Castlemaine Murders Part 20

'Or perhaps we could try this way,' she suggested, laying one thigh over his hip, and drawing him gently back into conjunction with her again. Slowly, slowly; the sensation was so exquisite that she bit her lip, trying not to grab. They began to move, very quietly and circ.u.mspectly, then faster and faster.

The day wore on. Phryne woke from a light sleep to see that the square of sunlight from the window had moved from one side of the room to the other and was now shining directly into her eyes. It must be late afternoon.

Lin was asleep. Of course, he had had an interrupted night. Phryne rose and went to the bathroom. Returning, she sat down on the side of the bed and looked at her lover. Golden skin, c.o.c.k's feather hair with a blue sheen, the black line of his eyelashes absurdly thick. He was utterly beautiful and very dear.

She became aware that he had opened his eyes and was looking at her with a similar expression to her own.

'I thought I'd lost you,' he said, cupping her cheek in his hand. Her freshly washed hair swung over his hand.

'And I thought I'd lost me,' she replied. 'It's getting late. Look, the sun has almost gone. Shall we bathe and dress and go down to dinner?'

'If we must,' he said. 'Oh, lord,' he said, raising himself on one elbow and looking at the ma.s.s of garments on the floor.

'What?' asked Phryne from the bathroom, over the roar of water.

'There are no b.u.t.tons left on my ca.s.sock!' he said.

'There goes your reputation,' said Phryne.

As it happened, the party from Melbourne had just arrived, and Lin's ca.s.sock was reb.u.t.toned by Dot, who had been sewing on b.u.t.tons for little brothers since she could first hold a needle. She also repaired his shirt with fast, even st.i.tches. Li Pen stood by the window as his master was rearrayed in his priestly disguise, which concealed the bite on his throat, and escorted him downstairs to reserve a table.

Everyone was coming to dinner.

Phryne was dressed in a new outfit which Dot had brought from St Kilda: a bright red crepe de Chine c.o.c.ktail dress with red shoes to match and a trailing, slightly outrageous red ostrich feather panache for her hair. Dot herself, slightly weak with relief, wore her favourite terracotta and ochre evening dress and a rather nice bandeau with an orange geranium in it. Lady Alice and Eliza were in their own room and emerged as Phryne and Dot reached the stairs.

'So it's all over, Miss?' demanded Dot. She liked to be rea.s.sured.

'Absolutely all over. The bad man is in jail and I would say that he has gone over the edge. He is probably completely and incurably insane, and he is guilty of attempted murder. Twice. Of you and me. Therefore he will be held at His Majesty's Pleasure, and that will probably be for his whole life.'

'Good,' observed Lady Alice. She wore a faded but good dark blue silk dress which had been let out, inexpertly, at least twice as Lady Alice's corpulence increased. But around her neck was a chain of star sapphires and there were sapphires in her dark hair. Eliza wore a dusty rose damask dress with a small hat with more roses on it and the pearls her mother had given her before she fled to the lepers. Both women glowed with joy: they were pleasant to be near, like a wood fire.

'I've asked the Beaconsfield heir to dinner,' said Phryne. 'You'll like him. A good honest man.'

'Then I hope he just demands the money and doesn't go anywhere near Father,' said Lady Alice. 'That man could corrupt a monk.'

Dinner was laid out on several small tables pushed together. Soup was already on the table as the ladies came down and bottles of champagne popped. Old Bill Gaskin, in a new shirt which Annie had bought for him, looked uncomfortably at Lady Alice over the rim of his beer gla.s.s. Madge Johnson, his sister, escorting Young BiIly, prepared to sniff and didn't. This looked like an ordinary woman, getting on for middle age, a bit plump, not some lady come to put on side. Lady Alice improved her opportunity by sitting down with the Gaskins and enquiring gently after Young Billy's poor head and telling them that she wasn't Lady Alice, just Alice Beaconsfield, and she was pleased to meet them and had to apologise for the appalling heir of Dunstable.

Madge Johnson let out her breath. 'He wasn't your fault, my lady...Miss,' she said. 'Neither was your ancestor. Nor the attack on Young Billy. He'll be all right.'

'He will,' said Bill Gaskin. 'Boy's head's as hard as teak, fortunately. Nice to meet you, Miss.'

At the other end of the table Sergeant Hammond was greeting Detective Inspector Robinson, who had come to relieve him of his prisoner and had decided to stay for dinner.

'He might have been sane before he came here,' Hammond said in answer to a question, 'but he's a fruitcake now. We've had to put him in a straitjacket and that wasn't an easy job, he's as strong as a bull. Nasty b.u.mp on the head might have slowed him down a bit.'

'Governor's Pleasure job, then, you reckon?' said Robinson, taking another spoonful of the soup, which was spring chicken and very good.

'You'll never get him to trial,' said Hammond. 'Keeps saying he's the king and we're all his subjects.'

'What about the other bloke, this Wallace?'

'Got away, Miss Fisher says. I don't know how she did that. She seems to have talked this Wallace into felling the prisoner.'

'She's a woman of uncanny powers,' said Robinson, slurping more soup. 'And fortunately, unique. See the grey hair at the side of my head? I call these my Miss Fisher hairs. But she got him,' he said. 'She uses methods which no Commis-sioner would ever countenance, but she always gets her man.'

'Too right,' said Sergeant Hammond.

'More bread? Certainly,' said Miss Eliza to Dot. 'I have to apologise for my previous behaviour at your house, Dorothy. I was unbearable. I was so unhappy and so angry and there didn't seem to be a chance that I'd extricate myself from the situation, or ever see my dear Alice again. But I shouldn't have been so odious. I'll be leaving soon, as soon as Alice and I can find a small house. We've got quite enough between us if I sell my pearls and she sells her sapphires. Where do you think we should live, to do the most good?'

'Well,' said Dot, 'there's the city itself, that's a sink of wickedness. St Kilda could do you some pretty good wicked-ness as well. Why not let me walk you around some of the likely places? The girls can come too,' she added.

Ruth and Jane, clad in their proper but just a bit spangly evening dresses, were being good, which was always a charming sight for as long as it lasted, Dot thought. They were drinking soup by the respectable but remarkably inefficient 'tilt the bowl away from you and scoop' method which they had been taught, which was nice of them, and they were doing it well. Jane was sitting next to Professor Ayers, quivering with questions. He took pity on her and began to talk. Jane, he had decided, was a scientific lusus naturae and therefore to be encouraged.

Dr Treasure had pleaded family commitments and had not come, but Mr Josiah Burton was there, enthroned in a hastily adapted chair and talking affably to Young Billy, who was wondering if he was actually talking to a dwarf or perhaps was not fully recovered from his concussion. Mr Harrison, who was not going to be excluded, sat beside him and sucked soup like a vacuum cleaner.

'We've got something to ask you, Miss Alice,' said Old Bill. 'I don't want this t.i.tle, but I don't think a man ought to give way to tyranny, so I told that Roddy that I wouldn't sign. However, I'd like your advice. What do you think I should do?'

'You're asking the wrong person,' said Lady Alice. 'I'm not going back to England and I don't think you'd be comfortable there either. But there's no reason to allow Father to get away with this-outrageous, utterly outrageous scheme. I say, sting the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d for a small fortune in exchange for signing the repudiation. You should be compensated for your ordeal, for Billy's head, and for all that insult and inconvenience. Get the Melbourne lawyer to tell him so. Then you can use the money for good works, buy your own business or take a trip around the world...'

'Always wanted to do that,' said Bill Gaskin. 'On one of them cruise ships. Egypt. Ceylon. India. All the islands.' He made up his mind. 'Yair. I reckon that's a good idea, Lady Alice. I wouldn't be comfortable, taking anything away from a nice lady like you. And Madge works hard, she could do with some help in the house, eh, Madge? Send the laundry out? Girl to do the scrubbing? Bit of money'd be nice.'

Madge nodded. A devout reader of romances, she could not see Bill Gaskin as the newly discovered marquess of anywhere, not even Castlemaine. But help in the house would be lovely and would give her more time for her reading.

'Still,' said Bill Gaskin comfortably, aware of the joint of beef which had just been wheeled in and a prosperous future which certainly contained more beer, 'all's well that ends well, eh?'

'Is all ending well?' asked Phryne of Lin Chung. His hand found her knee under the table.

'We are not going to Melbourne with the others,' he whispered.

'No?' She raised an eyebrow.

'If you please, we are going to a Chinese farm, where there is a guesthouse of palatial magnificence, and no one will bother us for at least a week. I asked Dot to bring you enough clothes and things,' he said.

'Wonderful,' said Phryne.

She looked around the room. Everyone was present, happy, well fed and contented. Lady Alice and Eliza were holding hands under the table. Both Gaskins looked pleased. Mr Burton was delivering a blistering snub to Mr Harrison, who had not noticed. The policemen were deep in police shop. Dot was discussing a new house with Eliza, so she would be moving out. And Phryne was about to have free range over Lin Chung's admirable person for a week, without anyone trying to kill her, telephoning her or demanding that she solve some puzzle. She rose to her feet and proposed a toast. More champagne corks popped, one of the most festive sounds in the world.

'To happy endings!' she cried.

Everyone drank.

Castlemaine Post, Express edition, 12 January 1998.

Heritage workers who were cutting the gra.s.s at the Old Bark Hut heritage site were alarmed when one of their mowers fell into an unmarked mine shaft on Sat.u.r.day. They called in the local emergency services to retrieve the mower. At the bottom of the shaft, which was more than ten metres deep, shocked workers found the body of a man. Sergeant Hutton called in the local historical society when it became clear that the body had been there for at least fifty years. The man had been saponified, a condition which occurs when the stearates in body fat turn to a soapy substance called adipocere. This usually happens in cold water. He was very well preserved. From the papers in his pocket, the man seems to have been called Joseph Smith. (Continued on page 5...)

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

This is a work of fiction. I have used Castlemaine as a base for it but it is not, and cannot be, accurate to a centimetre. I have taken liberties with names and places. This is what a novel does. I have tried to be as accurate as I possibly could with the a.s.sistance of some very knowledgeable people. But if you find some small error and feel the need to tell me that I have got it wrong, please think again. Anyone else is welcome to email me on and if you would like to duplicate my research, here are my sources.

Bibliography.

Adc.o.c.k, WE, Gold Rushes of the Fifties Poppet Head Press, Glen Waverley, 1982 Bradfield, Raymond, Castlemaine: A Golden Harvest Lowden Printing Castlemaine Mail, Kilmore, 1972 --, Campbells Creek Castlemaine Mail, Castlemaine, not dated (privately published) --, Unpublished Notes on the Chinese in Castlemaine, Castlemaine Historical Society archives Cannon, Michael, Who's Master? Who's Man? Australia in the Victorian Age: 1 Thomas Nelson Australia, Melbourne, 1971.

Chang, Julie (ed.), Chinese Cultures in the Diaspora National Endowment for Culture and Arts, Taiwan, 1997 Disher, Garry, Australia Then and Now Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1987 Evans, William (ed.), Diary of a Welsh Swagman, 18691894 Sun Books, Melbourne, 1977.

Fauchery, Antoine, Letters from a Miner in Australia, trans. AR Chisholm, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1965 Fawcett, Raymond, How Did They Live? Gawthorn Ltd, London, circa 1950 Filer, Joyce, Disease British Museum, London, 1995.

Gerritsen, Rupert, And Their Ghosts May Be Heard Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Perth, 1994 Gittins, Jean, The Diggers from China Quartet Books, Melbourne, 1981.

Goodman, David, Gold Seeking Victoria and California in the 1850s Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994 Hocking, Geoff, Castlemaine from Camp to City, 18351900 Five Mile Press, Melbourne, 1994 Howitt, William, Land, Labour and Gold facsimile edition, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1972.

Joyce, Christopher and Stover, Eric, Witnesses from the Grave Grafton Press, London, 1993 Keesing, Nancy, The Golden Dream William Collins Australia, Sydney, 1974.

-- (ed.), Gold Fever Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1967 Kwan, Choi Wah, The Right Word in Cantonese The Commer-cial Press, Hong Kong, 1989.

McMillan, AR, The Pennyweight Kids Castlemaine Mail, Castlemaine, 1988 Morris, Wendy, A Guide to Maldon Currency Productions, Melbourne, 1984 Ni, Maoshing, PhD translator of Suwen, Neijing, The Yellow Emperor's Cla.s.sic of Medicine Shambala, Boston, 1995 O'Brien, Joanne and Kwok, Man Ho, Chinese Myths and Legends Arrow Books, London, 1990.

Pearl, Cyril, Wild Men of Sydney WH Allen and Co, London, 1958 Roberts, Charlotte and Manchester, Keith, The Archaeology of Disease Cornell University Press, New York, 1983.

Rolls, Eric, Sojourners University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1992 Sagazio, Celestina, Tour of the Pennyweight Flat Cemetery and the Maldon Cemetery National Trust, Melbourne, 1992 -- (ed.), Cemeteries: Our Heritage National Trust, Melbourne, 1992.

Shaw, George Bernard, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism Constable and Co, London, 1928 Sherer, John, The Gold-Finder of Australia Colonial Facsimiles, Penguin, Melbourne, 1973 Siug, Jong Ah, A Difficult Case, trans. Ruth Moore and John Tully, Jim Crow Press, Daylesford, 2000 Tun, Li-Ch'en, Annual Customs and Festivities in Peking, trans. Derk Bodde, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 1965.

Waley, Arthur, Dear Monkey Bobbs-Merril Co, New York, 1973.

Wannan, Bill, Tell 'Em I Died Game Rigby Ltd, Sydney, 1963 Weir, David, The Water Margin WH Allen and Co, London, 1979.

Yutang, Lin, The Gay Genius William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1948 --, My Country and My People William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1936.

Maps and diagrams of Castlemaine and Melbourne.

National Trust Guide to Castlemaine Market Discovering the Mount Alexander Diggings, A Guidebook Mount Alexander Diggings Committee, 1999 Information for People Leaving Great Britain 1854 facsimile edition of the Colonization Circular issued by Her Majesty's Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners in May 1854, Macbeth Genealogical Books, Sydney, 1990

Mr Butler's Considering c.o.c.ktail.

1 part sweet vermouth 4 parts chilled orange juice dash of angostura bitters dash of lemon juice Combine and shake with crushed ice. Decorate with a twist of lemon peel.

Murder in Montparna.s.se.

Kerry Greenwood.

The divine Phryne Fisher returns to lead another dance of intrigue.

Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknow-ingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead . . . under very suspicious circ.u.mstances.

Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal to her for help. They were part of this group of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives and for those of the other three men. It's only as Phryne delves into the investigation that she, too, remembers being in Montparna.s.se on that very same day.

While Phryne is occupied with memories of Montparna.s.se past and the race to outpace the murderer, she finds troubles of a different kind at home. Her lover, Lin Chung, is about to be married. And the effect this is having on her own usually peaceful household is disastrous.

'Phryne Fisher is young, wealthy, beautiful, smart, confident and independently minded . . . and she has a knack for solving murders when she is not sipping a strengthening c.o.c.ktail or planning another seduction.' -Australian's Review of Books ISBN 1 86508 806 4.

Away with the Fairies.

Kerry Greenwood.

Phryne Fisher - dangerous, pa.s.sionate, kind, clever and seductive. She drinks c.o.c.ktails, dances the tango, is the companion of wharfies, and is expert at conducting an elegant dalliance.

It's the 1920s in Melbourne and Phryne is asked to investigate the puzzling death of a famous author and ill.u.s.trator of fairy stories. To do so, Phryne takes a job within the women's magazine that employed the victim and finds herself enmeshed in her colleagues' deceptions.

But while Phryne is learning the ins and outs of magazine publishing first hand, her personal life is thrown into chaos. Impatient for her lover Lin Chung's imminent return from a silk-buying expedition to China, she instead receives an unusual summons from Lin Chung's family followed by a series of mysterious a.s.saults and warnings.

'Snappy one-liners and the ability to fight like a wildcat are appealing in a central character.' -City Weekly ISBN 1 86508 489 1.

Death Before Wicket.

Kerry Greenwood.

The sa.s.sy Phryne Fisher sets the seamy side of Sydney alight in her tenth adventure.

Phryne Fisher has plans for her Sydney sojourn - a few days at the Test cricket, a little sightseeing and the Artist's Ball with an up-and-coming young modernist. But these plans begin to go awry when Phryne's maid discovers her thoroughly respectable sister has left her family for the murky nightlife of the Cross. And Phryne is definitely not the woman to say 'no' when two delightful young men come to her on bended knees, begging for her help in finding their friend innocent of theft. Phryne's plans for a simple day or two of pleasure are postponed for good.

It all sounds simple enough as Phryne sets investigations into motion, but when greed and fear are the motivating factors, people become ruthless and Phryne finds herself enmeshed in blackmail, secrets, lies and the dangerous influences of deep magic.

'Pure indulgence . . . a 1920s heroine for the 90s . . . a fast and elegant read.' -Who Weekly ISBN 1 74114 095 1.

Raisins and Almonds.