Urn Burial

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Plaistered and whited sepulchres were anciently

affected in cadaverous and corrupted burials.

Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne, Chapter III.

LI PEN crouched, Phryne dangled by both hands from limestone as slippery as ice, and Tom Reynolds caught the charging figure around the shoulders and said, ‘Will Luttrell! Where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you!’

‘Dark,’ shuddered the Major, struggling. ‘Alone in the dark. You, Tom, what’re you doing here, here of all places, why here?’

‘We’re on the way out,’ soothed Reynolds. ‘My dear fellow, you’re in a fearful state. How long have you been wandering?’

‘Don’t touch me.’ The Major threw off Tom Reynolds’ hand and swung a punch at him, which missed. Then he sighted Phryne hanging from the side of the rock formation called The Urn and screamed, ‘No! You can’t go up there!’

‘Yes, I can,’ she said equably. ‘Why, what do you think I’m going to find?’

‘No!’ He clawed at her ankles, and her fingers lost their grip. Phryne slid down the rock face swearing, as Li Pen came quietly up to the Major and applied a lock which pinned his arms to his sides. Mr Luttrell struggled, but did not seem able to move.

Dot stared at Lin Chung’s man admiringly. No noise, no challenges, no man-to-man nose-to-nose confrontation or fuss. He just walked up to the recalcitrant Major and they were denatured before they knew what had happened. Li Pen, for his part, was disappointed that so far in his sojourn in Australia, he had never met anyone who knew anything about real fighting. His master had told him that a warrior needs challenges or he grows complacent.

The rest of the party had come back into The Crypt, attracted by the noise. They crowded through the doorway and stopped as they saw Phryne ascending The Urn and Li Pen holding the fuming soldier with negligent ease.

‘What on earth . . .’ began Mrs Reynolds, and the poet swore in some obscure tongue. Li Pen brought his prisoner forward.

‘Not there!’ yelled the Major. ‘Don’t let her go up there!’

The smooth stone was very hard to climb. Phryne could get to the bulge which marked the middle of formation but no further. Her fingers slipped on the smooth sides and she could not find a foothold. She was, however, sure of what she would find; the charnel-house smell was stronger the higher she climbed. Meat of some sort was spoiling in The Urn.

As she clung to the protrusions in the stone, considering which might bear her weight for a short time, she was almost shaken down by a dreadful noise; a crack, whine and boom. The company were driven together like sheep threatened by a dingo.

Someone had fired a gun. A large-bore hand gun, probably a .45, reflected Phryne, edging around out of the immediate line of fire. A figure carrying a torch in one hand and a gun in the other came into sight behind The Altar. A breeze blew in and gusted the flame. Phryne realised that there must be another tunnel.

It was Paul Black, all grease and smile, and he stood for a moment surveying the house party with arrogant ease.

‘Stand still,’ he said.

The appearance of the gunman had started movement in the crowd. Lin Chung had taken one quiet pace into deep shadow. Miss Mead had seen him go and immediately turned her back, taking Miss Medenham’s arm and compelling her to move with her. Phryne clung to the obverse of The Urn, out of sight. Mrs Fletcher began to scream, a high, thin wail, until she was shocked into silence by Miss Fletcher striking her across the face. She subsided into frightened sobbing. Tom Reynolds shoved to the front with Evelyn at his shoulder, presenting, Phryne thought, a magnificent target. Dingo Harry stood beside him, beard bristling with fury. Mrs Luttrell had not rushed to her husband, who had been silently released by Li Pen, but sidled close to Miss Medenham. Gerald and Jack Lucas edged together and Phryne saw their shoulders touch, though they did not look at each other. Li Pen had, like his master, faded as far as possible into the dark at the edge of the gathering. Doctor Franklin gaped, wiping a hand over his forehead as though he was running a fever, while the poet, who had presumably seen both guns and revolutionary outrages before, held both hands away from his body and tried not to catch the mechanic’s eye. Dot stiffened with offence and stared at Paul Black, elaborately not glancing in Phryne’s direction.

‘You’re all my prisoners,’ gloated Mr Black.

‘What’s the meaning of this? How dare you?’ yelled Tom Reynolds. ‘Put that gun down!’

He dived forward and Paul Black lowered the sights and fired.

There was the dreadful noise again, a stench of cordite, and Tom Reynolds fell, shoved backward by the force of the bullet. His wife leapt to his side, cradling him in her arms. The Doctor immediately dropped to his knees to examine the injury. He pulled away the shirt and revealed a bloody wound in the upper-chest and shoulder. Tom groaned.

‘That will happen again if anyone tries to attack me,’ announced Mr Black.

‘Is he dead?’ whispered Miss Medenham.

‘No, but it’s a nasty wound. One of you ladies, give me your petticoat,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Mrs Reynolds, hold him up a bit so that he doesn’t choke. Someone give me a knife. We need to get that coat off him.’

‘You pay attention to me!’ yelled the gunman, brandishing the weapon.

‘You’ve got us,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘But unless you mean to shoot us all, I will tend to my patient.’

Phryne cheered silently behind her rock. Miss Fletcher said, ‘Bounder!’ and Jack Lucas said, ‘Good show, Doctor.’

‘You, Lucas, come here,’ sneered Black, and Lucas gave Gerald a long glance. Their hands met, unseen by the house party. Jack straightened, walked to the foot of The Altar and said, ‘Yes? What do you want, my man?’ in his best born-to-rule drawl, obviously calculated to provoke working-class fury. Phryne held her breath, but Paul Black did not react except to laugh.

‘I want this party secured. There are ropes in Dingo Harry’s kit – he always has ropes. You and Gerald can begin tying everyone up. Hands behind the back and ankles together. I’ll kill anyone who struggles.’

‘No,’ said Jack Lucas, after deep thought. He looked into the pistol barrel as it came up, aimed at his head. ‘You want to use me as your instrument to control us all,’ he said calmly. ‘I can’t see that doing your bidding would keep me alive, much less the people I love. If you’re going to shoot me, you can shoot me now. I can’t stop you.’

Paul Black raised the gun and Phryne saw his finger tighten on the trigger.

‘Jack, no!’ wailed Gerald, running to his side. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ he gabbled, dragging a coil of thin rope out of Dingo Harry’s bag. ‘Just don’t hurt us.’

‘Oh, Gerry,’ mourned Jack.

‘You’ve got to live,’ said Gerald, looping a line around his friend’s wrists and tying it tight. ‘We’ve got to live.’

‘This isn’t the way,’ said Jack. Paul Black leaned down and struck him across the face with the gun. Jack staggered and fell to his knees. Gerald whimpered over him, smearing blood over the injured cheek and his own.

‘You, get up,’ ordered Mr Black. ‘Tie up the others or watch your friend die.’

Gerald took up the line and began to truss the rest of the company into bundles. When he came to Miss Mead, he whispered, ‘Don’t look at me like that, I can’t bear it.’

‘How was I looking at you?’ she asked.

‘Like I’d let you down. Don’t, please. I want us to live.’

‘So do I, young man,’ said Miss Mead, allowing him to secure her hands and feet. ‘So do we all.’

Miss Cray allowed herself to be tied. Miss Medenham and Mrs Luttrell did not struggle, though Miss Medenham whispered, ‘You wait until we get out of this, my lad, I’ll thrash you with my own hands.’ The poet submitted with a few Finno-Ugric curses, and the Major fought. He was half mad with isolation and fear and he was very strong. Gerald could not hold him and no one else came to his assistance. Major Luttrell struck Gerald with an open hand and sent him flying against the wall.

Paul Black came down from his eminence. This was the predator, the human with the heart of a beast that Li Pen the hunter had sensed. Phryne wondered how she had ever found Mr Black negligible. He was glowing with dark pleasure, as though their submission and his power fed some black strength inside him. Phryne for the first time began to feel that they were all in danger of immediate death, and to wonder if she could make it to the top of The Urn without too much noise. She had her little gun in her bag, but a shoot-out in the cave would be far too dangerous. The candles were burning down, there were no fixed torches, and a stray bullet might find any lodgement.

The Major was shouting fragments of sentences and struggling wildly. Paul Black stood above him, growling, ‘You stupid old bastard,’ and struck him across the head with the gun butt. The Major fell silent. Gerald tied him up with hands that shook so much that he could hardly form a knot.

‘Where’s Miss Fisher and the Chink?’ demanded Paul Black, who seemed to be counting.

‘They’re still in The Cathedral. They had . . . other concerns,’ said the poet quickly, and smiled a lecherous smile. ‘You know what they say about Chinese. That’s why there are so many of them.’

Mr Black grinned. Phryne gave Tadeusz a gold star for lightning acuity, doubtless polished during the riots in Paris. A sinful explanation was always convincing.

By scoring holds in the soft stone with her knife, she had managed to clamber to the top of The Urn. As she had expected, a corpse lay in the hollow centre of the stone, soaking in mineral-laden water, cradled in gemstones. A thin limestone crust had formed over Lina’s face, greying her skin and hair and the sculptural folds of her nightdress. In twenty years, Phryne thought, the body would be entirely enclosed in stone, and they would call the formation ‘Sleeping Beauty’, perhaps, or ‘L’Inconnue’, the beautiful suicide pulled out of the Seine whose placid plaster countenance graced a thousand Parisian mantelpieces.

Death, cold, or the chalky droppings had smoothed away the angry swollen bruises of Lina’s body, so that the countenance was almost peaceful. The lipped hollow looked strong, and Phryne clambered over the top and knelt next to Lina, hoping that they were both still out of sight.

‘What do you want with us?’ growled Dingo Harry.

‘You don’t know who I am,’ said Black, ‘and you won’t know. I’m going to claim my money, so that means you all have to die.’

‘If you had just wanted us dead, you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,’ said Miss Medenham. He walked through the huddled shapes and straddled her like Appollyon. She glared into the dark eyes defiantly. ‘There must be more to it.’

‘Oh, there is,’ he said softly. A greasy hand with broken nails reached down and tore her dress, quite deliberately, then ripped the undergarment, leaving her breasts bare. Tom Reynolds tried to bellow and fell back on to his wife’s shoulder. Mrs Luttrell, who was tied next to Miss Medenham, said, ‘Cynthia . . .’

‘Hush, Letty. Close your eyes, now,’ said Miss Medenham quickly. ‘I’ll be all right. Don’t look.’

‘Paul, don’t do this,’ urged Tom Reynolds.

‘Why not?’ asked Mr Black.

There was no answer to that. Miss Medenham twisted, thrusting out her bosom, her eyes locked on the dirty face. She almost seemed to be enticing him. She did not wince as the mouth fixed on hers and his weight crushed agonisingly down onto her body and her hands bound behind her back.

This could not be allowed to continue. Phryne called, ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ and Paul Black straightened and snarled.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m everywhere,’ said Phryne, speaking at the ceiling so that her voice echoed.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Lina,’ she said.

Paul Black stood up, leaving Miss Medenham to drag in a deep breath of relief and rub her soiled face on Mrs Luttrell’s shoulder.

‘Tart,’ observed Miss Cray, coming to life. ‘Slut. Whore.’

Paul Black kicked her into silence and addressed the air.

‘You never came, Lina,’ he accused.

‘I was prevented,’ said the sad, high voice.

He stalked towards The Altar, gun in hand, quivering with strain.

‘What stopped you?’

‘A man,’ said Phryne, pitching her voice as high as she could to mimic the dead woman’s tone.

‘Harry rescued me.’

‘Harry did?’

‘I fired my shotgun at a struggling couple, that real foggy night,’ remembered the old man. ‘The girl was screaming, ‘‘Let me go!’’ and I wanted her attacker to do just that. I only fired one shot. But by the time I got up to them, they were gone.’

‘Lina? Where are you, Lina? Come out!’ bellowed Paul Black.

‘Shan’t,’ said Phryne, petulantly. ‘You never came. I waited for you and you never came.’

Paul yelled, ‘Come out!’ and fired a shot into all four walls, one after another, then into the roof, laughing as the echoes cracked and died. The house party, who could not cover their ears, rolled in pain, which made their captor laugh again.

He’s fired six shots and he should only have six, thought Phryne. However, I can’t identify the make of pistol from here. And he’s probably got a pocketful of ammunition. She had seen the reason now for Miss Medenham’s display of pulchritude. Lin Chung was lurking in the shadows, though he might be almost frozen with claustrophobia by now. Miss Medenham had clearly seen him and was trying to lure the gunman close enough for a pounce, but to Phryne’s eyes Lin was too far away. The floor of the cave was coated with tiny crystals which crunched like sand underfoot. Lin Chung would have been heard and shot in mid-spring. She could not see Li Pen at all. Tom Reynolds moaned and Phryne smelt blood even stronger than powder. Something would have to be done soon before poor Tom bled to death.

‘I’m here,’ she cooed, getting her shoulder under the corpse. The body was heavy and floppy and Phryne hoped that she herself would neither faint nor vomit. She allowed the face to show over the high lip of The Urn and Paul Black ran towards the formation.

‘Lina, we’ll go away from here, we’ll never come back. I promise I’ll never leave you again. Come down,’ he said, and Phryne exerted all her strength and shoved the body down out of The Urn into Paul Black’s extended arms.

A blur from one side of the cave, a rush from the other, and the gunman, sinking under the weight of a dead woman, was seized and pinioned before he knew what had happened.

Li Pen held one arm, Lin Chung the other. Gerald came forward with a length of rope and secured Paul Black. He did not appear to notice. The satanic fit had passed. He crumpled to the cave floor, staring at the ruin of Lina’s face, wailed with unbearable grief and retched with horror.

‘Gerald, undo everyone immediately,’ ordered Phryne, climbing carefully down. ‘And before we lynch Gerald, let us remember that we have all survived.’

‘He tied us as loosely as he dared,’ commented the poet, freeing his own hands. ‘He did the best he could. And we have survived.’

‘Praise God,’ said Miss Mead, and Miss Cray echoed her.

‘Well done, Miss Medenham. You almost had him trapped, but I think Lin Chung was too distant,’ said Phryne loudly, helping the woman up.

‘God, and I almost had him, too,’ replied Miss Medenham, shuddering. ‘He would have gone on with it – he was mad with power. Ugh, I can still feel his filthy hands on me. Is there any tea left in the basket? I want to wash my mouth out. Oh, disgusting. It’ll be days before I can bear to be kissed again.’ She caught the poet’s congratulatory gaze and grinned. ‘Well, hours.’

‘How are you, Tom?’ asked Phryne, noticing that the red stain was growing on Mrs Luttrell’s petticoat.

‘All right,’ grunted her host.

‘The bleeding’s slowing,’ said Doctor Franklin. ‘It’s not serious.’

‘See? Only a flesh wound, like in the movies,’ Tom said to his desperately worried wife.

‘It’s time to explain,’ said Phryne. ‘Break out the brandy we brought along for medicinal purposes and hang on to that madman. If I don’t sort this out I don’t feel I can bear to see grass and sky again. Give me his gun,’ she requested.

The poet retrieved it and she broke it open. ‘Eight shots,’ she said faintly.

Jack Lucas and Gerald were talking quietly, and in the sudden silence, as Phryne contemplated how close they had come to eternity, she heard Jack say sadly, ‘It’s just how you are, Gerry. You can’t help it. I can either take you or leave you. You’ll never change.’

‘And what do you choose?’ asked Gerald, almost under his breath.

‘I choose to take you, of course,’ said Jack. He brought up his warm hand and stroked the bruised cheek. Gerald, relieved, burst into tears.

‘Everyone find a seat, light the rest of the torches, pass the bottle around. Dot, fetch my bag, a handkerchief and the eau de Cologne, if you please. Are you all right, old thing?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ said Dot. ‘I knew we’d be all right.

You were up on that Urn and I could see Mr Li in the shadows. Here you are, Miss.’

Phryne saturated the handkerchief in the spirit and passed the bottle to Miss Medenham, who took a swig, spat, and scrubbed at her lips. Mrs Fletcher found the relief of being rescued too great, and fainted. Her daughter pillowed her mother’s head on a convenient rock and took her turn at the brandy bottle. Lin Chung, holding on to one of Black’s arms, said to his bodyguard in Cantonese, ‘It might have worked.’

‘Never. You were too far away,’ said Li Pen.

‘You would have been shot and then what would I tell your father?’

‘What you should be worrying about is what you would have told Grandmother.’

Both of them fell silent, shuddering.

Phryne sat herself on a conveniently central tomb and began.

‘I came to this house to have a nice little holiday and to solve a small mystery,’ she said. ‘My host was getting blackmailing notes from someone who said they had been cheated out of an inheritance. Everyone thought it must be Jack Lucas, and some of the notes were sent on his behalf, though not by him or with his knowledge. The others, however, were not. All of them were written in black ink on typing paper taken from the office at Cave House. I was almost killed by a trip-wire and there has been a fair bit of damage and petty mischief around the place. I worked out who was doing some of it, though not all, and that was again a matter which led to no bad effects and need not be considered, especially since I have effected a settlement of the Lucas issue which is acceptable to both parties.’

Gerald drew a deep, quiet breath and leaned on Jack’s shoulder.

‘There were other mysteries. Someone kept leaving urns in my room, and my friend’s, clearly trying to tell us something. What had happened to Lina in the fog, why was she out there, why wouldn’t she say who attacked her, and where was her body? Because I had an advantage over the rest of you, I had seen her corpse, I knew that she was dead, while to the household at large she was just missing, and maids can be missing for a variety of reasons.’ Jack Lucas passed Phryne the brandy and she took a gulp.

‘Someone clearly knew when Lina was expected to recover and to be able to tell us what had happened. The people who knew this were me, the Doctor, Tom, the Major, and Mr Black, who was passing at the time with a lot of leads on the way to mend a flex.’

All eyes turned to the fallen gunman, who did not react. Phryne surveyed the faces. The house party had made up their minds.

‘I thought of the Doctor,’ she went on. ‘He might have reasons to kill Lina, especially if he had assaulted her. There were rumours that he had been too friendly with some of his more sensitive and wealthy female patients.’

Doctor Franklin stiffened and said, ‘That is an outrageous suggestion!’

‘Isn’t it? And fairly unlikely, too. However, you were playing chess with Mr Lodz at the right time. Tom and the Major were supposed to be fishing. That seemed to rule out both of them. But, it turned out, my host had felt his old bones aching and had come back early to play billiards with Gerald and Jack. Mrs Croft told Dot that the Major caught no fish – the trout at dinner were captured by the stableboy and Albert, who proudly produced them in an attempt to buy off punishment for skiving when they should have been working. So it might have been the Major after all. He certainly seemed the best candidate for a midnight rapist. He had droit de seigneur in India over the house staff, flirted with every available female and yet treated his wife like a slave. Like most men bent on conquest, he profoundly disliked women.

‘Anyway, I saw the body, closed the door, and came to get Mrs Reynolds. In the space of time it took to track her down in the kitchen garden, Doreen cleaned the room, abolishing a lot of valuable clues. Someone in muddy boots who knew the house walked in, took the body, walked out and into the secret passage, laying the body in a marble sarcophagus in the cellar. I favoured the Major, and such was the case. Wasn’t it, Major? You knew that she would come if you sent a note signed R, because the girl was in love with Ronald, the disgraced son of the house, and she’d never believed that he was dead. You sent the note, intercepted her in the fog, and assaulted her. Poor Lina. She came expecting to see the man she loved, and she got you instead. She screamed and Dingo Harry, springing to the defence of an oppressed daughter of the labouring classes, fired that shotgun blast. I heard it and I rescued the girl. She wouldn’t have had a chance otherwise, would she, alone in the fog with a murderer?’

‘He killed her?’ demanded Paul Black hoarsely, never taking his gaze from the dead girl’s face.

‘Oh, yes, he killed her,’ said Phryne flatly.

‘She was mine. She flaunted herself at me, begged me to take her, then she screamed, like all women, bitches, all bitches.’ The Major stopped speaking. Li Pen tightened his grip on his neck.

‘Lina was in love with Ronald?’ asked Mrs Reynolds, shocked.

‘Oh, yes. She loved him before he went away. He gave her this ring, told her he’d love her forever, then went off to wherever it was he went. Then he came back, of course, and began writing letters, demanding his inheritance.’

‘He came back? Where is he?’ demanded Mrs Reynolds.

‘He’s here,’ said Phryne. She walked over to Paul Black and pulled his head round by the hair. She applied the cologne-soaked handkerchief to his face, scrubbing vigorously. He bit at her hands until Lin Chung laid one fingertip very gently to his eyelid, after which he froze. Phryne cleaned busily, using up two handkerchieves and the last of the scent.

Then she wiped at the fringe which was flopping over his forehead, and black grease or dye came away. The actual colour of the hair was brown.

‘There. Do you know him?’ asked Phryne, allowing Lin and Li to drag Paul Black to his feet.

Mrs Reynolds made a dreadful, heartbroken noise and her husband clutched her.

‘Oh, Ronald,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, my son.’

‘He has been in prison, which puts lines on the face,’ observed Phryne. ‘And someone tried to take out his eye with, at a venture, a bottle. The scar distorts his mouth. No one would know him from his photographs when he was a young ne’er-do-well and the spoiled son of a great house. An excellent disguise, which he added to with judicious applications of grease. Fooled almost everyone. Not Lina, of course, because she knew him the moment he arrived. Didn’t you think it odd, Tom dear, that such a well-skilled mechanic would want to come all the way out here and work for you? Of course you did. You wouldn’t take the attack on Lina seriously because you thought Ronald had done it. You knew, my dear, didn’t you?’

‘Not at first,’ protested Tom. ‘I didn’t know he was Black. I just knew he was here, somewhere.’

Mrs Reynolds said, ‘Tom?’

‘Yes, yes, m’dear. I was trying to think of a way to tell you, I really was. But I knew it would grieve you so terribly. I was waiting for him to approach me, stop sending those notes, so I could offer him some money to go away. He never did. I didn’t know about Lina. Of course, he wanted to take her with him.’

‘But then she was killed. I thought Ronald found the body and brought it here, but now I don’t know.’

‘I brought her,’ snarled the Major. ‘I made . . . someone . . . help me.’

‘Oh? Why didn’t you just fling the body in the river?’

‘Might have fetched up. That pool up there is a petrifying well, so the body would stay there, a monument. Poor fools would find her after fifty years and know that she was mine, my mark still on her, and they’d make up stories about the poor girl lost in the dark, who lay down in the cool water and died. But I’d know how she came to be there. I put her there. My creature. Entirely mine,’ announced the Major. His wife stared at him in utter loathing. Phryne went on.

‘You see, Tom dear, you had a houseful of secrets and that played into the disgusting Major’s hands. He knew everything about everyone, probably from the observant Miss Cray, whose confidence could be easily purchased with a hefty donation to her favourite cause. Almost everyone had something to lose. Reputation or honour or some secret that they could not bear to have haled out into the light. Those whom his overwhelming character could not daunt could be blackmailed into silence. Do you realise that he walked through the whole house, down those stairs and out through the back door, without anyone daring to say that they had seen him? God knows what he had on Miss Medenham – perhaps she might tell us later. She saw him pass the library door and said nothing. Jack Lucas and Gerald Randall had their own reasons for silence. Tadeusz wasn’t there, but he has his weak spot also. Miss Cray – you know, don’t you? Miss Mead?’

‘Oh, yes, dear.’ Miss Mead, unruffled by adventure, looked as though she regretted not bringing her crochet.

‘I thought you did, from that remark about the Acts of the Apostles. Ananias and Sapphira failed to turn all their worldly goods over to the Lord and he struck them down – a fable that soured me on the entire New Testament. Miss Cray’s a thief, isn’t she? All that money went to the Make Miss Cray a Rich Lady Fund, didn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes, Miss Fisher,’ said Miss Mead collectedly. ‘I am concerned in a lot of little charities, and no one knew anything about Miss Cray, not even the more . . . er . . . extreme sects.’

‘No!’ shrieked Miss Cray. ‘The heathen . . . the heathen . . .’

‘Yes, yes, dear, of course,’ murmured Miss Mead. ‘Just sit down on this nice stone and have some tea.’

‘Miss Fletcher was playing tennis with Lin at the time, but Mrs Fletcher failed to notice a fifteen-stone military gentleman carrying a rolled blanket over one shoulder. This may have something to do with Miss Fletcher’s trust fund, and the uses to which some of it has been put. It was not until I had lit a fire under Miss Fletcher that her mother realised that her comfortable existence was threatened by a palace revolution. Silk hangings for your boudoir, I believe you said, and a tour of Europe every year? The Major had encountered you on several trips, and someone had told him that Miss Fletcher’s money was supposed to be spent on Miss Fletcher. Still, I suppose it’s lucky you didn’t put it all into Megatherium. But you aren’t strong enough to carry Lina’s body anywhere, so I had to discount you, much as I think you have the right kind of mind to be a murderer.’

Mrs Fletcher, having recovered enough to hear this dispassionate speech, fainted again and her daughter replaced her head on the rock. Phryne continued.

‘Doctor Franklin – yes, you fit. The Major clearly has a lot of these little extra-marital adventures, and he would need the services of a good abortionist. That is the raison d’être of your chain of nursing homes, isn’t it, Doctor? There is nothing wrong with your trade.’ Phryne held up a hand to still a protest. ‘You perform a valuable public service. There was that scandal a few years ago, though, wasn’t there, when that girl died? And I believe that your fees are very high. It must cost you a fortune to pay off the cops, though you would have friends in high places. No wonder you have neurasthenia. Illegal operations are so nerve-wracking. So you helped the revolting Major to carry his hunting trophy here, did you?’

The Doctor, almost sinking with shame, nodded.

‘And there are other secrets. Only Lin, Miss Mead and I appear to be without them. The poet is not who he seems, eh, Tadeusz? You should polish your cigarette case and disguise your seat on a horse. But that can wait. You all covered up for the Major, and we can perfectly understand it. Now is the time for us all to forgive ourselves and leave this dark place. I don’t know how long it’ll be until we can get a policeman out from Bairnsdale, but we’ve got a commodious cellar for you gentlemen, and I’m sure that you have a lot to talk about to while away the long darkness.’

Lin and Li stood Ronald up. He hoisted the dead body of Lina into his arms. His mother came to him, and he snarled at her, so that she jumped back as if she had been confronted with a wild dog.

‘I came back, Mother,’ he said through bared teeth. ‘Aren’t you glad to see your little boy?’

‘Ronald, why didn’t you tell me?’ she pleaded, stroking the dirty hand.

‘You never knew me, you never even looked at me, Mother,’ he said. ‘I just came back to get my rights, and to find Lina again. She loved me. She was a skivvy, Mother, a servant, and she knew me right away, the moment Paul Black walked through the door. I never cared what happened to him.’ He jerked his head at Tom, walking shakily but under his own steam. ‘But I thought you’d know.’

‘What did you mean to do?’ asked Phryne, as they passed into another cavern, a four-foot broad flat ledge over a deep pit.

‘I meant to go back to America. I meant to take Lina with me. But I can’t do that now. It’s all ruined. That bastard, that bloody bastard killed her.’ His lip quivered. ‘But if I can’t take my girl with me one way,’ he said, ‘I can do it another.’

He threw the corpse away, into the air, and then seized the Major in an unbreakable grip. Phryne hissed, ‘No, Lin, come back,’ as the Chinese grabbed at the struggling pair.

Phryne heard Lina’s cadaver strike the bottom of the pit; a dull thud. Paul Black had the Major by the neck and the Major grappled Black by the waist. They panted and stamped, purple face to purple face, while Phryne, Lin and Li Pen flattened themselves back against the wall. Mrs Reynolds screamed, ‘My son!’, Dot called, ‘Look out!’ and, almost in slow motion, they fell.

Phryne saw the murderers, clasped as close as lovers, topple off the lip of the limestone bridge and fall, inseparable, into the abyss.