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It is only a matter of seconds from the station doors to the car.
In those seconds, Jack stews. It has been a long and frustrating shift, and he shuffles through all the information on his case like papers on his desk. Deputy Commissioner George Sanderson, unconscious—locked in a room with a dead escort—aniseed laudanum in his port—the Imperial Club, and its missing register—reports and reports of old police raids—Rosie’s plea, her eyes dark and fearful.
Tangled in it all is the memory of Miss Fisher, looking at him over Sanderson’s cluttered desk and saying, How well can one man really know another?
Fifteen years of working under George Sanderson, all but three of those years as his son-in-law, and Jack now finds himself at a loss for an answer. He steps into the dark of night, twirling his key ring around his finger.
It is only a matter of seconds from the station doors to the car, but that does not mean they are safe. Jack does not register the footsteps behind his car as a threat until it is too late.
An arm wraps around his throat, choking him, pinning him to his assailant. The struggle is brief. The barrel of a pistol presses against his back; a gunshot splits through the darkness, bright and horrible. Then the pressure lifts suddenly from his neck and Jack is untethered.
He knows from experience the pain will take its time setting in. He wonders where he has been shot, and is answered when his right leg crumples under his weight and drops him to the ground. His assailant sprints away, and somewhere in the distance, their getaway vehicle roars to life, headlights flaring.
“Sir? Sir!” Constable Collins bursts from the station. He stares down at Jack, horror in his eyes. His head whips towards the car now speeding past. “HEY!” he shouts after them. Collins staggers in indecision, but ultimately does not give chase, instead dropping to a crouch.
Jack forces himself onto his elbows, staring after the retreating car. He cannot seem to bring his vision back into focus. “Rego, Collins,” he says urgently, “can you read it?”
Collins squints after the lights and reads off: “Eight, four…ah, eight four seven, then one two one.”
Jack repeats the numbers in a mumble. He feels along his leg for the injury, and finds one bullet wound horrifyingly close to his knee. Had it ripped through any nerves? Would he be able to tell if it did?
Collins shrugs off his cloak and wraps it around his leg, pressing tightly. He is saying something, but Jack does not hear.
The pain arrives: it is a light sting for now, increasingly insistent where Collins’ hands rest. He can smell the blood now. Hot and fresh, molten iron and steam, metallic and organic both—this is not the blood he finds at crime scenes long after the murderer has fled, but that of the front. It cuts through the damp mud and rot as he crawls along his doomed patrol in the bends of the Somme, close to the trench but still too far for safety. It is the smell that stings his nose as shells break overhead and bombs shake the earth beneath his belly.
Jack breathes sharply. He turns as best as he can onto his back and blinks hard to banish the sensation back to a memory. He must stay present—this is not the front, the sky is clear above and the earth solid below, and there is no war, only young, fresh-faced Constable Collins tending to him.
“…do that?” Collins is saying. He speaks low and rapid, coaxing, concerned. “Can you hear me? I just need to move you to the car. You’re going to get out of this, sir, just hold on.”
Collins is strangely calm in the face of such disaster, but for a fierce line furrowing his brow. He takes Jack’s hands and forcefully moves them on top of the wounds. Jack shifts to clutch his bundled thigh in both hands, wincing.
“The keys fell when I did,” Jack manages. “They’re probably still on the sidewalk.”
“I’ll find them. You’re going to be just fine, Inspector.”
“Just fine,” Jack repeats, and forces himself to believe it. He takes up the mantra as he holds his life in: “Eight four seven, one two one. Eight four seven…”
It is not unusual for Jack to visit the morgue late at night, but it is unusual for him to be late.
Phryne stands outside the office in the chilling night air. She glances at the moon, then her watch, confirming what she already knows: Jack Robinson is, for the first time in their acquaintance, late.
She would have taken her time changing into something less conspicuous if she had known. She came here straight from the Imperial Club, still in her ornate dress, having shed only her jewelry and wrapped herself in a coat. Perhaps the boldness of her fan dance had finally put him off? Phryne entertains the thought for a single, self-satisfied moment. But Jack would not stand her up for any appointment regarding an active investigation—and Phryne would bet money he had been more amused than scandalized, anyway.
No, it is far more likely he had just gotten caught up in his work. The City South station is only a few blocks away; surely, he would not mind if she popped in?
She sets off. Just outside the station there are two people huddled by the curb. One is identifiable as a constable, the other is collapsed in the street—is that Hugh helping a drunk to his feet? But as Phryne approaches, she can hear Jack’s voice, thin and tight, rasping from that fallen figure.
Phryne sprints for them, and immediately drops to her knees before Jack. He lies half on his back, the puddle of blood beneath him soaking slowly into the bundle of Collins’ cloak against his leg.
“Miss Fisher!” they both exclaim.
“What is it? What happened? Where are you hurt?” she asks, frantic. The words tumble from her mouth; she cannot get them out fast enough.
Jack summarizes quickly. Phryne unwraps the wound as Collins darts off to find the car keys. Her thoughts have frozen, suspended in place, and her heart flutters up her throat into her mouth—but her hands draw on the memories of her nursing days, which are never distant.
The rest of the world falls away. It is only her and this stranger soldier and the holes in his flesh. She takes the knife from her thigh and shreds open the bloodied leg of his trousers to expose both the wounds. It was a clean shot through, from the back of his thigh out through the front above his knee. If the shooter was aiming for the artery or the bone, they had aimed too far to the right.
But then the soldier asks hoarsely, “How is it looking, Miss Fisher?” and all at once he is Jack again, undeniably Jack, gripping onto his quiet dignity by the tips of his fingers.
“You are a lucky man, Jack Robinson,” Phryne says. She unties her scarf.
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“It won’t for a bit. I’m going to have to touch you—is that all right?”
“Phryne, if it’s life and death, I think some impropriety can be forgiven,” he remarks, with exasperation. “Do what you must.” His eyes are black and wide with pain, but there is still a trace of humor there, still a quirk of his lips.
Phryne musters a laugh. “What a time for me to learn chivalry!”
But she hesitates again, wringing the scarf in her hands. Tourniquets had contributed to so many amputations—if left too long waiting for care, they could kill the limb they were meant to save. She had aided on enough operations to know what kind of damage they could do.
Jack sets one shaking hand over hers. “Do what you must,” he insists.
Sudden light floods the street as Hugh switches on the headlights of the car. Phryne blinks against it, and when her vision adjusts she almost wishes Hugh had left them in the dark—there is so much blood, soaking into Jack’s nice coat and staining her golden dress.
Phryne works quickly, if only to escape the anticipation. She slips the scarf beneath Jack’s leg and pulls it taut, then fastens it to her knife as a handle. She twists it, tightening it evenly around his leg. He mutters to himself (the same numbers over and over, she notes) until the pain is too much, then he gasps and squirms against it, clutching at her arm.
But then it is tied and settled and done. The leg is slack and bleeding stopped. Jack settles back uneasily. His face is white and shining with sweat, but he nods at her, the tiniest tilt of his chin, and she exhales sharply.
“We can move him to the car now,” she calls to Hugh, and adds to Jack, “Your coat will be a stretcher enough.” She reaches with bloodstained hands to grab either edge of its hem. “Be a dear and open the cab door, will you Hugh? There you go. Ready now?”
Hugh tucks his hands beneath Jack’s armpits and nods. Phryne ignores Jack’s groan of protest, and she and Hugh lift him off the street as one. Jack screws his eyes shut and sets his teeth in an open grimace. They hustle him like a sack of produce into the backseat of the police car.
“Hang in there, sir,” Hugh says, and salutes, and curses himself, and bolts into the driver’s seat. Phryne backtracks only to snatch Jack’s hat up off the sidewalk, then climbs into the back seat beside him.
The engine grumbles to life. “Do me proud, Hugh!” Phryne whoops, and Jack amends, “Safely.” Then they are off, siren wailing, speeding through the streets.
The shock is setting in; Jack’s breath comes in short, sharp pants, and he begins to shiver. Phryne scoots closer, resting his head in her lap. He tucks one hand between the buttons of his vest to keep it from shaking.
“You have been remarkably calm about this,” she notes.
“Not my first time,” he says, each word enunciated with effort.
Phryne laughs helplessly and brushes a curl of hair from his sweat-damp forehead, smearing a line of blood across his forehead. “I don’t think I need to tell you it’s not mine, either,” she rejoins, “though, it is our first time. I wanted it to be a bit more special, didn’t you?”
“Less blood would have been nice.”
“A rich cabernet instead,” she muses. His eyes flutter shut, and in a panic, Phryne pats his cheeks. “Stay with me, Jack, please stay with me.”
He flinches, annoyed more than anything, which Phryne takes as a good sign. He squints up at her balefully. Phryne takes his other hand and squeezes it, that age-old reassurance. He watches her face with dizzying intensity as they jostle towards the hospital.
They arrive an eternity of moments later. Medics cart Jack away on a stretcher. Hugh follows, answering questions Jack cannot answer for himself, for once the very picture of confidence. Phryne freezes just beside the car. She watches as Jack’s limp form vanishes behind the bodies of concerned workers. The crowd is swallowed by the golden light pouring from the hospital doors.
She knows he will emerge again. She knows it. She had personally nursed soldiers in far worse shape back to health. Yet she stands rooted in place, staring and staring, until the bustle cedes to silence and the night wind tugs at her hair in impatience.
His blood dries on her hands and clothes. She clutches the brim of his hat, staining it. Resigned, she wipes her hands down her already-ruined dress. Then she heads into the building—not for the surgery theaters, where Jack is headed, but for the administrative offices.
All the doors are dark but that of Elizabeth MacMillan. It is late, but not intolerably so; for once, Phryne is glad that Mac works such late hours. She stands outside the door for a moment, swaying on her feet, debating. Then she knocks and enters without waiting for a response.
Mac looks up from her work in annoyance. The expression fades to fond, familiar exasperation—then horror when she spots the blood and the hat. “Good God, Phryne,” she says.
“Jack got shot.” Phryne grips the hat tighter. “Shot, Mac.”
“What?! Is he—? Oh, come here, you silly thing.”
Mac surges from her chair and pulls Phryne into her arms. Phryne rests her head on her shoulder, inhales the familiar chemical smell that always lingers on Mac’s clothes. She pushes all thought from her mind for one blessed moment.
Then Mac is all business. She directs Phryne to a sink, where she washes her hands until the water runs clear, and briskly rubs her down, and swaddles her in a clean blanket, and pushes her into the plush office chair, and hands her the bottle of brandy she keeps in her desk drawer.
Mac drags up the visitor’s chair opposite her, and sits and scrutinizes her for a long time. “Talk to me,” she orders.
Phryne talks, and talks until she cannot anymore. It does not relieve her burden, but it feels less dire in the face of Mac’s sensible and direct medical prowess. Phryne returns home before dawn to great surprise and worry from Mr. Butler and Dot, and submits herself willingly to their capable care.
Jack barely rouses. He shifts his hands and knows that they move, but he cannot feel it. There is only slight pain from his leg, the roar smothered to a whisper by some painkiller. At a glance he can see the one thigh is much more swollen than the other. It brings to mind the uncomfortable but distinct image of an overripe peach in the sun. He closes his eyes again, and the image fades back into a mire of blankness.
They must have him on morphine. Jack sets his teeth against the revelation. It is, perhaps, better than the pain of both an entry and exit wound, but this haggard feeling, this is what Jack hates most about his situation—the sluggishness. Holding one subject in his mind takes effort. Unconsciousness laps at him relentlessly, tugging stray thoughts back with the tide, and he fights just to stay awake.
This lull had not been welcome even on the front. At first there was some relief to be granted a respite from the endless torrent of tragedy, but it was worse: to return from battle in confusion and awake in confusion was no comfort. He would rather know, and know immediately. The curiosity that makes him an intrepid detective made him a restless soldier. Information was so unreliable on the front—orders were given without reasons—friends and officers were killed so suddenly—it became impossible to maintain that small understanding of his place in the world when he could not think at all.
He returned from the war a reticent pentimento of the ambitious young policeman who enlisted. He dared to think he had learned patience—but some lessons must be repeated.
Jack sighs softly, staring at the white ceiling. Bright morning light breathes in from the window nearby. A breeze nudges the curtains to a gentle sway, the clean linen smelling strongly of clinical detergent and musty sunlight. He is glad this is not some shoddy base on the Continent and begrudges his being here all the same.
Miss Fisher enters then, a bombast of color against the gray of the hospital room. She carries on one arm a basket redolent with homey smells; her other hand carries a bouquet of bright flowers already in a vase. Jack blinks up at her (slowly, too slowly, even his eyelids are not responding quickly) and sees that she is dressed with an unusually dense display of feathers and jewelry. Right—she would be back at the Imperial Club soon.
“Still investigating, Miss Fisher?” Jack attempts to keep his tone light, but his tongue sits thick and cumbersome behind his teeth. It feels like his mouth has been stuffed with cotton.
Phryne pauses for only a second, but it is just enough to let Jack know he must look and sound like hell. She says, “You know I loathe to leave a stone unturned. How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better, and I’ve been worse.”
“That is all I can ask for.”
Phryne sets the vase on his side table, then sits on the bed beside him. Her hip rests against his good leg. Jack is grateful he can at least feel her warmth through the haze.
“I come bearing gifts,” she announces.
From the basket she reveals her bounty: a thermos of tea (“Cinnamon, ginger, and honey, Dot’s healing special”), pastries wrapped in paper, a sample of the day’s pot roast in a tin (“both courtesy of Mr. Butler”), and a worn copy of Austen’s Emma (“Jane said it reminded her of us; indulge her, please”). The bouquet is from Aunt Prudence, the vase included, and she sets them on his bedside table.
“And lest they be forgotten,” Phryne finishes, “Bert and Cec are following up on the registration number of your gunman.”
This kindness is an ephemeral thing, too much and too wide to grasp, slipping from his grip like smoke through fingers. He swallows a lump in his throat and says thickly, “The whole household emerged in full force. I am in their debt.”
“Nonsense.”
“And you, Miss Fisher? What have you contributed to the care package?”
She grins; this is what she has been waiting for. “Why, information, of course.”
“Ah. Just what the doctor ordered.”
From the basket she withdraws a mug, and talks as she pours the tea. “Mac and I visited the morgue earlier this morning. No alcohol in the victim’s stomach—disproving my amorous double-suicide theory—but! They found skin beneath her fingernails. She put up a fight.”
Curious. Jack takes the tea when Phryne holds it out to him, frowning. He thinks aloud, as his thoughts will not coalesce on their own. “Commissioner Sanderson was scratched. Do they match his wounds?”
“He’s my next stop. Hugh is meeting me there.”
Jack sighs. He drums his fingers on the mug. “I should go, too.”
“You are exactly where you ought to be, Jack. Someone tried to kill you! Do you have any idea who it might have been?”
“I’m making a list,” he says. At Phryne’s unimpressed glance, he adds, “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think they actually wanted me dead. They had every advantage of me—they could have shot me in the head.”
“It was a strange angle,” she agrees. One finger traces the trajectory down her leg. “Down the side opposite the artery, hitting only muscle. This was a warning.”
“They wanted someone else to arrest Sanderson, and quickly,” Jack concludes. “I assume they put Sergeant Crossley back on the case?”
Phryne sighs, a full lift and drop of her shoulders. “Oh, yes, they certainly have. Crossley is…capable, I suppose, but I am used to a higher standard of man.”
“God help anyone attempting to dance to your song,” Jack drawls.
“He can hardly find the beat! Hawthorn is so eager to have this case back in their jurisdiction. They are much less agreeable than City South, if I may be so bold.”
“I can forgive it this one time,” he says, tilting his head, and she smiles.
Jack returns it only fleetingly. Something digs at him, a reluctance he cannot explain, and the words continue to elude him. He sips at the tea, frustrated.
Phryne guesses, and guesses right: “I know you respected the commissioner, Jack,” she says softly, “and I’m sorry it’s come to this.”
“No, no,” Jack says, shaking his head. “If he is the culprit, he needs to be brought to justice. What he is to me, to the police force, doesn’t matter. I know that.”
“I know you do.”
“But I didn’t take this case for him.”
Jack meets her eyes squarely, and sees that she understands. He took the case for Rosie.
Phryne had only met his ex-wife briefly, enough to draw conclusions, but she does not dig at the wound as she had yesterday, a lifetime ago, in Sanderson’s office. She instead waits for Jack to finish his thought.
He blurts at last, “Was it a mistake? If I hadn’t been so impulsive—”
“You wouldn’t have been shot?”
“No,” he insists. “But maybe I wouldn’t have misjudged the case. You warned me yourself. Who does it serve when I use my authority for—for the sake of what, nostalgia? Sentimentality? Rosie knew what it would mean for me to take this case, she knew. How could she ask that of me? It was—it was cruel.”
He did not mean to say that aloud. Jack nearly bites his tongue snapping his jaw shut. He can feel his face coloring, and struggles to hold Phryne’s all-too-concerned gaze.
“It is no crime to care about them, Jack,” she says, as if it were an apology. “I’m going to ask some questions. Don’t think, just answer.”
He swallows and nods his assent.
“Why didn’t you arrest Sanderson on the spot?” Phryne hardens her tone so it is aloof, cold, untouchable. It needles Jack, and knowing it is her intention is all that keeps him from bristling.
“The evidence was circumstantial,” he says.
“Being locked in a room with a dead girl is ‘circumstantial’?”
“In this case, yes. Why would Sanderson drug himself? The man had to be hospitalized.”
“And that absolves him? It couldn’t have been self-inflicted to throw off this exact claim?”
“The whole decanter was dosed. The office was tampered with.”
“So it seems. But if his wounds match the victim’s nails?”
“Then I would arrest him,” Jack says heavily.
Phryne lets the words hang between them. Jack closes his eyes in defeat.
“You serve the law and the truth, Jack,” she says. “I have never known you deviate from either without good cause. Rosie trusts that.”
“If he hangs, she’ll never forgive me.”
“If he hangs, it won’t be your fault.”
Jack merely stares at her.
“It won’t be,” Phryne insists, “it won’t. I dismiss the charges.”
He snorts, and she smiles in victory.
“Your judgment is sound even when you don’t want it to be.” Phryne touches his arm lightly. “Trust yourself.”
“The morphine makes it hard,” Jack admits.
“Then I suppose you’ll have to trust me instead.” Phryne arranges her hands neatly on her knee, posing like a cat, smug and reassured once again. She adds, after a beat, “Oh, and Hugh. I’ve never seen him so fired up. Between the two of us, the case is all but solved.”
Jack smiles, and chuckles, and shakes his head. “Thank you, Miss Fisher. Phryne,” he corrects. “Thank you.”
“You can pay me back in kind when you’re up and walking again. For now: please turn your thoughts to the assigned reading. Your only worries now are those of the Woodhouses, in the untamed wilds of the Sussex countryside.”
“I did want to ask about that. Does Jane think of you as an Emma?”
“Goodness, I hope so. Someone has to humble me and I’m ill-suited to the task.”
“How does it go again? ‘Phryne Fisher, handsome, clever, and rich’—"
Knuckles rap on the open door. Rosie stands in the doorway, her face grave. Jack is embarrassed all over again, and even drugged as he is, he knows that he has more reason to feel so than usual. How much had she heard? His breath shortens, yet the rest of his body remains slow to react. It is suffocating. He swallows once, twice, and it is not enough to dispel the anxious tightening of his throat.
Phryne meets his eyes, then stands and turns towards Rosie in the next instant. She is all grace and cheer, and offers a jovial, “Miss Sanderson, good morning! On your way to see your father?”
“Miss Fisher! I—yes, soon. I received a call about Jack, is all.” Jack cannot see Rosie past Phryne’s form, but he can imagine her expression. Her voice is flat.
Their divorce had only been finalized weeks ago, despite the years of separation. Perhaps some entrepreneuring nurse saw fit to call his family and found outdated information; none of Jack’s immediate family live in Melbourne anymore. Jack sinks back into the pillows and wishes they would swallow him whole.
“Oh, how kind of you. I’m afraid the inspector is barely intelligible at the moment—morphine, you know, powerful stuff—but he’ll pull through, thank God. The nurses say he’ll be more awake later.” Phryne strides forward with all the momentum of a charging battalion, impossible for Rosie to sidestep, and politely shuffles her out of the room. “Now, I just read in the society pages about your engagement. That tycoon Sidney Fletcher, no less! You must tell me all about it—”
And her voice trails down the hallway with their footsteps. Jack is alone again. The tea is cold in his hands, but he drinks it slowly, savoring it. The ginger loosens the tightness of his throat, the cinnamon and honey sit warm on his tongue. He sets the mug on the side table and sighs in gratitude.
When she visits, Rosie says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all this, Jack, it was never my intention.”
“Rosie, you couldn’t have known any more than I could,” Jack says quietly.
“Can I not be sorry anyway?” She settles back in her chair. “You stepped up when you didn’t need to—and it got you hurt.”
Jack shrugs. “It’s a dangerous line of work.”
“And oh, don’t I know it now.”
Her words are light, but he knows her well. At this proximity, it is all too easy to see the faint tension around her mouth, the glimmer of worry lingering in her eyes. Rosie glances at him, sees his seeing, and holds his gaze unblinkingly. “If you won’t accept my apology, then perhaps you can accept my thanks,” she says instead.
“What for?”
“I fear Father would have been condemned outright if you and that Miss Fisher hadn’t interceded. So thank you, Jack.”
“I’m glad I could help,” he says honestly.
“You know, I’m seeing what you like about your position. It’s…it’s been good to see you in action again.”
He inclines his head towards her. “It might be a bit before that happens again,” he says dryly.
Rosie gives a fond scoff of a laugh. She stands and smooths down her skirts. “I’m meeting Father for lunch today; even murder charges can’t keep him down long,” she says. “Do you have any regards to send along?”
There are any number of things Jack would like to say to the deputy commissioner. Collins had kept him updated on the case in exhausting detail, and he has so many questions, so many demands.
Yet it is so hard to hold onto any anger and confusion when presented with her extended olive branch. He touches a hand to hers, light like a feather, and says, “Tell him I’m sorry, too. And glad the truth prevailed.”
Finally the day comes: Jack is discharged from the hospital with firm instructions to keep off his feet as much as possible. He leans on a crutch as he prepares to leave. It is exhausting to use, and he is exhausted of being exhausted. Weeks of desk duty await him, but even this cannot dull his spirits. He can think again, and the pain is manageable again, and he has regained some level of dignity and independence again, and these are things for which he is immeasurably grateful.
Collins waits in the hall; Miss Fisher’s cohort is suspiciously absent. A nurse helps Jack along, packing what could be salvaged of his things in the basket Miss Fisher had brought.
“And…these were left for you, Mr. Robinson,” she says.
His hat is in the nurse’s hand, his coat draped over her arm, both looking brand new. She obligingly helps him into them.
Jack can only see the signs of mending on his coat if he looks closely. The silk panel on the inside had been replaced, and though the shade of red is slightly brighter, it is not obvious even to Jack’s discerning, familiar eye. The seam stitching the bullet hole shut is neat and fine, a trademark of Dorothy Williams’ handiwork.
It is only while walking to the car with Collins that Jack realizes Phryne left a mark of her own: her perfume lingers under the collar, muted by the fine weave of the wool but too prevalent to be anything but deliberate. Jack cannot withhold a huff of a laugh.
“Sir?” Collins asks, with a nervous smile.
“Oh, it’s nothing, Collins,” Jack says. He draws in a great breath and lets his mind clear. “I’m glad to be back, is all.”