The Castlemaine Murders (24 page)

The one whose strength is no longer bitter, Sung Ma.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Despite ten years’ exile and isolation
The sight of a dimple caught him unawares
Nothing should be more feared than this
damnation
How many lives are wrecked by women’s snare?

Chu Shi, translated by Lin Yutang

Phryne occupied her morning with a saunter and a cup of coffee at the Midland Hotel. It was reasonable coffee, though not the dangerous inky beverage which her caffeine-addicted body really required. She mused on Thomas Beaconsfield and his strange fate. If Phryne at Luna Park had not grabbed the boot of what she thought was a carnival dummy, a thing she had never done before, the lost heir to the marquisate of Harborough would have remained forever lost.

And that was what someone had in mind. And the question was, why?

What did it matter? Even if one of the great grandparents of one of the noble families had proved to be a murderer, this was not a bar to acceptability in polite society. Phryne recalled several titled people positively revelling in the appalling things their ancestors had done during the Hundred Years’ War or, even more recently, reciting the Dirty Doings at the Crimea starring Sir Francis Bingham, later Lord Lucan, which she had had inflicted on her by one of Cardigan’s relatives, was it? She regretted that she had not paid more attention to ancestral gossip while she had been living in a miasma of it. As far as Phryne could remember, every family had a least one black sheep of whom they were secretly rather proud, whether it was for worshipping Satan in the Hellfire Club, losing all the family property at vingt-et-un, debauching dairymaids or marrying Gaiety girls. She supposed that the General Earl Haig could not be considered a black sheep. He was just an ordinary monster who killed all those young men . . . The aristocracy would forgive each other anything except shooting a fox.

So why bother about dead—very dead—Thomas Beacons-field now? Who cared if someone killed him in 1857?

Where, as Jack Robinson would say, was the money? Cui bono?

Phryne ordered another cup, asking the server to treble the amount of coffee and heat the water until it was really boiling and she would happily pay a sixpence.

There were three possibilities, she decided. An inheritance, an insurance claim or a bet. It should be possible to find out about the will of the late Thomas Beaconsfield, assuming he had made one and assuming that it was on record. St Katherine’s House in London would have it and someone could find it for Phryne for the fee of one shilling. If there had been an insurance policy then Lady Alice Harborough would possibly know. Phryne had a vague feeling that some scandal attached to that name. No, it was the Marchioness, presumably Lady Alice’s mother, who had— done something. Run away with the chauffeur? No, worse. She had sold her jewellery and joined a mission. She had gone to Africa to nurse lepers and her husband, the Marquess of Harborough, had filed for divorce. A passion for good causes clearly ran in the female line of the Harboroughs.

Which was entirely unrelated to what Phryne was supposed to be considering. If the bone of contention or benefit of some sort had been a bet, it would seem to be safely locked in the past except, again, there must be some reason why a living person was trying to block Phryne’s research. Didn’t they put bets on the book at White’s? And how could one gain access to it? No, she struck that idea from her mental notepad. It was too silly. Inheritance or insurance. Both would need research which could not be done in Castlemaine.

And why should she search for old newspapers when that policeman—was his name Laurence?—was supposed to be doing it for her? It was far too nice a day to sit in an archive. Most of which, in Phryne’s experience, were under the ground and had not been dusted since the declaration of the Boer War.

Phryne braved the Imperial’s imprisoned telephone again with a fresh purse of pennies and persisted until she gained not only Russell Street Police Station itself but her old friend Detective Inspector ‘call me Jack’ Robinson.

‘Miss Fisher,’ he said gloomily. Phryne could envisage his unremarkable countenance and smell the dank scent of police station tea, which in other places would have been classified as ‘drain cleaner’ or ‘tar derivative’.

‘Jack dear,’ Phryne began. ‘I’m in Castlemaine. Just wondered if anything had turned up on that bit of newspaper found in the mummy.’

‘Oh, yes, Miss Fisher, it was the
Mount Alexander Mail
all right.’

‘Good. The man’s name is, in all probability, the Lord Thomas Beaconsfield, son of the Marquess of Harborough. He vanished one night in 1857 from the goldfields along with his mate. All I know about the mate is that he was a pink-faced lad called Chumley.’

‘And you found this by . . .?’ he trailed the question. She could hear him making notes. Jack Robinson was always supplied with at least a dozen very sharp pencils.

‘Listening for half the night to an amazing local bore. I have, however, his dad’s reminiscences of the goldfields, which contain, among other things, this information. The dad in question, one Jim Harrison, moved into the abandoned Beaconsfield claim and struck it moderately rich.’

‘How did Beaconsfield end up as an Egyptian mummy?’ asked Jack Robinson, reflecting that it was a question he had never asked before in a lifetime of asking questions.

‘One Professor Beecham, who embalmed unclaimed corpses, seems to have done it, and then the body was sold with his effects to Carter’s Travelling Miracles and Marvels Show. He became the Wild Colonial Boy, to be sold later to Luna Park as a rather unconvincing cowboy. Come to think of it, the original moleskins had TB embroidered inside the waistband. You can check.’

‘Good. Now, why is anyone interested in him in 1928?’

Phryne sighed.

‘A very good question, and one to which I do not have the answer.’

‘Hmm,’ said Robinson.

‘However, it is probable that a relative, Lady Alice Harborough, is in Australia. And also that Roderick Cholmondeley, heir of the Duke of Dunstable, may be the person sending my household surprise packages.’

‘I’ll look into that,’ said Robinson. ‘Already found out a bit about the Roderick boy. He’s been making enquiries up and down about an Amelia Gascoigne, who kept a boarding house in Port. Hired a private detective, who mentioned it to one of our blokes. Been looking up birth certificates, he has. Says it’s a change from lurking outside hotel rooms. Ran advertisements in all the papers. Cholmondeley is staying at Scott’s and we are keeping an eye on him. Luna Park wants to talk to him about sabotaging their mermaid to deliver bad fortunes. Funny sense of humour, the nobility. We found the owner of that motorcycle which nearly ran Miss Dot down. It was a hired bike. The hirer was described as a thin, darkish bloke with no identifying marks who might have been English. He paid a pound for a week’s hire and brought it back after one day. Gave an address in Station Street, Port Melbourne which does not exist. According to the owner of the bike he gave his name as Thomas Atkins.’

‘Oh, very funny,’ said Phryne flatly.

‘Might be a clue. He might have been a soldier. You staying in Castlemaine?’

‘For the present. I’m at the Imperial. You can call me here and leave a message.’

‘Very well, Miss Fisher. Nice little town. You can’t get into too much trouble in Castlemaine.’

‘I devoutly hope not,’ Phryne told him, and hung up. She had just seen Lin Chung walk past and strolled out to fall in behind him.

He walked slowly, enjoying the air, and turned at the corner to go into the art gallery, housed in the post office until the splendid new gallery could be built. Since the arguments about it had gone on since 1913, and would probably continue, the paintings were safe enough where they were, in this staid stone building on the corner of Lyttleton and Barker Streets. There was something satisfying about a building with a bell tower. Especially when it was crammed with paintings.

‘I have always thought Elioth Gruner underappreciated,’ she remarked quietly to the elegant figure in the cassock. ‘Australia is so suited to post impressionism.’

‘The quality of the light,’ agreed Lin, not looking around from his perusal of
In the Orchard
. ‘This McCubbin is particularly fine. You can feel the settling, peaceful chill as the sun goes down and the man returns to family and dinner and firelight.’

‘I always thought of him as a swaggie, hoping for a bed in the cowshed and a handout,’ said Phryne.

Lin smiled and did not reply.

‘How are you getting on with your puzzle?’ asked Phryne.

‘I think I shall have some more pieces of the jigsaw in a few hours,’ he said. ‘I have been playing the bountiful young master and it is surprisingly pleasant. You?’

‘I’ve got the mummy’s name and when he died and who embalmed him and why, and how he got to Luna Park,’ she said. ‘But why someone is pursuing me now—not the faintest. This is a good collection, isn’t it? Someone must have bought up bundles of post impressionists when the place still had some gold left over.’

‘This has always been a prosperous place,’ replied Lin. ‘It has that comfortably wealthy feeling about it, as though it hasn’t starved or been seriously threatened for a long time. Very hard to stay alert. Ah! Here is a map of the diggings.’

‘What a mess,’ said Phryne. ‘Holes everywhere. I see that they closed the camp and made everyone move into their nice, well laid out town. A good idea. Did you find your Chinese people?’

‘Yes, in Union Street. They are terribly poor. I have just bought a lot of furniture and goods and talked to Tonks about sending a builder to repair three of the cottages and build another one, demolishing a bark shack in which a very old prostitute was lying on the floor . . . but I have done better than just buying them presents. I have brought them Miss Fuchsia.’

He explained about Fuchsia. Phryne was impressed.

‘I suppose she was restless and discontented because she had no scope to show what she could do,’ she remarked, moving to look at a fine Rupert Bunny painting of a woman and child at the beach. ‘She’s probably another Grandmother Lin in training.’

‘That is a frightening thought,’ said Lin gravely. ‘And you are probably right.’

‘Do you think,’ said Phryne, ‘that someone would go to all this trouble, bombs and assaults and so on, just for the honour of their family?’

‘It is possible,’ Lin replied. ‘We would be looking for a very young, idealistic person to whom their family was very important, though. I don’t know how many of them there are in this modern world.’

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I believe that there may be one. But better I should look for a baser motive, I think.’

‘Always wise,’ agreed Lin. ‘One can always rely on base motives.’

‘Have a cup of coffee with me?’

‘I had better get back to Union Street. But I will see you tonight,’ said Lin. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, considering the Rupert Bunny, and Lin’s hand moved very gently to touch the back of Phryne’s hand. A thrill ran right through her, grounding in the base of her spine.

‘Tonight,’ she said.

In a nearby mirror she watched his slim back as he walked out of the post office. She sighed and continued her perusal of the gallery’s collection.

When Lin returned to Union Street it had been transformed. The bark hut had been felled—one touch would have done it, Lin decided—and the remains removed, and a taciturn man and a boy in a straw hat were measuring for foundations. The space under the pepper trees had been swept and sprinkled with water to lay the dust, and the trestle table had been erected. On it was a red tablecloth, for celebration, and all of the food which he had brought from Melbourne, with the addition of mounds of rice. He saw new dishes, chopsticks, plates, cups, and each setting had its own teapot. These were not new. They were clearly old and valued companions. A Chinese household may be bare of every comfort and down to its last brush and sewing needle, but it always has a teapot.

The residents, too, had been transformed. At one end of the table sat the priest, Ching Ta, his beard freshly combed, wearing a new shirt. Next to him were two very old ladies wearing art silk dresses patterned with hibiscus flowers; one blue, one yellow. Two old men, which must have been Mr Lo and his brother, were wearing their own clothes, and the third lady, Mrs Lo, had the red version of the hibiscus dress.

The greatest transformation of all was to be found in an old woman who had clearly once been very beautiful. Her abundant white hair had been washed and dressed in a chignon with a high comb. Old Lady Chang was dressed in an elaborate embroidered gown. She had been propped up with several pillows and while she might not have been able to endure sitting up for long, she was magnificent for the moment. Lin bowed to the table in general.

‘Adoptive relatives,’ he said, deciding that extreme formality would please them, ‘I have provided a small and unpalatable dinner for you. Will it please you to taste it?’

‘It pleases, Adoptive Grandson,’ said Ching Ta, reaching for the lacquered duck. Ching Ta’s view was that if you are going to break vows, you should break them hard and repent afterwards. ‘And while we are eating, perhaps you will tell us what brings such a munificent benefactor to our unimportant hovels?’

Fuchsia served tea, rice and then holiday treats to the old people. She was neat, unobtrusive and properly deferential; she behaved not as though she was a servant, but as though she was a favoured daughter of the household demonstrating her respect.

‘I am trying to find out what happened to the couriers of a certain amount of gold,’ said Lin. ‘This goes to the honour of my family. I need to know where they went on the twenty-first of July 1857, when they fell out of history. Their leader was a scholar called Sung Ma.’

‘So long ago,’ sighed a Miss Ah. ‘We will have to think about this, Adoptive Grandson.’

‘No need to think,’ cackled Old Lady Chang. ‘I was eighteen that year. You were sixteen, Annie. Sung Ma saw me once, just once, and fell in love with me.’

‘A carnal love,’ scoffed Miss Ah.