“They’ll arrive when they will,” Dr. Narramore said, his voice low and resonant.
Quinn gave him a fond look and sighed. “You’re quite right. We’ve enough to be getting on with already. Never you mind, then, Joseph.”
Taking that as his dismissal, Joseph retreated from the room.
Narramore disappeared into the shelving, Quinn following him and speaking enthusiastically about something to do with phosphates.
Saffron looked to Mary hopefully. “I don’t suppose you could tell me what I’m meant to be doing?”
Mary sighed, giving her another commiserating look. “I really ought to return before Sutcliffe starts shouting again. I was only in here for another set of these.” She held up a few white pieces of fabric Saffron recognized as lab masks. The white cotton filtered out some of the potentially harmful things one might breathe in working in a lab. “Come with me. Horticulture is set up over here.”
Saffron followed Mary to a series of waist-high benches against the wall in the far right corner of the room.
Mary glanced around the workspace. “Usually there’s a set or two of keys wandering around the lab, but you’ll need to ask Dr. Calderbrook for your own if you’re to get into the files to see what you’re meant to be doing. You’ll learn more at our meeting later this afternoon. Most of your duties will be tending the pyrethrum daisies. You’ll find your spot in the greenhouses easily enough. Joseph can always help if you have trouble.”
Mary left the room, and from her seat, Saffron could see her pausing outside Mycology’s door to don one of the cotton masks.
Saffron let out a breath. She’d made it past two hurdles—getting Calderbrook to hire her and meeting the staff, but now the real work was to begin. She began with searching for keys among the instruments and files before resolving to do as Mary suggested and ask Dr. Calderbrook for a set of keys of her own.
Saffron took the rest of the day to familiarize herself with the work that Demian Petrov and Jeffery Wells had been doing before theydied. She was there to investigate the lab, but she was also there as herself, and she refused to do a shoddy job.
Her tasks seemed simple enough: manage and observe the growth of pyrethrum daisies. Each batch ofChrysanthemum cinerariifolium—not a daisy at all, though the cheerful blooms closely resembled them—was planted in a different kind of soil, with a different variation of fertilizer and companion plant. Her duties included measuring their growth, watering and fertilizing them in careful amounts, and recording it all on the provided charts and graphs. It was easy work, tasks she’d done as a student.
She read over the horticulturalists’ notes, hoping for a hint of might have led to their deaths, but found only fretting about the growth of the plants in plot thirteen. The masses of daisies in that plotwerea bit shorter, growing a little unevenly, she supposed, but even her desire to do good work during this temporary job couldn’t bring her to worry much about it. The plants in these plots were intended for the harvest of the toxins in the daisies—pyrethrins—which the other scientists would test on pests. There were other plots being grown for strength and productivity.
Joseph acquainted her with the greenhouse procedures and where things were located, and by teatime, apparently a firm ritual at Number 28, she felt she’d found her footing.
She said as much to the staff as they stood around in the ground floor library, sipping tea around a table laden with a large tray the kitchen girl brought in. She was perhaps fifteen or so, with a rosy complexion and her hair hidden beneath her white cap. She must have been shy, for she set the tray down and darted from the room without a word.
Quinn poured the tea for everyone, and Saffron watched her ministrations carefully, wondering if this was the way whatever killed Petrov and Wells had been disseminated. It was unlikely, from the random way the cups were distributed and the fact that everyone drank from the same pot. Sugar and milk were also too randomly consumed to target a specific person.
“Glad you’re getting into the swing of things,” Quinn said in a motherly tone as she handed Saffron her tea.
“Just with the daisies,” Saffron admitted. “There’s far more to catch up on with the other projects, I’m afraid.”
“We do like to keep busy,” Quinn said. “Each department has at least two other studies in addition to the pyrethrum daisies. We’ve all got a hand in that study.”
Saffron glanced at Sutcliffe and Mary, who were speaking near the window, the curling steam from their teacups catching the light.
“Yes, Mycology too,” Quinn said, following her look. “You are growing the stuff as robustly as possible, and Entomology and Mycology are finding ways to kill it.” She chuckled when Dr. Narramore, who’d been silent at her side, sipping his tea, gave her a sour look. “Come now, Neville, that is what we are doing.”
“We’re not killing the plants,” he protested. “We’re researching what insects might kill it.”
“It’s easy work, I don’t mind saying,” Quinn said to Saffron. “The entire reason we’re researching the stuff is that insects don’t care for it.Chrysanthemum cinerariifoliumhas been used for hundreds of years as a deterrent, a companion plant like marigolds, you know. We’re just experimenting to see just how effective it can be in other forms as well.”
“I see,” Saffron said. It was not particularly interesting work, she thought, but she was glad someone was excited to do it. “What part does Botany play, if Horticulture is the one to grow the specimens?”
“Botany covers physiology, mainly, in addition to the pathology aspect. They diagnose what mechanisms are affected by what disease. They pass that information on to us if it’s related to insects, or to Sutcliffe if it’s a fungal problem. Viruses and bacteria were dealt with in cooperation with Petrov.”
“Petrov was the chief of Horticulture,” Saffron said, more a statement than a question.
“Yes,” Quinn replied. She sighed, glancing at Narramore, who’d retreated back into his abstracted gaze. “Poor Demian. He was an émigré, you know, but never did he give me a moment of doubt about his ability.”
Rather than frown at Quinn’s assumption, Saffron thought of the books in Petrov’s rooms, the range of subjects in so many differentlanguages. He certainly seemed very intelligent. “He died unexpectedly, I understand.”
“He did, yes,” Quinn said. “His assistant too, if you can believe it.”
“Were they in an accident of some sort?”
