Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds
There was a pause, then Simon’s mother demanded, ‘What’s
wrong with him?’
Phryne released the laugh she had been suppressing, and after
a moment Mrs. Abrahams joined in. Her finishing school poise
slid from her like a cloak from the shoulders, and she laughed so
hard that she had to lean her immaculate back against the wall.
Phryne, who had been wondering what a sensual man like
Benjamin Abrahams had seen in his stiff cold wife, was enlightened.
Her whole attitude had changed; her immobile face was
mobile, and she was hiccuping with mirth. Finally she groped
for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
‘Ai, what a pickle I’ve been in,’ she confessed. ‘Ever since
Simon told us about you. Such a beautiful lady—he’s been singing
your praises for days, and then Bennie employed you to get
the excellent Miss Lee out of jail, so you would be close to my
son and you could not fail to notice his…his…’
‘Infatuation,’ Phryne completed the sentence. ‘Don’t worry.
I can manage him. He is not,’ she added, her hand on the door,
‘the first young man in that condition that I have seen.’
‘No, he wouldn’t be,’ agreed Mrs. Abrahams. ‘You must call
me Julia. Come and look at the Renoir, now, and let’s not make
liars of ourselves. It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it? I was so angry with
Bennie when he bought it, it took all our savings. But he told me
he’d buy me a fur coat when he sold it, and he made our fortune
just after that with the Michelangelo red-chalk Madonna, so I
got my fur coat and kept the girl and the cat as well.’
‘The Michelangelo? Oh, please do call me Phryne, Julia. I have
a feeling that I heard about it. I was in Paris, just after the war.’
‘You were? It was the coup of my Bennie’s career as a dealer.
After that he packed up and moved here, because one cannot
count on two miracles in a lifetime. There we were, Bennie and
me—I had married against my father’s wishes; he did not like
Ben because he was so poor and he thought I was wasting my
expensive education, but we were in love, and we sold pictures
and objets d’art. Ben went to all the auctions of deceased estates,
and in one Italian sale, an old man who died without heirs, he