'No,' said Black Jack.
'Then you're no use to us,' said Bert, getting up and brushing the knees of his trousers. 'Or anyone else,' he added, looking down at the disgusting figure now sitting on the cobbles.
'No, wait,' said Alderton, grasping at Bert's knees. 'I didn't deliver it myself. But I know about it.'
'Yair?' asked Cec with strong disbelief. He had no time for drunks. 'What d'ya know?'
'I used to work for Gibson, but he sold up and moved out. I ain't found a decent job since then. But when I put on my driver's coat to take this box to the market, from Ballarat it was, bloody heavy.' Black Jack stopped, having lost his thread.
'You put on your driver's coat,' prompted Bert.
'Yair, I put it on and found that I had a pad of Gibson's old waybills in the pocket. I hadn't worn the coat for a while. I got to the market and I was unloading in the underneath part, you know, where the trucks go. See, the boss had just sacked me, that box was my last delivery, then I was goin' to be out on the street again, so long, son. I was crook on it.'
'Yair, life is tough for the working man,' agreed Bert. For the first time in his life, he was sympathizing with a capitalist. 'What happened in the undercroft?'
'This bloke came up to me, see, and said he was playing a joke on a friend. He wanted to borrow my dispatch book and my dustcoat and cap and gloves. He said he'd deliver the box. Well, what's a man to do when he's got a coot offerin' a pound for a simple little joke? I didn't see no harm in it. He scribbled a name on my own dispatch note, so the bloody boss couldn't say I was half-inchin' his delivery.'
'So what happened then?' asked Bert. He was revolted. He had no difficulty with or moral objection to most crime—some of his best friends were criminals, and property was theft after all—but he hated liars, and Black Jack Alderton wasn't even a very good liar. Didn't see any harm in it, indeed. Bert wondered if his dive into the bottle had anything to do with the murderous implications of this simple little joke.
'Why didn't he just take your dispatch book, then?'
'Dunno.' Mr Alderton's face creased. Cec wondered how many brain cells he had left. He was reaching a working estimate—about six—when Bert asked, 'What did this bloke who liked expensive jokes look like?'
'Didn't see him clear,' replied Alderton. 'He had to be about the same size as me, I reckon, or me coat wouldn't have fitted him. I thought he talked sort of funny. I'd had a few,' he admitted. 'That's why the boss threw me out. They're always out to do down the honest man.'
'Yair,' said Bert. Cec was impressed with how much scorn Bert could pack into one syllable. 'Here's your quid,' he added, dropping it into Mr Alderton's spattered lap. 'Don't drink it all at once.'
Phryne dropped Miss Lee at her own house. Dot, possessed of fellow feeling, insisted on the bath being the best available, and the best bath in Melbourne was certainly Miss Fisher's. The ex-prisoner's reserve was showing signs of cracking under Dot's practical sympathy—had she not herself been on the edge of murder when Phryne Fisher had swanned into her life? Dot knew how hard it was to be rescued.
Phryne told Dot not to spare the bath salts and to give Miss Lee some clothes if she needed them, and turned the car to Hawthorn, where Jack Robinson's chemist lived. She had expressed her need for absolute confidentiality to that admirable officer, and he had instantly come up with the name. Dr Alexander Treasure, analytical chemist, was her man he said. Robinson had said that Treasure had no curiosity at all and had given him the highest recommendations for honour and integrity.
Phryne was anxious that Yossi's formula would not be stolen and patented by someone else. Such things had happened. She did not approve of what he and the others intended to do with the money, and she was still undecided as to whether they had other allies who might have robbed Mrs Katz and Phryne herself. But it was Yossi's discovery, made while he could have been doing something which he considered fun rather than slaving over a hot test tube and enduring Mrs Grossman's wrath at her burned table. Phryne made a mental note that if anyone connected with this Treasure of a chemist patented anything vaguely resembling Yossi's compound, she would be very cross and probably litigious.
Dr Treasure lived in a nice house. It was a standard red-brick building which matched its neighbours, even down to the uniform height of the fences and the tree dahlias peering over them. This was a good sign. He did not practice chemistry for money. She rang the bell and presently a young woman with a baby on her hip opened it. She was trying to tuck back her straggling fair hair and button her dress at the front.
'I have an appointment with Dr Treasure,' said Phryne.
'Oh, yes, Miss Fisher, is it? Come in. We're a bit at sixes and sevens, my girl hasn't come in and the baby's fretting. My husband's in the lab. This way,' said Mrs Treasure, hefting her offspring. It was whining in a way that set Phryne's teeth on edge.
'Ssh,' she said to it. The baby was so surprised it shut up instantly and plugged its mouth with its none-too-clean thumb. The young woman said, 'I wish you'd teach me how to do that. I can't do a thing with him. Takes after his father.' She opened a door. 'I can't do a thing with him, either.' She knocked, then opened the door. Then she grinned ruefully at Phryne as the baby began to cry.
'Your spell's worn off,' she commented and bore the scion of the house away to continue his interrupted feed.
'Miss Fisher?' Dr Treasure was tall, lanky and English. He had a mop of brown curls and a shy, endearing smile. He looked much younger than Phryne had expected.
'Detective Inspector Robinson told you about my qualifications, and you are thinking that I am too young,' he said, and sighed. 'I'm actually thirty-seven, but I can't even convince passport officials about that. Sit down, if you please, Miss Fisher. You aren't the Hon. are you? Duchy of Lancaster, eh? I believe that my father knows your father. Jack said you had a fascinating problem for me. Do tell.'
Phryne produced the translation, and Dr Treasure spread it out on his bench. He was surrounded by a forest of glass tubes and retorts. Phryne wondered how many of them had derived from alchemy.
Dr Treasure was groping for something, never taking his eyes off the string of letters and numbers. Phryne put a pencil into his hand. He began to scribble on a notepad, tore it off, screwed it up and threw it onto the floor, paused, scribbled again and laughed.
'By God, it's so simple,' he said.
'What is it? And I have to tell you, this is involved in a murder investigation and you cannot have it.'
'Not my field,' he said absently 'Anyway, wouldn't think of it, old Jack'd have my skin drying on a fence— isn't that the expression? I think I've got butadiene, yes, but this uses styrene, got some potassium persulphate, mercaptan, yes, this is going to niff more than a trifle. Basically we just bubble a couple of gases through cold water and then add all the other things, stir slowly, and—voila. Or not, as it happens. Now, can we make it? No reason why not. Just a moment.
'We begin by bubbling this gas through nice clean distilled water,' he said, doing so. 'Then we add the soap and other things and might I suggest you put on that mask?' He indicated with an unoccupied finger an ex-army gas mask. Phryne slipped the straps over her head and breathed in a scent of charcoal and rubber. Dr Treasure beamed. 'Good. Mercaptan is the absolute essence of things which stink.'
Even through the mask Phryne could scent something reminiscent of old garbage, mixed with a strong overtone of sewers.
Dr Treasure seemed immune to the stench. He mixed several other fluids and poured them into a large glass vessel over a very weak flame. He took up a stirrer.