“At eight in the evening? That might be a little obvious,” Saffron replied with a sigh. “Come along, then.”
Elizabeth followed Saffron back into the sitting room.
“So, how goes the preparation for your expedition, Alexander? Have you gotten your itinerary?” Elizabeth asked smoothly, busying her hands with preparing tea.
Alexander accepted a cup. “We’re to sail on the seventh of next month, arriving the twenty-first.”
Elizabeth continued peppering him with questions as they sipped their tea. Saffron was pleased Alexander didn’t balk at her friend’s polite interrogation, though he responded without embellishment to each question.
Finally, he said, “We’ll land in Brazil at São Luís, but our base will be Macapá, at the mouth of the river. Several groups will go much farther up the river. Dr. Henry seems—or rather, seemed—very sure most of our time would be spent camping out along the river.”
Elizabeth asked, “Do you think Dr. Henry did it? Poisoned his wife?”
Unperturbed by the shift in conversation, Alexander said, “More likely him than Dr. Maxwell, no doubt.”
Elizabeth nodded as though this was the correct answer, her penciled brows arched.
Caught by a sudden thought, Saffron set down her teacup and said, “But Dr. Henry would be more likely to go at her in a rage, don’t you think? Plus, he was completely drunk by thetime the poisoning happened. I should think that most murderers would want to keep their senses about them. It’s hard to think on your feet and come up with alibis and all that if you’re stewed.”
Elizabeth nodded and said sagely, “I don’t think it was Dr. Henry. I’ve seen his type many times, definitely not the sort for poison. I believe they say that poison is a woman’s weapon. Any ladies on the scene who make good suspects?”
Saffron shook her head. “There weren’t that many women there—mostly the wives of the professors and researchers. Lady Agatha wouldn’t have poisoned her. What would be her motivation? They talked as if they were friends, anyway, when she suggested that Mrs. Henry try to reason with Dr. Henry about his dalliances. Unless Lady Agatha was secretly having an affair with Dr. Henry …” Saffron tried to imagine the muscular Dr. Henry sweeping the wispy, graying Lady Agatha off her feet and shook her head. “That is highly unlikely.”
“I didn’t see Dr. Henry speaking with any women.” Alexander frowned. “Apart from the young woman, Miss …?” He looked to Saffron. “Dr. Henry followed her out onto the terrace.”
“Miss Ermine?” Saffron recalled Lady Agatha mentioning something about a terrace. “Eris Ermine was very interested in Dr. Henry.”
“ErisErmine?” Elizabeth turned to Saffron with a scowl. “Saff, you didn’t tell me Eris Ermine was at the party! Well!” She picked up her teacup again.
Alexander and Saffron exchanged a confused glance. Elizabeth huffed impatiently at their clueless expressions.
“Eris Ermine, the heiress of the Ermine fortune? They’re nouveau riche, made their money in watches during the war. Their familial drama lined the pockets of the scandal sheet publishers for weeks a few years ago when Mrs. Ermine ran off with a foreign count or something. A bit cliché, of course, but theman apparently made it out of Bulgaria with heaps of jewels, and they now reside in Switzerland, of all places.”
She finished her recital to their blank stares. Elizabeth shrugged. “Well, it might not have been quite so melodramatic. Scandal sheets aren’t exactly known for getting all the facts right. The point is, when the wife ran off, Cedric Ermine threw himself into all kinds of charitable activities in an effort to pull his family’s name from the gutter. Or just to distract himself. Eris was left to herself, more or less.”
“How old was Eris when her mother left?” Saffron asked.
“I’m not sure, but part of the scandal was her coming out not too long after. She had no one but her father to take her around. As he was often too busy, he made a sordid deal with the Kentfields. Lord Tyrell—the earl, you know—he was in terrible debt because his son, James—” Her waving hand paused as she noticed she was losing her audience. “Anyway, Cedric Ermine essentially paid Lady Tyrell to take Eris around, and the gossips made a point of bringing it up whenever possible.”
Saffron frowned. It would be too easy for a flashy man like Dr. Henry to charm a lonely young woman like Eris. The thought made Saffron’s skin crawl.
“Perhaps Eris Ermine was going after Dr. Henry, Mrs. Henry caught wind, then Miss Ermine poisoned her?” Elizabeth suggested.
“I didn’t see her in the room during the poisoning.” She considered it for a moment before letting out a frustrated breath. “But we don’t even know if the poison was in the champagne! It could have been mixed in with her food or something. Or she could have ingested it hours before, and the effect wasn’t apparent until she fainted.”
“The poison could easily not have been intended for her. Plenty of other motivations for getting rid of Dr. Henry,” Alexander said.
Saffron poured herself more tea, a bitter smile on her lips. “My favorite thus far has been that Dr. Maxwell and I are in on a plot to get revenge on Dr. Henry for rejecting him from the expedition party and Dr. Berking for being … well.” She didn’t need to remind Alexander of her humiliating confession.
“You’re a suspect, Saff?” Elizabeth gasped. Her hazel eyes widened with what Saffron suspected was excitement. “Who would think you’d try to kill anyone!”
“Remember, Maxwell and I have access to all sorts of poisonous things, including the xolotl vine,” Saffron said. “And, according to ‘a source’ of the inspector’s, the professor argued with Dr. Berking and threatened him in addition to Dr. Henry.”
“Did he?” Elizabeth said with an approving smile.
“You and Dr. Maxwell are meant to have accidentally poisoned Mrs. Henry in an attempt to kill Dr. Henry? How does Berking play into it?” Alexander asked, frowning.
“Perhaps Maxwell was meant to poison Dr. Berking, and I was meant to poison Dr. Henry.” Saffron sighed. “Or something like that. It appears we’re his top suspects.”
