Away With The Fairies (27 page)

Phryne had been guiding Lin Chung towards the voice. Lin Tai came into view. There was a family resemblance, Phryne thought. He had the delicate bone structure of the Lin family, though he was heavier and his eyes were red-rimmed. Secret opium smoker? Or had he looked on the gin when it was cheap? He did not stop them moving forward because they were directly in the path of his gun. Now they had their backs against the rail and the river behind them.

She had never contemplated a Hotchkiss gun before, though she had read about them in Edgar Wallace. It had a range of two hundred yards and was as accurately sighted as a rifle. And it appeared to have the bore of a cannon when you were staring down the barrel. Edgar Wallace’s
Sanders
had described it. ‘The little gun which says ha ha’ the Africans called it.

The situation, as far as Phryne could see, had no humour in it at all. At her side, Lin Chung was shaking. Tears ran down his cheeks as the bright dock lights stung his eyes.

‘So you took me,’ he said to Lin Tai. ‘You blindfolded me and roped me like a beast and you’ve been extorting ransom from Grandmother. And your agents mutilated Li Pen.’

‘The work of but a few weeks,’ agreed Lin Tai. ‘Of course, I had a good teacher.’

‘Who?’

‘Lai Choi San,’ he said. ‘Don’t move, Miss Fisher. I, at least, will now never underestimate the power of women.’

‘A moral improvement,’ said Phryne. ‘And probably about time,’ she added tartly.

‘Strip,’ said Lin Tai.

‘Why?’ asked Phryne, raising an eyebrow.

‘I don’t want you identified by your clothes,’ said Lin Tai, though Phryne saw him lick his lips. She must give Li Pen time and Lin Tai’s lechery might provide her with some sort of chance.

‘These clothes are a disgrace anyway,’ she said, peeling Lin Chung out of his revolting garments and allowing them to sulk to the deck. Then she slipped off her shoes, pulled off her blouse and trousers and stepped slowly out of her underwear. The thin silk whispered down her flanks. Lin Chung blinked. She was unashamed, perfectly white in the lights, utterly distracting. She was an ivory carving made by a master. She posed, one hand on hip, one hand cupping a small breast.

‘Is this what you wanted to see?’ she cooed, thrusting a hip forward.

Lin Tai moved, just a fraction. Li Pen struck. The Hotchkiss swung and began to fire and Phryne collected Lin Chung and threw them both into the river.

Rain speckled the surface as Phryne groped around for Lin’s hair, found a handful, and swam strongly up. At least there was no doubt as to the direction in water. One always knew which way was up. The water was cold and filthy and she hoped that in his weakened condition, Lin Chung’s heart had not stopped. Their heads broke the surface and she was amazed to find him keeping himself afloat and laughing.

‘Not a dream,’ he said, giggling. ‘Not a dream.’

He embraced her in the water, twining his legs around hers and almost pulling her under.

‘Real,’ she said firmly. ‘Perfectly real. And perfectly cold and disagreeably wet.’

‘I dreamed about cold water,’ he said. ‘All through the tropics. I stank and the cargo stank and the ship stank and I thought, how many times have I woken up too lazy to go and swim in a clear, bright pool, or walk down by the sea, or even drunk tea rather than turning on a tap and drinking clean, cold water? Such a lot of chances wasted. And who would have thought it of Tai? It’s too much,’ he said, sinking so that Phryne had to grab him and arrange him into a float.

The gunfire had ceased. There seemed to be a lot of shouting on board SS
Gold Mountain
, also known as SS
Apu
. Phryne heard a police siren. This would be, if nothing else, a scandal of monumental proportions. The rain stung her face. She was about to see if she had remembered anything at all of the lifesaving lessons which she had taken in what Lin would call a clean, bright pool, and to find out how applicable they were to a dirty cold river, when she heard a rhythmic sound and a creaking of oarlocks.

Bert drew up beside her in a providential rowboat.

‘Fancy a ride, Miss?’ he asked, without expression.

‘Bert, dear, you’re a saint. Can you get us out of this without attracting attention and bullets?’

Bert responded with Cec’s invariable reply to any question. ‘Too right,’ he said. Then his eyes widened. He observed Phryne’s naked shoulders emerging from the scum and added, ‘Need to get you a shirt, but.’

Lin was dimly aware of water. He appeared to have been in a boat of some kind. He had heard someone swearing, continually and with remarkable fluency, in the Cantonese of his childhood, the Mandarin of his education and the English of recent teaching. He had been lifted and carried, laid on something hard, wrapped in something warm.

Then he was rocking. Not the movement of a ship but of a car. He was cushioned from the jolts by a pair of cool wet thighs. He slipped out of the world again.

When he woke he was being carried into a house which smelt of potpourri and cooking. It must be midnight but bacon was frying somewhere. He was laid down again on a soft surface and someone raised his head and gave him cold water to drink, exactly the taste he craved. He croaked for more and the cup came back.

Then a sharp pain shot through his head and his eyes snapped open. Li Pen held his shoulders as he struggled.

‘It’s all right,’ soothed Phryne. ‘Well, Doctor?’

‘His ear has been severed some time ago by a sharp blade. It’s healed well enough.’ A Scots voice, female and trustworthy. She was bathing the side of his head with great delicacy, soaking off old caked blood and revealing clean scars underneath. ‘Doesn’t even need a bandage. Let’s have a look at the rest of you, my lad.’

She shone a light into his eyes, examined his ears and mouth, clicked her tongue over his fine collection of scrapes, welts and bruises and tested each finger and toe, wiping the stinging medicinal fluid over the red rings around his ankles and wrists.

‘Good enough,’ she said. ‘Shamefully misused but not permanently damaged apart from the ear. Nought I can do about that. Give him a good scrub with carbolic soap and then a nice hot bath and a lot of fluids. I’m leaving some sulphur for any infection. Have you had a fever, young man? Dysentery?’

‘No,’ said Lin Chung.

‘Then I’ll chance a little morphia for the pain of the next operation.’ Lin Chung did not feel the needle go in. ‘Watch for blood in the urine. He has been dehydrated and his kidneys must have been overstressed.’

Lin made a great effort, put out his hand, remembered his English and said, ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Doctor Macmillan shook his hand and said gruffly, ‘Well, young man, you’ve been rescued now, so there’s no need to worry about anything for the present. Drink lots of water and I’m sure that Phryne here will arrange suitable accommodation. Now, I’m off to my eggs and bacon. I’m on night shift.’

Lin was aware of being carried again. He seemed to have no strength in his limbs. He lay back in Li Pen’s grasp, as secure as a baby. Lin saw Phryne’s maid Dot’s worried face through the steam. Steam? He heard Phryne’s voice.

‘This might be a bit unpleasant, Lin, dear, but you’ve got lice. And fleas. And God knows what else. So, in you go.’

He was lowered into very hot water and bit back a scream as all of his scrapes shrieked at once. The medicinal smell was very strong, obliterating a dreadful reek of long-dead flesh which Lin realised with shame must have been coming from him. Dot seized one hand and Li Pen his feet and Phryne began to wash his face and soap his hair.

This was the strangest dream. It was comforting, in an odd way. There were none of the beautiful maidens of his visions in the pirate jail, who had wafted through the wall to seduce him with their soft hands. These hands were relentless, extinguishing his face occasionally in drafts of fresh, hot water, scrubbing and rinsing. Li Pen, scars glowing on his bare chest, was applying the same concentrated effort to removing the patina of adventure from Lin Chung as he had given to learning the Five Forbiddens. He opened Lin’s mouth and scrubbed his teeth with salt and soda, even scraping the hard brush across his tongue and polishing his gums to a hot glow. His mouth was rinsed with something antiseptic which tasted strange. Phryne, her hair still plastered to her head by river water, was cleaning his nails with a sharp instrument, which stung. Dot was scrubbing his arms and chest with the vigour she had given to floors when she had been a housemaid.

It went on and on. They lifted him, drained the bath, refilled it, and lowered him again. More suds rose before his eyes. Weight seemed to have fallen off him. His muscles relaxed. The water ceased to sting and began to feel luxurious. He smiled, even though his skin felt ready to split, and splashed with his feet. Li Pen laughed.

Lin Chung had seldom seen Li Pen laugh.

Then his sense of scent began to return. He smelt the river on Phryne and Li Pen—so that part had been true—and floor soap from Dot. He smelt the ebbing sting of carbolic from the first bath and the increasing smell of pine salts, aromatic, fresh, delightful. Dot put down her flannel and fetched a cup of water as Lin was allowed to wallow in the bath, sipping water as cold as ice.

‘Thank you, Dot, dear, you’ve been a great help,’ Phryne told her.

‘He’ll be all right, Miss? What did the Doctor say?’

‘Just in need of a good wash and a rest.’

‘It’s a shame about his poor ear,’ Lin heard Dot say in a compassionate tone. Since he was now in the elevated state of the extremely exhausted, he only lifted a hand and felt the side of his head. No ear. But the rest of him seemed to be present and accounted for. His new scrubbed hands were fizzing with returned circulation. He felt down his body. Floating in water and morphia, he did not feel pain as he counted scars, scratches, hot spots which were bruises. Both hands, yes, his hands travelled downwards. Genitalia all present, thighs, knees, feet. An ear was a small price to pay.

He knew that there was something else, some terrible betrayal, which he ought to be remembering, but it slipped away. He was dreadfully sleepy, but he was unwilling to close his eyes in case this bliss proved to be a dream after all.

‘I will stay with you,’ said Li Pen, guessing what was going through Lin’s mind. ‘I will not leave you.’

‘Nor I,’ said Phryne. ‘Now, we had better get you out of this bath and dried and into a nice clean bed. Mine, for preference. You are going to sleep away the day and night, my dear, and Li Pen will be with you, and you do not need to worry about anything for the present. Does he?’ she asked Li Pen, and the Shao Lin bowed. Phryne grinned widely.

‘How?’ she asked.

‘Regrettably,’ said Li Pen, ‘I fear that an accident with an unlawful weapon may have been the cause of the demise of a member of the illustrious Lin family.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Phryne. ‘What a shame.
Tant pis
. Tut tut, what a pity, how unsafe Melbourne has become, it used to be such a nice city. I think that’s a sufficient number of clichés, what do you think?’

‘The Silver Lady is, as always, meticulous.’ Li Pen smiled at her. ‘You have the courage of a lion, as I always said.’

‘And so do you. How did you get behind him?’

‘You were distracting him. And when the gun fired, you took my master into the river. Very wise, Silver Lady. My compliments.’

Phryne accepted the bow of a half-naked Shao Lin monk marked with characters which glowed red on his breast and gave him a deeper bow of her own.

Lin was pleased that his rescuers were pleased, and thought no more as he was lifted out, dried, combed, scented, dressed in silk pyjamas and tucked into an unimaginably soft bed under warm woolly blankets. Dot manifested herself by his side and offered him a cup of thin, hot, beef bouillon. He drank it in careful mouthfuls, feeling something in his body sitting up and crowing at the taste.

Then Morpheus, father of sleep, gathered him into a close embrace.

Phryne stripped unaffectedly as the bath filled again. Li Pen sat down on the edge as she bathed.

‘I am probably in defiance of my vows,’ he informed her. ‘I am not supposed to be in the presence of a naked woman.’

‘I’m not a woman,’ said Phryne, challenging the evidence of Li Pen’s own eyes. ‘I’m a fellow warrior.’

‘True,’ said Li Pen. ‘Though I doubt that my abbot would see it that way.’

‘Would you like my bath, fellow warrior?’ she asked. Phryne emerged from the water. Li Pen handed her a towel, took off his own clothes and stepped into her bath. ‘So, fellow monk,’ he said, sloshing hot water over his face, ‘What should we tell Madame Lin?’

‘When Lin Chung is quite recovered, we shall go and see Madame Lin. But I will send a message that Lin is well and with me and that she should not pay the ransom. Who is— sorry,
was
—this Tai?’

‘Madame Lin’s favourite after Chung. He was always obedient, always polite, always the perfect grandson. But he was not in the direct line and he had to find another way to use Chung to get the property. Therefore he bought him from the pirates and brought him home. Why he kept him alive I do not know.’

‘Perhaps he thought he might need another ear,’ said Phryne grimly.

‘Possibly. Tai was there, I now realise, when they cut these characters into my chest. He manufactured his own destruction,’ said Li Pen quietly, scrubbing at his hands.

That sounded like a good epitaph. The scandal had been averted, Lin Chung was home, alive if not entirely unmarked, and he was asleep right now in Phryne’s bed.

And Phryne was worn out. She donned a nightdress, found her bed, climbed into it, and fell asleep.

She woke to the sound of household business being conducted. It was seven am. Mr Butler was using the new vacuum machine. Bottles were clattering. Lin Chung was sleeping beside her with a faint smile on his face. She got up and almost stubbed her toe on Li Pen, sleeping across the doorway.

Of course, it is impossible to actually trip over Li Pen, Phryne thought, because he would not be there by the time the trip was complete.

‘I’m going to get some food,’ she said wolvishly. ‘Back soon. What shall I send you?’