Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

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 lamps 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.