Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (17 page)

P
hryne took off after him like a gazelle, thanking the powers that she had worn a loose skirt and flat-heeled shoes. Away from the cricket field, toward the main buildings of the university, Ayers ran and Phryne followed. He had longer legs, but she had the advantage of at least twenty years and she was betting on him not having taken any violent exercise recently. Up the hill, up the stairs, past the lions and the Roman Senator, through another door, their footsteps hollow and echoing.

By the time they reached the Quad, the professor a short half-head in the lead, Phryne was recalling that neither had she and wishing that she hadn’t smoked so many Gitanes while she had been compiling her list the previous night. Ayers was, however, slowing and gasping and Phryne decided that she had run enough for one day. Grabbing for his belt, she tripped up his heels and sat on him as he fell, so that the tableau confronting the amused student body in the Quad was one recumbent professor, prone, and one fashionably dressed young woman, with panama hat, sitting on his back, both parties as devoid of breath as propriety.

‘But what are you going to do with him, now you’ve got him?’ asked a fascinated spectator.

‘I’ll think of something,’ said Phryne and grinned lasciviously, startling the student so much that he walked away, wondering what modern young women were coming to and mulling over an article to that effect which
Hermes
might publish.

‘If I let you up,’ panted Phryne, ‘will you run away again?’

‘No,’ panted Ayers. ‘By God, you’re fast!’

‘So is retribution, and it is approaching at a rate of knots. Come along, Professor.’ She stood up and offered him her hand, ready to react if the skittish archaeologist showed signs of flight.

‘There goes my reputation,’ sighed Ayers as he rose to his feet and slapped at his whites. A cloud of dust arose.

‘Deny everything and no one will believe what they saw,’ advised Phryne. ‘Do you have an office here? Good. Let’s go there.’

To forestall any sudden moves, Phryne tucked her arm into the Professor’s and they walked across the green like lovers.

Phryne kept a tight hold on Ayers until they reached his office and she could shut the door and lock it. The window in the door was provided with a small curtain, and she drew it.

‘People will think that…’ Ayers began.

‘Well, that may prove useful to you,’ said Phryne. ‘When I said I was retribution,’ she added, sitting down on the edge of the desk, ‘I was not overstating the matter. This is no longer a potty little academic quarrel, carried on by people who are far too intelligent and have far too little occupation. That’s a real boy out there and that’s real venom in his veins and he might die. He may be dead, even now. And some of that is down to you.’

‘I can tell you nothing,’ said Ayers. He was a tall, slim man, very good looking in a fine-drawn, English way. The weathering which much standing around in Egyptian sun bestows on the skin made it difficult for him to pale, but a tic had begun below his left eye and he was biting his lip.

‘What is this all about?’ asked Phryne. ‘I began to investigate it at the instance of two young men anxious to clear their friend’s name. Now I’m up to my elbows in black magicians, tarot cards, foretellings and secrets, and I’m beginning to get quite cross. I am loath to threaten you with actual physical harm, Dr Ayers, but I will if I have to.’

‘Miss Fisher, it doesn’t matter what you threaten me with,’ said Ayers with an appearance of frankness. ‘I will tell you nothing.’

‘About the papyrus?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why won’t you tell me?’ asked Phryne.

‘I can’t tell you that, either.’

Phryne considered him. He was speaking, though not freely, and the best thing to do would be to keep him speaking. Perhaps she could get at the truth another way.

‘Dr Ayers, why did you run?’

‘I was startled.’

‘What startled you?’

‘Joss’s injury.’

‘The nature of his injury?’

‘Yes,’ said the professor.

‘“The snake be against him on land”,’ Phryne quoted. ‘Easier, perhaps, than trying to find a crocodile in the middle of Sydney. The closest I’ve seen to a crocodile is that bounder Marrin.’

At the mention of Marrin’s name, Ayers flushed red.

‘That scoundrel,’ he snarled.

‘Indeed. You have had dealings with Marrin?’

‘He wanted to buy the papyrus from Bretherton, as if it was his to sell. I’d burn it myself rather than let Marrin get his filthy hands on it for his disgusting magic.’

‘You think that Marrin brought this snake bite about?’

‘Who else could? I saw no snake.’

‘Do you believe in magic?’

‘No one who has any acquaintance with the East disbelieves in magic, Miss Fisher.’

‘Have you got the papyrus?’

‘No,’ said Professor Ayers.

‘Do you know where it is?’ asked Phryne. Ayers leaned forward and grabbed her by the shoulder, shouting into her face.

‘If I knew where the bloody thing was, would I be so worried? Would I be asking Bretherton to ask you to find it? Use your bloody brains, Miss Fisher!’

‘Take your bloody hands off me or I’ll break your bloody arm,’ said Phryne with calculated violence, and he released her immediately with an expression of loathing, as though he had found himself clutching a snake.

‘Yes, you don’t like women, do you? In the parlance of my own milieu, Dr Ayers, I’d say you were stone butch.’

He staggered to his chair and sat down again, putting his head in his hands.

‘You bitch,’ he muttered.

‘The original bitch,’ said Phryne with some pride. ‘But I’m not out to get you, if you didn’t poison Joss. Nor am I interested in blackmail. You are clearly being blackmailed by someone who knows about your proclivities. Who has you over—excuse the metaphor—a barrel, Dr Ayers?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ he groaned. ‘I really can’t.’

‘Will you let Bretherton tell me, then? You can release him from his word,’ insinuated Phryne. Ayers removed his hands and stared at her.

‘Bretherton hasn’t told you about the papyrus?’ he asked, wonderingly.

‘No, he’s a man of his word and he’s keeping it, which is very inconvenient.’

‘He’s a good chap, Bretherton,’ said Ayers.

‘I gather from that question that even if Bretherton
had
told me what he knows, there would still be more to know,’ commented Phryne, watching Dr Ayers like a hawk. He nodded almost imperceptibly. This might be a way of extracting information.

‘You’re sworn not to tell, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you can nod. Indicate whether I am on the right track. Shake of the head for no, and hold out your right hand for don’t know. Agreed?’

‘All right,’ he said. The tic beat beneath his eye.

‘Is there something else written on the papyrus?’

He nodded.

‘On the back?’

He nodded.

‘Ancient writing?’

He shook his head.

‘Modern writing?’

He nodded.

‘This is what Marrin wants as well?’

Nod. Phryne swung around on the desk so that she was facing Dr Ayers. She did not want to miss any nuance of his expression.

‘Does this writing relate to the curse, I mean the magical effect of the curse?’

Shake of the head.

‘Has anyone else got a copy of it?’

Shake of the head.

‘Have you got a copy of it?’

Another very sad shake.

‘Have you read it?’

Nod. Then he extended his right hand and turned it from one side to another. There was more to be found out but Phryne did not have the right questions.

‘Is it in English?’ Ayers nodded and waved the hand again. Phryne sensed that under the fear he wanted to help her, but he could not risk breaking his word because the consequences would be dire. Who would be writing English words on the back of an ancient papyrus?

‘Is it a note made by an archaeologist?’ she hazarded. He nodded. ‘The discoverer?’ He nodded again. What would be there, apart from a few numbers which would identify where the papyrus was found, when and by whom? Presumably it was Oxyrrinchus 666, the identifying number on the translation. That number rang a bell with Phryne. Something to do with church. She filed it to think about later.

‘A cross reference?’ she guessed. Ayers shook his head. There could be anything on the back of it, thought Phryne angrily. A shopping list, a sudden insight into the placement of a particular temple, a recipe for goat soup…She could not think of the right question to ask, and fairly soon Ayers would get restive. She was never, purely on principle, going to blackmail him with being homosexual in order to make him tell her. Nothing wrong with a little light blackmail—she had always found it worked well in most circumstances—but not sexual preference. Inverts had enough troubles, Phryne knew, without her adding to them.

She would have preferred to just beat him to a pulp, which seemed to her more honest, and would have done it if it seemed likely to be effective.

‘Can it be found in any other place?’ she asked, and Ayers shook his head again. ‘Drat,’ said Phryne. ‘I’ve run out of questions. Can’t you give me a hint?’

‘You know I can’t,’ said Ayers.

‘The nature of the threat,’ she asked. ‘Is it blackmail over your preferences, or is it a fear that you’ll find out-of-season scorpions in your slippers?’

‘Both,’ Ayers sighed.

‘Professor, just at this moment,’ Phryne produced the gun from her purse and pointed it at his head, taking up the slack of the trigger, ‘who are you more afraid of—your blackmailer or me?’

‘Him,’ said Ayers. ‘You’ve got principles and you probably aren’t insane. Therefore you probably won’t shoot me, though there’s always a chance that you will; you have the reputation of being very dangerous. I’ve looked down my share of brigand gun barrels in my time in the desert. I can’t say that I like the experience and I am not enjoying this. But he is quite determined and cares nothing for consequences. He’s got the goods on me, and he would ruin me on a whim.’

‘In which case you might as well tell me, because I might be able to protect you, and he’ll find out that we were closeted in your room with the door locked and assume that you have told me anyway.’

‘Oh, sweet Christ,’ whispered Ayers. ‘Sweet suffering Jesus.’

‘Quite.’

‘You couldn’t protect Joss,’ he said, the tic beating metronome-steady under his eye.

‘I didn’t know that Joss needed protection. Indeed, it may not have been aimed at Joss, but at Adam Harcourt. I’ll know if you have a pocket knife.’

Phryne put the shoe she was still carrying down on the desk. Ayers rummaged in a drawer and produced a knife. He watched fascinated as Phryne cut the cheap white shoe in half, revealing a cross section of sole and upper, and then folded down the leather flap with the point of the knife.

‘Not magic,’ she said. ‘Machinery. Don’t touch, Professor, unless you want to join Joss Hart. See? A pair of hollow needles, a rubber top from an eye-dropper, buried in the sole. A clever little booby trap. They would have taken a while to work their way through into the actual foot. Harcourt’s shoes. He was meant to die. But he was bowled by the remarkable Glasgow spin of Professor Kirkpatrick and he lent his shoes to Joss. Thus a snake bite, a fulfilment of a prophecy, and more terror for the others in the know. Would you like to tell me who is blackmailing you?’

‘No. Magic or machinery, this could still kill me, and there is something I need to do first.’

‘Dammit, Tom Ayers, if you don’t tell me immediately, I’ll kill you myself!’ Phryne seized the shoe and leapt off the desk. For some reason Ayers fell to pieces all at once and began to talk. Phryne was not sure what had convinced him.

‘All right, all right, I’ll tell you, get that infernal thing away from me. On the back of the papyrus is a note written by the original cataloguer which reveals the location of the tomb of Khufu, that we call Cheops.’

‘The great pyramid Cheops?’

‘Him. It seems unlikely that he was buried in the pyramid. Everyone assumes that there was a tomb there and it was looted in antiquity, but I don’t think so, and neither did Graham, who was at the original dig at Oxyrrinchus and catalogued the entire find. He left no memorial otherwise. No one has ever found his notebooks. He was ambushed and murdered, presumably by wandering Bedouin, only a few months later. I must find that tomb. It would be as famous as the tomb of Tut Ankh Amen. If I had the note I could convince the Dean to fund the dig. It would shed a glow on Australian universities and attract more scholarships—he would have to give it to me.’

‘How did you come to find this scrawl?’

‘I heard the rumour that Graham had located Khufu years ago, and I was fascinated. I talked to all the chaps, but they didn’t know anything. Graham was an odd, crotchety man, given to claiming that he’d discovered things—he also claimed to have found Tanis and we’re still not sure where that was. Also that the Tablets of the Law were in Ethiopia. I gave up searching for his notebooks; they’ve probably been firelighters for twenty years. Then I wondered if there was another way to approach it, and so I asked Bretherton if he had looked at all his manuscripts, and he said the only one with anything on it was the 666. You know that’s why Marrin wants it? The number of the Beast is 666 from the Revelations of St John the Divine. He thinks that there is a magical golden box in the tomb which contains a spell will make him immortal.’