Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (23 page)

‘Dashed unsporting of them to bolt it or put a rock on it,’ muttered Phryne. The professor staggered under her impetus as she shoved with all her might.

Nothing happened, except the professor was reminded that he had a terrible headache and was not as young as he used to be.

‘Aha,’ said the voice from above.

‘Aha?’

‘Maybe I’ve been shoving the wrong way. Ready for another try?’

‘No, but I’m still s-standing.’

‘There’s a good professor,’ said Phryne. The lid was smooth, but rust had pitted it somewhat and she managed to dig her fingers into it and lift it a trifle. Her shoulder muscles twanged.

She shoved with all her might in the exact opposite of a sensible direction and was rewarded with a creaking rasp. The lid moved. A little light showed. Phryne pushed again, broke three fingernails, toppled forward and fell, landing with more bruising. Professor Brazell sank against the wall and groaned.

But the lid had moved aside. Light came down into the well. Phryne gathered her possessions, re-assumed all available clothes, and patted Edmund on the cheek.

‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she promised. Brazell lifted her again and saw her get both hands on the lip of the well. Then she sprang upward, inflicting more damage on his shoulders, and he saw a strange flash of thigh and foot as she vanished over the edge. Like those ships that fall off the edge of the world, he thought, vanishing one bit at a time.

There was a crash and a cry. Brazell held his breath. Of course, they would have left a guard. Then a body came hurtling down, landing with a thud.

It was not Phryne—it was a man in a dustcoat. He appeared dazed, which was not unexpected. Professor Brazell was feeling fairly dazed himself.

To the noise of scraping and very unladylike language, a ladder appeared in the half circle of light. Brazell climbed it, not knowing what he would meet at the top. Phryne, panting, dragged the ladder up after him.

‘Nasty piece of work,’ she said. ‘Tried to grab me as soon as I got to the top. Could at least have waited until I got out.’

‘Most unc-civil,’ agreed Mr Brazell. ‘Are you hurt, dear girl?’

‘Not more than a few extra scratches,’ said Phryne. ‘Do you know where we are?’

Professor Brazell squinted at his immediate surroundings. Wine racks loomed out of the darkness.

‘Why, it’s the wine c-cellar,’ said the Professor. ‘Under the Great Hall.’

‘Don’t know about you,’ said Phryne, shaking back her hair, ‘but while I’d like a bath and some more clothes, I’d settle for a drink. There must be a candle somewhere. I don’t have a lot more in the underwear department to burn.’

‘Always have candles for decanting,’ said Brazell. The contrast in illumination after the pit was making his eyes sting, but it was not nearly light enough to, for example, read a label. He found a table and a cupboard by walking into them in the half dark. A rummage in a drawer produced a bundle of household wax candles. ‘Yes, here we are. Care to s-sacrifice another match?’

‘Certainly.’ Phryne lit the candle and shadows leapt. The cellar was not large, but it appeared to be well stocked. Stone stairs led up to what apparently was a firmly locked door. Phryne ran up the steps, tried the door to no avail, then threw a big iron bolt.

‘Why are you doing that?’ asked Edmund. ‘S-Surely we are locked in enough?’

‘I don’t want anyone else to intrude on us until we have had an intimate talk with our friend in the well,’ she told him. ‘Find us a nice bottle, will you? I want to summarise my investigation.’

‘How about the Tahlbilk ‘05?’ he asked. ‘Very good wine.’

‘More expensive than that,’ she said, combing her hair and drawing water in a bucket to wash her face. ‘There are some nice glasses here. The cellarman obviously considers it part of his duty to make sure that the wine sent up to the high table is of merchantable quality.’

‘I’m s-sure,’ Professor Brazell said.

‘Pity there isn’t anything to eat. Are you hungry?’

‘Miss Fisher,’ asked Brazell, ‘haven’t you got any nerves at all?’

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘I was so angry I hadn’t enough spare space to be afraid, then I was overcome with lust, and now we are out of that beastly well I see no reason to be. Unlike that person who is now down there,’ she added. ‘He has every reason to be very, very apprehensive.’

‘I’m not s-sure that I haven’t, also,’ said Professor Brazell. ‘I never in all my time met anyone like you, Phryne.’

‘And won’t again, I should imagine,’ said Miss Fisher, complacently.

She washed her face and hands, bathed such scratches as she could reach, and put on her shoes to insulate her feet from the cold floor. The puzzle was, at last, coming together. She might be a little frayed around the edges by events and certainly needed some minor cosmetic attention, but she felt that she understood what had happened to the contents of the safe and who had poisoned Joss Hart.

And she had found Joan Thompson née Williams. That thought was sufficient to warm Phryne all over.

A further rummage in the butler’s cupboards had disclosed a folded quilt in which not too many spiders were nesting, a tin of dry biscuits which were only a little mouldy, and a further cache of candles. Phryne lit three and by their light found a candle lantern and lit that as well. It was such a relief to be out of the black dark, and just lighting a candle was a luxury.

‘How about this?’ asked Brazell, returning with two cobwebby bottles. He set them down with appropriate care, then borrowed Phryne’s bucket to wash his face, leaving her handkerchief plastered over his scalp wound. Apart from a thumping headache, he felt wonderful. Never before had he appreciated light and free movement so much.

‘Excellent,’ said Phryne, examining the bottles. ‘Someone must have been travelling in the south of France and bought them home. How nice of them.’

‘No corkscrew,’ said Brazell. ‘We s-shall have to break the neck, which is a pity.’

‘I have here a selection of three corkscrews,’ said Phryne. ‘The only neck I’m intending to break is that of that wretch in the well. I wonder if he’s woken up yet?’

‘I wonder who he is,’ said Brazell. ‘He may be an innocent porter, and we are going to get into frightful trouble for assaulting him.’

‘No innocent porter would have tried to use my head as a football,’ snarled Phryne. ‘See?’ She pointed to a broken bottle of water and a loaf of bread on the floor near the well. She picked up the loaf and tore it in half, giving one piece to Professor Brazell. ‘He was coming to feed us,’ she said. ‘As I suspected, we were to be kept, not killed. Unless that proved necessary, of course, or unless the well filled up with recent rains, in which case it would have been regrettable and he would have been very sorry.’

‘Miss Fisher, am I going to regret it if I ask what we are talking about?’ Edmund Brazell bit off a piece of bread. It was real, fresh baked, and made him feel more stable. He opened the bottle of Chateau Petrus and poured it roughly into a glass, allowing the air to mingle with the ruby fluid. ‘No, don’t drink yet—in ten minutes,’ he chided as Phryne grabbed for the glass. ‘This wine is twenty years old, we don’t want to gulp it.’

‘Oh, very well.’ Phryne put it down again. ‘Assume that they were going to keep us until Monday morning, Edmund dear,’ she said chattily, sitting down in the butler’s chair. ‘Put together a boy’s natural desire to impress his father, who thinks he is a disgrace to a fine family, with the only thing in common between us, which is your knowledge of a green stone tool and my good idea of who stole the goods out of the Bursar’s safe. We have to be put down a well and kept incommunicado until, I suggest, Monday.’

‘What happens on Monday?’ asked Brazell.

‘The Mines Department opens,’ replied Miss Fisher.

‘Perhaps my old father was right,’ said Professor Brazell. ‘He always s-said I had no talent for deduction. I couldn’t even do those jigsaw ones where you put in all s-sorts of coloured bits and end up with the Tower of London or s-something.’

‘Tell me what else was with your hand axe,’ said Phryne.

‘Nothing. It was just a rather nicely s-shaped s-stone axe,’ said Brazell.

‘Would it not have been labelled?’

‘Of course, all specimens are labelled. Pasted on the back was a label with the place of discovery, the time, my name and my reference number,’ said Edmund, bewildered.

‘Didn’t do any geology, did you?’ asked Phryne. ‘Ten minutes can be assumed to be up, and I am now going to drink this wine,’ she instructed him. There was a moment’s respectful silence as both appreciated the robust, full, peppery taste of a great Bordeaux.

‘To love,’ said Professor Brazell, raising his glass a sip too late.

‘To love.’ Phryne drank and held out her glass for more. ‘When was the last time that you saw your axe?’

‘Oh, must have been weeks. No, I’m wrong. I s-saw the package when S-Sykes dropped it about a week ago. Unwrapped it to s-see if it was broken, then rewrapped it and put it back. A week. By George, this wine is really rather s-special.’

‘A week ago,’ said Phryne, ‘it was stolen, or rather, borrowed, and replaced with a paper and sealing wax package which weighed the same. Probably another rock. Stolen by someone who knew what that green stone meant and who desperately wanted to impress his father. In the beginning, Joss Hart went to Mr Hart and told him that the axe was malachite and, from the label, he knew where he could find an excellent deposit of copper. His father didn’t believe him—or so I guess. His father demanded proof. So Joss stole the axe and left a package in its place. It was easy for him, his best friend is Adam Harcourt and he’s often in the Dean’s office, trying to sort out the accounts. It would not have been hard for Joss to make the substitution. His father, today, got the results from the geologist which confirmed that the stone was malachite and malachite only occurs where there is copper.’

‘Why do you s-say, today?’

‘Because Joss’ father was sitting by his bed, saying that he was sorry. Why should he be sorry?’

‘There could be a lot of reasons,’ said Brazell.

‘I may be wrong about that,’ admitted Phryne. ‘Joss, however, begged me to forgive him. In advance, perhaps, of this assault. He also tried to tell me to “stop Dad”. I have no proof that this is what he meant. But I heard Hart tell Joss that he had to arrange something, and I suspect that this is what he had to arrange. To keep us out of the way while he registered a claim on that land.’

‘Why would he want me out of the way?’

‘My dear Professor.’ Phryne leaned close and kissed Edmund Brazell on the mouth. ‘He must have heard of your views. How would you feel about the establishment of a great big copper mine in the middle of your desert? The Aborigines, of course, don’t matter. They aren’t citizens. Their views on having their landscape demolished and desecrated are irrelevant. They can’t effectively protest about Hart and Co. charging about, removing their landscape and sending it away in large sacks. Not a newspaper inch in the views of desert people—why should they have views, just because they live there? However, you are in a position to make a scandal, but only before the miner’s right has been made. After that there would be nothing that you could do. Twig?’ asked Phryne, and sipped from her third glass of Chateau Petrus.

‘I’m unwilling to doubt your word, Phryne, but…’

‘Just wait.’ Phryne walked to the edge of the well.

‘Hello down there,’ she called. A stream of language replied, tinging the air blue. The speaker was unhappy about bis confinement and was offering to do a number of biologically impossible things to the person who had caused him to occupy this blasted well.

‘Don’t be like that,’ said Phryne, ‘or I’ll just put the lid back and I bet your knickers won’t burn like mine. Getting wetter underfoot, is it? Happens in a well. Springs. But you’d know about that, wouldn’t you? Being a geologist. Or are you a surveyor?’

‘I’m a miner, lady, and if you don’t get me out of here…’ threatened the voice.

‘What will you do?’ asked Phryne. ‘Tunnel?’

The reply could not have been printed in any reputable newspaper and Phryne walked away, to resume her seat on the butler’s chair.

‘I hope he comes around soon,’ she commented.

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s got the key to the door,’ said Phryne. ‘Do you reckon that pouring water on him might work?’

‘Not unless it’s a lot of water, and we’ve only got one tap and one bucket,’ said Brazell, beginning to be convinced.

‘Perhaps we should put back the lid. Then, when the well fills, he’ll drown. However, I’m rather banking on him deciding to talk to us before that. I bet he didn’t sign up for murder,’ said Phryne loudly.

‘Hey, lady,’ said the well.

‘Yes?’

‘What d’ya mean, murder?’

‘Would have come to that, you know. Put it to yourself. Professor Brazell and I would be rather cross when we finally got out of the hole in which you are now sitting. We’d be likely to try and find out who put us there. And do you think that we wouldn’t draw deductions and make inferences? I think we would. And when we did we’d be sending the cops around to interview Mr Hart.’

‘Yair?’ asked the voice.

‘So he couldn’t afford to let us escape,’ said Phryne. ‘Of course, he wouldn’t put to himself like that. He’d know that if anyone traced the man who was last down here and shoved aside that lid, by fingerprints perhaps, it would be you and you could hang for killing two innocent visitors, and he needn’t say a word. And you wouldn’t be believed if you told on him,’ added Phryne. ‘You didn’t pick up my handbag, did you? I dropped it when you grabbed me.’