An elegant woman across the table seemed to be the exception. She was watching Dr. Henry and his dinner companion from the corner of her eye, black hair framing a slightly older face with sharp, dark eyes. The man she was speaking to, a professor of ecology, was talking on and on without noticing his audience was preoccupied. Given the withering look she gave the woman in black and Dr. Henry, Saffron guessed the older woman was Mrs. Henry.
Mr. Ashton was seated at the far end of the table, in conversation with a serious-looking young man. The man he spoke to could have been on the university’s staff, though it was hard to be sure. Blond and pleasant-looking, he closely resembled the masses on campus.
Mr. Ashton noticed her looking at him and smiled slightly. Saffron briefly returned his smile and looked away. In her experience, it was best not to encourage her colleagues.
Dr. Berking had, at last, made his appearance, but sat far to the other end of the table, out of Saffron’s sight. Saffron sat next to Dr. Maxwell, far down the table near Lady Agatha, Sir Edward’s wife. Full of recent discoveries, plans for publications, and university news, the conversation surrounding her distracted her from Berking’s odious presence. Saffron mostly listened, hungry for further details about the expedition and what the researchers would do while they were there. The trip had been announced just a month ago, giving the departments hardly any time to prepare.
Harry Snyder, Dr. Henry’s assistant, was seated on her other side. With small brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and thin lips that emphasized his large, impeccable teeth, he looked rather like a rodent. His demeanor, skittish and reticent, matched his mousy appearance.
“Mr. Snyder, will you be joining Dr. Henry on the expedition?” Saffron asked.
“Yes,” Snyder replied, his eyes not leaving his plate.
“I understand Dr. Henry visited both India and Spain in the last few years. Have you accompanied him on previous expeditions?”
To this, Snyder only nodded, his black hair slick with pomade bobbing over his plate. Saffron considered her own plate of delicately cut roast beef, wondering if the meal was really that interesting or if Harry Snyder really didn’t want to speak with her.
“What do you do for Dr. Henry while abroad?” she asked.
Snyder frowned at her from behind his glasses. “Assist him, of course.”
Saffron sighed into her water glass. Dr. Maxwell was occupied in a conversation with another professor on her other side, and so Saffron continued extracting answers from Snyder, like pulling sore teeth.
“For how long will the team be gone? I’ve heard it’s sure to be more than six weeks, but no longer than four months.”
Snyder glanced down the table to where Dr. Henry was still entertaining the woman in black. “The plan is to be in Brazil for five months, with two weeks of travel time on either end.”
Saffron raised a brow at the cagey way Snyder spoke and, matching his hushed voice, asked, “What sort of work requires the team to be gone for so long?”
He bit his lip, eyes darting down to Dr. Henry once again. “Five departments have representatives going, in addition to those who are going to complete data collection independently.”
Saffron was coming to enjoy taunting Snyder with her questions. He seemed to think it all a big secret, and Saffron loved uncovering secrets. She added, “Where, precisely, are you going in Brazil?”
Snyder looked torn. He patted his mouth with his napkin, then examined his wineglass as he said, “I don’t think I can … er, well, I shouldn’t say …” When it became clear Saffron would continue to look at him expectantly, her eyes wide and inviting, he cleared his throat. “We’ll be focused mostly on the mouth of the river and Marajó Island. Keeping close to civilization, that is.”
“Why is that, Mr. Snyder? Certainly a lot of exploration has already been done in that part of the world. Alexander Van Humboldt sent back nearly fifteen thousand species from his travels. And he was hardly the first nor the last to explore there.”
He looked mildly affronted, his hesitation to speak on the subject evaporating. “Not everything about an area can be learned in one go. Besides, if you’ve had the benefit of examining a map, you will find that Venezuela is quite a distance from Brazil.”
With patience she didn’t feel, Saffron replied, “What I mean is that the Amazon, which extends far beyond the limits of Brazil, has been a focal point of exploration for hundreds of years. Has Dr. Henry been in contact with Percy Fawcett? His descriptions of the lost city of Z are fascinating. It sounds like a terrestrial Atlantis.”