Part 14 (2/2)

'And a very virtuous person,' said Phryne repressively. The clerk blushed. Phryne walked into the telephone cubicle and prepared for the arduous task of persuading a partially deaf and obtuse operator that she really did mean to stay in this close, airless confinement until she, Phryne, was connected with her, Phryne's, house in St Kilda, even though it would mean that the operator had to bend and even if she had just filed her nails.

The operator in Castlemaine was a brisk young woman with a singsong delivery and commendable efficiency. The Melbourne operator was of the old school and considerable time and pennies were wasted in persuading her to pull out some plugs and stick in some others. All the time Phryne's mind was running on steamily carnal lines and she was rather relieved when Mr Butler's magisterial tones echoed through the apparatus.

'Castlemaine calling,' said the brisk young woman, with a relieved note in her voice. 'Your Melbourne connection, caller!'

Phryne waited until the operator had clicked out of the line. Listening in to phone calls was a recognised perk of the profession.

'Mr Butler, how are you? Any trouble?'

'One suspicious parcel, Miss Fisher, which on Mr Li's advice we put into a bucket of water. When the bubbles subsided we found it contained a couple of fireworks, a trigger made of a fulminate cap and another note requiring us to desist from our investigation.'

'Well done, Mr B.'

'Miss Dot has some news for you, Miss. If you would wait just one moment...?'

'Miss?' Dot distrusted telephones and tended to shout. After all, Miss Phryne was seventy-eight miles away. 'Are you all right?'

'Certainly, though my ears have been grossly abused by a lot of very long stories. Have you got any more news for me?'

'Yes, Miss. That Roderick who's pursuing your sister, he's a blond bloke who looks like a wrestler and he's not a nice person, Miss, but we haven't seen him. And we worked out the tattoo, you know, on the poor fellow's arm? Miss Eliza is real good at heraldry.' Dot was proud of her new word and used it again. 'The heraldic crest says he was a marquess and Miss Eliza says it's the coat of arms of her friend Lady Alice Harborough. They had an ancestor who went to the goldfields and never came back and Miss Eliza thinks it's him. He was the heir.'

'Who succeeded to the t.i.tle?' asked Phryne.

'It fell into...' Dot was consulting a note, Phryne heard the rustle. 'Desuetude. The distant heir who succeeded was Lady Alice's great grandfather.'

'Who went with this poor boy to the goldfields, Dot? Or did he go alone?'

'Don't know. Miss Eliza is trying to find out. She's going to the State Library today to look at Debrett. Or was it Burke? Anyway, if you call back tonight, we might know more.'

'Very good, Dot. Do we know the young man's name?'

'Thomas Beaconsfield,' said Dot.

'Oh,' said Phryne, abruptly enlightened. Mr Harrison's dad's friends. Thomas Beaconsfield and a bloke called Chumley, who had left the field one night without a farewell, leaving Mr Harrison senior and his mate Duncan with a good find in their abandoned claim. Well, well. This was the point in a problem when all the answers started dropping down like manna from heaven.

'That's very interesting, Dot. Tell Eliza to keep digging and I'll call again tonight.'

Phryne hung up. So. The plot, instead of thickening, had thinned. And about time too, she thought ungratefully. The young aristocrat who had vanished one night with his dearest friend Chumley had been murdered, shot between the eyes at close range. Possibly by a stranger, possibly by his best mate, who then presumably went back to England, Home and Beauty with the gold. Because the quarrel would have been over the gold. The two Englishmen dug and dug, said Mr Harrison, but only a bit of colour, and then when they were gone, his dad and Duncan had struck it rich in their abandoned trench.

Of course, perhaps Mr Harrison senior and his fellow miner had done away with both of these young men, and only Thomas Beaconsfield had been found and mummified. It was not as though there weren't a lot of nice pre-dug graves on that goldfield. And after the gold was gone and the landscape had been allowed to return to cultivation, the holes would have been filled in and ploughed over and all trace of them obliterated.

A perfect murder, and then Miss Fisher had to poke her nose into it.

Both Lady Alice, whom Eliza had been sure she had seen at Luna Park, and Roderick the Wrestler were prime candidates for the bomb maker. Phryne had no doubt that a well brought up, literate socialist who worked in the East End would be able to find some freedom-loving anarchist who would teach her how to make a bomb. And Roderick doubtless had friends amongst engineers, and the sort of sense of humour that puts fireworks into the letterboxes of the elderly and timid. But which one? Eliza loathed the brute boy and loved the lady, but Eliza's was not a reliable judgment... time and further research would have to tell.

Phryne unfolded her note. The paper had been hand-pressed and was scented with jasmine.

'Silver Lady, I have yearned to see you. I will call at midnight. At your window.'

That was enterprising of Lin Chung. Phryne would watch his future progress, hopefully to her window, with great interest.

Meanwhile, coffee, and a visit to the newspaper office. The Mount Alexander Mail had been operating at the time when the brave policeman Thomas Cooke had stopped the riot at Golden Point. Presumably, it had archives.

They might even know where they were. Mostyn Street ho, thought Phryne.

Lin Chung alighted outside four tumbledown houses in Union Street and brushed falling peppercorns off his ca.s.sock. Second Cousin Kong knocked at the first door and it sagged open, missing a hinge.

It was dark within. Lin called out 'h.e.l.lo?' in Cantonese and heard something stirring. Second Cousin Kong found a curtain and drew it aside.

The room was bare of any comfort. The house was a badly built bark shack off which most of the bark had peeled. The floor was of beaten earth. The roof had holes in several places and slimy pools showed where the rain had fallen. Lin gestured and Second Cousin Kong reached down and lifted an old, old Chinese lady and hefted her without effort into the light.

His reward was a feeble blow across the nose and a faint scream of outrage.

'Who are you?'

'I am Lin Chung,' said Lin. 'Adoptive Grandmother, I am here to find you a better place to live.'

'Why?' The old eyes were pearled.

'Because it is my wish,' said Lin Chung. This seemed to comfort the old lady and she relaxed in Second Cousin Kong's embrace.

'Try the next house,' ordered Lin, and Fuchsia pushed at the door. This one opened and revealed a bare, swept room where an old man was drinking tea and reading a scroll book. Scriptures of some kind, Lin a.s.sumed. Behind him, against the far wall, was an altar with the usual deities and a meagre single joss stick burning in a bra.s.s bowl. Kwan Yin smiled blandly on this tiny offering. Under the stand for the incense was a large box in which the little scrolls with wishes on them were placed. It was almost full and must have been there for many years. The old man looked up in surprise, allowing his scroll to roll up under his lifted hand.

'Adoptive Grandfather, may I lay this woman in your room while I arrange for her future? I am Lin Chung, and I have funds to disburse for better housing and care.'

'You have managed to get her out of her hovel!' The old man leapt to his feet. 'More than I could do, Adoptive Grandson. Though I never tried using an ox,' he added, sighting up the slopes of Second Cousin Kong.

'Oxen are useful,' rumbled Kong, laying the old woman in her wrappings down on a clean patch of floor.

'Are you the priest?' asked Lin. The old man bowed.

'I am Ching Ta, at your service. A Follower of the Five Forbiddens. With our state of extreme poverty, this has not been too onerous.'

'Are there other Chinese people in this street?'

'The Ah sisters in the next house,' said the old man, eyeing the bundles which Second Cousin Kong was carrying into the temple. 'Old Man Lo and his wife and brother next to them. We are the last. When they are all dead I shall pack up this temple and go to Bendigo, where I have relatives. Do I smell lacquered duck?'

'You do. Come with me to these other people and give me the benefit of your advice. Would it be better to buy a new house and have the people live together, or shall I have these houses repaired? Rebuilt, in the case of the old lady's shack.'

'They would not be happy living together,' opined the old man. 'The old woman on my floor, Old Lady Chang, she was a concubine-well, that's putting it politely. The Ah sisters detest her. She can't stand Old Man Lo, because he was once her . . . well. Better to repair and provide some care for them. The Sam Yup Benevolent Society sends us sacks of rice and we still have some money to buy vegetables and sometimes a little meat.'

'So you are Sam Yup? The Lin family are Sze Yup, the four provinces,' said Lin. 'We are by way of being hereditary enemies, Adoptive Grandfather.'

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