loud. Not since she had hopped from foot to foot on John Andrews' stairs had she so poorly hidden a wish to be elsewhere. However, she did her level best to be charming; to express interest in Compton's latest endeavours; she even ended up resorting to The Weather as a topic of conversation, albeit one that aviators were generally amenable to discussing, as a major bane of their lives.
Coffee drunk and bill paid, she parted fondly from Group Captain Compton.
Her pace through the foyer of the Windsor could only have been described as a sprint, and the Hispano mostly remained on the road during the journey to City South. If a costermonger's toe was slightly flattened at one point, no-one but the tradesman himself was rude enough to mention it (although he was quite rude, not only about Phryne but also her parents, who he appeared to have known but doubted their marital status).