Chapter 14

Employment records, Saffron found, were quite useful. Lee's suggestion of finding Alexander and Nick's military history inspired her own foray into the university recordkeeper's office, and she soon emerged with an address.

Alexander lived in a second-story flat in the exact kind of place she'd guessed he would live. Respectable and practical, just a six- or seven-minute walk from campus. She climbed the stairs, bracing herself. She was tired of arguing with him at the university, where she guessed he didn't feel comfortable speaking about personal matters. He'd clammed right up the previous day, and she didn't want to give him any excuses this time.

Invading his privacy was possibly not the best way to do it, but he might also see it for the olive branch it was. She was coming to him, ready to apologize for being so upset about not being told something he obviously felt was private, and ready to needle him until he gave her what she needed to help Adrian. Everything she'd learned about Petrov's death—admittedly not much—suggested that Adrian wasn't responsible. She needed to figure out what about Adrian had made the police suspect him if she was to counter it.

But when she knocked, it was Adrian, not Alexander, who opened the door.

She immediately lifted her eyes up and toward the corner of the doorway. He'd answered the door in trousers with braces dangling and an undershirt, his curly hair wild and his jaw stubbled. Voice too high, she said, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Ashton, but I was hoping to speak to Alexander."

Adrian chuckled. "I am terribly sorry, Miss Everleigh. You must think me brash for opening the door like this, but I thought you were my brother. He'll be back any minute. Come, come inside and let me put on a shirt, hmm?"

He was gone before she could tell him she'd wait outside.

She ventured into the hall, unable to stop her curiosity. The walls were bare but for coat hooks, and the floor was spotless but worn hardwood.

"Come in, come in," Adrian called. "The kitchen is warm."

Hesitantly, she stepped down the hall. The flat was set up similarly to her own, with doors likely for bedrooms lining the hall and a parlor off to one side. The state of that room, from what she saw passing by, shocked her. Alexander was tidy to the point of obsession, and it looked as if the room had been caught in a whirlwind. The furniture was covered in books, newspapers, magazines, and to her surprise, bottles of wine and spirits.

That was Adrian's doing, then. Alexander must have hated his brother's mess and likely his liquor too.

Adrian found her in the hall, a collarless shirt now buttoned beneath his braces. He grinned and flung a hand out. "Please, this way." He shepherded her into the tiny kitchen, which was indeed very warm. "If you please." He pulled out a chair for her at the shabby kitchen table.

She sat, looking around. This room was equally bare of personality, though from the pots and pans on the stove Saffron guessed that cooking did happen there. She had never heard of bachelors cooking much.

"Forgive me for not entertaining you elsewhere," Adrian said, settling across from her. "But the kitchen calls to me. The warmth, the smells of food. When I go home, I spend more time in the kitchen with my mother than anywhere else in the house."

"My flatmate is much the same. She finds the kitchen to be the most agreeable place in the flat."

"A smart girl," he said. "You came for Alex, but it cannot be for business, otherwise you would have spoken to him at the university." His thick brows lifted, and his smile turned suggestive.

"I came to ask him to speak with you, actually," Saffron said, adding quickly, "Alexander asked me to assist with your situation with Mr. Petrov's death. I'm sorry you've come under suspicion."

Adrian's smile slipped momentarily, but then his eyes went wide and he let out a laugh. "You are the poison girl!"

She blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"The one he met before his expedition! You are the one he told me about!"

Heat flooded her cheeks. "I … yes, we did meet before the expedition. And I do study poisonous plants."

"Excellent!" Adrian's curls shook with each shake of his head. "I am glad to know he is still, ah, speaking with you. Alex is so quiet, you know, I had no idea—"

"We are friends," she said. "He asked if I could look into the case, since I know poisons and I'm familiar with Inspector Green."

At the mention of the inspector, his expression darkened. "Ah, yes. The inspector is very …" He let out a humorless laugh. "He is not unlike my brother, in fact. Prefer to present a blank face, don't they?"

"They do," Saffron agreed. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Adrian knitted his fingers together atop the table and spoke with a tone that suggested he'd told this story too many times for his liking. "I work for Hawker as an engineer—"

"You build aeroplanes?" Saffron interrupted.

"Yes," he said absently. "I went to school for it, then flew during the war. When I came out, I wanted to make something better than the flimsy things they sent us up in. Hawker is in Kingston upon Thames. My boss, he tells me I'm to go see Sir Gavin Montfried. He lives near Roundwood Park in Harlesden."

Saffron nodded, picturing Inspector Green's map in her mind.

"I took the train from Kingston to Willesden Junction, then I took a tram. I saw Sir Gavin, got the plans he was working on—he was wing commander to my boss and still likes to play with designs—and then I returned to Willesden Junction." His words were quick, his accent making them emphatic and earnest. He shot her a furtive look, however, as he said, "Once there, I went to a pub. Drank some, and got to thinking I should go into town, see my brother, my mother." He flashed a grin. "She misses me. Worries for me. For us both, you know. Alex is her baby." He chuckled, shaking his head.

Warmth for the affection Adrian suggested between Alexander and their mother eased Saffron's impatience. She really had never thought much about Alexander's family, since he so rarely brought them up.

Adrian tapped his long fingers on the table. "After a few drinks, I got on the train to St. Pancras. I chose a seat in a compartment with only one other person. He was an old man, with gray hair and a face like cracked pavement." Saffron quirked a brow, and Adrian waved a hand toward his own face. "Heavy, wrinkled. Looked like he'd never smiled. He was asleep, anyway. But when the train lurched, he woke. He said something polite to me, maybe ‘Good evening,' then closed his eyes again. He stayed that way for ten minutes or so, then he let out a moan, like he was ill. I asked if he was all right, he mumbled something." His lips flattened briefly as if irritated. "He said it in Russian, I know now. I didn't know at the time he was a Russian."

Curious, Saffron asked, "Why do you say that?"

He huffed a laugh. "The police asked me many times if I knew who he was, where he came from, what work he did, even where he lived. I suppose I am used to denying knowing anything about him. All I saw was an old man who looked ill. He went pale and began to shake, moaning nonstop. This was around"—he squinted—"Kilburn, maybe. I called for help. An older woman with a young boy poked her head in but went away. There was a fellow who said he'd call for an attendant, but I did not see him again. Another two people came and stayed there until we reached St. Pancras. Mrs. Sheffield and Mr. Crawford."

"Who were they?"

"Mrs. Sheffield was an older lady, said she was the wife of a physician, but she only patted the old man's brow with her kerchief. Mr. Crawford, he wore a bad suit and a bowler hat. He and I spoke about what was to be done, and he said he would go for the stationmaster or a doctor or something when we arrived at St. Pancras. But the police said they hadn't heard about him."

"But Mrs. Sheffield confirmed he was there?" Saffron asked.

"I don't know," Adrian said. His voice had grown taut. He reached behind himself to the kitchen counter for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit one with unsteady hands, and the pungent scent of burning tobacco filled the small room.

"What happened when you reached the station?" Saffron asked.

"There was a great commotion as soon as people discovered there was a dead man aboard the train. Mrs. Sheffield and I stayed in the compartment until the police and doctor arrived. I felt for the man, Petrov. He was dying and alone, with only our sorry company. I wanted to make sure he was taken care of." His lips twisted. "But that was suspicious, I was told later. It was also suspicious that I had aeroplane plans on my person. And suspicious I sound and look like this." His cigarette left behind a hazy ring as he waved around his face.

"Because you are Greek," Saffron said cautiously.

"Because I look and sound foreign," Adrian said. "They don't care that I was born and raised here. They see only the darkness of my features and hear my mother's people in my voice." He tapped ash into a dish on the counter. "Because being foreign is itself a crime, eh?"

"I've never thought so."

Adrian shrugged, but this time the motion did not look to be casual punctuation to his thoughts, but like he was trying to shed the suspicions others held toward him.

"It would have been better," he said somewhat sullenly, not looking at her, "if I'd done as Alex did. Forced myself to speak like our father."

Saffron said nothing, at once deeply uncomfortable to hear something so private about the Ashton brothers and breathless to learn more.

Adrian obliged her silent wish. "He watched our mother be treated poorly and listened to our cousins complain about prejudices. Even as a very young boy, he never let our mother's voice take root like I did. It didn't matter though, he was kicked out of dance halls and pubs same as the rest of us, when we went out all together and spoke our mother tongue."

He leaned slightly forward on the table. "We came back broken, you know. People, they don't understand how it is, to be stuck." He tapped the side of his head. It occurred to her then that Adrian was perhaps not entirely sober, for his dark eyes were hazy. "Makes it hard to tell what's in your head and what's real. The street becomes a sky full of bullets. A fellow sweeping the street looks like he's holding a bayonet. God knows it can be frightening, dangerous."

Usually, soldiers did themselves harm rather than others. Saffron's uncle, her cousin John's father, had killed himself not long after returning from his deployment. She'd never considered that he might have done the other members of the household harm too, but that had been a bone-chilling possibility.

"Alex, he knows this. He knows what people see when they look at him, what they think about those with the shock. He wants to be seen as strong, smart, in control." Adrian chuckled. "Oh, the control! It is something he never cared for before, and now he needs it badly. So, he stepped away from it, from the family. Removed one strike against him by hiding in our father's name, his manner." He seemed to recollect his cigarette, now heavy with ash, and took a long drag. "But we all hide, do we not, eh?"

Saffron cleared her throat, wishing she could open a window and clear out the air too. Adrian was delving into very private matters.

"Alexander mentioned you'd been to the police station a number of times," she said, hoping to get him back on track. She still had things she wanted to know about the case. "What did they ask you?"

"What did they not want to know?" he mused. "I have been to the police station three times, and they have come here twice. They asked me what I did that day, who I saw, when I'd last been to London, if I'd ever visited a place called Harpenden. What I saw the man eat, drink, or smoke. What I gave him, what he said when he woke, and where he came from. If I noticed anything strange about the circumstances, our train compartment. They asked me why I chose to sit there with him." He shook his head with a faint smile on his lips. "They didn't believe I wanted a quiet place to take a nap."

"And it was Detective Inspector Green interviewing you?"

"Yes, and another fellow. A big, tall man, blond hair."

"What was his name?"

"He didn't give one," came a voice from behind her. "But I'm sure you can guess who it was."

Saffron winced slightly at the hard edge of displeasure in Alexander's voice. He stood with arms crossed, shoulder leaning against the door frame. A parcel dangled from one hand.

Adrian frowned at his brother. "Do not be rude, Alex. Your friend Miss Everleigh is here."

"I came to speak with you," she told Alexander. "But I found your brother instead. He's been giving me his account of the situation."

"I see" was his only reply. He skirted her to place the parcel on the table before his brother.

Adrian opened the parcel and exclaimed something in what Saffron presumed was Greek. "It's as if you went straight to Kyllini!"

Saffron darted a glance at Alexander, and she found he was looking at her already.

"Kyllini is the town where my mother grew up," he said evenly.

"I see," Saffron said. She watched Adrian unpackage a series of small crocks, all emitting smells that made her mouth water. "I will leave you to your supper," she said to Adrian, and he looked crestfallen.

"But you must stay!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet as Saffron rose.

"Thank you, but I ought to go," she said as warmly as she could manage when she felt so suddenly out of place. Adrian glanced between her and Alexander, and whatever he saw made him resettle into his seat.

Alexander stepped back so she could enter the hall and followed her to the door. "I'll walk with you to the bus station."

Saffron hadn't noticed how late it had become until they reached the street, and it was all but silent. Distant rumbles of automobiles and the gentle tap of their heels on the pavement were the only sounds as they went toward the Euston Square bus stop.

It might have been quiet on the street, but in Saffron's head, there was a riot of thought. Adrian's story mixed with his revelations about himself and Alexander, but one question kept surfacing in her mind, and she spoke it aloud to Alexander.

"Why does Inspector Green believe Adrian has something to do with Petrov's death?" she asked. "There has to be something. Some connection. It can't be only because they were in the same train compartment."

They paused on the street corner as a messenger slipped past on a bicycle.

"I don't know," Alexander said, not looking at her. They crossed the street. Alexander's long legs ate up the distance, and Saffron had to scurry to keep up with him.

"There has to be a reason, Alexander," she insisted. "Inspector Green doesn't just make decisions based on no evidence!"

He glanced at her. "Dr. Maxwell—"

"The inspector arrested Dr. Maxwell because he had a motive to poison Dr. Henry and access and knowledge of a unique toxin." She stopped him with a hand on his arm. "You were the one to convince me of his possible guilt, if you'll recall. And now, Adrian is still under suspicion despite nothing in Inspector Green's notes connecting him to the actual murder. It has to be something else."

He didn't reply, and they began walking again.

"He mentioned he doesn't come to London much," Saffron said. "Why not?"

"He doesn't get on with our father," he muttered, then shook his head. "You've done far more than I could have hoped, thank you."

Frustration had her gnashing her teeth together. He was shutting her out again, and it was going to prevent her from doing anything useful. She'd already wanted to help, but speaking to Adrian and seeing the lurking helplessness behind his smiles, she had to do something.

They reached the bus stop and came to a rather abrupt halt. After a beat of silence, in which Saffron realized Alexander wouldn't be leaving until she'd boarded the bus, she asked, "Have you found a lawyer?"

Alexander ran a hand through his hair. "Adrian refuses to hire someone who might get word back to our father that he's in trouble. He's a solicitor."

Saffron bit her lip. The only solicitor she knew was Mr. Feyzi, who worked for her family. "I know someone who may be able to help," Saffron said slowly. "I don't believe he handles these sorts of cases, but he might be able to offer advice. I will search up his card and give it to you tomorrow."

He nodded. "Thank you."

The bus ambled around the corner. She told Alexander goodbye, then hopped aboard. He was out of sight before the bus pulled away from the pavement.