Urn Burial

CHAPTER TEN

Though earth hath ingrossed the name, yet water has

proved the smartest grave.

Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne, Chapter I.

THE MAJOR was not in his room. The door was open and the bed neatly made. Phryne looked around. There was a silver-framed photo on the bureau; a splendid uniform, hung with campaign medals, with a recognisable Major William inside. There was a large and muddy oil of a wobbly church on the wall and a few small pastels of flowers. She noticed that her hands were trembling slightly and wondered why. Then she tracked down the memory.

Lina’s freshly made bed, her clean room. Doreen had obviously just left.

Lin looked across at Phryne and she returned the glance with interest.

‘Tom, dear, I think we ought to find the Major,’ she said meaningly. ‘He might be . . . hurt.’ Reynolds shook his head.

‘Phryne, you’re exaggerating.’

‘Do I usually exaggerate?’ she asked tautly.

‘No,’ he decided. ‘No, you don’t. All right.’ He pressed the buzzer and Phryne filled in the interval while Hinchcliff climbed the stair by drifting around the room, picking up small things and putting them down. The usual bric-a-brac, she thought: a terracotta Infant Samuel at Prayer who clearly suffered from hydrocephaly; a blue china vase full of dried grasses; a small stained-glass box; and a tall medieval angel carved from some heavy dense wood. She picked it up. The wings met over the haloed head, the hands were pressed together in piety, but the figure was unusual. This angel neither bent his head in prayer nor stared blankly at the viewer radiating divine messages. The carved mouth was curved in a smile, the head held at a slight angle. It was a delightful work.

‘Tom, where did you get this?’ she asked.

‘Oh, do you like it, Phryne darling? It’s all yours.

Just put it out of sight, don’t let m’wife see it – the boy carved it. I thought I’d got rid of all his stuff.’

‘What boy?’

‘Her son Ronald. He had a mania for Gothic art, used to play all manner of games, knights and saracens, that sort of thing. Ah, Hinchcliff. Have you seen the Major this morning?’

‘No, Sir.’ Mr Hinchcliff seemed to convey, with perfect politeness, that this had improved his day.

‘Find out where he is, there’s a good chap. We’re a bit nervous today what with Lina and all.’

‘Certainly, Sir.’ Mr Hinchcliff left the room, bestowing on Phryne not an actual smile, but an approving look. That was a young woman with the right stuff, he seemed to be thinking, despite her eccentric choice of companions.

Lin Chung volunteered to go and check the billiard room and Phryne agreed to meet him there in an hour. Then, cradling the angel, she returned to her room to put it away, and found her door not only closed but apparently barred. She knocked.

‘It’s me, Dot.’

Something clunked, a key turned, and the door opened just enough to admit Phryne. She gave the carving to her maid who held it uncertainly.

‘Here, shove this in the baggage. Well, Dot dear, we seem to have a profusion of locks.’ Phryne looked at the doorframe, which now sported a very large and elaborate iron bolt which could have secured a crypt, and a modern box-lock which opened with a key.

‘Do you feel safer now, Dot?’ asked Phryne, concerned. Her maid looked pale and unhappy. The strong ochre of her woollen house-dress cast a yellowish light on her milky complexion and her long hair had been even more firmly braided than usual, a sure sign that Dot was perturbed.

‘Yes, Miss, and it stays locked and bolted whenever we’re inside.’ Dot pronounced firmly.

‘Fine with me,’ Phryne said gently. ‘As soon as the river goes down we can go home, Dot.’

‘Why, Miss, have you solved the murder?’

‘I think so. Now you’ll be called down for lunch soon, won’t you? I want you to find something out for me. You should be able to turn the conversation around.’ Phryne told Dot what she wanted. The maid nodded.

‘All right, Miss, that doesn’t seem too difficult. I found out about Mr and Mrs Hinchcliff like you wanted. They worked in one of the gentlemen’s clubs in Spring Street. Mrs H says they were very happy there. She did the housekeeping and he was the butler. He’s an imposing man, don’t you think, Miss? Mr Reynolds used to come to the club, and when he married Mrs Reynolds he asked them to come with him. They had a son that died, Miss, and they wanted to get away, and Mr Reynolds pays them almost double what they’d get in the city, so they’re saving up for their retirement. Mr Hinchcliff had a bit of a gambling problem, used to go to the races, but out here there’s nothing to bet on. Except that he plays cards with Mr Black, Mr Willis and Mr Jones. They reckon he’s an awful card player, but he can’t lose money to ’em because Mrs H won’t let them play for money. Mr Willis reckons he could build a new stable with the matches he’s won from Mr H playing poker.’

‘Well, well. The gambling bug has bitten Mr Hinchcliff, has it? Well done, Dot.’

‘I’ll go down to lunch, then. By the way, Miss, we’ve got another urn.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Phryne was struck with a sudden memory of Lin Chung like a flash of bright light. She blinked.

‘Yes, Miss. It’s on your dressing table. A nice white marble one.’ Dot smiled. The situation had become less threatening now that there was a lot of secure ironmongery between her and midnight walkers. ‘Oh, before I forget. There are two keys to our door, Miss. I’ve got one and here’s yours.’ Dot handed over a new silver key and went out, ostentatiously locking the door behind her.

Phryne put the key in her bag. Someone was either trying to scare her or help her by scattering urns in her path with such a liberal hand. If it was designed to frighten it hadn’t worked. If it was someone trying to help her, she owed it due consideration. She sat down to examine the urn. It was, as Dot had said, made of white marble, and according to the worn gold lettering on the base it contained the mortal remains of someone called Mrs Claybody.

This was apposite, though Mrs Claybody was now ash rather than clay. Phryne took a sheet of paper and examined the lid.

It was fixed on with what looked like old sealing wax, which had been broken fairly recently. She breathed a half-serious apology to whatever might remain of Mrs Claybody and tipped the contents of the urn out onto the paper.

A small quantity of fine, grey, bonfire ash spilled across the paper. Phryne shook the urn and turned it upside down. There was nothing else inside. She poked through the ash with one finger, locating what might have been fragments of bone, but nothing unusual.

Phryne poured Mrs Claybody back into her last resting place and replaced the lid. The urn contained no clue. Assuming that someone in the house was trying to provide her with some direction, and not just indulging in diseased rural humour, the clue was not in the urn.

The clue must be the urn itself.

Phryne looked at it. Mrs Claybody had been provided with an elaborate container. The white well-polished marble had been carved by a good craftsman into a curvy, satisfying shape, and no expense had been spared in the matter of gilt lettering and gold handles. It was a period-piece of high Victoriana and Phryne hoped that Mrs Clay-body, wherever she currently was, appreciated it.

Then she leapt to her feet as if stung. White marble, gilt, and curlicues. She had seen something like it in the house.

She unlocked and relocked the door with speed and walked quickly down the stairs to find Lin Chung.

He was in the billiard room, watching Jack Lucas angle a cannon. The spotted white ball bounced off an ivory ball, rolled and then kissed the red ball into a pocket. The watching poet applauded. Miss Medenham said, ‘Oh, good shot!’ Gerald complained, ‘Jack, you are really too good at billiards to have had a virtuous youth.’

The double meaning of what he had just said struck the young man, and he bit his lip and blushed. Cynthia and Jack Lucas both laughed. Miss Mead, who had been looking at her crocheting, shot them a sharp look.

‘Lin, dear, can I have a word?’ said Phryne. He came with her into the alcove formed by the French windows. ‘We’ve got to get into the cellar,’ said Phryne, smiling indulgently on the lovers.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you remember? Oh, of course not, you weren’t with me. There’s a white marble sarcophagus down there, and someone has just left a white marble urn in my room. There’s nothing inside it but what you would expect to find in an urn, so it must be the clue. Where’s Tom? We need the cellar keys.’

‘He’s at the stables. Apparently the Major went riding this morning and has not returned.’

‘Did he? I hope he hasn’t met with an accident,’ said Phryne concernedly. ‘The horse might have been injured.’

‘Phryne, what a wicked thing to say,’ said Lin Chung, largely as a matter of form.

‘Absolutely. Jack really is a good player, isn’t he? I have to agree with Gerald’s comment.’

The spotted white ball struck the green baize side of the table, flew across the surface, and the fated red ball dropped into a pocket again.

‘Billiards is a game for gentlemen – a very Chinese game, really, positional. Of course, one cannot play snooker in a refined house like this,’ commented Lin, and Phryne scanned his smooth face for irony. It was just not possible to guess what he was thinking from his expression. He exhibited all the blank solemnity of a stuffed fish, especially when delivering the most devastating barbs. It was an irritating trait. Equally, he was the object of Phryne’s profound desire and the touch of his hand as he laid his fingertips gently on her shoulder made her shiver.

‘Coming?’ she asked, and he followed her from the room.

Hinchcliff surrendered the keys to Miss Fisher, detaching them from his watchchain. ‘Mr Reynolds told me to render you all the assistance in my power, Miss Fisher.’

‘Hinchcliff, are there other keys to the cellar?’ asked Phryne.

‘I believe there was another bunch, Miss, but they were lost years ago. Mr Reynolds left them in the garden somewhere.’

‘I see. I’ll be careful of the stairs,’ she promised, as the warning rose to his lips.

The cellar was as dark as the inside of a whale. Phryne groped for and found the light-cord and pulled. They winced away from the glare of the naked bulb.

‘There,’ she said, pointing back into the dim recesses.

The floor of the cellar was slick and slippery, though someone had pumped out the standing water and re-capped the well. The marble object – surely it could not really be a sarcophagus, even in Cave House – stood solidly under a pile of tea-chests and crates.

‘This looks as though it hasn’t been touched for years,’ said Lin Chung, observing a bloom of green slime along the white marble.

‘I know, but I haven’t got a lot to go on and that urn was left there by someone who wanted to tell me something. Wait a bit.’ She lifted a crate of empty bottles and lay them aside on a stack of mildewing trunks. ‘Look, Lin. The lid’s been shifted. See that nice growth of algae? It follows the line of the lid. How do you feel about dead bodies?’

‘I am not enamoured, but carry on.’

They cleared away the last of the impedimenta. Phryne picked up a case-opener, which bore a distinct resemblance to a jemmy, and inserted it under the lip of the tomb.

‘I’ll lever, you slide,’ she said, holding her breath.

The lid resisted for a moment, glued fast with mould. Then Phryne managed to lift it enough for Lin to grasp the edge and pull it towards himself. It screeched as the worked edges scraped across each other.

Phryne and Lin bent to look inside.

At that moment, the light went out and cellar door clanged shut with a hollow boom.

Dark hair said to gold hair, ‘It’s happening.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘The train of events that will bring us together – my love, my dear love.’

‘What have you done?’ said gold hair to dark hair, both hands on a serge-clad chest, resisting the embrace.

‘I have done what I had to do.’

‘For us?’ asked gold hair.

‘For us,’ said dark hair tenderly and this time gold hair accepted the kiss.

‘Phryne?’ Lin asked. He let go of the stone lid, which balanced on the edge of the coffin. Phryne stretched out a hand, touched his hair, and slid down to grasp his wrist.

‘Well, here we are,’ she said excitedly. ‘Someone doesn’t want us to find out what is in this box. I must be getting somewhere. It’s most gratifying.’

‘Gratifying?’ asked Lin Chung.

‘Absolutely. Now, if you can come towards me, around the coffin, we should be about three paces from the stairs.’ She moved slowly, sliding her feet across the slippery floor, anxious not to collide with anything. Her groping touch found a wall.

‘Good. I’ve got a reference point.’ Lin came to stand beside her. ‘Now all we need to do is walk along this wall until we reach the stairs.’

‘The door is locked,’ Lin pointed out. ‘Do you have the key?’

‘Yes, of course. Or rather, no. I left it in the door, on the other side. Dammit. We’re locked in. But at least we can have some light and there must be a way out of this cellar.’

‘We will need to find it,’ said Lin imperturbably out of the darkness.

‘Oh, why?’

‘Because the floor, dry enough when we came in, is now an inch deep in water. That well, as youre call, floods the cellar. If the water rises high enough . . .’

‘It won’t. Tom would never let his precious wines get wet. There, there are the stairs. Follow me up,’ she said, as he placed his hand on her waist. They splashed through the cellar and up the castle stairs. Phryne counted. Five steps and a turn. Five more and another turn. Then she stood up with one hand on her guiding wall and flailed for the light cord. She caught at spider webs, but otherwise there was just empty air.

‘Lin, I can’t find the string for the light.’

‘He could have brought it along the ceiling and jammed it in the door.’

‘So he could. Further up. Here’s the door. You take that side, I’ll take this.’

They groped around the edges of the cellar door. It was a thick, solid wooden door, studded with iron nails with large heads. Phryne did not like their chances of chopping through it, even if they had a battleaxe. Though there might even be a battleaxe in the cellar of Cave House, probably along with a full set of fourteenth-century plate armour and the knight who wore it.

Lin said, ‘There’s no cord. He must have cut it.’

‘Never mind. There’s a little light; my eyes have got used to it now. Hinchcliff knows where we are. Someone will come and rescue us.’

‘However, since it might take them a while to miss us, we might make some arrangements for our comfort,’ he suggested.

He felt his way down the stairs again and Phryne heard him floundering in the dark, swearing in Cantonese, and splashing in what was evidently rising water.

He came up again and she felt him sit beside her on the broad top step.

‘A bottle of wine,’ he said, setting it down. ‘Champagne, by the cork. I’ve also got the case-opener, which we might try on the door, and the cellarman’s cushion for his port, when it was brought here in the dray. I fancy that it is an old bedcover. Are you cold?’

‘Yes.’ Phryne accepted half of the quilt, which stank of mould, and snuggled closer to Lin who was always warm. He bent to kiss her and she felt him shudder.

‘Are you cold, too?’

‘No. It’s not the cold. I . . . I don’t like this place.’

‘Neither do I,’ she agreed.

‘I mean,’ he said with exquisite embarrassment, ‘I do not like confined spaces and I especially do not like confined dark spaces.’

‘I see. Well, no point in sitting here, then. Come on. Let’s heave at that door.’

Lin found the lock and tried to force the claws of the case-opener into them. After a few minutes, he grunted, ‘No good,’ and gave the implement to Phryne.

‘It’s a well-made door,’ she agreed after a moment’s struggle. ‘It’s perfectly fitted and the lintel is of stone, curse it. It’s no good, Lin dear, we shall just have to bang on the door until someone comes and lets us out. You can take first shift.’

Lin swung the iron bar against the unmoving portal and it clanged.

After about a minute, a partially deafened Phryne took the bottle and the quilt and removed herself to the bottom of the stairs. Her foot splashed down into water that was now at least ten inches deep and she withdrew two steps, suppressing her exclamation of disgust. The water was stagnant and foul with floating debris. She shook her wet foot like a cat who has put a paw into an unexpected puddle, squeezed water from her sock and trouser leg and dried her hands on her jumper.

Then she unwound the wires and popped the cork of the champagne, taking a deep gulp. Now was probably not the time to wonder aloud to her claustrophobic companion about what was actually in that sarcophagus.

The noise filled the cellar and echoed dully. After about ten minutes, Phryne called, ‘Come down and have a drink, Lin. I don’t think they can hear us.’

He laid down the bar and the noise stopped. Phryne swallowed and her hearing, in some measure, returned. She shared her musty cloak with him. He was panting with effort.

‘It’s embarrassing, Lin dear, not catastrophic,’ she said quietly. She felt him gasp a little as he gulped the rather good champagne – French, Phryne was sure, though not Veuve Cliquot – and he sat still and began to control his breathing. The heart which had been racing against her cheek slowed and firmed.

‘I am forgetting my training,’ he said into her hair. ‘My master always said I was impetuous. ‘‘In the true way there is only calm’’, he said. I can hear him saying it.’

‘Master?’ asked Phryne encouragingly.

‘Yes, Master Wu. I studied at the Temple of the War God in Peking. Only for a couple of years. Long enough to learn some discipline, I would have thought, but I have always been afraid of being locked in the dark. When I was a child I had a nurse who used to shut me in a cupboard if I displeased her. I’m ashamed, Silver Lady, to show such weakness.’

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you aren’t afraid, you can’t be brave.’ She knew that this was insufficient and gave him something very close and secret. ‘I’m afraid of fire.’

‘Fire?’

‘Yes. The pain of a burn hurts me more than anything else – the brassy taste in the mouth, that cold pain. If we were facing a fire, I’d be scared half to death, whereas a little cold, wet and confinement does not worry me unduly, though when I find whoever shut us in I’ll do him an injury. Don’t worry, Lin. I don’t think any less of you. We’re all afraid of something.’

‘And you are a warrior,’ mused Lin, pulling the quilt closer. ‘Li Pen said so, and he would know, being one himself. He came out of that temple after ten years, Silver Lady, a complete fighter and hunter. That is why my father engaged him. He protects me, as well as irons my shirts and makes sure that I do not forget that I am Chinese.’

‘Then he will be looking for you,’ soothed Phryne.

‘That is so.’ Lin’s voice was firm again. ‘And he will find me. The trouble is, Silver Lady, that if we are missing together, people will make a certain deduction, and refrain from disturbing us.’

‘Hmm.’ Phryne’s mind raced. If this was the case, they might be in the cellar until dinner time. By then the water, fed by the flooded river as well as the spring, might have risen to the ceiling, drowning even that marble coffin with who knew what inside it. She had a moment of sheer superstitious panic, let it flow over her, and drank some more wine. The bottle was perceptibly lighter when she commented, ‘I wonder if there’s another way out of this cellar?’ She embraced Lin and stroked his cheek. He leaned his forehead on her shoulder, much as Gerald had done.

‘There might be. This is the sort of place to have secret passages.’

‘Yes, but one really needs light to find one. Let’s see. There must be candles somewhere and I’ve got matches in my pocket, how foolish of me.’

She drew out the box very carefully and lit one. By its light, she scanned the cellar, sighting what she wanted on top of a wine rack in the far corner.

‘Right. There’s a box of candles over there and no reason why we should sit in the dark. How many matches do we have?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Good. Come down and start striking.’

‘How will you get across?’ he asked as she headed toward the bottom of the stair.

‘I’ll wade.’

Phryne fought off a wave of revulsion and stepped down into the cold unclean water. She skirted the wall by the uncertain light of the match, knowing that somewhere in the middle was the well. The water was knee-deep now and freezing. Unseen objects rolled underfoot, threatening to fling her face down into the scum. She clung to the wine racks and reached the other side. There was a little light from a skylight of opaque glass barely a foot across.

There were eleven candles in the wooden box and a container of matches. She lit three tapers and instantly the dark was banished to lurk in the corners.

Across the expanse of black water she saw Lin Chung standing on the step shaking his burned fingers. She winced in sympathy.

‘There we are. Light. Now, what do we need to look at?’

‘The sarcophagus,’ he said bravely. Phryne sloshed across to it, steeled herself, and peered in.

‘Nothing, it’s empty. Hang about,’ she added, bringing the candle closer. ‘There’s a bit of crumpled fabric here, some fluid of some sort, and, erk, rather an awful smell. I think she’s been here, Lin, but she’s not here now. That’s a relief, eh? I’m going to have a look at the far wall. Back in a tick.’

‘I’m coming, too.’ Lin stepped down. Phryne smiled at him. In the flickering light, her eyes glowed as green as a cat’s. She gave him a taper and put the piece of material from the coffin in his pocket.

‘They never make women’s clothes with enough pockets,’ she complained, holding her candle high and clambering over crates and boxes.

‘Perhaps so that gentlemen with pockets can feel useful,’ said Lin, pushing aside what appeared to have been a wardrobe trunk for ocean travel before the sides had caved in.

‘Now, we are under the servants’ hall,’ reasoned Phryne. ‘This appears to be a boundary wall, what do you think?’

The weight of the house was pressing down on Lin Chung like a boulder on the back of his neck. He coughed, shook himself, and said, ‘Yes, it’s well built and it must be the outer surface of the house.’

‘Good, now for the other ones. What do you think has happened to the Major?’

‘I have no idea. He might have run away. Perhaps Miss Medenham and he could not agree and he rode off in a fit of pique. He might have fallen off his horse and not landed as lightly as you did, Silver Lady.’

‘Aha,’ said Phryne.

‘Aha?’

‘Come here, Lin, look at this stretch of wall. What’s different about it?’

‘It’s brick,’ he said. ‘The other walls are stone.’

‘It’s brick and it’s decorated,’ she said, feeling along tuck-pointing and around white mortared borders. ‘Look for the pattern which doesn’t match the rest of the wall.’

‘Here,’ he said, puzzled, laying a palm on slimy bricks laid lengthwise and criss-crossing. ‘This is the only part like this.’

‘Good. Now pull, push and twiddle everything which looks twiddleable.’

Lin obeyed long enough for his candle to burn down. Phryne gave him another one.

‘This is futile,’ he protested. ‘The water’s rising.

Hadn’t we better go back up the stairs?’

‘In a little while.’ Phryne, the water almost at her hips, pounded a likely-looking brick, then leaned on a particularly careless obtrusion of mortar. Nothing happened and the water continued to rise.

‘Dammit,’ she muttered. ‘You’re right. Let’s go back.’

He reached out to take her hand as she began to clamber over a fallen dresser which might have been designed for Alfred the Great. She slipped, slid, and fell against the wall, swearing in a variety of languages.

‘Dommage ,’ she said as he hauled her to her feet. ‘Now I’m wet through, and all for nothing. It was a silly idea, Lin.’

He did not answer. The bricks groaned. Lin dropped his candle and flung himself against a moving wall. A dark crack widened and then the door gave way.

Phryne, Lin Chung, and a thousand gallons of water spilled out of the cellar of Cave House into light.