Kerry Greenwood: Raisins and Almonds

Miss Lee was ushered into the visiting room of the Women's Prison to meet her unexpected visitor. Female homicides were rare, and the prison population of drunks, whores, thieves and child-abandoning good girls, after a certain amount of bridling, had decided that she was one of the quiet ones and should not be tormented or affronted, in case she ran amok in some spectacular way. They attributed the fact that she was taken to see her visitor in the Governor's sitting room as evidence that she was a real dangerous criminal as well as—self-evidently—a lady The escorting wardress pushed Miss Lee not ungently through the door and shut it behind her.

'Miss Lee? I'm Phryne Fisher.' A spectacularly fashionable vision rose and gripped her hand. The woman was small, dark and fizzing with energy, and she made Miss Lee fatigued. She was drawn to sit down beside Miss Fisher on a couch and real tea was pressed upon her. She held the cup and saucer dazedly. She had adapted to being held captive by dropping into a light trance, obeying every order instantly, and trying not to think about her situation. Having retreated into this state, it was proving difficult to withdraw herself from it and the world seemed to contain too many blurry Phrynes in far too many distracting black hats with purple panaches.

However, this appeared to be tea, and she might as well drink it. Miss Lee's sense of self, which had been absent, winged back and lodged in its accustomed place as she sipped very good Ceylon tea with just the right amount of milk and sugar. Nightmares might happen, she might be dragged from her shop into the street, exposed to shame and locked up with a lot of dissolute noisy women, but tea remained comfortingly real. Her visitor waited until she had finished the cup, gave it to a young woman in a brown cardigan to refill, and returned it to her before she spoke.

'Miss Lee, I am tolerably certain that whatever happened in your shop the other day, it was not the film scenario which our excited Detective Inspector Robinson has told me. Have you heard it?'

Miss Lee did not smile, but her tense mouth relaxed a little. 'Yes. I thought it was most imaginative.'

'Oh, I agree, and you wouldn't have thought that a man of his staid appearance had been reading Marie Corelli, would you?'

'Elinor Glyn,' demurred Miss Lee.

Phryne looked at her. She was a strong-featured young woman, with washing-blue eyes, a firm mouth and chin and a carefully controlled mouth. She had been allowed to keep her own clothes, and was dressed in a sensible skirt, a warm jumper and thick stockings. Her taste in colours resembled Dot's: brown and beige and umber. Her hands were hard with work, the writer's callus on her forefinger still stained with ink. They were folded in her lap, trembling a little under geological tension.

'It's because you behaved like a lady, you know,' said Phryne. Miss Lee looked at her visitor. 'Because you didn't shriek and tear your hair and rush out into the road screaming. That's why Jack Robinson thinks you're a murderer. Did you ever hear anything so silly?'

'No,' murmured Miss Lee.

'Exactly, and we can't allow this to continue. Miss Lee, I am actually being retained to investigate this matter by Mr Abrahams. Do you know him well?'

'Yes, he's my landlord.' Phryne detected no blush, no lowering of the eyes, which should have been present in such a proper young businesswoman if her relationship with her landlord was closer than a commercial one. 'He's a very generous man, whatever they say about Jews. He let me the shop at below market rent for my first year—I tried to pay him back, but he told me I had to build up substantial capital first, and I do find rare books for him sometimes. I believe his wife is a pleasant woman.'

'Why do you think that?'

'Because of the books she reads.' Miss Lee studied Miss Fisher for a long moment, visibly made up her mind, and went on in her brisk, no-nonsense voice. 'It's a little game I play, Miss Fisher, guessing what people are really like by their choice of books. Mrs Abrahams isn't sentimental—no Marie Corelli or Florence Barclay for her—she likes biographies. Always of people like Elizabeth Fry, you know—Florence Nightingale—strong women who made a difference in the world. I just found her a copy of Travels In West Africa by Mary Kingsley. She likes stories with a happy ending if possible and she tries to like modern novels, but she usually sends them back for me to re-sell as second hand. Therefore I think she is a nice woman with a social conscience, who perhaps wishes that she had been given the chance to do something brave or dangerous. Mr Abrahams is a romantic. He doesn't read novels but he likes poetry, and he's self-educated, I believe. I'm chattering, Miss Fisher, because I am nervous.'

'Miss Lee, if you were not nervous, you would be certifiable. I had my doubts about Jack's story, and now, having met you, I am certain that you are innocent.'

'How are you certain?' asked Miss Lee.

'Because I cannot believe that you would make so many mistakes, if you wanted to kill someone,' said Phryne.

Dot said, 'Miss,' warningly—she was worried by Miss Lee's pallor—but Miss Lee herself nodded and said, 'Thank you. That's the argument I would use myself, Miss Fisher. I am capable of murder, I suppose— we all are, are we not? And assuming I had a reason to kill poor Mr Michaels, which I did not, I liked him, then I would not have done it in such a way that I can't imagine how he was poisoned.'

'You didn't offer him a cup of tea, or water? To take a pill, perhaps, or a powder that he had in his pocket?'

'No, why should I? I would not like someone else to use my cup and there's a teashop practically next door. I only make my own because I can't leave the shop without someone to mind it. And anyway you know how it is, Miss Fisher, the moment I pour my own tea someone comes in with an enquiry about the next Agatha Christie and the tea gets cold anyway.' Dot nodded. 'I can't abide cold tea. So I usually take just a little milk from home and have mine when I can borrow Gladys from the printer's to mind the shop for quarter of an hour. If someone was taken ill in my shop I would escort them into the teashop to sit down. Mrs Johnson would look after them. No, he must have taken whatever it was somewhere else, and it began to work in my shop.'

'Possibly, but we need to consider every angle. I know you've done this before and I know you're probably bored out of your mind repeating it, but could we go through it once more in excruciating detail? Dot will take notes and I'll ask questions at the end.'

'You believe that I didn't do this?' asked Miss Lee, with her first sign of emotion.

'I am proceeding in a certain knowledge of your complete innocence of the charge,' said Phryne quietly.

Miss Lee sighed and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed both hands over her face and through her short, mousy hair.

'I live across the road in an apartment at number 56 Exhibition Street. It is an old house and I live on the second floor—I was pleased to get my flat, because it has windows onto the lanes, they're more interesting than the main street, and it's quieter. My landlady lets rooms on the ground floor, and she provides meals for her lodgers, but I prefer to take care of myself—I never really relish someone else's tea, and I've got a gas ring to boil myself an egg in the morning and a toaster, a rather superior electric one. Mr Schwartz from the hardware in the market gave me a discount because I found a copy of Riders of the Purple Sage for him—he's a Western fan. I buy my supplies for the morning when I leave the shop in the evening, and I usually have a sandwich for lunch and a little dinner in one of the food shops along Exhibition Street or the cafes in Chinatown—I haven't been to half of them yet and they spring up every day like mushrooms. Or I might have a proper lunch one day, and a sandwich for supper on the way to the theatre or the movies. And there's the stock if I lack something to read. It's a life I always wanted, Miss Fisher. No house to keep, no potatoes to peel, no floors to scrub. When my mother—and she was a tyrant, mother was, God help her—finally died three years ago and left me a little money I swore I'd never scrub a floor again, never cook a meal. Of course, I had to do a certain amount of cleaning in the shop to begin with, but now it's paying its way I can afford a charwoman, and the luxury is positively sinful. It's Mrs Price and her son dotes on mysteries . . . I'm running on, aren't I?'