Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (11 page)

Sir Charles Nicholson,
On the Ideal Student

P
rofessor Bretherton walked boldly up the steps to the faculty office and surprised a rabbity man who was blotting a pile of papers with his sleeve and staring into the distance with an expression of deep despair.

‘Sykes, what are you doing here?’ demanded Professor Bretherton.

‘The Dean thought that I might be able to reconstruct the books,’ said Sykes. ‘I thought if I had no distractions I might be able to remember what the last transactions were, maybe even extract a trial balance. But I can’t remember. This isn’t going to work.’

‘Do you have any notes?’ asked Phryne, sympathetic to Mr Sykes’ wild eyes.

‘They were all in the safe,’ wailed Mr Sykes, then he put his head down on his blotted manuscript and began to sob.

‘There, there,’ said Phryne, putting a slender arm around the fallen man. ‘The auditors can’t blame you, Mr Sykes. This isn’t going to work, as you say. Why don’t you pack it in for now and go home?’

Mr Sykes, overwhelmed first with grief and second with the closeness and intoxicating scent of an unexpected lady, broke down entirely and cried like a child. Professor Bretherton made a subdued noise which sounded like ‘Tcha!’ and stalked off into the corridor, to return later with a cup of tea. He found Mr Sykes had recovered some of his equilibrium and recalled his scattered wits.

‘Now, Sykes, you drink this, sit up straight, and tell the lady what she wants to know. This is the Hon. Phryne Fisher, you know. She’s famous as an investigator. She’s promised to help me find my papyrus, and that means she will have to find out what happened to your books.’

Inhaling fragrant and brandy scented steam—Professor Bretherton had clearly added some of his own cognac to the tea—Sykes did as ordered and quavered, ‘I put the books in the safe and locked it—I’m almost sure that I locked it!—on Saturday morning. Just as usual.’

‘What time?’

‘Noon. I always lock up and leave at noon promptly, because my wife and I attend the meeting of our garden club at two. We wanted to see the new azaleas.’ Sykes’ lip quivered again, and Phryne patted him on the shoulder. ‘Everything was there then. Bisset bellowed at me for dropping the Book of Hours, it was an accident, then the Dean started in on me for the mistakes in the Day Ledger, and it was all too much, so I just shut the safe and went home.’

‘I hope you enjoyed the azaleas,’ said Phryne gently. Poor Sykes. He was a furry man with greying hair and spectacles and he was liberally spotted with ink. If he had been a stuffed toy rabbit, he would have been threadbare with one bent ear. A nice little man, perfectly adequate for ordinary tasks, thrust into the un-ordinary and quite unable to cope with it.

‘Yes, they were beautiful. We ordered three for that shady spot near the roses. Frilly pinks. My wife was very taken with them. They’ve been working on a new azalea for some time. Pure white. Lovely things. But how I’m going to survive if the Dean dismisses me without a reference, as he is threatening to do, I don’t know, I don’t know at all…’

He was about to burst into tears again and Phryne did not want to expose Sykes to what Professor Bretherton was evidently about to say.

‘Now, Mr Sykes,’ she said firmly, ‘brace up. If I find Professor Bretherton’s papyrus I’m quite likely to find your books. You are sure that the contents of the safe were all tickety-boo at noon on Saturday?’

‘Er…yes, Miss Fisher, perfectly, er…tickety-boo,’ replied Sykes.

‘Good. Now cast your mind back. Look at the office. Someone who took all that stuff out of the safe would need something to carry it in, wouldn’t they? Is there a box missing? A case?’

Sykes surveyed the office. It was cluttered. All the walls were lined with bookshelves stuffed with miscellaneous volumes. Sykes’ desk was loaded with papers. In the inner room, the Dean’s was bare and polished, carrying only an inkstand, a tray of pens and the broad white expanse of faultless blotting paper. The safe hulked in a corner. It was large enough to store a small rhinoceros.

‘No, nothing missing, as far as I can tell.’

‘Interesting,’ commented Phryne. ‘All right, now, off you go, Mr Sykes. Leave it to me and enjoy your garden.’

‘Yes, push off, Sykes, that’s enough emotion for one evening,’ said Professor Bretherton.

Mr Sykes, seemingly heartened, abandoned his papers, collected his hat and left, babbling apologies for his loss of control. When he had bowed his way out, Professor Bretherton shut the door. Phryne inspected it. It was not a deadlock but needed a key, and did not appear to have been forced.

‘How many keys are there?’ asked Phryne.

‘We’ve all got one, and I suppose that the porter has one, and the cleaners, and there would be a master key as well,’ said Bretherton. ‘In any case poor Sykes probably forgot to lock it.’

‘I notice that there is a couch and a door which can lock,’ said Phryne. Dousing the anticipatory light in Professor Bretherton’s eyes, she added, ‘So someone could have come up here in female company for purposes quite unconnected with theft, couldn’t they?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so, such things have been known to happen,’ agreed Professor Bretherton grudgingly, ‘youth and all that. But much better to take the lady into one’s own office, of course. More private and less likely to be noticed. One could always explain that one was working late.’

‘Could one take a lover to one’s room if one lived in College?’

‘Oh, no, my dear lady, impossible unless one smuggles her up the stairs, though there are climbing possibilities in the ivy in one of the Colleges, I believe. No women in the rooms after ten, that’s the rule. And that rule, if broken, will get one rusticated.’

‘Expelled?’

‘No, not necessarily, but there would be a filthy scandal and the unfortunate man would find himself thrown out for a couple of years to repent. If one could use one’s office, that would be better. No couch, perhaps, but there are rugs on the floor and youth makes nothing of discomfort in the service of Venus.’ He grinned. Phryne suddenly liked Professor Bretherton.

‘Not that I’d be doing anything of the sort. Married man and all that. The scandal does not bear thinking of.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ promised Phryne. ‘I observe that there is a large coat cupboard in which the lady might be hidden, in fact it’s big enough for two if one’s tastes ran that way.’

‘Extravagant,’ murmured Professor Bretherton. Phryne closed the coat cupboard on a faint whiff of…what? She sniffed deeply. She had smelt that before. Not unpleasant, faintly sweet, but not a common perfume. Odd. She was presented with a picture of a church in Venice. San Barnabo, as she recalled. She shook her head and filed the scent for future reference.

‘And there is the couch.’ Phryne sat on it, then lay back. ‘Quite large enough in an emergency,’ she observed. Professor Bretherton drank in the sight of Phryne in her blue dress reclining on the couch and said nothing. She leapt to her feet and continued prowling.

‘Nice safe,’ she commented, kneeling down in front of it.

‘It was bought from a deceased estate, I believe.’ Professor Bretherton was pleased to find his voice quite level, even though

Phryne had plucked her gown above her knees so as not to crease it. She got up abruptly, spoiling the picture.

‘Yes, and this is why they sold it. Pass me my bag, please.’ Phryne took out a German steel nail file, which she had found invaluable for picking locks, adjusting the spark in her Hispano-Suiza, turning screws and occasionally even filing nails. ‘Very impressive front, see? Heavy door and great big combination lock. But this safe was meant to be set in a wall, so no one has bothered about the back. Observe.’

She set the nail file into the peeling back of the safe, gave a wrench and a twist, and the whole thin steel plate lifted off its rivets.

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Professor Bretherton, sitting down rather abruptly in the Dean’s chair.

‘It’s hard to tell, but I think that someone has done this recently. There are scratches here that look quite fresh. So the only bar to getting into the safe is whether or not the office door was locked. It’s not a deadlock. It would be quite easy to pick.’

‘Miss Fisher, I am appalled!’ Professor Bretherton fanned himself with one hand while groping for his pocket flask with the other. ‘But that means that it needn’t be one of us. I mean, if any passing thief could open the safe so easily…’

‘Have a heart,’ begged Phryne. ‘What thief would be “passing” here? This is a closed puzzle, Professor. Now, I’ll just have a look at this window,’ she said as she examined the catches, which were complete and even dusty, ‘and you can take me to dinner and tell me all about your fellows.’

John Bretherton looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know that I’m going to enjoy this as much as I thought,’ he confessed.

‘Do you want your papyrus back or not?’ asked Phryne.

‘I want it back,’ he said.

The Hotel Australia put on a splendid dinner, and Phryne intended to enjoy it; investigation made her hungry. She felt exhilarated. Out of her own milieu, with none of her own helpers, in a foreign city which became more foreign by the moment, she was getting somewhere. Or so it appeared.

‘The Dean,’ she suggested, and Professor Bretherton chuckled into his vichyssoise.

‘Old Gorman? Surely you jest. I’d put the chances of him escorting a lady to his office for a little dalliance at three hundred to one. More. He’s very respectable.’

‘And is it your experience—or Juvenal’s—that the very respectable are also the very virtuous?’ asked Phryne. The cold soup really was remarkable.

‘No, of course, every man is basically rotten, both Juvenal and I agree. But the Dean wouldn’t dare. He might want to. I suppose all men have lusts, disgusting thought when one considers Gorman, but I admit the possibility. But he wouldn’t put his academic position in jeopardy for any woman. I don’t think he even likes women much. One only has to look at his wife. And he would never put himself in the position where he might be refused. Far too much of a risk. Actually, more of a certainty, when one considers Gorman.’ Professor Bretherton shuddered slightly.

‘He might steal the contents of the safe for another reason,’ Phryne suggested.

‘Possibly, but why? He’s independently wealthy, his family owns half of the Northern Territory, mines and so on. I doubt he’d want a Book of Hours. He has all the artistic appreciation of a hog. His own wife’s garnets went and she’s a formidable woman who would make her lack of appreciation sting. He wouldn’t take the books, surely, he knew what a state they were in, though there’s not a particle of harm in Sykes, poor chap. Never seen him break down like that.’

‘Sykes, then?’

‘Would never have the nerve,’ decided Professor Bretherton. ‘You saw him. Falls to pieces at a touch.’

‘But his nerves may have something to do with him systematically stealing from the faculty. Has he been getting worse lately?’

‘Well, yes, now that you mention it, yes, I suppose he has. But no, Miss Fisher, I could believe that he has some guilty knowledge, perhaps, but he could never have stolen something.

He’s very honest. Small things cost him sleepless nights, poor chap.’

‘Is there a lot to steal?’ Phryne had chosen lobster, and was now confronted with a scarlet shell containing delicate meat folded in mayonnaise which had never seen the inside of a condensed milk tin.

‘Not by the standards of a bank, though we have a lot of scholarships and there are several bequests. But they are paid out, you see, the faculty pays its own fees out of the bequest. There would never be a lot of money just sitting in the safe. The trustee pays the faculty and the faculty pays the University, all in the one day, usually. And there were only three pounds, seven shillings and sixpence in petty cash, not enough to risk a two year sentence for burglary.’

‘No. But that relies on the passing thief and as I have said, I don’t believe in the passing thief. Consider what problems your thief would have. He’s got a bundle of heavy ledgers which he can’t understand, a necklace which he might sell for a fraction of its value provided he knew a fence, a papyrus—please excuse me saying this—of no value except to a collector, and a Book of Hours which he can’t exactly take down to the pub and sell to one of the boys. Profit from a horribly risky undertaking— three quid, seven and sixpence and maybe a couple of pounds for the garnets. No. I really don’t think so.’

‘But if a passing thief did do it, then he would have dumped all the other stuff in the bushes and taken off with the saleable items,’ put in Professor Bretherton.

‘Yes, so he would, if he troubled to take them out of the safe in the first place. Have you searched the bushes?’

‘Extensively.’ Professor Bretherton was as downcast as a man could be when he was dining with a beautiful woman at the Hotel Australia.

‘Nothing?’

‘Many things, but none germane to the issue.’

‘Well, what about your fellows, then? How about Bisset?’

‘An idealist. An eye for a pretty face. No private income, but he’s fairly entrenched in the faculty. A shark on European languages and well liked by the students.’

‘Kirkpatrick?’

‘Wouldn’t give a penny to a blind beggar. Mean as a rat but honest in that spare Presbyterian way. I can’t see him stealing anything. John Knox would not approve. Married to a woman fully as miserly as he is and entirely respectable. Not a whiff of scandal, as far as I know.’