A Lesson in Chemistry With Inspector Bruce (5 page)

Fiona met Archie in front of Rose & Company. “There’s a cabstand across the street at Harrod’s.” She handed him his hat, stack of texts, and seating chart. “Does this mean we have a contract?”

“Indeed it does.” Archie cleared his throat. “Your father proposed some rather unique terms, and since you are named party to those terms, I thought it best to consult you.”

“Very kind of you to think of me, when Father is double-dealing behind my back.” She managed a thin smile. And yes, she was curious. “Well?”

Archie settled his top hat on his head. “Your father recommended a trade. He will formulate a rubber adhesive suitable for the transferring of fingerprints and I will agree to tutor you privately for the major.”

Fiona blinked.

“You will still attend class, of course,” Archie added, “but I shall work with you in your area of difficulty, for one hour at the end of each day, until you take your exams.”

She didn’t know whether to hug Father or scold him. She supposed she looked a bit dumbfounded as her gaze met Archie’s. “And . . . if I don’t pass the oral exam?”

“You will pass the major, Fiona.”

She inhaled a deep breath and somehow managed to look directly into his eyes. “Rather optimistic of you, Mr. Bruce.”

“That is because . . .” His mouth curled upward. “I am fully confident in you,
Miss Rose
.”

He tucked his books and charts under his arm. “So, I shall see you tomorrow at five o’clock sharp. Four Whitehall. Come round the yard to the public stables and take the rear stairs up to the lab.”

She must have appeared nonplussed, because he quickly explained. “Sorry to put the traveling on you, but with my schedule at the moment, the only way to make this work is if you come to me.” He looked at her somewhat shyly. “Of course, I will see you safely returned home.”

Fiona held her breath and pictured the darkened interior of a hansom cab. Archie sitting beside her for the ride back to Knightsbridge. A bit of gaslight from the streetlamp illuminating his dark liquid eyes. His gaze the same as the one that lingered on her mouth this very moment.

She lowered her eyes to his strong mouth and well-defined lips, which twitched every so often when he tried being less expressive. She chanced a thought—was it possible he remembered? Her lips parted, and out of habit, she licked the bottom.

Archie jerked upright. “Thank you, again, for supper.” He stepped away. “I can’t think when the last time was I had a regular meal. Usually take a late-night sup at a pub on my way home.” He tipped his hat.

A bit dazed, Fiona withdrew. “Until tomorrow then.”

Chapter Five

A
rchie retraced a curve of upper lip from memory. It wasn’t hard to recall his mouth moving across the well-defined peaks of her Cupid’s bow. Seeing her again today had brought it all back to him in detail. But then how could one forget Fiona’s lovely and surprising mouth? Her lips were nearly a perfect shape when at rest. But when she opened her mouth to speak or laugh, her mouth became wonderfully supple . . . or pliant. And much more generous than one might imagine. He wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it, he just knew she transformed into the most sensual, delightful temptress—from pixie to goddess in the flash of a smile.

Archie exited King’s Cross Station and hailed a cab. “Up, Alfred.” He left enough slack in the leash for the bloodhound’s jump into the hansom. Archie climbed in after the most valuable nose in Her Majesty’s Empire. “There you are, old boy—glad to be home, I wager.” The dog turned a tight circle on the floor of the cab and rested his large snout on Archie’s knee. Alfred had spent the last two days snuffling through cargo holds and storehouses in Portsmouth. According to the agent who had escorted the dog back to London, Alfred had barked at a passing van and the harbor patrol had given chase. “Crateloads of arms and nearly a hundred pounds of explosives—well done.” Archie gave him a rub behind the ear and felt the gentle thump of the hound’s tail. “You’ll never guess who I ran into today, old boy.” Alfred’s droopy eyes circled upward.

“A Miss Fiona A.—for Aphrodite—Rose.” Archie exhaled a sigh. “I kissed her once—several years ago, when you were a bit more than a pup.” And he had taken shameless advantage of the young lady. He remembered the stolen glances the night of his graduation ball. And how he had entered the gallery looking for her. She had turned to him and inhaled sharply, as though he frightened her a little. He had approached her slowly, and she had released the breath in her lungs—just enough to allow him a glance at shapely breasts and imagine how they might look released from their eighteenth-century corset.

Even now, years later, his body reacted to the memory of those firm mounds bursting forth from the décolleté of her gown. She had introduced herself as Émilie du Châtelet, the brilliant female mathematician and lover of Voltaire. A right smart and sassy one she was—and so very beguiling. Luminous eyes, partially shaded by a mask made of silver feathers, had beckoned him. And he had taken advantage, but not before she had kissed him and opened her mouth—inviting him to explore. Archie looked down at the hound, who was dozing off, head still resting on his knee. “Perhaps she remembers everything and has misgivings,” he mused aloud. “Or perhaps she remembers nothing of me at all.”

Fiona had yet to even mention attending U of Edinburgh. Was she feeling chastened by her behavior—or secretly scandalized by his? Perhaps she was just being pleasant, for the duration, until exams were over. This afternoon, she had invited him to dine with her family. That had to count for something. Still, she might just be looking for another business opportunity for her father. There did seem to be a healthy strain of entrepreneurial spirit at Rose & Company.

Whatever the case, he meant to bring up the subject of their past tomorrow. Fiona might not wish to speak of it at first, but he thought it best to try to clear the air between them—start anew, possibly. A surge of hope, perhaps better characterized as arousal, shot through his body and settled in his manly parts. Archie grinned. “Rather stimulating, wot, Alfred?”

The hound opened his mouth and yawned.

ALFRED LIFTED A leg at the lamppost. Absently, Archie watched the big red dog urinate as he mentally rattled off a number of tests and assignments he wanted to check over before his lab associates arrived at work. It was his practice to arrive an hour ahead of staff so he could read and evaluate the findings from their previous day’s work. “Come along.” Archie tugged gently and entered Greater Scotland Yard. They passed the main entrance of 4 Whitehall Place, headquarters of London’s Metropolitan Police, which included the Criminal Investigations Division and Special Branch. He headed for the closed court behind the government building and started up the back stairs to his lab.

Archie thought about Fiona, again. He was to be her tutor today and he marveled at how invigorating the thought was. Last night he had experienced a number of lascivious thoughts about her, and this morning? The thoughts were still there, though tempered by the fact that he was also very much enamored by her mind, as well. Fiona had made an intuitive connection regarding her father’s rubber adhesive. It seemed she was a born inventor, and scientifically curious. The combination of brains and beauty made Fiona Rose a very, very attractive young lady.

At the top of the stairs, Archie reached for the knob. “Aghh!” He stepped back and shook his hand. The knob was scorching hot. Sensing danger, Archie turned away—seconds moved like minutes—as in a dream. The door blew open in a blast of heat and smoke. He couldn’t be sure what happened after that: the shock wave sent him flying. His hearing cut out. And there was an impression—or a glimpse—of a metallic object as it rocketed through one of the adjacent lab windows. He hit the stair steps with a hard crack to his shoulder. Alfred landed on top of his chest, sending them both tumbling down the steps to the pavers below. Stunned, he didn’t try to move—not at first.

Everything was eerily silent, except for the beating of his heart. A single cloud passed overhead. The sky was clear this morning; it must have rained last night.

Archie recognized two grooms from the stable across the yard. He stared at the youths, whose mouths were moving, but he heard nothing but a ringing in his ears that seemed to grow louder and louder—until he shook his head. He reached for his dog, who moved up against him and licked his face. “Heel, that’s a boy.” Alfred shook his head, flapping his ears. No doubt the hound’s hearing was impaired as well.

The two stable hands checked him over and encouraged him to sit on one of the lower stair steps. As quickly as it left him, his hearing cut back in. “Cock’s bollocks, are ye all right, sir?” one of them shouted in Archie’s face.

Archie nodded a bit and mumbled, “I believe so.” His lungs struggled for air—either the blast or Alfred had knocked the wind out of him. Speaking of Alfred, Archie looked around. The hound was up and about—his legs a bit wobbly, perhaps, but he appeared to be recovering. Overhead, the addition of faces in uniform meant the first Metropolitan police had arrived on the scene. Several officers in dark blue headed toward a scorched canister in the yard.

“Stay away from that—let it burn itself out,” he croaked. Archie squinted at the metal object that had landed in the middle of the courtyard. It looked as if a heavy mortar shell had crashed through the window adjacent to the door—which was impossible. Then it hit him, the canister of smokeless gun powder—guncotton—a substance known to be unstable. He and Gareth had returned to the lab directly from the opium den in Limehouse. Gareth was to have arranged for the transfer of the gunpowder to the shipyard lab in Blackwall. Obviously that hadn’t been done.

Archie tilted his head back to see the lab above. Several windows broken, and the door blasted off its hinges. Not much smoke—as yet. “Director Bruce—are you all right?” One of his lab workers, Vivian Mowbray, pushed through the policemen at the foot of the stairs.

“A few scratches is all, Miss Mowbray.” Archie reached for the handrail, nodding to the men who helped him up. “Officers.” Archie brushed himself off. “Before you call in the fire brigade, shall we have a look above?” He started upstairs slowly, testing his legs, before he quickened his step. By some odd quirk of chance, he still held onto Alfred’s leash and the dog bounded up the stairs with him. Several officers were right behind them.

Archie held his hand up at the entrance. The acrid scent of nitrocellulose in the air caused Alfred to sneeze. Archie handed Alfred’s leash off to one of the officers. “Too much broken glass on the floor. Mind handing Alfred to one of the stable lads? I must ask you all to wait here a moment. Let me have a look about.”

At first glance, the lab appeared surprisingly intact—a table or two of broken beakers, test tubes, and the like. And there was a spot of fire on one of the benches that appeared to be burning itself out. He turned back toward the entry. “Miss Mowbray, could you bring me one of the fire blankets, please?”

“Right away, Mr. Bruce.” The young woman opened a large chest marked with a red cross.

He stepped past a few scattered instruments and took another look around, before he waved the others inside. All dangerous chemicals were stored in the locked cabinets at the far end of the laboratory. Still, there might have been an oversight—even negligence—by one of the lab’s technicians.

“What do you suppose might have ignited the guncotton, Miss Mowbray?”

Glass shards crunched underfoot as, taken aback, she shifted her weight from side to side. “I cannot think of any chemical we leave out that would have caused a combustion reaction, sir.” She swept a lock of his hair back. “You have several scrapes on your forehead and cheek. Might you retire to your office? I’ll get the kit.”

Archie nodded to several lab workers who had drifted into the lab and were surveying the damage. “You can sweep up the glass, but leave most everything else in place on the tables and in the chemical closets. One of you please retrieve the powder canister below—and use gloves and forceps.” Archie pivoted in place, taking silent inventory and mentally checking off possible triggers for the explosion. “Something had to have acted as the primary explosive. The canister didn’t just suddenly ignite on its own.”

Archie wiped a bit of blood off his cheek. “You will all have one hour to examine the lab. Be sure to take notes. Write down anything that seems the least bit irregular, no matter how mundane. I look forward to hearing your speculations as to what occurred here.” Each step crunched as he walked toward his office, but before he closed the door, he turned back. He counted nearly a dozen lab workers. “Consider this to be an official crime investigation, and I expect you to treat it as such.”

Archie slumped into a chair behind his desk. He rubbed his face and grimaced. The scrapes on his chin and cheek stung. He dropped his hands and shifted his attention to a tall stack of reports on his desk.

“May I come in?” Miss Mowbray slipped inside his office and approached him with a swing in her step. “There now, Archie, let me take care of those cuts.” She was using his familiar name—a sly switch she used to goad him on occasion. She washed his cuts with clean water and opened a bottle of tincture.

He closed his eyes. She pushed her way between his legs and leaned over his face. Everything about her seemed too close. Archie leaned further back in his chair. “Just tend to the cuts, Vivian,” he cautioned her.

“Tut-tut, I even brought in the H
2
O
2
—there should hardly be a sting.” She turned his cheek and applied the hydrogen peroxide. “There now,” she crooned, “what’s the matter, Archie?”

He pushed his chair back further. “I could ask the same of you. What’s got into you, Vivian?” Archie stared at the woman. For some time now he had begun to have regrets about hiring a female chemist—particularly in the person of Miss Vivian Mowbray.

She leaned back against his desk and lowered her chin. There was a time when the pout might have worked. He had to wonder, now, if those bowed lips had played into her hire as a chemist for Special Branch. He had actually gone to Melville and argued in her favor—it took a special waiver to hire a female, as her title would technically be Inspector Mowbray, Metropolitan Police, a sworn law enforcement officer. He had asked for a waiver and had received it, because for all Miss Mowbray’s inconvenience, she was both a licensed coroner and a chemist—doubly qualified for the position.

He had been lonely his first year in London. Even at Oxford he had had colleagues and friends there from U of Edinburgh. Vivian had been a distraction from that loneliness. The affair had been brief and over for many months now. Vivian was reported to have a new beau she was quite enamored with. So why all this sudden attention? Archie broke off his gaze. “What’s bothering me, Viv? Not half an hour ago, my lab was nearly blown to pieces. I have no idea what might be happening here. Not a who or why—or how.” He raked a hand through his hair. “And to top it off, Gareth might have been negligent again.”

A troubled look passed between them. “You believe Gareth might have had something to do with the gunpowder going off?” She looked over her shoulder, checking to make sure no one had entered his office.

“Not purposely, of course. I did use the word ‘negligence.’”

“Actually, you used two words: ‘negligent . . . again.’”

As if in answer to Vivian’s concern, a sharp rap at the door caused her to jump. Gareth stuck his head in. “Archie, what the devil goes on here?”

He stared at his assistant. “Shall we begin with why a canister containing a highly volatile gunpowder was left in the lab overnight?”

“I didn’t lock up last night.” Gareth approached cautiously. “Before you go off on me, you might have a word with Freddy Manners. I gave him the keys and specifically told him to wait until someone came from Blackwall.”