Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

140 Kerry Greenwood
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.’