Chapter Eleven

The following morning saw them back in Alma St. This time, Ryan let them in straight away.

"Have you found out any more, Inspector?" he asked.

"I believe we have, Mr Ryan," replied Jack, and looked to Phryne.

"Mr Ryan," she asked. He looked over at her.

"You said, when we came to see you the other day, that you'd seen your cousin recently," she said. Ryan nodded. "And you said you'd had a drink." Again, he tipped his head in acquiescence.

"Mr Ryan, was the drink by any chance one of communion wine?"

He looked up at her, and then looked at the floor. For a long time, he said nothing, and when he looked up again to speak, there were tears forming in his eyes. He collapsed into a chair.

"John came out to Australia six months ago because I was the only family he had left. That much was true."

He paused again.

"The thing was, the task he needed done could only have been performed by someone close to him – and he couldn't ask a parishioner, or a fellow priest."

"He knew he was dying; he knew that the end would be long, and painful. And given his faith, he couldn't countenance the idea of taking his own life."

"So he came to me, and asked the worst possible favour of me."

Phryne said softly, "He asked you to kill him."

Ryan nodded. "Not asked – begged. I said no, and no, and no, but eventually it was obvious that he was already suffering real agony, and I couldn't say no any more."

"Making it look brutal was his idea. He wanted to plant lots of clues that would make it look as though the person who did the deed hated him, while nothing could be further from the truth." The tears were running down his face now.

"The note," said Jack. "Misdirection, nothing more."

Ryan looked up at them. "How did you find out?"

Phryne spoke up. "It was the other name for a stiletto knife – misericordia. We think of it as an assassin's weapon, but in truth, it was as much an instrument of mercy killing – the deliverance of the coup de grace. Once we stopped looking at the killing as an act of hatred, the answer was staring us in the face."

Jack said, "I'm sorry, Mr Ryan. I will have to arrest you, but I have little doubt that you will receive a degree of clemency – I will do all I can to present the case appropriately to the judge, and the medical evidence will be supportive."

Ryan appeared unmoved. "I understand – and you must understand that I find I scarcely care. I lost my cousin, but he's not in pain any more. That's really all that matters, Inspector."