Chapter Two
Phryne Fisher loved Jack Robinson. It had taken her quite a long time to acknowledge the fact, and one of the barriers had been the man standing waiting for her at the foot of her stairs.
She didn't love Lin Chung; but their minds had met, and danced very beautifully together on many occasions. Their bodies had, too, almost as often. The only thing Lin hadn't done was risk his heart for her. The only man to do that had been Jack Robinson.
She knew, however, that Lin would not use the word "urgent" unless he meant it – if anything, it would probably be an understatement. She therefore presented herself after only half an hour, bathed, dressed and ready for whatever culinary extravagance he might cast her way. He stood as she descended the stairs, and gazed appreciatively at the picture she made in a dress constructed from his own silk. He bowed over her hand in courtly fashion, but did not immediately move to the front door.
Casting her eyes around the parlour, she caught sight of an unusual addition to the furnishings. On the low table was an octagonal, covered vase of breathtaking beauty. Each of the sides was patterned with flowers and birds, delicately picked out in luminous red, green and gold. Lin watched as she approached it, and without touching it, admired it from slightly flared base to lion finial. Eventually, she looked up at him quizzically.
"Am I, perchance, looking at a clue to your "urgent" problem, Lin dear?"
"You are looking at the whole of the problem, Silver Lady," he confirmed.
Mr Butler came back into the room with a plain glass vase containing a small bouquet.
"I've done my best, sir, but I'm afraid they're not long for this world," he apologised.
"Thank you, Mr Butler – I must say, that seems apt," said the younger man. "Let us go and have lunch, Phryne, and I shall explain. Could I perhaps ask that the vase remain here? Though not, perhaps, in plain sight?"
"What do you think, Mr B? Do we have a quiet corner in which this lovely thing might sit?" asked Phryne. "Though I must say, it seems a shame."
Mr Butler undertook to find a suitable storage space, and Phryne allowed herself to be escorted to Lin Chung's waiting car. Conversation on the journey to the Windsor Hotel was limited to matter suitable for the chauffeur's ears, and it was not until they were tucking into tender lobster meat, accompanied by perfectly chilled champagne, that the subject of their meeting was broached.
"The vase, Lin?"
He dabbed his mouth delicately with a napkin and pushed his chair back a little.
"The vase, and the bouquet of flowers, were left in the See Yup Temple at some point yesterday afternoon. No-one saw who left it."
"Odd," remarked Phryne. "A gift of some kind?"
"Not as such, I am afraid – more of a headache," replied Lin. "The vase is, as you saw, very beautiful. Its contents, however, are not."
"Don't tell me there are ashes in it?" exclaimed Phryne in a shocked whisper. He nodded. "Human ashes?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, but it seems likely."
"Why did they bring them to you, Lin? You're not associated with the See Yup particularly, are you?"
"No, my family is Christian," he confirmed. "It is, in fact, you that the trustees wish to consult."
"My fame goes before me," she said, not entirely happily. "And so they came to you to approach me?"
"They did. You see, the difficulty is that they cannot do anything with these ashes."
"Why ever not?" she asked. "Don't they have a nice shelf somewhere they could put it?"
"The memorials at the See Yup Temple are not urns of ashes, Phryne – they are wooden tablets, painted with the names of those who have died. The Society doesn't even know the name of the person whose ashes are in the vase."
"Yes, what of the vase? It's beautiful. Is it valuable?"
"I believe it to be of the Qing dynasty," he said. "It is probably worth thousands, if not tens of thousands of pounds."
"Lawks," said Phryne inelegantly. "I see the problem. They can't ignore it, and they can't dispose of it, but it's hugely valuable. What do they think I can do?"
"They are hoping that you will be able to find out the identity of the deceased, so that arrangements can be made for appropriate disposal of the ashes."
Phryne pondered for a moment, twisting her champagne glass on its base.
"I don't suppose the person who left it also left a note?" she asked plaintively.
"No, just the vase, and the small bouquet of flowers which are themselves already dying," he apologised.
She debated, and decided.
"We will take the case, Lin, but it appears almost impossible and the fee will be steep."
She named a figure at which he failed to blink. But then, Inscrutable had always been one of Lin's strong suits.
They drank coffee – The Windsor knew how to make coffee – and Miss Fisher then permitted Mr Lin to take her home, where she thought quite hard for quite a long time. She had, however, made the mistake of doing her thinking on a comfortable chair in the shade of her sunlit garden, and only woke when the Inspector gently kissed her cheek.