Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

‘I was in the cavalry, as you have surmised, and they took away our horses and sent us to the Dardanelles,’ he said. ‘It was butchery. I was wounded, the only one of my trench to survive a night attack. The others were all dead. I was captured. Because they thought I might have some useful information, they kept me alive. Not so much alive as to be happy, but alive enough. When they found that I didn’t know what they needed, they sent me to a prison camp. There were no Empire soldiers there, but a miscellany of Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Turkish criminals. I fared badly for a while – I had been shot twice in the head and my mind was confused. I forgot who I was and where I came from. I did not even remember that I was a soldier. The camp was for criminals and illegal aliens. One of the Hungarians took to me, nursed me like a mother, and taught me words in his own language. I learned fast, because I was like a child again. You do not believe me?’ Phryne looked sceptical. He took her hand and laid it on his head. ‘Feel for the scars. One across the temple and behind the ear, one here, where the bullet still is. No one has dared to try and remove it.’

Phryne felt a lump over the temporal lobe, hard under her touch. Someone had certainly shot him at some time.

‘So when the War was over, I forged some Hungarian papers. I had no clue to my identity. I had arrived at the camp naked in a blanket with an envelope full of meaningless trinkets. They repatriated my friend Han and me to Buda, which we found a cold city, so we went to Poland, and that is when he began to call me Tadeusz, because the name meant something to me. It is, of course, similar to Ted.’

‘When did you get an idea who you were?’ asked Phryne.

‘Not for a long time. I wandered the world, never finding a place where I knew that I belonged. Han was a poet, but also a rich man – most unusual – and when he died he left me his estate. I turned it into gold and started to search, for I knew I had a home somewhere. Then, in London, I heard two men talking and knew the accent. They were Australians. In my little bag which I wore around my neck was a cigarette case with a regimental badge which no one in Europe had been able to identify for me. A number was scratched under it and I realised that it must be a soldier’s identification.

‘I went into Australia House, asked for the records, and found out that I was Private Ted Matthews, who had died in the Dardanelles campaign seven years before.

‘I went back to my hotel near the British Museum and began to remember my own language, my home, and Letty. There and then I resolved to find out what had become of her. English flooded back to me, but now I spoke it like a Hungarian. I had made many friends among the surrealists, had some reputation as a poet, and I was wealthy enough to follow my own inclinations. So I came back to Australia. Letty’s mother would not tell me where she was, just that she was married and happy, so I tried to forget her. I never forgot her face. Even when I was no one I saw her face, but she had no name.

‘So, I had been writing poetry which is soon to be a book, if I can ever get it finished. I came here to complete the work. And Major Luttrell brought his wife here. That is the unbelievable thing, unbelievable, making me wonder if even an adopted Hungarian or Pole is under the special protection of St Stanislaus. Major Luttrell brought his wife, my Letty, here. She knew me after a few days. How did you know me, my own?’ he asked, and Mrs Luttrell, nestling shamelessly against him, said, ‘Your eyes, Ted. I knew your eyes.’

‘We were going to run away together,’ resumed the poet, ‘though that would bring my Letty into social disrepute. We met in the library. I left messages for her there. We were counting on the ineffable Cynthia to distract him sufficiently so that we could make what I believe is called a clean getaway, hmm? However, now the Major is dead and this fortunately is not necessary. Another cocktail, if you please.’

‘What a story!’ exclaimed Miss Fletcher. Phryne, reserving her opinion on the likelihood of this romantic history, rose and stretched. If Letty believed it, who was she to cavil?

‘Well, that’s all the mysteries but two. Hinchcliff, can you bring Doreen in here?’

The Butler’s eyebrows left his control and rose, slightly. He bowed and went out.

Miss Medenham wound up the gramophone. Mr and Mrs Reynolds came in and sat down. Evelyn had cried herself out, washed her face, and looked composed and sad, but not heartbroken. Her boy was dead. Now she could bury him, and mourn.

Tom Reynolds, bulkier than ever with bandages across his shoulder and chest, accepted a cocktail against competent medical advice and swigged it. This took his breath so comprehensively that he could only goggle as a weeping chambermaid was ushered in by the butler.

‘Doreen, you left the urns,’ said Phryne gently. ‘It had to be you. Only you could get into all the rooms without being noticed. You knew Lina’s body was in the Buchan Caves. How did you know?’

Doreen burst into tears and was supplied with a glass of sherry and a handkerchief.

‘He told me,’ she finally managed. ‘The Major. He knew about everyone. He knew about Annie’s babies. He got Mr H in debt to him for hundreds of pounds, gambling on those wicked cards. He knew about me and Mr Jones, he threatened to tell Madam and get me fired, and I’ve got five sisters, I can’t go home. He didn’t want to . . . to . . . he didn’t want me in that way. It would have been easier if he did. He just wanted to talk to me. He liked to come to the kitchen window and boast about it – about the girls he’d strangled in India, about his wife being next after me if I told on him, about Lina and where he’d put her. He said he’d kill me if I told. So I left the urns for you, Miss Fisher, you being so clever and all. Oh, dear.’ She wept with relief into Lin Chung’s silk handkerchief.

‘It was very brave of you to try and help me,’ said Phryne.

‘It’s all right, Doreen, I’m not going to dismiss you,’ said Mrs Reynolds wearily. ‘You go back to the kitchen now, and ask Cook for some hot tea.’

Doreen snuffled, blew her nose, and went out.

Phryne felt a gentle hand on her arm. It was the beautiful Gerald, rosy and angelic, smiling his guileless child’s smile.

‘You promised,’ he reminded her.

‘Oh, yes, so I did. It’s all fixed. Tom, can I take Jack to pick out his paintings now?’ she called. Mr Reynolds assented, and she took Jack Lucas and his lover into the corridor.

‘Paintings?’ he exclaimed. ‘There isn’t anything in this house worth having. It’s all etchings of the Monarch of the Glen and pretty little pastels done by ladies which look like endive salad, dying. What have you sold my birthright for, eh?’

‘Trust me,’ said Phryne crossly. ‘And follow me,’ she added, making her best pace up the stairs to the room which had been the Major’s.

‘The builders of Cave House went on a Grand Tour,’ she told Lucas, opening the door.

‘I know, that’s where they got that near-Boucher and all those naughty prints of naked ladies,’ snapped Jack Lucas. ‘None of it worth more than threepence-ha’penny on the open market.’

‘Yes, but what else was on in Paris in the 1880s?’ asked Phryne acidly, bringing the young man’s nose to surface with the large oil depicting a wobbly church. He squinted. There was a silence. Then Gerald began to laugh. He reeled over, staggering and whooping with mirth, to enfold Phryne in a close embrace, weeping tears of joy down her neck and kissing her gleefully between paroxysms.

‘You mean . . . from the Salon des Refusés?’ said Jack. ‘Yes, there’s the signature . . . It’s a Manet, a genuine Manet . . . My God, why have I never seen these before?’