He laughed. “You are! You’re looking pale, Everleigh. Though that could simply be because you’re no longer traipsing about the countryside with naught but a flimsy hat to keep you from burning.”
The maid knocked softly before entering with the tea service. Lee waited until she’d departed to say, “Pater doesn’t approve of coffee, and barely approves of the stimulating effects of tea, so we’ll have to make do with this weak stuff.”
“How has it been?” Saffron asked, accepting a cup from Lee. He was right; even taking the tea as she did without milk, it was the palest of amber in the porcelain cup. “Working for your father?”
“All well and good, I suppose. Bit boring after chasing down criminals and being shot.” As if sensing she was about to ask, he patted his left leg. “All healed up, by the way.” He took a sip of tea and grimaced. “I can’t say working here isn’t full of its own problems, but it’s quite hard to take seriously someone complaining of a stomachache after a lifetime of too much rich food and wine when you’ve seen people fighting for their lives.”
Saffron hesitated, but her curiosity outweighed her other concerns. “You didn’t follow up with the Defense Committee’s offer.”
“No, I didn’t.”
His green eyes did not leave hers, something of a challenge in them. She’d been furious at the notion of the vague offer of employment from the Imperial Defense Committee at the conclusion of their study. She’d been even angrier that Lee had considered accepting their offer. She hadn’t known the government was funding their research, and Lee somehow hadn’t seen the problem with the government gathering information about poisonous plants, their effects, and where they grew.
But perhaps he did now. Maybe that was why he hadn’t followed through and landed himself a job at one of the science parks the government ran across the country.
Lee tapped a fingernail against the porcelain of his teacup. “I take it your own return to work is not to your satisfaction. Otherwise, you’d not be here at half past three in the afternoon on a Monday.”
From the look he gave her, something more tender than usual, she imagined he was asking more than his words suggested.
Saffron set her cup down on the saucer. There was no point pretending she’d come merely to socialize. “I came because I need your advice.”
He let out a dramatic sigh. “And here I thought it was because you liked the flowers I sent you. What’s the matter?”
She blew out a breath, knowing how it would sound. In a rush, she said, “Alexander Ashton’s brother, Adrian, is suspected in the death of a Russian horticulturalist with whom he shared a train compartment. They believe poison of some kind is involved, and naturally, Alexander asked me to help, but Inspector Green hasrejected my offer of assistance due to my conflict of interest, being friendly with Adrian’s brother. I saw the coroner’s report when I was alone in his office, however, and I have some questions that I’d like to ask you.”
Lee tilted his head in a rather feline motion, his eyes narrowing. “You know,” he said slowly, “I used to think you were a dull person. Obsessed with plants, of all things. Perpetually glaring at me for making jokes. Closeted in your office poring over the most tedious books. But now I realize you’re actually a rather chaotic bit of goods, Everleigh.” He let out a laugh, shaking his head. “How I did miss you.”
Saffron couldn’t even bring herself to be annoyed. “Things do have the tendency to get a bit complicated, don’t they?” He hadn’t said no or seemed offended, so she retrieved her notebook from her handbag. “Will you take a look?”
“Hand it over, hand it over,” he said, waving her forward. She gave the notebook to him, open to the right pages, and he removed a pair of gold spectacles from his white coat’s breast pocket and slipped them on. “You were in a rush, I take it.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be looking at the report.” She stood and wandered to the window. “The inspector could have caught me at any moment.”
“He left you alone with it in his office. Knowing you as he does, he ought to have known you’d be unable to resist.”
She hummed, considering that. Inspector Green did know she had a tendency to snoop. “He seemed preoccupied. I suppose he didn’t think about it.”
Lee settled into reading, nibbling the end of a pencil and occasionally humming. After a few minutes, he said, “Toss me that big blue book, will you?”
From the nearest shelf, Saffron hefted a blue book as thick as her wrist was wide. She allowed it to thunk on the desk rather than attempt to do anything resembling tossing.
“This word here is a mystery,” Lee said, tapping “xanthochromia” in her notebook with his pencil. “‘Chrom’ obviously means color, but ‘xantho’?”
“It means yellow. I thought that referred to the jaundice.” She pointed to the note she’d copied about the victim’s yellowed eyes.
“I’ve never seen it referred to as xanthochromia.” Lee flipped to the end of the book, then flipped a few dozen pages until he found it with a soft “Ah!”
Saffron leaned over his shoulder. She didn’t know how to feel when she caught a whiff of his cologne mixed with the subtle scent of cigarettes. It was so familiar as to be comforting, and that was disconcerting. She read aloud, “‘Xanthochromia, referring to yellow discoloration, such as may be seen in the skin, as in jaundice, or the cerebrospinal fluid if it contains the residue of haemoglobin from red blood cells.’”
Lee frowned. “Hmm. Why this word, though? They already referred to his jaundice. Xanthochromia must have another meaning.”
“Shall we check another book?”
They did, and within half an hour, Lee had found not a definition but a case with xanthochromia reported in a patient’s feet and hands.
“So we might guess the coroner referred to yellow discoloration on the feet and hands,” Lee said.
He didn’t sound convinced, and neither was Saffron. She strained to recall if the report had mentioned hands or feet.
