Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds 1
cleaner, don’t you think? And it uses up all that surplus wheat.
Yes, the formula is quite clear, though it’s strange. Whoever wrote
this, wrote it backwards.’
‘The rabbi,’ said Phryne, delighted to confuse this confusing
man in her turn, ‘is used to writing Hebrew, which goes from
right to left.’
He gave her a puzzled look before he went on, ‘The rest of
the steps are expressed the same way. Dashed peculiar way of
setting out a process but there you are, scientists are odd bods.’
Then he started like a guilty thing surprised, and leapt to his feet.
‘Oh, gosh, Miss Fisher, please excuse me. That’s the doorbell.
My wife will be feeding little Bobbie…back in a moment. Keep
stirring. Don’t let it boil!’
He was gone with a slam of the door and flourish of his lab
coat, and Phryne was torn between extreme frustration and a
serious fit of the giggles. She had never, not even when someone
had insisted on explaining political economy to her, been so
thoroughly informed without having the faintest idea of what
was happening. But he understood the formula, which was good,
and it was some sort of discovery, which was excellent. Yossi
might get his guns for Zion after all, though he would not be
able to buy them in Australia. And he might decide that violence
was not a solution, and try and make peace with the inhabitants
after all. Try as she might, Phryne could not imagine a Jewish
State. What language would it speak? How would it live? And
what would persuade people who had big houses and good jobs
and flourishing businesses to move to the other side of the world
where they were emphatically not welcome, and work breaking
rocks in a desert, probably while being shot at?
Patently impossible.
The colourless fluids in the large vessel did not actually
bubble, but something was happening in them. Before Phryne
had time to worry about a) whether the scientist had been
kidnapped or b) whether the laboratory was about to explode,
the young man with the curly hair was back, bearing a tray of
tea. There was a silver teapot, milk jug and sugar basin, but the