Axiom Tilt Chapter 6
"We're looking for the head sister, is she available?" Jack smiled charmingly at a short, plump nurse with ash blond hair in untidy finger waves who had her head down writing on a chart as they arrived. Her look of annoyance blossomed into a smile at the handsome men before her.
The nurse smiled shyly, "Uh… Nurse Fletcher is just finishing in the nursery, but she'll be back in any moment."
"Thank you, Nurse…" Jack led hoping to charm the girl into sharing some insights.
"Counts… Doris Counts…" she smiled at him, softening her eyes.
"Thank you, Nurse Counts," he smiled a warm smile, "May I ask you a question, Nurse Counts?"
She nodded at him, "You can ask me whatever you want."
"Did you know Marjory Murdockson? The nurse who died?" Jack's eyes softened as he looked carefully at her. Her face went from smitten to shocked to shamed to sad in the space of a breath.
Nurse Counts cleared her throat, "I did. It was quite a shock what happened, what her just dropping dead like that."
"Were you friends?" Jack saw something in that initial reaction that made him want to push the question.
"Not really. She mostly kept to herself," the plump young woman replied, "I think 'cause what happened," she dropped to a whisper, "what with the trouble she was in."
Jack tilted his head at her in inquiry, "Trouble? What trouble?"
"Well, I didn't hear it from her…but I heard she got knocked up and got rid of it," the nurse reported.
"When was this?" Jack asked.
"Maybe a year ago? Not really sure. She hasn't been very chummy since it happened though," Nurse Counts shared.
"Did you hear who got her in trouble?" Jack leaned his head in conspiratorially, trying to encourage the gossip. He wasn't very good at it. This is another area where it paid to have Phryne with him, but he did alright. Especially when he'd managed to win over the subject as he had with Doris Counts.
"Well… not officially mind you, but I heard it was… Dr. Gilbert." She whispered conspiratorially.
An older woman, clearly the head sister appeared at the end of the hall. "Here comes Nurse Fletcher for you." Nurse Counts straightened and spoke louder.
Jack and Hugh both turned to see a slender woman of about fifty walking down the hall. She had half-spectacles and not a single light-brown hair out of place.
"Nurse Fletcher, I'm Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and this is Senior Constable Hugh Collins, we'd like to ask you a few more questions about Marjory Murdockson if we may."
"Of course, Detective Inspector, come into my office," Nurse Fletcher led the men into a tiny office that was as messy as Nurse Fletcher was precise.
"What is it you needed to know about Nurse Murdockson?" Nurse Fletcher asked as she closed the door.
"We've heard rumours that she was romantically linked with one of the doctors at the hospital, and that she may have gotten into trouble?" Jack spoke while Hugh carefully documented the conversation.
Nurse Fletcher exterior calm shattered immediately as she let out an exasperated sigh, "Oh, those ninnies! I swear they're like a bunch of clucking hens around here."
"So… Those rumours are untrue?" Jack raised his eyebrows at the woman, "Are… are you sure?"
Nurse Fletcher took a deep breath and looked at Jack very seriously.
"Marjory came to me shortly after the rumours started… in tears… a complete mess," the woman shared, "She told me she'd gone out to dinner with Dr. Gilbert and had a nice time, but that she wasn't interested in seeing him further. Oh… he still tried flirting with her for a while until a new nurse caught his eye. She told me she was relieved because he finally had someone else to bother and wasn't bothering her all the time, but that's when the rumours started flying around the hospital that she was a loose woman… that she'd gotten into trouble and," her hands flew up in frustration, "well, you heard. I don't believe it for a second. But everyone else did."
Nurse Fletcher moved over to the file cabinet and opened the drawer, "I never figured out for certain exactly who started the rumours… but I have my suspicions. I think it's the same girl that caught Dr. Gilbert's eye next. I never trusted her."
Jack gave it a beat before asking, "Who was that, Nurse Fletcher?"
Nurse Fletcher pulled a file from the cabinet and handed it to Jack, "Rebecca Isaacs. I don't have any solid proof… but I think she was mistreating patients and I think she started the rumours about Marjory. I also think she manipulated things to make Nurse Tyndale look guilty of the crimes for which she is now imprisoned… but had I any evidence at all…" there were cracks in Nurse Fletcher's flawless veneer. The more she talked about Rebecca Isaacs the more they started to show. Her eyes were widening and Jack noted the more she talked about Rebecca the less she blinked.
Jack flipped through the file. It seemed to contain stacks of handwritten 'incident reports'.
"Yes, thank you, Nurse Fletcher," he smiled softly at her, "I'm sure this will be very helpful."
Nurse Fletcher looked at him for a moment and then something seemed to alert her that she was cracking and she pulled herself back together, "Thank you, Detective Inspector Robinson," she stared ahead at the wall, trying to calm her mind. His placid semi-acceptance was all-too-familiar and stank of dismissal to her. You're ranting again, Geraldine she told herself internally.
Jack and Hugh turned to leave.
"Detective Inspector?" Nurse Fletcher stopped him with her voice as he opened the door.
"Yes, Nurse Fletcher?" Jack faced her.
She took a deep breath, "Don't trust her."
"Did Marjory? Were Marjory and Rebecca ever friends?" Jack asked.
Nurse Fletcher nodded, "Marjory wouldn't believe me. She never heard Rebecca say anything about her… so she was one of the few people left that she trusted. And when Dr. Gilbert dumped Rebecca, too. It gave them something in common."
"Were there ever any similar rumours about Rebecca?" Jack asked.
Nurse Fletcher nodded, "Yes, but I'm not sure where they came from."
"What were the rumours?" Jack asked.
"That Dr. Gilbert was trying to claim her… that she'd fallen prey to his charms… but I never saw anything between them. It didn't look to me like he even knew she existed."
"They never spoke?" he pressed.
She shrugged, "They did, but it never struck me as anything other than professional. If they were having any kind of relationship, it was a cold one."
Jack thought for a moment, "Then what would be feeding the rumours?" He knew all too well from his own relationship that the rumour-mill could sense the heat of romance long before the fire was even lit.
"I don't know. It never made any sense to me."
Jack and Hugh headed back to City South feeling much less at ease than they'd left.
"Collins, dig up as much as you can on Rebecca Isaac's past. I want to know everything there is to know about her family, her parents, the fire… why she ended up in welfare… if there is any other family."
Hugh agreed. When they got to City South, Jack jumped out and Hugh steered the motorcar toward the Victoria State archives.
Constable Blalock was waiting for Jack when he walked into the lobby.
"Oh, Sir… I have the evidence from the Rebecca Isaacs break-in."
"Very good, Blalock. My office." Jack directed and kept walking with the constable in-tow.
Jack sat heavily at his desk and took the notes from Constable Blalock.
"Have you compared this to any samples from any of the suspects?" Jack asked.
"Yes, sir. I couldn't make a definitive match to any suspect, but it looks like it's closest to Dr. Gilbert," the constable reported, "It's very close, but… something seems strange about it."
Jack twitched his cheek in thought, "That could be a forgery. Bring me the samples." Blalock turned to leave, "Ah… first. What else?"
"Right. The boarding house is easy enough to break into, sir. There's a fire stair at the back, and the window is kept open. It did appear that Miss Isaacs's lock had been tampered with."
"Was anything stolen that she noticed?" Jack asked.
"She reported that she was missing a photograph of Dr. Brian Gilbert and herself which had been removed from a dresser drawer."
"Thank you, Blalock. Bring me those samples." Blalock nodded and left him alone. The problem with this case was that everyone was behaving oddly. There were too many things that didn't make sense on the surface. He was feeling more and more suspicious of the mysterious Rebecca Isaacs. Nothing about her story seemed to add up. She seemed like a victim, but there was something decidedly sinister about her as well. He really wanted to trust Phryne's judgment. He was feeling wrong-footed with this case and uneasy about so many things.
He really needed to talk to Phryne. She should be back at Wardlow by now. He picked up the phone.
"Fisher residence," Mr. Butler answered. And therein lies part of the problem, a brief, bitter thought floated through his head.
"Mr. Butler, Jack Robinson here. Is she in?"
"Oh, no Inspector. No, she left some time ago. Shortly after delivering Miss Isaacs and her accoutrements."
"Did she say where she was going?" Jack asked.
"I believe Dorothy mentioned that Dr. MacMillan asked her to stop by, and she instructed me not to hold dinner. Would you care for me to hold dinner for you, sir?"
It had been six months, but Jack still wasn't quite used to having household staff, "Uh… no, thank you, Mr. Butler… I'll fend for myself."
"It's really no trouble, sir." Mr. Butler could tell fending for himself was not an option Jack particularly favored.
After a thoughtful pause, "Very well, yes… please. That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Butler."
"My pleasure, Inspector."
He felt slightly hurt that Phryne hadn't mentioned that she was going to talk to Mac, but maybe she'd tried when he was out. He picked up the telephone again and rang the morgue.
"City Morgue, Dr. MacMillan speaking," the answer came.
"Mac, it's Jack."
"I was just about to ring you," she replied. In the eight months it had taken to get things squared away and sorted for Jack to go after Phryne, Jack and Mac had become… well, they'd become buddies. Usually buddies that drank too much whisky and waxed maudlin… but buddies. Their relationship since the return had been less close. Mac was Phryne's friend first, Jack reasoned.
"Oh… alright. Is something wrong?" he asked.
"I was about to ask you the same thing. What is going on with Phryne?" she asked.
"What? What do you mean?" he was suddenly concerned.
"She just left here. I think there's something very wrong."
Jack's heart started to race, "Is she ill? What happened?"
"Have you noticed her acting strangely lately? I mean… strange for her?"
"I… don't… Mac, please tell me what this is about." Jack pleaded with her.
She paused and he could hear her clucking her tongue. "She made me promise not to say anything… She showed up here and she wasn't acting like herself. I'm running some tests."
"Tests? What kind of tests?" Jack was getting very worried now.
"Jack, I'm… Look, I'm sorry. You aren't next of kin or someone I can talk to about this. I just need to know if you noticed anything."
Jack ran through the past couple of days in his mind, she had been asleep and groggy yesterday. Napped the whole afternoon until after dark and then fell asleep with no trouble after they'd made love. Sleeping that much, especially in the afternoon and evening, was very unusual for her. And then there was the near-manic attack of Dr. Gilbert. Bad enough that the commissioner had come to talk to him about it? He'd seen her passionate about cases before… but the level of vitriol seemed ridiculous. And this obsession with protecting Rebecca seemed a little extreme. She was normally much more questioning than this. As if she projected a bit too much of her own history on the blank canvas of Rebecca, and that projection was blinding her to the flaws in Rebecca's story. And the rapid talking on the phone…
Still. He had to trust her. Talking about her behind her back to her oldest friend felt… wrong.
"I… don't think I have," he lied.
"Jack. I can't talk to you about it, but she can. You need to make her talk to you." Mac pleaded with him.
Jack said nothing for a minute as he tried to process the new information that something was wrong with the woman he loved. Some ill-defined thing that he had no right to know about because he had an ill-defined place in her life. "Did she say where she was going?" his voice sounded raspy and emotional to his own ears.
"No. She didn't. Jack," Mac paused. He could tell she was trying to find the right words, "Jack… you're the best thing that's ever happened to Phryne. And she's the best thing that's happened to you. I don't want to see you two hurt… so you need to talk to each other. Sooner rather than later."
"Uh… thanks, Mac," Jack replied, "I'll see what I can do."
Jack sat with his elbows on his desk, head in his hands. Something was clearly wrong. But what? And how was he supposed to bring this up to her?
He pulled out Marjory Murdockson's diary and started leafing through it, hoping to find some answers within.
He found an entry in late 1929 that seemed to be the start of her dealings with Dr. Brian Gilbert. She wrote about him a few times, starting with his notice, her flattery at that notice and that she found him attractive, but that, "Diary, he seems so insincere in his attentions."
He hadn't been at it very long, just getting to "the dinner date", when the phone rang. Blalock still had the front desk. Hugh hadn't returned from the archives yet.
Jack waited before diving back into the diary. If he knew Constable Blalock, he'd be knocking on the door any secon…
"Come in," Jack answered in response to the knock.
Blalock entered, "Sir, there's a call of an intruder at 25 Byron Street in Elwood… a Dr. Brian Gilbert."
Jack looked up stunned, "What?"
He jumped up grabbing his jacket and hat as he stalked out the door. "Come on, Blalock."
Byron Street was normally about a 10-minute drive from City South. 5 minutes after pulling away from the station they were jumping out of the car and pounding on the door of the sleek, white modern home.
A terrified looking young brunette woman answered the door.
"Thank you for coming so quickly… my fiancé has the intruder pinned down. Please hurry," she said with a shaky voice. Jack and his constable followed the woman through the house to an office. As he scanned the room he first saw the back of Dr. Gilbert, with his arm raised to the level of his waist. Jack couldn't see past him until he entered the room completely.
As he realized who the intruder was, his heart sank.
"Jack!"