Chapter 15 - Digging

*.*.*.

Hugh looked up as Jack barged into the station with Phryne Fisher by his side. The young constable glared as she followed Inspector Robinson through the gate into the corridor to his office.

"I need you to identify the people in this photograph, Collins. We know Foyle and Monkton but nothing about the other three."

Hugh glanced at Phryne. "Murdoch Foyle, sir?"

Jack nodded. "Yes, hence Miss Fisher being here. Someone left a business card for the antique shop at the Imperial Club along with the name Fisher. She's also our mystery caller."

Robinson didn't sound too happy at that. Frankly, Hugh was relieved. He'd always trusted Jack, except with his strange involvement with the older Miss Fisher. "I see, sir."

"The university must have records of their expeditions. See if Foyle undertook one to Giza and if so, who he took with him. I also want you to find someone who can tell us about Egyptian embalming techniques. The university should be able to help with that too."

Jack showered him a strange looking tool. "Miss Fisher found it at the crime scene, don't ask, you won't like the answer. We think it could have made the cuts on Albert Monkton, possibly when removing his brain."

Hugh stared at it, trying not to think about what that must be like. "What about the other victim, sir?"

"Other victim?" Phryne asked.

"James Waters," Hugh elaborated at their confusion. "He had cuts on his nose like Monkton, didn't he? No other marks…"

"It was written off as an overdose," Jack finished for him.

"I put the file on your desk, sir. I thought it might be relevant."

"Wait here." Jack shot his guest a warning look and marched into his office. To Hugh's surprise, she stayed with him.

"You don't like me much, do you?" Phryne asked him bluntly.

"That's not important, Miss," Hugh replied.

"It's important to me," she answered back. "I know Jack thinks very highly of you and I don't know what I've done to offend you."

Hugh pursed his lips together and looked at her. "Did the Inspector tell you about my sweetheart, Dottie?"

Phryne nodded slightly. "She's working for my sister, isn't that right?"

"Your sister is desperate to see you, Miss Fisher. She's hurting, which hurts Dot, which hurts me because I know where you are but I can't do anything about it. Your sister is a lovely lady."

"Lady being the operative word," she muttered, staring at the floor.

"Besides, I know what you do for a living and you're the sort of person who apparently breaks into crime scenes and steals evidence. I know the Inspector has gone through a lot with his divorce but I don't understand what he sees in you. He's too good for you."

"You're right," she replied, almost sounding sad. "I'm not about to become the next Mrs Robinson if that's what you're worried about. With Jack, you're probably right about all of it. He is too good for me; he probably just wants something different, a bit of fun after his marriage ended. Our friendship will end soon enough, I'm sure. As for not contacting my sister, well, you're right about who I am. How can I tell her that? How can I bear to have my little sister, who I love more than my own life, look at me the way you do? She's better off not knowing."

Hugh started to understand. He hadn't expected her to be so sad and remorseful. Underneath all that tough bravado, Hugh saw what he released his boss did: a broken girl who'd never had a chance. Isn't that what he'd told him a little while ago? That she hadn't had the chances her sister had?

He glanced over at the office door. Jack had reappeared with the file in his hand but he stayed standing there, watching them but not joining them. Miss Fisher hadn't noticed.

"I'm not your sister, Miss," Hugh replied. "I think she'd forgive you everything in an instant and, if she did, Dot would. And if someone's alright by the Inspector and my Dottie, they're alright by me."

She smiled and, finally spying Jack, walked to his side, devotedly Hugh realised. "You're taking a lot of faith in my sister's forgiveness there, Collins, but thank you. I'm glad to hear my sister is such a good person."

"She is," Jack replied for Hugh, "and I believe Collins is right about you being forgiven if you go back. The only thing really stopping you is your own pigheadedness."

"What's that," she asked, artlessly ignoring him and looking instead at the document he held.

In the Inspector's hand was a photograph which Miss Fisher swooped away from him.

"Look familiar?" Jack asked.

Miss Fisher gasped. "It's one of the men from the photograph."

Jack nodded. "James Waters. I think you were right, Collins, he is our first victim. Which makes it all the more important that we track down everyone else in the photograph."

"Including Foyle, sir?" Hugh asked.

"Yes. It's likely one of them is the killer, most likely Foyle, but at this stage we don't know so we have to assume all three are at risk."

"And Miss Fisher?"

"Potentially. Can you pull up the files we had on the missing girls when we were looking for Phryne? There must be a link we're missing. You could also try talking to the other Miss Fisher. Foyle was after her first so she might know something about the others."

Hugh nodded at first and then hesitated. "Sir... if I speak to the younger Miss Fisher, she's going to want to know about her sister."

Jack just looked at Phryne Fisher.

"Oh, well," she replied as she thought, "you can assure her that I'm fine and that I'm having a close eye kept on me. You can tell her that I won't come to harm."

Hugh glanced at his boss, who raised an unconvinced eyebrow. "Whatever the lady says, Collins. Meanwhile, I'm going to the morgue to take another look at these bodies. Miss Fisher, you can come with me or help Constable Collins. It's your choice but one of us is staying with you."

"What about this evening when I go to work?" she argued.

Jack shrugged. "I'm sure one of us can endure an evening of drinking in a room with pretty ladies if it keeps you safe."

"Ugh," her eye roll was almost audible. "Either one of you would stick out like a sore thumb. Well I'm not going to be tricked into seeing Janey so I guess it's a trip to the morgue. No offense, Collins."

"None taken," Hugh replied. He hadn't considered that if she had come with him it would have forced her to meet her sister, although he had never thought for one second she would choose to stay with him.

The two left with as much haste as they'd entered. Hugh wasn't so sure about Miss Fisher's insistence that whatever was between her and the Inspector wouldn't last. While their temperaments seemed quite different, their energy matched and they seemed quite open and comfortable with each other. Hugh supposed his view of Rosie Sanderson was tainted as he hadn't met her until after the divorce but she and Jack had seemed so awkward together in comparison to what he was like with Miss Fisher. He couldn't imagine Robinson's first wife rushing off to the morgue with him. Would Dot go to the morgue with him, Hugh wondered? Probably, if she had to, he decided. He picked up the telephone.

*.*.*.

Dr Johnson stared at Phryne as if he'd never seen a woman before. When they had entered the room he had tried to persuade her to leave, to persuade Jack to force her to wait outside. Unsurprisingly he had got nowhere with either request.

"We don't routinely check to see if brains are present," he said hesitantly, still watching Phryne as if he expected her to faint at the mere mention of an internal body organ. It was an odd idea. Jack would place good money on Phryne being the last of the three of them to feel squeamish about such things. Jack never understood the thought process that led to the idea that a woman would faint at the idea of a drop of blood.

"But you have checked," Phryne insisted.

"Well, yes, and you're right Inspector. Both men have had their brains removed. And, after studying the toxicology of the drug found in their system, I have to tell you that they would have been conscious at the time."

A slight wrinkling of her nose was the biggest reaction Phryne gave the coroner who was still waiting for her to run screaming from the room.

"What about the drug?" Jack asked.

"Animal tranquilliser, I have the toxicology report on file for you. Your murderer is a very careful man, Inspector. Too much of this and the victim would have died from it and too little and, well, he would have had more trouble with his operation. As it was, they were completely paralysed."

Jack stared at the men, trying not to imagine what their final moments must have been like.

"Thank you."

"Ah, one more thing." Dr Johnson handed Jack a kidney bowl containing two small stones. "These were found in the noses of the deceased, one each."

Phryne peered over his shoulder into the bowl. "What are they?" she asked.

Jack raised his eyes to the coroner who shrugged. "Out of my area of expertise I'm afraid."

"They have hieroglyphics carved into them," Jack replied. "I think we may need to pay a visit to the university. I'll call Collins and see what he's been able to find so far."

He walked to the door and paused as he realised Phryne wasn't walking with him.

"Miss Fisher!" he snapped.

She seemed disappointed as she finally walked over to join him in leaving the room. Dr Johnson glared at her, evidently completely unaware that Jack had just saved him from her ire.

*.*.*.

Hugh had indeed been busy. He had spoken to a lecturer at the university who it turned out was the final man in the photograph.

He had been a student of Foyle's and accompanied him on the dig. The woman was a Theresa Cavalli. Hugh was still trying to track her down so Jack left him to it and dragged Phryne along to the university.

Phryne had never imagined setting foot inside a place like this. It was so grand and the rich boys inside looked down their noses at both of them. At least one of the adults made sure not to make eye contact with her. Phryne grinned at his reaction to her appearance at his place of work. He was a regular at the club and luckily Jack didn't notice the looks he gave them. Phryne had always assumed that out in the real world a man who recognised her would call her out but she realised that they would all be far too scared of someone asking how they knew how she earnt her living.

Jack knocked on the door of an office and a man's voice called them in.

Rhode's office was full of treasures, artefacts that seemed to Phryne's uneducated eye to be mostly Egyptian. A thief could have made a fortune just breaking into this one office. If the young Phryne had known such treasures existed in the university she could have snuck in here and made enough money from selling the objects on to keep her out of the Imperial Club. She itched to take something, just one small thing, but she couldn't do it to Jack who would undoubtedly consider himself responsible for whatever she got up to while he considered her to be under his protection.

"Professor Rhodes?" Jack asked, shaking the man's hand.

"That's right." Rhodes replied and then held his hand out to Phryne. She almost jumped, not having expected to be included in the pleasantries, but shook it anyway realising that she had to play the part of being someone almost Jack's equal while she worked with him.

"I'm Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, this is Miss Fisher. She's helping me with this investigation."

"In training to be a police officer, are you Miss Fisher?" Rhodes asked with some amusement but Phryne suspected that was at the expensive of her gender rather than anything else.

"Hardly," Phryne scoffed, picking up a colourful small figurine. "What's this?"

"A statue of the Egyptian Goddess Maat. Extremely valuable, please be careful with it Miss Fisher."

She caught Jack's glare and with a sigh she put it back down. Of course, he had caught her stealing before and doubtless was well aware of the things she'd done as a child.

"Probably best to look with your eyes, Miss Fisher," he scolded in a manner that she suspected was to make Rhodes think she'd be more likely to break it than steal it.

Phryne rolled her eyes but she did put it back where she found it, unharmed.

"Professor Rhodes, I believe you spoke to my constable earlier about the trip you took with Murdoch Foyle when you were a student here."

"Yes, I did. Utterly devastated to hear about Monkton and Waters, they were good men."

"Indeed. I wondered if you could tell me anymore about Theresa Cavalli?"

"Not really." Rhodes took a seat behind his desk as he spoke. "I never kept in touch with her. Foyle would know more if you spoke to him."

"Do you know where we can find him?" Jack asked as if finding him wasn't at all urgent.

"No, no I don't. We lost contact after he lost his job at the university. Odd chap, I admit, but terribly knowledgeable about ancient Egypt. A shame, really."

"Yes," Phryne agreed sourly, "who cares about the welfare of a few little girls when there are so many graves to dig up."

"Phryne," Jack warned and he placed a gentle hand on her arm. "You'll have to forgive Miss Fisher's attitude, Professor Rhodes. Murdoch Foyle tried to abduct her as well as the one he went to prison for."

Rhodes stared at her. "My God. No, I didn't mean, of course what he did to you girls was abhorrent, absolutely. I meant it was a shame he did it. He could have done down in time as the man who rediscovered so much lost history but instead he, well, it doesn't bare thinking about."

"That was his choice," Jack replied bluntly, finally taking his hand off Phryne. "Now, I have a couple of artefacts we could use your help with identifying, if you could be so kind."

"Oh, of course. Yes, anything to help."

Jack placed the instrument on the table. Rhodes almost smiled. "Ah, yes, this is an embalming tool. Used to remove vital organs for preservation."

"And these?" Jack asked as he took the evidence bag he'd been given by Dr Johnson out of his pocket.

Rhodes took the bag containing the stones from him. "These look like debens. A unit of weight from the New Kingdom. An early form of currency. May I take them out?"

Jack nodded.

Rhodes took them out of the bag and spread them on his desk, then held one up under a magnifying glass. "Yes, seems to be a curious mix of hieroglyphics, Hieratic script and the later demotic version. Demotic being 'the people's writing'. Well, if you leave them with me, I can date them for you properly and narrow it down."

"Thank you. Now, are you certain there's nothing you can tell us to help is track down Miss Cavalli?"

"I'm afraid not, no," Rhodes took the photograph to study more carefully. "She and I were never very close and we completely lost touch after she completed her studies here."

"And she was the only female student on that trip you took, the one to the pyramids?" Phryne asked, suspicious. One woman and four men could almost be guaranteed to lead to trouble.

Rhodes raised an eyebrow and a disapproving look settled on his face. "Yes, but she was in no danger from her fellow students I assure you, Murdoch took very good care of her. She was Murdoch's favourite, in more ways than were... appropriate for a strict Catholic girl back then."

"They were lovers?" Phryne insisted, quite surprised considering how he'd seemed at the club.

"So I believe, yes," Rhodes replied.

Phryne shrugged. "So the girls were about the right age, then."

Jack glared at her again. Rhodes seemed very confused by her comment.

"Anyway, thank you for your help, Professor Rhodes." Jack tried to cover the awkwardness with their farewells. "I should warn you that there is a chance you are at risk until we find the murderer, considering that the link between Waters and Monkton seems to be your classes under Foyle."

"Yes, well, thank you Inspector. I will of course take extra precautions, and keep in touch. I'll also let you know about the debens."

Jack nodded and practically pushed Phryne out of the office as he exited, making sure her hands were well away from all the antiques on display.

TBC...