Once again Tobias Butler had shown himself to be almost psychically attuned to his employer's needs. By the time Phryne emerged from her bedroom and Jack had finished his phone-calls, the finishing touches were being put on a light but satisfying meal of soup, chicken with vegetables and gravy, and a bread-and-butter pudding, one of Phryne's childhood favourites. Phryne, who had eaten nothing since the previous day apart from one of Mac's sandwiches, devoured the soup and a roll with indecent haste, before turning to Jack who, having suddenly realised just how hungry he was, was similarly demolishing his own portion.
"So, what did your telephone calls reveal, Inspector?"
"Very little. Constable Collins is on his way to your aunt's house to give her the good news and retrieve your purse, and I've informed the sergeant handling the accident of your survival."
"And?"
"And, Miss Fisher?" He gave her a poker-face.
"What else did you find out?"
"I think it would be better to approach this case in chronological order. How about you begin by telling me what you were doing on the coast road in the first place."
"I knew you were going to say that." She reached for a manila folder that she had placed on the table as they came in. As she opened it, he could see that its contents were laid out in a manner similar to that of a police case file, and smiled. Observant as ever, Miss Fisher had obviously seen the advantages of taking such a logical approach to recording the details of a case, and adapted it to her own needs. They pored over the file together as she talked.
"Six days ago I had a call from Robert Asquith-"
"Of Asquith Manufacturing?"
"The very same. It seems his seventeen-year-old daughter, Kathryn, had eloped with a rather unsuitable young man, one Alex Kemp, the nineteen-year-old nephew of their chauffeur. The pair met last spring, when Kemp came down from Adelaide to stay with his uncle. When Mr. Asquith found out about the relationship he forbade his daughter from seeing Kemp again, but it appears she enlisted the help of a maid to maintain a clandestine correspondence with her forbidden lover."
"And the chauffeur?"
"Archibald Lawrence was horrified that his nephew had dared set his cap at a young lady from Upstairs and promptly dispatched him back to Adelaide. But it seems that unbeknownst to him, or to Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, Kemp remained in Melbourne instead.
"Then, eight days ago, the maid brought this letter to her mistress at breakfast time." She handed a single sheet of paper to Jack.
"'Dearest Mother and Father,'" he read aloud. "'You cannot know the torment I have endured from the moment you forbade me to see my sweet Alex. I know that he is not a wealthy man, but I believe no money could buy a more noble heart. We can no longer deny the love that we share, and I can only pray that you will one day find it in your hearts to forgive me. Until then, I remain your loving daughter, Katie.'" He sighed impatiently and passed the letter back. "The dramas of youth. I assume the family were unable to locate her?"
Phryne smiled. "Nor the green Studebaker missing from the family garage, nor a significant sum of money removed from the safe in her father's study."
"Did you say a green Studebaker?"
"Very like the one that pursued me on the coast road yesterday. In fact, one might think they were one and the same."
He flipped open his notebook. "Two farmhands say they saw not one but two cars driving recklessly on the coast road shortly before hearing one vehicle crash. Apparently the second car was green, and one of them thought it might have been a Studebaker."
She gave a satisfied nod, and returned to her account. "After their own enquiries reached a dead end, Mr. and Mrs. Asquith contacted me. They were adamant that they no longer cared whom their daughter chose to have a relationship with; they simply wanted to know that she was safe and well, and to let her know that if she was now Mrs. Kemp there would be a place for her husband in the family. Mr. Asquith was even talking about finding him a role in the family business."
"Very generous of him."
"Anything to get his daughter back." She glanced towards the door leading to the stairs. "I know how that feels.
"I spoke to a number of Kemp's relatives here in Melbourne, and had a contact in Adelaide make enquires there."
"'A contact in Adelaide'?"
She gave him an arch look. "A friend of Mac's. He was more than happy to help out, and turned up some rather interesting information."
"Go on."
"It seems that the reason for Mr. Kemp's sudden relocation to Melbourne was an inappropriate relationship he had with the daughter of his previous employer, a Mr. Thomas Forsyth. Over a period of several months, Elizabeth Forsyth provided Kemp with a not-insignificant sum of money, which she appropriated from the family safe and her own allowance. When her father found out about it he, like Mr. Asquith, put a stop to the relationship, and it appears that, unlike Kathryn, Miss Forsyth was unable to find a friendly go-between to assist her in defying her father's orders. As Elizabeth was only fifteen, and there was some suggestion of, shall we say, other improprieties, Mr. Kemp was offered the choice of leaving Adelaide or explaining his actions to the local constabulary. Evidently he chose the former."
"So a young man looking for money targets the daughters of wealthy businessmen. Doesn't bode well for a happy marriage."
Phryne shrugged. "Women do it all the time, and no-one bats an eyelid. Why worry about happiness when you can have a nice car and a big wad of cash?
"Anyway, it was clear that the lovebirds hadn't flown to Adelaide, and none of his family here knew anything, but Kemp has another relative, a cousin who owns a farm on the coast road."
"Does this cousin have a name?"
"Fredrick Lawrence. He isn't on the telephone, and even if he had been I didn't think he'd give me a straight answer, so I decided to drive up there in person."
For the first time she briefly dropped her professional mask. "It should have been such a simple case, Jack. Just check whether Kathryn and Kemp were there, pass on the message, and let her family know where she was." Her tone darkened.
"But it didn't turn out like that. I parked on the road and made my way towards the house – a thoroughly grim, hardscrabble place, hardly a likely setting for high romance. No-one answered at the front door, so I thought I'd try my luck around the back.
"As I approached the back door, I noticed what appeared to be a suspiciously disturbed patch of soil under a tree near the fence."
Up until this point Jack had made few notes, as he could see that Phryne's file contained everything he needed, but as she began her account of her trip up the coast road he had begun writing. "Suspicious in what way?"
"The ground's so dry at the moment that no-one in their right mind would dig it unless they had to, but the soil looked freshly disturbed. And the place had such an eerie, desolate feeling that the first word that popped into my head was 'grave'."
"So then what did you do?"
"I went closer to investigate, and I saw-" she paused and swallowed. "I saw what looked like a woman's hand poking out from the side of the mound."
He stopped writing and met her eye. "A woman's hand? Are you certain?"
She nodded. "When I bent over to take a closer look, I was sure of it. A woman's hand, young, pale, well-cared for. And that's when I heard a shot from behind me."
"A shot?"
"I turned, and there were two men standing on the back doorstep. One of them had a revolver. As I looked at him, he fired again, but he can't have been a very good shot: he missed both times."
This time it was Jack's professional mask that slipped, and Phryne could see how much he wanted to reach out and hold her. She pointed to his notebook, indicating that he should continue writing instead.
"I was completely exposed and had no time to draw my own revolver, so I raced back to the car."
"You didn't throw your dagger?"
"There were two of them," she reminded him. "Even if I'd hit the one with the gun, the other one would still have been on me before I could get to mine, and I'd rather not engage a desperate man at close quarters if I can avoid it.
"I leapt into the car and started up the road, but the next thing I knew I heard an engine behind me, and then more shots. I looked back and saw a green Studebaker pursuing me. I quickly realised that I couldn't outrun them without risking a crash, and that was when it occurred to me that they would very likely give up if they thought I was dead.
"So I pulled as far ahead as I could, pointed her towards the edge of the cliff, and jumped for it."
"You could have been killed!" He stared at her in shock and anger.
"Quite possibly. But I had to do something or I most certainly would have been. I decided that, under the circumstances, it was a risk worth taking.
"The rest I think you know. I must have hit my head, because when I came to in the bushes there was already a crowd gathering."
"You must have seen the police; why didn't you make yourself known to them?"
She gave him a Look. "Because even at that distance, I could see that the crowd included my friends with the gun. Police or no, they seemed like the kind of people who might very well have shot at me first and thought things through later. And I didn't see you there." She sighed and rested her head briefly in her hands. "To be completely honest, I'm not sure that I was thinking entirely clearly, but it seemed perfectly obvious that the only thing to do was to make my way back to you. So I started walking.
"I knew my clothing would be too conspicuous, so I appropriated some from the washing-line of a farmhouse I passed. Which reminds me, I really must arrange suitable compensation for the poor woman I stole from.
"I must have missed you when you were driving up there, but I saw your car go past on your way back to Melbourne. I tried to wave you down, but I suppose you didn't recognise me."
Guilt assailed him. How much pain might he have spared himself, and more importantly her, if he had had the simple compassion to pull over when Collins saw her waving? "Phryne, I'm so sorry..."
"Don't be. My disguise was obviously effective, and I made it back here in one piece, so there's no lasting harm." She paused for a moment. "Although it may have given Kemp and Lawrence time to make a run for it."
He winced, knowing that she was correct, but that there was nothing he could do about it at that moment. "We'll have to deal with that in the morning. For now, perhaps a drink is in order?"