DEATH BEFORE WICKET - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

1 Kerry Greenwood
Sunday morning, gone home, gone to church, and spent the
rest of the day and night marking essays.
The Dean had lunched with some patrons of the university,
slept away the afternoon, gone out with his wife to the same
ball, and spent Sunday blamelessly, in company, in divine service
and more napping. He had not come near the University until
Monday morning.
Kirkpatrick told Miss Fisher that he had had a meeting of
the Band of Hope on Saturday night, and had naturally spent
Sunday at the Wee Free Kirk and in meditation and prayer.
Sykes had gone to his Garden Club and had spent Saturday
night reading books on azaleas and Sunday working in the
garden with his wife.
Professor Brazell the anthropologist was not available for
interview, because he had been called away to attend to some
new discovery in Queensland. She could lay hands on Professor
Ayers at the hotel that evening, under the name of Sanders.
Everything she had so far, Phryne observed to herself,
amounted to less than nothing.
She decided to talk to Dora, the secretary.
‘Dora?’ the Dean snarled. ‘She’s working in the faculty office
now. Trying to catch up with the correspondence which the
Bursar has been too distracted to deal with. We have to account
for our time as well as our money, Miss Fisher, as some of my
staff may have forgotten.’
He really was a poisonous man, thought Phryne. Not a word
of sympathy for Joss Hart, who might be dead. And even when
conveying some harmless information he just had to get in
another dig at the poor Bursar. She began to wonder how the
Dean would look with an axe in his head, took her leave, and
went to find Dora.
She heard a typewriter clacking, used by someone who was
fast, skilled, and in a very bad temper, to judge by the way the
carriage was slammed back until its little bell rang in protest.
When Phryne opened the door, the girl snapped, ‘The office is
closed. Come back on Monday.’