Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Chapter Six
The mating of sol and luna is conjunctio.
—Elias Ashmole,
Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum 1689
Dinner, Phryne thought, might well be sticky in more than just
temperature. As she allowed herself to be dressed in a Greekinspired
floor-length gown, she observed, ‘Dot, I need you to
make me a list.’
‘A list, Miss?’ Dot fastened the heavy gold necklace. It was
made of old French coins, and it had matching long earrings.
‘Yes. Miss Lee said that she sold “some novels” and then had
a discussion with a woman about an atlas that morning—call it
“the fateful morning”—and then there were a couple of young
men buying a book about statistics. We need to find Miss Lee’s
customers. I want you to go through her order book—Jack left it
on the downstairs table—and make a list of what she sold. How
many people do we need to find, and how do we do that?’
‘They should have come forward already, Miss,’ observed
Dot, flinging the filmy dress over Phryne’s head so skilfully that
not a hair was disturbed on the Dutch-doll head. ‘There’s been
enough about the murder in the paper.’
‘I know, but they haven’t.’ Phryne surveyed herself in the
glass. The dress had an underslip of solid white silk, over which