signs of cracking under Dot's practical sympathy—had she not herself been on the edge of murder when Phryne Fisher had swanned into her life? Dot knew how hard it was to be rescued.
Phryne told Dot not to spare the bath salts and to give Miss Lee some clothes if she needed them, and turned the car to Hawthorn, where Jack Robinson's chemist lived. She had expressed her need for absolute confidentiality to that admirable officer, and he had instantly come up with the name. Dr Alexander Treasure, analytical chemist, was her man he said. Robinson had said that Treasure had no curiosity at all and had given him the highest recommendations for honour and integrity.
Phryne was anxious that Yossi's formula would not be stolen and patented by someone else. Such things had happened. She did not approve of what he and the others intended to do with the money, and she was still undecided as to whether they had other allies who might have robbed Mrs Katz and Phryne herself. But it was Yossi's discovery, made while he could have been doing something which he considered fun rather than slaving over a hot test tube and enduring Mrs Grossman's wrath at her burned table. Phryne made a mental note that if anyone connected with this Treasure of a chemist patented anything vaguely resembling Yossi's compound, she would be very cross and probably litigious.
Dr Treasure lived in a nice house. It was a standard red-brick building which matched its neighbours, even down to the uniform height of the fences and the tree dahlias peering over them. This was a good sign. He did not practice chemistry for money. She rang the bell and presently a young woman with a baby on her hip opened it. She was trying to tuck back her straggling fair hair and button her dress at the front.
'I have an appointment with Dr Treasure,' said Phryne.
'Oh, yes, Miss Fisher, is it? Come in. We're a bit at sixes and sevens, my girl hasn't come in and the baby's fretting. My husband's in the lab. This way,' said Mrs Treasure, hefting her offspring. It was whining in a way that set Phryne's teeth on edge.
'Ssh,' she said to it. The baby was so surprised it shut up instantly and plugged its mouth with its none-too- clean thumb. The young woman said, 'I wish you'd teach me how to do that. I can't do a thing with him. Takes after his father.' She opened a door. 'I can't do a thing with him, either.' She knocked, then opened the door. Then she grinned ruefully at Phryne as the baby began to cry.
'Your spell's worn off,' she commented and bore the scion of the house away to continue his interrupted feed.
'Miss Fisher?' Dr Treasure was tall, lanky and English. He had a mop of brown curls and a shy, endearing smile. He looked much younger than Phryne had expected.
'Detective Inspector Robinson told you about my qualifications, and you are thinking that I am too young,' he said, and sighed. 'I'm actually thirty-seven, but I can't even convince passport officials about that. Sit down, if you please, Miss Fisher. You aren't the Hon. are you? Duchy of Lancaster, eh? I believe that my father knows your father. Jack said you had a fascinating problem for me. Do tell.'
Phryne produced the translation, and Dr Treasure spread it out on his bench. He was surrounded by a forest of glass tubes and retorts. Phryne wondered how many of them had derived from alchemy.
Dr Treasure was groping for something, never taking his eyes off the string of letters and numbers. Phryne put a pencil into his hand. He began to scribble on a notepad, tore it off, screwed it up and threw it onto the floor, paused, scribbled again and laughed.
'By God, it's so simple,' he said.
'What is it? And I have to tell you, this is involved in a murder investigation and you cannot have it.'
'Not my field,' he said absently 'Anyway, wouldn't think of it, old Jack'd have my skin drying on a fence— isn't that the expression? I think I've got butadiene, yes, but this uses styrene, got some potassium persulphate, mercaptan, yes, this is going to niff more than a trifle. Basically we just bubble a couple of gases through cold water and then add all the other things, stir slowly, and—
'We begin by bubbling this gas through nice clean distilled water,' he said, doing so. 'Then we add the soap and other things and might I suggest you put on that mask?' He indicated with an unoccupied finger an ex-army gas mask. Phryne slipped the straps over her head and breathed in a scent of charcoal and rubber. Dr Treasure beamed. 'Good. Mercaptan is the absolute essence of things which stink.'
Even through the mask Phryne could scent something reminiscent of old garbage, mixed with a strong overtone of sewers.
Dr Treasure seemed immune to the stench. He mixed several other fluids and poured them into a large glass vessel over a very weak flame. He took up a stirrer.
'This is exciting, isn't it?' he remarked in his lilting Cambridge voice.
'What is it?'
'Don't know, quite. But don't worry about secrecy, Miss Fisher. I work for the police often, I give evidence in court. My integrity is exceptionally important to me. Hmm. I think we'll give this a bit more of a stir.'
'Dr Treasure, what is this compound? All I can see is a clear fluid and a bit of paper with letters and numbers.'
'Ah, yes, well, how am I to explain this? Are you familiar with the term polymerization?'
'Never heard of it,' said Phryne firmly.
Dr Treasure did not seem cast down by the lamentable ignorance of his visitor. In fact, he seemed pleased to have an auditor who really wanted to know the answer. Phryne reflected that his wife must be far too busy with the baby to pay proper attention to chemistry lectures and he was probably suffering from audience starvation. And, judging by the way he was now drinking in the sight of Phryne in her close-fitting blue dress, other sorts of deprivation as well.
'Well, let's start from the beginning. In nature, the polymer process is a biogenesis and we are not too clear about how it works. It's very complex, but it does not seem to induce polymerization by the manufacture of an isoprene monomer as such. Which is what this formula is endeavouring to do, I believe.'
'It is?' asked Phryne.
Dr Treasure pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. 'Yes, you see, here—it says - CH2-C(CI) = CH-CH2—times n, and there's an additional CI, that makes it poly- chloroprene. Which is CR. Derived, as you know, from oil, though mine is made out of butyl alcohol, made of fermented grain. Much cleaner, don't you think? And it uses up all that surplus wheat. Yes, the formula is quite clear, though it's strange. Whoever wrote this, wrote it backwards.'
'The rabbi,' said Phryne, delighted to confuse this confusing man in her turn, 'is used to writing Hebrew, which goes from right to left.'
He gave her a puzzled look before he went on, 'The rest of the steps are expressed the same way. Dashed peculiar way of setting out a process but there you are, scientists are odd bods.' Then he started like a guilty thing surprised, and leapt to his feet. 'Oh, gosh, Miss Fisher, please excuse me. That's the doorbell. My wife will be feeding little Bobbie ... back in a moment. Keep stirring. Don't let it boil!'
He was gone with a slam of the door and flourish of his lab coat, and Phryne was torn between extreme frustration and a serious fit of the giggles. She had never, not even when someone had insisted on explaining political economy to her, been so thoroughly informed without having the faintest idea of what was happening. But he understood the formula, which was good, and it was some sort of discovery, which was excellent. Yossi might get his guns for Zion after all, though he would not be able to buy them in Australia. And he might decide that violence was not a solution, and try and make peace with the inhabitants after all. Try as she might, Phryne could not imagine a Jewish State. What language would it speak? How would it live? And what would persuade people who had big houses and good jobs and flourishing businesses to move to the other side of the world where they were emphatically not welcome and work breaking rocks in a desert, probably while being shot at?
Patently impossible.
The colourless fluids in the large vessel did not actually bubble, but something was happening in them. Before Phryne had time to worry about a) whether the scientist had been kidnapped or b) whether the laboratory was about to explode, the young man with the curly hair was back, bearing a tray of tea. There was a silver teapot, milk jug and sugar basin, but the Royal Doulton cups were mismatched to bone china saucers. Dr Treasure's household, Phryne thought, was not short of a shilling.
'Sorry it took so long, it was the chap next door wanting to talk about the rates, and when people around here talk about rates the conversation can get positively passionate. Will you be mother?'