Chapter Nine

The lab being clearly signposted, they found it with no difficulty; and it was deserted apart from a very tall, fair-haired youth in a white coat and safety glasses, working at one of the benches.

"Excuse me, sir?" asked Jack. "Is your name Frederick Hawkins?"

"It is," the man replied bluntly, without looking up.

"I'm Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, and this is my Senior Constable Hugh Collins. We are being assisted in a case by the Honourable Phryne Fisher and Miss Dorothy Williams, private detectives."

"Charmed," was the response, still without eye contact for anything other than the vials and flasks in front of him.

"We'd … like to ask you about Ellie Spratt."

"Ellie? Yes. Quite pretty, but she had become a nuisance," remarked Hawkins, remaining entirely focussed on his work.

Jaws generally dropped among the sleuths at the dismissive tone the young man employed.

"You perhaps aren't aware, Mr Hawkins, that Miss Spratt was found dead in the early hours of yesterday morning," said Phryne carefully.

"Found dead? Oh dear." He certainly didn't seem surprised, she thought.

Jack decided that it was time to take control of this unorthodox interview. "Yes. Her death was made to look like suicide but we have good reason to believe that she was, in fact, murdered."

"Yes, that's right." The comment was accompanied by a tut, but whether that was for the death of the victim or an unexpected outcome of the experiment was not clear.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Yes, she was supposed to have drowned herself on Wednesday morning but the silly girl didn't go through with it, and so I had to do the job myself."

Jack was starting to wonder if he was dreaming.

"Can you explain what happened, then, Mr Hawkins?"

"Oh dear, haven't you worked it out yet? I sent her a message to tell her to meet me in the boathouse as usual. By the time she got there, I had a noose rigged up from the beams, and when she threw herself at me as usual it was easy to slip it over her head. The only tricky part was that she started screaming. I hadn't allowed for that, and so I had to gag her with my cravat. There's a hole in it now – I went back there today to see if I could find the scrap of silk, but it wasn't there. It would have stuck in her teeth, I suppose?"

Jack nodded wordlessly.

"And that's how you worked out it was murder. Well done, Inspector. You're not completely stupid after all."

He turned back to his work.

Phryne recovered first.

"Why?"

"Why what? Oh, why did I kill her, you mean? I've already told you. Do try to pay attention. She was becoming a nuisance. I've been offered a research fellowship at Sydney, so my pretence had to end." He looked up and smiled at her charmingly. "I was sorry about that. I had rather enjoyed playing the role of Rude Mechanical, and she wasn't a bad Titania on the whole. But obviously, I couldn't have her hanging around any more. And when she told me she was pregnant that really was the end."

Jack's jaw clenched, but he nodded to Hugh Collins and the pair of them moved forward.

"Frederick Hawkins, I am arresting you …"

"Oh, I don't think you are, Inspector," Hawkins smiled gently. He unscrewed a flask from the stand in front of him. Something from a childhood chemistry class popped into Jack's mind, and he flung out a hand to stop Collins in his tracks.

"Oh, well done Inspector! Yes, you're right. This is chlorine gas. It is, as you perhaps recall from your dim and distant schooldays, highly toxic. If I were to drop this glass flask onto the floor, it would smash and we would all die. No, Miss Fisher, please do not move towards the door – I can open my hand and let gravity take its course much more quickly than you can run the required distance."

He removed his safety glasses with his free hand and started to walk across the room.

"I am going to walk out of this laboratory, carrying this flask. You are not going to interfere with my progress in any way at all, or we will all die, and the world will have lost one of its brightest scientific minds." He smiled at Collins, whose face was pale and palms sweating as he tried to edge in front of Dot.

Steadily, Hawkins moved to the door, and as he backed through it, gave a quick, dazzling grin.

"Constable – catch!"

So saying, he tossed the flask vaguely in Hugh's direction, before disappearing through the open doorway.

Hugh moved instantly, hands outstretched, and managed to just reach the flask as it fell. His hands, though, were damp with sweat and the glass slipped through them, somersaulting back into the air.

At the same time, Jack had thrown himself towards Hugh, and landed heavily on the floor at his feet; as he rolled, his hands rose to meet the falling flask, which settled comfortably into his grasp.

For a moment, he rested on his back, the flask clasped to his chest, his eyes closed. "I thought you were meant to be the one who could play footy," he muttered to Collins.

Then he moved the flask to one hand and rose gingerly, before thrusting it at Phryne.

"Hold that. Please don't drop it. Come on, Collins!"

The pair of them sprinted out of the door in pursuit of the departed scientist.