Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds 1 1
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 leatherbound
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.’