Raisins and Almonds pf-9

by Kerry Greenwood

  'With me I brought it,' she said, breaking into tears. 'Such a long way I brought it.'

  Dot realized then that Mrs Katz had not cried during her ordeal. She had courage, or perhaps felt that she had no reason to fear the robbers. But now she was weeping desolately. Her make-up was being eroded into runnels by her tears and Dot offered her a handkerchief.

  'Perhaps it can be mended,' said Dot.

  'No, it's kaput,' said Mrs Katz. But she gathered up the pieces nonetheless. She and Dot stood the furniture up again and they surveyed the room. Books had been emptied out of a bookcase, shaken and flung down. A small table and two easy chairs had been upturned and the springs were now showing in the chairs where the undersides had been ripped.

  'They were looking for something,' said Dot.

  'Something small,' agreed Mrs Katz, drying her eyes. 'Ai, such a silly woman I am, to cry over a plate when we are all alive, but my mother it belonged to. Apart from her Sabbath silver it was all I could bring ... but the silver is still here,' she said with relief, setting up a beautiful nine-branched candlestick on the mantel and counting out spoons and forks into their wrappings of tissue. Dot shook out and refolded a much-darned white damask tablecloth and Mrs Katz replaced it in a wooden chest with the silver and the candlestick.

  'It is a Menorah,' she said unexpectedly to Dot. 'We are Jews.'

  'Yes,' agreed Dot, re-shelving books. Mrs Katz appeared to be waiting for her to say something. 'That's what this case is about,' she added. 'Mr Abrahams asked Miss Phryne to look into the murder in the bookshop.'

  'Abrahams asked her? Benjamin Abrahams? And she agreed?'

  'Yes, she's a detective,' said Dot, and blushed slightly. Detective never seemed like a really respectable profession to Dot and she still wasn't entirely used to it.

  'Mr Abrahams, he is respected man,' commented Mrs Katz, after a pause. 'Abrahams is a mensch, that's what Max says. See, this—I am glad this is not broken. This belonged to my grandfather, who made such things.'

  She turned a brass key, and then lifted the lid of a small, intricately carved wooden box. It began to play a Strauss waltz, very tinkly and pretty, and in the box a small clockwork bird opened and closed its beak. Dot exclaimed, delighted, and Mrs Katz smiled.

  'Such a pretty thing. Now we have a look at the other rooms, and then tea, yes?'

  When they came to examine the front room, they found it in the same schemozzl as the parlour. It took the two of them to heave the mattress back onto the spring base and to remake the bed. Everything in the room had been roughly and hastily searched. All the drawers from a bureau had been torn out and emptied and turned over, then tossed onto the heap of bedding. But nothing had been taken, not even Mr Katz's best watch, which had been hidden in between the mattress and the base.

  The other room contained some furniture which was in the process of being mended. It smelt strongly of wood glue. Even here all the pieces of a large bedstead had been moved, and some of the glued joints had been broken.

  It took Dot and Mrs Katz an hour to put everything to rights, and by the end of it they were friends.

  'You see,' explained Mrs Katz over another cup of straw-coloured tea flavoured with lemon, 'I thought it old country matter because they were speaking Yiddish. "Find it," they say many times. There were two of them, dark men, young, one taller than other, and they were angry. But me they never told for what they were looking, just a paper. What paper, maybe your Miss Fisher knows. But they don't found it here.'

  'Why not?' asked Dot.

  'Why not?' Mrs Katz cried. 'Because here it was never hidden.'

  'Have you ever seen them before, Mrs Katz?'

  'That I can't answer, it was sudden, I didn't see them too good, but no, I don't think so.'

  'In the bookshop, Mrs Katz, what did you see in the bookshop?'

  'I don't see nothing, I went there, the lady is very nice, my Max wants a book of maps, we talk for a while about an atlas, I never hear the word before. Then I go home. That's all.'

  'Did anyone else come in while you were there?'

  'Two young men, maybe they work at the market. They wait while the lady talks to me about the atlas— what a word, I'll never learn all the English words.'

  'Was there anyone there when you came in?'

  'Just a man with a box. The lady signs a paper and gives it to him and he goes away. I never hear him speak, even.'

  'Can you describe him?'

  'A drayman or a carter,' Mrs Katz shrugged fluidly. 'Strong, in overalls, gloves, a cap pulled down over his eyes. But wait ...' she sipped more tea, thinking hard. 'There was something about him, maybe. No, nothing,' she decided.

  'Tell me,' urged Dot.

  'It's nothing, just that I thought he walk wrong for a labourer. Men like that, even when they're not young, they walk like they own the world, you know.' Mrs Katz got up and mimed the shoulder-heavy walk of a muscular man, hands lightly clenched by his sides. She looked strangely convincing and for a moment Dot could see the standover man she was mimicking. 'Like gorilla, nu? Or gunfighter. This one, he was different. Like he was shy, no, not shy ...' She shook her head, unable to find the right word to convey what she meant. Dot reflected that it must be terribly hard to come to another place when one was no longer a child and try to learn a new language.

  'Never mind, I know what you mean,' she said. 'Now, I'd better go. You're sure you're all right?'

  'Sure,' agreed Mrs Katz. 'Max, he can talk to Mr Abrahams about this? He'll want to know.'

  'Yes,' said Dot.

  She used the journey home on two trams to make careful notes of everything Mrs Katz had said. Because she was constitutionally exact, she also included a description of the red, blue and gold plate which the robbers had broken.

  The plate made Dot very angry.

  'Well, that's more like service,' commented Bert.

  'Too right,' agreed Cec.

  They ran lightly down the stairs to the street. The cry of 'Murder!' had been repeated and was even then attracting the attention of a beat cop. He was a mountain of a man in blue serge and helmet, and Bert doused a small flame of alarm when he saw this bastion of the law approaching. Constable Clarke, the biggest policeman in Melbourne. Bert reminded himself that he and Cec were now firmly on the side of law and order, not to mention goodness and righteousness.

  The crier was a middle-aged man who had evidently just arisen from a haystack. He was kneeling over a man in an apron, who was not struggling, probably because the smaller man had his foot poised over a very delicate area. But he was spluttering denials. The crowd was enjoying this after-lunch floor show.

  The person who wasn't enjoying it was Mr Rosenbloom, who was on his hands and knees, vomiting into the gutter. Bert noticed that every now and then he would give a twitch, convulsively rising up and then sinking down again.

  'Now, then,' said the policeman. Bert held his breath. Was he going to actually say it? Was he going to say 'What's all this then?' and preserve the dramatic unities?

  'What's going on here?' asked the policeman, and Bert was disappointed.

  'Murder!' screamed Mr Gunn. 'He poisoned Mr Rosenbloom!'

  'That coot's crazy!' yelled Mr Lane. 'I didn't poison nobody. Lemme up and I'll knock your block off!' he added to Mr Gunn, who did not move.

  'You let him up,' ordered Constable Clarke. 'You two come into the shop. You and you,' he pointed to Bert and Cec, 'see what you can do for the victim. You,' he pointed to a boy, 'run for Dr Stein, tell him we need him quick. All the rest of you, on your way, please. Nothing more to see here.'

  The crowd, which was anticipating lots of distractions to come, stayed put. The constable blew his whistle for assistance.

  'Mate,' said Bert, 'I reckon we need some water. I reckon he's taken strychnine and I reckon that Miss Phryne's going to want to know all about this.'

  'Too right,' said Cec. The stricken man was panting with effort, but the tremors which ran through all his muscles would not allow him res
t. Cec removed his coat and wrapped it around him.

  'You'll be all right, mate,' he soothed. 'Try and sit up a little, now. That's the ticket. Boy's gone for the doctor.'

  Mr Rosenbloom's teeth gnashed together as he tried to speak. 'Pain,' he grunted.

  Bert, who knew no harm of the tubby foreman, said, 'Where's that bloody doctor?'

  A youngish man with a permanently worried face came through the Eastern Market escorted by a proud boy, and dropped unaffectedly to his knees on the pavement.

  'We need to get him inside—can you carry him?' he asked Bert and Cec, who lifted Mr Rosenbloom with some effort. They hauled him into the printer's shop and deposited him in the room's only chair.

  'Sit him down here, good, now, I am going to give you something to drink, and then an injection for the convulsions, and soon you will sleep,' said the doctor. Such was the conviction in his quiet voice that Bert instantly believed him, and so did the stricken Mr Rosenbloom.

  'Come next door,' he nodded to Cec.

  The birdshop was loud with denunciations. Bert drew the policeman aside by one sleeve.

  'I reckon you'd better call Detective Inspector Robinson,' he informed the blue serge land mass which was Constable Clarke.

  'Oh, do you? And who're you?' asked the constable, unimpressed.

  'Just call him. He's been looking for the poison what done in that bloke in the bookshop. Strychnine, it was. This is the same stuff.'

  The constable glared at Bert and Bert glared back. There was a long interval when neither man lowered his gaze. After a minute, Clarke stepped to the door and called one of the others who had come in answer to his whistle. Three officers were occupied in keeping the crowd back.

  'Call Detective Inspector Robinson, Cadet Richards,' he ordered. 'I think that this has a bearing on his murder case.'

  Bert grinned at him. The recriminations in the shop rose again.

  'Shut up!' roared the constable. The walls shook and bird seed fell like brightness from the air. Sheer surprise produced silence. The constable took out his notebook and his pencil.

  'Now, I want your names,' he began.

  Bert and Cec listened as the two men identified themselves.

  'Now what's all this about murder?'

  'He poisoned his chooks and my finches, and then he tried to poison Mr Rosenbloom!' declared Mr Gunn.

  'He's cuckoo,' said Mr Lane pityingly 'All I did was offer Mr Rosenbloom a handful of sunflower seeds, he's foreign, he likes eating them.'

  'And Mr Rosenbloom then became ill?'

  'Keeled right over,' said Mr Lane. 'But I didn't poison him.'

  'Show us these sunflower seeds,' said the policeman. Mr Lane led the way into the back of his shop. A small sack of seeds stood on top of a table, next to a couple of penned chickens. A boy looked up from a huge ham sandwich and allowed his mouth to fall open. Bert tipped it shut with a careful forefinger.

  'We'll have to wait until Dr Stein tells us what came over Mr Rosenbloom,' said the policeman. 'Where did you get these sunflower seeds, Mr Lane?'

  'I ... er ... bought them.'

  'Yes,' said the constable, pencil poised. 'Who from?'

  'My usual supplier is Doherty's,' said Mr Lane.

  'Did these come from Doherty's, then?' The constable knew an evasion when he heard it.

  'Well, in a manner of speaking, yes.' Mr Lane wiped his upper lip. 'These were a special sale, just the once.'

  'Who sold them to you?'

  'A mate of mine,' said Lane. 'I don't want to get him into trouble.'

  'You'll be in trouble if you don't tell me what I want to know right now. A man could be dying out there,' said Clarke.

  'All right, all right, it was one of the boys, Dusty Miller. He's pushed for cash and so he sold me some seeds.'

  'Did you have reason to believe that these seeds had been stolen or unlawfully obtained?' asked Clarke heavily.

  'No, I was sure it was all on the level, he's square, Dusty is. Good sort of young lad.'

  'Oh yes,' said Constable Clarke. 'And why did you say that Mr Lane had poisoned your finches, Mr Gunn?'

  'Oh, well, it was nothing, I just ... er ... borrowed a handful of sunflower seeds for my finches, I would have put them back ...'

  'You been pinching my feed!' yelled Mr Lane, thankful that the black spot of legal attention appeared to have passed from him. 'You thief!'

  'That's enough,' said Clarke.

  'He knew the seeds were poisonous, he sold two chooks which had died of poisoning, I saw his boy plucking them!' Mr Gunn was not going to let go of his grievance.

  'Dead in the pen,' agreed the boy At a glare from his master, he corked his mouth with sandwich again.

  'See?' demanded Mr Gunn.

  'All right, all right,' said Constable Clarke. 'That's enough. From both of you.'

  Bert, who had been looking at the sunflower seeds, caught a glimpse of something in the sack which had no business being there.

  'There's a stain on the left side of this sack,' he commented. 'And I reckon ...', he probed the seeds with a stick, '... yes, there,' he said with satisfaction, as a small uncorked glass bottle emerged from the black and white striped shells. It still had a few white crystals in the bottom. 'That's done you a bit of good with Jack Robinson,' he said to Constable Clarke. 'I reckon you've found his missing bottle of strychnine.'

  Eleven

  Mercury and Sulphur, Sun and Moon, agent and patient, matter and form are the oposites. When the virgin or feminine earth is thoroughly purified and purged from all superfluity, you must give it a husband meet for it: for when male and female are joined together by means of the sperm, a generation must take place in the menstruum.

  Edward Kelley, The Theatre of Terrestrial Astronomy

  Phryne received reports as she was dressing for dinner. The girls had enjoyed their afternoon with I the Levin family, which had been lavish as well as informative.

  'We're coming up to the fast of Yom Kippur,' Jane told Phryne, sitting on her bed and watching her select a flame red dress, shake her head and return it to the wardrobe. 'On the twenty-fourth of September. That's the holiest day of the year. The Day of Atonement,' said Jane.

  'I like the sea green better,' observed Ruth. 'It's just the same colour as lettuce. What are they atoning for?'

  'Everything,' said Jane. 'They can't eat or drink for the whole day, from dawn to dusk. Everyone, though not sick people or women who are expecting. Rebecca says she's going to be allowed to do the whole fast this year. She says it's to teach her what it's like to starve and thirst.'

  'I know that already,' said Ruth soberly Jane and Ruth exchanged glances. They were considering their school mates, who had certainly never been hungry for more than ten minutes in their well-padded lives.

  'I think it's a good sort of thing to do,' decided Ruth.

  'So do I,' agreed Phryne, who also knew all that she needed to know about privation.

  'And I found out about giraffes,' said Jane. 'I asked Mr Levin. He says it is kosher for the same reason that camel isn't. Giraffes have hoofs, but camels have hard feet. But he said that the Talmudic teachers say that if it is a choice between eating non-kosher food and starving, one is required to live, so one could eat camel if the alternative was death. He pinched my cheek and laughed,' said Jane philosophically, who could take the rough with the smooth in pursuit of knowledge.

  Phryne chuckled. 'What shall I wear? I'm going to dinner and then to the Kadimah, which may be anything from an anarchists' den to a Sunday School—well, no, not precisely that, perhaps.'

  'Where are you dining?' asked Jane.

  'The Society.'

  'You must really like this one,' commented Ruth. The Society was one of Phryne's favourite restaurants. She only took people she really liked to the Society.

  'I do,' said Phryne. 'What do you think, Dot, the green or the red? Or maybe the tunic and Poitou trousers?'

  'Are you going to be doing anything active?' asked Dot, who had divulg
ed her story about Mrs Katz and the broken plate. 'I mean, not climbing around anything in the dark or that?'

  'No, mostly sitting, with a little quiet elegant dining and some driving.'

  I'd wear the green and a fillet,' said Dot.

  The girls nodded in unison. Phryne therefore dressed in a cocktail length dark green dress of figured satin, with black shoes and stockings and a long, long necklace of amber-coloured glass beads which winked and twinkled halfway to her knees. She found an amber cigarette holder, fitted a gasper into it, and allowed Dot to place a gold fillet with a black panache made of one curled ostrich feather on her sleek sable head.

  Ember levitated onto the bed and thence onto the dressing table and batted at the beads.

  'Where's your puppy, Ember?' asked Phryne, removing the string from his strong claws.

  'Shut in the kitchen until she gets used to the house. Puppies take a long time to get used to the idea,' said Jane. 'It only took Ember one day—didn't it, precious?'

  Ember snuggled up to the caressing hand, radiating consciousness of being a cat (and therefore naturally superior) and Jane cooed.

  Bert and Cec, come to report, found the scene touching, if a trifle over-feminine.

  Phryne sat them down in her parlour and supplied them with beer.

  'We found your bottle of strychnine,' said Bert. 'Detective Inspector Jack Robinson himself came down and looked at it. It was in the sunflower seeds.'

  'I thought there was something odd about them sunflower seeds,' exclaimed Dot. 'Everyone was pinching them from everyone else!'

  'Unlucky for poor old Rosenbloom, but the doc says that he only got a small dose and he'll be all right.'

  Phryne begged Bert for footnotes, and he obliged. Phryne took out her notebook.

  'So the sunflower seeds were stored—where?'

  'In the undercroft, in old man Doherty's bins. Because he don't buy as much as say wheat or corn, the sunflower seeds are in little sacks. Doherty's boy Miller admitted pinching one bag and selling it to Hughes to finance his system on the horses, and did his boss go crook! Nearly sacked him on the spot, but let him stay provided he promises never to put another bet on a horse. Might be the making of him. Betting systems buy more bookies Rolls Royces than anything else. Silly cow. Where was I?'