His entire body was paralyzed? What if the blue lines didn’t recede or there was lasting damage?
“Alexander,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t tried to—”
Alexander’s eye, still closed, twitched. Saffron gasped and called louder in his ear, “Alexander, if you can hear me, I’m here. Please wake up!”
Hoping she hadn’t imagined it, she leaned against his chest, waiting for him to move. Her eyelids, heavy from all her exertions and illness, closed.
* * *
With every step across the wet green, Simpson begrudged the inspector sending him off to tap on dark, locked doors at the university. To be honest, he hadn’t wanted to hang around the station either; it was currently overrun with criminals from the mass arrest earlier, and endless sleep-deprived officers ready to snap at a lesser officer without call. Even Inspector Green had lost his temper at him.
Simpson and the officer he’d snagged to come with him, Giles, stepped up to the center entry of the North Wing. If Saffron Everleigh was on campus, this is where she would likely be. Perhaps they’d find her in the arms of Mr. Ashton, as the inspector seemed to think they were a couple. Simpson would be terribly embarrassed if that was the case. One didn’t just walk in on things like that, even if one was a policeman.
They waited only a moment for the university caretaker with the keys to meet them, and once the door had been unlocked, Simpson and his deputy climbed up the dark stairs, using their torches for illumination. They made their way toward the only office with a light on within. From his scrawled notes, Simpson saw it belonged to Alexander Ashton. Dread filled him; he really was about to interrupt something, wasn’t he?
Giles glanced at him with a raised brow. Simpson straightened up, recalling how the inspector was never embarrassed, even when he had to ask questions that made Simpson’s toes curl in his boots.
Simpson knocked smartly, but there was no reply. He tried the door and found that the tidy office was deserted. He didn’t let Giles see the relief on his face.
He and Giles turned and strode down the hall toward the other office, Dr. Maxwell’s. He knocked, and at no reply, tried opening the door to the unlit office. It was locked. Simpson screwed up his face and cursed his inspector. He was about to break down a door and no doubt find Mr. Ashton entangled with Miss Everleigh and be in all sorts of trouble. Sighing, he motioned for his man to move aside. He should have told the caretaker to stick around. Using the technique he’d mastered after being caught out without a key one too many times, he kicked the door open, keeping the frosted glass panel intact.
Inside, Simpson did indeed find Mr. Ashton and Miss Everleigh entangled on the floor, but in a very different way than expected. Giles flipped the light switch, and Simpson rushed to Mr. Ashton, whose eyes were narrowed against the sudden glare of the lights.
“What happened?” Simpson gasped, noting Saffron Everleigh next to him, eyes closed and motionless.
Alexander Ashton’s brow was damp with sweat and his breathing labored, but he managed to say “Bin.”
“What? Bin?” Simpson was confused and looked up at the other officer, whose mouth was agape as he scanned the wrecked office.
“Get me a bin, man!” Ashton groaned. The young deputy snatched up the waste bin and put it under him just in time. Simpson helped him up and held him in place for several minutes while he retched. He was heavy and seemed not to be able to hold himself up.
As Mr. Ashton was ill, Simpson told his deputy to call for the inspector and a doctor from University College Hospital across the street.
“Mr. Ashton, what happened here? What’s wrong with Miss Everleigh?” Simpson demanded weakly, lowering the oddly slack man back down onto the floor.
“We’ve been poisoned by Berking and Blake,” he managed, gulping breaths. “I’ll be all right for a moment. Get Miss Everleigh off the floor.”
Simpson blinked at Mr. Ashton’s pronouncement, then dashed into the hall and shouted to Giles to include that information in his message to the inspector. He returned to the room and, his nose wrinkling as he stepped between the pools of sick to pick her up, brought Miss Everleigh to the couch.
As he set her down, noting proudly that he’d managed to carry her without too much effort, he caught sight of her hands. “What the blazes is this about?”
“From the poison,” Mr. Ashton replied. “Can’t move when they’re present. Paralyzed.”
Simpson looked from Miss Everleigh, whose arms were covered in blue marks, to Mr. Ashton. He rushed to his side, gaping at his neck. “Y-your neck—”