“I must be going.” Saffron smiled her most winning smile as she snatched up her coat and hat, ducking out the door before Elizabeth could press her further.
She pinned her hat over her coiled bun as she hopped down the stairs to the sidewalk below. With spring emerging fully now that it was mid-April, she decided to enjoy the lengthy walk from the tiny flat in Chelsea, rather than immediately hop on the bus.
She amused herself by contemplating the poetry of the emerging blooms, pear trees swollen with lacy white blooms and tulips parting their red mouths, but decided in the end to leave that field of endeavor to Elizabeth. In addition to working as a receptionist for a minor government minister whom they referred to as “the lord,” Elizabeth published poetry under a pseudonym, which, given her rather racy subject matter, Saffron agreed was wise. Elizabeth loved hearing Saffron’s indulgent descriptions of plants. Saffron once had a professor tell her off for using too many adjectives in a paper, and took it to heart that she was first a scientist, then an enthusiast.
After cutting through Hyde Park, she stepped onto a two-tiered red bus that took her through the tangled streets of Mayfair and into Fitzrovia. When she reached the Euston Square stop, she stepped off the bus and paused, as she always did, before the obelisk in the center of the square. She gazed at the bronze figures that guarded the four corners of the tall stone monument. She said a silent prayer for the lost souls from the war, for her father; her fallen sweetheart, Wesley; and for countless others, before finishing the brief walk to the university.
Saffron dodged the onslaught of students in the Quad and made her way to the second floor of the North Wing. Her momentum slipped when she saw Detective Inspector Green standing outside Dr. Maxwell’s door.
Gripping her handbag tightly, she asked, “May I help you, Inspector?”
The inspector looked at her steadily. “I’d like to speak to Dr. Maxwell. Do you know when he will be available?”
“I believe he will be attending a syllabus meeting in twenty minutes, in Dr. Berking’s office.”
“When will the meeting conclude?”
“They usually take forty minutes, perhaps an hour if the other professors are feeling chatty.” Saffron paused, eying the inspector. “May I pass along a message for you?”
“I have a few additional questions for him. I’ll return later.”
Curiously unnerved, Saffron watched the inspector disappear down the hall. She entered the office and took in the mess. In the few hours she’d spent in the library yesterday, Dr. Maxwell had managed to undo all the tidying she’d done while he was away. The small, wood-paneled room held a large desk centered with its back to the window. Saffron knew it was there, somewhere, beneath the haphazard stacks of books and sheaves of papers. The bookshelves flanking the desk were full to bursting with thick volumes. The filing cabinet was crowned with an enormous fern whose fronds obscured the out-of-date labels on the first two drawers. The only clear space in the room was the wall opposite the desk, where a framed painting caught the morning light.
Saffron had painted Houlletia tigrina, the professor’s favorite species of orchid with bright watercolors and given it to him on the occasion of her graduation from University College last year. It was an insufficient token of appreciation for each kind smile and each shared celebration or commiseration over the years. How many times had she felt ready to give up and return to the stuffy society affairs she’d fled? Maxwell would share a seemingly off-the-cuff reminiscence of his own student days, and she’d recover her nerve. How many tears had fallen in this office, stemmed by Maxwell’s gentle reminders of Thomas Everleigh’s own struggles and triumphs? A mere painting could never approach compensation for his guidance and support. She still remembered the way Maxwell had worked to speak, his voice hoarse with feeling as he thanked her for the gift. She’d burst into tears on her first day as his assistant when she saw he’d hung the painting in his office.
Sighing at the memory, she put her things down at her table and moved to the teetering pile of papers on Dr. Maxwell’s desk. Her nose wrinkled as she found two cups of cold tea hidden by a series of files stacked precariously near the edge of the desk. She narrowly avoided sloshing it over a report from 1863 on the “Cultivation of Chinchona in India.”
Nearly an hour passed before the room looked less like a windstorm had passed through and more like a place of study. Saffron sat down at her little desk to begin her work. It wasn’t just secretarial nonsense, but actual research and legwork for his current study. The professor was increasingly fascinated by chlorophyll. Recent work by Richard Willst?tter, a German scientist, had inspired him to investigate the subject further. Saffron was to find any and all references available regarding plant pigmentation and sunlight, and so had been thumbing through all kinds of texts for months. She had designed her own study based on what she’d found, something that would complement Dr. Maxwell’s research and enable her to continue working with him throughout her graduate studies.