Raisins and Almonds

'Yes you can, Miss, you just have to close your eyes and put yourself back there and it's all in your head, just like a moving picture, that's what Miss Phryne says,' Dot instructed. 'Now, you're opening the shop and hanging up your coat and putting on your smock. Go on from there.'

'I unlocked the cash tin and just as I was taking out my stock book a young man came in and asked if I carried newspapers, and I told him I didn't.'

'What did he look like?'

'An ordinary young man,' said Miss Lee. 'Oh, dear, I can't do this. He had a serge suit and an umbrella—I would have said that he was a clerk. In any case he was only in the shop for less than a minute. I broke my pencil, then, and I was sharpening it when the bell tinkled and ...'

'Yes?' prompted Dot. Miss Lee's brow creased with effort. 'You're doing very well, you know.'

'The bell rang, I looked up from my pencil, and there was a delivery man with a big box. It was my auction books from Ballarat ... yes. I asked him to put it in the corner and I checked the invoice—there was something wrong with the invoice—what was it? Ah, yes, it had a blot over the list of contents, I couldn't read it. You have to be careful with dispatch notes, they fudge the orders sometimes, and if I was to sign it without checking what was in the box I couldn't complain if the one valuable book was missing and all the dross was there. Dross always is, somehow. I've never lost a set of Victorian sermons in my life ... I made the man wait until I checked the volumes, then I signed it and he went away. After that there was Mrs Johnson looking in for her cookery book, which I sold her, then this absurd woman and her atlas. Then the two young men and then Mr Michaels. Poor boy.'

'Tell me about the carter,' said Dot. Miss Lee ran her fingers through her short hair and groaned.

'He was just a carter, in gloves and boots and overalls and a greasy cloth cap—rather stout like they often are, dark, I thought, and gruff. But he did look at the books while I made him wait. I really didn't see his face, Miss Williams. Is it important?'

'Probably not,' conceded Dorothy. 'What about the woman with the atlas?'

'Oh, my dear, she was raddled and forty if she was a day, dressed in a rather tight dark blue suit and a perfectly absurd hat. It was a broad black straw with half a seagull on the side and shells all round the crown, I noticed it particularly because I really wanted to ... visit the convenience, and she was holding me up. She was asking me such silly questions and all I could see of her was this awful hat. She was small. About five foot.'

And common?' asked Dot, who had strong views on style.

'Oh, very. And foreign. Then two young men, friends, I gathered that they worked in the city. They had nice suits, a little loud perhaps. They were probably mechanics, or maybe something horsy.' Miss Lee's fine nose crinkled. 'They had a rather ... gamy smell. Then after that it was quiet and I could go to the convenience, and when I got back there was poor Mr Michaels and this all happened. Will this help?' she asked, and Dot patted her hand.

'Yes,' she said with perfect faith. 'Miss Phryne will find them.'

Phryne Fisher had dressed carefully for her encounter with Rabbi Elijah. She wore a black suit, the straight skirt reaching almost to her ankles, and a close-fitting black hat. Simon was impressed at how decorous she looked until she gave him a sensual smile which disturbed his equanimity.

'What do I call this rabbi?'

'He probably won't speak to you, don't be too offended, Phryne. He isn't supposed to talk to ... er ...'

'Shiksas?'

'Er ... yes. Call him Rabbi, if he speaks to you. Also, you must not touch him, in case you might be ritually unclean. Menstruating, you know,' blushed Simon. 'But you might catch his interest if you can show him the papers.'

'I can but try,' Phryne shrugged and got out of the car.

'He lives over there—and—what luck, Phryne!' exclaimed the young man. 'There he is, walking along there with all those children. Oh, no ...' he groaned, as Phryne saw what was happening and moved without thinking.

A ring of grubby children were dancing around an elderly man who was standing still, as though they had trapped him in a magic circle. They looked positively Pixie O'Harris if you could not hear what they were saying, thought Phryne, as she crossed the road at her fastest run and grabbed the biggest assailant by the ear.

'Yid, yid, yid.' The chant stopped abruptly.

'And just what are you doing?' she snarled at the largest child, suspending him painfully by the lobe.

'He's a yid,' he protested.

'Very clever. So he is. Is that a reason for tormenting him?'

'It's only what Dad says,' offered one child, biting her plait.

'What does Dad say?'

'That they're yids.'

'Then your dad is a bigoted idiot and you'll grow up the same.' Phryne was furious. The child she had by the ear began to cry.

'We didn't know it was wrong, Miss,' he pleaded.

'Well, you know now,' snapped Phryne. 'Now get home, you horrible little ratbags, and if I catch you doing such a thing again I shall take you all home to your mothers and order the biggest belting—you won't sit down for a month. Is that clear?' She thrust her face close to the terrified blubbering countenance, and he nodded.

'Go away right now,' said Phryne, dropping him and dusting her hands together. The children ran for their lives.

'You should not have done that, Miss,' said the old man softly.

'Why not?' Phryne was not noticeably softened.

'It will cause more trouble.'

'If people of goodwill do not act against evil, then they assent to evil,' said Phryne sententiously.

The quotation from Maimonides stopped the old man in his tracks. Phryne looked up into his face.

He was tall and painfully thin and he moved as though his bones hurt. The gaberdine was shiny black with age and inconspicuously patched, and his shoes were broken. His hat had seen better years and his hair was white. But his eyes were remarkable, bright, penetrating and deep.

'Who are you?' he asked abruptly.

'Phryne Fisher.' She did not offer her hand. 'I am trying to find a murderer. I need your help.'

'I cannot help you.' He turned and began to walk away.

'Shall I follow you down the street quoting Maimonides?' she asked, keeping pace with him. 'This is an evil thing, a young man dead, and I am responsible for getting a woman out of prison, which means I have to find the killer. Strychnine, it's a nasty death.'

'The dead are with God,' said Rabbi Elijah, not turning his head.

'But the concerns of the living are with the living.' She turned the quotation back on him. She had not spent three hours' hard reading for nothing. 'He who saves one man saves a nation. I cannot bring back Shimeon Mikhael, but I will save Miss Lee from the gallows. And I need your help.'

'How can I help?' At least he had stopped and was looking at her again. 'I go nowhere, see only my students.'

'I have some papers, found on the dead man.' She thrust them at him. 'No one can read them. It is thought that you might. They must contain a clue.'

He cast a glance over the red and gold parchments, shaking his head, then his attention was riveted by a line of Hebrew.

'This, maybe, I can read. Where did you find this?'

'In the pocket of a man called Simon Michaels, Shimeon Ben Mikhael.'

'Shimeon is dead?' murmured Rabbi Elijah.

'Shimeon is murdered, don't you read the papers?'

'The papers? No,' he said absently. 'We can sit in my study, Mrs Rabinowitz will come in. This way, Miss ...'

'Fisher. Phryne Fisher.'

Phryne walked beside Rabbi Elijah. He was looking at the Hebrew and speaking under his breath in an unknown tongue, a harsh and authoritative language, whatever it was. Phryne was amazed at the success of her tactic. But she wondered about the old man. He changed moods abruptly and his character seemed to flicker. He seemed close to the edge of sanity, perhaps senility. However, nothing to do but go on with the task.