Urn Burial pf-8 Read online

  Urn Burial

  ( Phryne Fisher - 8 )

  Kerry Greenwood

  Phryne Fisher, intelligent, brave and stunningly chic, is back in this most entertaining mystery. With a brand new stylish 1920s cover, this seventh Phryne Fisher murder mystery is superb.

  Phryne Fisher, scented and surprisingly ruthless, is not one to let sleuthing an horrific crime get in the way of an elegant dalliance.

  The redoubtable Phryne Fisher is holidaying at Cave House, a Gothic mansion in the heart of the Victorian mountain country. But the peaceful country surroundings mask danger. Her host is receiving death threats, lethal traps are set without explanation around the house and the parlourmaid is found strangled to death.

  What with the reappearance of the mysterious funerary urns, a pair of young lovers, an extremely eccentric swagman, an angry outcast heir, and the luscious Lin Chung, Phryne's attention has definitely been caught.

  Phryne's search for answers takes her deep into the dungeons of the house and of the limestone Buchan caves. But what will she...

  Praise for Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series

  ‘Phryne Fisher is gutsy and adventurous, and also well endowed with plenty of grey matter. She has it over Robicheaux and Poirot because she’s drop-dead gorgeous.’ West Australian

  ‘Fisher is a sexy, sassy and singularly modish character. Her 1920s Melbourne is racy, liberal and a city where crime occurs on its shadowy, largely unlit streets.’ Canberra Times

  ‘Greenwood is the class act of local crime writing.’

  Weekend Australian

  ‘A joy to read.’ Newcastle Herald

  ‘Snappy one-liners and the ability to fight like a wildcat are appealing in a central character.’ City Weekly

  ‘Greenwood’s prose has a dagger in its garter; her hero is raunchy and promiscuous in the best sense.’ Weekend Australian

  ‘Manners and attitude maketh the PI, and Phryne is, as always, perfect.’ The Book Bulletin

  ‘Greenwood is a gifted storyteller with a light, sharp touch.’ Australian Book Review

  ‘Smart, sharp, incredibly stylish, fearless individual and completely irresistible—and that’s just the heroine!’ The Geelong Times

  KERRY GREENWOOD is the author of nineteen novels and the editor of two collections. Other mysteries in the Phryne Fisher series are Cocaine Blues, Flying too High, Murder on the Ballarat Train, Death at Victoria Dock, The Green Mill Murder, Blood and Circuses, Ruddy Gore, Raisins and Almonds, Death Before Wicket, Away with the Fairies, Murder in Montparnasse and The Castlemaine Murders. Urn Burial is the eighth title in the series. She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series.

  When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates’ Courts for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.

  URN

  BURIAL

  A Phryne Fisher

  Mystery

  Kerry Greenwood

  This edition published in 2003

  First published in 1996 by Penguin Books Australia

  Copyright © Kerry Greenwood 1996

  All rights reserved.

  This book is dedicated to my sister

  Amanda Butcher, dear Sam.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  With thanks to Jean Greenwood, Lesley Greagg, Jenny Pausacker, David Greagg, Richard Revill, the staff and students of Lowther Hall, Susan Tonkin as always, my Sisters in Crime and Agatha Christie. Also AWG for the Beretta, John Russell for the hat and Corrie and Garry de Klijn for the lamp.

  In loving memory of Tom (The Comm) Hills, most courageous of red-raggers and most honoured comrade.

  NOTE: Buchan Caves are as described, but the named caves were closed some years ago because of environmental degradation.

  CAST LIST

  TOM REYNOLDS, a publisher, owner of Cave House.

  EVELYN REYNOLDS, his wife.

  THE HON. PHRYNE FISHER, an amazing woman.

  MISS DOROTHY (DOT) WILLIAMS, her maid and companion.

  MR LIN CHUNG, Phryne’s lover.

  MR LI PEN, his manservant and bodyguard.

  MAJOR WILLIAM LUTTRELL, a military bully.

  MRS LETTY LUTTRELL, his faded and frightened wife.

  MISS CYNTHIA MEDENHAM, a novelist and Vamp.

  MR GERALD RANDALL, a young flannelled fool, slim with curly dark hair.

  MR JACK LUCAS, another, but taller and blond.

  MISS JUDITH FLETCHER, a hearty young damsel, brought as a mate for Gerald by Joan Fletcher.

  MRS JOAN FLETCHER, a society dame with lots of money.

  DOCTOR GEORGE FRANKLIN, a fashionable practitioner with nerve trouble.

  MISS SAPPHIRA CRAY, devoted to good works, a knitting friend of Miss Mead.

  MISS MARY MEAD, a spinster.

  MR TADEUSZ LODZ, a Polish poet.

  STAFF

  MR JOHN JONES, the houseman.

  MR PAUL BLACK, the mechanic and driver.

  MISS LINA WRIGHT, the parlourmaid.

  MRS DAISY CROFT, the cook.

  MR ALBERT HINCHCLIFF, the butler.

  MRS BELINDA HINCHCLIFF, the housekeeper.

  MR TERENCE WILLIS, the stableman.

  DINGO HARRY, a wandering and extremely eccentric swagman who knows all about the caves.

  DOREEN, the chambermaid.

  ANNIE, the housemaid.

  A scullery maid, two gardeners, a knives and boots boy called ALBERT and a stableman’s apprentice called JOE.

  ‘But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.’

  Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne, Chapter V.

  CHAPTER ONE

  We present not these as any strange sights or spectacle

  unknown to your eyes, who have beheld the best of

  urns and the noblest variety of ashes.

  Epistle Dedicatory, Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne.

  THE SHOT boomed out of the mist.

  Phryne slowed the Hispano-Suiza to a halt. Dot, from the back, where she was sitting with Lin Chung’s manservant Li Pen, said tremulously, ‘Someone hunting?’

  ‘In this weather and after dark?’ asked Phryne. ‘Does that seem likely, Dot dear? That was a shotgun.’

  Then someone screamed.

  It was a female voice, ragged with terror, even though the sound was blanketed by the fog which curled into the big car, chilling the heart. Li Pen leaned forward. Dot emitted a squeak of fright.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ asked Lin Chung. ‘It might be a private fight.’

  Phryne grinned at him. ‘The last private fight I leapt into was very rewarding,’ she commented. ‘I would otherwise never have met you. Can you use a gun?’

  ‘Not as well as you, I suspect.’

  ‘All right, change places. You take the driver’s seat.’ She clambered over him, taking the passenger seat. The scream came again, closer and louder, and Phryne heard feet running. Dot whimpered. Li Pen, hoping he was doing the right thing, put a reassuring hand on her arm, which she was too frightened to shake off.

  Phryne found her Beretta and loaded it methodically. Lin Chung heard the click of bullets snapped into their grooves, and the clunk of the mechanism as she closed it.

  ‘Turn the car until the headlights point directly behind me,’ she ordered. ‘That should blind anyone coming this way. Keep the engine running – I won’t be a tick.’

  She was gone from beside him. Lin engaged the gears and very carefully and skilfully backed the Hispano-Suiza and turned it, hoping that he was not about to run Phryne’s beloved car into an unexpected ditch. The powerful fog lam
ps outlined Phryne’s small determined figure; the slim body clad in trousers and a jumper, her stance easy and alert, and the cameo-cut shape of her straight profile and cap of black hair. Li Pen commented in Cantonese, ‘She would make a warrior. She has the heart of a lion.’ Lin Chung agreed.

  ‘Oh, Miss, be careful!’ wailed Dot.

  The road was rough. Three-foot high ti-tree scrub lined it, full of thorns and snakes. Phryne called into the mist, ‘Here!’ and for a moment there was complete silence. Chill as the heart of darkness, thought Lin Chung, his hands ready on the wheel. Cold as the silence at the heart of unbeing.

  Scarves of fog lay tangled in the low-growing scrub. Phryne strained her eyes. She could see only about ten paces into the virgin forest and could smell only wetness and chill earth and the faint scent of water. Then she heard a crashing scramble straight ahead as someone tried to run through the ti-tree.

  This, of course, could not be done. Only a bulldozer could run through there, she reflected, holding the gun out steady in both hands. ‘Here!’ she yelled again, and was answered by a sobbing shriek, ‘Help!’

  Out of the fog came a woman, completely out of her mind with pain or fear, stumbling and falling as the roots caught her feet, getting up and clawing herself forward again. She staggered, fell and got up again, orienting herself by the car’s headlights, drawn by the bright light like a moth.

  Phryne swung her aim away as the girl fell panting at her feet. She was dressed in black and white, and a frilly cap was still pinned, jaunty and incongruous, on her torn hair. It was an unusual situation in which to find a parlourmaid.

  Phryne listened hard, trying to block out the maid’s whimpering, trying to hear beyond the sound for any following feet. The attacker must still be out there. Phryne and the maid were perfect targets in the Hispano-Suiza’s glare. But nothing moved, no gun fired. She could discern no other person out in the chill darkness.

  ‘Come along,’ she said, pocketing the gun and hauling the girl to her feet. ‘Get in the car. You’re safe now. Lin, get us out of here,’ she added, shoving the maid into the back seat and Dot’s concerned arms.

  The parlourmaid’s sobbing increased once she knew she was safe. Li Pen removed himself to the far side of the seat as she caught sight of his face and whispered, ‘A Chink!’

  ‘You’re safe,’ said Dot briskly. ‘It’s all right. What’s your name? Where did you come from? Where can we take you?’

  ‘Lina,’ whispered the girl. ‘I’m Lina and I’m from Cave House.’

  Dot soothed, ‘Good, that’s where we’re going.’

  Lin Chung, navigating carefully through endless ti-tree, said, ‘It can’t be far, then.’

  ‘Oh, God, another Chink!’ exclaimed Lina as she heard his voice.

  ‘Lina, would you like to walk home?’ asked Phryne, her voice as chill as the fog.

  Dot said, ‘Oh, Miss . . .’ and the parlourmaid gave a small scream. ‘No Miss, please Miss, I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘It’s Miss Phryne Fisher,’ said Dot, giving the girl a small shake. ‘We’re going to Cave House for a house party. Mr Reynolds invited us. I’m Miss Williams and that is Mr Lin and Mr Li. Pull yourself together, girl. You’ve been rescued and we’re taking you home. You were lucky that we came along. No call to be insulting your Master’s guests now, have you? Are you hurt? We heard a shot.’

  ‘No – no, he missed me, I’m just a bit scratched by all them thorns. I was so scared. I’m sorry, Miss Fisher, Mr Lin, I’m sorry.’ She started to cry. Phryne was unsympathetic.

  Lin Chung said softly, ‘You see, Phryne, I told you this would be difficult, importing an exotic like me into your world. She’s just reacting as all the rest will.’

  ‘She’s shocked and she’s been reading too much Sax Rohmer,’ snapped Phryne. ‘At last – they look like the gateposts.’

  ‘Yes, Miss. It says ‘‘Cave House’’ on the fence,’ Dot said, supporting the sobbing girl on her shoulder and feeling tears trickle down her neck. Phryne got out to open the gate and the car rolled onto a gravelled drive. She snibbed the wooden stockyard shutter after the car had passed through and listened again.

  No sound in the dank air, yet she shivered. Someone was watching her. There were inimical eyes on the back of her neck. She pulled up the collar of her jumper and got back into the car.

  Even the fog could not disguise the monstrous oddity of Cave House.

  In the closing years of the nineteenth century, a wealthy brewer had been dragged protesting on the Grand Tour by his wife, who had artistic yearnings. There was no doubt that they had visited Greece, and also delighted in a profusion of Gothic cathedrals. Cave House was both. It was an amalgam so outrageous, so amazing, that even Phryne, in possession of a distraught housemaid and a searing fit of bad temper, sat and gaped.

  The Parthenon, she recalled, had nine columns with decorous Ionic capitals. Cave House had twelve and they were capped with Corinthian designs in white marble. York Cathedral had ten Gothic grotesques over the door; Cave House had twenty, all fanged and with unpleasantly lolling tongues as well.

  It was too much for the end of a long drive. Lin Chung sat as though stunned, every canon of design known to him, both Chinese and Oxford, thoroughly outraged. Li Pen reflected that even the legendary Yellow Emperor on an overdose of hallucinogenic mushrooms had never conceived anything like this. Dot thought it was overdone, but interesting.

  ‘Miss, we ought to get Lina inside,’ she said, and Phryne pulled herself together. Artistic criticism of Cave House could wait. Now she was cold and furious and needed to suitably dispose of Lina, who was working herself into a proper fit of hysterics by the sounds from the back seat.

  The main door opened and Tom Reynolds himself came out.

  He was short, stout and hearty, and ordinarily Phryne liked him. At this moment she didn’t like anyone.

  ‘Well, what a terrible night for a drive!’ he exclaimed. ‘Come inside instantly! John will put the car away. Phryne dear, you must be chilled to the bone. I’d quite given you up!’

  ‘The fog slowed us down.’ Phryne got out and climbed up the steps to kiss Tom on the cheek. ‘Also, we’ve found a stray of yours, Tom.’

  Dot helped the parlourmaid from the car. Reynolds identified her and goggled.

  ‘Lina? What have you been up to?’

  The maid began to shriek again. Dot put an arm around her.

  ‘Have you got a housekeeper, Sir?’ she asked. ‘Pipe down, Lina, do. You’ll soon be inside. Sir, I think we’d better call a doctor.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Take her inside, through to the kitchen. I’ll send Mrs Hinchcliff to you right away, and Doctor Franklin’s staying in the house. What a stroke of luck.’

  Two housemen were unloading the luggage, and Phryne allowed them to take the car away.

  ‘Mr Lin, delighted to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,’ effused Tom Reynolds, shaking his hand.

  Dot and Li Pen escorted Lina into the house through the front door, ordinarily banned to domestics. Phryne saw the girl’s knees give way abruptly. Li Pen swept her up and carried her and Phryne reflected that he was a lot stronger than he looked. Then again, so was Lin Chung. Tom Reynolds was drawing them inside, past the great carved portals and into a proper cathedral entrance.

  ‘The maid’ll show you to your rooms, and perhaps you’d like to come down in about half an hour for a drink and some supper, eh? It’s ten o’clock and we keep early hours in the country.’ Phryne assented absently, boggling.

  The inside of Cave House was as remarkable as the outside.

  Following a neat maid, Phryne crossed a parquet floor with Greek key-pattern edging, climbed up a monumental staircase under some Morris windows and paced along a gallery to a large room. Lin Chung had been led in exactly the opposite direction to some distant bit of the house. Phryne scented prejudice.

  But the room was very pleasant. There was a bright fire burning in the black-leaded hearth under the Art Décoratif til
es and the Corinthian columns of the marble mantelpiece. Her bed was four-posted, surrounded by white mosquito netting, and had a thick feather quilt. The floor was covered with a hideous but expensive Turkish carpet in glaring red and brilliant green. Phryne took stock. Her room had two bow windows; a powdering closet with a small bed in it, obviously intended for Dot, a lot of exceptionally miscellaneous furniture and an engraving of Hope over her washstand. Hope, as a draped female figure, drooped over the globe of the world, obviously in irreparable, mortal despair at the pitiless nature of mankind. It was an exceptionally depressing picture.

  Irritated, Phryne turned her to the wall. Then she tore off her hat, unlaced her boots, and sat down on a spindly Louis Quatorze chair at a marble washstand. Her face in the mirror was set with fury. And, she noticed, smudged. She poured some hot water into a Wedgewood bowl and washed the marks of adventure off her skin with Pear’s soap.

  She was sitting by the fire and wiggling some feeling back into her frozen toes when Dot came in.

  ‘How’s Lina?’ asked Phryne.

  ‘The Doctor’s with her. He says she’s all right, just exhausted and scratched by all those thorns but he says . . . oh, Miss.’

  ‘Oh, Miss? What’s the matter, old thing? Sit down, Dot, have a tot of this.’

  Dot slumped down into the chippendale chair on the other side of the fire. Phryne produced a flask and made her companion drink down a mouthful of brandy. Some colour came back into Dot’s white face. Phryne took her hand, worried by her pallor. Finally Dot managed to say what was on her mind.

  ‘She’s been molested, Miss.’

  ‘God, you mean raped?’

  Dot winced at the word. ‘No, Miss Phryne, just molested. The Doctor says she’ll be all right. The housekeeper’s with her – her aunt, she says. Mr Li carried her in, and he’s gone to find Mr Lin. They’ve put him right out the back.’