AFTERWORD.

I would like to state very strongly that I am not in favour of drugs, not even the nicotine to which I am personally addicted.

But in the twenties, governments, possibly learning from the terrible effects on crime and social order of the Great Experiment of Prohibition (the Mafia, the gangsters, corrupt police, politicans and judges and corrupt society-since getting a drink meant breaking the law, it fostered contempt for the law), did not prohibit anything much.

My own grandfather was prescribed stramonthium and cannabis cigarettes for his asthma. Cocaine, morphine and lauda-num (alcoholic tincture of opium) could be bought over the counter as we buy aspirin today. No one thought much of cannabis smoking or hash-eating, as it was a strange habit only indulged in by foreign people. It was not until the 1930s that drugs began to be proscribed as poisons and we entered the present phase of prohibiting all of them. Which has been as successful at suppressing drug use and as productive of crime as ever Prohibition was at removing the taste for alcohol from the American public.

I have taken liberties with Chirnside Manor, and with the formation and depth of its lake. There is no point in sending me reproachful letters about this. I read all the history, and some of it I changed. Narrative has its prerogatives and I am 297 *298 not going to spoil a good story or the fairies may not give me any new ones. I remind my American readers that biscuits in England and Australia are crispy flat things such as you call cookies, and the soft doughy things you call biscuits are what we call scones. And they say we speak the same language . . .

Weird as it may sound, I did not invent karez (spellings differ-it is also called karezz or karetz). It was quite in vogue in the early years of the twentieth century, when it was thought that the emission of semen weakened a man, and that any system which allowed him to pollinate himself to a standstill without spilling any seed was strengthening. This might have been the case-who can tell? If my readers want to try it, I shall be fascinated to hear . . . or possibly not. It has some things in common with what is now known as Tantric sex.

The absolutely best book I have found on cocktails is by the charming and erudite Anthony Hogg (see Bibliography).

My copy was found by my redoubtable mother in an op shop but other copies must exist somewhere.

You will find medieval jokes in The Demaundes Joyous and a delightful and practical guide to all those animals that someone thought that Australia needed (sparrows, foxes, rabbits, thrushes, sky larks, pigeons, rats, deer, mice, etc) in Ian Temby's book, Wild Neighbours. And also how to live with them.

My email address is kgreenwood@netspace.net.au and I would love to hear from you.

298.

*299 Translation of 'The Sky Above the Roof '

by Paul Verlaine Above the roof the sky is So blue, so calm, Above the roof the tree Cradles its branch In that sky the bell Softly rings In that tree a bird Complaining sings My God, My God, life is there Simple and easy That peaceful sound Comes from the town Oh you there, what have you done Endlessly weeping Say, you there, what have you done With your youth?

Translation: Ben Pryor 299.

*300 *301 BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Anonymous, The Enquirer's Home Book, Ward Lock, London, 1910.

Beeton, Isabella, Cook Book, Ward Lock, London, 1901.

Black, Maggie, The Medieval Cook Book, British Museum Press, London, 1962.

Blake, William, Poems and Prophecies, JM Dent and Sons Ltd, London, 1975.

Burt, Alison, The Colonial Cook Book, Summit, Sydney, 1970.

De La Mare, Walter (ed), Come Hither, Constable and Co, London, 1950.

Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992.

Grahame, Kenneth, The Wind in the Willows, Methuen, London, 1908.

Hogg, Anthony, Cocktails and Mixed Drinks, Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd, London, 1979.

Kiddle, Margaret, Men of Yesterday, MIP, Melbourne, 1961.

Kipling, Rudyard, 'The Maltese Cat' from The Day's Work, Macmillan, London, 1904.

Lawler, James R, An Anthology of French Poetry, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1960.

Nin, Anais, Delta of Venus, WH Allen and Co, London, 1978.

Temby, Ian, Wild Neighbours, Citrus Press, Sydney, 2005.

Wardroper, John, The Demaundes Joyous of Wynkyn de Worde, Gordon Fraser, London, 1986.

301.

*302 Various instructive maps, leaflets, booklets and visitor guides to the Mansion at Werribee Park produced by the National Trust and by Parks Vic.

302.

Also in the Phryne Fisher series:.

Cocaine Blues.

Flying too High.

Murder on the Ballarat Train.

Death at Victoria Dock.

The Green Mill Murder Blood and Circuses.

Ruddy Gore Urn Burial Raisins and Almonds.

Death Before Wicket Away with the Fairies.

Murder in Montparnasse The Castlemaine Murders.

Queen of the Flowers.