Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds 1
odd crafts could afford an outlet. She walked out of the cold
wind under the verandah and heard the market noise and smelt
the market smell. She stood still to appreciate it, her back to
the tiny leaded window of Miss Jane Trent, Umbrella Repairer.
Phryne loved markets.
Although most of the wholesale fruiterers were based at the
Victoria Market, a few supplied the barrows which went out
every day into the street. The tubercular soldiers from the Great
War who had been told to get an outdoor occupation sold choice
fruit, vegetables and flowers from them, and they were stored
overnight in the basement of the Eastern Market. Phryne could
smell the new spring blooms which she most enjoyed, which
came before the roses—hyacinths, crocuses, freesias—and also a
wave of mandarins and lemons from a barrow trundling past. She
heard the rumble of carts, the whistle of caged birds from Lane
Bros., who had one live finch in a cage above a whole flock of
speckled chickens, and Wm. Gunn, who had a huge cage full of
finches above a pen in which one very red-combed rooster glared
aggressively with mad bird eyes through the mesh. As Phryne
walked, she heard the language of the carters, one of whom was
begging his fellow in extremely emphatic terms to move the
flamin’ euphemism of a cart so that decent working men could
get past and earn a crust, or he would knock his sanguinary
block off. The cart was one of the few horse-drawn drays left,
and clearly belonged to someone who was not taking the spirit
of the go-ahead get-ahead twenties seriously. When Phryne came
around to the head of the wagon, which had wedged itself at an
angle in one of the entranceways so that nothing could get past
it either way, the driver had worked himself into such a temper
that he had torn off his coat, leapt down, and was offering to
fight anyone and everyone.
For a moment, Phryne enjoyed the spectacle. The tunnel
to the undercroft was lit with electric bulbs, which lent such
a strange and glaring light to the faces that they looked like a
Dante illustration of demons and sinners, though sorting them
out into sinner and demon was beyond Miss Fisher—they all