Raisins and Almonds

did as he was bid, and placed the paper in a book before he was murdered.'

'But he must know that we have the formula!' objected Robinson.

'This is a nasty twisty mind, Jack dear. If we have it, why hasn't he found it? He can't get to Dr Treasure, I fervently hope.' Jack Robinson nodded. 'He can't get anything from me, either, not even outright assault worked. Miss Lee doesn't know anything, the students aren't telling, and he hasn't been able to get into the bookshop, has he? It was a goodish plan, if you like elaborate schemes,' said Phryne, who didn't. 'All he had to do was wait. The formula was hidden so that no one could find it. He just had to wait until he could walk into the shop and buy the volume. He didn't know that Miss Lee would be charged—he didn't care, may the fire in his stomach boil his brains. It works for him, either way. Either she is released and comes back to her shop tomorrow, or she is sold up and he buys the book from the sale.'

'So tomorrow he just has to go in and purchase it,' said Robinson. 'We can't arrest a man for buying a book —not that sort of book, anyway. He could just claim that he had a taste for Walter Scott or whichever it was. Or was missing Volume 9 from his 1911 Hansard.'

'Yes, that's the flaw. We need to precipitate the action.'

'And how do we do that?' asked Bert, with deep suspicion.

'We announce, in certain company, that Miss Lee has donated a big box of unsold books to the Fiji and Island Mission. She's a Methodist, you know. It's credible because she did exactly that two months ago, though what the South Sea Islanders are going to make of Volume 3 of The Proceedings of The Royal Society for 1896, Hansard, Walter Scott's Letters and the Rev. Walters' Sermons is more than she or I can imagine. She's packed it in the shop and stored it in the undercroft for the carrier, and it's going off to Tonga tomorrow.'

'And has this been done?' asked Jack Robinson. Phryne looked at Dot, who nodded.

'Yes, clearly marked and all sealed up, except for the one which had the poison, of course. The hard bit was getting her to agree to send them useless books, she said that wasn't charity but rubbish collection. But I talked her round by saying she could unpack it later and send some good ones instead.'

'Good. I suggest that my carters carry this box down to the undercroft before the market closes tonight. Then we wait,' said Phryne.

'Is this an endgame, Miss Fisher?' asked Robinson, detaching Molly from his shoe. She had relinquished her attack on leather, but was working her way through his shoelaces.

'No, not chess, Jack. It's more like snakes and ladders,' Phryne replied.

Simon had left Phryne's house in a bad mood. He felt that he was being excluded from the action, which was about to get interesting. He also felt that his undoubted beauty was being insufficiently appreciated. He called on Yossi, but he was at work. He ended up, after some desultory wanderings, in the Kadimah, where there was always someone to talk to.

The Kaplans welcomed him gloomily and he filled his teapot and threw in a pinch of tea.

'It's terrible,' said David.

'Oy,' agreed Solly. 'Tell us something we don't know.'

'Yossi's work lost and the guns for Zion, where will we get them now?' asked Abe, drawing Hebrew letters in spilt tea.

'The rabbi's angry with us,' David informed Simon. 'He won't even see us.'

'Shut the door and yelled at us to go away and repent of our sins,' affirmed Abe.

'Because we were using holy text for secular purposes,' concluded Solly.

'Oy,' said Simon. 'And my lover threw me out this morning and told me to go away and play like a boy.'

'You are a boy,' Abe pointed out. 'And the pleasures of the flesh are a snare.'

'Far too young to have a lover. The strange woman's kiss goes down like wine, but her steps lead to perdition,' quoted David.

'Shah,' pleaded Simon. 'Enough.'

'What says the sage? 'Deliver us from the woman, the strange woman who flatters with her words, for her house inclines to death, and her paths unto the dead,'' added Isaac Cohen.

Simon was struck with a vision of Phryne, white and predatory in the half-dark. He could feel her remembered nipples hardening under his hands. He shifted in his seat and decided that there were things to be said for the flattering woman, even if her paths did lead to death. But he had received his breakfast time orders from the same stranger, and if he carried them out he might get to spend another night in her bed.

'I know where Yossi's formula is,' said Simon.

'You know? You didn't tell us before? Where?' demanded David.

'It's in the book. Shimeon did as he was told, before he died.'

'But how can we get it?' asked Solly.

'I should know?' asked Simon, almost disliking his friends. They were all leaning forward with identical hungry expressions. Had one of them set that pitiless trap which had slaughtered poor Shimeon? Was one of them, gottenyu, a murderer?

Suddenly he wanted to be home, eating kasha and being scolded for not telling his mother where he was. But he would go on with his task. 'The lady who owns the shop, Miss Lee, she's giving the unread books away, to the Island Missions. They'll be packed up and in the undercroft of the market tonight. And that's all I could find out,' he said, forestalling further questions.

'Simon,yeled tov, good boy!' exclaimed Solly, clapping him on the back. 'So, we get the book, we find the formula, we give it to the people we know of, and ...'

'Next year,' said David Kaplan, 'in Jerusalem.'

Simon still felt bad. He did not want to be thanked for his part in this trap which Miss Fisher was constructing at the Eastern Market. He wandered about a little, bought a bunch of cornflowers, his mother's favourite, and was waiting for a tram when a car pulled up beside him and a familiar voice invited, 'Get in.'

Simon and the cornflowers did as they were instructed.

'No, I don't know where he is,' Phryne told Mrs Abrahams, now sounding shrill. 'I haven't seen him. Have you tried Kadimah?'

'The caretaker I sent down special to see if he was there,' said Julia Abrahams. 'Been there, the young men said, gone hours ago. Where can he be?'

'I'll find him,' Phryne assured her. 'And I'll send him home.'

'Is he all right?' wailed Mrs Abrahams.

'I don't know, but I expect so.' Phryne was not at all sure. The young man should have surfaced from even the most monumental sulk by now. 'But I'll find him,' she promised.

'Such a clip I'll give him when he gets here,' said Mrs Abrahams, and rang off, only slightly mollified.

Phryne dined early and well with her conspirators. Bert and Cec had borrowed suitable garments for moving large boxes. Phryne was dressed in men's clothes, suitable for whatever might happen. She had serge trousers, men's shoes and a soft dark shirt, and looked almost epicene to eyes unused to women in trousers.

There was a rumbling in the sky as they left. The air was close and very hot.

'Thunder tonight,' said Bert, looking at the sullen sky.

'There's going to be a storm,' agreed Robinson.

Fifteen

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

And they lay in wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

The Holy Bible, Proverbs 1:17-18

The undercroft was darkening as one by one the glaring electric bulbs in their wire cages were switched off It was hot and humid. The air was foul with exhaust fumes. The market stank of spoiling oranges from the fruiterer's pig bin, old peaches and mangoes past their prime.

Phryne Fisher had found a comfortable barrel to sit on, with a good view of the pile of packages and boxes which were stacked ready for the carrier's van on the morrow. She was shielded from casual view by the galvanized