Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

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 tiles 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.