Chapter Fifteen

A fter the prince left, Alfie remained in his apothecary shop and thought about where to start. Then he heard footsteps.

“What did he want?” Felix asked as he and Andre walked in, arms crossed, and looked out the window. They had seemingly been waiting outside the apothecary’s door until the prince left.

“Langley said he was on a diplomatic mission. He doesn’t look sick to me,” Andre said, poking at the truth in his telltale Italian method of interrogation. Whoever credited the Greek philosopher Socrates for investigative methods hadn’t met Dr. Andre Fernando from Florence, Italy.

“I can’t say.” Alfie squatted under the counter to pick out the beakers and flasks for the mixture he needed to make.

“We are a practice, so in fact you can say,” Felix said. “Patient information is held closely among us.”

There was even more to it and Alfie knew that. If anything could harm one of them, they’d all be affected—not merely if their business suffered but because they were like a family. Secrets shared between the five of them—Alfie, Nick, Andre, Felix, and Wendy—were sacred. And they’d protect each other, their patients, and the confidentiality of their patients, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t consult with each other and help. That was the thing with the doctors at 87 Harley Street. They weren’t just collaborators or colleagues; they weren’t merely friends. They were family. They’d lay down their lives for one another. And what was worth even more than life itself, they’d sacrifice their licenses to practice for one another.

They had an unwritten code of honor dictating that they’d share delicate questions of ethics, medicine, or even life itself. Like in a family, the others might get upset and admonish him for his mistakes, but they would always come to his rescue. Not telling them about this was too big, too dangerous.

“He’s not a patient,” Alfie mumbled behind the counter.

“Then tell me what you’re making.” Andre leaned forward and tried to peer over at him. “I worry that it’s dangerous or else you wouldn’t make such a secret of it.”

Alfie got up and placed three small glass vials on the counter along with the glass flasks to boil his concoction over the burners. He cast Andre a look and pinched his lips; he wouldn’t say. That didn’t mean he couldn’t show.

And yet, he had a duty to preserve his customers’ secrets.

“Indian pennywort, belladonna, and henbane,” Alfie said. “Then muskroot and valerian. I cannot tell you any more.”

Andre cocked his head. “Isn’t henbane what they poured in Hamlet’s father’s ear to kill him?”

“The Greeks poisoned their arrows with a decoction of henbane. Vikings even took the seeds to their graves,” Felix added. If it weren’t helpful for a muscle ache or to clean wounds, an ordinary orthopedist wouldn’t know. Felix, however, had studied in Delhi with Alfie. Even if he didn’t know how to mix the medicines, Felix knew what to ask for, given various symptoms.

“If you had a patient with earaches, rheumatism, sciatica, and insomnia, you could tell me. If it were for a toothache, you’d have already sent him to me. That leaves only one use.” The dentist opened his eyes wide. “Hallucinations, the inability to withhold the impulse to speak, and unconsciousness.” Andre leaned forward. “Who’s getting the truth serum?”

Alfie held Felix’s gaze momentarily and then surveyed Andre’s expression. It was stern and unforgiving, with a gravity unusual in the man’s expression.

“Someone who deserves it,” Alfie said. We all know him and yet I can’t say.

“Alfie, we swore the Hippocratic oath. You mustn’t administer poisons that could alter a person’s perception of reality without their consent.” Andre, usually the first to joke and promote mischief, had lost the benevolent Italian lilt, and now his accent sounded rather strict.

“I’m not doing anything like that.”

“Ayurvedic medicine should be used for cures and treatments, Alfie. You promised never to act in bad faith,” Felix said. “You’re not above the law and you can’t take justice in your own hands. We both promised to Master Varier when we completed our apprenticeships in India. You even stayed an extra two months until you earned your fare back to England!”

“Yes! We promised not to use it for evil or to manipulate people. That’s why I agreed to make it.”

Felix’s eyebrows shot up, his mouth slightly agape as he blinked rapidly, seemingly struggling to comprehend Alfie’s words.

“Some people use their influence to manipulate and twist the truth, to create hurdles for the people I love and respect. I’m hoping to extract some information to make it stop,” Alfie added.

“By poisoning them? It’s not your job to bring justice to where you believe it belongs,” Andre said.

Alfie swallowed hard. He knew that.

Yet, this was necessary.

He pulled out the vials and little paper packets of dried herbs from his drawers, then uncorked the belladonna extract from the drawer of his counter. Felix grabbed his wrist.

“Who’s this for, Alfie?”

“What if I told you it was for the enemy?”

Felix let go of his wrist. “My enemy or yours?”

“Does it matter?”

“If it’s incriminating you on my behalf, I don’t want it,” Felix said. “You don’t need to commit crimes to protect me, I never asked you for that!”

It went without saying that Alfie and Andre were upset about the fact Felix and their other Jewish friends didn’t have the same rights as the gentiles under British law. Even though England was more progressive than the nations on the European continent, they were all trained to see all people as equals—which they were, from a scientific perspective. Why not from a legal one?

“I didn’t offer it to you. And someone else asked.”

“But it serves Felix’s purpose?” Andre sounded exasperated and started to pace the room. “Please don’t tell me you’re taking on the baron.”

Felix froze and stared at Alfie, who lowered his head and poured plain alcohol into a beaker.

“Did the prince ask you to poison List?” Felix whispered.

“Prince Ferdinand… with the long name,” Alfie murmured.

Felix stared. Andre stopped by the window and turned to glare at Alfie.

“It’s something to do with gold. A trade route in the Black Sea involving the Pearlers and the Klonimuses… and the metal exploitation of Transylvanian territory.”

“The prince is seeking leverage to stop Nagy and List from ruining the suppliers of the gold?” Felix combed both hands through his hair. “Arnold and Caleb have a trade route for gems, so they are going after the gold.”

“Yes, they are going after the Jews’ Achilles heel—yours, too, Felix. Without gold from the Klonimuses, you can’t work.”

“And without gold, the Crown Jewelers will lose their commission,” Andre said.

The Pearlers and the Klonimuses were a renowned Jewish family of jewelers, the Crown jewelers to Prinny. They had created the most distinguished and luxurious pieces and were now producing pieces for the Royal Grand Service. They needed gold and Baron von List intercepted it to weaken their position. Something wasn’t right.

“It’s not just about the golden goblets, platters, and tureens, is it?” Andre clenched his mouth shut so that the muscles of his cheeks protruded. He looked angry.

“If Prinny cannot maintain his honor and show off the English riches, England will lose its influence.”

“And the Russians can swoop in with the idea to segregate the Jews in constricted areas of the land, just like they do in the Pale of Settlement under the Czar?” Alfie knew, as the others did, that it would cut off their supply for gold and the ability to trade freely, a privilege Jews had under English law. If he were isolated, Felix didn’t need to explain it because Alfie knew just as well as Andre that Felix was the only Jewish doctor at their practice, and that he alone brought in more money with gold fillings than all the others combined.

“Yes. They want to undermine the entire path that fuels any chances the Jews have to establish a meritocracy. And international political stability might be the collateral damage.” Alfie arranged the bottle of alcohol and set a brass weight on his little scale. “I’m not ready to let that go by without doing something about it. The law has never protected Jewish minorities, nor anyone who’s different, you know that. Prinny can’t act either, without corroboration of the threat, and he would have to give other jewelers a chance to cater to him.”

“Without Felix’s income, we’d be quickly in debt and the practice would—” Andre inhaled sharply, unable to speak it. They had all worked too hard to lose their livelihoods and reputations.

“How can you get their consent to take the serum?” Felix asked. “Don’t do it without that.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“They have to want it,” Felix said.

“You have the right dosage?” Andre asked with the air of a co-conspirator. Anyone who’d met Baron von List wouldn’t question the need to poison him—he was the kind of entitled nobleman seething with venom, and possessing the self-centered smugness of a criminal who continued unpunished thanks to his title.

“I’ll be there to ensure the prince doesn’t go too far.” Alfie set another small brass weight on his scale and spooned a brittle dry mix of leaves on the other scale tray.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” Andre declared and left.

Finally, Felix’s shoulders drooped; he seemed to fight with himself a moment more before he raised his head and asked, “What can I do to help?” Without waiting for a response, he stepped around the counter and pulled a white apron from the shelf. He shook it, and the unfolding of the freshly starched white cotton produced a breeze in the apothecary—a breeze that brought on change.

And Alfie hoped it would be a good one.