Her thoughts carried her all the way to the university, her mind full of swirling possibilities.
Wedged in her office door was a note from Dr. Aster requesting her assistance that morning, forcing her to postpone her plan to immediately go to the library to decipher the few legible parts of the formula on the torn paper. It was lunchtime before she managed to find time to get to the library.
Clear blue skies and the clock indicating the lunch hour meant that the Quad was buzzing with life. She had to dodge students sitting in clusters on the steps to the portico to get inside the Wilkins Building. She’d barely crossed into the Flaxman Gallery when she heard her name.
She tempered her smile when she saw that Alexander was not alone, but flanked by two other biology researchers. They stood to the side of the gallery, just beneath the relief of a Roman soldier with an arm lifted and shield resting beside him.
“Yes, Mr. Ashton?” she said politely.
“I had a question for you regarding Dr. Maxwell’s study,” he said, his voice equally polite. He wore another gray suit, with a slight pinstripe that made him look even taller today, and a green tie. “About one of the samples you mentioned. I’m sure I saw it listed as one of the specimens in the greenhouses. I’d appreciate it if you showed me which one.”
Saffron nodded, though she was quite sure she’d shown him nearly every specimen in the greenhouses already, and definitely all the ones related to Dr. Maxwell’s work. “Are you available this afternoon?”
One of the biologists smirked. Clinton McGuire had been one of the first to come sniffing around her when she began at the university. He was as tall as Alexander, with light brown hair and eyes. If not for his perpetual contemptuous expression, he would have been handsome. Saffron resisted the urge to fidget under his gaze. He’d been a friend of Archie Davis’s and took offense to her stepping out with Archie instead of himself. McGuire had spent the better part of their brief relationship trying to provoke Saffron with comments about her father and family, suggesting she’d only been admitted to the university because of her father’s position. It was thanks to McGuire that Archie found out about her grandfather’s title, though it had backfired spectacularly since Archie had been excited at the prospect of Saffron’s connections to nobility, rather than offended by it as McGuire was.
Saffron hoped he’d given up bothering her, but apparently McGuire couldn’t resist the temptation to sneer at her now. The other man, Geoffrey Kent, was bent over the book in his hands, oblivious.
Alexander nodded. “I have an appointment now. Around two in the greenhouses?”
Saffron agreed and left the trio a moment later. She could practically feel eyes on her back as she crossed the wood floors of the gallery. She glanced over her shoulder and saw McGuire and Alexander were both watching her leave. She didn’t want to consider what snide comments McGuire might make to Alexander. But even if he did say something rude, surely Alexander wouldn’t listen. He’d told Berking off at the dinner, after all.
Ignoring the too-familiar feeling of living under a magnifying glass, Saffron entered the library and headed straight for the chemistry section.
The afternoon was pleasant; a blue sky peeked from behind fluffy clouds, and birds swooped from tree to tree. The weather didn’t match Alexander’s mood as he descended the steps of the library. Saffron had still been in sight when McGuire started mouthing off. He was a pain to work with on a good day, and Alexander had no patience for him scoffing at Saffron, so he’d walked away before he lost his temper.
Only a handful of people were in the low-ceilinged lobby of the administrative offices, and their conversation filled it with murmuring. The receptionist sat at her little desk against the wall, an older woman with a mouth that looked puckered from lemon juice, adding her steady clattering to the ambience as she typed on her ironically named Noiseless.
Alexander passed through and went straight to Blake’s office to see if he was in. He wasn’t, as Alexander had hoped.
“Excuse me,” he said with a nervous voice as he approached the receptionist. “Look, I know that Mr. Blake isn’t in the office, but you see, I, uh, turned in the wrong form, and my department head is already in quite a state over my completing another wrong form last week, and I was hoping I could, er … go inand collect it before Mr. Blake confirms with him.” He rushed his words and looked down with shame.
The receptionist, gray-streaked hair in a severe bun, gave him an unexpectedly kind smile. “Yes, dear, I’ll just pop in and fetch it for you.”
“Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself,” Alexander said eagerly. “Please, I promise I can be quick about it.”
“Very well, I’ll just let you in.” She got up and shuffled down the hall, to the door of Blake’s office. “He files equipment forms over in the drawer to the right. I had to get into them just the other day …”
Alexander crossed the room swiftly and scanned Blake’s newly tidy desk. Remembering he had to be anxious since the receptionist was still standing at the door, he let his hands shake more than usual as he opened the filing cabinet against the far wall and began to comb through the files of equipment forms.
Perhaps Saffron’s relentless interest in Mrs. Henry’s poisoning had gotten to him. There was something going on, something with Berking and Henry and now possibly Blake. But damned if he would admit that to Saffron.
He saw his own name at the front of the row of files, as it always was, and moved on to Berking. He pulled out his ten or so forms, flicking through each page as quickly as he could while still taking in each item. Nothing odd there, just plates, a travel microscope, some general supplies.
“Not this one then,” he said with an embarrassed smile, looking at the receptionist. She wasn’t watching him particularly avidly, but instead looking at a map on the wall, idly running a finger along the blue line of the Amazon.
“You’re going on the expedition, then, dear?” the receptionist asked in a dreamy sort of voice.
Alexander looked up from his shuffling through the papers. “Yes, I am.”
She smiled at him. “How very exciting! Must be a grand sort of adventure.”
Alexander returned her smile and went back to the “H’s” and found Dr. Henry. His file was thick with forms. He quickly found all the forms for this expedition and found that there were nearly thirty, all of which had already been marked as fulfilled.
Odd,he thought, then odder still. Rather than one telescope, Henry had requested five. He’d also ordered two dozen bags of emergency supplies, two hundred boxes of pens, and at least ten more exorbitant amounts of supplies. Perhaps it was a realistic amount of supplies for the six months in the jungle. But that wasn’t right; his department head had said they’d order more supplies from locals once they got there and settled in. They definitely had pens and bandages in Brazil.
Realizing he was lingering, he chose a few of the forms with more ridiculous amounts to take with him.
“Did you find it?” the receptionist asked.
