Raisins and Almonds

Phryne, resigned to deferred explanation, poured the tea.

It was good tea and there was tea cake to go with it. Dr Treasure informed Phryne that he had come to Australia because he had been in the Great War and couldn't bear Europe.

'The fields look green, but they are bloodsoaked, for the longest time men have been killing each other in Europe, and I was sick of it. So I came here. Australia has no history. I like that in a country.' He made a broad gesture, distributing cinnamon and sugar. 'It's spacious and it's civilized. They don't trust chaps like me here, and they have good reason. Look what science did in the war,' he said soberly. 'We found new and horrible ways to kill people. I decided that we had to be useful, or there was no excuse for us.'

Phryne murmured agreement. His fresh face and bright eyes were charming.

'Funny thing,' he said, 'I heard a rumour that someone had actually succeeded in doing this, but I discounted it. It's a philosopher's stone, you know, an impossible dream. Now, I have the other reagents, acid and a salt, and if I just pour them into the mixture very gently,' he did this without spilling a drop, 'now all we have to do is wait. Shall we have some more tea?' he asked chattily.

'What are we waiting for?' asked Phryne, refilling his cup.

'Why, for polymerization. Should be visible any tick of the clock—if the formula works.'

'I can see something,' said Phryne.

'Yes, there's the little chap,' commented Dr Treasure.

The mixture was thickening before Phryne's eyes. As the reagents mixed, they were forming some sort of compound. It was cooling and hardening, until there was perhaps half a pound of the substance.

Then Dr Treasure siphoned off the remaining fluid and spilled the substance into a glass dish. It was as thick as cream and beige in colour.

'Not long now,' he told Phryne. 'Soon find out if it works.'

'What is it doing?'

'Coagulating, I hope.' Dr Treasure picked up his tea cup. He was not calm, but excited. Phryne could hear his breathing quickening. He really wanted to know if this was going to work.

So did Phryne. She finished her tea and replaced the cups on the tray and put the tray out of reach of any wild gestures. She didn't think that Mrs Treasure would view the advancement of science as any excuse for the loss of Royal Doulton china.

'Oh, yes,' whispered Dr Treasure.

He reached into the glass dish and pulled off a piece of the compound, which was now almost solid, darkening a little as it hardened. He offered it to Phryne reverently, in both hands, like a priest handling the host.

It was soft, warm and gave when poked. It rolled easily into a ball. Somewhere Phryne had seen something like it. She racked her memory.

A twin of the object she was now holding had been found in dead Shimeon Ben Mikhael's pocket.

'Why, it's rubber,' she said. 'It's artificial rubber.'

'That's what it is,' Dr Treasure affirmed. 'It's artificial rubber. And I just made it. I just made artificial rubber!'

He gathered Phryne into an embrace and kissed her.

Fourteen

Cut that in three which nature hath made One Then strengthen hit, even by itself alone, Werewith then cutte the poudred Sonne in twayne, By lengthe of tyme, and heale the wounde again.

John Dee, Monas Heiroglyphica

She was almost at her own door when someone grabbed for her handbag.

At first she thought that she had caught the strap on a rosebush. Her neighbour loved roses beyond anything and was prone to forbid a blade to bruise a twig. But when she reached back to free it, she encountered a hand.

'Never drag, always yield,' her street fighting lessons came to mind. Therefore she did not pull against the grasp, which might have broken the strap, but threw herself unexpectedly backwards. She heard a grunt as her Louis heel impacted on an instep, and she spun, hands out, ready to kick or to flee.

The tall young man tripped, almost fell and ran across the road, stumbling through the traffic. He fell into a waiting car and was gone.

The whole incident had taken seconds.

Phryne opened her own gate, thinking deeply. It might have been an attempted handbag snatch—they were happening more frequently as unemployment began to bite and more and more people were rendered desperate. Phryne was certainly well dressed and the ordinary robber would be justified in thinking that her purse would be worth investigation. But there had been the car. The planned escape route.

And she had seen so little! She spat out a very rude word. Just a tall, moderately strong, moderately young man, face hidden by a scarf. He had not spoken. The car had been of some nondescript colour—black, maybe, or dark blue. She had not seen the numberplate. Nothing, in short, to go on.

'May beets grow out of their bellies,' cursed Phryne. She could really get to love Yiddish. It was a language made for situations like these.

No one but the Buders were home. Dot had presumably taken Miss Lee for her walk about the city. The girls were out on a picnic. Phryne was passing the phone when it rang.

'Yes?'

'Miss Fisher, can you send my son home?' asked a heavily accented voice.

'Mrs Abrahams?'

'You have someone else's son?' asked Julia Abrahams. 'Someone else's son you have as well as mine?'

'No, I haven't even got yours,' said Phryne. 'I haven't seen him since breakfast.'

'Oy, gevalt. Sons you have. Trouble you have!'

'He isn't home?' asked Phryne, wondering where Simon might have got to. He had wanted to come with her to set Miss Lee at liberty, and she had rather snubbed him. Probably the Abrahams boy was somewhere suitably depressing, eating worms.

'I expect he's just sulking,' she assured Julia Abrahams.

'You saw him this morning?'

'Yes, and I went out directly after breakfast. I thought he was going home to talk to his father.'

'Here, he hasn't come,' said Mrs Abrahams. 'Where can my Simon be?'

'I'm sure he's somewhere. Where is Mr Abrahams?'

'In the workshop. Always the workshop. I'll phone him. No, I'll send Chaim. Maybe Simon is there.'

'Listen, Mrs Abrahams, if he isn't there, can you phone me again?'

'You're worried, nu?' Mrs Abrahams' voice sharpened.

'I'm a little concerned,' temporized Phryne. 'But I'm sure he'll be all right.'

She replaced the receiver on another 'Oy!'

Where was the boy?

Phryne requested strong coffee. She wanted to think.

In the bag which the robber had tried to steal was the rubber ball which Dr Treasure had so triumphantly made. The formula was concealed inside Phryne's bust band. An obvious precaution. She had removed it that morning from its place in her packet of sanitary napkins. She had gambled on that not being searched. The subconscious male taboo on menstruation worked on customs officers, too. How desperate the buyer must be getting, to risk attacking Phryne in the street in broad daylight!

Phryne took up the phone and called Jack Robinson. The adorable Dr Treasure and his family must be protected. Phryne had watched as he had poured out all the chemicals used in the making of Yossi's artificial rubber, and the rubber itself had been destroyed with acid and also poured away Dr Treasure, however, knew the formula. It might be tortured from him, especially if they had his wife or the fat noisy baby. And Phryne had enjoyed kissing him. People with that much osculatory skill cannot be wasted.