“If you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed.” Phryne/Jack, MFMM
“Jack,” she said with a sly glance from underneath the brim of her crimson cloche. “If you keep looking at me like that, we won’t make it to a bed.”
Jack blushed as scarlet as her hat, but made no effort to move from the cramped space they shared behind the stack of wine barrels topped high to the ceiling. He adjusted his collar awkwardly.
“Well, Miss Fisher, then I suppose I’ll just have to take care to avoid your gaze lest we lose our suspect.” His tone was firm, but he held her eyes for a long moment and she found herself momentarily breathless.
A crash in the back of the shop brought them both to alert.
“Careful, Jack,” Phryne whispered. “We don’t know if he’s armed.”
Jack squared his shoulders and smiled faintly back at her. “Good thing I am then,” he said, pulling out his pistol. “Now please, Miss Fisher, try and stay behind me, this time?”
She rolled her eyes but nodded, cocking her own pistol and standing at the ready.
They stole forward to the office door which stood ajar, spilling yellow light out into the warehouse. Jack motioned to her, then silently counted to three, but upon bursting into the dimly-lit office, they were dismayed to find another exit, left open in their culprit’s wake. Jack dashed to the door, but alas, there was no sign of their man out in the evening’s velvet darkness.
Phryne took the opportunity to examine the papers strewn across the desk; there were shipping manifests, stock inventories, and contracts for much larger sums and quantities than this warehouse could have produced. Just what were the owners hiding, and exactly what could be the intentions of their masked man?
Jack looked over the papers, and they exchanged a glance. Phryne felt the thrill of a new mystery unfolding; it seemed as though they’d stumbled upon something much larger than just one murder.