“Excellent, please send me a vial,” the clerk said. “Right. Yes.” He snorted. “No, it’s not forme, you joker. Send it express, though, because the wizard who wants it is in a real hurry.” He paused and gave a rather grim laugh. “You said it. Talk to you later.”
Beatrix heard the telephone click back into place. Now or never, before some other wizard dropped in. She walked around the corner to the front desk.
“Oh!” The sandy-haired clerk put a hand to his heart. “You startled me, sir. I didn’t realize you’d come in.”
“Thought I’d browse while you were busy,” Beatrix said, trying to keep her voice pitched appropriately lower.
“Of course,” he said. “Very sorry to keep you waiting, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I’m in need of leaves,” Beatrix said.
The man looked delighted by this easy request. “Yes, sir, right away! How many?”
“What do you charge?”
“Standard retail price. Fifty cents a leaf.”
Beatrix gave silent thanks that Joan had insisted on adding five hundred dollars to the two-hundred-fifty she and Ella (mostly Ella) had scraped together.
“All right, I’ll take fifteen hundred,” she said, bracing for his reaction. Would he think it a lot? Would he be suspicious that they needed so many?
He nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll package them up now.”
He went to a back room and Beatrix turned to find Ella standing silently behind her.
“Draden’s son?” Beatrix asked, keeping her voice down.
“Yes.”
“How well did you know him?”
Ella grimaced. “Too well.”
Beatrix was dying to hear more about that—to learn what was behind that grimace. But this was not the time for that conversation.
“I want tokillhim,” Ella said suddenly, still in a whisper. “Do you know what pennyroyal does?”
“No.”
“It’s an abortifacient.”
Beatrix stared at her. “That’s illegal.”
“Abortions, yes. The sale of pennyroyal, no.” Ella shook her head. “Oh, technically, it can be used in some other, minor brews, but no one does because the stuff isdangerous. If you give it to your mistress to get rid of the baby, which Iguaranteeyou Frederick Draden plans to do, you may end up getting rid of your mistress, too.”
At this point the clerk returned, large bag in hand, and that ended the discussion. Beatrix handed over the money—half her emergency fund, plus what Ella could spare, plus the assist from Joan—and they left, feeling no elation about their success. Somewhere out there was a woman who’d trusted Frederick Draden and, by Tuesday, might pay a high price for it.
“If only we knew where he went,” Ella murmured as the shoppers made way for them. “If only we could …”
She trailed off, apparently as lost for ideas as Beatrix. They couldn’t exactly jump the man and demand he marry his unfortunate lover.
“Wait,” Beatrix said as they neared Joan’s building, “what about an anonymous note to his father?”
Ella gave a grim shake of the head. “That wouldn’t help.”
They rode the elevator to the tenth floor in silence, walked out into an empty hallway and rushed into Joan’s apartment while the getting was good. Joan pressed them into the bathroom as soon as they’d crossed the threshold.
“Problems?” she said, understandably misreading the cause of their grave expressions.
