'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 iron gate of Mr Doherty's feed and grain store. She wondered if he had any sunflower seeds and stifled a high-tension chuckle. Next to her Detective Inspector Robinson sat and worried. His men were placed as carefully as in a chess game, but there were three entrances and he knew that he could not control them all if his pieces had to remain out of sight. He had a deal with Miss Fisher. No tricks, no denunciations, no pyrotechnics. He just wanted the murderer to come and claim the formula, and then he could be quietly arrested.
He had not been able to search every nook and cranny of the market, either, not without attracting attention which might warn the murderer off. He was fairly sure that no one was hidden there, but he was not certain and he liked to be certain. Also, he was hot. There didn't seem to be a lot of air in the air.
Bert and Cec had done this sort of thing before. They were not fazed by darkness or heat or suspense. Cec wondered, sometimes, if they would ever be really astonished or really afraid ever again. They seemed to have worn such emotions out, at Gallipoli and in the mud of Pozieres. Still, it made no odds. He only wished this murderous bloke would make his move. He could do with a smoke.
He sank into dreams of his wedding, with only one whisker alert for action.
He'd already bought the ring.
Above, the Eastern Market closed. Phyrne saw the last of the trucks leave. The returned soldiers parked their fruit barrows, covering their cargo against dust, and filed out into the street, talking and coughing. The last of the cleaners slid his or her big broom into its place. Rubbish bins were filled with the detritus of the day's trading. This enriched the already heavy air with an overlay of sweepings. Phryne suppressed a sneeze.
She also had things to think about. Where, for a start, was the irritating but beautiful Simon? His mother had not found him and he had not been seen since he had left Kadimah before lunch. It would be just like Simon, thought Phryne, to go to a deserted warehouse after dark and tell no one where he had gone, just because an anonymous note told him to. He would probably also burn the note. But surely no son of that remarkably durable couple, the Abrahams', would have entirely missed out on a certain inborn cunning? Surely he must have learned something from his parent's stories?
On the other hand, he could still be sulking. In which case, after his mother had scolded him Phryne would take him out to dinner.
She thought about Miss Lee, another remarkable woman. Straight out of bondage, she had handled the press with resource. The screaming headlines in The Herald with a female by-line—who would have thought it?—were evidence of her wisdom. 'Bookshop owner cleared of murder charges', it had said. 'Police apologize.' In much smaller letters which seemed to convey some scepticism, the front page added 'Police confident of early arrest'. Phryne hoped that this very public retraction and absolution would silence gossip, but knew that it would persist. But Miss Lee had handled confinement with aplomb. A woman who could concentrate on Latin declensions under such circumstances could handle gossip.
Phryne was just rehearsing her own knowledge of that language—capio, capere, cepi, captum—when she heard a creak.
The door into the undercroft from Exhibition Street was opening.
Phryne felt the tension level in the hot air rising. A slim dark figure was fumbling along the wall, looking for a light switch. There was a crash as he tripped over and a choked scream as he was apprehended by Robinson, who recognized him.
'Yossi Liebermann,' grunted the policeman. 'Now don't struggle, young man. We're after bigger game than you. You're small fry. Now sit still and don't say a word and maybe I won't charge you with breaking and entering, for which you'll get six months. No, Constable, it's not the one,' he said to his offsider, who had run to his aid. 'Tell the others to stay where they are and keep mum. This is just a young fool and nothing's going to happen to him if he gives his word to be quiet.'