Chapter Six
Phryne should perhaps have expected there to be a welcoming committee when she returned to 221B The Esplanade; the fact that she hadn't quite prepared for the prospect was demonstrated (to the person who knew her best and was watching, hands in pockets, from the parlour doorway, having been able to absent himself from City South Police Station at a relatively early hour of the afternoon) by her studiously businesslike attitude when she and her companion barrelled into the hallway via the kitchen.
Carefully addressing only the household staff, the grubby youth in the flat cap announced:
"This is Nipper. He's going to be staying with us for a few days until the police have managed to apprehend a murderer."
Nipper looked about as flummoxed by the prospect as the rest of the population.
"Mr Butler, we need Nipper to look utterly unlike himself," said Phryne matter-of-factly.
"Very good, madam. If I might suggest a bath in the first instance," responded the arbiter of household deportment with careful tact, "I will take a short trip to a gentleman's outfitters before they close. I think that, with the young man's excellent posture," (Nipper stood a little straighter at that) "we can find something which will suggest the gentleman's gentleman. And I believe Miss Lin may own a pair of non-prescription spectacles."
Nobody bothered to ask why Miss Lin would own such a thing, much in the same way that one didn't ask a crocodile to recommend its dental practitioner; but Miss Fisher agreed to the plan as outlined with enthusiasm, and betook herself to the boudoir with a rapidity that suggested Mac's garments weren't her own first choice either.
Jack followed, and closed the door behind them quietly.
He leaned his back against it, and watched her tear off the cap and the mouse-coloured short wig with desperation, dropping them on the floor to scratch her head vigorously with both hands.
"God that's a relief!" she sighed, before stripping off her remaining garments and padding across the floor to set a bath running. "Tell you what, Jack, I'm dressing to the nines for dinner tonight, even if we don't go out – silk next to the skin is a luxury I'm disinclined to do without these days."
He continued to say nothing, and when she had added scented oil to the water, she looked at him under her lashes, then went to fetch the stool from her dressing table. This she carried to a position at the foot of the bath tub, before turning off the taps and stepping into the hot water. She leaned back with a groan, and sank below the water for so long that he couldn't resist the urge to go and check that she wasn't drowning.
As he leaned over, she slid back up the bath and pushed her wet hair back from her face. Taking a flannel, she wiped the water from her eyes, folded it to place behind her head and indicated the dressing-table stool.
"Okay, Jack, I'm ready now. Take a seat and start scolding. I know you want to."
He sat, but didn't say anything for a moment. She'd closed her eyes again, luxuriating in the warmth of the water and breathing deeply the jasmine scent.
"Where did you spend last night?"
She didn't open her eyes. "Under the railway arches. Dry, but cold. I think I slept a bit. Nipper had some cardboard boxes we could lie on, so it wasn't too bad."
"I was here. Hoping you were alive."
"Oh, Jack!" she muttered crossly. "Do you have such a poor opinion of my abilities?"
"Do you have such a poor opinion of my abilities that you'd rather run the risk of being murdered yourself than talk to me, and find a way that we can lessen a risk by taking it together?" he asked tonelessly.
At that, her eyes snapped open, and she looked at him properly.
"But the police couldn't have done what I was doing!" she protested.
"No," he agreed, "we couldn't. But if we'd known, we might have been able to have some uniforms in the right place at the right time; perhaps Tod could even still be alive."
He met her gaze squarely, and it was she who looked away.
"Unfair, Jack."
"Is it?"
A lesser woman would have raised her voice, raged at him for doubting her. He was constantly floored by her courage, and her integrity.
"No." It was a whisper, and tears coursed silently down her cheeks.
For long minutes, he said no more. He helped her wash her hair and sponge her limbs, and held a warm towel in which to envelop her when she finally stepped out of the water. Wrapping it round her, sarong-style, he bent to lift her into his arms and carry her to the bed, where he leaned back on the pillows and arranged her in his embrace.
When he could sense her almost dozing off, he roused her with a question – she'd rather sleep later, he was sure.
"So, tell me what you've found." He accompanied the request with a touch of his lips to her temple.
Absolution. She'd rather have it from him than from any priest or deity.
Her fingers found his open collar, and traced a delicate pattern as she began to speak.
"It's not just lots of out-of-luck young mendicants, Jack – it's organised begging on an industrial scale."
"You mean these people aren't actually homeless?"
She looked at him with what would have been disbelief if she hadn't been so tired and he hadn't been Her Jack and had just forgiven her.
"Of course they're homeless. It's worse than that. They're homeless and exploited for it by people who know they're defenceless."
"Exploited how? What is there to exploit?"
It was a valid question. When a person had nothing, how could anyone gainfully exploit them?
"How many beggars do you think there are in Melbourne, Jack?" The question was mild; the intent plainly not.
"I have no idea," he admitted. "Hundreds, I suppose?"
"More like thousands. And if they all manage to cadge ten pennies a day, and someone takes most of that from them?"
"But …" he looked at her, mystified. "How could anyone?"
She gave him A Look. "By force, and by fear. Otherwise you're just another Tod, only no-one knows that that was your name."
He was aghast. A protection racket among the mendicants? Then he recalled the man who'd so scared the two performers outside the theatre.
"The bloke at the theatre?"
She nodded. "That's Tubs. 'Mean' doesn't begin to describe him. Haggle you up to a better price for his own mother, he would."
"He can't be operating alone, though?"
She'd turned over now, and propped her head on her hand. "No … there are at least three more heavies like him. Nipper will know their names. But the boss is Zorba."
She tapped his chest with one torn nail. "It was Zorba who shoved Tod under the tram. I only half-saw what happened, because Nipper was in front of me. But if you can get Nipper to admit it, on the record, you'll have broken up one of the most iniquitous crime rings I've ever seen."
She sat up, holding the towel round her with one hand and grasping his hand urgently with the other.
"Tell me you can do it, Jack."