Raisins and Almonds

Nine

Air: this is no Element, but a certain Hermaphrodite, the Gaement of two worlds, and a Medley of Extremes ... in this are innumerable magicall Forms of Men and Beasts, Fish an Fowle, Trees, Herbs, and all creeping things.

Thomas Vaughan, Euphrates

Dot was not enjoying her attempts to extract information from Miss Lee's neighbours.

She had started at the nearest poulterers, and had waked what was clearly a long-standing feud.

'I'm investigating the murder in the bookshop,' she said to the boy behind the counter. He stared at her, momentarily forgetting the large chicken which he had under his arm. It also stared at Dot, and clucked.

'You know, two days ago. A young man was poisoned,' she encouraged. The boy gaped. Dot, who was nervous and shy, reflected crossly that she might get more answers out of the chook, and tried again. 'Is Mr Lane in?'

For answer, the poultry-bearer shuffled to the door and yelled 'Boss!' Then he seemed to feel that he had fulfilled his obligations and returned to his duties, which appeared to consist of staring out the window at passing girls and sucking his teeth. Mr Lane was stout and worried. He wore a bloodstained apron.

'This is too much,' he exclaimed before Dot could open her mouth. 'That bloke has gone too far this time. I'll have the law on him. I'll call the cops if he says one more word! It's slander, that's what it is. And libel,' he added, hedging his bets.

'Sorry?' said Dot, utterly fogged and a little taken aback by his vehemence.

'Don't I work hard?' demanded Mr Lane. 'Don't I put in all the hours God gave to support my wife and little ones and run my business?'

'Mr Lane,' Dot began.

'If he's sent you here about the chicken, I tell you, it was all right and if anyone says any different I'll do something, I tell you, starting with going round and knocking Gunn's block off!'

'Hello?' said Dot loudly. 'Mr Lane? I don't know what you're talking about. I came from Miss Lee and I'm trying to find out about the dead man in her shop.'

'Oh.' The red face lost a little of its pre-apopleptic colour. 'Miss Lee, eh? Nice lady. Sorry, Miss. It's just that Gunn is getting on my nerves. He says one of my chooks was off, and I swear, my chooks eat the same feed as his and they're all in the pink of condition. Look at that now.' He held up a limp plucked corpse for Dot to examine. She did so, pinching the breast and manipulating the feet to see if it was fresh.

'Perfectly good,' she pronounced. 'Fit to be served to the Queen.'

The poulterer relaxed and mopped his brow with a red handkerchief.

'Sorry to go crook at you. Thanks, Miss. Now, what can I do for you? It's terrible about Miss Lee, though trade's been up since it happened I'd rather it was for a different reason, if you see what I mean.'

'I need to find the customers who were in Miss Lee's shop before the murder happened.'

'You don't reckon she done him in?'

'No, I don't, and my employer, Miss Fisher, she doesn't think so either. Did you see anyone you knew in the market on Friday?'

'Yes, plenty of people. Most of my customers are regulars, though they won't be much longer if Gunn keeps on telling 'em my chooks are poisoned. I'll have the law on him if he opens his gob again. But no one I know went into the bookshop, Miss. No one came in here carrying a book, not that I noticed. My boy might know more, but he's a bit light on for brains. A few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, you know?' Mr Lane tapped his forehead. 'Not that he isn't good with the chooks, though. They've got a lot in common. Billy, c'mere. Do you remember anyone coming into the shop on Friday carrying a book?'

The boy looked frightened. Dot tried a gentle approach.

'I'm sure you're a good boy, Billy, and you like the chooks, don't you?' Billy nodded. 'And you remember Friday?'

'Man dead,' said Billy.

'That's right. Before the man was dead, did anyone come in here with a book?'

'No, but there was a lady.'

'You spend too much time looking at sheilas,' growled his boss, and Billy gaped again, losing whatever concentration he possessed.

'Tell me about the lady,' coaxed Dot.

'Lady with a chook on her hat,' said Billy importantly. 'Nice hat. It had a white chook on it. And shells.'

'Did she buy anything?'

'Two chooks,' said Billy.

'So she did. Why, does that mean something to you, Miss?' asked Mr Lane.

'It certainly does,' said Dot. 'I really want to find that lady. There can't be two hats like that in one market.'

'Well, if you really need to find her,' said Mr Lane slowly, 'I might be able to help.'

'How?' asked Dot.

'Well, she didn't want to carry two chooks and a dozen fresh eggs home in her hand, did she?'

'Do you deliver, Mr Lane?' asked Dot, reaching for her notebook.

'I do, Miss. But it doesn't seem right to give away a customer's address.'

Dot knew what was happening. Mr Lane was waiting for a bribe and Dot was momentarily at a loss. How do you bribe someone? Miss Fisher had not covered this in her briefing. She took out a ten shilling note and laid it on the counter. 'For your trouble,' she mumbled.

It was easier than she had thought. The note vanished with speed and Mr Lane seemed unaware that it had ever been there. He consulted his ledger.

'Delivery ... now where is it? Two chooks and a dozen ... yes. Here we are, Miss.' He jotted down the address and name on the corner of a piece of white wrapping paper. 'There you are, Miss. Good luck. Miss Lee's a real nice lady.'

Dot left the shop, vowing never to buy any of his produce. If he thought Miss Lee was a real nice lady, why did he need a financial inducement to give Dot the address? His chickens probably were poisoned, thought Dot, and went into the bird dealer's shop. So far, she was doing very well.

The air was full of twittering. Cages lined three of the walls. A profusion of rainbow-coloured finches, canaries and budgies occupied the smaller cages. Dot was bending to look into an elaborate wrought-iron construction when a gruff voice remarked, 'Pretty girl.'

Dot jumped. There did not seem to be anyone else in the small room. She looked around.

'Pretty girl,' said the voice again.

Dot heard a discordant whistle and then the jingle of a chain.

'Polly wants,' said the speaker, shuffling into sight.

It was the biggest white cockatoo that Dot had ever seen, sulphur-crested, with a beak which looked capable of opening tins. It was secured by one leg to a fine chain fixed to the perch, which allowed it considerable freedom of movement. It eyed Dot with its ancient cynical gaze and said again, 'Polly wants ...'

'Polly wants?' asked Dot. 'What does Polly want?'

'That's the trouble with that bird. He can't make up his mind,' observed another disembodied voice.

Dot began to feel that it was going to be a very strange afternoon.

From under the counter a small man arose. He was dressed in what had been a respectable blue suit, but he was liberally scattered with bird seed and he had hay in his thick fair hair.

'Sorry, I was just sweeping up some feed,' he said. 'What can I do for you, Miss? A nice budgie? Pair of lovebirds? How about a canary, I've got some fine singers.'

Dot explained her errand. Mr Gunn scratched his head, looking oddly reminiscent of the cockatoo. His fair hair spread like a crest, shedding bird seed.

'I didn't notice anyone carrying a book, not on Friday I remember the day because the police came and took statements from all of us. I was upset because that b... man Lane had poisoned some of my birds.'

'How do you know?' asked Dot, practically.

Mr Gunn blushed. 'It was the end of the week, and I was out of sunflower seeds, see, and he has an open sack of them, so I borrowed a couple of handfuls—I would have put them back at the end of the next week when I get my delivery It was for the one cage of zebra finches. They're seed eaters, Miss. I saw Lane throw a handful to a couple of penned chickens. Then, in the morning, I found my finches dead, and I saw his boy plucking a pair of chickens. They hadn't been killed in the usual way. Their necks weren't broken. He was selling poisoned chickens to the public, and I'll keep telling people that. It's not right.'

'What was wrong with the sunflower seeds? Did you ask him?'

'Well, no, I couldn't, could I? But those finches were healthy the night before and dead the next day and so were his chickens. I'm partial to a sunflower seed or two myself,' said Mr Gunn, looking more avian by the moment. 'Bl... very lucky I didn't eat any myself. Some ant poison or something must have got into the feed.'

Dot debated whether to tell him that Mr Lane was thinking of suing him for libel, or slander, but decided that it was not her argument and took her leave politely of both Mr Gunn and the parrot.

'Polly wants ...' it temporized as she shut the door.

'Make up your bloody mind,' said Mr Gunn, irritated.

By the time Dot reached Mrs Johnson's teashop she was ready for a nice cuppa and a sit down. She had drawn blanks in all the other businesses on this side of the market. Fred Marryat had shouted over the thud of his press that he hadn't seen anyone with a book and had offered her a special deal on personal cards, no rubbish, printed in the most elegant type and in the best style. Dot knew that visiting cards have to be engraved, not printed, and refused politely. Anthony Martin the chiropodist noticed only feet, though he was an encyclopedia of information on his special subject.

'People all walk differently,' he told Dot, who had sat down in his chair. His shop was hung with photographs of feet and posters which enjoined the reader to wear properly fitted shoes. An articulated skeletal foot occupied the counter. 'That's why second-hand shoes are always likely to pinch. You wear your shoe into the shape of your foot. Now you,' he looked at Dot's stockinged feet, 'you walk like you're in a hurry, lots to do, must get on. You wear your shoes on the ball of the foot. Nice straight wear though, not pigeon-toed or crooked. No bunions. Last you a lifetime, those feet. Got a good grip on the earth.'

Dot was pleased and bought a tin of foot powder, guaranteed to soothe and refresh.

Mrs Johnson was blonde, pretty and slightly harried.

'I'll do my best to help,' she declared. 'Imagine, arresting Miss Lee for murdering someone, it's absurd. All the traders think so. Mr Johnson nearly got himself arrested, calling the police a gang of Bolsheviks. Of course, he is hot tempered,' Mrs Johnson said admiringly. 'He wasn't a bit scared. Told them right to their faces that Miss Lee couldn't do a thing like that. And I told them too. But they arrested her anyway. Is there anything she needs, Miss Williams? And is she all right?'

'She's got books and comforts and things like that,' said Dot. 'She's brave. She's bearing up. But I'll tell her that you were asking after her, that'll cheer her up. Now, I'm trying to find the customers for that morning. Did you notice anyone?'

'Oh, dear, well, I saw a woman in the most absurd hat. And I think Mr Doherty's young men came in for a cup of coffee, they had a book. Something about horse-racing, I think it was.'

Dot took out her notebook. 'Who's Mr Doherty?' she asked.

'He runs a garage and a livery stable, not much livery now but he shoes the dray horses, we still have some drays. He has an interest in the grain and feed shop two doors up. Nice young men.'

'Do you know their names?' asked Dot.

'The tall one's called Smith—they call him Smithy. And the other one must be called Miller, because they call him Dusty. Does that help, Miss Williams?'

'Yes,' said Dot, hoping that it did. 'You didn't see anyone else?'

'I was busy that day,' said Mrs Johnson. 'That silly girl of mine got herself married, and now she's in the family way, and she's sick. I was run off my feet. I didn't poke my nose out of my own door until Miss Lee came in and said that the young man was dead. White as a sheet, she was, poor girl. I really must go, tell her I was asking after her, will you?'

Dot continued her walk to the grain and feed shop. It had a number of sacks outside. Each one had its cat, couchant. Dot wondered if the hay cat always sat on hay, or whether it swapped with the corn cat, the wheat cat and the chicken food cat. They were well fed and sleepy, and moved obligingly when the merchant came to measure out his produce with a tin scoop. Dot, fascinated, noticed that as soon as the man was finished, the cat leapt back and settled down again. Clearly everyone in this shop was well adjusted to their roles.

'Yes, Miss?' asked a burly man. Dot explained her mission.

'Miss Lee, eh? Never believed she done it. You want the boys? Dusty! Smithy!' he bellowed, in a huge voice which shook the walls. 'You talk to the lady,' he ordered, as two young men came skidding into the shop. One was still carrying a tally.

'We're short a sack of sunflower seed,' said one. Dot refrained from comment. Crime appeared to be endemic in the Eastern Market. She explained what she wanted for what felt like the thousandth time, and the shorter young man nodded intelligently.

'You're trying to eliminate the innocent, eh? That's what Sexton Blake does, eliminate the innocent. Me and Smithy went to the shop about oh, I don't know, tennish? On our smoko. We wanted a book on how to win on the gees, because we ain't been doing too flash lately. Miss Lee sold us one, and we'll be millionaires when Smithy works out his system, eh Smithy?'

Smithy nodded uneasily.

'Was there anyone in the shop when you came in?'

'This weird female in a hat with a bird on it who was giving Miss Lee h..., er, having an argument about what an atlas was. I mean, everyone knows what an atlas is! And someone had just delivered a big box full of books, I stubbed my toe on it. Anyway, we looked around a bit and then the hat went away, we bought our book, had a cup of coffee at Mrs Johnson's, and came back here. Then we had to take a horse to the farrier's so we missed all the excitement.' Mr Miller sounded rather disappointed.

'System,' said their boss with infinite scorn. 'Youse'll both be in Queer Street with Smithy's system. If there was such a thing, bookies'd be begging in the street, and yer don't see that happening, do yer? Well, then.'

'Yes, Boss,' murmured his subordinates, not very convinced.

'And I want that quid back that I lent you out of me own kick. If that's what you're spending it on.'

'Aw, Boss, don't be a Jew ...' wheedled one of the young men.

Dot took her leave. She stood at the door, caressing the corn cat, which was a tortoiseshell, while she considered what to do next. It angled its jaw into her fingers and purred.

'Nice kitty,' said Dot. 'Now, I'm going well. Only the clerk to find. We can get the carter from the dispatch note, it will be in Miss Lee's ledger. No, I can't see any line of enquiry which might lead me to the clerk. I wonder if Miss Phryne has thought about an advertisement? With a reward. That might bring him out of the woodwork.'

She looked down at a sharp hiss. The wheat cat had decided that if there was any patting going it wanted some too, and the corn cat was objecting to this intrusion into her territory. Dot stroked both, then drew the piece of butcher's paper from her purse.

The lady in the hat was called Mrs Katz, and she lived in Carlton. Dot walked around the corner of the market into Bourke Street, past tailors and mercers and Rob't Fulton, Chemist down the hill to Swanston Street, where she caught the number 11 tram.

Miss Lee paused in the construing of a difficult verb in The Gallic Wars to remember with a desperate pang that she was captive and in danger of death. The fact hit her like a physical pain and she clutched at her breast, feeling her heart knife.

Then she returned her gaze to the page and the prison guard heard her murmuring 'Rego, regis, oh, Lord, protect me, God have mercy on me, regis ...'

That one wouldn't have to be dragged screaming to the gallows, thought the guard approvingly She wouldn't give any trouble to her executioners.

Simon Abrahams was sulking.

Here he was, witty, handsome and young, possessed at last of a lover, a beautiful woman who had lain in his arms and ravished his senses, and she had deserted him. She had basely sent him away while she studied alchemy (of all things), enjoining him to be a good boy and not bother her while she was trying to make sense of a lot of medieval writings in illiterate Latin and middle English. There he could not help, not having studied at a university, as her other lovers doubtless had. He kicked at an inoffensive wainscot. How dare it lurk there, being blessedly insensitive wood, while his heart was bleeding?

His mother called out to him not to kick the furniture. He gave the wainscot another boot, careful to make less noise. It was no use complaining about Miss Fisher to Mama. Phryne had made a splendid impression on Mama, who had insisted on telling all the old stories about life in Paris when she and Papa had been so poor. They weren't poor now and Simon was desperately ashamed of those stories.

Papa was visiting the shoe workshops, which he did at least once a week, to talk to the staff and the managers. But there was someone who always had time to listen to the sorrows of the young Simon. Someone who had always been the repository of all Simon's secrets and had never told. Someone who shared his enthusiasms, though he would never publicly disagree with Papa.

Simon stopped assaulting the skirtingboard and went to find Uncle Chaim.

Bert and Cec followed Matt Rosenbloom, the foreman, down the steps to the undercroft of the Eastern Market and into a wide, echoing space. It was harshly lit with strung electric bulbs, which augmented the obsolete gaslight but left pools of black shadow in between. The footing was treacherous and uneven, and the patched shadow and glare made it hard to see any pits or holes. It was full of boxes, bales and sacks and smelt of so many scents that Bert gave up trying to analyse them, deciding that the essence could be sold to the public as Eau de Trade.

'Tomorrow you can work in the main cellar,' observed Mr Rosenbloom, who had been told to employ these men for as long as they liked and was constitutionally incurious. He was required to see that the shoeshop was supplied, that the boxes delivered to the market contained the correct boots in the correct sizes, and he wasn't employed even to resent the way his Australian employees called him Rosybum. In a way it was probably a compliment, he thought. He had come a long way from Stuttgart to Poland and then Rome, and reserved his passions for Mrs Rosenbloom and birdwatching. That reminded him that he had time for a chat with that nice Mr Gunn of the birdshop, and he left Bert and Cec to deal with a severe young woman with a ledger. She was standing in the middle of a heap of shoes, all spilled out of their boxes.

'This delivery is wrong,' she declared. 'I definitely ordered ten pairs of the brown glace kid court with a Louis heel. Look at this.' She held up an offending shoe. 'Does that look like a Louis heel to you?'

'Me, Miss?' Bert was all innocence. 'We're just here for the heavy work, Miss. Now if it came to beer, now, that's different. Cec can identify eight different types with his eyes shut. Which they mostly are after eight beers, eh mate?'

'Too right,' said Cec.

The severe young woman unbent. She knew real ignorance when she heard it.

'I'll have to catch Rosybum when he comes back. I'll get him at Gunn's, that's where he's gone, he lives for the day when he can teach that cockatoo to finish a sentence. Can you pack them back into boxes, please?' Cec fetched a handcart. Miss Harrison of Harrison's Shoes knelt next to the shorter and stouter of the new labourers. Bert, she observed, could find the sizes and the boxes and match them almost quicker than she could, and she was impressed.

'Just load them all up and bring them through to the shop. I'll sort them out with him later. It's a good deal, they're excellent shoes at that price. After all,' she said philosophically, preceding them up the ramp, the shoes piled on the handcart, 'perhaps the customers would prefer a court heel. What do you think?'

'Too right,' agreed Cec.

He resolved to ask Miss Fisher, when he next saw her, what a Louis heel was. Maybe Alice would like Louis heels for the wedding. And she was wearing white. Miss Fisher, when appealed to for a decision, had agreed that white was the only possibility So what if she'd had a little slip? So had Cec and no one was trying to debar him from his own wedding because he wasn't a virgin. In fact he'd gone to considerable trouble and expense to make sure he wasn't a virgin.

No, white it was to be, and Dot Williams had very kindly agreed to go with Alice to the first fitting, in case she was nervous. No one in her family wanted her to marry. She was earning good money at the grocer's shop, and her dad was a soak. But she had made up her mind. She was marrying him, and her dad couldn't say nothing about it.

Cec allowed his train of thought to wander even further, until he was brought back to the present by his mate Bert nudging him and advising him that he was grinning like a loon and asking whether he had taken leave of his senses?

'Here you are with a soppy smirk on your dial and we're supposed to be paying attention,' scolded Bert.

'All right, mate, here I am,' said Cec soothingly. Bert was a good bloke, but he was prone to go crook when he was nervous.

And Bert was nervous because he didn't know what to look for in this big bustling market. Neither did Cec, but his Scandinavian ancestors had bequeathed him some Viking fatalism. If they were meant to find out, they'd find out.

They delivered the shoes for Miss Harrison and she was so mollified that she offered them a tip, which they took graciously.

'Now what?' asked Bert.

'I reckon we stroll around to the birdshop and see what Mr Rosybum wants us to do next,' said Cec. 'And we get an idea of what this place looks like. He'll be with his birds for half an hour. What's up the stairs?'

They climbed, to be greeted with a wave of scents, all manner of flowers and wet stone. The top floor was full of florists—John Lane and several Irelands. They noticed Tintons Glass and China Repairer, Albert Fox, Fruiterer. Strolling by they saw through his window a man in titanic struggle with a pineapple, which was resisting having its crown chopped off. His language was most restrained. It reminded Bert of a book of Realist posters someone had sent Miss Fisher. He mentioned it to Cec. 'They could make a bloody huge bronze out of it and call it "Spirit of Fruit" or "Man Conquering Nature",' he suggested.

Cec chuckled. They stopped at Miss Ivy Brown, Pastrycook, and bought a pie and sauce. The rest of the top floor was inhabited by a couple of fancy good shops, a music seller and a maker of the sort of solid leather trunks which can stand by themselves and house a modest family of three, and their dog.

'Wouldn't want to get a bodgy cargo net under that,' said Cec consideringly. 'Make a bloody big hole in the dock,' agreed Bert through his pie. 'Good pies, these. Right, now what about the next floor down? Just a quiet stroll, mate.'

'Too right.' Cec was relieved. It looked like Bert was getting the feel of the place. He always liked to do that. In the trenches at Pozieres, Bert had often suggested a little recce into No Man's Land. He said it relieved the monotony.

They walked into Exhibition Street in time to hear a scream.

'Murder!'