Urn Burial (14 page)

‘Cryptic, but it might explain why she was out in the mist that night. And I’ve an idea who R is, too. Dot, well done. A pretty piece of sorting. Can you clean up that ring?’

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‘What are you going to do, Miss?’ asked Dot, alarmed.

‘I’ll wear it and see who notices,’ said Phryne.

‘Tomorrow, when we go to the caves. You’re a genius, Dot. This ridiculous, horrible case is beginning to make sense, I think. File all that stuff away.

Keep everything, even the bus tickets, and we might get a breakthrough. Now, I’ve got a player in this odd masque coming to see me tonight. He’ll be here soon. Lock your door and don’t come out.’

‘What if he’s dangerous?’ demanded Dot suspiciously.

‘Then I shall scream and you can bean him with the poker,’ said Phryne.

Dot did as she was bid, and Phryne put out all the lights but her reading light, stripped off the jade dress and donned her chrysanthemum robe, and sat down. There was a book on the dressing table and she opened it.

That the bones of Theseus should be seen again in Athens was not beyond conjecture and hopeful expectation: but thefe should arife so opportunely to ferve yourfelf was an hit of fate, and honour beyond prediction . . . But thefe are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyfull voices; silently expreffing old mortality, the ruine of forgotten times, and can only speake with life, how long in this corruptibile frame some partes may be uncorrupted; yet able to outlaft bones long unborn and noblest pile amongft us.

She shivered. The house was silent. She closed the book and laid it down, next to a small stone 135

urn which had, by some chance, appeared in her room.

As Phryne stared at this intimation of mortality, Gerald whispered at the half-open door, ‘Can I come in?’

Phryne admitted him and then closed the door, jamming the Sheridan chair back under the handle.

He watched this with some amusement.

‘Are you expecting an enraged husband?’ he asked.

‘In this house an enraged elephant is quite possible. Well, dear boy, this is what you wanted –

an assignation.’

He came towards her, the shirt front gleaming in the soft light.

‘Oh, yes,’ he whispered, touching her cheek.

‘That is what I wanted. Most beautiful Phryne.’

He drew her down to sit on her bed and the slim hands dropped to the belt of the chrysanthemum robe. He had clearly had some practice at extract-ing a lady from her clothes.

She undid the soft shirt, noting that he had changed his clothes so as to be easier to undress, which, she thought, demonstrated experience. He smelt of Floris woodbine scent as the soft mouth kissed down from her lips to her throat and thence to the bared breast.

As Phryne allowed the robe to fall away and embraced Gerald’s waist as he stood to remove the rest of his clothes, she had a vision straight from the learned Sir Thomas: she and her lover as dry skeletons lying together, pelvic bone to pelvic 136

bone, bare tibia and fibia crossing as grinning skull kissed grinning skull in the coffined embrace of the long dead.

Perhaps Lin Chung was right. The presence of death was an aphrodisiac. Gerald, naked, threw himself into her arms, his hands light on her skin, his mouth urgent, demanding. She tasted something like desperation in his kiss.

She wrapped her thighs around his waist, clutching the curly head to her breast. Opposed to death there was always life.

The living skeletons melded together, hard flesh sinking into yielding flesh, and the young man gasped aloud.

‘Oh, Phryne,’ he sighed, lying next to her with his head in the curve of her shoulder.

‘Gerald, my dear,’ she said absently. The vision of the bones had not reappeared, and her body was satisfied and slumping towards sleep.

‘You’re so beautiful.’ He ran a soft hand down the curve of her breast to her hip, cupping the bone.

‘So are you,’ she replied, stroking the curly hair, her hand resting on the entrancing delicacy of his nape. He was a boy, too young, perhaps, even to shave.

‘I’d better go, though I’d love to stay with you all night.’

‘Hmm,’ she murmured.

‘You will help me, won’t you?’ he asked, kissing her shoulder.

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‘Of course. Help you with what?’

‘Jack, of course. My chum. I mean, I might have to marry Miss Fletcher, but I can’t do that until he’s settled.’

‘You might have to marry – Gerry, have you seduced Judith Fletcher?’ Phryne came awake with a rush. The young man sat up, the delicate cheek flushed, his skin slick with sweat and shining in the soft light, as beautiful as a Pre-Raphaelite angel.

‘Why, would you mind?’ he asked defensively.

‘No, no, dear boy, but it seems unwise if you don’t want to marry her,’ she commented, wondering how on earth he had managed it with Mrs Fletcher watching her daughter’s every move. ‘I mean, is she really the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life?’

‘Well, no, perhaps not, but I have to marry, and she’s in love with me.’

‘That is not a good reason,’ said Phryne severely.

‘You don’t have to marry yet – you’ve got time.

Look at Letty Luttrell and the Major. She married in haste and the poor girl is repenting in sackcloth and ashes and has been for years. You might find it hard to get rid of a wife, Gerry, and in any case it’s messy and expensive.’

‘You don’t know everything,’ muttered Gerald.

‘No, I don’t,’ agreed Phryne. ‘Do you feel like telling me?’

Gerald shook his head and felt for his clothes.

Phryne watched him dress, feeling a certain disappointment as the flannel bags slid up over the delicate loins.

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She accompanied him to the door and he kissed her. She slid the chair away and looked into the corridor.

‘No one. Good night, Gerry.’

He smiled his entrancing little-boy’s smile and leaned his forehead, for a moment, on her shoulder. Then he was gone.

Phryne, suddenly awake, read three chapters of Urne Buriall before she could fall asleep.

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CHAPTER NINE

For those two which are smooth, and of no beard, are contrived to lie undermost, as without prominent parts, and fit to be smoothly covered.

The Garden of Cyrus, Sir Thomas Browne, Chapter III.

IN THE blackest dark, Phryne awoke.

Someone was trying her doorhandle. It had a characteristic creak. Once, twice. Then the door squeaked as someone pushed against it.

Phryne leapt out of bed, seized the poker, and crept to the door. She could hear someone breathing on the other side.

She slipped the chair out from under the handle and pulled the door wide, poker raised.

She was confronted by a shocked young man who jumped back three paces as a naked, heavily armed and undeniably female fury occupied the doorway. Her teeth were bared in a snarl and she seemed perfectly capable of decapitating him with one swipe of the iron rod she was flourishing.

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‘No, no, please.’ He raised his hands.

‘Jack Lucas, what are you about?’ demanded Phryne, lowering the poker to shoulder level.

‘I was looking . . .’ the young man blushed. ‘I was looking for Gerry.’

‘And he told you that he would be here?’

‘No, no, I just guessed that . . . I’m so sorry, Miss Fisher.’

He was staring at her. Her body was slim but muscular and with the raised weapon she looked like an Art Dećoratif nymph lamp. Phryne was aware that she was naked but saw no reason to do anything about it. While she had her poker she was not in any danger from this utterly embarrassed young man.

‘I think you’d better go back to bed, don’t you?’

she snapped.

‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. Please forgive me . . .’ he said. Phryne did not reply and he made an awkward bow and hurried away.

Phryne shut the door, replaced the chair and went back to bed, laying the poker within easy reach on her pillow in case there were any more alarms in the night.

Phryne awoke as Dot placed her cup of tea on the bedside table.

‘Dot, one thing must be done today, and I mean must,’ she said, sipping the healing brew. ‘Ask one of the housemen to find a nice big heavy iron bolt, the sort you put on gates, and watch him as he fits 141

it to the inside of that door. I had two visitors last night, one invited and one very much uninvited.

You’d think this was Flinders Street Station.’

‘Yes, Miss. While he’s about it he can fit one to my door, too. I don’t feel safe here.’

‘Neither do I. You can put this poker back with the fire irons, Dot, and find my Beretta. I want some bargaining power with the next intruder. By the way, Dot, did you put that urn on my dressing-table?’

‘No, Miss, of course not.’

‘Not only a bolt,’ decided Phryne, ‘but a new lock with a key as well. And find that gun, too.

I’m going to have my bath.’

Dot, who did not approve of guns, laid out Phryne’s clothes for a trip to the caves: black velvet trousers, handmade English hiking boots, a silk shirt and a loose woolly jumper knitted of many colours, with ducks and drakes across the front, before she rummaged for the little gun and the box of shells.

Phryne bathed in the bathroom down the hall, a shameless room with a Dutch water-closet on a dais like a throne, a bathtub big enough to wash a variety chorus, and blue and white willow-pattern tiles on the walls. The floor was of pink marble, chilly to the bare feet, but the water was plentiful and hot.

As her employer dressed, Dot removed the urn and returned it to its proper place. It belonged, she was told, in a niche in the great stair.

By the time she was descending the monumental staircase, Phryne felt human again. The memory 142

of Gerald’s mouth warmed her all through. A well-skilled young man, definitely worth the effort.

Breakfast was, as always, lavish. Several people were missing. Jack Lucas, Miss Fletcher, Mrs Luttrell and Gerald Randall, it appeared, were either breakfasting in decent privacy or had already been and gone. Tom Reynolds and the poet sat together at the big table. Tom looked rough. Phryne poured herself some tea and took a poached egg and some bacon, home-cured and delicious. Tom was staring at a piece of dry toast as though it was a personal enemy.

‘The nasty effects of a hangover,’ said Phryne judicially, ‘are produced by dehydration. Isn’t that right, Doctor Franklin?’

‘Yes, indeed, Miss Fisher,’ replied the Doctor. ‘If I was prescribing for you, Tom, I’d order a gallon of barley water and bed-rest.’

‘Bed-rest?’ Tom barked a laugh which must have hurt his head. ‘Can’t rest. Can’t sleep.’

‘Then drink your tea, have another cup and a few sips of that nice lemonade which Mrs Croft has made for you, and I’ll give you some pills for tonight that I guarantee will put an elephant to sleep,’ said the Doctor. Tom did not precisely brighten, but he did not dull any further. He drank the tea and allowed the poet to refill his cup.

‘How do we get to the caves?’ asked Phryne.

Tom blinked at her.

‘We’ll harness up the big dray. The track’s all right that way. We just can’t go back to the Bairnsdale road because it’s still under water.’

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Phryne needed to get Tom Reynolds alone, to tell him that Lina had gone out into the night to meet someone called R, but the poet, clearly concerned, was tending his hungover host like a mother.

Phryne sauntered out into the grounds alone to reconnoitre.

She was down by the boathouse when she heard splashing. Surely no one was swimming in that river. It was in spate. Phryne ran to the bank and saw a hand grasping for the remains of the launch-ing ramp. She knelt, grabbed, and hauled with all her strength. Judith Fletcher’s red face appeared, followed by the rest of her. She was considerably bruised and more wet than she had been since she’d been born.

‘Gosh,’ gasped the young woman, wiping her hair out of her eyes. ‘Golly, that current’s strong!’

She staggered and sat down on the grass, as red as her swimming costume.

Phryne exclaimed, ‘What possessed you to go swimming in that?’ She indicated the torrent of grey water foaming past at the speed of a racing horse.

‘There’s a little sandy bay back there,’ panted Miss Fletcher. ‘Out of the tide. I thought it’d be safe, it looked calm enough. But the undercurrent snatched my feet out from under me and the next thing I knew I was drowning. I suppose I ought to thank you,’ she added resentfully.

‘It might be polite,’ said Phryne.

‘It wouldn’t matter,’ Miss Fletcher broke out 144

suddenly. ‘It wouldn’t matter if I was dead.’

‘Wouldn’t it?’

‘I always say the wrong thing and Mother always disapproves of me and I’m sick of this. I’m wasting my life at house parties, trailed around like a slave on a chain to be bid for by bored boys.’

Phryne sat down on the bank and produced her cigarette case. Miss Fletcher had thrown herself face down on the grass and was tearing up handfuls of sedge with her fingers.

‘Then why keep doing it?’

‘I’m an heiress,’ wailed Judith.

‘Yes, so am I.’ This shocked the girl enough to make her look up at the composed figure perched on the bank, smoking a gasper.

‘You are? Why didn’t they marry you to someone, then? Or did they?’

‘They didn’t because I refused to play. They can’t make you marry, you know. They can’t really do anything to you. I ran away to Paris when I was eighteen. How old are you?’

‘Eighteen,’ murmured Miss Fletcher. She sat up cross-legged on the green riverbank.

‘Is it your money?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is, though Mother takes a lot of it to run the house and buy me clothes and all that. The old man left it all to me.’

‘Have you a trustee?’

‘Yes. Nice old bird but Mother never lets me have him to myself.’

‘What do you really want to do? Marry Gerry Randall? He’s a nice boy.’

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‘Yes, he’s nice. But I don’t really know yet. He’s dreamy, is Gerry, lazy. But very handsome.’

‘Yes, very,’ said Phryne, visited by a reminiscent vision of the naked young man with the curly hair.

‘But what I’d really like to do is have a little farm somewhere and breed horses. I’d have my chums to visit and then I could shut the door on all of them, light my fire, sit down in my chair and listen to the silence.’