Urn Burial (22 page)

‘No!’ He clawed at her ankles, and her fingers lost their grip. Phryne slid down the rock face swearing, as Li Pen came quietly up to the Major and applied a lock which pinned his arms to his sides. Mr Luttrell struggled, but did not seem able to move.

Dot stared at Lin Chung’s man admiringly. No noise, no challenges, no man-to-man nose-to-nose confrontation or fuss. He just walked up to the recalcitrant Major and they were denatured before they knew what had happened. Li Pen, for his part, was disappointed that so far in his sojourn in Australia, he had never met anyone who knew anything about real fighting. His master had told him that a warrior needs challenges or he grows complacent.

The rest of the party had come back into The Crypt, attracted by the noise. They crowded through the doorway and stopped as they saw Phryne ascending The Urn and Li Pen holding the fuming soldier with negligent ease.

‘What on earth . . .’ began Mrs Reynolds, and the poet swore in some obscure tongue. Li Pen brought his prisoner forward.

‘Not there!’ yelled the Major. ‘Don’t let her go up there!’

The smooth stone was very hard to climb.

Phryne could get to the bulge which marked the middle of formation but no further. Her fingers slipped on the smooth sides and she could not find 220

a foothold. She was, however, sure of what she would find; the charnel-house smell was stronger the higher she climbed. Meat of some sort was spoiling in The Urn.

As she clung to the protrusions in the stone, considering which might bear her weight for a short time, she was almost shaken down by a dreadful noise; a crack, whine and boom. The company were driven together like sheep threatened by a dingo.

Someone had fired a gun. A large-bore hand gun, probably a .45, reflected Phryne, edging around out of the immediate line of fire. A figure carrying a torch in one hand and a gun in the other came into sight behind The Altar. A breeze blew in and gusted the flame. Phryne realised that there must be another tunnel.

It was Paul Black, all grease and smile, and he stood for a moment surveying the house party with arrogant ease.

‘Stand still,’ he said.

The appearance of the gunman had started movement in the crowd. Lin Chung had taken one quiet pace into deep shadow. Miss Mead had seen him go and immediately turned her back, taking Miss Medenham’s arm and compelling her to move with her. Phryne clung to the obverse of The Urn, out of sight. Mrs Fletcher began to scream, a high, thin wail, until she was shocked into silence by Miss Fletcher striking her across the face. She subsided into frightened sobbing. Tom Reynolds shoved to the front with Evelyn at his shoulder, 221

presenting, Phryne thought, a magnificent target.

Dingo Harry stood beside him, beard bristling with fury. Mrs Luttrell had not rushed to her husband, who had been silently released by Li Pen, but sidled close to Miss Medenham. Gerald and Jack Lucas edged together and Phryne saw their shoulders touch, though they did not look at each other. Li Pen had, like his master, faded as far as possible into the dark at the edge of the gathering.

Doctor Franklin gaped, wiping a hand over his forehead as though he was running a fever, while the poet, who had presumably seen both guns and revolutionary outrages before, held both hands away from his body and tried not to catch the mechanic’s eye. Dot stiffened with offence and stared at Paul Black, elaborately not glancing in Phryne’s direction.

‘You’re all my prisoners,’ gloated Mr Black.

‘What’s the meaning of this? How dare you?’

yelled Tom Reynolds. ‘Put that gun down!’

He dived forward and Paul Black lowered the sights and fired.

There was the dreadful noise again, a stench of cordite, and Tom Reynolds fell, shoved backward by the force of the bullet. His wife leapt to his side, cradling him in her arms. The Doctor immediately dropped to his knees to examine the injury. He pulled away the shirt and revealed a bloody wound in the upper-chest and shoulder. Tom groaned.

‘That will happen again if anyone tries to attack me,’ announced Mr Black.

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‘Is he dead?’ whispered Miss Medenham.

‘No, but it’s a nasty wound. One of you ladies, give me your petticoat,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Mrs Reynolds, hold him up a bit so that he doesn’t choke. Someone give me a knife. We need to get that coat off him.’

‘You pay attention to me!’ yelled the gunman, brandishing the weapon.

‘You’ve got us,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘But unless you mean to shoot us all, I will tend to my patient.’

Phryne cheered silently behind her rock. Miss Fletcher said, ‘Bounder!’ and Jack Lucas said,

‘Good show, Doctor.’

‘You, Lucas, come here,’ sneered Black, and Lucas gave Gerald a long glance. Their hands met, unseen by the house party. Jack straightened, walked to the foot of The Altar and said, ‘Yes?

What do you want, my man?’ in his best born-to-rule drawl, obviously calculated to provoke working-class fury. Phryne held her breath, but Paul Black did not react except to laugh.

‘I want this party secured. There are ropes in Dingo Harry’s kit – he always has ropes. You and Gerald can begin tying everyone up. Hands behind the back and ankles together. I’ll kill anyone who struggles.’

‘No,’ said Jack Lucas, after deep thought. He looked into the pistol barrel as it came up, aimed at his head. ‘You want to use me as your instrument to control us all,’ he said calmly. ‘I can’t see that doing your bidding would keep me alive, much less the people I love. If you’re going 223

to shoot me, you can shoot me now. I can’t stop you.’

Paul Black raised the gun and Phryne saw his finger tighten on the trigger.

‘Jack, no!’ wailed Gerald, running to his side.

‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ he gabbled, dragging a coil of thin rope out of Dingo Harry’s bag. ‘Just don’t hurt us.’

‘Oh, Gerry,’ mourned Jack.

‘You’ve got to live,’ said Gerald, looping a line around his friend’s wrists and tying it tight. ‘We’ve got to live.’

‘This isn’t the way,’ said Jack. Paul Black leaned down and struck him across the face with the gun.

Jack staggered and fell to his knees. Gerald whimpered over him, smearing blood over the injured cheek and his own.

‘You, get up,’ ordered Mr Black. ‘Tie up the others or watch your friend die.’

Gerald took up the line and began to truss the rest of the company into bundles. When he came to Miss Mead, he whispered, ‘Don’t look at me like that, I can’t bear it.’

‘How was I looking at you?’ she asked.

‘Like I’d let you down. Don’t, please. I want us to live.’

‘So do I, young man,’ said Miss Mead, allowing him to secure her hands and feet. ‘So do we all.’

Miss Cray allowed herself to be tied. Miss Medenham and Mrs Luttrell did not struggle, though Miss Medenham whispered, ‘You wait until we get out of this, my lad, I’ll thrash you with 224

my own hands.’ The poet submitted with a few Finno-Ugric curses, and the Major fought. He was half mad with isolation and fear and he was very strong. Gerald could not hold him and no one else came to his assistance. Major Luttrell struck Gerald with an open hand and sent him flying against the wall.

Paul Black came down from his eminence. This was the predator, the human with the heart of a beast that Li Pen the hunter had sensed. Phryne wondered how she had ever found Mr Black negligible. He was glowing with dark pleasure, as though their submission and his power fed some black strength inside him. Phryne for the first time began to feel that they were all in danger of immediate death, and to wonder if she could make it to the top of The Urn without too much noise.

She had her little gun in her bag, but a shoot-out in the cave would be far too dangerous. The candles were burning down, there were no fixed torches, and a stray bullet might find any lodgement.

The Major was shouting fragments of sentences and struggling wildly. Paul Black stood above him, growling, ‘You stupid old bastard,’ and struck him across the head with the gun butt. The Major fell silent. Gerald tied him up with hands that shook so much that he could hardly form a knot.

‘Where’s Miss Fisher and the Chink?’ demanded Paul Black, who seemed to be counting.

‘They’re still in The Cathedral. They had . . .

other concerns,’ said the poet quickly, and smiled 225

a lecherous smile. ‘You know what they say about Chinese. That’s why there are so many of them.’

Mr Black grinned. Phryne gave Tadeusz a gold star for lightning acuity, doubtless polished during the riots in Paris. A sinful explanation was always convincing.

By scoring holds in the soft stone with her knife, she had managed to clamber to the top of The Urn.

As she had expected, a corpse lay in the hollow centre of the stone, soaking in mineral-laden water, cradled in gemstones. A thin limestone crust had formed over Lina’s face, greying her skin and hair and the sculptural folds of her nightdress. In twenty years, Phryne thought, the body would be entirely enclosed in stone, and they would call the formation

‘Sleeping Beauty’, perhaps, or ‘L’Inconnue’, the beautiful suicide pulled out of the Seine whose placid plaster countenance graced a thousand Parisian mantelpieces.

Death, cold, or the chalky droppings had smoothed away the angry swollen bruises of Lina’s body, so that the countenance was almost peaceful. The lipped hollow looked strong, and Phryne clambered over the top and knelt next to Lina, hoping that they were both still out of sight.

‘What do you want with us?’ growled Dingo Harry.

‘You don’t know who I am,’ said Black, ‘and you won’t know. I’m going to claim my money, so that means you all have to die.’

‘If you had just wanted us dead, you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,’ said Miss 226

Medenham. He walked through the huddled shapes and straddled her like Appollyon. She glared into the dark eyes defiantly. ‘There must be more to it.’

‘Oh, there is,’ he said softly. A greasy hand with broken nails reached down and tore her dress, quite deliberately, then ripped the undergarment, leaving her breasts bare. Tom Reynolds tried to bellow and fell back on to his wife’s shoulder. Mrs Luttrell, who was tied next to Miss Medenham, said, ‘Cynthia . . .’

‘Hush, Letty. Close your eyes, now,’ said Miss Medenham quickly. ‘I’ll be all right. Don’t look.’

‘Paul, don’t do this,’ urged Tom Reynolds.

‘Why not?’ asked Mr Black.

There was no answer to that. Miss Medenham twisted, thrusting out her bosom, her eyes locked on the dirty face. She almost seemed to be enticing him. She did not wince as the mouth fixed on hers and his weight crushed agonisingly down onto her body and her hands bound behind her back.

This could not be allowed to continue. Phryne called, ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ and Paul Black straightened and snarled.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m everywhere,’ said Phryne, speaking at the ceiling so that her voice echoed.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Lina,’ she said.

Paul Black stood up, leaving Miss Medenham to drag in a deep breath of relief and rub her soiled face on Mrs Luttrell’s shoulder.

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‘Tart,’ observed Miss Cray, coming to life. ‘Slut.

Whore.’

Paul Black kicked her into silence and addressed the air.

‘You never came, Lina,’ he accused.

‘I was prevented,’ said the sad, high voice.

He stalked towards The Altar, gun in hand, quivering with strain.

‘What stopped you?’

‘A man,’ said Phryne, pitching her voice as high as she could to mimic the dead woman’s tone.

‘Harry rescued me.’

‘Harry did?’

‘I fired my shotgun at a struggling couple, that real foggy night,’ remembered the old man. ‘The girl was screaming, ‘‘Let me go!’’ and I wanted her attacker to do just that. I only fired one shot. But by the time I got up to them, they were gone.’

‘Lina? Where are you, Lina? Come out!’

bellowed Paul Black.

‘Shan’t,’ said Phryne, petulantly. ‘You never came. I waited for you and you never came.’

Paul yelled, ‘Come out!’ and fired a shot into all four walls, one after another, then into the roof, laughing as the echoes cracked and died. The house party, who could not cover their ears, rolled in pain, which made their captor laugh again.

He’s fired six shots and he should only have six, thought Phryne. However, I can’t identify the make of pistol from here. And he’s probably got a pocketful of ammunition. She had seen the reason now for Miss Medenham’s display of 228

pulchritude. Lin Chung was lurking in the shadows, though he might be almost frozen with claustrophobia by now. Miss Medenham had clearly seen him and was trying to lure the gunman close enough for a pounce, but to Phryne’s eyes Lin was too far away. The floor of the cave was coated with tiny crystals which crunched like sand underfoot. Lin Chung would have been heard and shot in mid-spring. She could not see Li Pen at all.

Tom Reynolds moaned and Phryne smelt blood even stronger than powder. Something would have to be done soon before poor Tom bled to death.

‘I’m here,’ she cooed, getting her shoulder under the corpse. The body was heavy and floppy and Phryne hoped that she herself would neither faint nor vomit. She allowed the face to show over the high lip of The Urn and Paul Black ran towards the formation.

‘Lina, we’ll go away from here, we’ll never come back. I promise I’ll never leave you again. Come down,’ he said, and Phryne exerted all her strength and shoved the body down out of The Urn into Paul Black’s extended arms.

A blur from one side of the cave, a rush from the other, and the gunman, sinking under the weight of a dead woman, was seized and pinioned before he knew what had happened.

Li Pen held one arm, Lin Chung the other.

Gerald came forward with a length of rope and secured Paul Black. He did not appear to notice.

The satanic fit had passed. He crumpled to the cave floor, staring at the ruin of Lina’s face, wailed 229

with unbearable grief and retched with horror.

‘Gerald, undo everyone immediately,’ ordered Phryne, climbing carefully down. ‘And before we lynch Gerald, let us remember that we have all survived.’