Part 1 (1/2)

THE.

CASTLEMAINE.

MURDERS.

A Phryne Fisher Mystery.

Kerry Greenwood.

This book is dedicated to my dear cousin Muriel Wright.Whose relatives would like to say that if EK has finishedwith the ploughshare, they'd quite like it back...

And with many thanks to the usual cast, David Greagg, Dennis Pryor, geologist Lesley Greagg, c.o.c.ktail concocter Mark Pryor, sinologist Wendy Tolhurst, plus the remarkable and ingenious researchers Graeme Duke and Jean Greenwood, who between them found and named Constable Thomas Cooke. Profound grat.i.tude to Anne Doggett and the energetic and learned Hilary Griffiths of the Castle-maine Historical Society and to Suns.h.i.+ne Library, which never ceases to surprise me...

The love of money is the root of all evil.The Holy Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10.

CHAPTER ONE.

The only people who are disgustingly idle are the children of those who have just become rich...

George Bernard Shaw.

The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

Phryne Fisher was watching an unprecedented spectacle. She leaned back in her cus.h.i.+oned chair in her sea-green parlour and took a sip of one of Mr Butler's most impressive c.o.c.ktails.

Lin Chung, Phryne's Chinese lover, was in a rage. He was pacing. He was shouting. Phryne had never seen the sense in intervening in a really good rage. Better, she thought, to pay attention and allow the enraged one to expel it from his system. She listened.

'It is outrageous! After handing over the family to me-she said that was what she was doing-after retiring, she still wishes to keep all the reins in her own hands! She will not let loose one iota of her power unless I force her to do so, and even then she objects to every decision I make!'

'Indeed,' Phryne murmured. He had been ramping for about ten minutes and surely must cool down soon. Admit-tedly, Lin Chung's formidable grandmother was enough to ruffle the calmest. She had been the sole ruler of the Lin family in Victoria for more than twenty years, ever since her meek husband had died as the only way to remove himself from her benevolent but extremely firm rule. She had only agreed to step down after her judgment had proved to be faulty, and clearly she was not going quietly.

'Since our sister Su-Niang's marriage to their son, we are no longer at variance with the Hu family! I wish to visit, and Grandmother has forbidden me! As though I was ten years old!'

'Yes, but that does not mean that you have to stay forbidden,' said Phryne. 'You are the head of the family, you know.'

'I cannot disobey her,' said Lin, lowering the volume a trifle. 'That would shame her. She is terribly venerable and what she will tell the ancestors about me if I cause her to have an apoplexy doesn't bear thinking about. We would all come down with leprosy. Or typhoid. At the very least, bad luck unto the fiftieth generation.' Lin Chung finally managed a smile. Phryne felt encouraged to continue.

'Oh. I see. Yes, this needs consideration. Mr Butler? Could you concoct a couple of considering c.o.c.ktails?'

'Certainly, Miss Fisher. Miss Eliza was inquiring, Miss? About the... noise?'

'Tell Miss Eliza,' began Phryne, and bit her tongue. The Hon. Eliza Fisher, Phryne's younger sister, had arrived two days before, filled the small house with a hundred trunks, and had immediately made her presence felt by loudly disap-proving of the climate, the house, the staff, Phryne's two adoptive daughters, the shops, the manners of these appalling colonials and even the sea, which was far too blue and not to be compared to Skegness. Phryne had once been close to Eliza, but it was amazing what a few years and a county education could do for a girl. Render her unbearable, for instance.

'Tell Miss Eliza that all is well and suggest that she might find a sherry soothing. Where is she?'

'In the smaller parlour, Miss Fisher. She is reading Vogue.'

'Give her a sherry, Mr B, and send Dot to talk to her. She can bear all that huntin' shootin' fis.h.i.+n' talk better than I can.'

'As you wish,' said the butler, and dematerialised in that special butlerine manner which Maskelyne would have paid thousands of pounds to learn. He was back, far faster than was actually possible, with two gla.s.ses, which he bestowed upon the recipients with the air of a bishop sprinkling holy water over the devout.

Lin Chung, finding himself on his feet, sat down, abashed.

'I'm sorry. I have been making a scene.'

'No, really, it was fascinating. I've never seen you so enraged. I wonder what's in this c.o.c.ktail? It's delicious.'

'Cointreau, I think, maybe orange juice. How does he do that so quickly?'

'He moves in mysterious ways,' said Phryne. 'I've an idea. Can you meet Mr Hu by accident? Say, in the street?'

'What do you mean? I'd have to wait outside his office all day.'

'No, what I meant was that you should ask Su-Niang to tell Mr Hu that if he wanted to meet you he should, as it might be, pa.s.s by the front of the Lin family mansion at eleven o'clock, where he would encounter you, entirely by accident. He would then invite you to his house for tea, and you could not properly refuse as you are no longer having a feud with the Hus. That way you preserve Grandmother's authority and you get to talk to Mr Hu.'

'And if he invites me to his house, then I must invite him to my house.' Lin Chung was delighted. 'After which all the cousins and family will be able to mix freely and we may at last find out what happened to the Lin cousin who ran away with that Hu man.'

'You mean that you have lost a female relative and haven't been able to find her? That seems careless.'

'Not at all. We haven't tried to find her. She was cut off, of course, from the Lin family by her disgrace. The Hu man might also have been exiled. Great Grandfather Hu was in charge then; a very unbending person. You think Grandmother is strict? Compared to Old Man Hu, Grandmother is the voice of complaisance and the epitome of democracy.'

'Formidable,' commented Phryne, fascinated by the mech-anisms of a real feud. 'How long ago did you lose this Lin lady?'

'1911, I believe. I was a child but I remember the fuss. Slammed doors. Lin Wan's mother screaming. Hysterics. I was kept out of it, being a boy. But we have always wondered what happened to Lin Wan. Her mother is still alive and not well. She was one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to Mr Hu. Plus, of course, the gold they stole from us in 1857. With compound interest it ought to be a tidy sum by now. Excellent solution, Phryne. I shall telephone Su-Niang immediately, if I may?'

'Certainly, and get a move on. We're taking the whole merry family to Luna Park this afternoon, you know.'

'Including...' Lin paused. Inflexible courtesy stopped him from saying what he thought of Phryne's sister Eliza, but even inflexible courtesy can develop cracks under such vehement disapproval as Miss Eliza showed for Lin Chung.

'Yes, her too. Perhaps we can push her off the Big Dipper. And Luna Park will, of course, be a garish colonial imitation which is not a patch on Sunday Bank Holiday at Brighton. Courage,' she said. 'We can lose her, and the girls are really looking forward to this expedition.'

'Very well,' replied Lin Chung, and went into the hall to telephone his sister.

'Did you say gold?' Phryne asked when he came back, having arranged to meet Mr Hu entirely by coincidence at eleven the following morning.

'What?' Phryne's conversation sometimes had the effect on Lin Chung of two of Mr Butler's c.o.c.ktails before lunch. 'Gold? Oh, yes, the Hu robbery. It was in 1857-I have the exact date somewhere-at Castlemaine. Four Lin couriers were carrying quite a lot of gold from the diggings at Forest Creek to the bank at Castlemaine when they disappeared. They were ambushed by Hu robbers. Their bodies were never found, which is of course very serious. They should have been properly buried. We have been making offerings for them at the Festival of Hungry Ghosts ever since.'

'This feud,' commented Phryne, 'has antique value if it has been going on since 1857.'

'1854,' corrected Lin Chung. 'The Lin and the Hu families have both been in Australia since 1851. We came out from the Sze Yup, the Four Provinces, in search of the Second Gold Mountain. That was when it started. Hu jumped a Lin claim, then Lin jumped a Hu claim, and it rather went downhill from there. Of course, the goldfields were lawless places.'

'Eureka Stockade and so on?' Phryne had a very low opinion of the Eureka Stockade. Any revolutionary movement which was easily crushed by twenty-five soldiers in one afternoon did not deserve the name.

'And the pogroms against the Chinese. They ma.s.sacred us at Lambing Flat in New South Wales when the gold started to run out. In fact, a perfectly promising anti-Chinese riot was stopped at Golden Point, I am told. By a lone policeman. We remember him, even if no one else does. His name was Constable Thomas Cooke. A very brave man.'

'He must have been. How much gold are we talking about here?'