An urn occupied a table near the students, flanked with cups and pots. A very plump, very pretty young woman in a jazz dress carried a large tray piled with little sandwiches and biscuits—the remains of supper— to the brooding young men and smiled at them. The ones whose attention was not on the table or a fierce discussion in an undertone smiled in return and all hands, even those of the most absorbed, reached instantly for the food.
'They should be finished with their rehearsal soon,' said Simon hopefully. 'Then we only have Louis, and you'll like Louis.'
'I will?'
Simon pointed to a frail-looking boy with glasses. He was sitting perfectly still, his bony knees bare and his knobbly wrists revealed by a too-short, too-tight jumper, reading a massive folio which Phryne realized was an orchestral score. Occasionally he raised one hand and wiggled his fingers in the air. He was completely self-absorbed. His only claims to beauty were his thick black hair, which had been home-cut by an amateur hand, and the pure Middle Eastern line of his forehead, nose and chin. His profile could have belonged to a Pharaoh. One of the Children of Israel had been seduced, Phryne was sure, to lie down in a Princess' arms. What Louis would be like when he grew into his limbs left Phryne feeling a trifle breathless. At the moment, however, he was both gawky and spotty.
The players were packing up, promising to meet again next week. The singing mice detached their whiskers and ears. The room emptied of the scented, highly coloured throng and left it to the students and the English class, which was also putting its notebooks away and returning its cups. Soon the room was relatively quiet.
'This is Miss Fisher,' Simon introduced her. 'You've met her before. This is David Kaplan, this is his brother Solly and his brother Abe, this is Isaac Cohen and this is Yossi Liebermann—you going to run away again, Yossi?' Yossi ducked his head at Phryne and muttered something which no one could hear. He got up abruptly and went out.
Phryne sat down, careful of her stockings on the scratchy wooden chair. Simon supplied her with a cup and one of the Kaplans poured her some thin tea. Phryne did not look for milk or sugar. She opened her cigarette case and offered the company a gasper.
They all accepted.
'I've been hearing about Zionism,' she began.
'From Simon?' asked David Kaplan incredulously. 'You've been hearing about Zionism from Simon? You've been hearing about Zionism from Simon?'
'Why not?' asked Phryne. 'Doesn't he know about it?'
'Simon is a theorist,' scoffed Solly Kaplan.
'And you're not?' Phryne decided that this was going to be one of those robust debates and returned the ball briskly.
'We are for Practical Zionism. These governments— they will not listen to us. The best argument is force,' snarled Isaac Cohen.
'Force? Hasn't enough blood been shed? Besides, the armies of Zion, whoever heard of such a thing? Jews do not fight,' objected Simon.
'No, we just die,' snapped Abraham Kaplan. 'What do you mean, Jews do not fight? Have we not been in armies? Have we not won the Croix de Guerre and the Iron Cross and the Victoria Cross?'
'Not all at once. There will always be brave men. But you are not talking about a country, with a government and an army and borders on a map. We have no country,' said Simon.
'We should take one, then.' Isaac Cohen was thin and his liquid eyes seemed designed for love-making, not war.
'You are still of the opinion that we should declare war on the Arabs and take the land?' asked Simon.
'I am. And if we reach the medicine of metals, we shall win a country of our own where no Jew need cower.'
'That's the lapis philosophorum,' said Phryne, who recalled the phrase. 'You're talking about finding the universal solvent.'
Five pairs of eyes looked at her. She looked back.
'What do you know of such matters?' asked Solly Kaplan.
'"Tis a stone and not",' quoted Phryne with Ben Jonson. '"A stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body. If you coagulate it, it is coagulated. If you make it flie, it flieth.'"
Silence fell. Finally Isaac Cohen asked, 'Simon, who is she?'
'She's The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher. She's a student of the Great Art. She's my lover,' replied Simon, allowing them to choose which definition they pleased.
'She is a Zionist?' demanded Abe, incredulously.
'She's a friend to Zionism. And she saved Rabbi Elijah from being tormented by some children.'
'She knows the rabbi?' asked Solly.
'Certainly,' said Phryne. She did not like being discussed while she was present in this way. 'He gave me a vision. Beware of the dark, he said, dark tunnels under the ground. "There is murder under the ground, death and weeping; greed caused it". That's what he said.'
The others exchanged glances.
'Now there is this,' said Phryne, laying her cards on the table. 'Shimeon Ben Mikhael is dead, murdered, in the bookshop. He was a friend of yours, wasn't he?'
'Poor Shimeon,' murmured Solly, lowering his eyes.
'And Miss Lee is taken for his murder and is in jail and unless I come up with something, she will hang. And she didn't do it, did she? You know how Simon Michaels died.'
'No!' Isaac Cohen leapt to his feet. 'We don't know. All night we talked about it, and accused each other, and we don't know. You have to believe it, lady. We liked him, we mourn him, we will say kaddish for him, such a miesse meshina, an ugly fate ...'
'All right, you don't know how he died or who killed him, but you know something, that is plain. I want you to help me. I will go over there and you can talk about it. I will not insult you by offering a reward, but you know that Mr Abrahams is rich and he will not be unappreciative. I want to know what you and that difficult old man have been doing. I want to know what causes Yossi to burn his landlady's table with chemical experiments. You can't really be expecting to find the philosopher's stone, not in this day and age. I don't believe it. I want to know what you are doing. If it does not bear on my investigation, I don't have to tell anyone, and I won't.'
Phryne walked away across the empty hall as the argument bloomed behind her. Voices were raised. Phryne could not understand Yiddish, which was probably what they were speaking.
Phryne felt alien and isolated. As Solly leapt to his feet to pound the table, the gawky boy Louis opened a violin case, tucked the instrument under his chin, and began to play.
Not a popular tune but Bach. Not a Jewish song, but the Ave Maria. His skill was partly constrained by the cheap instrument, but each note was perfect, full and round. Phryne, who had been about to go into Drummond Street out of the sound of the quarrel, sat down. Louis did not see her or notice her appreciation. His eyes were shut. His strong fingers shifted and pinned each note to its pitch. It was not the over-emotional rendering expected of a boy, a sob in every string, but a mature performance good enough for the Albert Hall.
He completed the work, sighed, then opened his eyes, propped his score open at Violin Concerto in A Minor: allegro assai and began to play phrases, trying them one way and then another.
'Bach is difficult,' offered Phryne, wanting to hear Louis' voice.
'Nah,' said the boy, as if he was speaking to himself. His accent was pure Carlton. 'Bach's controlled. It's the wild ones that are crook for me. Tchaikowsky. The Brahmns gypsy dances. Ravel's flamin' Bolero. Bach's simple,' he said, and tried the phrase again, now faster, now slower.
He was a pleasure to listen to, so Phryne listened.
Louis had worked his way through the whole of the Violin Concerto in A and was well into the Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in D Minor when Phryne heard the ordinarily placid Simon shout 'Zoll zein shah!'