Chapter 30 - Unnatural Habits

*.*.*.

Hugh was delighted when he managed to persuade Dottie to go fishing with him. It was his favourite hobby and he decided that it could only be improved by having the girl that he loved at his side.

Dottie seemed to be enjoying it too. She'd put together a delightful picnic, as always, and had listened to him as he explained about different types of bait and then he helped her cast off into the river. She seemed to be enjoying the date as much as he was. He had hidden a ring in his coat pocket. He hadn't yet worked out what he wanted to say when he proposed to her but he was beginning to wonder if this might be the perfect time, just without the perfect words.

She called his name with delight as the rod began to bend, a sure sign that she'd hooked something. Dot struggled to reel it in so he put his hands on the rod as well, just to help her. He wanted this to be Dottie's first catch. It was really pulling against them; it must be a big fish. A very big fish.

Concerned, Hugh let go of the rod and walked down to the bank. He started to heave as he saw a mass of fair hair start to bob out of the water, followed by what was unmistakeably some poor girl's body.

Dot called his name in worry. Hugh had no idea if she'd seen the body or not but he yelled at her to turn away and not look as he climbed into the river to pull the girl out. Her body was cold, pale, stiff and lifeless. He was far too late to save her.

*.*.*.

"Dot, whatever is the matter?"

Dot wiped at her eyes and went back to sorting out the things ready for tea. "Sorry, Miss."

"No, no, Dot," Janey pulled the tray out of her hands and made her sit down. "Tell me."

Dot gulped. This felt like the sort of thing that Miss Phryne was trying to keep away from Miss Janey but she really did need to speak about it and Miss Phryne was suspiciously absent. "This morning, when I went fishing with Hugh, we fished a body out of the water and I keep thinking about it is all."

Janey wrapped her in a hug. "I'm not surprised! Poor Dot, how horrible. Do you know anything about who it was?"

Dot sniffed. "She wore a scapular. She was Catholic. Hugh was trying to shield me from it all, for my own good, but…"

"Like you and my sister are doing with me?" Janey asked her tersely.

Dot shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Miss. I know it's horrible to be kept in the dark, I do, but you couldn't help Miss Phryne with her problems but I could have helped Hugh identify the poor girl."

"You still can, Dot. Grab your coat. Let's see if any of the girls from the convent have vanished."

*.*.*.

Jack heard the sound of his front door. He didn't move. He knew Phryne would find him regardless.

Sure enough, moments later she appeared and immediately wrapped her arms around him. He didn't react.

"What do you make of this?"

She sighed in annoyance at his reaction to her, or lack thereof, and picked up the paper he was referring to.

"'Commissioner Hall has decided to step down as Chief Commissioner of Police with immediate effect. He has been replaced by his second in command, George Sanderson'…" Phryne's voice tailed off as she stopped reading out loud. "Well, it's not good."

"But what does it mean?" Jack insisted, as if she had any more knowledge about the matter than he did.

"It means that whatever Sanderson and Fletcher are up to… this has happened now."

Jack nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking."

Phryne sat down, scouring the paper like Jack had spent all morning doing. "So, what do you think? Whatever Fletcher's up to, he needs Sanderson to be Commissioner in order for it to work? Or do you think this was how Fletcher got Sanderson's loyalty? By bringing down Hall so Sanderson could step up?"

"Dead man's shoes?" Jack asked.

"Exactly."

Jack shook his head. "But, either way, how could Fletcher bring down Hall?"

"Exactly the same way he brought you down," Phryne replied. "I told you, didn't I, about what was in that box that we believe Burke sold to Fletcher?"

"Not exactly," Jack replied.

"No, well, I still shouldn't really, but you're not currently a cop and I no longer work at the club so…"

Jack smiled at her struggling with her loyalties. "You did allude to the possibility that Commissioner Hall had visited the club."

Phryne wrinkled her nose. "We had his badge."

Jack blinked. "Oh. I do remember hearing a rumour that he'd lost it."

Phryne let out a deep sigh. "Maybe you weren't too close, maybe Fletcher or Sanderson, just needed an example for Hall. See what happened with Inspector Robinson, think what will happen if we have proof that the Commissioner has been doing the same?"

"Then he just steps down so he can keep his reputation?" Jack asked. "Meanwhile mine is in tatters?"

Phryne shrugged. "It's a theory."

"It's a worrying one," Jack replied. "I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just concerned. What are they up to that is so big that they need to bring down Commissioner Hall?"

"As I said, that might just have been how Fletcher bribed Sanderson."

"His daughter isn't enough?" Jack asked, a little too heatedly.

Phryne tried to keep her face straight and Jack cursed himself for being too blunt and too protective over his former wife.

"We're assuming he doesn't genuinely love Rosie?" she asked him with a harsh edge to her voice.

Jack just shrugged. He really didn't know Fletcher well enough to answer that question. "No idea."

"No, well, you're right of course. Sadly I believe that Rosie does love him."

"Let's hope it's true love, then."

"Doesn't mean it won't break her heart when we find out what he's up to and stop him."

Jack watched her for a moment. Of course he didn't want Rosie to have her heart broken again, but she did know that there was nothing more to that than a sense of guilt over having already broken the woman's heart before didn't she?

"Maybe we should just concentrate on trying to stop them doing whatever it is they're doing?" Jack suggested. "Rosie isn't our main concern right now."

"Fine," Phryne agreed, "but what are they doing? Are we any closer to working that out?"

He shook his head. "Even further away if the box was a means to an end."

"So what do we know? You found out about his ship?"

Jack brought out a notebook. "The Pandarus, the captain is a man called De Vere and as far as I can tell the cargo is sugar."

"None of that sounds like anything he needs to infiltrate the police over," Phryne sighed.

"What about his community works?" Jack asked. "He's on boards with your aunt, isn't he? Is any of that suspicious?"

"Not that I can tell," Phryne replied. "I know he's on this gratitude board that my sister has taken an interest in."

Jack nodded. "Yes, that's to do with the convent that you rescued Jane from."

"Yes and Joan, although she's gone missing. We had to get the police involved in that. Your replacement's useless by the way and Collins misses you."

He actually smiled at that. "Thank you."

"I'm not saying it to make you feel better, it's the truth." She still had a massive grin on her face. "So, unless Fletcher's plan involves stealing kitchen maids I doubt it. Although, Jack, the conditions in that laundry–"

"Yes," he interrupted her rant. "You told me, and I told you, even if I hadn't been suspended I wouldn't have been able to do anything. The Magdalene laundries are exempt from labour laws."

"So maybe he's just trying to circumvent the labour laws?"

"But what does laundry have to do with sugar?"

"I don't know," Phryne complained. "I don't know and that's what's bothering me, Jack. What if we've got it all wrong? What if Fletcher is just a simple trader who's on a moral crusade?"

Jack reached out to her. "You don't believe that any more than I do."

"No," she admitted, "but I'm clutching at straws now and I have to accept that I may just have vilified the man because I don't like him."

Jack couldn't take it any longer, so he got up from his seat, walked over to her and kissed her. "We'll work it out together, Phryne."

*.*.*.

Dot felt wretched. In many ways, their trip to the convent had yielded results. With Perpetua still trusting the pair of them, she had left Dot unaccompanied in the grounds as she and the sisters spoke to Janey. Indeed, one of the girls had gone missing. Her name was Bernadette and she had been working at a hotel but had returned in a state and been put in the punishment room to calm down overnight. In the morning she had gone, the sheets had been tied in knots and she had escaped out the window. The river was the other side and the sisters had convinced Janey that her drowning had merely been an accident while she'd been escaping.

Dot had managed to speak to the other girls. One, called Mary, took her to the punishment room where Bernadette had scratched '112 De Vere' on the walls with a pair of glasses Mary gave to Dot. She recognised them: they were Joan's glasses.

Back at home, the ladies sat in the parlour looking at the evidence.

"We're certain, then, that the girl that you and Hugh found was this Bernadette?" Janey asked.

Dot nodded. "It has to be. But she didn't drown like the nuns told you, Janey. Well, not without help. Hugh tried to stop me from looking but I could see that her hands were bound. She didn't fall into that river when escaping from the convent. Someone tied her up first and who would climb out of a window while holding on to sheets with bound hands?"

"And those are Joan's glasses?"

"Definitely. Mary said Bernadette was saying something about Joan and a man in a black car when she arrived at the convent."

Janey stood up decisively. "So we go to the police."

"About what?"

Both women jumped at the sound of Phryne's voice. To Dot's utter dismay, she saw that Janey wasn't about to tell Phryne as she was clearly still upset at her sister keeping secrets from her. Luckily, Phryne was quicker than that.

"Are those Joan's glasses?" Phryne had them in her hands before Janey had a chance to speak.

"Yes," Janey replied stiffly. "We found them and more information about the drowned girl, which we're going to take to Inspector Grossmith now."

"Wait," Phryne insisted, "what drowned girl?"

"Hugh and I went on a picnic," Dot explained. "He tried to show me why he liked fishing so much, only we didn't catch a fish…"

"You pulled out a corpse?!" Phryne sounded horrified. "Oh, Dot, you poor thing!"

"Yes," Janey snapped, "but it doesn't involve you."

Phryne shook her head although she seemed slightly lost in thought. "I'm not so sure about that. Where did you find all this?"

"At the convent, the one you got yourself barred from. We think the girl is called Bernadette, she's gone missing from there."

"De Vere?" Phryne was now reading the piece of paper Dot had jotted down Bernadette's message on.

"It was on the wall in the room Bernadette escaped from," Dot told her. "We think Bernadette left it there as a warning."

Phryne picked up the note Dot had written, now having both pieces of evidence in her hands. "De Vere… that was the name of the captain of the ship… my God, maybe he is abducting kitchen maids!"

Janey shook her head in frustration. "What are you talking about, Phryne? Who's abducting kitchen maids? Do you know something about all this?"

"Maybe I know nothing, maybe I know everything," Phryne still mostly seemed to be talking to herself. "It's not a coincidence, though, is it? Was Bernadette part of the programme like Joan?"

"Yes, Miss," Dot replied. "Shouldn't we take this all to Hugh?"

Phryne held the glasses and note close to her body almost as if she was worried that one of them might try to take them from her. "No! Absolutely not. This is big, Dot, too big for Hugh. Oh, not that he couldn't solve it, I have total faith in his abilities, it's just that if he tries he's likely to go the same way as Jack and Commissioner Hall."

Janey's face lit up. "Oh, yes, he stood down, didn't he? Now Rosie's father is the Commissioner."

"It's not a good thing, Janey," Phryne insisted before she let out a long, deep groan. "Damn it. I can't do this, can I? I can't keep you out of this now. No, Janey, we can't take this to Grossmith and we can't take it to Hugh. We can't take it to the police at all, not without a proper plan of action. There is one person we can take it to, one person we have to take it to. Get your coats, ladies, and Janey… I'm so sorry for everything."

"For what?" Janey asked mystified.

Dot quietly got up and got their coats, having a fairly good idea of where Phryne was going to take them.

TBC...