Raisins and Almonds (14 page)

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!'

This brought almost instant silence.

'Enough!' He pounded the table in turn, so that one of the cups dropped and smashed. 'Make up your minds! Either we tell the lady or we don't! I can't stand any more of this endless arguing, round and round and
round
in circles!'

'We tell her some,' decided David Kaplan. 'And we apologize for the noise.'

Phryne came back to her place at the table, crunching over fragments of thick white china. David Kaplan took her hand and kissed it.

'You like Louis' playing, eh? He's good? He lives in a room with his father and he can't play there. He's auditioning for the orchestra as soon as he's old enough.'

'He's a
mazik
, that Louis. He'll go far,' opined Phryne, who had had a Yiddish lesson from Mrs Abrahams. She was pleased with the goggle she elicited from the students.

'We study the Torah, lady. With Rabbi Elijah. And the Holy Kabala. There are ways of reading the Torah, you see, different ways.'

'Notarikon, Temurah and Gematria,' said Phryne, composedly.

'Er ... yes. Temurah is about anagrams, words spelt backwards or scrambled. Notarikon relates to the abbreviation of Hebrew words, you see, we do not have vowels. Gematria is about numbers turned into letters, and letters to numbers. It is the perfect way to hide a code, say, or a string of figures.
The Book of Splendour
tells us that we must look always for hidden meanings, the emanations of the Divine, what the Christians call Thrones, Dominations and Powers. So when we got interested in alchemy, Yossi here was reading Paracelsus and he began looking under the surface of the experiments in the
Occulta Philosophica
, and ...'

Solly Kaplan took up the tale. 'Paracelsus was the first great chemist, as well as an alchemist. He knew how to transmute mercury, for instance, into oxide and back into metal. He had a recipe for the philosopher's stone, so we tried it, and we got nowhere, Miss, as you would expect. Then Yossi began to work on glues and ...'

'Do not tell,' warned Isaac.

Solly looked hurt. 'Not about the experiment, no, but no harm in the other things, is there? Then there was Zion, you see. We need guns. It will only be a matter of time before Palestine is attacked and we need to fight. Because of Yossi's work we had something to sell, but we are not fools. We needed to exchange information with an intermediary without him knowing who we were. So we left the notes in Miss Lee's shop, because we know that she will never sell the books in the corner. Shimeon must have tried to retrieve the paper. Someone killed him for it. It is lost,' he said desolately.

'But it is not gone forever, while you still have Yossi,' said Phryne.

There was another silence, in which Louis mastered another phrase of the adagio of his violin concerto.

'He can't remember what he did,' wailed Solly suddenly, clutching at his forehead. 'Once, he got it to work
once
, and he noted down all the proportions, but he tried to repeat it and it doesn't work. And now Shimeon is dead and someone has the compound!'

'Tell him to keep trying,' urged Phryne. 'Tell him to repeat the experiment and vary the ingredients. I don't suppose you feel like telling me either what you were selling or to whom you were selling it?'

They shook their heads.

'So Shimeon went to deposit the paper and he died. And you haven't seen the paper since?'

'No,' David replied.

'All right. Tell Yossi to keep working. Remember also that it might be better to register the patent the usual way. When you get the money, you can always buy guns for Palestine with the proceeds. Now, I want to see all of your shoes.'

'Our shoes?' asked Isaac, bewildered. 'You want to look at our
shoes V

'If you please,' said Phryne, quietly determined.

One by one they removed their shoes and Phryne inspected them. Leather soles retained particles of white china, such as studded her own soles from the broken cup. But not one of the shoes she was shown, from Simon's immaculate Oxfords to Isaac's broken and unpolished ex-army boots, showed a crumb of red, blue or gold from Mrs Katz's plate.

She returned their footwear and stood up.

'If you decide to tell me more,' she informed the group, 'you can always find me at this address.' She gave David Kaplan her card.

He was still staring at it as Louis played Phryne and Simon out with the first strains of Ravel's flamin'
Bolero.

Water: This is the first Element ... the most Ancient principles, and the Mother of all things amongst Visibles. Without the mediation of this, Earth can receive no blessing at all for the moysture is the proper cause of mixture and fusion ... The Common Element of Water is not altogether contemptible, for there are hidden
treasures in it.

Thomas Vaughan,
Magia Adamica

All right,' said Simon, as Phryne started the engine and the Hispano-Suiza purred into life. 'The chemistry I sort of understand. The argument about Zion, that has been going on for a long time. At least since Bar Kochba. But the shoes, Phryne darling, / should understand the
shoes?'

'I thought of it when I walked on the bits of that cup you smashed in the heat of discussion. Broken china sticks in the soles. Someone invaded the house of a Mrs Katz today, and searched it for "the paper". In the process they shattered a very old and distinctive plate. There was no trace of it in your friends' shoes, though Yossi left before I could examine his. Therefore those present did not break into Mrs Katz's house.'

'Katz? In Carlton? She's Max Katz's wife. Is she all right? How does she come into it? Why did you think that we might have done it?'

'Because she was in the bookshop, the lady in the awful hat. Now what paper could they be looking for, hmm?'

'Yossi's compound,' said Simon.

'I should have looked at it more closely. It was just a string of letters and numbers, but that's what a chemical formula is. Like H
₂
0 or 0
₂
. Water and oxygen. Do you know any chemistry, Simon?'

'Me? I'm a shoemaker. I wonder what Yossi was working on? A new glue, perhaps? In shoemaker's glue, there's a lot to improve. You have to keep it hot, it's very inconvenient. And carpenters use the same stuff.'

'Possibly. In any case, we know that it probably wasn't your friends who were searching Mrs Katz's house for the paper. There is someone else in this, some other party.'

'The buyer. He hasn't got the formula,' said Simon. 'Because we've got it.'

'And he's looking for it,' said Phryne. 'He knows it's not with the Katzes. I hope Bert and Cec can find that carter tomorrow. He might be in danger.'

'Oh, danger, Phryne, please!' scoffed Simon.

'They broke into a house and tied an old woman to a chair. They left a pan on the stove. The house could have burned down; that would have been murder,' Phryne reminded him.

Simon did not speak until the big car was rolling off the road onto the grass. 'Where are we going?' he asked. 'You're going to drive into the sea?'

'What time is it?' asked Phryne.

Simon consulted his watch. 'Nearly midnight.'

'It's a hot night and there's no moon,' said Phryne softly. 'We can leave the car here and no one will see us. I'm going swimming.' She stopped the engine and pulled off her shoes and stockings. Simon heard the clatter of her beads as she dropped them, and could see a flash of milk-white flank and thigh as she stood up to take off her dress and then her cami-knickers.

He caught his breath. She was naked: even her head was bare of the ostrich feather fillet. In one smooth movement she vaulted out of the car onto the prickly grass, and was running towards the sea.

He tore at his buttons with shaking fingers.

He caught her by sound in the darkness. The air was heavy and thick, and the sea kissed his naked flesh; a city's ocean, which slapped ashore and made genteel little waves which ran whispering down the sand. Behind him St Kilda went on with its late night life. There weary painted women solicited for trade in beery streets where the six o'clock drinkers had swilled and vomited. He had yearned after the whores once, desperately curious about the sexuality of women. He had envisaged seduction, the urgent plea and the concession which allowed him access to the flesh he desired.

But not even in tangled sweaty sheets at three in the morning, despairing of ever finding a lover, had he imagined anyone like Phryne.

She was wet and her skin was cold, but under his hands it was scalding. Arms wreathed around his neck and a mouth met his, opening, salty and soft. She pulled him down into the embrace of the water, sliding around and under him like a fish, so that he ducked and dived, grabbing for her as she eluded him, laughing and then coughing as he breathed ocean.

She was as fast and sleek as a seal. The distant street light showed him her head as she emerged, a frill of foam around her neck, her black hair plastered to her head like a depraved Pierrot.

'Such a beautiful boy,' she crooned, slipping forward with the wave and kissing him hard. 'Come, come to me.'

He grabbed again and this time she allowed herself to be caught; she yielded to his embrace, clinging to him in the salt water which bore them both up.

'Oh, my nymph,' he gasped. 'Nereid, I'm yours.'

She moved again so that he was on the shingle, lying just above the backwash of the waves, supine, astonished, wholly at her mercy. Her mouth and hands caressed him, then she was astride him, just visible in the distant light as she sank down onto him and moved as though she was riding Thetis' horses of the sea. He thought of
conjunction
the crowning alchemical mystery, as his hands found her breasts, and then he lost capacity for thought altogether. He did not know how long it was until he groaned, and heard Phryne cry aloud like a seabird.

Late, sandy and incompletely dressed, Phryne parked her car and brought Simon into the house. She led him up the stairs and into her apartment.

'A shower,' she said, pulling off the green dress. Under it she was naked. She dropped stockings, shoes, underclothes and jewellery on the floor. Simon began to remove his hastily donned garments, wondering why fly buttons were so prone to desertion. He had lost two. Phryne flung him a gown and he pulled it on, still astounded at the ferocity of her passion.

She showered thoroughly, rinsing the salt off her skin and the sand from her hair, then yielded her place to the young man. Such a beautiful boy, she thought, observing that he was somewhat abraded around buttock and back by the shingle. Prior experience had taught Phryne that it was wise not to be underneath if making love on sand.

'Oh, Phryne,' sighed Simon, 'that was ...'

'Astonishing?' asked Phryne, towelling her hair. 'Yes. Lovely.'

He was a little disappointed by her response. After all, he had given her all he had to give. She leaned past the fall of water and kissed him gently.

'You are quite delightful,' she said, and went into her bedroom.

He heard her exclaim, 'Jesus wept!' and he got out of the shower and draped the gown over his wet body. He would dry quickly enough in the hot night, no matter what his mother said about catching cold. Phryne was looking at a room which had been comprehensively ransacked.

'The others,' she said, and ran for the stairs, her black kimono billowing behind her.

Downstairs was silent. Simon was behind her as she opened the girls' door and exclaimed with relief when she heard them breathing peacefully. He followed her to the kitchen where she opened the Butlers' door and listened for Mr Butler's snore and Mrs Butler's whuffle. Both present and correct. Beside the combustion stove, which had not been lit, there was a faint noise. But it was only Ember rising from beside his puppy and suggesting politely that although it appeared to be the middle of the night, if Phryne thought it was breakfast time then he was ready to graciously fall in with her wishes.

She stroked the cat and told him that he must wait until a reasonable hour.

They returned to Phryne's rooms, where she let out a great breath which she had not known she was holding. Then, to Simon's surprise, she threw herself into his arms and hugged him hard for almost a minute, her wet head on his silk-clad shoulder.

'Dear Simon,' she said softly. He held her close, feeling her heart beating fast against his own. Then she pulled away and surveyed the damage.

'What a mess, but nothing is too badly damaged,' she commented. 'Help me,' she said, and he grabbed the end of the mattress.

Half an hour later, and Phryne's boudoir was in its accustomed state.

'There's nothing missing, and fortunately for them they didn't disturb the rest of the house or I would have had their blood,' said Phryne matter-of-factly. 'This definitely excludes you and your friends, Simon. It must have happened while we were at Kadimah. This must have been one of the dark young men who robbed Mrs Katz. Erk. I hate to think of him being in my room, handling my things. Though what he made of all those silk cami-knickers he fumbled through I'd like to know.'

'Excludes
me?'
asked Simon. 7 needed to be excluded?'

'Don't be offended, old thing. It's part of being a detective. You have to suspect everyone, it's one of those rules. But they didn't find my safe deposit,' she said in satisfaction.

'They didn't? But
everywhere
they looked!' protested Simon.

Phryne smiled the smile of a canary-fed cat. 'Not everywhere. They just thought that they looked everywhere. They got the alchemical paintings, though. I left them on my dressing table. But the paper and the translation—no.'

'How can you tell?' asked Simon. 'You haven't checked.'

'Yes, I have. Now, I think we should open a bottle of champagne, which is still cooling in the bucket over there just as Mr Butler left it. The burglar had no taste for good wine, fortunately. There are glasses in the cupboard underneath, and he's learned from Mrs Rose's. He didn't break one of them.'

'Phryne,' Simon begged. 'Please!'

'No one ever died of curiosity, Simon dear, and I'd rather you didn't know. What you don't know cannot be persuaded or forced from you.'

'You're serious, aren't you?'

Phryne lit a cigarette and drew in the smoke hungrily.

'Certainly. Consider: to get into this room, someone had to climb the tree and then the roof, a dangerous climb with no holds. I have felt as though someone was watching me for the last few nights, he must have been waiting until we were all out. The person took a huge risk of being seen by anyone passing by in the street or being caught by either of the two groups who returned at a more decorous time than we did. I expect that the girls were home by ten, and Dot would not have let Hugh stay beyond eleven. And the Butlers would have come home about then, possibly a little later depending on the running of the last tram. Our burglar really wanted to get in. It must have taken fully half an hour to search as comprehensively as he did. No, this is serious, Simon, and I am getting a better latch on that window tomorrow. Not even my insurance company thought that a window in an upper floor needed a lock. And you know how constitutionally suspicious insurance companies are. Thank you,' she said, gulping thirstily.

'All right, it's serious. But if it wasn't me, and
I've
known it wasn't me all along,' said Simon severely, 'then who was it?'

'Agents or minions of the buyer,' replied Phryne. 'See if you can persuade your friends to tell you who it is. I understand that they want to buy guns to start a patriotic war in Palestine, but they can do that just as illegally by selling this compound of Yossi's on the open market. There is some sort of elaborate mind in this: the same mind that managed to kill poor Simeon in Miss Lee's shop. A scheming mind.'

'I'll ask them, but I don't think they'll tell me,' said Simon.

'No, I expect we'll have to find it by ourselves.'

'About this hiding place,' Simon teased. 'I can show you a really good one.'

'Oh, indeed?'

'If you'll show me yours.'

'No,' said Phryne, and drank some more champagne.

'Oh, well.' Simon took up the
Occulta Philosophica
, a leather-bound folio. 'Now, where would you hide something in a book?'

'At page thirty-five,' said Phryne, lighting another gasper from the butt of the first.

'You're chain smoking,' reproved Simon. 'Just folding it into the pages, that's not safe. Anyone comes along and shakes the book, your secret is revealed.'

'Stop
nudzing
me, I'm a victim of crime and I'm a bit shaken. Where, then, do I hide my paper in a book?' asked Phryne, irritated.

'Here.' Simon laid the book down, spine upward, and opened it. The leather binding gaped, revealing a tunnel between the spine and the cover.

'See, you fold your paper into a spill and slip it down here. Then to get it out you just pick up the book, open it like you are reading it, and then feel down that gap for ... Phryne! Are you all right?'

'Oh, my God, he had a cut on his finger,' said Phryne. 'What did I say about an elaborate mind?'

Simon, alarmed at her sudden pallor, quoted, 'You said that whoever did this had ...'

'An elaborate, scheming, evil, murderous mind,' said Phryne, fanning herself with one hand. 'A really nasty mind. I'm looking forward to meeting him.'

'Phryne, would you like to tell me what you are talking about?' asked Simon.

'Not tonight. Bring the bottle. Come and lie down with me,' she said faintly, stubbing out her cigarette. 'What with one thing and another, Simon, darling, I don't want to sleep alone.'

Morning brought Greek coffee and Dot, looking rather severe.

'There's things all out of order,' she reproved. 'All the soaps have been moved and someone's dropped a bottle of them expensive French bath salts. And the towels have all been unfolded and bundled back anyhow. What were you looking for, Miss? I left your things out on the dressing table like I always do.'

Phryne, sitting up reluctantly, shoved her hair out of her eyes and shook the smooth shoulder of the sleeping boy.

'Wake up, Simon, it's morning. That wasn't me, Dot dear, we had a burglar. He didn't take anything. Ring that nice carpenter, I forget his name, and get him to put a lock with a key on my windows, will you? Not bars. I don't want to be kept imprisoned by my own security. But a nice solid lock.'

'A burglar?' Dot put down the coffee and boggled. 'What, a burglar in the house, here, when we were all asleep?'