Chapter 23 - Paranoia

*.*.*.

Dot knew it was all her own fault. She'd pushed Hugh into telling her all about Phryne and he had so now she knew how she'd made a living before she finally came home.

She could also tell by the way Phryne Fisher looked at her that she knew she knew. Dot supposed she could hold it against her. She was so evasive about where she'd been and what she'd done that she clearly didn't want to tell her family. Dot wasn't petty like that, though. The problem was only that she was honest and that she didn't like hiding things from Miss Janey. She had started trying to spend as little time with the Misses Fisher as possible, not easy when her job was literally to be Miss Janey's companion. Dot spent as much time as she could with the staff rather than the ladies and to anyone who asked, she was just giving the Misses Fisher time to reconnect. Janey had been sticking to Phryne like glue since she returned so it wasn't hard to do.

Dot also had to ponder her next steps. She hoped that one day Hugh might propose but until then she needed to work. Miss Janey had told her she'd only come to Melbourne to find her sister and now she had they might both decide to go to England to live. That would probably be better because then Miss Phryne could start afresh without her sordid past hanging over her. But what did that mean for Dot?

Dot had helped lay out the breakfast things a couple of mornings after Phryne's arrival and was alone in the room when the elder Miss Fisher entered. Dot bobbed into a curtsy nervously and turned to go, hoping that Phryne was just as eager not to have to talk to only person in the household who knew the truth about her.

"Wait, Miss Williams, please."

Dot stood frozen still in horror as Phryne Fisher walked over to her, looking around to check that they were alone and weren't going to be overheard.

"I know, Miss Williams, that Constable Collins has told you… about me."

"Miss," Dot exclaimed in despair. "Please, I…"

"Are you going to tell Janey?"

Dot shook her head. "I don't know, Miss. I don't like keeping secrets from her."

"Neither do I," Miss Phryne replied sinking into a chair, looking very anxious. "I just can't bear the idea of her thinking as badly about me as you do."

Phryne Fisher had been almost a mythical figure when Dot had started working for Miss Fisher. Then, through Hugh, she'd become a source of trouble and anxiety. Right now she seemed all too human.

"It's not just Miss Fisher," Dot ventured, "it's Hugh and the Inspector too."

Phryne didn't look at her, she just nodded her head. "I know, I know. Meeting me just ruins people's lives. Although I thought Constable Collins had escaped my acquaintance unharmed."

"He's torn, Miss," Dot explained. "He wants to stand by the Inspector but that would jeopardise his career. Besides which, the allegations are true, aren't they?"

"Not exactly. He never paid me for anything, I never asked him to."

"Hugh doesn't know what to do."

"He does nothing," Phryne replied firmly, standing and straightening her posture, suddenly appearing to be in control of the situation. "He says nothing, does nothing, and he keeps his job. That's the best thing for him. Jack would hate it if he was the reason Collins lost his job."

"It's not easy."

"I know."

"Tell me about Nell."

Phryne seemed taken aback at the sudden change in conversation and looked at her in surprise and confusion.

"Lola," Dot corrected herself with a roll of her eyes as she remembered the name her sister told her she now called herself, the one that Miss Phryne must know her as.

Phryne smiled as she began to understand. "Oh, so that was you who turned up at the club. Jack thought it might have been."

"I think," Dot explained to her, "that to know whether or not I should tell Miss Janey, I need to know what I'd put her through."

Phryne opened her arms in a gesture of honesty. "Tell me what you want to know."

Dot thought about it, not really expecting any woman to be so forward and open about what happened in a brothel. In all honesty, she didn't want to know any of it, which was the main reason she had decided not to tell Miss Janey. "Is she like you?"

"No one's like me," Phryne replied, sounding very proud of the fact, which Dot didn't understand. "No, she didn't do exactly the same as me but when I started there, yes, I did what she does."

"She dances for men?"

"She does."

"She... spends time alone with them?"

"Yes."

"For money?"

Phryne let out a deep groan. "You have to understand that there aren't many honourable ways for a woman in this world to earn a decent wage. You're extremely fortunate, you know. Even in this household, you must see how the other staff are treated. My aunt's a harsh taskmaster but Janey's your mistress so you don't experience what that other maid, Marigold, does for example."

Dot felt sad. At one stage her life had completely fallen apart and she would never have considered herself fortunate but Phryne was right, she had been incredibly lucky to find Janey Fisher. "Nell should wait for marriage."

"Why? Men don't," Phryne scoffed. "Oh, don't get me wrong Miss Williams, I actually believe that your constable is saving himself for you but in general… you see sex is fun, Miss Williams. That's what your priest won't tell you."

"So Nell's having fun, selling her body to the highest bidder?" Dot asked with a sneer.

Phryne just shrugged, seemingly not offended by the way Dot spoke. "I hope so. It's a terrible job to do if you don't enjoy it, Miss Williams, I can't argue that. It isn't for everyone, it wouldn't be for you I agree, but it is for Lola. Sorry, I mean Nell."

Dot thought for a moment. "I still don't understand and I don't think Miss Janey would either."

"I agree actually, Miss Williams. I just need to know if you're going to tell her."

Dot considered Phryne's words. "What about Inspector Robinson?"

"What about him?" Phryne snapped.

Dot actually jumped. Since Phryne had returned she'd been so open, unless asked about her previous job, and so friendly. If Dot hadn't known about her past she would have been delighted with the woman she met. This was the first negative reaction she'd seen from her. He was clearly a sore spot. "You said he never paid you but other than that, are all the rumours true about him? I mean, you were the, er…"

"Yes, I was, I am," Phryne admitted with a sigh. "He wasn't a patron of club, Miss Williams, although yes we technically met there. Actually, I also met your Hugh there, and you must know him well enough to understand they didn't enjoy their visit. Jack and I just spent time together, nothing more sordid than that."

"So you weren't… intimate with him?"

Phryne smiled slyly. "I admit we did that too. What was reported wasn't right, Miss Williams, but it wasn't entirely wrong, either. If I had been a lady's maid like you no one would have cared."

"You still weren't married," Dot muttered obstinately.

"I don't think either one of us cares to be married," Phryne replied lightly.

Dot looked at her, realisation dawning on her. "That's why you came back when you did, not for Miss Janey but for Inspector Robinson. You're in love with him!"

Phryne snorted in a terribly unladylike manner. "I do not fall in love, Miss Williams. I do like him a lot and yes, I'm trying to fix the problems I caused him. You can tell Collins that if you like. I know he's probably cursing my name."

Dot wasn't convinced by Phryne's declaration. She was quite convinced of the affection Phryne had for her sister and if she was willing to risk that for Inspector Robinson's reputation she must like him a lot more than she let on.

Hugh had been torn over the whole fiasco. He trusted the Inspector implicitly, he knew he'd never do anything wrong but he'd admitted to Dot that he had been concerned over his relationship with the older Miss Fisher. Looking at the woman now, Dot found it hard to believe that there was anything more sinister going on. Inspector Robinson had been married before, Hugh had said, and she clearly was no blushing virgin. Maybe it made sense that their relationship had been more physical than hers and Hugh's. Other than that, Dot found herself convinced that it was very much the same.

"I won't tell Miss Janey," Dot said softly, "although mostly because it isn't my place to, I still think you should tell her. But I will tell Hugh that you're trying to do what you can to help the Inspector. I don't think he dislikes you as much as he did in the beginning, it's just that now the Inspector has been suspended he doesn't quite know who to trust."

That earnt her a smile from Miss Phryne. "Do you think you can talk him into trusting me?"

"Not as well as you can, I suspect," Dot replied. "You seem to be very good at talking people round to your way of seeing things."

*.*.*.

He heard the front door open, then a familiar voice calling his name. For the first time in days, Jack smiled.

"In here!"

Here was his study. Jack was dressed, just about, as he forced himself to not wallow in his own misery. He'd made it out once to buy food that he didn't really want to eat. He'd received a few curious glances and he realised the papers must have got hold of a picture of him. He didn't venture out again except to bring in the milk from the doorstep. The only visitor he'd had was the maid he employed to clean the house but he'd had to let her go on that visit as he wasn't sure what sort of income he was going to have and she'd seemed relieved to not have to work for him any longer.

He had, however, spent his time trying to work out exactly what had happened for him to end up in this situation because he knew instinctively deep down inside that it didn't really have anything to do with Phryne Fisher. If nothing else, there had to be a reason someone had told Sanderson about their affair and he had thought that no one else had known.

Phryne appeared in the doorway with a picnic hamper in her arms.

"Dot and I were concerned you might not be eating so she put together this hamper and I'm just the courier. To be clear, nothing in here is my own handiwork and it is all safe to eat."

"It's Dot and I now, is it?" Jack asked amused. Last time they had properly spoken Phryne hadn't even met Hugh's beau and now the pair were conspiring to feed him.

"I'm winning her round, I think. Once she likes me I'm hoping I can get Collins to like me too. Anyway, she'll do anything for Hugh, who'll do anything for you so… food. Shall I put this in the kitchen?"

Jack nodded and Phryne left. He tried not to feel disappointed at her walking away. It had been days, as Phryne had warned when he'd last seen her, and of course their last interaction before that had been his own huge, drunken mistake. He had been concerned that, despite what she'd said to him the following day when he begged her to ignore everything he'd said that night, she still might not come back to him. She might have only come back now to make sure that he was eating.

The tapping of her heels and smell of her perfume alerted him to her return. She didn't speak, but stood behind his chair and draped herself over his shoulders. He reached up and squeezed her arm, then tilted his head as he felt her face beside his, bestowing him with a gentle but tender kiss.

"I've missed you, Miss Fisher," he told her in a whisper, as if she might just be a figment of his imagination that would disappear in a puff of smoke if the air around her moved too much.

"And I've missed you," she replied easily, "and I've been worried about you but between them Janey and Aunt P have had me almost under a 24 hour guard."

"It's been a lot longer since they last saw you than you've been away from me," Jack replied, "and I'm considering locking you in so you can't leave."

"Hm, you know that won't work. Now, handcuffs…"

She'd teased him about using handcuffs before and he was tempted. "I no longer have handcuffs, Phryne, remember."

"I may need to find myself a new policeman, then," she replied lightly.

Jack tilted his head to look at her and saw the ghost of a smile. He realised he felt surprisingly secure in her affections despite everything. She clearly had no intention of replacing him any time soon.

"I think Collins is taken."

She chuckled, then walked round with her arms still around his neck as if she refused to stop touching him for even a second, and sat herself down in his lap. "So what are you doing?"

"Trying to work out who could have possibly known about us for a start."

"A concerned member of the public?"

"Doubtful."

"I agree," she leant forward to read his notes and Jack hooked an arm around her waist, just to keep her in place of course.

"I have to ask, have you told anyone about us?"

"Well, Dot," she admitted, "but that was only afterwards. Between the bits she'd heard from Hugh and the rumours in the paper she was a little confused I think, so I explained it all to her so there'd be no misunderstandings. I've admitted it to no one else."

"Likewise. When Sanderson spoke to me I did admit to spending time with a woman but no names, nothing more. I think from how I answered he must have been able to work out where you worked but again, that was him confirming what someone else had told him."

"When I quit Madam Lyon seemed to have worked it all out," Phryne added hesitantly, "but you already know she'd have nothing to gain by leaking that information."

"And she lost you in the process," Jack agreed. "I also think Collins worked it out, to be honest he's not going to make much of a detective if he hadn't, but…"

"From speaking to Dot I think it unlikely he told anyone. I believe you're his idol."

"I'm not sure about that but I agree about him not saying anything," Jack sighed. "If he was going to he wouldn't have waited so long."

"Unless Sanderson sat on it all this time."

"But I think Hugh was warming to you, so I have to assume that even if he did say something at the start, he would have told you, me or Dot that he was the leak by now."

"And I think Dot would have told me if he'd confided in her."

Phryne watched Jack put down Madam Lyon and Hugh's names in a maybe column. Ever the diligent detective, even once he'd decided they were innocent he still felt he couldn't completely rule them out.

"What about Miss Williams? You might not have confirmed anything until afterwards but Collins had to have spoken to her and she was the one who looked for you at the club, wasn't she?"

"She was," Phryne admitted, "but she seemed so torn over telling Janey, and so unhappy at what happened to you, I don't think she'd have gone to your bosses. She'd go to Janey first."

"And she hasn't?"

Phryne shook her head. "No. I hate keeping things from her but it really is for the best."

Jack allowed himself to take in a good look at the woman in his lap. He did understand her not wanting to tell her sister about her past but he also wondered how long he would have to pretend that their relationship was just about fun. Unless she really didn't have any feelings for him but Jack was beginning to suspect that wasn't the case otherwise she wouldn't have come back. How long was she planning on keeping her family in the dark about him?

"Can you think of anyone else that knows, or potentially knows about us?"

"Foyle," Phryne replied softly. "He told me he'd been following you, remember. He called me Miss Fisher and when I called him out on it he said "that's what your policeman calls you" so I feel fairly certain that he knew."

Jack considered it. "I hadn't thought of that. Simple revenge. On his way to the gallows he tells someone about the man who caught him."

"It just doesn't seem like him, though. He didn't like that I'd made my living that way, he made that clear, but he didn't seem petty."

"I don't know. From what we learned about the ex-students of his he killed, there was definitely some pettiness there."

"I don't know about pettiness," Phryne answered thoughtfully. "To us, yes, it seems petty, but if he genuinely believed he was the reincarnation of that king, they were his disciples and they had been disrespectful to him."

Jack still wrote his name on the maybe list.

"I'm still trying to work out which one of us they were trying to hurt," Phryne said, her attention firmly on the paperwork on his desk.

"You think someone got me fired to hurt you? That's very self-centred," he mocked her.

"You did break up with me, remember," she teased him back.

He chuckled. "I remember."

"And I also told you when this started that me being with a cop was bad for me too. We've both lost our jobs, remember. And now I have to pretend to be a lady and spend all day lying to my sister."

"Oh, being a rich lady must be torture."

"Aunt P's already started trying to introduce me to eligible bachelors. Just because I'm old and have been out of society doesn't mean I'm not still marriage material, apparently."

Jack placed a hand on her leg and felt the soft, smooth skin beneath his palm. "I'm not going to stop you doing whatever you want Phryne, but just to be clear I am not having an affair with a married woman. It's tricky enough having one with a single woman."

He watched her grin. "Oh, that's probably good. I'd imagine me telling someone that I can't marry them because my lover will leave me will go down rather badly."

"His loss, I assure you."

She slipped out of his lap. "Speaking of losses, I don't really think we're going to solve this now, do you?"

Jack shook his head as he looked down at his notes. "I'm not sure we'll solve it at all. There may be nothing to solve, someone may have merely seen us together and seen you go into the club and put two and two together and told Sanderson. I simply have nothing better to do with my time right now than hunt for conspiracies."

"Well, I for one can think of much better things we could be doing now that I'm finally back here."

Phryne took his hand as Jack stood up at her unspoken suggestion. He liked this idea of how to spend their time much better.

TBC...