/ SUNDAY - Late Morning /
The drive from St Kilda to Richmond went far too slowly for Jack's liking, but they reached the address Orpheus had given them in good time and parked the car outside.
It was a fairly small house, the garden was a bit unkempt but the grass had been recently cut, and the path was clear as Jack and his Constable walked along it to the heavy front door. They knocked and waited, then were answered by a small woman with blonde hair flecked with the beginnings of grey. She looked shocked to see the police at her door, and clutched worriedly at her chest clearly assuming the worst.
"Hello, I'm Detective Inspector Robinson, and this is Constable Collins," Jack said, "are you Mrs Baker?"
She nodded wordlessly and Jack continued.
"I have a few questions for you, Mrs Baker. Would you mind if we came inside?"
Her eyes widened a fraction and Jack saw her lick her lips nervously. "Is this about Bill?" she asked. "He's not been hurt has he?"
"Is he not at home?"
"I-" Mrs Baker faltered. "No, he's at his sister's, helpin' her with some handiwork she needs done. He only gets Sundays off," she explained.
She stepped aside and let the policemen enter.
Mrs Baker lead Jack and Hugh to a small sitting room. There was a worn old armchair, a lounge, and a small stuffed footstool centered around a table on which sat a chess set half way through a game and a pile of faded playing cards. The curtains were short, the room lit only by the sunlight through the window, and the rug had seen better days.
Jack accepted a seat in the armchair, Hugh standing poised beside him, and Mrs Baker sat opposite, sitting awkwardly at the edge of the lounge.
"I'm looking to find a missing woman, Mrs Baker," Jack said. "I have reason to believe she was trying to contact you."
"I don't know anyone that's missin'," Mrs Baker remarked, taken aback. "Who is she?"
"Miss Phryne Fisher, she's a private detective. We found your address and phone number on a note at her house, in her handwriting. Do you know why she might be trying to get in touch? Had she made any attempt to call you at all?"
"Phryne Fisher... No..." Mrs Baker shook her head slowly, her eyes flicking between the two men. "She's a private detective? D'you know what she'was investigating?"
"You're sure you've never met Miss Fisher?" Jack pressed, ignoring her question. "Her companion thought she may have come to visit, or telephoned you yesterday afternoon."
Mrs Baker bristled. "We were home all day yesterday, my daughter and me," she said firmly. "We never got any phone calls. No visitors neither."
"Where is your daughter? Could I speak with her?"
"She went with her father to his sister's," Mrs Baker told him. "Now if that's all Inspector, I need to have dinner ready for when they get home."
"Of course," Jack stood, "please ask your husband and daughter about Miss Fisher. Perhaps she made a visit while you were out."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a business card, passing it across to Mrs Baker. She accepted it with a reluctant sort of nod and showed them quickly out.
"What do we do now, Sir?" asked Hugh as they walked down the path.
"Talk to the neighbours," Jack decided. "A street like this, someone would have noticed Miss Fisher if she was here, if just for her car."
/
Phryne was woozy when she woke again.
She had been taken, yes. She remembered the park, the man in the car next to hers. She remembered waking from his chloroforming, tied up in a small cupboard, unable to pick the lock in the dark. She remembered yelling curses and threats until her voice grew hoarse. She remembered giving up after the first few hours led to nothing.
But she wasn't in that god forsaken cupboard anymore, she was… in a bedroom? Had he chloroformed her again? No… she couldn't remember him coming back, she couldn't remember anything much after she'd given into her thirst and taken a tentative sniff from the canteen he'd left with her in the dark.
Phryne groaned, realising her own stupidity at drinking anything that bastard had left for her (no matter how thirsty she had become). It must have been a Mickey Finn.
But at least now she could move. Her hands were still tied together, but being locked in a cupboard so small she couldn't stretch her legs out before her had been trying. She might have had more than her fair share of familiarity with the inside of a locked cupboard in her childhood, but Phryne was quite a bit larger than she had been during her Collingwood days. And her father had never left her in one overnight.
She rolled over, trying to force her thoughts together and focus.
The only window in the room was small and blocked over with planks of wood, harsh sunlight glaring at her through the cracks. But the cracks meant the boarding had weakness, and a weakness was exactly what she needed to get out of here.
Feeling like at any moment she might be sick, Phryne forced herself to sit up and ease her feet over the side of the bed to stand. With her hands tied together and her head still recovering from her drug induced sleep, her balance was shaky. But she managed to make it across the room and she pushed herself onto tip-toe so she could press her face to the wood covering the window and peer out through the gaps.
Her view was of a barren backyard, a fence and an outhouse.
At that sight Phryne felt her bladder make itself known, clenching painfully and adding to her discomfort. She moved back to the bed and mercifully found a chamber pot under it.
What time was it, she wondered as her tied hands struggled with her underclothes. The room was dull but not dark, and the sun outside seemed bright. But she had no concept of where she was or how long exactly she had been here.
Sighing, she decided to push that issue aside for the moment, and instead focus on how she was going to get herself out again.
/
None of the Baker's neighbours had seen Phryne or her car. Jack marched back to the police issue motorcar and slammed his hand against the wheel.
"Damn!" he exclaimed.
Hugh winced slightly in the seat next to him. "Uh," he began, "maybe Mr Baker will know where she is, sir."
"She was never here, Collins. She never even rang them, it's a dead end."
The car started, and within a few minutes they were on the road. Hugh watched his superior worriedly. The last time he had seen the Inspector like this had been at the Pandarus, but that had only been a few minutes of panic, quickly followed by Miss Fisher's escape and the firefight with Fletcher and the other men on board.
But today there was no telling what would happen. Their best chance at finding Miss Fisher had turned out to be a false lead, and now they had nothing to go off. She could be anywhere in Melbourne, or even a fair way out of Melbourne, considering she had her-
"Her car!" Hugh exclaimed suddenly.
"What?"
"Miss Fisher's car, sir, I just saw it!"
Jack screeched their police issue vehicle to a swift stop, and a motorist behind them braked just in time.
"What?! Where?"
"The park, sir. Just a block back," Hugh said.
Without another word Jack put his car into gear and turned them around, pointedly ignoring the obscenities coming from the man in the car that had almost crashed into them. They headed back a block and made a right turn and pulled over not ten metres from where a patrolling Constable was writing a ticket for the large flashy Hispano Suiza.
"Good eye, Collins," Jack murmured, and he alighted to the street. "Good morning, Constable…"
"Smith, Sir."
"Constable Smith," Jack smiled, "I'm Detective Inspector Robinson, and this car is involved with a current investigation of mine. Can you tell me what you're writing it up for?"
"Oh yes, sir. I've been patrolling this area all morning, and this car has been parked for an unlawful amount of time, abandoned here near a full day now," he indicated the tire which had a number of white chalk lines across it.
Jack nodded. "Collins, make a perimetre of the area," Hugh nodded and Jack turned back to Constable Smith. "The investigation this car is linked to is that of a missing person. I believe this to be the- uh, missing person's car; can you tell me specifically how long it has been here?"
"Yes, sir," Smith pulled out a notebook and flipped back a page. "I first noticed it here early yesterday evening sir, and gave it a ticket. I was off duty overnight, but when I returned this morning the car was still here so I gave it another ticket, and I've continued to do so sir, every two hours of it being parked. It has remained here all night and all morning."
"Sir!"
Smith and the Inspector looked over to Hugh. He was standing in some shrubbery just a few yards away, and his arm was extended downward pointing near the base of the plant. There, caught in the branches, was a shoe. A woman's shoe, Louis heeled with untied oxford laces and deco stitching.
"Could it be Miss Fisher's, sir?"
Jack stared down at the footwear. He hadn't ever taken stock of Phryne's shoes, but it looked modern and elegant. No doubt expensive. They would need to check - Miss Williams would know- but it seemed almost certain.
"Most likely, Collins," he murmured eventually, and he swallowed thickly.
Phryne was not simply missing anymore, she had been taken in a struggle. He cleared his throat.
"This is now an abduction case. Smith, call for more men from City South, this is a crime scene."
"Yes sir!" Smith rushed off to follow his orders and Jack turned to Hugh.
"There are no signs of anyone being dragged to or from this point, sir," the young constable offered, "Miss Fisher was perhaps, grabbed from her car and carried away?"
"In the middle of the afternoon? Someone would have seen a lady being attacked and carried away, even if they incapacitated her," Jack bent and picked up the shoe, holding it close to his face, trying to deduce something, anything that could help them.
"They might have had a gun? Or a knife. She could have gone with them under threat."
"And the shoe?"
"Suggests a struggle..." Hugh realised. "She must have kicked it off while trying to get away."
Jack stood. "They must have had their own car. Next to hers perhaps, an ambush. Fancy lady in a fancy car pulls up to the park, someone sees an opportunity and snatches her hoping for ransom."
"Why not steal her car, sir, if they want money?"
"Too flash. A car like a Hispano doesn't go unnoticed, Collins," the Inspector considered. "Or else this is as we thought, and caught up in Mr Fisher and the Baker's. Not about money at all, but about the woman. Easier to leave her car here, it's noisy and noticeable, and anyone with sharp eyes could see if a woman was hostage in the back. Or maybe they just lacked the manpower to take her and the vehicle. We could be looking for a man on his own. Damn."
He hissed the curse. Too many theories, not enough definitive answers.
"Collins stay here and wait for Smith to return. I want you in charge of this scene."
"What about you sir?"
"I'm going to see Prudence Stanley."
/
"What do you mean missing?!" Prudence Stanley demanded half an hour later.
"I mean Phryne has not been seen since late yesterday afternoon, and her car has been found abandoned at a park in Richmond" Jack repeated. "Please, Mrs Stanley, time is of the essence here. Has she said anything to you, about her cases? Any worries she may have been having about her safety?"
Mrs Stanley sat down. Colour began to fade from her features as the seriousness of the matter began to sink in. "She doesn't talk to me about such things."
"When did you last see her?"
"Not since last week. We were supposed to meet on Wednesday for a charity luncheon that I've had planned for weeks, but she cancelled that morning and I haven't seen or heard from her since, Inspector."
Jack sighed, and reached out to place a hand over Prudence's, "I will find her."
Prudence gave a sharp nod. "Yes," she said, and there was no questioning in her voice. She pulled her hand away and busied it by reaching for her tea cup. Jack cleared his throat.
"Tell me about Phryne's brother."
"Orpheus? Why on Earth do you need to know about him? The boy ran off to Sydney and hasn't been back in twenty years," She sniffed. "Broke young Phryne's heart when he left; and his mother's too. Off he went and not even a postcard home."
"He's been in Melbourne since last Saturday morning."
Prudence gasped. "He's here?" she whispered. "Do you think he had something- is he involved in Phryne's… disappearance?"
"I don't believe so. He has been staying at her house, and he would have been there with Mr Butler at the time of Phryne's abduction," Jack told her. Then he considered his next question and swallowed nervously. "Mrs Stanley, are you sure you can't think of anyone that woul-"
"I need to see him. At once." Prudence stood and began to leave the room, Jack watching her in alarm. "You can show yourself out, Inspector."
"I need to inform the household that we found her car, Mrs Stanley. I could offer you a lift."
"Very well then." She collected her coat, hat and gloves and followed Jack to his car. Jack opened the passenger door for her and prepared himself for an awkward and silent drive.