Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds
think, if he’s the man who owns half the Eastern Market; she
was talking about it, eh, Jane?’
‘Mmm?’ Jane had been staring into the fire.
‘Pay attention, can’t you? Rebecca Levin, isn’t she Mr.
Abrahams’ niece?’
‘Yes, I believe so. I like Rebecca. We were talking about Euler’s
Grand Equation, you know, which links the five fundamental
numbers. It’s such a pretty thing,’ said Jane, who had never
been induced to regard clothes with anything but passing interest.
Ruth sighed affectionately. ‘Becky wants to do science at
University, she’s fascinated with numbers. She told her father that
it’s well known that there’s a whole system of prediction based
on Kabala, which is a Hebrew invention, so there’s no reason
why she should be doing something anti-religious by going to
University to study pure mathematics. She says that her uncle
will pay her fees if her father won’t. They’re all expected to learn,
you know, even the girls. We met Mrs. Levin, remember, Miss
Phryne, at the school concert? With Becky’s sister, Anne.’
‘Oh, yes, voluble lady in puce, as I recall, very chatty about
how pretty her girls were. I’m glad they’re clever,’ replied Phryne,
whose memories of the school concert were not compelling
enough to feature in her autobiography when she got around
to writing it.
‘Yes, really clever,’ agreed Ruth. ‘But nice with it. Anne has
to make sure Becky has breakfast and walks the right way home,
just like I do with Jane. Mrs. Levin invited us to tea last week,
but we were going to the dentist so we had to refuse.’
‘Accept for this week, or would you rather invite them here?’
asked Phryne.
‘We’ve never seen their house, so we’d rather like to go there,
Miss Phryne, but it depends on which would help your investigation,’
said Jane, still staring into the fire and appearing to
think about something else—perhaps Euler.
‘Go to their house, and tell me all about it,’ said Phryne.
‘What did you make of Miss Lee, Dot?’