Raisins and Almonds

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,