Kerry Greenwood: Raisins and Almonds

'Simon, your father wants to talk ...'

'Later, uncle,' said Simon, dragging against the urgent fingers, 'I will talk to my father later. In any case I told him, I dance with whoever I like and I like Miss Fisher.'

'No, no, he wants to meet the lady, he sent me to fetch him this Miss Fisher. If you would do us the honour, gracious lady,' said the old man, bowing from the waist. Phryne gave him her hand and he kissed her fingers punctiliously. He had a heavy accent which turned all his w's into v's and vice versa, but it was not precisely a German accent. Phryne appreciated his politeness in continuing to speak English rather than his own language.

'My father wants to talk to Miss Fisher?' asked Simon, suddenly sounding like the crowd in the hall. ' My father wants to speak to Miss Fisher?'

'I told you, suddenly you haven't got ears? This way, if you please, lady.'

He led Phryne on his arm out into the night and opened the door of a very big car. Simon got in beside her, evidently puzzled and apprehensive.

Seated in the back seat was a stout elderly gentleman in the most beautiful cashmere coat Phryne had ever seen.

'So, Miss Fisher, I am Benjamin Abrahams and I am honoured,' he said, taking her hand and looking into her eyes. He had the same intense, brightly dark gaze as his son, and Phryne could not look away 'You are the private detective, are you not, Madame?'

'I am,' she agreed.

'Then I have to ask you a favour. My son has spoken much of you. He says you are an honourable woman, a woman of courage. In many matters his head may be turned, but for such a young one his judgment is beyond his years.'

'Thank you,' said Phryne, 'but ...'

'Wait,' said Mr Abrahams. 'Don't say anything yet. I don't offer you money, Miss Fisher, though I will pay you. But this is the situation, an awful thing. There is a bookshop in the Eastern Market. I am the landlord.

My tenant is a lady called Miss Lee, a single lady Today a man died in her shop.'

Terrible,' murmured Phryne, conventionally 'Death is not so terrible, always it is there. But this was particularly bad. It was a Jew. His name was Simon, a student from Salonika. He was poisoned. The police say that they do not know how the poison was delivered and by the time they found out—the body was taken to the hospital, you see—the clues had all gone. Miss Lee you understand is a neat person, she had swept the floor, cleaned the shop, after such a happening it is a human thing to do, is it not? The man was certified dead by the good Doctor Stein, who is also a Jew, and the police ...'

'Who have they arrested?' asked Phryne. 'The doctor?'

'No,' said Mr Abrahams. 'They have arrested Miss Lee. The victim was often in her shop, and owed her money. Therefore they suggest that she gave him tea, as it might be, with strychnine in it. There is strychnine in the rat poison she used.'

'Miss Lee?' objected Simon. 'It is absurd.'

'So, it's absurd,' agreed his father. 'So we ask Miss Fisher to fix it.'

'But, wait, if it's that absurd, they'll release her,' said Phryne, vaguely uncomfortable under the dark eyes of both father and son.

'Such a high opinion of the justice system you have, hmm?' asked Mr Abrahams.

Phryne did not reply. Such a high opinion of the justice system she didn't have.

'Indeed. But there is this, a more serious matter. The victim is a Jew. The doctor is a Jew. I am a Jew. Australia is not very anti-Semitic—the argument is rather between the two Christian sects, between Catholic and Protestant. But the possibility is always there. I do not think that we will have pogroms here—I hope it is foreign to the national character. But no one likes strangers and we are strangers, and in Europe the shtetls are burning again, the little towns inhabited by Jews. We are exiles, wanderers; we have no home. There is nowhere where we are safe, really safe. This murder, it is likely to raise all sorts of bad feeling between Christians and Jews.'

'I think you're exaggerating,' said Phryne.

'My grandmother was murdered by a Cossack,' said Mr Abrahams. 'My father and my aunt also. My mother and I fled here because our only remaining relative lived in Gatehouse Street and when we landed we had one suitcase and forty pounds Australian or they would not have let us land. We came from a village which had lived and traded with the Russians and Poles for generations, and then they turned on us and slaughtered us in one night. There is a saying, Miss Fisher: "Do not love anything, or a Cossack will take it away." Anything can turn the opinion of the people, and then what would become of us?'

'I still think that you are exaggerating,' said Phryne. Mr Abrahams took her hand and sighed.

'Beautiful lady, you can say whatever you like to me, if you will solve this murder.'

'If I take the case,' temporized Phryne, 'I can only tell you the truth. I mean, I can't fix the result. If it's a Jew murdering another Jew, then I can't cover it up.'

'I accept that,' said Mr Abrahams.

'And I cost ten quid a day,' said Phryne.

'Oy,' said Mr Abrahams, and grinned.

Two

cis 1.4. polyisoprene

Detective Inspector John 'Call me Jack, everyone does' Robinson sighted the neat figure in a town suit and the two cafe curtains of black hair and sighed. The Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher, as ever was, he thought, large as life and twice as natural, and about, by her stride, smile and general demeanour, to make his day uncomfortable. It looked like a nice clear case. Frustrated spinster falls in love with attractive tall dark stranger. Tall dark stranger does not return the favour, or perhaps seduces and betrays her, and she gives him a friendly cup of strychnine tea. Easy, clear cut and simple, and here came Miss Fisher to complicate things.

Wishing he was at home in the undemanding company of his cattleya orchids, Jack Robinson intercepted the visitor at the door.

'Well, well, Miss Fisher,' he began, 'nothing to tax your well-known skills in this case.'

'Oh, no?' Phryne smiled guilelessly into the policeman's face. He winced. Miss Fisher was at her most dangerous when she was smiling guilelessly. It was a sign that someone, somewhere, was about to be shaken down until their teeth rattled and the Detective Inspector was uneasily aware that he was the closest available target.

'Yes. Open and shut,' he continued. 'Frustrated unmarried woman falls in love with a customer, he doesn't notice or perhaps he takes advantage of the situation, and Bob's your uncle, she up and poisons him. Picture the scene. He comes into her shop, she never expected to see him again after the way he treated her. But there he is. She puts the rat killer into a cup of tea. He drinks it, drops the cup—splash!—and falls dead. Curtain.'

'Oh, very good,' purred Phryne, peering around the bulk of the Detective Inspector to look into the shop. 'Keep on in that vein and you'll have a script for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Call it "Starved of Passion"—starring, oh, I don't know, Theda Bara?—and you'll be able to retire on the proceeds.'

'Miss Fisher, have you any evidence to the contrary?' said the policeman, a little stiffly. Phryne fixed him with a green gaze.

'I won't know, will I, unless you let me have a look at the scene of the crime.'

'That's quite against the rules,' he began, and Phryne waved a dismissive hand.

'Absolutely, can we take that as read? Come on, Jack dear, you're a just man. What can you lose, except an official reprimand for leaping to the wrong conclusions?'

'Come in,' said Jack Robinson, as he had known he would from the first sight of that extravagant purple feather in the small black hat, and Miss Fisher ducked under his arm and stood still at the door, surveying the small shop.