Her experience with Lee had taught her much about the human body and the language used to describe the ways it could be injured, but it proved insufficient in deciphering the majority of text on the page. The only thing she was confident of as she finished scanning two pages of the coroner’s scrawl was that the victim, Petrov, had died of nephritis, which she knew to mean something to do with the kidneys.
Glancing at the door, she scrambled for her notebook to dash down the collection of words included in the rest of the report. She’d head to the library at the first opportunity to see what she could make of them. Just as her pencil marked the last letter of “xanthochromia,” the sound of footsteps had her swiftly closing the file and returning to her seat.
Inspector Green entered, muttering under his breath. He did not resume his seat, going instead to his desk and picking up the file. Saffron’s fingers spasmed as he briefly paused over the papers. He’d left the file open, and she’d closed it.
She cleared her throat to claim his attention. “If you are unable to accept my help, Inspector, I hope I can make a recommendation to you about another botanist who might assist you.”
“I would appreciate that. University College is close enough to the station to make it extremely convenient should I find an expert there I could consult.”
As much as she didn’t want to give disagreeable Dr. Miller any more credit than he was due, he would be the one within her department to ask about agriculture. “We don’t have a separate agriculture department at the U, but Dr. Eugene Miller’s research comes the closest to it. He’d likely be able to give you some insight into whatever you might need. But I have to ask, Inspector, haven’t you inquiredwith the lab itself what sort of things the victim was working on? They ought to be able to tell you what work he was doing and what he was exposed to.”
Inspector Green nodded, looking somber. “They ought to, indeed. The difficulty is that this is a government laboratory. They tend to be touchy about such things. They’ve given me a list of chemicals the victim was regularly exposed to but not the amounts or configurations.” His nostrils flared slightly. “The director seemed concerned about spreading word of anything more definite than that was a matter of security.”
From his dry tone, she could tell the inspector’s opinion about that. She was inclined to agree; providing the police with information for a possible poisoning seemed vastly more important than maintaining the secrecy of a new breed of potatoes or something.
She rose and thanked the inspector for seeing her and repeated her suggestion of Dr. Miller. Should he take her up on it, she’d be poised to learn far more about Petrov and his demise than she’d been able to glean in this office.
Medical jargon truly was a language all its own, Saffron decided with a glare at the medical dictionary. Upon her return to campus, she’d nabbed a tome Lee had regularly used from the library and hauled it up to her office, where she’d been squinting at the minuscule text for an hour.
Perhaps it was the burden of the tasks she was leaving undone, sitting on the corner of her desk, that made it more difficult to connect the Latin and Greek words to their meanings. More likely, Saffron conceded, it was that this was most certainly not her strong suit. She’d figured out that Petrov’s kidneys had failed and that he was jaundiced, but apart from that, her progress was slow. She’d hoped that her visit would at least inform her as to the reason the police believed Petrov had been poisoned or why Adrian, in particular, was under suspicion. She’d seen nothing to answer either question, nor had she written down anything that would effectively assist her with diagnosing a poison, botanical or inorganic, and that sent rivulets of panic creepingdown her spine. Alexander and his brother were counting on her to help, and she’d done nothing more than get some words on paper and send Dr. Miller a visitor.
She sighed, cupping her chin in her hand. She knew the quick solution to this problem.
Harley Street was a brisk fifteen-minute walk through Fitzrovia and into the neighborhood of Marylebone. The buildings became grander, the brick and pale gray stone cleaner. Black iron pickets separated many homes from the pavement, and a good many shining automobiles rested before residences.
Saffron reached Number 67 and paused on the pavement to take it in. She knew Dr. Lee, senior, must have had a successful practice from how Lee, junior, had spoken about it. The tall white stone building with four levels of gleaming windows suggested it was not just success that kept the place looking so prestigious but the support of the wealthy Lee family as well.
Saffron went up the shallow steps and into the portico before the front door. A gold plaque next to the door announced whose bell she was about to ring.
It took moments for a young maid in black and white to open the door and invite Saffron inside. The entry was formal and elegant, with marble tile and a large staircase with an ornate wrought-iron balustrade. The maid led her into a sitting room that one might have found in any well-to-do townhouse rather than a medical office. After giving her name and her request to speak to the younger doctor, to which the maid gave her a beady-eyed look, she disappeared with the promise to summon him at his leisure.
Saffron had scarcely turned around to take in the elegant furnishings before Lee was bounding into the room.
Dr. Michael Lee was a shockingly handsome man, with hair like gold, eyes shining green, and a sharp jaw. With his stylish, colorful shirts and ties and his inclination to flirt, to many, he was a veritable sheik. To her, he’d been an unwelcome colleague, an enemy turned ally turned friend, and almost something more. Despite her hesitance to see him after their uncomfortable last meeting, her heart was glad to see her friend.
“Good Lord, old thing,” he said, coming forward with hands outstretched, “but it did take you an age to come by.”
Somewhat ruefully, she placed her hands in his, which he used to draw her to him to place a kiss on her cheek. She removed herself from his grasp and gave him a severe look. “I do hope you don’t greet all your patients that way.”
His humor evaporated, leaving him looking serious in his white doctor’s coat. “You’re ill?”
She waved a hand. “No, of course not.”
He tutted. “You are tiresome. I wish I had a medication for that to give you. Tea will have to do, however.”
He led her to an office off the entry. It was painted fresh, antiseptic white, and the single window offered a view of the street.
“Sit down, won’t you?” Lee leaned his head out of the door and called, “Betsy, tea and biscuits, if you please!”
Lee had been perennially messy when they’d shared her office at the U, but this room was as tidy as could be. Papers and files were stacked neatly on his desk, and every surface shone like it’d been polished that morning. The benefits of a maid, she supposed.
When they were settled, Lee’s gaze danced over her face. “How was France?”
The strong urge to tell Lee the truth of how exactly her trip had gone caught her off guard, but she had more pressing matters to attend to. She shrugged, plucking off her gloves. “It was very French.”
“Didn’t care for the food? You’re looking a bit peaky.”
Saffron glared at him.
