Castlemaine Murders Part 11

'We haven't got any hydrangeas,' objected Dot.

'Ask Camellia for some. I'm going to ring Bert. Back soon,' said Phryne, and breezed off. She looked in again. 'Put in a hundred cigs and fill my flask with the Armagnac, will you?' she added.

Dot kept folding. Just a little peace and quiet, she thought, and with Mr Li to stand guard and no Phryne, Dot might just get on with her trousseau nightdress.

Having contacted Bert, found out that he and Cec had been shearers in their time and arranged for a reserve in case of emergencies, Phryne decided not to annoy Dot while she was packing and to sit quietly in the garden with Li Pen and discuss philosophy. The Shaolin proved amenable.

'The Chinese have a different relationship with their G.o.ds than any of the one-G.o.d religions,' he remarked. 'Chinese G.o.ds do not require adoration. They would not know what to do with it. They do not forgive sins.'

'Then what are they for?' asked Phryne, lighting a cigarette.

'They take care of the things which they are required to take care of,' he replied. 'For instance, the G.o.ddess Nu Kua is responsible for walls. She rebuilt the walls of heaven once when there was a spill from the Great River of Stars. You may ask for her attention in any matter involving walls. But not anything else. Walls are her...her...'

'Speciality?' suggested Phryne.

'Area of responsibility,' said Li Pen. 'An especially brave soldier, like Ch'uan Chung-li, might find himself turned into a G.o.d and then his care is soldiers. But there is also a G.o.d for soldiers, Kwan Gong. The G.o.ddess Songshi Niang Niang looks after childbirth and it is only childbirth that she is allowed to care about.'

'I see,' said Phryne. 'A feudal heaven to match a feudal earth.'

Li Pen bowed his shaven head.

'The Silver Lady is very acute. Some G.o.ds are common to all who have not been enlightened by the Divine One. The Emperor of Heaven is always the August Personage of Jade. Tou Mou is always the Mother of Stars. Wen Chang cares for scholars. But there are local G.o.ds as well.'

'Lares et penates,' said Phryne. 'Spirits of springs and woods.'

'Yes,' said Li Pen. 'These can also be brave or wise people who have become G.o.ds. And there are also the ancestors, who take a keen interest in the doings of their grandchildren. All of them are beseeched, but not in the way followers of the one-G.o.d religions do. Chinese G.o.ds do not require adoration. They require the matter to be brought to their divine attention, and then they will act, or not, and one cannot make them.'

'Harsh,' said Phryne.

'Do you think so? Is it better to think that your prayers have not been answered because you are a bad person, or because the G.o.ddess happens to be busy that day? I remember when there was a great drought in Guandong province, when I was a child. We did not beat our b.r.e.a.s.t.s thinking that we had been sinful, though we probably had been, it being the nature of men. We brought out the statue of the Land G.o.d, that we called Grandpa, and drenched him with water and had water fights and laughed, so that he might think that we had plenty of water and send more.'

'Shows a nasty vindictive streak in the G.o.ds, though,' commented Phryne.

'But it rained,' said Li Pen, smiling.

'Can't argue with that.'

'And there are also G.o.ds for people who are outcasts,' he said quietly. 'There are the Taoist Eight Immortals: they protect soldiers, the sick, wh.o.r.es, old people, entertainers, barbers, musicians and actors. Shall I tell you a story?'

'Tell me,' said Phryne.

'Once Li T'ieh Kuai the immortal was a fair young man, tall as a tree. He came down from heaven and left his body in a field while he danced with the b.u.t.terflies. When the b.u.t.ter-flies flew away, he came back and found that farmers had discovered his body, thought he was dead, and burned it. What was he to do? He had to find another body in order to re-enter heaven. He flew about weeping, but everyone who had a body wanted to keep it. Finally he found a dead beggar in a field, an old man with a crippled leg. He took that body and regained heaven, but forever after he was Li of the Iron Crutch, and he cares for the sick.'

'Nice,' said Phryne.

'It serves. The Gracious Lady Kwan Yin, who is an aspect of the Lord Buddha, is also in those shrines. The Chinese will reject G.o.ds who do not give good service and collect new ones as they require them, and I suppose that they always needed a G.o.ddess of mercy.'

'Trust me, Li Pen, everyone needs a G.o.ddess of mercy. I'd better be going. You will take care of them while I am gone?'

'I will. And you, Silver Lady, you will take care of my master?'

'To the best of my ability.'

They did not shake hands, as monks are not supposed to touch women. Li Pen paused, seeing her hand fall to her side.

'Another, very short story, Silver Lady?'

'Certainly.'

'Two monks at the side of a river see a woman with a child, too frail to brave the water. The first monk says, "We are required to help the poor but we are also not allowed to touch women. What shall we do?" The second monk picks the woman up, carries her and the child across the river and the two monks continue on their way. After a few li the first monk says, "But we are not supposed to touch women!" And the second monk says, "Are you still carrying that woman?" '

'Shake hands,' said Phryne, and took his firm, slim hand in farewell. Li Pen smiled at her, which he did very seldom, and went back to watching bees in the wisteria. Phryne went back to her room.

Her clothes were packed, her car loaded, and she swung away into the street with her household crying farewell and a song on her lips-which at least was not 'The Wild Colonial Boy'. That was something to be thankful for. She was thinking about s.e.x and G.o.ds and she was singing: 'If you don't like my peaches, why do you shake my tree?

'If you don't like my peaches, why do you shake my tree?

'Get out of my orchard and let my peach tree be!'

Phryne, against all appearances, had the St Louis Blues. It was far too long since she had been free to act as she liked, what with daughters and households and sisters. This Castlemaine trip might be just the thing for some of her wilder impulses.

She drove gently out of the city onto the Bendigo road, still singing. The Hispano-Suiza was behaving perfectly, the day was sunny but not blinding, and most of the morning traffic had got where it was going. She might even take the big car up to a very high speed-say, sixty miles an hour-if she found a straight stretch of road without lurking country cops, who always had speeding fines in mind when they saw a big red car.

Lin Chung, reluctantly but accurately attired in his ca.s.sock and collar, entered the Lin family Bentley and tried not to catch anyone's eye. His enthusiastic uncle had gone over the main points of his story-a Canton mission, not too big, driven out by pa.s.sing warlords, come to Australia to minister to the remnant communities in various towns. It made a nice story and provided he was not examined too closely on matters of doctrine, he might pa.s.s. He was not at all sure that this was a good idea, but Uncle would be hurt if he abandoned it too quickly. No one seemed to have noticed and he sat back behind the curtain, watching the city fleet past. He had a load of presents for Uncle Lin Tao of the market garden, and of them he had made several smaller bundles, full of treats for any indigent Chinese person he might meet. Thus he would at least acquire merit, and might even get some answers to his questions.

Lin Chung's recent and dangerous sojourn in China had been educational in many ways. He had heard about the starving children of the past, but never had he seen any until the potbellied infants of Canton came, hands outstretched, to the big car and thence every night in his dreams. He had expended all that he dared in charity but knew that those children had very little chance of surviving. He had heard about famine but the smell and taste of famine was another thing altogether. And during his short captivity by pirates he had learned useful, though painful, lessons about power, about dominance, and about cruelty. He had plans for the Chinese people of Castlemaine, if they were indeed poor and uncared-for. That silk trip had netted the Lin family several fortunes in silk and antiquities. One of the three Shang incense burners which he had bought for ten copper cash, a load of rice and three sheep from some starving farmers had sold in London for three thousand guineas. Though the money did not belong to Lin himself but to his family, he felt that since it was he, Lin Chung, who had risked his life for it, he had a reasonable say in its expenditure. The Lin family would be able to send all of its children to the nth generation to Melbourne Grammar and Presbyterian Ladies College just on the interest.

The thought made him smile. He opened his Book of Common Prayer and began to read.

'When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.'

Phryne was at Diggers Rest before she risked letting the car go. The engine roared. Ma.s.sive pistons slid. The road rolled away, the trees flashed past, and she did not slow down until she was coming into Gisborne, where there was bound to be an inter-ested member of the constabulary with a notebook and a strong sense of his duty to the local shire's revenues. She rolled to a stop next to the Gisborne pub and decided that, since she had travelled so far, so fast, lunch and a gla.s.s of pub squash would hit the spot. After turning down several pressing offers from young men eager to further their acquaintance-with her car- she sat down in the Ladies' Lounge and was served the usual country meal, viz, steak, eggs, and vegetables out of which all nourishment, impudence and even colour had been boiled. The decor was Travelling Salesman, the prevailing colour a nice shade of mud, and the skipping girl was the only person in the pub who seemed at all pleased to see Phryne, and she was a poster advertising vinegar.

A little depressed but adequately nourished, she was soon back on the road to Kyneton, which she hoped (with police presence) to reach in two hours or (without police presence) one hour, when she could have sworn that the black Bentley which followed her at a decorous pace was the Lin family car. But it was carrying a clergyman. As far as she knew, there were no ecclesiastical Lins.

She shook her head, jammed her cloche down firmly over her forehead, and leaned on the accelerator. The great car leapt under her hands. It was almost as good as flying.

Apart from a brief shower of rain while pa.s.sing through the forest, which necessitated stopping and wrestling with the hood, always a task which ruined the fingernails and pinched the knuckles, the journey was uneventful and most of her blues were blown away as she went at a proper twenty miles an hour through the agreeable hamlet of Chewton and into the town of Castlemaine.

'Nice place,' said Phryne to herself. Unlike some of the places she had pa.s.sed through, Castlemaine had an almost c.o.c.ky sense of self a.s.surance. The straight, well-planned streets and the solid stone buildings, town hall, State Bank, market and post office, told the visitor that this hadn't just once been the richest goldfield in Australia but presently had the best beer as well, and did anyone want to make anything of it? This was a well-found, well-served gem of a little place that knew exactly what it was, which was the best place in the world, and have you tried our clotted cream and our superlative jam on our very excellent scones at Penney's tea-rooms?

Phryne liked it immediately. She parked the Hispano-Suiza near the market next to a dilapidated grocer's van and strolled into Mostyn Street. A pa.s.sing gentleman, politely removing his hat, directed her to walk along Hargraves Street to Lyttleton, where she would find the Imperial Hotel opposite the town hall. It was three o'clock in the afternoon on a cloudless day and the air was fresh and scented with baking. Divine. Phryne fell into her Parisian saunter and enjoyed the walk.

This was an old place. Everywhere the buildings were stone, and those which had crumbled over the years had been repaired and prinked-up with kalsomine. She saw several young women wheeling perambulators, which was a good sign. Once a town began to decay, the young people moved out and with them went the future. She pa.s.sed a doctor's surgery, a chemist's shop and the Supreme Court Hotel before she turned the corner into Lyttleton Street and the Imperial Hotel burst upon her in all its slightly off-key glory.

Well, well. Someone had decided that a hotel, to be a hotel within the meaning of the act, had to have dormers and a lot of windows; so far so good. They had then added a French mansard roof, made of tin, and more wrought iron than seemed entirely decent. It was charming, commodious, and unlikely.

Phryne loved it. She hoped she was staying there.

She walked into the pub, was gestured at by a barman, and went in the second door, where a blonde girl was sucking a sweet and reading a film magazine in front of a bank of pigeonholes.

'h.e.l.lo, I'm Phryne Fisher,' she said, and the girl almost choked on her lolly.

'The Hon. Miss Fisher? What your butler rang up yesterday about? Yes, Miss, er, my lady, we have your room, it's a nice one, with a balcony, and you have a private bath, just like he said. Bill! Come and get the lady's things!'

'I parked my car over by the market,' said Phryne. 'I shall go and fetch it later. Where can I park it?'

'In the stables, my lady, Bill Gaskin will show you. Bill!' Her voice rose to a screech.

Someone grumbled in the background, 'All right, hold yer horses,' and Bill Gaskin came into sight. He was a younger man than she had expected from the voice and seemed to have been doing something relating to coal. Or possibly soot. He had barely distinguishable features and those she could see looked sullen.

'I'll just go and get the car,' said Phryne. 'Then shall I come round to the side?'

'Yes, Miss, them big green doors,' he agreed, without enthusiasm.

'Bert and Cec send their fraternal greetings, comrade,' whispered Phryne to Bill as she went out. A gnarled hand detained her.

'How's the dock strike?'

'Worse than ever,' she replied. 'I don't know what Mr Justice Beeby was thinking of, really I don't.'

The hand released her and the blackamoor grinned, showing white teeth. Phryne had found a comrade.

'I'll wait by the gate,' he promised, sounding like something out of Tennyson.

Phryne had parked the Hispano-Suiza in the stable yard of the Imperial Hotel and her bags had been carried up by the inde-fatigable Bill Gaskin. He had stopped for a few moments to gossip about the wharf strike and recommend her to tip his son, the waiter, before a bell had summoned him to the kitchen to clean silver.

Nice place, thought Phryne, sitting down on her bed. She had a chair, a table, a light, a private bathroom with a claw-footed enamel bath in which one could actually sit, an abundant supply of hot water and wardrobe s.p.a.ce, and a good reliable mirror. The decor ran to red plush and heavy carpets and the picture on the wall was the usual hotel moorland with sheep, or possibly buffalo-it was always hard to tell. But someone had filled a little gla.s.s vase with loose, old-fashioned roses, the towels were fluffy and the bed-linen crisp and lavendered.

Phryne bounced a little. Good. The strings were new and did not tw.a.n.g unduly. She found a bedspring symphony musical accompaniment to amorous pursuits distracting. She kicked off her shoes, lay down on her bed, and closed her eyes, making a mental list of Things To Do In Castlemaine.

Find an eccentric doctor or undertaker who decided in the 1850s to make a mummy by the Herodotus method.

Find out who sold the body to the Carter travelling show as the Wild Colonial Boy.

Reason backwards and find out where the doctor or whoever got the body he used as a basis for his experiment.

Find out who, in fact, the mummy was when he had breath. And then

Find out who killed him, and why, and the corollary of that was

Find out who, in the present, was warning Phryne off.

All of which sounded like a lot of bother, she reflected, and fell asleep.

She rose in time for dinner. The dining room at the Imperial was heavy on the red plush, but also heavy on real silver cutlery and white napkins, much washed but originally good. Phryne elected for a summer salad and cold roast beef, a dish of which she was inordinately fond, and ordered a bottle of Tahlbilk red, an original shiraz which had escaped the phyl-loxera epidemic because the vineyard was so isolated that the nasty little creature would have had to plod miles to get there- and never did. Someone found a corkscrew and opened the bottle and rather tentatively offered it to Phryne to taste. The Imperial was not used to ladies who drank red wine, but covered its surprise admirably.

There were several other guests. A plump lady in blue and a plump lady in pink, dining together, nodded politely to Phryne. They resembled each other so closely that they had to be sisters. Only close family bonds would endure matching hats of blue and pink roses. A party of sporting gentlemen, exchanging improbable fishing stories to judge by their wide, expansive gestures, stared at her and looked away again. Two young men in dinner suits had their backs to her; they were laughing and drinking a lot of beer. Well, it was the vin du pays.

Phryne allowed a young waiter who wasn't too sure about the procedure to refill her gla.s.s and began her enquiries by asking him, 'Who would remember the goldfields, do you think, in this fine town of yours?'

'You a journalist, Miss?' asked the waiter. He knew about the New Woman and her Professional Engagements. His aunt had done her best with his cowlick but his straw-coloured hair stood up at the crown like a c.o.c.ky's crest and he radiated, like the Elephant's Child, insatiable curiosity.

'No,' said Phryne. 'I'm thinking of writing a book.'

'Ah,' said the waiter, wisely. 'Then I reckon you ought to go and have a word with Mr Harrison. He'll be along shortly for his tea. Been here ever since the year dot and his dad before him. But he can talk the hind leg off a donkey, Miss, I have to warn you.'

'Then all I shall have to do is listen,' responded Phryne. 'Let me know when he comes in, will you?'

She slipped a shilling into the boy's ready hand and he raced off to stand guard by the door and nab Mr Harrison as soon as he came in. Phryne sipped on, beguiling her dinner with a glance at the guidebook produced by the Castlemaine Chamber of Commerce. Visitors were enjoined to see the market building, which had Ceres on the top, walk in the botanical gardens, which had been designed by Baron Von Mueller, visit the memorial to the South African War, and perhaps even pan for a little gold in the Campbells Creek (gold pan hire from Williams General Merchant, Hargraves Street). The Theatre Royal was offering novelty acts and showed a film every night (sixpence, a bargain if you counted the extra newsreels). Phryne had already seen Garbo and Gilbert in Flesh, and the Devil.

And one could drink in a different hotel every night and it would be weeks before you needed to repeat yourself. By then, Phryne reflected, you wouldn't be able to remember the first one anyway. One coffee palace, the Midland. She would appreciate temperance movements more if they were not so shrill, declamatory and arrogant.

Still, it seemed a nice little town, and just as Phryne's Peach Melba arrived, so did Mr Harrison, and she ordered him a beer.

To the most munificent and much missed elder brother Sung Ma from the unworthy younger sister Sung Mai much love and greetings. Season of Great Snow, 11th day.

It seems so long since you went away, elder brother, and there is so much to tell you. Now that you have been sending gold, Uncle is pleasant to Mother and he has arranged very suitable matches for me and our little sister Sung Lan. I am to marry the son of the magistrate, Li Chu. I am told that he is a very studious young man and he wanted a wife who could read and write and join him in his poetic pursuits. He has pa.s.sed his second literary exam-ination and we are going to the capital Canton to take up his post as a.s.sistant secretary. Little Sister is to marry Butcher Lo's son, who is the one who goes hunting a lot and has a merry laugh. Little Sister is such a good housekeeper that I am sure she will be happy. Uncle says that Mother may stay in his house as long as she lives as there is now enough money to support her. She is pleased. I shall miss Mother when I marry but I miss you even more. Come home, Elder Brother! You have found enough gold. Heaven frowns on excess and you have now been away for a year. We had the New Year celebrations without you and my heart was heavy.

The younger sister sends a handful of withered petals to the elder brother, and also her heart.

CHAPTER TEN.

To search for gold is to look for the moon at the bottom of the sea.