Read Online The Castlemaine Murders by Kerry Greenwood - Free Book Online

seeming to stare, and was lost to fashion thereafter, even forgetting to drink her orange juice.
    Which didn’t mean that Mr Burton hadn’t noticed. He felt the avid eyes and traced their source. He said, ‘Miss Jane?’ and she blushed.
    ‘What would you like to ask me?’ he enquired calmly. ‘Don’t be concerned. I am used to being an object of interest in any gathering.’
    Jane gathered her courage and looked him in his highly intelligent, dispassionate eyes.
    ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she said. ‘And I wasn’t looking at you as though you were an object. But I am curious. I want to be a doctor.’
    ‘A useful attribute for a doctor. I have achondroplasia, which is an inherited abnormality. Characteristic of this disease are the short limbs, and therefore short stature. The skull vault and clavicle, and the facial structure, are also retarded in development, giving this dished-in appearance.’ He ran a stubby, powerful finger along his tip-tilted nose. ‘But I am as strong as a taller man with a much lower centre of gravity and lighter body. This gives me advantages as an acrobat: thus.’
    Mr Burton, still holding his glass, executed a perfect somersault, coming down into his sitting position again without spilling a drop. Phryne and Ruth laughed and clapped. Jane said, ‘Thank you! That was wonderful. And I promise not to ask any more questions. Really,’ she protested, when Ruth nudged her.
    ‘You are with the circus?’ asked Lin Chung easily.
    ‘Dwarf heaven, they call it. Where else can the Small People be at home in a world of giants?’ Mr Burton smiled. ‘There I met Miss Fisher.’
    ‘Are you still with Farrell’s?’ asked Phryne. ‘How I remember falling off Missy every day! My bruises had bruises.’
    ‘But you did learn to do a handstand on a horse’s back,’ he reminded her. ‘Also, you found out who was trying to ruin the circus and you freed an innocent woman from prison. Everyone sends their love,’ went on Mr Burton, allowing Mr Butler to refill his glass. ‘Farrell himself, Dulcie, Wallace and Bruno, Samson, Doreen and Alan Lee, the Catalans, the Shakespeare brothers—you recall the clowns.’
    Phryne did. The memory of making love in a caravan to a man with a painted face loosened her joints, but she took a sip of her drink and a deep breath.
    ‘And it took two days to get the tar off your skin,’ put in Dot, who had noticed this reaction and was distracting attention from Phryne. ‘Not to mention them awful clothes. Filthy places—beg pardon, Mr Burton.’
    ‘No offence taken,’ said Mr Burton. ‘They are filthy places indeed. But fascinating. I miss them. When my thesis is accepted I will go back on the road. My caravan is presently in my college’s stable, as is my gallant steed Balthasar. He is appreciating the rest. One of the students takes him out for a sedate ride every day in Royal Park and the university has the best grass. But to return to what I was saying, they all hope that you will come to a performance when they get back to Melbourne in December. They want to express their gratitude for saving the circus.’
    ‘Just a good investment,’ said Phryne, waving her cigarette dismissively.
    A lesser man might have said, ‘Bah!’ Mr Burton shot Phryne a sharp look and said in a voice loaded with more irony than an ore truck: ‘Oh, indeed, Miss Fisher. An investment.’
    Then he leapt to his feet as Eliza came in.
    Phryne had warned her sister that if by any means—word, look, intonation, drawn breath, squint, raised eyebrow or avoidance of gaze—she conveyed any disapproval of Mr Burton she, Phryne, would give her sister, Eliza, a clip over the ear which would take a week to stop ringing, and referred to their mutual childhood for proof of her competence in ear-clipping. Eliza, who had seemed subdued during this speech, had agreed rather listlessly to be good.
    Eliza wore a cocktail dress in a drab shade of brown and a bunch of silk pansies on a