by C. J. Archer
"But what if she confides in someone and they use the information against you in some way? Her father, for instance. Lord Rycroft may be your uncle but I don't like him."
"I don't like him either, but, as you say, he is my uncle and he ultimately wants what's best for me. He's on my side simply because I'm the Rycroft heir. The family title must continue and all that."
"You have more faith in him than I do. I agree that family and the title are very important to him, but you are not the lord yet, and he seems to resent the title going to his brother's American son."
He looked pained, and I instantly regretted my directness. I don't know what had come over me lately. I'd turned into quite the opinionated mule. "I doubt Hope will tell him anything about what she saw today," he said. "It's not like anyone would believe her if she claimed to witness my watch glow and my veins turn purple."
True, but my fears were not allayed. His secret was best kept among ourselves. I picked up the clock, my arms straining under its weight.
"Allow me." Matt took it off me. The clock made a whirring sound then silenced. He stared at it. "Should it be making that noise?"
"No." I checked that it still kept correct time against my watch. It seemed fine and didn't whir again. "Perhaps it likes you."
"Or perhaps it's protesting leaving your hands," he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. He set the clock on the mantel and centered it beneath the painting of a Glass ancestor above. "I think this clock is now my favorite in the entire house."
"Because it made a whirring sound?"
"Because we understand one another."
"It's a clock, Matt. It doesn't understand anything."
The clock whirred again and chimed once. I hurried from the room, not because of the clock, but because I didn't want Matt to see how his flirting made me blush.
We managed to be shown in to Dr. Ritter's office by lying to the nurse at the front desk. We claimed to be relatives of the man who'd died under Dr. Wiley's care. Dr. Ritter agreed to see us immediately.
"You!" he snapped when we walked in. "Get out at once!" He attempted to shut the door, but Matt wedged himself into the gap and forced it open.
"Dr. Ritter, we just have a quick, discreet question," he said. "Who did you sell Dr. Hale's medicines to?"
Dr. Ritter shrank back then, sighing, retreated behind his desk. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You sold Dr. Hale's personal medicine collection to someone. Who?"
He collected a stack of papers and shuffled them. "You're mistaken."
"So if we enter Dr. Hale's office now, we'll still find jars and bottles on the shelves?"
"Of course not. Everything in his office was sent down to the storeroom or dispensary. His personal effects were returned to his business partner, Mr. Pitt."
Matt leaned over the desk. "You're lying."
Dr. Ritter scooted his chair back as far as it would go. "Mr. Glass, if you don't leave now, I'll report you to Detective Inspector Brockwell. He assured me that your investigation was not sanctioned by him and that you are not working with him. I suspect he would happily arrest you." He shot Matt a triumphant look from his distant position.
I wrapped my hand around Matt's arm but didn't have to say anything. He turned and marched off, waiting for me to catch up at the door.
"That's your idea of discreet?" I said as we headed back along the corridor.
"If you think sweetness will lure him into answering, then be my guest and try."
We found Dr. Wiley in his office down the hallway, his head in his hands and an open medical text in front of him on the desk. I felt a little sorry for him. He'd not had a good week, what with pronouncing one patient dead only to have him brought back to life by a rival, then having another patient die under his care and the widow accuse him of negligence.
"Dr. Wiley," I said gently before Matt could fire questions at him. "Are you all right?"
Dr. Wiley lowered his hands. He looked awful. Indeed, he looked like Matt did when he needed a rest. His thin gray hair was disheveled, his eyes red-rimmed and the wrinkles across his forehead had multiplied and deepened. He groaned upon seeing us. "Miss Steele, Mr. Glass, what are you doing here?"
"We came to speak to Dr. Ritter," I said. It wasn't a complete lie but I thought it might make him relax enough to talk to us if he thought we weren't interested in him.
His shoulders did lose some of their tension. "Ritter," he said with a bitter twist of his mouth.
I waited for him to go on, or for Matt to ask his questions, but neither spoke. "Has something happened between you and Dr. Ritter?" I prompted. "You seem a little…upset."
"And rightly so!" He tapped his chest. "I have been a surgeon for over thirty years, Miss Steele. Thirty! Ten of those at this hospital. I ought to be respected." He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a silver flask. "If I'd been made principal surgeon, this hospital would never have employed the likes of that jumped up pharmacist in the first place."
"You mean Dr. Hale?" I asked, all innocence.
He took a sip from his flask but it mustn't have been enough to fortify him, because he drank more. "Of course I mean Hale. Everything began to unravel after he came here. Everything!"
"It seems to me that you've been treated most unfairly, Dr. Wiley," I said, approaching him. "Anyone can see that you work hard. And if it's any consolation, I think most of the staff appreciate you."
"Not Ritter," he muttered into the flask. "Not after…after my patient died and his widow…well, I won't bore you with the details."
"I did hear about it," I said, resting my hand on his arm. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matt nod for me to go on, so I followed my instincts and perched on the edge of Wiley's desk. "And I believe that patient used to be Dr. Hale's?"
Wiley nodded. "Hale misdiagnosed him, not me. The odd thing is, despite the misdiagnosis, Hale managed to keep him alive. According to the chart, the medicine Hale prescribed shouldn't have worked on either the condition Hale thought he had, or the one he actually died of. And yet the fellow hung on."
I did not look at Matt for fear that my face would give me away to Wiley. But I was sure now that Hale had prescribed magical medicine to his patient, enough to alleviate his symptoms and pain as his condition deteriorated.
Wiley sipped from his flask again, but finding it empty, tossed it on the desk with a click of his tongue. "Try telling any of that to Ritter. Since the patient died under my care, I must be responsible, so he says."
"And the widow didn't believe you either," I said.
"That old dragon. It's her fault I'm in an even bigger hole than I would have been. Have you ever noticed, Miss Steele, how some women become crosser and fiercer as they get older? Don't get old, Miss Steele. Stay young and pretty and kind." He patted my hand and his eyes turned watery.
"Dr. Ritter will forgive you in time," I assured him. "Speaking of Dr. Ritter, do you know who he sold Dr. Hale's personal medicine collection to?"
He lifted one shoulder. "I don't know, and I don't care. Ask him."
"We did and he wouldn't say."
He frowned. "Why wouldn't he tell you? There's no reason for that sort of thing to be kept private."
"He said all of Dr. Hale's things were taken to the dispensary or store room. He claims not to have sold anything."
He frowned harder. "Dr. Hale's collection was so large, there wouldn't be room for all of those bottles in the store room. I wonder why he refuses to admit he sold them."
"Dr. Wiley," Matt said, speaking for the first time.
Dr. Wiley blinked slowly at him, as if he'd just realized he was present. "Yes?"
"Cast your mind back to the afternoon Dr. Hale died."
Dr. Wiley picked up his flask and shook it. Finding it still empty, he set it down on his desk again. "If I have to."
"You checked on a patient in your ward then went home. Do you remember that?"
"I think so," he hedged. "Why?"
"You wrot
e the time as five fifty-five on the patient's chart, but one of the nurses who came after you wrote the time as five forty-five. How can that happen if you were first? And before you attempt to lie to us, let me warn you that we've spoken to the nurse and she's adamant that she wrote the correct time and that you had already left the hospital."
Dr. Wiley swallowed. "I-I can't recall. I suppose I simply made a mistake."
"You seem to make a lot of them."
Dr. Wiley folded his arms over his chest. "Your point?"
"My point is, you could have killed Dr. Hale or you could have simply lied in order to leave early."
"I didn't kill him! My god, man, I know I've made mistakes lately, but I haven't deliberately killed anyone in my life! What do you take me for?"
"For a man who is skating on thin ice. If Dr. Ritter finds out you lied on a patient's chart, that'll be another strike against your name."
Dr. Wiley half rose from the chair, only to fall back heavily, as if he didn't have the energy to confront Matt face to face. "Don't tell him," he said. "Please. I can't afford to look for another job at my age. I'm tired, and I just wanted to go home a few minutes early that evening. That's all."
Matt nodded, and I thought that was the end of it. I rejoined him on the other side of the desk and headed toward the door. He did not follow.
"If you want me to keep your secret," Matt said to Wiley, "then find out who Dr. Ritter sold Dr. Hale's medicines to."
Dr. Wiley stared at Matt. Matt glared back at him, his face as uncompromising as I'd ever seen. Like Dr. Wiley, he too was at the end of his tether, but it manifested in anger, not resignation.
For a moment, I thought Dr. Wiley would refuse, but then he nodded. "I'll do my best."
"Send word to me at sixteen Park Street, Mayfair, when you learn something," Matt said.
We made our way through the hospital and outside. Matt insisted on exiting first and making sure no one accosted him before allowing me to follow. Until this investigation was over, he would remain cautious.
"You were very severe with poor Dr. Wiley," I said as we drove off.
"We need answers and we need them quickly to get this investigation over with. If that means pushing harder and stepping on toes, then so be it. Besides, he is still a suspect."
"I believe him when he said he didn't do it."
I half expected Matt to tell me I was too trusting or not a very good judge of character, but he said nothing. Perhaps he didn't want to hurt my feelings again.
Matt dined with his aunt at her friend's house, and I retired before they returned home. He slept late the next morning. So late, in fact, that Duke went to check on him at ten.
"He just woke," he announced upon his return to the sitting room.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Willie muttered a prayer under her breath.
"He's getting worse," Cyclops said from his position by the window. "He tires quicker and he's got that look about him like he had after Doc Parsons stitched him up and before he believed in the watch's power."
They'd told me the story of those days after Dr. Parsons and Chronos combined their magic into Matt's watch, and how he refused to consider that it could keep him alive. He became terribly ill and would have died if Willie, who'd witnessed the surgery and initial magic, hadn't pressed the watch into his palm as he lay dying.
Willie buried her face in her hands, her fingers digging into her hair. "We've got to find Chronos."
"We're waiting for him to return to the Cross Keys," I reminded her.
"All this waiting! It makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork."
Duke pushed up from the chair where he'd thrown himself and marched to the door. "I'm going to Worthey's factory in Clerkenwell. Maybe Chronos will show up again."
"And I'm going to the Cross Keys," Cyclops said.
Willie followed them out. "I ain't sitting here doing nothing, either."
I was tempted to join them, but the investigation needed to continue.
Matt finally came down and apologized for his tardiness. "It was a late night," he said.
"Was the dinner enjoyable?"
"It was, surprisingly. Aunt Letitia has an eclectic circle. I find there's usually someone interesting to talk to, and last night was no exception. I discussed archaeology with a gentleman who funds digs and collects Egyptian artifacts."
I smiled despite the hollowness that opened up inside me. It wasn't jealousy. He hadn't even mentioned speaking to any women. No, it was the emptiness that came from being left out, of wishing I'd heard what the gentleman had to say, too, and of not being at Matt's side. I'd grown so used to investigating alongside him, traveling everywhere together, and discovering new things with him, that I felt the exclusion keenly.
"I wish you could have been there, India," he said. "You would have found him interesting too."
I concentrated on the papers I'd been staring at most of the morning. It was a contract for a small house on the edge of London that I was considering purchasing. The papers had arrived in the morning's post, but the legal jargon was so complicated that I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I gave up and glanced at Matt, catching him trying to sneak a look at the papers.
"It's for that house," I told him. "The one in Willesden."
"You really are considering purchasing it? Good for you, India. It's in a great location, near the station and in a quiet street. It'll be easy to rent out to a family where the husband works in the city. I think it's a solid investment for your reward money."
I didn't tell him I was thinking about living in it myself. I could still commute to Mayfair every day to work with him or be with his aunt, and it would provide me with an income if he returned to America, as I could rent out the spare room. I had to think about my future, and the house was far too good to let go. I had to think about the present too, and how awkward it was living in the same house as him, particularly in the evenings when his aunt had gone to bed and we spent quiet moments together or happened upon each other in a dark corridor. The longer I remained at number sixteen Park Street, the more danger I was of falling further in love with him. So much further, in fact, that I worried I could not untangle myself when he found himself a wife or…or died.
"Will you look over these papers with me later?" I asked. "I feel as though I need a law degree to understand them."
"Of course. And if it's all in order, I'll have my lawyer finalize arrangements for you."
"Thank you, Matt. That's very generous of you."
"Generous?" He frowned. "India, it's nothing."
Peter the footman entered and announced the arrival of a visitor. "There's a Dr. Wiley to see you, sir. Shall I escort him to your study?"
"I'll see him in here," Matt said. Once Peter left, Matt addressed me again. "If ever you need anything, just ask. I'm happy to help you. In fact, I need to help you."
Need? That was an odd thing to say. He must have thought so too, because his frown deepened and did not disappear until Dr. Wiley entered. The doctor clutched his hat in both hands and gave me a nervous little bow.
"G-good morning," he said. "Lovely day today."
"It does seem pleasant," I said with a glance at the window.
"You have something for me?" Matt asked.
Dr. Wiley cleared his throat. "Y-yes."
"Then please sit," I said, shooting Matt a stern glare at his inhospitable behavior.
Matt settled his feet a little apart and his hands behind his back. When I realized he wasn't going to sit too, I glared even harder at him. He finally relented and sat.
"Go on, Dr. Wiley," I prompted.
"I had to wait for Dr. Ritter to leave his office and look through his papers," the doctor said. "I didn't like doing it, mind, but you left me no choice, Mr. Glass."
Matt didn't bat an eyelid at the accusation. If his form of blackmail bothered him, he didn't show it. "To whom did he sell the medicines?" Matt asked.
"To Mr. Clark from the Apothecary's Guild."
Clark! Oh my.
"Why did Clark want them?" Matt asked.
"I don't know, and I don't care. I do care that the documents for the sale were hidden and not on official hospital letter-headed paper. One must assume that Dr. Ritter profited personally. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with members of the hospital board."
"You're going to inform them of Dr. Ritter's activities?" I asked.
He slapped his hat on his head and smiled. "I'm glad we were able to help one another out, Mr. Glass."
"So am I." Matt shook his hand.
I tugged on the bell pull, and Bristow arrived to escort Dr. Wiley back down the stairs. "Good luck with the meeting," I said.
Dr. Wiley smiled and bowed. "Good day, Miss Steele."
"Well," I said, turning to Matt after the doctor left. "That turned out rather well for him in the end."
"And you doubted my methods." Matt clicked his tongue and a playful smile flirted with his mouth. "Have a little more faith in your partner, India. Sometimes I even know what I'm doing."
"Don't pretend that the outcome was according to plan, Matt. You didn't care a whit for Dr. Wiley's predicament."
"That's not true. I cared, I just didn't do anything about it. To be honest, I didn't think he'd go through with spying for us. I'm surprised that he did and found what we needed. I'm even more surprised that he's going to use the information for his own benefit. I didn't think he had it in him."
I settled my hand in the crook of his arm and walked with him to the staircase. "You're admitting that you misjudged someone? Well, well, this is a day to mark in our calendars."
He chuckled. "Are you ready to visit Clark now?"
"I certainly am. I want to know why he's interested in those bottles since his guild is against magic."
Chapter 14
The porter at the Apothecary's Guild hall must have been told not to let us in if we visited again. He slammed the door in Matt's face.
Matt hammered it with his fist. "Inform Mr. Clark that if he doesn't speak to us, we will take our information to the police!" he called out. "I'm sure they'll be very interested to know he bought a murder victim's medicine collection."