Professor Rowlands, escorting a beautiful, plump woman with long red hair, had already found a University Fellow who would love to lease his Queenscliff house and staff to Miss Fisher for as long as she wanted. He was going to Arnhem Land to investigate song cycles and was expecting to be away for three months.
Phryne surveyed the dancing throng. ‘They’re very decorative,’ she said idly.
‘The thing I want to know,’ said Lin, not attending, ‘is, where did Augustine get those forty pre-Roman shekels that Mr. Rosenberg just bought?’
‘Some things we are not meant to know,’ said Phryne solemnly. ‘You could go and ask Gerald’s new physical medium, of course,’ she added.
‘No,’ said Lin. ‘I am giving up magic for the present. What were you saying about the crowd?’
‘They’re very decorative,’ Phryne repeated. She wreathed her arms around his neck.
‘I am a very lucky woman,’ she said.
***
‘You sure about this bloke, Curly?’
‘Sure. He’s ryebuck on a straight wire. And we got to sell ’em to someone straight. You need to buy a van, Vern needs to buy a house, I got to have something to live on, and Jim’s wife’s sick. I melted the pitch off all of ’em and I reckon the boss’ll give us a good price. Are we on?’
‘We’re on,’ the others agreed.
Cedric Yates, called Curly because of his straight hair, left his mates and went into the shop to show Augustine Manifold the coins, which had been glued into bandoliers and carried out of the Holy Land into Australia, to wait for a time when they needed the money.
Because Augustine was a good bloke, they told him where the coins came from.
Afterword
This book has left me feeling a bit like a Dr. Who casualty; time-sick. Fortunately I can vouch for all of my facts. The crinoline was more comfortable than five petticoats: contemporary women said so. The Light Horsemen did see a ghost (and didn’t know it for a crusader because they thought crusaders wore plate armour, which in fact didn’t come in for another four hundred years). And antique shops continue to weave magic for people who like the past. This book is in loving memory of my Great Uncle Donald (‘Doody’) McKenzie, who was in the charge to Beersheba with his brothers. His bandolier was sitting on my desk as I wrote.
Please feel free to email me on [email protected] if you would like to talk to me.
Bibliography
Cemeteries
Morgan, Marjorie, The Old Melbourne Cemetery 1837–1922, Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies, Oakleigh, 1982.
Sagazio, Celestina (ed.), Cemeteries: Our Heritage, National Trust of Australia, Melbourne, 1992.
1864
Burt, Alison, Colonial Cook Book, Summit Books, Sydney, 1970.
Various websites on costume. The Girls Own Paper collected volume, London, c. 1890.
Archaeology
Albright, WF, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible, Pelican, London, 1949.
Baiget, M and Leigh, R, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Corgi, London, 1991.
Hallam, E (ed.) Chronicles of the Age of Chivalry, Greenwich, London, 2002.
Rowley, HH, From Moses to Qumran, Lutterworth Press, London, 1963.
Shanks, Hershel, The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Random House, New York, 1998.
Vermes, G, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin, London, 1962.
White, Anne Terry, Lost Worlds, Harrap and Co, London, 1943.
Woolley, Sir L, Digging Up the Past, Penguin Books, London, 1930.
The King James version of the Holy Bible.
Arts
Greenhalgh, Paul, The Essential Art Nouveau, V&A Publications, London, 2000.
Morris, William, The Wood Beyond the World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980.
Robinson, Julian, Golden Age of Style, Orbis Publishing, London, 1976.
Various websites on the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Holman Hunt.
War
Baker, Sidney J, Dictionary of Australian Slang, Roberston and Mullens Ltd, Melbourne, 1944.
Bostock, Henry P, The Great Ride, Artlook Books, Perth, 1982.
Gardner, Brian, Allenby, Cassell and Co, London, 1965.
Hughes, Matthew, Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East 1917–1919, Frank Cass, London, 1999.
Idriess, Ion L, The Desert Column, Pacific Books, Sydney, 1932.
Jones, Ian, The Australian Light Horse, Time-Life Books, Sydney, 1987.
Kent, David (ed.), The Kia Ora Coo-Ee, Cornstalk, Sydney, 1981.
Paterson, Andrew Barton (Banjo), ‘Happy Dispatches’, Australian War Memorial website.
Shermer, David, World War One, Octopus Books, London, 1975.
The Times History of the Great War, Times newspaper (collected), 1918.
Classics
Josephus, The Jewish War, trans. GA Williamson, Penguin Books, London, 1959.
Plautus, The Rope and Other Plays, trans. EF Watling, Penguin Classics, London, 1964.
Places
Evans, Wilson P, Port of Many Prows, Victoria Press, Melbourne, 1993.
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