Raisins and Almonds

Robinson evidently caught her thought.

'Miss Lee's asked for some Latin grammar books, you know that? I never met a murderer who wanted to further their education on remand. I'm going in to her shop to get her a grammar and some writing paper. Oh, and I've something to show you, too. Come on,' said Robinson, laying four pennies on the table to pay for the tea.

He unlocked the shop and looked around helplessly at the books all marked in foreign languages. The shop smelt dusty and unloved.

'I'll find her a grammar or two,' said Phryne. 'What have you got to show me?'

'What was in the dead man's pockets,' said Jack Robinson, opening a paper bag with 'Evidence, not to be removed' on it. He laid out the contents on Miss Lee's desk.

'Hmm. Two passports, I see. One British, one Greek. Looks like the same photograph.' Phryne looked at the dead man's face: serious and very young, dark and Middle Eastern. 'His visa, about to run out, as you said. A pen knife, a wallet, a purse which closes with rings— I've never seen a man with a purse like that—a packet of Woodbines and a box of wax matches. Purse contains five pence ha'penny. Wallet contains several letters in a language which I don't know, a script I don't know, either. It must be Hebrew—it's not Greek, anyway, Jack dear.'

And these scraps, which is more of it, whatever it is. Plus these drawings. They look old,' said Jack gloomily.

Phryne unfolded a piece of parchment, and stared at the drawing. It was inked in black and coloured in red and gold. It seemed to show a red lion being burned on a golden fire. Underneath were letters. Aur, she read. 'Hmm. That's Latin for gold. There's a lot more but it makes no sense, at least not to me. I need a classicist. What did your experts say, Jack?'

'We asked one of our own members, he can read Hebrew, and he says it don't make sense, it's just a jumble of letters, like a code.'

'And the Latin?'

'Haven't seen about that yet. Do you want to do me a favour, Miss Fisher? I don't want to put all this through the evidence book in case it proves to be something which might cause a breach of the peace. So I'll lend it to you, if you guarantee to let me know what it's about if it's germane to the case. Is it a deal?'

'You're trusting me very far, Jack dear,' said Phryne gently.

He took her hand and clasped it. His forgettable face was blank with worry.

'I do trust you,' he sard. 'Is it a deal?'

'Deal,' said Phryne. 'And I know just the man to ask.'

Four

Albedo is the flight of the white dove

Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum 1689

Phryne left telephone messages for the beautiful Simon Abrahams and his elusive father, who were both out according to their maid. Phryne dined early because of the girls, and retired to her leaf-green bedroom with a couple of books on Judaism, a glass or two of champagne, and a headache.

This became rapidly worse as she read her way through Mr Louis Goldman's The Gentile Problem. The Jews, he proved, had always been people apart and distinct by custom and appearance, devoted to their own laws, which enjoined education, careful diet and cleanliness on their followers. This meant that, preserved from plague in filthy medieval cities, they had been accused of witchcraft and burned. They had been forbidden any business except that of lending money at interest, and they had been tried and condemned for usury. The Jew of Venice with his 'my daughter! my ducats!' did not seem comic to Phryne any more as she stared at the illustrations: Jews burned in fires, drowned in rivers, hanged higher than Haman. Instead she heard Shakespeare's Shylock saying, 'Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge?'

Except they had not revenged. Nowhere had the Jews, driven like cattle and slaughtered like them, fought back against their oppressors, and Phryne caught her lip, wondering what commandment she was outraging by washing for just a little rebellion, just one uprising, since the brave Queen Esther had told the Persian King that she was a Jewess, and the Jews had hanged Haman and his sons on the gallows they had thoughtfully built for the Semites—which was the feast ever after of Purim.

Of course, that did explain why neither Abrahams was available. It was Saturday, which was Shabbes, the Sabbath, and they could not talk on the telephone during Shabbes—that would be work. Presumably.

Phryne finished her glass of rather good French champagne and slid down into her dark green sheets. The wind was tormenting the tree outside her window, lashing the branches against the house. It was a restless, uncomfortable sound, and she could not concentrate. She laid the book aside, put out her lamp and closed her eyes, but the constant scratching at the glass irritated her so that she sat up, meaning to find another book or perhaps dress and go out to a certain nightclub which might yield her some interesting company. Her own house seemed silent as Phryne swung her feet to the floor, her silky nightdress sliding off one pale shoulder.

Something attracted her gaze to the window, and she saw two bright points, like eyes. She was so surprised that she sat quite still for perhaps ten seconds. Then she rose and moved towards the window and the little lights. She had almost reached the casement when a shrill howling broke out downstairs. Phryne was distracted, and when she looked again whatever it was had gone, if it had ever been there.

'Well, what did you make of that?' she asked the black Tom Ember, who had been reposing as usual at the foot of her bed. Ember really appreciated silk sheets. He had looked up when Phryne had moved, but appeared uninterested in whatever had been at the window. The wailing noise, however, galvanized the cat. He ran to Phryne's door and demanded to be let out immediately and not a second later, and when she opened the door he leapt down the stairs and vanished out of sight.

Phryne followed more slowly. She knew what the howling was. A small puppy had woken up and missed its mother, its siblings and its nice warm nest, and was telling the entire house that it was really unhappy. She hoped to get to the as-yet-unnamed beast before Ember, who appeared to be seriously displeased.

Phryne paced down the staircase into the parlour and turned on the light. The grocer's box padded with an old jumper was still in the chimney corner, but there was no warmth left in the ashes. She knelt down and looked in, and a small desperate creature tried to fit itself into her hand, stopping in mid-howl and whimpering.

'Poor little pest,' said Phryne, lifting the puppy and cradling it to her silky breast. 'I'll bet you're hungry and you are certainly cold. Let's go and warm you some milk, shall we, and we'll put your box next to the stove.'

It was one thirty by the kitchen clock. Phryne stoked the slow-combustion stove with chunks of red gum, lowered the lids and waited for a while until the firebox began to roar. Then she found a saucepan and heated some milk and water, half and half for a dog. She poured it into a saucer and watched the little dog wriggle and lap, reflecting how strange it was to be sitting in her own house at such an hour on such an errand. The rest of the house was asleep. Dot was asleep in her tower, and the girls in their bedroom under the jazz-coloured comforters. Phryne could hear Mr Butler snoring in the Butler's suite, beyond the pantry. It was strange to be awake, Phryne thought, when everyone else was so firmly in the land of nod.

Ember walked into the kitchen and sat down at Phryne's feet, tail curled around black paws, looking inscrutable as was his wont. The clock ticked. The electric light banished the darkness but made the garden outside Phryne's house as black as a pit, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable, as though someone was watching her. She pulled the creamy silk close at the front, swore and stood up, taking the poker. Action, she reflected, was always better than unease.

She unlocked the back door with its huge key and stood in the doorway, scanning her own domain. One tree, tall. One shed, whitewashed. Three garden beds, grey in the darkness. One small patch of lawn. Nothing else, no sound but the wind and no movement but the trees bowing under the wind. She stared out into the night, poker raised, for some time before she closed and locked the door again and returned to the puppy.

It had clambered back into the grocer's box, and was washing itself inefficiently with a small pink tongue like a scrap of ham. Ember, watching it with close attention, cleared the box lid with one complicated leap which took