Urn Burial (7 page)

‘Come on, old thing, let’s escape,’ she murmured, and he put down his cup. They were just approaching the door when the Doctor came in.

Doctor Franklin was a tall, slim man, with fashionably pale skin and slightly long dark hair, brushed straight back from a high forehead. His eyes were of an indeterminate shade between grey and blue and his profile was pure matinee idol; high-nosed, Roman and refined. He gave Phryne a smooth, well-tended hand and said, ‘Ah, Miss Fisher, how delightful to meet you. How do you do?’

‘Very well, thank you.’

Now that she could see him close up, he was not as young as he looked, or as confident. The hand had a slight but definite tremor; the palm was damp. There were fine lines around his eyes, extending into grooves around his finely chiselled mouth. She seemed to remember hearing that he had taken a leave of absence from his booming Collins Street practice with ‘nervous exhaustion’, a portmanteau term which could cover everything 60

from the occasional headache to a full-blown hysterical collapse.

‘Miss Cray, Miss Mead, good morning,’ he said, looking past Phryne and releasing her hand. ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Reynolds, I would like some tea.’

Phryne and Tom escaped into the reception hall and Tom wiped his brow with a blue handkerchief.

‘Phew! What a collection. Come along, I want to show you the house.’

‘All right, Tom dear, but if you don’t like your guests, why on earth do you invite them?’

‘Reasons,’ said Tom obscurely. He led the way through a green baize door into a dark little hall.

He knocked on a closed door which was lettered

‘Butler’s Pantry’ and called, ‘Hinchcliff, I’m taking Miss Fisher on a tour. Can I have the cellar keys?’

Mr Hinchcliff, magnificent even though his waistcoat was unbuttoned and he had been evidently putting his boots up for a rest when his master called. He emerged and detached the keys from his watchchain.

‘Don’t forget the stairs are slippery, Sir,’ he warned.

Phryne was conducted down the corridor and into the servants’ hall, which contained the staff having morning tea. Dot was introducing Li Pen to ginger biscuits. Mrs Croft the cook was listening to his account, in his hesitant, accented English, of the home life of ginger. The rest of the staff were talking amongst themselves and the boy Albert was sitting on the back doorstep playing 61

mumblety-peg with a jackknife. It whizzed past Phryne’s ankle. The boy gaped, grabbed the knife, and fled into the yard a scant inch ahead of Tom’s foot.

‘Young devil,’ said Tom indulgently.

‘I’ll tan his hide,’ said Mrs Croft. ‘Little monster!

Mr Black, can you catch the little blighter?’

‘No,’ said the mechanic, glancing out the window. ‘He’s got a fair turn of speed, Mrs C –

he’ll be miles away by now.’

He went on with his tea.

Phryne surveyed the table. Mr Black, from the indelible grease, was evidently the chauffeur and machine-minder. He had extended his range of skills so far as the carving and setting of a pile of very neat wooden clothes pegs. Mr Jones, who was a deal cleaner, seemed to be the houseman. Mrs Croft, a formidable woman in an apron so starched that it bent around her ample figure, was Cook. An earthy person and attendant, even earth-ier, had to be the gardeners. A scruffy girl with a mass of chestnut hair escaping from its bonds and water-wrinkled hands, was obviously the scullery maid and kitchen dogsbody. She was staring into her cup as though expecting reproof on its cleanliness. Mrs Hinchcliff was not there – perhaps she was with the distressed maid Lina. Dot, sitting between Li Pen and Terry Willis, smiled at Phryne.

Li Pen had obviously graduated from ‘Chink who might be Fu Manchu’s advance agent’, to

‘Chink who was a nice bloke really and quite a pet and very well informed about ginger’. Phryne was 62

glad to see it. The servants were adapting faster than the guests, which was, perhaps, to be expected. Li Pen accepted another biscuit and Dot refilled his cup.

‘Just taking Miss Fisher on the grand tour,’ apologised Reynolds. ‘Didn’t mean to disturb anyone.’

For the place of the Boss was in the house and the place of the staff was in the servants’ hall and the twain were not supposed to invade each other’s domains.

Mrs Croft, as senior officer, inclined her head graciously as Phryne and Tom went on.

The cellar was reached by a Gothic stone stair which would not have disgraced a castle. It was, as the butler had said, slippery.

‘There’s a well down here,’ said Tom. ‘We dug another outside the house and capped this one, but it’s dangerous in the dark.’ He pulled on a cord and a bare electric bulb flicked into life. ‘I’ve got my own generator. I can’t be having with lamps, even though Evelyn says they cast a softer light.

Too much work for the staff. I’d have to employ a boy just to clean and fill them and I already employ half the locals as it is. I’d better get Black and Jones down here with a pump. The river’s rising.’

‘Does it often flood?’

‘Every seven years or so. Never been bad since I’ve been here – old Mr Giles was flooded in for weeks in the old days. Water never gets up to the house but the cellar is below the watertable so we get seepage.’

63

‘I see you inherited Mr Giles’s wines.’ She looked at rows and rows of bottles marked with cellarman’s whitewash.

‘And I’ve been adding to them,’ agreed Tom.

‘There’s good wine coming out of the Barossa now, some reds that I’ve laid down for ten years; good port and tokay, even a rather tasty light hock. Quite passable with soda.’

The cellar was very large. It seemed to run most of the length of the house above. In the dim, unlit recesses, Phryne could see a jumble of old furniture; broken sideboards and chairs, what could surely not have been a marble sarcophagus, a pile of obsolete chamber-pots, and a stack of mildewing chests.

‘Junk,’ said Tom. ‘And there’s more in the attic.

Come on, it’s cold.’

‘About this threat to your life?’

Reynolds was about to speak, then shut his mouth. ‘Not here. We can be overheard.’ He pointed up to where the servants’ hall probably was. The sound of tinkling spoons and crockery being collected could be heard. Li Pen was saying,

‘Ginger is given to make a horse strong and fast,’

and she heard Terry Willis chuckle. ‘Yair, I’ve known it to happen, ’specially when it was put under its . . .’ he dried up with the concluding word ‘tail’ unsaid, probably under Mrs Croft’s glare.

Tom Reynolds grinned and led the way up the castle staircase to another, which was by contrast lined with panelled wood and smelt of beeswax.

64

‘This is the first floor,’ he said to Phryne as she emerged behind him. ‘Bedrooms and guestrooms and the like. I put in bathrooms and lavatories as soon as I realised that I was going to live here.’

They walked along a passage heavy with plaster mouldings in the shape of cornucopias to another stair.

Phryne’s knees were tiring and her bruises were all shouting at once. But the movement was unstiffening her and she picked up her pace to keep up with her host.

‘Here are the servants’ rooms and the attic.’

Tom seemed determined to exhibit his whole house to Phryne. She opened a door at random and approved of a small room with an iron bed, a wardrobe, one window, a light, a smudgy picture of a child with an umbrella, and the ubiquitous servant’s trunk, known as a box, on a stand.

‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘Where to next?’

‘The roof,’ he said.

They skirted the dome, which dominated the hall, and Phryne looked down, leaning on a carved railing. The tea party was breaking up. She saw Miss Cray and the Doctor pass through the hall together, deep in discussion. Miss Mead and Mrs Fletcher were mounting the monumental stairs, talking about grades of wool and the need to keep babies warm. The staircase was lined with portraits of someone’s ancestors, urns on brackets, and a huge oil painting of a fox-hunt, strong on horses, so aged and smoky that only the hunting pink of the riders was visible.

65

Gerald emerged for a moment from the library, keeping his place in a yellow-covered book. Then he brightened and ran across the marble tiles to the front door to greet Jack Lucas escorting an unmistakable Miss Medenham in a bright-red coat and hat.

‘I say,’ Phryne heard him say. ‘I say, Gerry, isn’t it exciting? The road’s two feet deep in water.

We’re cut off.’

66

CHAPTER FIVE

If they died by violent hands . . . whose souls they conceived most pure, which were thus snatch’d from their bodies, and to retain a stronger propension unto them. We live with death, and die not in a moment.

Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne, Chapter V.

FOR SOME reason, Phryne’s heart sank.

Tom grunted and led the way, under the magnificent Pre-Raphaelite leadlight windows of medieval scenes, up yet another stair – this time decorated with frescos of dancing Greek maidens –

to the roof.

Lin Chung and Judith Fletcher were playing tennis on the court which occupied half of the roof. The other half was paved and it was all edged with a low marble balustrade.

‘Phryne,’ groaned Tom. ‘I’m for it now. I’m shut in with my murderer.’

‘Don’t be silly, Tom dear. I have no intention of 67

allowing you to be murdered; my reputation won’t stand it.’

The prospect was very pleasant. A cool wet wind blew into Phryne’s face. Far away she could see a craggy line of mountains, blue in the distance.

Closer there was a ridge of yellowish hue, which Tom said was the Buchan Caves. A tributary of the Snowy River curved around Cave House; gunmetal water, running fast and creamy with foam.

It was an uncomfortable neighbour.

They turned away from the sight and watched the tennis players in silence for a moment. Judith Fletcher was robust and reasonably agile; she puffed as she ran and lunged. Lin Chung, in his immaculate creams, moved like a cat, seeming to anticipate every lob, returning it with precise, effortless blows, calculated not to be impossible to reach but to give his partner a strenuous game. He was indulging Miss Fletcher, Phryne decided, which was nice of him.

‘He’s a gentleman.’ Tom had reached the same conclusion.

‘Of course he is. Now, are you going to let me help you or not?’

‘Yes, yes.’ He scrubbed at his forehead distract-edly. ‘Of course, that’s why I asked you here, or one of the reasons, Phryne dear. Evelyn wanted to meet you. I owe all this to Evelyn. This was her house, her money.’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘So I want to please her. This house party was her idea. I’d be perfectly happy to only ask just 68

one or two people – you and Mr Lin for instance, people I like, like Tadeusz. But Evelyn was brought up in the old tradition, tennis parties, cricket parties. They don’t seem to match Australia, Phryne dear, you can’t get a biddable well-trained staff like you can in England. I mean, what would you do if you were offered a choice of working in the pickle factory, where you’d have money in your pocket and be your own mistress, or room and board and two and six a week out here in the bush with Mrs Hinchcliff watching your every move?’

‘The pickle factory,’ said Phryne promptly.

‘Exactly. So I’m practically running an asylum.

All the bold intelligent children go to the city. The weak and wambling go into service. I’ve got Lina who’s a neurasthenic, Mrs Croft who has a fetish about cleanliness, Jones who’s got a criminal record, Willis who’s crippled, a housemaid with two illegitimate children and . . . you see? If I pro-claim we’ve got a murderer amongst us they’ll all fall to bits so fast there will be shrapnel wounds.

Even Mr and Mrs Hinchcliff are worried.’

Phryne patted his arm.

‘So we do it very quietly. I can just drift around and pick up gossip and Dot can do the same, that covers both worlds. And you should pay some attention to your own safety, Tom. Don’t be alone with Jack Lucas, try not to have arguments with Dingo Harry – I must meet him, he sounds most refreshing – and keep your head down. It might all be malicious mischief, not a real threat at all.

69

And for God’s sake, either change your will or give Jack Lucas his money.’

Tom Reynolds stiffened but she went on relentlessly. ‘I’ve never known you to be unjust, Tom dear. It’s messy, leaving someone loose with such a good reason to kill you. If you fall off the house or something, the poor boy’ll be arrested before you can say Jack Robinson. Do something about it, even if he has got right up your nose to an alarming extent. Now I want to talk to Lina.’

‘She’s still having the vapours,’ objected Tom.

‘And she is entitled to have any vapours that she wants. But I want to talk to her. Come along. Take me to her.’

The pock, pock, pock of the tennis game faded behind them as they went down the stairs.

Doctor Franklin was closing the door when they arrived. Paul Black walked past, smeared and unhurried, trailing a bundle of electric flex.

‘She’s asleep,’ he said, in reply to Phryne’s request.

‘She’ll be awake by tea time, then she should be able to talk to you, Miss Fisher. She’s a nervous subject, however, and she’s still greatly shocked by whatever it was that happened out there.’

The Major, passing on his way to the parlour, greeted Phryne and his host. ‘Tom, Miss Fisher.’

His eyes lingered on Phryne. ‘How about a game of billiards, Tom? Do you play, Miss Fisher?’

‘A little,’ Phryne said, knowing that Tom Reynolds had honed his billiards-playing skill to shark 70

levels as a journalist and hoping that he would skin the Major of his entire worldly wealth. ‘Not up to your standard, Major, I’m sure. You’ll excuse me. Tom, I might go and have a nap until tea myself. It’s a sleepy day.’

Dot was catching up the hem of Phryne’s broadcloth coat with tiny, skilled, invisible stitches when her mistress came in and let herself gently down onto her bed.

‘Well, Dot, I’ve been all over Cave House and my aesthetic sensibilities may never recover. How are you getting on?’

‘Very well, Miss. The food’s good and the company’s quite nice. That Mr Li knows a lot about the world. He’s been through the South China Sea with Mr Lin. And he was with him in Oxford. Did you talk to Mr Reynolds?’