Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

11 Kerry Greenwood
his Australian employees called him Rosybum. In a way it was
probably a compliment, he thought. He had come a long way
from Stuttgart to Poland and then Rome, and reserved his passions
for Mrs. Rosenbloom and birdwatching. That reminded
him that he had time for a chat with that nice Mr. Gunn of the
birdshop, and he left Bert and Cec to deal with a severe young
woman with a ledger. She was standing in the middle of a heap
of shoes, all spilled out of their boxes.
‘This delivery is wrong,’ she declared. ‘I definitely ordered
ten pairs of the brown glacé kid court with a Louis heel. Look
at this.’ She held up an offending shoe. ‘Does that look like a
Louis heel to you?’
‘Me, Miss?’ Bert was all innocence. ‘We’re just here for the
heavy work, Miss. Now if it came to beer, now, that’s different.
Cec can identify eight different types with his eyes shut. Which
they mostly are after eight beers, eh mate?’
‘Too right,’ said Cec.
The severe young woman unbent. She knew real ignorance
when she heard it.
‘I’ll have to catch Rosybum when he comes back. I’ll get him
at Gunn’s, that’s where he’s gone, he lives for the day when he
can teach that cockatoo to finish a sentence. Can you pack them
back into boxes, please?’ Cec fetched a handcart. Miss Harrison
of Harrison’s Shoes knelt next to the shorter and stouter of the
new labourers. Bert, she observed, could find the sizes and the
boxes and match them almost quicker than she could, and she
was impressed.
‘Just load them all up and bring them through to the shop.
I’ll sort them out with him later. It’s a good deal, they’re excellent
shoes at that price. After all,’ she said philosophically, preceding
them up the ramp, the shoes piled on the handcart, ‘perhaps the
customers would prefer a court heel. What do you think?’
‘Too right,’ agreed Cec.
He resolved to ask Miss Fisher, when he next saw her, what a
Louis heel was. Maybe Alice would like Louis heels for the wedding.
And she was wearing white. Miss Fisher, when appealed