The Castlemaine Murders (25 page)

‘There is no other kind,’ snapped Old Lady Chang.

‘In your experience,’ sneered the other Miss Ah.

‘Be civil, women!’ snarled Old Man Lo with his mouth full. ‘If you spoil the first good dinner I have had in twenty years, I will strangle all of you and sell your carcasses to the cat food man. Not that he’d have you,’ he added. ‘The kind adoptive grandson is asking you a polite question. Answer politely.’

‘Sung Ma was my lover,’ said Old Lady Chang. She paused for a challenge, but none came. ‘One night he came to me with tears in his eyes and said that he was going home and begged me to come with him. He said he would take me as his first wife. He said that he had adequate means and that his family would accept me. I said yes, but only if we take the Lin gold. The Lins are Sze Yup, I said, our enemies. Steal their gold and we shall make merry on it in Canton.’

‘And what did Sung Ma reply?’ asked Fuchsia, interested.

‘That he’d not betray his trust. That he was shocked that I could suggest such a thing. He left me . . . yes, he left me. I was angry.’

The lines of the old face, blurred with age, were still fine. She must have been bewitching when young, thought Lin. As beautiful as a goddess, with the internal ethics of a demon. A fox-spirit.

Fuchsia flicked a finger and Second Cousin Kong lifted Old Lady Chang up in her nest of pillows as she coughed. Each cough shook her frail body, from the elaborate coiffure down to the lily feet. Lin wondered if it would shake her apart.

The rest of the diners returned their attention to their food. Lin wished he had brought three lacquered ducks. It was amazing how much these wispy little people, so thin that sunlight ought to go right through them, could eat. He hoped that Fuchsia had bought pills to prevent indigestion, though he was sure that that thorough young woman would have added them to the order for the Health and Harmony tea company.

Mr Lo’s brother offered an observation. ‘It was all the fault of her worthless brother,’ he said, nodding to Fuchsia as she refilled his tea cup. ‘Chang Gao was a big, strong, lazy ruffian and decided, once their father died, that his sister would earn his living for him. She could not refuse. She could not even walk far without help. She could not scrub or cook or muster sheep, could she?’

‘More virtuous women could sew,’ said Miss Annie severely. ‘And did, until our eyes were ruined and our fingers bled. More virtuous women made shoes and paper fans. I and my sister made artificial flowers.’

‘Artificial flowers won’t bring in enough to suit a bully like Chang Gao,’ said Mr Lo.

Mrs Lo gave Mr Lo a look which would have scorched paper. He subsided.

Miss Chang had recovered and Fuchsia gave her some wine. A little colour came into her chalk-white face. She looked at Lin Chung and tapped two fingers on the back of his hand, a flirtatious gesture which made the Misses Ah bridle and hiss.

‘My brother found out when the gold was to be transported,’ she said. ‘He told me he would hunt the couriers and steal the gold. I was angry with Sung Ma. He looked at me as though . . . he looked at me . . .’ she was fading. Fuchsia gave her more wine. ‘Elder Brother went out on that day in July that you said. He was to find the couriers and beat them and take the gold. He never came back. Never. Neither did Sung Ma. I had to take what lovers I could. Crude men. They did not understand the Chinese custom of concubinage. They thought I was a . . . a . . .’

‘Whore,’ snarled Miss Annie. ‘And so you were.’

Miss Chang screamed an epithet at Miss Annie and then collapsed.

At a signal from Fuchsia, Second Cousin Kong picked up the fainting Miss Chang and bore her into the priest’s house. Fuchsia went with him, taking a selection of dainties and all the pillows. Lin paused to wonder how Great Aunt Wing, a woman of ferocious virtue, was going to cope with Miss Chang. Perhaps Great Aunt Wing would welcome a challenge.

‘Does anyone else know any more of the story?’ he asked the diners.

‘They passed my house and I sold them tea,’ said Miss Annie. ‘Three men, led by Sung Ma—he was very good-looking, sister, do you remember? So refined, for all that he called himself a coolie. Old Lady Loong told me that she saw them heading towards the Moonlight road. If that scoundrel Chang Gao was following, then he would have met them around where the Lin farm is now.’

‘Something else,’ said Old Man Lo. ‘I was a boy at the time. I met Sung Ma alone, later that day, when the riot happened. He was out of breath. He had been running and there was blood on his shirt. He was trying to get back to Golden Point but he couldn’t get there because of the miners. He gave me a letter.’

‘And did you deliver it?’

Old Man Lo looked surprised at Lin’s ignorance.

‘No, of course I couldn’t. It was to the Lin family. I couldn’t go into Sze Yup territory or they would have beaten me. And there was the riot, I was frightened. I gave it to the priest.’

‘And what did he do with it?’ asked Lin, trying to keep his voice steady.

‘I don’t know,’ said Old Man Lo. ‘I haven’t thought about it from that day to this. We all had to move, you see, and we came into Castlemaine to get away from the camp. My father bought this plot of land and built houses for us. And the temple, of course.’

‘Father Chung,’ said Ching Ta, dabbing his lips with a napkin. ‘I believe that I can assist you. If you will come into the temple?’

Lin bowed to the diners and suggested that there was still ample if plain fare if they would do him the honour of eating it. In the temple, Ching Ta stepped past the recumbent old lady and spilled the box of offering scrolls onto the floor.

‘Right at the bottom,’ he said. ‘We may find something useful.’

Lin gathered an armload of the paper spills and sat down on the priest’s new bed to read them. The oldest ones were fragile and turned to confetti in his fingers. Prayers to the gods, prayers for a good voyage, prayers for a son, prayers for recovery from illness, prayers to Lan Ts’ai-ho, patron of singers, and Ts’ao Kuo-ch’iu, patron of actors. Hundreds of prayers to Kwan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, and Tou Mou, the Mother of Stars. Hundreds more to the God of Wealth. The little scrolls crumbled and fell as he unrolled them until one met his touch which was folded, not rolled, and heavier than the little temple offerings. He opened it very carefully on Ching Ta’s table and weighted the end with his inkstone.

It was written in fluent, eager calligraphy in a scholar’s hand. Lin read it aloud.

‘Esteemed patron, I have been hunted by the Sam Yup and have committed murder in self defence. I have hidden the gold in a place we know of and I am leaving with my fellows to take ship for Canton. I fear our journey was betrayed and this was my own most grievous fault. Spring betrays even virtuous men. I pray to the goddess Nu Kua for your future success and prosperity. The unworthy scholar Sung Ma bids farewell to the Second Gold Mountain.’

‘You’ll never find it now,’ croaked old Lady Chang from the floor. ‘That bastard Sung Ma must have killed my brother Gao! That’s why he never came home to me! My sweet Elder Brother! Sung Ma murdered you!’

Old Lady Chang began to cry. Fuchsia patted away her tears. Lin and Ching Ta faced each other across the table.

‘We say nothing of this,’ suggested Lin.

‘What is there to say?’ shrugged Ching Ta. ‘Old Lady Chang must live here with us. Why outrage the virtuous with the deeds of the wicked? She will be judged soon enough.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lin warmly.

‘And your generosity will not go unacknowledged by heaven,’ said Ching Ta.

Lin knew what this meant. He was now committed to care for these people until they died. They had told him all he needed to know about the fate of the couriers. And the Lin family would save on offerings at the Feast of Hungry Ghosts. Sung Ma and the unrelated couriers had not died on Lin family business. They had fled, and their funerary arrangements could properly be returned to their own families.

Lin presided over the rest of the feast and then inspected and approved of Fuchsia’s arrangements. Each little house now had rush mats on the floor, a bed per person, a cupboard for cutlery and crockery, and various comforts. Each person now had at least three changes of clothes and new linen and blankets. Ching Ta was engaged in writing, in his best calligraphy, the four blessings of health, long life, wealth and many children on red paper for each lintel.

Lin reflected how much power mere money had. Lying in the purse it was just coins. Let loose from confinement, it was blankets against the cold, and candied chestnuts. It was an old lady clad in a new dress with hibiscus flowers on it.

Now it was time to load up Old Lady Chang and introduce her to Great Aunt Wing. It was likely to be an instructive meeting. Lin folded Sung Ma’s letter and pocketed it. He needed to read it again and consider it. A scholar like Sung Ma would not risk a plain declaration of the hiding place of the gold, but neither would he omit it. There were many perils in the world. The Lin to whom the letter was addressed—Lin Chiang, probably—might have died or forgotten and then the gold would be lost. There was a clue in the letter, and Lin Chung must find it. And there were the blazed trees. Something itched at the back of his mind. What connected salt, pig, and black? Another list, chanted by his tutor, from
The
Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine
. Of course. The element of water, he remembered. Its season is winter. Its star is mercury. Its flavour is rotten. Its weather is cold. Its cereal is bean, its sound is moaning, its animal is the pig, its colour is black, its mineral is salt, its direction is . . . north. North of the blazed trees Sung Ma had hidden the gold.

But now to return to the farm and—Lord, he had nearly forgotten—attend Tommy’s wedding feast. And then to take the car into Castlemaine, to see if Miss Fisher was interested in Anglican priests at all.

In the festival of Pure Brightness on the day of Sweeping the Graves.
From Magistrate Li of the third quarter of the city of Canton to
his esteemed father-in-law Sung.

May your house be forever prosperous. I have the honour to report
that your nephew and my brother-in-law Sung Ma has arrived
safely in this city, to your niece’s great delight. My dear wife Mai
was beside herself with joy to see her much loved brother return
from such a perilous voyage. He is still weak from his journey and
a fever he suffered on board ship, so he is staying here and will
celebrate my son’s first birthday with us. This is for your eyes only,
venerable Father-in-Law. Sung Ma showed me his poems and it
is to be feared that he suffered a disappointment, even a betrayal,
in love while in the Second Gold Mountain. But he professes
himself happy to entertain your choice as to a wife, asking only that
she not be beautiful. He wishes for a kind and generous girl of some
education and does not mind if she is plain or even crippled as long
as her heart is good. Meanwhile we will feed him well and he is
already recovered enough to play the poetic couplets game with us
after dinner. He is a very fine poet. I am sorry to hear of your
quarrel with the Lin family. I had meant to write to them to ask
about Sung Ma. But I believe that we can soothe his mind here.
He loves the courtyard with the peach trees and is sitting there now,
drinking a little wine and talking to his sister. I believe that you
will see him recovered within three months, and returned to your
house to meet his new wife. The son-in-law bows respectfully.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

And what of the daughters? Their business was to
get married: and I can remember the time when
there was no other hopeful opening in life
for them.

George Bernard Shaw
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide
to Socialism and Capitalism

Mr Butler came into the garden with a card on his much-prized and personally polished silver salver.

‘A Lady Harborough to see you, Miss Eliza.’

‘Alice?’ Eliza leapt up, spilling Ember from her lap. He fell neatly, landed with all paws in position, and stalked away to the end of the garden, thoroughly miffed. Dot put down her sewing. ‘Show her out here, Mr Butler, and bring some cool drinks. Or perhaps tea. Whichever she would prefer.’

Mr Butler vanished, reappeared with a small plump woman in a flowered hat, booked his orders for tea and cooling drinks and dematerialised. Lady Alice took the chair which was offered, removed the hat and shook out her hair. Dot was unimpressed. Lady Alice was a short, plain woman with brown eyes and straggly brownish hair, out of breath and running to fat. Marquess’s daughters ought to look more tailored, Dot considered, if not beautiful. But her voice was very sweet, though her manner was distracted.

‘Oh, my dear,’ she said in a voice which strove for a social tone and failed. ‘How very nice—oh, how very nice to see you again!’

Eliza embraced her. As the two faces touched, Dot discovered what Miss Eliza was not telling Miss Phryne, wondered if Phryne had already guessed, and expected that she had. No wonder Miss Eliza had turned down two eligible marriages! Even the prettiest young man in the world would not meet Miss Eliza’s requirements in a mate. They held each other close for nearly a minute while Dot sought out Ember and soothed his ruffled feelings. She found him behind the chicken run, one of his favourite sulking places. Dot always suspected that he liked the way the chickens panicked when he yawned casually in their general direction. Dot was not surprised to find Li Pen there, standing as silently as a young tree. He nodded at her and she went back to the table.