Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

4 Kerry Greenwood
the stone ceiling between was of vaulted brick which might
once have been red. She found the staircase and climbed up,
emerging onto the central floor of the market, which was buzzing
with people.
The Eastern Market was Phryne’s sort of market. She sauntered
past little shops selling all manner of fascinating things, like
sequins and beads and feathers for hats, eye veils and galoshes and
singing birds, bunches of snowdrops or hyacinths and a pound of
galvanized nails wrapped in a paper poke, toffee apples as bright
as red glass and red glass Venetian apples as shiny as toffee.
She watched a huge carter swing the hammer down onto a
‘Gauge Your Strength’ machine and heard the bell ring as she
walked down the iron-lace staircase to the lower quadrant, which
sold guitar strings and framed art moderne prints of ladies in
Russian dress and sad clowns, sheet music and baskets, and
packets of cooling feverfew and chamomile tea from Broadbent
and Sons, Herbalists.
By the time she had found her way back to the main entrance
to Miss Lee’s shop, Phryne was carrying a new shopping basket
which contained her own purse, a posy of blue hyacinths, a copy
of ‘The Basin Street Jazz’, a packet of autumn-coloured sequins
for Dot, a packet of flea powder for her new arrival and a blue
leather collar and lead into which, she feared, the puppy would
certainly grow. Phryne also had a one-ounce paper of strychnine—price
two shillings—bought from a nearby chemist, who
had asked her to sign the poisons book, which she had obligingly
done, and no one had questioned whether Miss Jane Smith was
actually her name, or asked her why she wanted such a deadly
poison. This was instructive, she felt. For herself she had purchased
a slightly off-centre silver ring with a big flawed sapphire
in it, wrapped around with beautifully made silver snakes, and
for the girls two small silver rings made of daisies.
She was sitting down in Mrs. Johnson’s teashop and examining
her purchases when an official voice said, ‘Well, Miss Fisher?
Visiting the scene of the crime?’
‘Jack dear, do sit down, have some tea?’