Away With The Fairies (28 page)

‘Porridge, bread and Vegemite,’ said Li Pen. ‘And a pot of Chinese tea, if you have some.’

‘Certainly, we have Chinese tea,’ said Phryne haughtily. Then, replaying the last sentence, she asked, ‘How on earth did you get a taste for Vegemite?’

‘It’s vegetarian, unlike Bonox,’ said Li Pen. ‘Salty and interesting. I lived for a whole summer in Tibet and ate tsampa, uncooked barley bread. What it really needed was Vegemite.’

‘Bread and Vegemite it is,’ said Phryne bemusedly.

She ate a large meal of toast, eggs, bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes and coffee. Bert and Cec had gone, after eating a gargantuan breakfast and telling the story to the assembled staff. Pirates had gone with them. The girls had gone reluctantly to visit a friend. Mr Butler, having delivered a meal of tea, bread and Vegemite to a man sitting cross-legged on the floor, was restoring his spirits with a little glass of port and the word puzzle.

Dot delivered the afternoon newspaper. Interesting. ‘Outrage at the docks!’ it screamed. ‘Last night shots were heard and a Hotchkiss gun was fired on board the Macao vessel SS
Apu
. Police and dock security attended immediately and found that a passenger onboard the ship had been tampering with the gun—used against pirates and supposed to be struck down into the hold—when it fired, killing him. The master of the vessel will be fined for allowing a gun with live ammunition to remain mounted on his ship in port. The dead man has not yet been identified.’

‘Then I’d better send a note to Madame Lin, telling her that also,’ said Phryne to Dot. ‘He needs to be identified.’

She wrote the note and sealed it with the chop which Lin had given her, a fanciful calligraphy which said Silver Lady.

‘Get someone to take this to Madame Lin in Little Bourke Street,’ said Phryne. ‘Now, I am going back to bed.’

‘Will there be any answer, Miss?’ asked Dot.

‘I will be very surprised if there is,’ said Phryne.

‘Detective Inspector Robinson,’ announced Mr Butler.

Phryne suppressed a curse, but greeted the policeman politely.

‘Well, well, Miss Fisher, had a strenuous night?’ he asked.

‘An interesting one,’ she told him. ‘Remind me not to frolic with the younger set, they play much too rough.’

‘So you weren’t out on the waterfront last night?’

‘Why should I have been?’ Phryne did not like lying to policemen, much less this one she was fond of, but had no intention of telling him about the Lin family’s little domestic problems. Which, in any case, were now solved.

‘Well, no one reported a fashionably dressed woman strolling down to Five North,’ said Robinson jovially, ‘so I suppose we’ll have to cross you off our list.’

‘Oh, good. Is that what brings you here so early?’

‘No. I’ve got the Companies Register stuff from Sydney.’

Phryne read the extract. Despite her weariness, she felt a throb of excitement.

‘My, my,’ she commented. ‘Well, I’ve almost got your solution, Jack, dear. I only need to know two more things.’

‘And they are?’

‘The first, what is in Mr Bell’s warehouse. The second,’ she yawned. Jack Robinson waited, pencil poised. ‘The second is, what colour was Miss Lavender’s little bird.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Yes, that’s all. I’ll see you tomorrow at Tintern Avenue. Now I really must get back to bed, Jack, dear, my head’s not what it should be.’

‘Too many cocktails,’ said Robinson unsympathetically. ‘Next time, stick to beer.’

He took his leave. Phryne yawned, stretched, and climbed the stairs.

Lin was still asleep. Li Pen was sitting straight and meditating on a spot of light on the wall. It had been a tiring few days. Phryne snuggled up next to Lin and went back to sleep.

It was black dark when she woke with a hand over her mouth.

‘Quick,’ said Lin. ‘We have to get away.’

She freed her mouth, leaned over and clicked on the small bedside lamp. Pink light bloomed over the green walls and the embroidered hangings. Li Pen woke and leapt to his feet. With a certain amount of difficulty, Lin Chung sat up in bed with his back against the padded headboard. His mouth was open in astonishment. Li Pen brought him water and he drank it.

‘Phryne?’ He touched her breast. The narrow shoulder strap had fallen down. The touch seemed to reassure him. That was a real breast. Nothing else felt like that. ‘And Li Pen? So it wasn’t a dream.’

‘No. I’m real and so is he,’ said Phryne shortly. ‘This is my bed and this is the middle of the night. How do you feel?’

‘Clean,’ said Lin Chung ecstatically. ‘As clean as though I had been scoured like a floor—no, wait, don’t tell me. I have been, haven’t I? That was you and your maid Dot and Li Pen who nearly drowned me in suds. Sit down, Li Pen, please. Phryne, tell me what happened.’

‘First you must visit the ablutions,’ said Li Pen. ‘Can you stand? And I will fetch you whatever you want to eat or drink.’

‘I want cocoa,’ said Lin Chung. ‘No, it’s too warm for cocoa. I want a brandy and soda and a caraway biscuit.’

Phryne fetched the brandy bottle, the soda siphon, and the tin of caraway biscuits. When she returned, Lin was sitting up with two pillows behind him. In the soft light, he seemed to radiate joy. She hoped that nothing would happen to squelch him. He was definitely too thin and the scar under the clean, glossy hair was far too visible. She mixed him a very weak brandy and soda, made a strong one for herself, gave a nice glass of neat soda to Li Pen and offered Lin Chung the tin of biscuits.

He bit solemnly into one, reminding Phryne of Wendy Opie and her ice cream. Phryne was suddenly touched and turned away to hide her stinging eyes. There he was, clean and safe and rescued, eating caraway biscuits and drinking a b and s, and she was very proud of him.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

Phryne allowed Li Pen to describe how they had discovered that the
Apu
was actually the
Gold Mountain
, the assault on the ship, the discovery of Lin Chung, the attack by Lin Tai and his unfortunate death.

‘So he is dead?’

‘Regrettably,’ said Li Pen, without expression.

‘He must have hated me for years. I never knew. Grandmother always held him up as an example of Confucian virtue. Married the girl found by his parents. Never wanted an education. Never strayed from the path of rectitude.’

‘He strayed so far off the path of rectitude as to buy you from the pirates who freed you,’ said Phryne. ‘He wanted everything you have, including me. Though he didn’t get me,’ she added with satisfaction. ‘Or anything else.’

‘And Grandmother persuaded the others to cede the Lin possessions in China?’

‘She is a formidable adversary,’ said Li Pen. ‘So is your Silver Lady. She found you when I could not.’

‘Actually it was the rat,’ said Phryne. ‘I was standing in that filthy engine room and this rat walked right over my foot and then it decided the engineer wasn’t dead enough to nibble on and went in search of you, so I followed it.’

‘How did you know it was searching for me?’ asked Lin Chung, wincing a little as he recalled the rats which had waited, bright-eyed, for him to sleep.

‘I didn’t,’ said Phryne. Li Pen laughed again.

‘Truly blessed, as I have always said,’ he told Lin Chung, who joined the laughter.

Phryne felt that she had missed the joke.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because both you and he, Silver Lady, are born in the year of the rat,’ said Li Pen. ‘The rat is his totem animal, as it is yours. It is not surprising that a rat was able to reveal to you where those murdering beasts had stowed my master.’

‘Oh,’ said Phyrne, wondering if it was some sort of sin to hate your totem animal. ‘And you, Lin, what happened to you?’

‘I can’t separate out the days,’ he said. ‘I got to Macao, bought the silk, and the bribes I had to pay were double the price of the silk and other things, but I got them, they should be aboard the
Apu
this moment.’

‘Bert is seeing that they are unloaded and delivered,’ soothed Phyrne. ‘Then?’

‘Then I was on the ship and it was seized by pirates. They had hidden among the passengers. They took the crew by surprise, threw them to the sharks, and found me by the label in my jacket. They had special orders about me. The rest of the passengers they divided into two lots. Those who had relatives who would ransom them, they kept. The others they killed or sold as slaves to the Japanese.’ He drank some brandy and Phryne refilled his glass. ‘I was kept in a grass hut by the shore. They had me tied closely. Li Pen was beside me. Then he suddenly wasn’t.’

‘I stayed free in their encampment, just to make sure that nothing went wrong,’ said Li Pen. ‘There were too many to fight for the moment. I knew that Madame would pay the ransom.’

‘I didn’t see anyone except some children, who came to throw things at me. I wasn’t tortured. They call such people
p’iao
—tickets. I was in Bias Bay. Finally they came and untied me, told me that the ransom was paid and that I could go. I was walking down to the shore to see if I could find a ship when I saw the old
Gold Mountain
, newly painted, and I was seized again. I think I lost hope then. They took me to Lai Choi San and she said that I was captive, despite the ransom. Then by threatening to kill me they called Li Pen and cut characters into his chest. I will never forget how they cast sea water over the cuts and laughed. They would have laughed more but he gave no sign of pain.’

‘They sent me as a messenger,’ said Li Pen, evenly. ‘I did not fail to deliver the message.’

‘Then they said I could write a letter, so I wrote to you, Phryne. I thought I might have no other chance of a farewell. I wrote in English on the envelope so the letter would be delivered. Then they said they had to enclose something convincing, held me down and—’ he stopped.

‘I got the letter,’ said Phryne. ‘With its enclosure. It was that, rather than the scars on Li Pen’s admirable chest, that caused Madame to call a family council.’

‘Then they stowed me aboard that filthy ship and finally after what seemed like years, you rescued me. Thank you. But it was Tai, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Li Pen.

‘Grandmother will be very …’ his voice trailed away. Phryne took the glass as he slumped down into sleep again.

‘He will recover his nerve,’ she said.

‘He never lost it,’ said Li Pen, proudly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The first line, undivided, shows the pleasure of
harmony. There will be good fortune.

Hexagram 58: Tui
The I Ching Book of Changes

A cold touch woke Lin Chung. He managed to stifle a cry. A rat! No. He had been rescued. He was in a soft bed, in a house on dry land. The rocking he felt was not the ocean but the arrival of Miss Fisher’s black cat Ember, who had clearly ascended the foothills of Li Pen and scaled the north face of Phryne in order to stick an inquisitive nose into his undamaged ear.

Bright green eyes surveyed him coolly in the pale light. It was dawn. He stroked the thick sable fur, from ears to tail, and Ember settled down to purr.

Phryne half woke as something near her face gave forth a soothing sound. Ember must have eluded the vigilant Li Pen and dropped in for a little conference about the timing of breakfast and night starvation in the feline species. She pushed the furry body aside and found Lin Chung watching her.

‘Silver Lady,’ he said, turning to her and sliding one arm under her neck, drawing her close. ‘How can I thank you?’

‘You’ll think of something,’ purred Phryne, as roughened hands slid down her body, cupping her breasts.

They moved slowly, tranced and bleached by the cold early light. Phryne caressed the scarred back, the damaged skin, lingering over bruises as though her touch could heal them. Lin moved under her handling easily, as though he was weightless in hot water again. His fingers had not lost their skill, drawing shimmering trails down her sides, her back, her breasts, the inner skin of her thighs.

‘I looked at the moon,’ said Phryne. ‘But I could not see you there.’

‘I dreamed of you,’ said Lin Chung. ‘But when I woke you were never there.’

‘I’m here now,’ she replied.

‘You are still a dream,’ he said.

They kissed slowly, lingeringly, as though they knew that there was all the time in the world. Lin tasted of sleep and brandy. His skin was scented with pine. Phryne sucked at his lips, tasting nectar, feeling the orgasm beginning to build, slowly, sweetly. His fingers found the pearl. Her senses tingled and then stung. He lay as still as he could while she examined and lazily stroked his belly, his testicles and his phallus growing in her hands. Familiar and delightful, a body she knew well. One she had missed all the time he had been gone. One she had almost lost.

Then they grew urgent, as though there was no time at all. They scrambled and gripped. Phryne locked her legs around him, driving bones together so hard that they might have cracked. She reached a climax which was like being struck by lightning. Every tendon went into rigour and shook and she heard herself scream.

Lin Chung made no sound, but collapsed into her embrace as though he had been shot with a Hotchkiss gun.

In seconds they were both asleep as they lay, and Ember came back to the pillow, from whence he had removed himself when the humans began to play their kittenish games, beneath the notice of a decent, sober, mature animal.

Li Pen threw the coverings over them and looked down with an expression remarkably similar, in human form, to Ember’s.

Phryne woke when she heard the door bell.

‘Drat,’ she swore. ‘I’ll bet that’s Jack Robinson, bringing me the last pieces of my jigsaw puzzle, and I’ll have to get up and do something about it.’

‘Which puzzle is this?’

‘“Who killed Miss Lavender? or Who poisoned the poison pen?” Everyone’s playing it,’ said Phryne. ‘All I’ve been doing for a week is gathering evidence of who didn’t do it.’

‘So you must arrive eventually at who did,’ said Lin, scrubbing a hand through his hair and wincing as he touched the scar. ‘Must you leave me, Silver Lady?’

‘Not if I can help it.’