Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

1 8 Kerry Greenwood
shoes and stockings and a long, long necklace of amber-coloured
glass beads which winked and twinkled halfway to her knees.
She found an amber cigarette holder, fitted a gasper into it, and
allowed Dot to place a gold fillet with a black panache made of
one curled ostrich feather on her sleek sable head.
Ember levitated onto the bed and thence onto the dressing
table and batted at the beads.
‘Where’s your puppy, Ember?’ asked Phryne, removing the
string from his strong claws.
‘Shut in the kitchen until she gets used to the house. Puppies
take a long time to get used to the idea,’ said Jane. ‘It only took
Ember one day—didn’t it, precious?’
Ember snuggled up to the caressing hand, radiating consciousness
of being a cat (and therefore naturally superior) and
Jane cooed.
Bert and Cec, come to report, found the scene touching, if
a trifle over-feminine.
Phryne sat them down in her parlour and supplied them
with beer.
‘We found your bottle of strychnine,’ said Bert. ‘Detective
Inspector Jack Robinson himself came down and looked at it.
It was in the sunflower seeds.’
‘I thought there was something odd about them sunflower
seeds,’ exclaimed Dot. ‘Everyone was pinching them from
everyone else!’
‘Unlucky for poor old Rosenbloom, but the doc says that he
only got a small dose and he’ll be all right.’
Phryne begged Bert for footnotes, and he obliged. Phryne
took out her notebook.
‘So the sunflower seeds were stored—where?’
‘In the undercroft, in old man Doherty’s bins. Because he
don’t buy as much as say wheat or corn, the sunflower seeds are
in little sacks. Doherty’s boy Miller admitted pinching one bag
and selling it to Hughes to finance his system on the horses, and
did his boss go crook! Nearly sacked him on the spot, but let him
stay provided he promises never to put another bet on a horse.