Raisins and Almonds

Twelve

Water: This is the first Element ... the most Ancient principles, and the Mother of all things amongst Visibles. Without the mediation of this, Earth can receive no blessing at all for the moysture is the proper cause of mixture and fusion ... The Common Element of Water is not altogether contemptible, for there are hidden treasures in it.

Thomas Vaughan, Magia Adamica

All right,' said Simon, as Phryne started the engine and the Hispano-Suiza purred into life. 'The chemistry I sort of understand. The argument about Zion, that has been going on for a long time. At least since Bar Kochba. But the shoes, Phryne darling, / should understand the shoes?'

'I thought of it when I walked on the bits of that cup you smashed in the heat of discussion. Broken china sticks in the soles. Someone invaded the house of a Mrs Katz today, and searched it for "the paper". In the process they shattered a very old and distinctive plate. There was no trace of it in your friends' shoes, though Yossi left before I could examine his. Therefore those present did not break into Mrs Katz's house.'

'Katz? In Carlton? She's Max Katz's wife. Is she all right? How does she come into it? Why did you think that we might have done it?'

'Because she was in the bookshop, the lady in the awful hat. Now what paper could they be looking for, hmm?'

'Yossi's compound,' said Simon.

'I should have looked at it more closely. It was just a string of letters and numbers, but that's what a chemical formula is. Like H₂0 or 0₂. Water and oxygen. Do you know any chemistry, Simon?'

'Me? I'm a shoemaker. I wonder what Yossi was working on? A new glue, perhaps? In shoemaker's glue, there's a lot to improve. You have to keep it hot, it's very inconvenient. And carpenters use the same stuff.'

'Possibly. In any case, we know that it probably wasn't your friends who were searching Mrs Katz's house for the paper. There is someone else in this, some other party.'

'The buyer. He hasn't got the formula,' said Simon. 'Because we've got it.'

'And he's looking for it,' said Phryne. 'He knows it's not with the Katzes. I hope Bert and Cec can find that carter tomorrow. He might be in danger.'

'Oh, danger, Phryne, please!' scoffed Simon.

'They broke into a house and tied an old woman to a chair. They left a pan on the stove. The house could have burned down; that would have been murder,' Phryne reminded him.

Simon did not speak until the big car was rolling off the road onto the grass. 'Where are we going?' he asked. 'You're going to drive into the sea?'

'What time is it?' asked Phryne.

Simon consulted his watch. 'Nearly midnight.'

'It's a hot night and there's no moon,' said Phryne softly. 'We can leave the car here and no one will see us. I'm going swimming.' She stopped the engine and pulled off her shoes and stockings. Simon heard the clatter of her beads as she dropped them, and could see a flash of milk-white flank and thigh as she stood up to take off her dress and then her cami-knickers.

He caught his breath. She was naked: even her head was bare of the ostrich feather fillet. In one smooth movement she vaulted out of the car onto the prickly grass, and was running towards the sea.

He tore at his buttons with shaking fingers.

He caught her by sound in the darkness. The air was heavy and thick, and the sea kissed his naked flesh; a city's ocean, which slapped ashore and made genteel little waves which ran whispering down the sand. Behind him St Kilda went on with its late night life. There weary painted women solicited for trade in beery streets where the six o'clock drinkers had swilled and vomited. He had yearned after the whores once, desperately curious about the sexuality of women. He had envisaged seduction, the urgent plea and the concession which allowed him access to the flesh he desired.

But not even in tangled sweaty sheets at three in the morning, despairing of ever finding a lover, had he imagined anyone like Phryne.

She was wet and her skin was cold, but under his hands it was scalding. Arms wreathed around his neck and a mouth met his, opening, salty and soft. She pulled him down into the embrace of the water, sliding around and under him like a fish, so that he ducked and dived, grabbing for her as she eluded him, laughing and then coughing as he breathed ocean.

She was as fast and sleek as a seal. The distant street light showed him her head as she emerged, a frill of foam around her neck, her black hair plastered to her head like a depraved Pierrot.

'Such a beautiful boy,' she crooned, slipping forward with the wave and kissing him hard. 'Come, come to me.'

He grabbed again and this time she allowed herself to be caught; she yielded to his embrace, clinging to him in the salt water which bore them both up.

'Oh, my nymph,' he gasped. 'Nereid, I'm yours.'

She moved again so that he was on the shingle, lying just above the backwash of the waves, supine, astonished, wholly at her mercy. Her mouth and hands caressed him, then she was astride him, just visible in the distant light as she sank down onto him and moved as though she was riding Thetis' horses of the sea. He thought of conjunction the crowning alchemical mystery, as his hands found her breasts, and then he lost capacity for thought altogether. He did not know how long it was until he groaned, and heard Phryne cry aloud like a seabird.

Late, sandy and incompletely dressed, Phryne parked her car and brought Simon into the house. She led him up the stairs and into her apartment.

'A shower,' she said, pulling off the green dress. Under it she was naked. She dropped stockings, shoes, underclothes and jewellery on the floor. Simon began to remove his hastily donned garments, wondering why fly buttons were so prone to desertion. He had lost two. Phryne flung him a gown and he pulled it on, still astounded at the ferocity of her passion.

She showered thoroughly, rinsing the salt off her skin and the sand from her hair, then yielded her place to the young man. Such a beautiful boy, she thought, observing that he was somewhat abraded around buttock and back by the shingle. Prior experience had taught Phryne that it was wise not to be underneath if making love on sand.

'Oh, Phryne,' sighed Simon, 'that was ...'

'Astonishing?' asked Phryne, towelling her hair. 'Yes. Lovely.'

He was a little disappointed by her response. After all, he had given her all he had to give. She leaned past the fall of water and kissed him gently.

'You are quite delightful,' she said, and went into her bedroom.

He heard her exclaim, 'Jesus wept!' and he got out of the shower and draped the gown over his wet body. He would dry quickly enough in the hot night, no matter what his mother said about catching cold. Phryne was looking at a room which had been comprehensively ransacked.

'The others,' she said, and ran for the stairs, her black kimono billowing behind her.

Downstairs was silent. Simon was behind her as she opened the girls' door and exclaimed with relief when she heard them breathing peacefully. He followed her to the kitchen where she opened the Butlers' door and listened for Mr Butler's snore and Mrs Butler's whuffle. Both present and correct. Beside the combustion stove, which had not been lit, there was a faint noise. But it was only Ember rising from beside his puppy and suggesting politely that although it appeared to be the middle of the night, if Phryne thought it was breakfast time then he was ready to graciously fall in with her wishes.

She stroked the cat and told him that he must wait until a reasonable hour.

They returned to Phryne's rooms, where she let out a great breath which she had not known she was holding. Then, to Simon's surprise, she threw herself into his arms and hugged him hard for almost a minute, her wet head on his silk-clad shoulder.

'Dear Simon,' she said softly. He held her close, feeling her heart beating fast against his own. Then she pulled away and surveyed the damage.

'What a mess, but nothing is too badly damaged,' she commented. 'Help me,' she said, and he grabbed the end of the mattress.

Half an hour later, and Phryne's boudoir was in its accustomed state.

'There's nothing missing, and fortunately for them they didn't disturb the rest of the house or I would have had their blood,' said Phryne matter-of-factly. 'This definitely excludes you and your friends, Simon. It must have happened while we were at Kadimah. This must have been one of the dark young men who robbed Mrs Katz. Erk. I hate to think of him being in my room, handling my things. Though what he made of all those silk cami-knickers he fumbled through I'd like to know.'

'Excludes me?' asked Simon. 7 needed to be excluded?'

'Don't be offended, old thing. It's part of being a detective. You have to suspect everyone, it's one of those rules. But they didn't find my safe deposit,' she said in satisfaction.

'They didn't? But everywhere they looked!' protested Simon.

Phryne smiled the smile of a canary-fed cat. 'Not everywhere. They just thought that they looked everywhere. They got the alchemical paintings, though. I left them on my dressing table. But the paper and the translation—no.'

'How can you tell?' asked Simon. 'You haven't checked.'

'Yes, I have. Now, I think we should open a bottle of champagne, which is still cooling in the bucket over there just as Mr Butler left it. The burglar had no taste for good wine, fortunately. There are glasses in the cupboard underneath, and he's learned from Mrs Rose's. He didn't break one of them.'

'Phryne,' Simon begged. 'Please!'

'No one ever died of curiosity, Simon dear, and I'd rather you didn't know. What you don't know cannot be persuaded or forced from you.'

'You're serious, aren't you?'

Phryne lit a cigarette and drew in the smoke hungrily.

'Certainly. Consider: to get into this room, someone had to climb the tree and then the roof, a dangerous climb with no holds. I have felt as though someone was watching me for the last few nights, he must have been waiting until we were all out. The person took a huge risk of being seen by anyone passing by in the street or being caught by either of the two groups who returned at a more decorous time than we did. I expect that the girls were home by ten, and Dot would not have let Hugh stay beyond eleven. And the Butlers would have come home about then, possibly a little later depending on the running of the last tram. Our burglar really wanted to get in. It must have taken fully half an hour to search as comprehensively as he did. No, this is serious, Simon, and I am getting a better latch on that window tomorrow. Not even my insurance company thought that a window in an upper floor needed a lock. And you know how constitutionally suspicious insurance companies are. Thank you,' she said, gulping thirstily.

'All right, it's serious. But if it wasn't me, and I've known it wasn't me all along,' said Simon severely, 'then who was it?'

'Agents or minions of the buyer,' replied Phryne. 'See if you can persuade your friends to tell you who it is. I understand that they want to buy guns to start a patriotic war in Palestine, but they can do that just as illegally by selling this compound of Yossi's on the open market. There is some sort of elaborate mind in this: the same mind that managed to kill poor Simeon in Miss Lee's shop. A scheming mind.'

'I'll ask them, but I don't think they'll tell me,' said Simon.

'No, I expect we'll have to find it by ourselves.'

'About this hiding place,' Simon teased. 'I can show you a really good one.'

'Oh, indeed?'

'If you'll show me yours.'

'No,' said Phryne, and drank some more champagne.

'Oh, well.' Simon took up the Occulta Philosophica, a leather-bound folio. 'Now, where would you hide something in a book?'

'At page thirty-five,' said Phryne, lighting another gasper from the butt of the first.

'You're chain smoking,' reproved Simon. 'Just folding it into the pages, that's not safe. Anyone comes along and shakes the book, your secret is revealed.'

'Stop nudzing me, I'm a victim of crime and I'm a bit shaken. Where, then, do I hide my paper in a book?' asked Phryne, irritated.

'Here.' Simon laid the book down, spine upward, and opened it. The leather binding gaped, revealing a tunnel between the spine and the cover.

'See, you fold your paper into a spill and slip it down here. Then to get it out you just pick up the book, open it like you are reading it, and then feel down that gap for ... Phryne! Are you all right?'

'Oh, my God, he had a cut on his finger,' said Phryne. 'What did I say about an elaborate mind?'

Simon, alarmed at her sudden pallor, quoted, 'You said that whoever did this had ...'

'An elaborate, scheming, evil, murderous mind,' said Phryne, fanning herself with one hand. 'A really nasty mind. I'm looking forward to meeting him.'

'Phryne, would you like to tell me what you are talking about?' asked Simon.

'Not tonight. Bring the bottle. Come and lie down with me,' she said faintly, stubbing out her cigarette. 'What with one thing and another, Simon, darling, I don't want to sleep alone.'

Morning brought Greek coffee and Dot, looking rather severe.

'There's things all out of order,' she reproved. 'All the soaps have been moved and someone's dropped a bottle of them expensive French bath salts. And the towels have all been unfolded and bundled back anyhow. What were you looking for, Miss? I left your things out on the dressing table like I always do.'

Phryne, sitting up reluctantly, shoved her hair out of her eyes and shook the smooth shoulder of the sleeping boy.

'Wake up, Simon, it's morning. That wasn't me, Dot dear, we had a burglar. He didn't take anything. Ring that nice carpenter, I forget his name, and get him to put a lock with a key on my windows, will you? Not bars. I don't want to be kept imprisoned by my own security. But a nice solid lock.'

'A burglar?' Dot put down the coffee and boggled. 'What, a burglar in the house, here, when we were all asleep?'

'Dot, if you say "We might have all been murdered in our beds", I'll scream,' said Phryne, who had woken up cross. 'We weren't touched and that's fortunate for the burglar. Otherwise I'd have his guts for garters. Curse the horrible little hoodlum.'

'You might say, "May beets grow out of his stomach",' suggested Simon, sleepy with satiated desires, lapped in more luxury than he had ever imagined. 'That was one of zayde's, my grandfather. He was good at curses. His favourite was "May a fire burn in his belly to boil his brains." Wicked tongue, my grandfather, alav ha-sholom.'

'Amen,' agreed Phryne. 'It's all right, Dot, don't worry. If it would make you feel better, why not ask Hugh to sleep in the spare room for the next couple of nights? This should be over soon.'

'Oh?' asked Dot, uneasily.

'Yes,' said Phryne. 'After a suitable interval for ablutions and breakfast, I am taking Jack Robinson to the bookshop to show him the murder weapon, and shortly thereafter I expect to get Miss Lee out of quod.'

'The murder weapon?' asked Simon, after looking at Dot for guidance and realizing that she was as ignorant as he was. 'It's still in the shop?'

'I hope so,' said Phryne, and refused to say any more.

Miss Lee had moved onto the fourth declension. She wondered, occasionally, sleepless at three in the morning, if she would master the whole lexicon before they hanged her, which seemed to be a terrible waste of an education.

But one must not give way. Because she was on remand, she was allowed to receive gifts. Every day fresh flowers arrived, and chocolates, books and cigarettes. The last bunch was red roses, from Mr Abrahams.

Someone still believed that she was innocent. And the remarkable Phryne Fisher was still investigating.

'Manus, manus, manum,' sang Miss Lee. 'Manus, manui, manu.'

'What's a man gotta do to get an answer?' asked Bert of Cec, as they stood before a gate which was not only closed but had two braces nailed across it.

'I don't reckon we're gonna get an answer, mate,' opined Cec.

'Yair, looks like Wm Gibson, Carter, has cashed it in and gone to the South Sea Isles, all right. You should be able to see over the fence if I can give you a bit of a boost.'

Bert bent and Cec rose. He held on to the shaky grey timber and reported, 'Nothing in the yard, mate. Let me down. No truck. There's a busted-looking old dray, and that's all. Not even a cat.'

'Well, that's torn it,' said Bert, removing his hat and scratching his bald spot. Working for Miss Fisher, he reckoned, was hard on a bloke's hair. His had already been appreciably thinned by some of her cases. It was going to be hot. The streets already had the faint, glazed look which spoke of pavements just about to soften and shimmer.

'P'raps the neighbours'd know,' suggested Cec, diffidently.

'You take that side of the street,' sighed Bert, 'and I'll take this.'

They split up and began knocking on doors. Bert began to long for the good old days of ferrying drunks from one side of the city to the other. More than that, he could do with a good cold beer.

Phryne, policemen in tow, opened the door of Miss Lee's shop. The little bell rang tinnily. The room was clean, but already a slight film of dust was settling on the polished desk. It felt shabby and desolate. Jack Robinson was not in the mood for excitable females, though he was vaguely wondering why she was carrying a craft knife and a pair of thick gloves.

'Well, Miss Fisher?'

'Now, Jack, is the shop the same? No one has been here?'

'It looks the same,' he said warily.

'I've told you all about Yossi's formula. I have told you about Mrs Katz and the burglary of my own house. Now there's something I have to conjecture. Part of the fun of being a conspiracy is the ridiculous mumbo-jumbo which men so enjoy. Passwords, you know, and secret handshakes and all that sort of thing. It must be something endowed with the male hormone we hear so much about in these glandular days. Anyway, like schoolboys playing catch with trinitrotoluene, those unworldy scholars used to pass their information to each other by putting it in one of the unread books in Miss Lee's shop. Shimeon the go-between put the formula into a book.'

'No, he didn't,' objected the policeman. 'We've had all those books out and shaken. There wasn't anything hidden in them.'

'That's what you think. I was talking to these poor bunnies last night and they told me that Shimeon had hidden the formula in a book. I thought as you did, and then Simon showed me how to conceal something in a book so that no casual search will ever find it.'

Phryne walked to the bookcase which concealed the Great Unread. 'Now, I don't know which of these it is. I remember Dot saying that—now what was it?

Unfortunately we can't use the dust as a guide, now they are all dusty We'll try the leather-bound folios. What have we here?' She laid them on the counter with a thump. 'The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Volume 9 of Hansard for 1911. Sermons in Stones by the Rev. Walters. Now, which is the most deadly?'

'Probably Hansard,' opined Detective Inspector Robinson, who did not admire politicians.

'We'll try that first. The way this must have worked is that Shimeon put his message in one book, and picked it up from another. God knows why. Gimme the knife, Simon.'

Phryne put on the gloves and slit the binding of the folio from one end to the other.

'No, nothing in Hansard,' she commented. 'What about Sir Walter?'

The leather and stiffening peeled away from the blade.

'Miss Fisher, if you've dragged me here to watch you mutilate books ...' began Jack Robinson, who had other things to do. Phryne bit her lip. She turned the sermons so that light fell on the spine, and slit the binding for the third time.

'See?' she said.

'What am I looking at?' asked Robinson.

'A murder weapon,' said Phryne. 'No, don't touch. Not unless you want to join Shimeon. That's what killed him.'

'It's just a bit of sharp metal, part of a razor blade, embedded in the spine,' objected Jack Robinson.

'That's exactly what it is,' said Phryne. 'Simon, demonstrate how one would remove a message. Use another book,' she added hurriedly.

Simon hefted a large volume, opened it, and groped in the interstice. Robinson felt suddenly very ill. To cover this, he took out his pipe and made a great show of lighting it.

'Shimeon comes into the shop,' said Phryne. 'He is supposed to plant the formula first and then to collect his reward, perhaps a note which says that an arms dealer has been arranged for this war in Palestine, God help them. But he didn't do that. Perhaps he was cleverer than the others, or more suspicious. Perhaps that goes with being born in Salonika, where they know more about conspiracy than gentle innocent Australia. You can see how it happened, Jack. Exactly as Miss Lee says it happened. He opened the book, groped for the hiding place as Simon is doing, then his right index finger met the razor blade. A thin cut, like a paper cut. It was a trivial injury, so he didn't scream and draw attention to himself. But it was a fatal injury, because the blade was loaded with strychnine crystals. You can still see them. Someone has used paste to make the blade sticky. Then he turned to Miss Lee, falling, and held out his hand to her, to draw attention to the wound. He tried to speak to her, but he failed.'

Simon stared at the exhibit, still holding the book. He was as white as a sheet. The attendant constable noticed that he looked very sickly and moved towards him.

'They found no strychnine in the stomach,' said Robinson. 'There's a report from the toxicologist, too. It was pure strychnine, chemically pure. Not the mixture they use to poison rats. This is an awful thing,' he said slowly. 'A trap for the most unsuspecting. Just when he thought that he was going to get what he wanted.'

'A cruel thing,' said Phryne. 'The product of a cunning mind.'

'But whose mind?' demanded the policeman.

'Ah, that,' said Phryne, 'we have yet to ascertain. But I tell you one thing, Jack dear, it wasn't Miss Lee.'

'She could have been an accomplice,' said Robinson, without conviction.

'Have a heart,' begged Phryne.

'You're right. We'll release her this afternoon. All charges dropped and her release proceeding from sure and certain knowledge of her complete innocence,' said Robinson, heavily.

'There's a good policeman.' Phryne patted his arm.

'Someone set a trap for poor Shimeon,' whispered Simon. 'And killed him as coldly as you kill a mouse.'

'Yes, and with the same poison,' agreed Robinson absently.

There was a crash as the book hit the floor, but the alert constable managed to catch Simon.

The Detective Constable had no imagination, so he was not shocked by the murder weapon or the collapse of the dark boy, which he had expected. But he was horrified by the way Miss Fisher had called his chief 'Jack, dear'.

He had never thought of Detective Inspector Robinson in that light before.

As they left the shop, a woman in shabby clothes caught at Miss Fisher's arm. 'Excuse me, Miss, are these the jacks who are saying Miss Lee's a murderer?'

'They're the ones,' agreed Phryne. 'Who are you?'

'I'm Mrs Price. I clean this shop and I'm here to tell them they're wrong. You the head cop? You're looking for the rat poison, ain't yer?'

Jack Robinson said 'Mind your language, Mrs Price. Yes, I am looking for the rat poison. Do you know what happened to it?'

'Yair,' said the cleaning woman angrily. 'I spilled it and I threw it away. I been sick with the 'flu and I didn't know about all this till my son told me tonight. So that's where it went, right?'

'Right,' said Detective Inspector Robinson, humbly.