Castlemaine Murders Part 14

'And the name of the show . . .?' insinuated Phryne, a delicate whisper which the addled old person might decide had come from his own mind, if he had one.

'Carter's, they had the bushranger. Said he was Black Douglas but he wasn't. Reason I know was, Black Douglas escaped from jail and started a little sheep farm out Mansfield way. So their Wild Colonial Boy wasn't Douglas. I always thought it was a fake anyway. It was shiny. Corpses ain't shiny as a rule. But we had bushrangers in them days! We had Mad Dog Morgan-he was a brutal sort of bloke. Only time he wasn't thinking of murder was when he was asleep, and then he was dreamin' of it.'

Young Billy Gaskin brought Mr Harrison another beer and Miss Fisher more coffee, another bottle of wine, a sympathetic smile and a selection of grapes, biscuits and several small cheeses, compliments of the kitchen, which was now closing.

'How fascinating,' lied Phryne. 'Doctors...' she allowed the phrase to trail away.

'Doctor Beamish said there'd be h.e.l.l to pay,' blurred Mr Harrison. 'If it got into the general population.'

'What?' asked Phryne, her lips close to his ear.

'Leprosy,' exclaimed Mr Harrison. 'That was it! Beamish said that there was leprosy in those dirty Chinese. He set up a lepers' camp. There weren't many, he said, but it was another reason to get them off the fields. Drive 'em over the Murray! Filthy devils!'

Fairly soon, Phryne knew, the rein on her temper was going to break and she was not sure what she was going to do. It would, she knew, be worth watching.

'Murder...' she insinuated again.

'They was dangerous places, the goldfields. They used to have a cartload of bodies some nights, especially Sat'd'y night. No work on Sunday so every man Jack got stinking drunk. The beer was good here even then, you see! And no one to say what happened or who woodened 'em over the bonce with a shovel. All sorts of fights to watch if you liked fights, the lascars and the Jamaicans, the proddy and the bog Irish, even the c.h.i.n.ks fought each other a couple of times. Don't know what about, some c.h.i.n.k reason. That How Qua Ah Kim, the interpreter, he told my dad that one lot were from the five provinces and the other lot from the four provinces and they hated each other. Laugh? The old man nearly died to watch 'em tearing each other's pigtails off.'

Phryne spared a moment to be exceedingly glad that Old Mr Harrison was no longer with us. She was confident that he was burning in h.e.l.l.

'Then the unclaimed bodies used to go to Prof Beecham to be embalmed, you know, in case someone could come and identify them, but after he died, Doc Mercer sent them into the undertakers in Bendigo. They did a very nice corpse, I have to say. Not dry and shiny like the Professor's.'

'Well, Mister Harrison, it has been very kind of you to talk to me so long,' said Phryne, seeing that the old blighter's gla.s.s was at last empty. He grabbed for her arm, missed, and tried again. Old Bill Gaskin stopped sweeping and undid Mr Harrison's fingers.

'Wait, I haven't told you about the Stockade,' he protested.

'That's enough for tonight,' said Bill. 'You could talk the leg off an iron pot, you could.'

'My dad was there! He saw them build the fence out of logs and hoist the Eureka flag! Every man took an oath of loyalty to the Southern Cross.'

'Yair, and betrayed it. Your dad run like a rabbit as soon as the soldiers came,' observed Bill Gaskin dispa.s.sionately. 'You run your forge as a non union shop and you squeeze your workers till the pips squeak. Eureka, my a.r.s.e,' said Bill. 'Beg pardon, Miss. And as for them poor b.l.o.o.d.y Chinese, Madge's hubby's grandpa said they was nice quiet people and he always camped next to them because they wouldn't cut his throat and pinch his gold while he slept. Unlike your brave Eurekas. Come on, you old pest, give the lady's ears a rest.'

'It was the most glorious moment in Australia's history!'

'Very nice,' said Phryne. 'But that is well known. Good night, Mr Harrison. Billy? Can you and your admirable dad see Mr Harrison home?'

'Sure thing,' said Young Billy, who read a lot of s.e.xton Blake. He helped the old man to his feet and Bill Gaskin led him away, still mumbling about the Eureka Stockade. As he reached the door his voice was raised in song.

'Over the border to rife and to plunder 'Over the border with Morgan the bold!

'Over the border, a terrible blunder 'For over the border poor Morgan lies cold.'

The last line was almost a sob, and was followed by a light curse as Mr Harrison tripped over the step on the way out.

The pathos was undeniable, and hardhearted Phryne laughed into her final gla.s.s of wine for the evening. She was about to rise and put herself to bed when the hair on the back of her neck rose instead. She had the strongest feeling of being watched. She looked around and saw only a couple of young men, one fair and built like a wrestler, and the other smaller and darker. But young men usually looked at Phryne.

She went to bed in the rose-patterned room and slept like a baby with nothing on its conscience.

Random Thoughts of the Vagrant Weed Sung Ma.

Five hates four Four hates five Neither wants the other alive.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

When you see a rich man's wife shaking her head over the thriftlessness of the poor because they do not save, pity the lady's ignorance; but do not irritate the poor by repeating her nonsense to them.

George Bernard Shaw The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism Second Cousin Kong took up the reins. Fuchsia was lifted up beside him. Lin sat on the end of the bench seat and the horse, Little Flower, glanced back and sneered. Lin had only seen an expression like that on a camel. Little Flower presumably lacked the camel's power to spit a half-digested glob of gra.s.s into a human's face, but she looked as if that was her dearest wish. She was a big, raw-boned, wall-eyed, chestnut beast, awkward-ness on hairy hooves.

'Why this horse?' asked Lin as they jogged into the road. 'Because she is strong but no one would ever steal her,' said Fuchsia. 'What do you have in mind for me, Cousin?'

'Nothing which need concern you,' said Lin absently. 'I must examine three blazed trees. I need to find the Imperial Hotel, where we are leaving a message, and then I need to visit the Chinese people who still live in Castlemaine.'

'That means Union Street,' said Second Cousin Kong, rumbling into life. 'There's still a temple there, and a priest, and a few old people.'

'Good. We have the parcels?'

'Yes, Cousin.' Second Cousin Kong was the strongest man on the farm. His mother said that the G.o.ds who had given him all that muscle had economised on brain, but he was the only man who could lift a cast sow back onto her trotters and he usually rode with the market cart, in case of any trouble. With Fuchsia aboard there might well be trouble. The young woman was wearing her best summer dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat, but her charms were not extinguished under it. Fuchsia was loaded with what Phryne would call 'it', and in Castle-maine she was a total exotic. The young woman needed an occupation that would take her off the farm and into a rela-tively lively place, without too much danger into which her inexperience of the Big Bad World would conduct her. Second Cousin Kong would at least see that any errors of judgment didn't turn into disasters.

Lin looked at the landscape as they bounced and tottered into the Moonlight road. Three eucalyptus trees. Standing alone. He got down and ran his fingers over the marks. They certainly were characters in the old script. He was sure about the first, the ideogram for 'pig'. The next tree appeared to be called 'salt', and the third 'black'. Cryptic. He got back into the cart and Second Cousin Kong flicked a rein at Little Flower, who grunted but began to move. This was a beautiful place, thought Lin as they lurched ahead.

Then he decided that the Lin family could do with a new cart, one, perhaps, with four matching and, above all, circular wheels. A rich place, he thought. Lush, deep soil, well watered by the many creeks and springs. Truly an earthly paradise. Where was its snake?

Phryne arose betimes, dressed soberly and went down to breakfast in the Imperial's breakfast room. In an attempt to lighten the mood of the morning-after breakfaster, it had been simply decorated with whitewash above the panelling and there were flowers on each table, a little handful of pansies or grape hyacinths. Nothing strongly scented or too bright. Beautiful.

Phryne collected a large breakfast from the buffet: local bacon, eggs from contented hens scrambled with cream and chives, grilled tomatoes, toast and a pot of tea. She longed for coffee and wondered where she might find some which wasn't out of a bottle with a djinn on the front, and resolved to go for a walk later. Perhaps the coffee palace made good coffee.

To sum up, she thought, forking in sublime scrambled eggs: the body seems to have been one left unclaimed on the goldfields, which produced a reasonable number of unclaimed bodies. The fact that he had been shot indicated a murder, but that did not seem like an uncommon occurrence either, what with bushrangers, quarrels, and what Mr Harrison called 'Sat'd'y night'. The corpse was then mummified by the eccentric Professor Beecham using Egyptian methods and then sold as unclaimed goods along with the stuffed crocodile when the Professor died suddenly; this placed the murder before 1858, when the Professor ceased operations. There was every reason to believe that the mummy was Carter's Travelling Miracles and Marvels Show's Wild Colonial Boy. And he was not, according to Mr Harrison's dad, the bushranger Black Douglas, because he had retired after his escape from prison and devoted his remaining years to good works and the culti-vation of sheep at Mansfield.

So, who had he been?

A good question to which Dot might have some more answers. The body had then been sold to Luna Park after Carter's had gone bust. Then it had hung unnoticed in the Ghost Train until a foolish woman had grabbed its foot. And someone to whom that corpse was important was in Australia, actively trying to discourage Phryne from investigating it. Important enough to send whizbangs by mail and try to run Dot down.

Phryne finished her breakfast and decided to find a telephone. She left a sixpence under her plate, gathered her handbag and light coat, and went toward the desk, where she noticed an elegant figure. A young Chinese man in a ca.s.sock. He was handing over a message and asking the clerk to be sure to give it to the Hon. Miss Fisher as soon as possible.

Phryne leaned against the wall and fanned herself against a wave of heat. That was Lin Chung in that long black gown. Better she should not greet him, since he was clearly in disguise. Every adolescent yearning she had ever had towards curates rushed through her. Lin was leaving, his body willowy and slender under the strict geometry of the robe. What was he doing in disguise?

Phryne fished out a handkerchief and mopped her brow. Tonight, she promised herself, tonight she needed to get her hands on Lin Chung, or she might actually melt like a chocolate bar left in the sun.

She shook herself into order. Stern daughter of the voice of G.o.d, Duty, she reminded herself. First, the telephone, and then the note.

Annie, the desk clerk, pointed out the panelled alcove in which the Imperial hid its public telephone and gave Phryne a folded piece of handmade paper.

'A Chinese Father left this for you, my lady,' she said, so overcome that her film magazine lay unregarded on the desk and her toffee had dislodged from her palate. 'He's from a mission in Canton and he's here to see after the old c.h.i.n.ks in Union Street. He's very dreamy!'

'And a very virtuous person,' said Phryne repressively. The clerk blushed. Phryne walked into the telephone cubicle and prepared for the arduous task of persuading a partially deaf and obtuse operator that she really did mean to stay in this close, airless confinement until she, Phryne, was connected with her, Phryne's, house in St Kilda, even though it would mean that the operator had to bend and even if she had just filed her nails.

The operator in Castlemaine was a brisk young woman with a singsong delivery and commendable efficiency. The Melbourne operator was of the old school and considerable time and pennies were wasted in persuading her to pull out some plugs and stick in some others. All the time Phryne's mind was running on steamily carnal lines and she was rather relieved when Mr Butler's magisterial tones echoed through the apparatus.

'Castlemaine calling,' said the brisk young woman, with a relieved note in her voice. 'Your Melbourne connection, caller!'

Phryne waited until the operator had clicked out of the line. Listening in to phone calls was a recognised perk of the profession.

'Mr Butler, how are you? Any trouble?'

'One suspicious parcel, Miss Fisher, which on Mr Li's advice we put into a bucket of water. When the bubbles subsided we found it contained a couple of fireworks, a trigger made of a fulminate cap and another note requiring us to desist from our investigation.'

'Well done, Mr B.'

'Miss Dot has some news for you, Miss. If you would wait just one moment...?'

'Miss?' Dot distrusted telephones and tended to shout. After all, Miss Phryne was seventy-eight miles away. 'Are you all right?'

'Certainly, though my ears have been grossly abused by a lot of very long stories. Have you got any more news for me?'

'Yes, Miss. That Roderick who's pursuing your sister, he's a blond bloke who looks like a wrestler and he's not a nice person, Miss, but we haven't seen him. And we worked out the tattoo, you know, on the poor fellow's arm? Miss Eliza is real good at heraldry.' Dot was proud of her new word and used it again. 'The heraldic crest says he was a marquess and Miss Eliza says it's the coat of arms of her friend Lady Alice Harborough. They had an ancestor who went to the goldfields and never came back and Miss Eliza thinks it's him. He was the heir.'

'Who succeeded to the t.i.tle?' asked Phryne.

'It fell into...' Dot was consulting a note, Phryne heard the rustle. 'Desuetude. The distant heir who succeeded was Lady Alice's great grandfather.'

'Who went with this poor boy to the goldfields, Dot? Or did he go alone?'

'Don't know. Miss Eliza is trying to find out. She's going to the State Library today to look at Debrett. Or was it Burke? Anyway, if you call back tonight, we might know more.'

'Very good, Dot. Do we know the young man's name?'

'Thomas Beaconsfield,' said Dot.

'Oh,' said Phryne, abruptly enlightened. Mr Harrison's dad's friends. Thomas Beaconsfield and a bloke called Chumley, who had left the field one night without a farewell, leaving Mr Harrison senior and his mate Duncan with a good find in their abandoned claim. Well, well. This was the point in a problem when all the answers started dropping down like manna from heaven.

'That's very interesting, Dot. Tell Eliza to keep digging and I'll call again tonight.'

Phryne hung up. So. The plot, instead of thickening, had thinned. And about time too, she thought ungratefully. The young aristocrat who had vanished one night with his dearest friend Chumley had been murdered, shot between the eyes at close range. Possibly by a stranger, possibly by his best mate, who then presumably went back to England, Home and Beauty with the gold. Because the quarrel would have been over the gold. The two Englishmen dug and dug, said Mr Harrison, but only a bit of colour, and then when they were gone, his dad and Duncan had struck it rich in their abandoned trench.

Of course, perhaps Mr Harrison senior and his fellow miner had done away with both of these young men, and only Thomas Beaconsfield had been found and mummified. It was not as though there weren't a lot of nice pre-dug graves on that goldfield. And after the gold was gone and the landscape had been allowed to return to cultivation, the holes would have been filled in and ploughed over and all trace of them obliterated.

A perfect murder, and then Miss Fisher had to poke her nose into it.

Both Lady Alice, whom Eliza had been sure she had seen at Luna Park, and Roderick the Wrestler were prime candidates for the bomb maker. Phryne had no doubt that a well brought up, literate socialist who worked in the East End would be able to find some freedom-loving anarchist who would teach her how to make a bomb. And Roderick doubtless had friends amongst engineers, and the sort of sense of humour that puts fireworks into the letterboxes of the elderly and timid. But which one? Eliza loathed the brute boy and loved the lady, but Eliza's was not a reliable judgment... time and further research would have to tell.

Phryne unfolded her note. The paper had been hand-pressed and was scented with jasmine.

'Silver Lady, I have yearned to see you. I will call at midnight. At your window.'

That was enterprising of Lin Chung. Phryne would watch his future progress, hopefully to her window, with great interest.

Meanwhile, coffee, and a visit to the newspaper office. The Mount Alexander Mail had been operating at the time when the brave policeman Thomas Cooke had stopped the riot at Golden Point. Presumably, it had archives.

They might even know where they were. Mostyn Street ho, thought Phryne.

Lin Chung alighted outside four tumbledown houses in Union Street and brushed falling peppercorns off his ca.s.sock. Second Cousin Kong knocked at the first door and it sagged open, missing a hinge.

It was dark within. Lin called out 'h.e.l.lo?' in Cantonese and heard something stirring. Second Cousin Kong found a curtain and drew it aside.

The room was bare of any comfort. The house was a badly built bark shack off which most of the bark had peeled. The floor was of beaten earth. The roof had holes in several places and slimy pools showed where the rain had fallen. Lin gestured and Second Cousin Kong reached down and lifted an old, old Chinese lady and hefted her without effort into the light.

His reward was a feeble blow across the nose and a faint scream of outrage.

'Who are you?'

'I am Lin Chung,' said Lin. 'Adoptive Grandmother, I am here to find you a better place to live.'

'Why?' The old eyes were pearled.

'Because it is my wish,' said Lin Chung. This seemed to comfort the old lady and she relaxed in Second Cousin Kong's embrace.

'Try the next house,' ordered Lin, and Fuchsia pushed at the door. This one opened and revealed a bare, swept room where an old man was drinking tea and reading a scroll book. Scriptures of some kind, Lin a.s.sumed. Behind him, against the far wall, was an altar with the usual deities and a meagre single joss stick burning in a bra.s.s bowl. Kwan Yin smiled blandly on this tiny offering. Under the stand for the incense was a large box in which the little scrolls with wishes on them were placed. It was almost full and must have been there for many years. The old man looked up in surprise, allowing his scroll to roll up under his lifted hand.

'Adoptive Grandfather, may I lay this woman in your room while I arrange for her future? I am Lin Chung, and I have funds to disburse for better housing and care.'

'You have managed to get her out of her hovel!' The old man leapt to his feet. 'More than I could do, Adoptive Grandson. Though I never tried using an ox,' he added, sighting up the slopes of Second Cousin Kong.

'Oxen are useful,' rumbled Kong, laying the old woman in her wrappings down on a clean patch of floor.

'Are you the priest?' asked Lin. The old man bowed.

'I am Ching Ta, at your service. A Follower of the Five Forbiddens. With our state of extreme poverty, this has not been too onerous.'

'Are there other Chinese people in this street?'

'The Ah sisters in the next house,' said the old man, eyeing the bundles which Second Cousin Kong was carrying into the temple. 'Old Man Lo and his wife and brother next to them. We are the last. When they are all dead I shall pack up this temple and go to Bendigo, where I have relatives. Do I smell lacquered duck?'

'You do. Come with me to these other people and give me the benefit of your advice. Would it be better to buy a new house and have the people live together, or shall I have these houses repaired? Rebuilt, in the case of the old lady's shack.'

'They would not be happy living together,' opined the old man. 'The old woman on my floor, Old Lady Chang, she was a concubine-well, that's putting it politely. The Ah sisters detest her. She can't stand Old Man Lo, because he was once her . . . well. Better to repair and provide some care for them. The Sam Yup Benevolent Society sends us sacks of rice and we still have some money to buy vegetables and sometimes a little meat.'

'So you are Sam Yup? The Lin family are Sze Yup, the four provinces,' said Lin. 'We are by way of being hereditary enemies, Adoptive Grandfather.'