Chapter 26

Saffron dedicated the next few days to unraveling the mystery of the missing papers. Nick had shown great interest when she'd telephoned him about it and had encouraged her to quietly look into discovering what papers were missing.

She had no idea if anyone else was missing documents, apart from Quinn. Saffron wandered to the entomology section of the lab to chat with her and attempt to speak with Dr. Narramore, though that was only moderately successful. She did discover something interesting, however.

Edna Quinn was in love with Dr. Neville Narramore. And he had no idea.

Quinn moved around him like a planet around the sun. Narramore would wander from microscope to specimen container, and Quinn would nudge vials and beakers out of his way just before he would have knocked them over. Saffron had believed herself a very good assistant to Dr. Maxwell, but she'd never been able to predict his movements so well. A china cabinet's worth of broken teacups could attest to that. Saffron imagined it was because Quinn and Narramore had worked together for a long time, but she heard from Mary that they had been paired when the lab moved to Harpenden just three years ago.

It made Saffron rather sad. Narramore never sought out Quinn except to ask her to make a note, bring a specimen, or discuss their work. Saffron had listened to her discourses with others and was quite certain she was brilliant. She wondered why Quinn settled for being an assistant at a minor government lab, rather than teaching or running her own lab.

She'd found the answer: love. It was a strong binder, Saffron considered. And a strong motive.

Everyone knew that people committed crimes for just a few reasons, and love was certainly one of them. Did the missing papers and dead scientists have anything to do with Quinn's pining for Narramore?

Her gentle prodding at lunch about the papers brought little result. Saffron mentioned that the horticulture files were missing pages here and there—true, though Saffron did not know enough about the notes she'd been left to be certain what they related to—and Quinn's response was a lengthy lecture about the various relationships between the Path Lab and the research stations and farms that had agreed to send data and samples to them.

"Have you noticed any of your samples or notes missing?" Saffron asked Quinn rather bluntly. "I heard Dr. Sutcliffe, er, sound rather upset that he'd misplaced something, and that wasn't the first I'd heard of missing items around here." That was not a lie, either, since she and the rest of the lab—even the whole of the street—had heard Sutcliffe's bombastic displeasure at being unable to find a report the previous afternoon.

"That ogre," Quinn muttered. After a moment of thought, her bespectacled eyes darted to Narramore, and when she saw he was gazing at the ceiling with a thoughtful frown, she must have deemed it safe to answer more fully. "You've come just when our lab is at far less than normal staffing numbers, what with the untimely deaths of Petrov and Wells, and the Botany lot being off in the field. Usually, there are many more bodies coming in and out of the lab, sharing workspaces and such. It's really not that surprising to have papers or notebooks—or even samples—go astray. Much easier to search out a package of crickets, though, isn't it?" She laughed, but it was a high-pitched, nervous sound.

"Indeed," Saffron said, laughing herself. "Besides, it's not as if there were anything worth stealing around here."

Narramore blinked as if their laughter had woken him from a waking sleep. "No, nothing to steal here. Come along, then, Quinn."

He rose and left the dining room, and Quinn hurried after him with a fawning look.

Quinn had accused Joseph of having something to do with missing papers, and so it was to Joseph that Saffron went next.

It was easy to find him, since they both were regularly in and out of the greenhouse. She waited until they'd been working in silence for some time. He knelt on the ground to fiddle with one of the pipes that cycled hot water through the floors to maintain the warmth of the building. Meanwhile, Saffron carefully measured each sprout of green that emerged from the earth in a nearby plot.

"Your duties seem vast and varied, Joseph," she said, not looking at him. She'd seen early on that he was shy in addition to reserved.

He paused briefly and glanced her way. "They are."

"Do you like working here?"

"I do."

A loud hiss accompanied a cloud of steam. Joseph swore soundly and jerked out of the way. He moved to the other side of the hole in the path and stuck a hand clutching a wrench into the hole. The steam ended a moment later.

"Told Calderbrook this fixture needs replacing," he grumbled.

"How did you come to work at the Path Lab? Have you any interest in plants or insects?"

To her surprise, Joseph sent her a look that might have indicated humor. With his good eye turned mostly away from her, it was hard to tell. "It's good work. Puts food on the table."

"And the people here are kind," she said, leaving him an opening for contradiction.

He grunted as he stood and replaced the bricks he'd removed to access the pipe. She'd nearly tripped over the stack when she'd come into the greenhouse, since it was just inside the door. Then he took up a broom and began sweeping the floor.

"You've been here long?" she asked.

He was quiet for so long, face to the floor as he swept, that she thought he would not answer. "Worked as a gardener at Kew. Came back from war, couldn't hack walking the grounds like before. Dr. Calderbrook needed someone to manage the post."

"And he brought you with him when he became director of this lab."

He nodded. "Like Mary."

"Mary was at Jodrell too?"

Joseph jerked his head in disagreement. "Sutcliffe brought her, when he moved down from Yorkshire. They were neighbors. She worked for him when she was a girl, then went back to work for him when she was finished at university. Sutcliffe told the director he'd only come down here if he could bring her. Best assistant he'd ever had. Never put off by his yelling." He broke off. Saffron noticed his remaining ear had gone red.

Was there more than one set of affections at play in the Path Lab?

"The two staff members who are out in the field," she said, hoping to keep him talking. "I'm sorry not to be able to meet them. I'm trained as a botanist, actually. But Dr. Calderbrook seems to think that Dr. Crawford and Mr. Burnwell have it well in hand."

Joseph snorted, then swung the broom around, perhaps to hide that he'd made such an undignified sound.

Smiling, she asked, "What is it?"

He glanced over his shoulder, and for a moment, she caught a glimpse of how he might have been before the war: a young man full of mischief. It was gone in an instant.

"Dr. Crawford isn't bad," he said. "But that Burnwell doesn't know what he's doing."

"He doesn't?" Saffron asked, curious.

"He's rude," he said. "And always smoking, even in the lab."

Saffron swallowed a groan. "Is Burnwell—he's not Victor Burnwell, is he?"

Joseph straightened up and regarded her with wary surprise. "You know him?"

Victor Burnwell had been her classmate for years, and a foul man he was. Competitive, acerbic, and with disgusting habits he'd leveraged against her and the others in their classes. He'd lick his finger before turning each page in a report and spit into the eyepieces of microscopes to polish them, then scoff when others didn't want to use them. She'd caught him flicking the butts of cigarettes into the greenhouse beds on more than one occasion.

"I do know him," she said, barely refraining from wrinkling her nose. She hoped she was gone from the Path Lab before she had to cope with his odious presence again. "Forgive me for saying so, but I almost wish it had been Botany to lose its members rather than Horticulture."

It was a crude, thoughtless thing to say, but it made Joseph's mouth hitch up into half a smile and that snort of a laugh break free again. "Think you might be right, miss. Burnwell'd yell at Mary—or anyone else—when they told him to keep to the safety protocols. Refuses to wear a mask or gloves. Coughs and spits and smokes all the time. I told the director he'd burn down the building with those damned cigarettes of his. Burnwell is a right git."

"No disagreements here." She sighed. "I ought not to have said that, though. I can't believe the horrible luck, to have both the chief and assistant of Horticulture die so unexpectedly. I almost worry for myself."

Joseph merely shrugged as he returned to sweeping the bricks. "Nothing to worry about. Keep up with the safety protocols, and it'll be fine."