The Castlemaine Murders (18 page)

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 space, 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 glass 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 twang 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.

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

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

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

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

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

6. 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 glass 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 cocky’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 passed his second literary examination
and we are going to the capital Canton to take up his
post as assistant 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.

Taam Sze Pui (Tom See Poy),
Palmer River, 1877–82

Mr Harrison was an old man and once he had been a giant. Shoulders fully two axe-handles across still strained his good shirt. Phryne knew it was his good shirt because someone, probably a sister, had darned it so meticulously. His corporation was beautifully solid, a good belly which he had obviously been cultivating for many years. His hair had lost the battle to stay on his head and had slipped to the back. His eyes were a muddy blue and his complexion that of a ruined redhead. His gleaming teeth were masterpieces of the dentist’s art. In his youth, Phryne suspected, Mr Harrison might have been a bit of a knut—possibly, even, a masher. He sat down at her table and engulfed her hand in a large, gnarled paw.

‘Young Billy Gaskin said you wanted to talk to me,’ he said in an unexpectedly low voice.

‘I do indeed,’ Phryne replied. ‘I am interested in the history of this charming little town. Young Billy thought that you might be so kind as to share your memories with me.’

‘Delighted,’ said Mr Harrison. ‘You might like to look at this while they bring me my tea. I never talk while I’m eating. My old mum taught me that.’

Phryne accepted a slim volume bound in blue cardboard. She averted her eyes from Mr Harrison getting bodily into his steak—his teeth were justifying their maker—and read
Reminiscences
of the Gold Fields
by his father Jim ‘the Blacksmith’ Harrison.

The volume was locally printed and bound and because this was, after all, Castlemaine, someone had made a good workmanlike job of it. It had been proofread by, Phryne guessed, an elderly schoolteacher and thus contained no mistakes. And Jim had an interesting story to tell, though his prose style was overelaborate and in need of a nice cup of senna tea and a good lie-down.

‘You can’t imagine what those times were like,’ the text began. Phryne read on as Mr Harrison demolished his tea. He had sent back his plate for another steak and more vegetables as the first one had barely touched the sides.

They were the roaring days. They were the days when men were men. My dad walked off his job in a wholesale hay and feed store in Port Melbourne with his pick and shovel on his shoulder and took only two days to get to Castlemaine in 1851, when the field was fresh and there was still an abundance of ‘the riches of the earth’. The government was down on miners and made every man pay thirty shillings for a miner’s licence, whether he was going to dig or not. This made the shopkeepers and grog sellers wild.

It also meant that women could dig with impunity and some of the more abandoned and degraded females did, like the celebrated Five Women claim which some miners decided to knock over one night. Two men were shot but the constable did nothing about it and the Five Women left the field with their ill-gotten gains, never a licence between them and they were so proud of themselves. Black Douglas the Bushranger swore to teach them their place but never a sight did he get of them once they left the field, heading for Ballarat one morning in May 1855. My dad said three were young, good-looking women too, the others being half-castes, and there were plenty of miners who would have taken the white women to wife and provided a respectable state for them but these independent Misses did not care for the holy state of matrimony. Dad said they were Irish. He told me never to cross an Irish woman and he never did himself, Mum being from County Tipperary and she had a terrible temper when roused, God rest her soul.

There were remarkable finds in those days. Everyone in the world was going to the diggings to try their luck. Ships were becalmed because their crews had all jumped ashore at Melbourne. One Captain Aubrey decided to do something about this. He left four men on board his ship, the
Golden Fleece
, and took seventeen crew to Castlemaine, agreed to share and share alike. They marched here and began to dig and struck it rich in a week. Then they marched back to sell their gold in Melbourne, where they got three pounds seven shillings an ounce, then they marched onto the ship and away. They didn’t even stop for a celebration until Hong Kong. They say that there are inns called The Golden Fleece up and down the North Road in England, all financed by that one captain’s discipline and ingenuity. He also got top rates for his cargo because everyone else had lost their crews.

My dad and his mate made friends with some of the miners. They came from all over the British Empire and some from outside. There were Californians who were very dirty on the Chinese and some lascars as black as your hat and of course the Celestials, the Chinese, who used up too much water, hogged the best sites and made Sundays hideous with their caterwauling music and opium smoking. There were various attempts to rid the goldfields of this plague and curse but none succeeded because the government was protecting them, and all we could do was drive them to the fringes, where they lived on the tailings, grew vegetables, and stayed out of a decent man’s sight.

Dad’s best mate was George Duncan, and next to George was an English new chum called Thomas—always Thomas, not Tommy—Beaconsfield, who was the son of a Marquis, or so he said. His mate was a pink-faced bloke called Chumley. Together they worked hard but never made a big strike, only enough ‘colour’ to act as encouragement to keep trying. But you can’t keep the British lad down. Thomas and Chumley left one night without a farewell, leaving their claim to Dad and George and then they did strike it pretty good, cleaned up and left the field. George went home to Hobart but Dad stayed here and established a blacksmith’s. Dad told me lots of stories about the goldfields . . .

Phryne lifted her head and examined this rankly prejudiced old hound more carefully as he patted his lips daintily and picked up a spoon to engulf the Imperial’s very good apple pie and cream. He looked back. Phryne simpered. Old mashers were susceptible to simpering and she wanted to test her theory. She had perfected the simper in front of a mirror. It had taken weeks.

‘Just let me get this pie inside me and I’m all yours,’ gasped the old masher, confirming her hypothesis. Phryne thought about applying the simper again, but decided that Mr Harrison might self-combust if overheated, and rewarded him with a slight smile.

Phryne sipped at her glass of wine, Mr Harrison gulped down his first pot of beer, and the Imperial dining room began to empty. One of the two sisters gave Phryne a sympathetic smile as she gathered coat and handbag and left a tip for Young Billy. The sporting gentlemen went out, still shouting boasts about the croc they shot in the Palmer River—a likely story, thirty feet long, indeed, thought Phryne. They had probably shot a boat. The beer-drinking young men called for another round. An old waiter went across, presumably to suggest to them that they might remove into the bar, where the beer was fresher, being closer to the source.