Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

14 Kerry Greenwood
‘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 O
or O 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.