“I snatched this just before Berking came out. Is this what we were looking for?”
Saffron opened the handkerchief and squinted in the half-light of the alley down at the small, flowered stalk within. “Alexander!” She looked up at him in disbelief. “You found it!”
Saffron cradled the small shoot of aconite in her shaking hands, nearly dropping the handkerchief. Alexander met her hands with one of his, steadying it with warm pressure.
“Adrenaline.” His murmur was quiet and utterly enticing, until Saffron registered what Alexander had actually said.
“Adrenaline?” she repeated.
He dropped her hand. “Adrenaline, you know. The hormone responsible for certain physiological responses in mammals. The fight or flight response. Hyperarousal as a result of a perceived threat. Cannon’s hypothesis states—”
“I see,” she said, fighting a smile. His biology talk was endearing, if not exactly romantic. She held up the handkerchief. “You make quite the botanist, Ashton. Well done. Now what?”
Looking down at her with his small smile, he said, “Now, we find a taxi and hope that no one asks us why we’re covered in dirt.”
* * *
Alexander scrutinized the plant under the glare of the light. It was no more than five inches tall, a pale green stem interspersed with clumps of small purple hooded flowers. Botanical references opened to illustrations and entries covered the small kitchen table alongside the lamp Saffron had removed the shade from. The naked bulb’s light cast harsh shadows on her face, enhancing the smudges of dirt she had missed in her rapid wash-up moments ago.
With a hand cupping her chin, she stared down at one of the illustrations, then back to the specimen from the garden. “It certainly looks like aconite … But it’s not quite right. See here?” She used a pen to indicate the cavernous, violet flowers. “It has clusters of flowers rather than single ones. “Aconitum species have single flowers along the stem. Not to mention the blooms are about three months too early. Aconite flowers in the summer.”
He ran a hand over his face. Now that they were safely settled in Saffron’s kitchen, the late hour and recent nights of poor sleep were catching up to him. “Could this be a different species? One you haven’t encountered?”
“The genus is widespread and varied, so I suppose that’s possible … But this specimen has foliaceous stipules, here.” She gently prodded a pair of leaves from which a stem was emerging, “Yet the entirety of the Aconitum species can be characterized as lacking stipules altogether.” She leaned toward one of the texts and confirmed her statement with a nod. “But the structure of the flower, the hooded opening with clearly defined veins …”
Alexander left her to it. As he watched her lean on her elbows and frown in concentration, he wondered how exactly he’d ended up in a woman’s flat in the middle of the night, covered in dirt, studying a potentially dangerous plant.
He apparently drifted off, hand supporting his head, as Saffron had to rouse him to declare that she was satisfied that what they stole was at least in the same genus as the well-known poisonous species, but she couldn’t absolutely conclude that the plant was a species of poisonous Aconitum. Improvising with what she had in her kitchen, she did her best to preserve the various parts of the plant and tucked it into the ice box.
With utmost solemnity, she said, “Alexander, I think we need to go to Inspector Green and tell him everything.”
“And tell him what?” Alexander wasn’t looking forward to explaining to him how they had gotten the plant.
“That we found Dr. Berking created his very own breed of a highly toxic plant, of course!”
“Is that what this is?” Alexander asked, eying the quick sketch Saffron had done of the plant.
“I can’t think of any other explanation. I’ll have to look at some other references, of course, but a man of Berking’s experience would be able to cross-breed until he got something like this.” She paused, discomfort flashing across her face. She sighed and shook her head, her enthusiasm waning to make her look pale and tired. “I’m not sure what he bred it with, or what chemical properties it has, but the features of aconite are definitely there.”
“Inspector Green will have to send it to a lab to be tested.” Alexander ran a hand through his hair, dislodging a scrap of leaf and frowning down at it. “The results might not be ready before the ship sails. He can’t arrest Berking for breeding a new plant, even if it is poisonous.”