The Apothecary's Poison (Glass and Steele #3)(24)

I was quite impressed that they'd managed to steal the bottle without anyone getting hurt but the lengths they would have gone to worried me. "What about putting it back tonight?" I asked.

"It won't be so hard. The laboratory will be dark and no one will be about down there."

"It'll be locked."

"A locked door never stopped me before. Or Duke, or Willie."

"Or Matt," I added. "Did you learn these skills from Matt's outlaw relatives?"

"They learned that way." He pushed off from the wall. "My education didn't come from my family. It came from being chased all over Nevada by lawmen."

A chill crept down my spine but I didn't shiver or show a sign that his words affected me. I didn't want him to think I feared him, because I did not. He was a good man, and lawmen weren't always honest. Sheriff Payne had proved that.

The brow above his good eye lifted. "Are you going to ask why they chased me?"

"I feel like I'm intruding on your privacy," I said carefully.

He chuckled. "You English are too polite. How do you find out anything about anyone?"

"We gossip about them behind their back."

His rumbling laugh eased my mind. I laughed too.

"I'll tell you another time," he said. "For now, I have a bottle of Dr. Hale's Cure-All to return to a hospital."



The Pitt Medicine Company's shop in New Bond Street had more than ten times the jars and bottles on its shelves than Dr. Hale housed in his office. The labels of some claimed miraculous cures for all sorts of ailments, from headaches to bowel problems and everything in between. There was a surprising number for feminine complaints. If even half worked, the world would be a pain-free place, but having used some in the past, I knew few performed as well as their labels boasted. Pharmacists shouldn't be allowed to get away with such falsehoods.

It wasn't the medicines, ointments and creams that drew my attention, however. It was the long case clock standing by the door like a guard, its pendulum swinging ponderously back and forth. Its rhythm called me, and I went to inspect it. With a frown, I pulled my watch out of my reticule. The clock was three minutes behind.

Matt also had no interest in the medicines. He couldn't tear himself away from the large glass jars on the table containing curiosities suspended in fluid. He bent to inspect a collection of jars, one containing a yellow snake coiled in on itself, another with a claw from an indeterminate beast, and another with the skeletal remains of a rodent-like creature.

I turned away and smiled at the bespectacled man behind the counter where a pyramid of Dr. Hale's Cure-All rose higher than his head. "Good morning. Are you Mr. Pitt?"

"Indeed, I am, madam." He smiled and pushed his spectacles up his nose. He didn't look like a man who'd just lost his business partner. He was mid-thirties with a pleasant if somewhat pale face and eyes of such a light blue that they almost blended into the surrounding whites. "How may I help you and your husband?"

"We're not married," I said. "Mr. Glass is a private inquiry agent, and I'm his assistant." Matt and I had discussed our roles in the carriage and decided a formal approach would work better in this instance, considering all the questions we had.

"Partner," Matt said, tearing himself away from the curiosities. "Miss Steele is my partner, not my assistant. It's a recent promotion and she's not yet used to it."

Mr. Pitt looked as surprised as I felt, although I tried to keep a benignly professional countenance. "Investigators?" Mr. Pitt said. "Is this to do with Jonathon's death?"

"Dr. Hale's, yes."

"I've already spoken to the police. I have nothing more to add."

"Perhaps we'll have different questions," Matt went on, unperturbed.

Pitt returned to unpacking empty jars from a wooden box on the counter. "Do you work for the guild?"

"Which guild?"

"The Apothecary's. Who else?"

"I'm just checking that we're on the same page, Mr. Pitt." Matt's voice was all patience and civility, and Mr. Pitt looked a little ashamed of his own belligerent tone. "We don't work for the guild," Matt went on. "Our employer wishes to remain anonymous, however."

He paused in his task. "Anonymous? Why?"

"It's someone with an interest in seeing justice served. Someone who doesn't have faith in Scotland Yard."

"I see," Mr. Pitt said carefully. "You have me intrigued, Mr. Glass, but as long as it's not the guild, I'll do my best to answer your questions."

Why did he not like the guild making inquiries?

"Do you know who Dr. Hale's heirs are?" Matt asked.

"I do, as it happens." He gave us a flat-lipped humorless smile. "It's me."

"You?" I blurted out. "Does he not have any family?"

Mr. Pitt shook his head. "Not even distant relatives."

"You were close to him?"

"Not really, although he dined at my house, from time to time. My wife felt sorry for him, you see, and she asked him to join us once a week. She thought he was lonely, although I don't think he was. He just didn't care to make friends, and he never married. He never showed any interest. Jonathon was…odd. It wasn't that people disliked him; they simply didn't warm to him. I was the closest thing to a friend he had, so I suppose that's why he left it all to me." He held up a finger. "So he told me, anyway, when he made out his will three years ago. It's entirely possible he made another one since and gave his fortune to someone else. I'll discover tomorrow, when the will is read at his lawyer's office. My presence has been requested."