Chapter 18

Alexander was nowhere to be found when Saffron emerged from Dr. Aster's office, but she was too eager to delve into the volumes at the library to wait for him to turn up. She went to the library, pulled several of the more ancient-looking texts from the shelves of the botany and medical sections, and got to work.

Without mentioning the police case or any Russian street markets, she'd gotten one of the identifications from Dr. Aster in a startlingly short time. Saffron had utilized one of the oldest tricks in the academic textbook: competition.

In the years she'd been mentored by Dr. Maxwell, who was a friend as well as colleague to Dr. Aster, she'd watched their interactions with fascination. Dr. Maxwell was as warm and fuzzy as a blooming Acalypha hispida while Aster had all the charm of a rocklike Argyroderma. Their research was very different, but they both had a passion for taxonomy, and their enthusiasm always reached a fever pitch when there was a bet to be had. Before, Aster could be found in the company of her mentor nearly every day, but Saffron hadn't seen Aster speak to anyone but Mr. Ferrand for a long time. She knew how isolating it could be to be the odd man out in a close-knit department. She felt somewhat guilty for using that loneliness for her own purposes, but she needed help. Saffron had never risked asking Aster before, not even when she'd needed to know the name of a plant to help solve the poison bouquet murders, but she'd managed to find the right plant in the end. She didn't feel she had weeks to spare this time, however.

After fibbing that she'd received a letter from Maxwell containing the dried leaves, she'd admitted to Aster that she'd been unable to identify them. She wasn't asking for his help, she'd assured him, as she'd known the department head would abhor the notion of helping Saffron cheat. She did plan on sending a sample of the dried leaves for Maxwell to attempt to identify so that they might play their game through the post.

She didn't even ask Aster to take a look at the leaves. He'd demanded to see them and had even deigned to observe them through his own microscope. She'd hoped that Aster's expertise in leaf morphology would enable him to identify the leaves quickly, and she'd been right.

"Corylus avellana?" he'd muttered with disgust. "Not even a challenge, Maxwell."

Saffron had pretended not to hear.

And now, all that was left to do was learn what toxins might lurk in the leaves of the Corylus avellana, the common hazel tree, and determine if any of them caused liver or kidney problems. She also had to identify the other plant, for which she did not even have the Russian name, and determine if that plant could have killed Petrov.

In truth, she had a long way to go before her search of Petrov's flat would garner results, but that was the way of science. One planted many seeds in the hope that one would germinate, then one tended it carefully to see what fruit it might bear. Hopefully it wouldn't take as long as the life cycle of a plant.

Minutes turned to hours, and Saffron remained in the library until the librarians told her it was time to leave. She trudged up to her office, wondering why Alexander had not come to find her. He might not have expertise in botany, but he could read and examine botanical illustrations as well as anyone. But he had not come, and she couldn't help but be a little hurt.

Two of the century-old folk remedy tomes had indicated that common hazel reduced inflammation. Honey, it was known, also reduced inflammation as well as prevented wounds from going foul, which Saffron took to mean it was antimicrobial. Combining the two would likely work to calm pain in the joints, as Grigory had said. She could not confirm the suggestion that the mixture would help reduce anemia, its other use according to the vendor, nor had she determined what were the actual chemicals in the plant. She'd asked another favor of Romesh Datta, for Savita was not in his lab, and asked him to analyze all of the plants for their chemical composition. It was a start, and she could only hope they quickly revealed useful information. It was likely too much to ask that someone had poisoned one or both of Petrov's herb jars. Perhaps Grigory the vendor had some grievance with Petrov and had added something nasty to his purchase, or his landlady or another tenant had broken in …

She planned to go home, to allow Elizabeth's nattering about her daily complaints and victories to lull away the trials of the day, but as she patted her pockets for the key to her office, she found the folded note from earlier that day. Lee's message indicated he'd heard from his uncle about Alexander and Nick's military records. She'd forgotten in the rush to find something useful about the herbs.

Given the hour and Lee's propensity for going out with whatever attractive female was at hand, she doubted he would answer her telephone call, but she asked the operator to ring him up anyway. She perched on the stool in the telephone nook on the ground floor of the North Wing, listening to the dwindling echoes of footsteps drifting down from floors above.

"Yes?" came Lee's voice.

Saffron dropped the wire she'd been coiling around her finger. "Lee, it's Saffron."

"So I surmised. Who else would be calling from the U at this hour? What are you still doing there, anyway?"

She told him about Petrov's flat and the herbs, and to her surprise, he said, "Bring 'round a bit of the one you don't know. It'll be like old times, trying to figure out the identity of some nasty plant, won't it?"

She agreed, unsure if she wanted to revisit those old times. "Did you learn something from your uncle?"

"I did, indeed. Let me see … Yes, Corporal Alexander Theodoros Ashton. Theodoros, Everleigh." He chuckled. "Enlisted in 182nd Brigade out of Warwickshire—"

"Warwickshire?" Saffron repeated in disbelief.

"—belonging to the 61st Midlands. Saw action in Fromelles, injured 16 July 1916 and sent home to coalesce 3 August." Lee hummed, and she imagined him stroking his jaw. "Warwickshire. That's Birmingham, isn't it?"

"Near it, I think," she replied absently. "But … Alexander lives in London. He was born and raised in London, I thought. What was he doing enlisting close to Birmingham? That's hours away."

"Not sure. Shall I tell you about Major Nicholas Andrew Hale now?"

"Go on."

Lee rattled off details of Nick's service. Nick had joined a staff college well before the war to be trained as an officer, then had served in various places over the course of the war. He'd received a Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1915 for service in a place called Chunuk Bair, which Lee said he'd discovered was in the former Ottoman Empire.

Alexander had served briefly in France, and Nick in what was now Turkey. There was no overlap there.

"There was also," Lee said slowly, "something about Salonika."

Surprise had her staring blankly at the scuffed wall of the telephone vestibule. "That's in Greece, isn't it? Wasn't there a campaign fought there?"

"Yes, quite a long one, too. Not really in the city, of course, but that was the sort of headquarters for our side. Ashton went there in 1916. Might be a reference to his family, but my uncle mentioned it, so—"

"It might be in reference to his military service," Saffron finished, mind racing. "Could Nick also have been in Greece?"

"Not a clue, old thing. 'Fraid you'll have to ask Ashton about it," Lee said. "The younger one. How go things with the elder Ashton?"

"I don't know. Thank you, Lee."

Saffron rang off and stared at the receiver, still swinging from its handle with the force of her hanging up.

Alexander had lied to her. She'd asked him about his service in the military. She'd thought he'd been honest—open, even—about his injury and his service. She'd cherished that conversation, carried out in the early hours of the morning after a shared adventure when the mysterious man she'd dragged along had offered her the story of his scars. She'd been touched that he'd shared something so personal with her.

Had it all been a lie?

She stood and slipped from the telephone nook. She was going to find out.

The knocking on the door was polite for the first two or three times, but soon became an impatient pounding that would no doubt disturb his neighbors if Alexander didn't answer it soon.

He swung the door open, half hoping it was Adrian. It wasn't.

Usually, the sight of Saffron at his door inspired enthusiasm, even excitement. But after the afternoon he'd had, and the evening he'd made for himself, he'd rather it be Adrian, sloshing over with drink.

Her color was high and her mouth held tightly. "I would like to speak with you."

He stepped back. "Come in."

He led her to the parlor. She stepped inside and blinked, looking from wall to wall, then she turned and gave him a swift, scrutinizing look. "What happened?"

He wasn't sure what about the parlor he'd spent the last hour cleaning indicated anything had happened, but he told her the truth anyway. "Inspector Green is questioning Adrian again."

Her irritation fell away. "But why?"

"Inspector Green learned some new information," he said heavily.

"About Petrov?"

"About Adrian." He turned away, running a hand through his hair. He'd relived every detail of his brother's life with Inspector Green that afternoon, every stupid choice his brother had made. He'd laid everything out. Nothing else had anything to do with Petrov, or Russia, or Greece, but he didn't want to be taken off guard by a "discovery" again.

Behind him, Saffron asked, "What was it?"

"Adrian …" He let out an impatient breath, resigning himself to an explanation he'd prefer never to give. "Our cousins were born and raised in Kyllini, as I said, and many of our aunts and uncles and distant family members lived there until the Great War. My family supported King Constantine, regardless of his perceived allegiance to Germany, and my cousins did so very vocally. Many of them left Greece when Constantine was removed from the throne during the war. They were not happy that the prime minister, Venizelos, circumvented him to join Greece with the Allies.

"A few of my cousins came here and riled up the Greek community in London. They protested, called on members of Parliament to try to get their support for the king." He shook his head, his frustration just as acute as it had been when he'd learned what had happened. His father had written to him at the convalescent home he'd been living in at the time, explaining what Adrian had done. "It was stupid. Some of the younger ones went too far and were arrested, including Adrian. He was on leave and they swept him up in their nonsense."

"He was arrested for protesting?"

"He was arrested for participating in a protest that turned violent," he said grimly.

"Inspector Green knows he has been arrested before," Saffron said. "It would have been in his record."

"For protesting."

Her brows lifted. "And something else?"

His shoulders slumped. "A number of small, harmless offenses."

"Such as?"

Through gritted teeth, he said, "Things related to his drinking."

She dropped her chin to her chest, sighing. "I don't understand why you bothered to ask me to help at all, if I have to pry every bit of information out of you! What's the point?"

"I asked you to help Inspector Green solve the case," he said, "not investigate my brother."

"Your brother's past matters here, Alexander. You're implying Inspector Green suspects Adrian because of his prior involvement in the"—she waved a hand— "whatever that was with your cousins. Supporting the king of Greece. What does that have to do with anything?"

It was nearly too convoluted for Alexander to explain. "King Constantine and the tsar were first cousins."

"The tsar, who was ousted during the Russian Revolution, was friendly with King Constantine," Saffron said slowly, clearly trying to make sense of how that related to Adrian and Petrov. "And your family supported the king. Inspector Green thinks that because Adrian supported the king, he might in turn support what remains of the tsarist Russians? Or he believes that Adrian aligns himself with the Germans since they were on opposing sides?"

"It's ridiculous," Alexander ground out, repeating what he'd spent the afternoon explaining to the inspector. The powers and politics of the world had shifted so often in the last five years, it seemed impossible that the police could believe that Adrian, of all people, would risk murder for an allegiance that might change any day.

"I suppose it is ridiculous."

Silence fell between them, taut and grating. Nothing came to mind to say.

"I'll be going."

Alexander swallowed, realizing how rude he'd been to not even offer her a seat. "I'm sorry—"

"Don't be." Her voice had a practiced evenness to it that he didn't like. "I'll leave you to your thoughts."

"I don't want you to leave," he said, surprised that a large part of him meant it.

"I don't much see the point in staying here." Her voice inched higher as she looked to the hallway. "I don't know why you bothered to ask me to help Adrian. It's clear you'd rather not tell me a thing other than what I can find out myself, about him or you."

"I'd rather not lay all my brother's failings at your feet," Alexander said before he could think better of it. "I'd rather you not see the worst of him, the worst of my family."

She swung around to glare at him. "I don't care if you have a hundred cousins who've been arrested, Alexander! That doesn't have any bearing on you." Her blue eyes searched his face. "What I care about is that you are so reluctant to tell me anything about yourself. You've told me nothing about your family, your life before the war, and even the things you told me about the war aren't true!"

Dumbstruck by the accusation, he scrambled for words. "Everything I've told you is true."

"You told me you were hurt at Fromelles, but not how, or when, or where you convalesced, or for how long!" Alexander opened his mouth, prepared to tell her anything she wanted to hear despite his annoyance at her sudden need to know irrelevant details just then, but then she said, "You didn't tell me anything about going to Salonika during the war."

A strange blankness suffused his brain, like the aftereffects of an illuminating grenade's detonation. The first coherent thought he had was to wonder how she could have possibly known about his visit to Greece. Nick wouldn't have told her, so she'd found that information somewhere else.

That only stunned him more. How had she found out? And why had she gone digging into his past?

Anger and fear swirled together into a heady mixture that had words rushing from his mouth. "I don't talk about my war because it was bloody and miserable and ended in a goddamn explosion that ought to have killed me just before my entire company was slaughtered. I don't tell people about my family's origins because they've no right to judge who my mother is or where she came from. I'm not the one under investigation. I am not a mystery to solve." His breath was sharp in his lungs, and it strained his tight throat to breathe. He'd thought they were on the right path, but now he realized that she'd simply been looking for information, more pieces of the puzzle of his and Adrian's involvement in Petrov's murder.

At his side, his fingers were tingling. It was cold. He'd been whipped into such a fury he hadn't remembered to turn the radiator on when he'd returned to the flat. He glared down at his hand before burying it in his pocket.

"I know you're not a mystery to solve," Saffron said quietly. "I just thought … I just want to understand. Why your brother is under suspicion. How you know Nick. Why you're keeping so much from me."

Alexander's whole body flushed with heat before a wave of cold overtook him. "I don't know Nick."

"You do," Saffron said flatly. "I saw you two arguing the other day at the U."

"So you are spying on me."

Saffron's head snapped back, eyes wide and angry. "I am not spying on you! I am simply trying to—"

"I am trying to keep my word," Alexander interrupted. "There are things you cannot know, Saffron. You must accept that."

He hadn't meant to sound so desperate. But he hoped that her wide-eyed look of surprise meant he'd gotten his point across.

"Very well," Saffron whispered and turned away.

He didn't follow her out of the flat, but he did wait until she was well away before ruining the order he'd been so careful to create.