would need the services of a good abortionist. That is the
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.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
And therefore restless disquiet for the diurnity of our memories unto present considerations seems a vanity almost out of date, and superannuated piece of folly.
Epistle Dedicatory,
SUNLIGHT HAD never looked so bright nor crushed grass smelt so sweet. The house party dragged themselves up the iron ladder and out into the light. Phryne threw herself down almost at the feet of the horse, who snuffled politely at her hair and courteously refrained from standing on this strange human who was rolling down a slight slope to come to rest on her back, staring up at the sky.
Dot dumped the picnic basket into the cart and observed, ‘Miss Phryne?’
‘Here. This grass smells lovely.’
‘Yes, Miss.’ Dot considered that all grass smelt the same. Sort of grass-scented. Her eccentric employer rubbed her filthy face on the pasture, rolled over, and sat up, picking burrs out of her hair.
‘Quite. I suppose we’d better be going. Have we got everyone?’
‘I think so, Miss. Is Mr . . . er . . .’ it did not seem quite polite to call him Dingo Harry, but Dot didn’t know his other name. ‘Is Mr Dingo coming with us?’
‘He certainly is,’ said Miss Medenham, who had a firm grip on the retiring geologist’s patched jacket. ‘We owe him a bath and a good dinner at least.’
Lin and the Doctor helped Tom Reynolds into the dray.
‘I’ll drive,’ offered Tadeusz. Phryne packed herself in beside Lin and leaned on his shoulder. He put an arm around her.
‘That was a dreadful ending to the story,’ she said quietly.
‘But a fitting one. Divine Justice would dictate it.’
‘As Proverbs says, ‘‘He that diggeth a pit shall fall therein’’,’ observed Miss Mead. ‘What would have happened if the Major had survived, or Paul Black – pardon, Ronald – to tell their story? Ruin and scandal and the wreck of innocent lives. Far better that they are dead and with God, who will know how to deal with them. That is, after all,’ Miss Mead said gravely, ‘what God is for.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dingo Harry, devoutly.
The return of the house party was marked by a drain on the hot water supplies and a clumping together of people for mutual comfort, expostulation, or absolution. Miss Cray scuttled to Miss Mead’s room to explain what had happened to the church funds. Gerald and Jack, in dressing-gowns, locked themselves into a second-floor bathroom and were incommunicado for more than an hour. Miss Fletcher had a quick wash, scaled the stairs, and hit a tennis ball with great verve against the Cave House dome. Mrs Fletcher was laid down on her bed by her expostulating maid who applied smelling salts and brandy. The poet, Miss Medenham, the Doctor and Mrs Luttrell took over the parlour, smoking cigarettes and sitting close by each other on the huge couch, playing the gramophone and drinking cocktails. Tom Reynolds was escorted to his room, pronounced in need of rest, and put firmly to bed. His wife, in defiance of all custom, shut the door at two in the afternoon and lay down on his unwounded side, crying for her lost son, now definitely dead and gone.
Dingo Harry carried the news of the terrible events at the caves to the kitchen, where he was supplied with endless tea and his favourite cakes as he held the staff agog. Mrs Croft made scones and the kettle boiled, and no one could understand why Doreen sat mute in a corner, would not even taste a morsel, and looked likely to weep.
Phryne and Lin Chung climbed the monumental stair, too tired even to react to the decor. They washed briefly and lay down naked together in the big bed, flank to warm flank, talking quietly.
‘At least you’ll be here,’ said Phryne to Lin.
‘Riddles,’ he sighed into her hair. ‘When will I be here?’
‘When the nightmares come. I’ll see it all again. The grip of the hands, the wrestling bodies, and that slow, inevitable fall.’
‘I’ll see that, too. It is a matter of endurance. Eventually, the memories fade, Silver Lady.’
‘I know they will. It’s just that the process is not comfortable.’
‘You comfort me,’ he said sleepily.
‘You comfort me,’ she replied.
Dot took Li Pen to the kitchen and supplied him with hot sweet tea and scones with strawberry jam. She had decided that he needed feeding. And she wanted to ask him if he would teach her how to put on that paralysing armlock. It was a thing any girl in 1928 might need to know.
Phryne sensed the sweetish smell of rotting flesh again and felt the flaccid corpse in her arms, the head lolling against her breast. She jerked herself out of a drowse and stroked the real head reposing on her shoulder, touched dry warm skin with the pulse of life in the throat. His mouth opened as she touched it, kissing her fingers.
‘Shadows, Silver Lady,’ said Lin Chung, waking up and embracing her.
The party in the parlour had become raucous and drunken. Miss Medenham was dancing a tango
with the Doctor when Phryne came in, dressed for dinner in her jade gown. She reflected that if Miss Medenham got any closer to Doctor Franklin they would be wearing the same dress, and that brilliant scarlet might be a little trying for Doctor Franklin’s complexion. Hinchcliff handed her a cocktail.
