The Castlemaine Murders (28 page)

‘Difficult walking in that old ruin,’ he commented. ‘Missus is about to have it pulled down so she can build a proper garage. Almost no one has horses any more.’

‘What, even here? It’s time, Bill. Come along,’ said Phryne, and walked into the darkness. ‘We need to tell them loudly that you don’t want their title. That will defuse them.’

She shut her eyes and when she opened them she could see. The late sun shot golden bolts of light through the holes in the galvanised iron roof. Not a creature was stirring, not even a passing rat, and she was about to speak when a lot of things happened at once.

She was grabbed in arms which felt like they were made of iron, bound and wrapped in something like a sack, before she had time to react. A shout of dismay near her ear made her aware that Bill had been similarly treated. A huge engine roared. Phryne was lifted and flung, landing painfully on someone’s knee or elbow. The car or truck roared and took the road at a dangerous speed. There was a shriek of tortured metal which told Phryne that part of the Imperial’s decorative wrought iron gate had come too.

Around a corner, slung against the knobby projections, around another corner, slung the other way. Phryne was dazed. First thing to do: think. Roddy had better have his wits about him when Phryne got out of this sack. She was seriously displeased.

The thing she was lying on was struggling. Phryne wriggled, trying to guess which end of this bundle was his head. ‘Lie still!’ she shrieked at what she thought might be a face. ‘Try and get your hands free!’

Her only answer was an inarticulate growl which informed her that her guess was correct. That was the head end. Phryne sneezed. This sack had contained flour. Her nose started to run and she fought to get a hand free from the enclosing material. This never happens to Sexton Blake, she reflected, managing to slide a hand up inside the bag and scratch her nose. Bliss. Now to release the rest of her.

She could detect a change of light through the bag. The world appeared to be getting darker. Out of the street lights of Castlemaine into the gathering night. Where were they taking them? Towards Melbourne? Towards Bendigo? And what on earth did this Roderick think he was doing?

Probably not murder. Not in the first instance. If he had meant to murder both of them he could have shot them down in the stable where they stood artlessly outlined against the dusk. Phryne spent a useful minute castigating herself for breaking her own cardinal rules, viz, assume everyone is dangerous until proven otherwise and expect the unexpected. Then she forgave herself because she needed to think and plan, and kicking oneself is difficult inside a tight-fitting sack.

She had left notes and people would be looking for her. It was just a matter of surviving until rescued.

Phryne hated the idea of being rescued, but from the depths of her sack it had its attractions. The car swerved, turned, went around what was apparently a very tight corner on one wheel, squealed and fishtailed back onto the road again and drove on.

Breathing was not easy inside the bag and every time she took a breath she got a lungful of flour. Bill had ceased struggling and was making the complex, rhythmical movements of a man trying to work one hand out from underneath when he is stuffed down beside a car seat and is being lain upon by a small but inconvenient woman.

How long was this blighted journey going to take? Think, Phryne told herself. The journey will end somewhere and you have to be prepared. What is the best tactic to use on a boneheaded son of the nobility? What, in fact, did Roderick Cholmondeley know about women?

Probably not a lot, if he thought that tricks with chickens were going to make the girls agog at his strength and skill. Boys’ school, space of time with the regiment—I wonder why he was asked to leave? Those regiments usually have quite strong stomachs; Roddy must be a cad as well, or that most damning of judgments, ‘not quite a gentleman’, even though he was quite definitely a lord.

Phryne was aware that the restricted air supply was making her woozy. She tried to focus. Pay attention, she told herself, breathe through the nose, you get less flour that way. How to tackle Roddy, that’s the question. The batman may be the brains of the outfit, of course. But then, Roddy had spent a lot of his time slaughtering the beasts of the field and the pursuit of deer taught one patience. And exactly how heavy a fully grown stag is when you have had the good fortune to kill it, which would have built up the muscle, of course. Mind wandering again. Another howling turn. This must be a high-powered car. Probably a Bentley or one of the new Rolls Royces.

Now, he would only have met officers’ wives and daughters, the available daughters of the aristocracy, and probably a few whores. The officers’ wives would not have approved of this wild young subaltern, and the daughters would have been kept well away from him. The Misses of the season would have snubbed him, especially after the chicken incident, which would have taken fully ten minutes to run from mouth to ear the length and breadth of Polite Circles. That left only whores, and they were what their clients wanted. Roddy would know about whores, and so would his batman. That might be a useful piece of information.

A screech and the car shuddered to a halt. On, by the sound of it, gravel. Off the beaten track, then. Not that there were a lot of beaten tracks around here anyway. Hands were laid ungently on Phryne. She decided to collapse. With any luck she might give her captor a nice hernia. She was slung over someone’s shoulder and carried ten paces into a house. She was dropped unceremoniously on a hard floor. She allowed herself to roll a little, getting her free hand on her garter and thus almost on her gun when she heard the footsteps coming back and relapsed into immobility. Let Roddy make the first move, so she could find out what he was planning.

Adrenalin poured into her bloodstream. In the sack, she bared her teeth.

The Elder Brother Sung Ma to the younger sister Li Mai, affectionate
greetings.

I have been here in my own village for six months now. I have been
setting up our jewellery workshop. We already have several commissions
and I have secured the services of a famous enameller.
Venerable Uncle has been very helpful. He assures me that my
prospective wife is a pleasant person. I have seen some of her
paintings, which are quite in the antique style, and her calligraphy
is also very good. I cannot marry until my year’s mourning for our
mother is passed. But when I do I am convinced that I shall be
much happier than I deserve to be.

The Elder Brother sends some poor poems which might amuse
the younger sister.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Thank you for sweeping the grass from my grave.

The Peony Pavilion

Lin Chung enjoyed the wedding feast. The ceremony had been utterly foreign to the young bride, who had stood through the whole thing without understanding one word, looking at Tommy with an expression of lamb-like adoration which had even softened Great Aunt Wing (already much mollified by a strong exchange of views on morality with Old Lady Chang. Observers put the honours at about even). And Lin supposed that the earlier ceremony had been just as incomprehensible. Who amongst most congregations understood the Latin ceremony? Tommy said that he had had to . . . well, not exactly lie, since he was not really of any religion, but sign something which said that his children were to be brought up Catholic. Might as well, reflected Lin Chung, handing over his present of money, wrapped in red paper. The local priest would doubtless instruct them and any religion was better than none for the very young. It was a pity that Maisie’s relatives had not attended, disgusted that she was marrying a Chinaman, but Tommy had every chance of success and even adamant families usually came round in time.

He wondered how Phryne was whiling away her evening. Waiting for him.

He shifted a little and turned his attention to the feast. He had eaten more feasts in the last few days than in the whole of his rather austere life. Although he did not live on rice and vegetables like Li Pen, he usually ate sparingly. He listlessly took up a hundred year old egg, its white as translucently black as Vegemite and its yolk a sulphurous yellow. He really couldn’t eat any more and put it down in his bowl again. A duck egg, if he was any judge, a product of that band of sleepy quackers in the shed outside. He recalled watching two very important small children, armed with long wands made of rushes, drive the ducks into their sleeping quarters. They had been charming, and he was getting sleepy.

He refused another refill of wine and went back to drinking tea. Tonight, Lin Chung did not mean to sleep.

Tommy was feeding Maisie from his own bowl. For a girl who had never tasted Chinese food before, she was managing well. They looked very happy.

At long last the young men of the household took Tommy away, and the girls claimed Maisie. Massed giggling announced that she had been stripped of her red wedding dress, dressed in her trousseau nightgown, combed, patted, kissed by all available children and put to bed. Shouts and gongs announced the arrival of Tommy, who was finally able to break free from his boisterous well-wishers and get through the bedroom door and it was, finally, shut and the revellers went away.

That was not the end of the feast, of course. The formal part was concluded and now everyone relaxed, nibbled more of their favourite delicacies and gossiped freely, not having to translate. Jokes, particularly, just didn’t translate. Or, at least, they didn’t translate into anything funny. Lin listened idly. He liked the sound of his own language, the flutter of syllables across various tones, not the high-pitched chirping of Mandarin. His ancestors had done well. He honoured them now as he had not before this journey into the past. They had braved a terrible sea voyage with hatred at the end of it; cruel weather and hard work had bent their backs. But they had persevered and prospered. They were still here. They were still Chinese.

Cousin Tan began to sing the closing aria from
The Peony
Pavilion
, a tale of a scholar who marries a beautiful ghost. A Taoist nun brings the bride back to life, the lovers have to flee and are separated; and then the scholar wins fame at his examinations and they live happily ever after. Lin liked happy endings. He applauded and demanded another song.

The house rocked to the sound of the drunken poems of Li Po, and Maisie and Tommy ignored them all.

At half past eleven the household was going to bed and Lin went onto the verandah to look at the night. It was dark and still, moist, presaging rain.

‘You are going out tonight?’ asked Uncle Tao, coming out to enjoy the cool night air. The moon was full and as bright as a coin, casting faint blue shadows.

‘Yes, into Castlemaine.’

‘Be careful, Cousin. I heard a car driven down the Moonlight road screeching its tyres early in the evening. That usually means that the young men are abroad. When they are drunk they are unpleasant.’

Lin smiled. ‘I will avoid them. It is not a young man I am going to see.’

‘I guessed that,’ said Uncle Tao reminiscently. ‘One only has a few fragrant nights of spring. Store your memories for when you are old. You will enjoy them again under such a moon as this.’

‘I will,’ said Lin. He went back to his room to resume his cassock, got into the car and drove carefully to Castlemaine. The Imperial, he had ascertained, had a fire escape which was beautifully sited for access to Miss Fisher’s room.

He did not have a chance to test it. When the big car swept around the corner into Lyttleton Street he was stopped by a sweating policeman.

‘Sorry, Father, we’re looking for a lady. Can I search the car?’

The policeman was so overwrought he did not even react to Lin Chung’s Chinese face.

‘A lady? Yes, of course, search all you like. Which lady?’

The policeman leaned in at the window, opened the back door, checked the boot and returned, touching his uniform helmet.

‘Terrible thing. Lady kidnapped in the stable yard about seven, and Old Bill Gaskin as well, though what they wanted with Old Bill I can’t imagine. Hang on! You wouldn’t be called Lin, would you, Father?’

‘Yes, I am Lin Chung,’ said Lin, beginning to be seriously concerned.

‘Go on to the Imperial, will you, Father? See my sergeant. There’s a letter for you.’

Lin drove to the Imperial where a harassed porter tried to stop him, saw that he was a religious person, and allowed him to leave the car.

‘Park it somewhere,’ said Lin. ‘Who is in charge of this investigation?’

Chinese was one thing but effortless authority was another and, adding the cassock to the equation, the door porter thought it best to allow Lin into the bar, where a worried owner was wringing his hands. A uniformed policeman was making notes in a notebook with one of those pencils which he had to keep licking, and Annie of Reception was crying like a fountain. Even the Imperial’s guard dog was sitting in a corner, tail between its legs, whimpering occasionally.