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address?’
    Hector Chambers bellowed ‘Jenkins!’ and a small rabbity man scuttled in. If he had pulled out a gold watch and exclaimed, ‘Oh, my paws and whiskers!’, he could not have resembled the white rabbit more without surgically enhanced ears.
    ‘Mr Chambers?’ he said nervously.
    ‘Give this lady all the information she wants. All right, Miss Fisher. Do what you can. You’re so good at second-guessing, perhaps you can second-guess this. Here’s your retainer,’ said Mr Chambers, peeling notes off a roll the size of which could have choked a racehorse. Phryne waved a dismissive hand.
    ‘No money. I’m in this for another reason. I’m not working for you, Mr Chambers, but M’sieur Anatole.’
    ‘He wants to marry her,’ said Mr Chambers. ‘Dunno what she wants. But I want her back,’ he said fiercely. ‘She’s my daughter.’
    ‘Quite,’ said Phryne. ‘I’ll let you know what I find out. Oh,’ she said as she turned from accompanying White Rabbit Jenkins to the door, ‘these are yours, I believe.’
    She poured into his hand the bullets from his revolver, and closed the door quietly behind her.
    Mr Chambers stared at the closed door for a bit, then swore.
    ‘Bloody women!’
    Mr Jenkins wrinkled his pink nose and asked, ‘What do you need to know, miss?’
    ‘I would like you to show me Elizabeth’s room,’ said Phryne.
    ‘Oh!’ he gasped. ‘I don’t know if Mr Chambers would—’
    ‘He told you to give me all the information I needed,’ Phryne reminded him. ‘You wouldn’t want to disobey him, would you?’
    ‘No!’ squeaked Mr Jenkins. ‘He gets very nasty when he’s crossed. Sometimes when he isn’t crossed, as well.’
    This sounded promising. Mr Jenkins had a sense of humour.
    ‘Have you been with him long?’
    ‘All my life. My father worked for his father and it made sense that I should work for him in my turn. I started out as a stable boy but I wasn’t strong enough and I didn’t like the horses, so old Mr Chambers sent me to business school.’
    ‘So you do all the accounts, investments, that sort of thing?’
    ‘Yes. Ever since I graduated.’
    ‘Are his business affairs in good order?’ asked Phryne, following the White Rabbit up a set of richly carpeted stairs and along a gallery hung with indifferent oils of horses; horses with jockeys, horse races, more horses and, just for a change, horses. All by himself, Phryne reflected, Mr Chambers was keeping the horse painting, framing and picture hanging industry in business. Mr Jenkins glanced at the decor.
    ‘He is very proud of his horses,’ he commented. ‘And his business is in excellent order. Any enterprise involving livestock and’—he raised a finger—‘the element of chance is risky, but with sale of bloodstock and some good returns, he is doing quite well. We also have great hopes of Jaunty Lad. Possible Cup winner there, so they say. He’s a stallion and his stud fees, should he win . . .’ He allowed the sentence to trail off, lingeringly. The stud fees for a Melbourne Cup winner were obviously beyond the dreams of accountants.
    He tried the handle of the third door on the right and found it locked.
    ‘Odd,’ he murmured.
    ‘This door wasn’t locked before?’ asked Phryne.
    ‘Well, no, I don’t believe so . . . but possibly I never checked. No matter, I have all the keys here.’
    He dragged out a large ring of keys and tutted over them until Phryne took them out of his hand, separated off the large outer door keys and found one marked ‘3’, which was the number on the lock. The door opened easily. The household was well maintained. The lock had been oiled recently.
    ‘Wait out here,’ she instructed him.
    ‘Oh! Er . . . well . . . if you say so, Miss Fisher,’ he stammered, stepping away.
    Phryne did not know what she was going to find when she entered Elizabeth’s room. A body, possibly. Therefore she was relieved when all she saw was a young woman’s room, richly