Kerry Greenwood: Raisins and Almonds

The rest of the cellar appeared to be occupied by piles of boxes, sacks, mountains of chaff-bags and half a real haystack. The roof was supported by heavy beams, soot blackened, and the stone ceiling between was of vaulted brick which might once have been red. She found the staircase and climbed up, emerging onto the central floor of the market, which was buzzing with people.

The Eastern Market was Phryne's sort of market. She sauntered past little shops selling all manner of fascinating things, like sequins and beads and feathers for hats, eye veils and galoshes and singing birds, bunches of snowdrops or hyacinths and a pound of galvanized nails wrapped in a paper poke, toffee apples as bright as red glass and red glass Venetian apples as shiny as toffee.

She watched a huge carter swing the hammer down onto a 'Gauge Your Strength' machine and heard the bell ring as she walked down the iron-lace staircase to the lower quadrant, which sold guitar strings and framed art moderne prints of ladies in Russian dress and sad clowns, sheet music and baskets, and packets of cooling feverfew and chamomile tea from Broadbent and Sons, Herbalists.

By the time she had found her way back to the main entrance to Miss Lee's shop, Phryne was carrying a new shopping basket which contained her own purse, a posy of blue hyacinths, a copy of 'The Basin Street Jazz', a packet of autumn-coloured sequins for Dot, a packet of flea powder for her new arrival and a blue leather collar and lead into which, she feared, the puppy would certainly grow. Phryne also had a one-ounce paper of strychnine—price two shillings—bought from a nearby chemist, who had asked her to sign the poisons book, which she had obligingly done, and no one had questioned whether Miss Jane Smith was actually her name, or asked her why she wanted such a deadly poison. This was instructive, she felt. For herself she had purchased a slightly off-centre silver ring with a big flawed sapphire in it, wrapped around with beautifully made silver snakes, and for the girls two small silver rings made of daisies.

She was sitting down in Mrs Johnson's teashop and examining her purchases when an official voice said, 'Well, Miss Fisher? Visiting the scene of the crime?'

'Jack dear, do sit down, have some tea?'

'Thanks, don't mind if I do.' He sat down heavily in the red-painted chair and rummaged for his pipe. Phryne opened her gold cigarette case and offered him a gasper, but he shook his head.

'Cut your wind, those things will, Miss Fisher. Two teas, Mrs Johnson,' he said to the hovering attendant. Phryne did not speak until he was sipping his strong liquorish black tea, loaded with sugar. She showed him the chemist's packet, done up with sealing wax.

'What's that?'

'Strychnine. I just bought two shillings' worth, enough to kill several horses, and no one asked me why I wanted it.'

'Hmm. Well, I can't find Miss Lee's rat poison. The autopsy'11 be this afternoon, do you want to come?'

'Not particularly, Jack dear, if you tell me about the report.'

'I'll do that. I don't like this any more than you do, you know.'

Phryne sipped her tea, which was very good, hot and strong. Her feet hurt and she was suddenly very sorry for Miss Lee, cut off from this bustling and fascinating place, which changed all the time. Detective Inspector Robinson evidently caught her thought.

'Miss Lee's asked for some Latin grammar books, you know that? I never met a murderer who wanted to further their education on remand. I'm going in to her shop to get her a grammar and some writing paper. Oh, and I've something to show you, too. Come on,' said Robinson, laying four pennies on the table to pay for the tea.

He unlocked the shop and looked around helplessly at the books all marked in foreign languages. The shop smelt dusty and unloved.

'I'll find her a grammar or two,' said Phryne. 'What have you got to show me?'

'What was in the dead man's pockets,' said Jack Robinson, opening a paper bag with 'Evidence, not to be removed' on it. He laid out the contents on Miss Lee's desk.

'Hmm. Two passports, I see. One British, one Greek. Looks like the same photograph.' Phryne looked at the dead man's face: serious and very young, dark and Middle Eastern. 'His visa, about to run out, as you said. A pen knife, a wallet, a purse which closes with rings— I've never seen a man with a purse like that—a packet of Woodbines and a box of wax matches. Purse contains five pence ha'penny. Wallet contains several letters in a language which I don't know, a script I don't know, either. It must be Hebrew—it's not Greek, anyway, Jack dear.'

And these scraps, which is more of it, whatever it is. Plus these drawings. They look old,' said Jack gloomily.

Phryne unfolded a piece of parchment, and stared at the drawing. It was inked in black and coloured in red and gold. It seemed to show a red lion being burned on a golden fire. Underneath were letters. Aur, she read. 'Hmm. That's Latin for gold. There's a lot more but it makes no sense, at least not to me. I need a classicist. What did your experts say, Jack?'

'We asked one of our own members, he can read Hebrew, and he says it don't make sense, it's just a jumble of letters, like a code.'

'And the Latin?'

'Haven't seen about that yet. Do you want to do me a favour, Miss Fisher? I don't want to put all this through the evidence book in case it proves to be something which might cause a breach of the peace. So I'll lend it to you, if you guarantee to let me know what it's about if it's germane to the case. Is it a deal?'

'You're trusting me very far, Jack dear,' said Phryne gently.

He took her hand and clasped it. His forgettable face was blank with worry.

'I do trust you,' he sard. 'Is it a deal?'

'Deal,' said Phryne. 'And I know just the man to ask.'

Four

Albedo is the flight of the white dove

Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum 1689

Phryne left telephone messages for the beautiful Simon Abrahams and his elusive father, who were both out according to their maid. Phryne dined early because of the girls, and retired to her leaf-green bedroom with a couple of books on Judaism, a glass or two of champagne, and a headache.

This became rapidly worse as she read her way through Mr Louis Goldman's The Gentile Problem. The Jews, he proved, had always been people apart and distinct by custom and appearance, devoted to their own laws, which enjoined education, careful diet and cleanliness on their followers. This meant that, preserved from plague in filthy medieval cities, they had been accused of witchcraft and burned. They had been forbidden any business except that of lending money at interest, and they had been tried and condemned for usury. The Jew of Venice with his 'my daughter! my ducats!' did not seem comic to Phryne any more as she stared at the illustrations: Jews burned in fires, drowned in rivers, hanged higher than Haman. Instead she heard Shakespeare's Shylock saying, 'Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge?'

Except they had not revenged. Nowhere had the Jews, driven like cattle and slaughtered like them, fought back against their oppressors, and Phryne caught her lip, wondering what commandment she was outraging by washing for just a little rebellion, just one uprising, since the brave Queen Esther had told the Persian King that she was a Jewess, and the Jews had hanged Haman and his sons on the gallows they had thoughtfully built for the Semites—which was the feast ever after of Purim.