A Lesson in Chemistry With Inspector Bruce

by Jillian Stone

  “A few scrapes and a bruise or two—hardly an excuse for my churlish behavior.”

  Vivian wrung out a cool cloth and handed it to him. “Sit back and press this over your eyes.” He took the cloth and watched them both exit his office. They glanced back with one of those poor sod, the job’s getting to him looks.

  Archie inhaled a deep breath and exhaled, slowly. He had never been suspicious by nature, but for some reason things niggled at him today. There were three broad explanations for what had happened this morning. The mostly likely answer was that the canister had somehow gone off by itself and the whole incident was due to carelessness or rare happenstance. Secondarily, the flaming projectile had been an act of malfeasance perpetrated by an insider—a disgruntled employee or a traitor. The third possibility was an intruder, who would likely be a person or persons under surveillance by Scotland Yard. Someone who wished to destroy evidence and send a message. This would seem to point the finger at Grey de Ruthyn’s organization. Who else might have known about the contents of the canister?

  Archie pressed the wet cloth to his eyes and tried to think of something pleasant. Five o’clock came to mind.

  Chapter Six

  Frankly, Fiona was still a bit staggered. The very idea that Father had arranged for her to be tutored by her instructor was not only surprising, it was—well, she was certain there was design in it. Father denied it with a chuckle. “My dear Fiona, do you want to pass the major or not? Mr. Bruce showed himself to be quite clever at coaxing the properties of hydrated magnesium silicate out of you—and without a single hesitation, I might add.”

  Fiona twisted a length of copper tubing into a rubber stopper. “Only because he tricked me.” She handed the plug to her father, who placed the stopper in the neck of a flask bubbling above a Bunsen burner.

  “A bit of extra tutoring never hurt anyone, Fiona, besides . . .”

  “Yes, yes, there is no such thing as being overprepared.” She finished his sentence, having often heard his words of wisdom. “All right, Daddy, I shall give it a go, but don’t be too disappointed if his trickery doesn’t work for long. I’m wise to him now.”

  Fiona changed her dress before going out, something she rarely did, and caught the circle line to the Embankment. Exiting the Underground station, she enjoyed a brisk walk to Whitehall, where she easily found the entrance to the closed court off Greater Scotland Yard. Truth be told, she was rather excited about seeing the crime laboratory at the Metropolitan Police headquarters.

  At the base of the stairs she was stopped by a police officer. “State the nature of your business, miss.”

  “I have a five o’clock appointment with Mr.— Inspector Bruce.”

  “And your name, miss?”

  “Fiona Rose.”

  The officer’s eyes narrowed on her—assessing, evaluating. “Wait here, Miss Rose.” The man climbed the stairs and poked his head into an entrance that appeared to be wide open. Shading her eyes from the late-afternoon sun, she noted a few workmen about—replacing panes of broken glass. An explosion, perhaps? One heard about these things happening from time to time in laboratories.

  “Fiona!” Archie appeared at the top of the stairs. “Do please come up and join us. We had a bit of excitement this morning and are still trying to piece things back together.” As she started up the stairs, he explained. “Perfectly safe now—we’re just finishing up preliminary reports.”

  Archie met her halfway up the stairs and briefly described what had happened, beginning with the sizzling hot doorknob that had warned him off—and the rocketing canister full of gunpowder that had blasted open both the door and windows.

  “The last time any of us saw the container yesterday, it was sitting upright on this shelf, waiting to be picked up and taken to a location that I can’t say much about, sorry. Rather a special team of chemists who work entirely on weaponry—explosives mostly—very hush-hush.”

  A battered-looking door with its hinges ripped off leaned against a wall near the entrance. Carpenters working in the vestibule busied themselves hanging a replacement.

  Archie held an instrument in one hand. A brass finished tube with an eyepiece and a number of glass lenses mounted on a polished wooden handle. A microscope, she thought, but a very odd one indeed.

  He noticed her staring at the object in hand. “A friend of mine, Edward Miles Nelson, invented this portable microscope. We use it here at the lab and at crime scenes.” Archie held the device up to the doorknob. “Have a look, and tell me what you see. Take hold of the handle, that’s it.”

  She closed one eye and adjusted the eyepiece. The surface of the metal was pocked with small spots, as if it had gone through a sandstorm—only these were quite large pellets, ten times greater than a grain of sand. She looked up. “The knob appears to be pitted by some sort of substance.”

  “Indeed.” Archie looked up. “What sort of material might cause such markings?” He included his coworkers in the question.

  A tall, gangly worker wearing a lab apron spoke up. “Shot pellets, perhaps, or some other kind of small shrapnel?”

  “Take a look at what we have here.” Another younger man, rather well dressed, sat by a work table covered by sailcloth. “All this debris has been swept off the floor and sorted into piles,” Archie explained. The dapper man stood up and offered his seat to her. “Fiona Rose, please meet Gareth Poynter, my assistant and second in command.” One by one, Archie introduced everyone standing around the table, including a woman chemist, who was wonderfully sophisticated-looking. Or perhaps Fiona was just in awe that a female chemist could land a position at Scotland Yard, and that Archie was progressive enough to hire her.

  “Miss Rose is a student of mine,” Archie explained. “She’s enrolled in the preparatory class at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for the major, which I am teaching. I have also agreed to tutor her privately. In exchange, her father, Mr. Godfrey Rose—noted London chemist—is formulating a pliable rubber compound capable of picking up a fingerprint from nearly any hard surface. Soon we’ll be able to transfer fingerprints back here to the lab, where they can be photographed and used for future identification purposes.” He gave a nod to Gareth. “We’ll be putting our new photography lab to good use next year.”

  Fiona examined the evidence on the table. Most of the piles consisted of glass shards of various sizes. There was a pile of wood splinters from the door. She noted what was left of both door hinges, several piles of dust, which would likely produce samples of gunpowder residue, and lastly, a good-sized pile of small metal balls, the size of shotgun pellets, perhaps slightly larger.

  Archie leaned over her shoulder to have a look. “Blimey, it looks like the canister was some kind of shrapnel shell.”

  Gareth nodded. “Did Agent Gunn happen to know what was inside the canister, besides the guncotton?”

  “Doubtful.” Archie picked up a few pellets and rolled them around on his palm. “He identified the contents as smokeless gunpowder smuggled in from Germany. Finn invited me out to the armament factory in Enfield tomorrow. We seized a number of weapons and two of these shells. He expects to do some ordnance testing, and I mean to get a look inside the remaining shell. I was tempted to cry off the trip, but now I believe I shall tag along.”

  Archie straightened. “Miss Rose will be here for an hour every day for the coming weeks. Please treat her as though she is one of us. If she has a question about a particular instrument or procedure, do your level best to accommodate her.” Archie scanned his staff. “Right, I will expect up-to-date reports Friday morning.”

  Archie led her into his office and purposely left the door ajar for propriety’s sake.

  “This is really quite pleasant.” Fiona pivoted around, taking in the bookshelves and the instrument cabinets. “Not nearly as cluttered or as small as I pictured it.” She approached a large red-colored bloodhound, who rose up to greet her. “And you must be the bomb sniffer,” she cooed.

  “His name is Alfred�
�named after Alfred Nobel, of course.” Archie stood just inside the door. “Take a seat anywhere you’d like.” He walked over to a file cabinet and removed a folder. “I’ve made a few notes about how we might begin your extracurricular tutorial.” He didn’t sit behind his desk but took a chair opposite her.

  “Does this mean I have my own file?”

  Archie looked up from his scribblings. “Indeed, Fiona A. Rose is written on the label.” Resting an elbow on the upholstered chair arm, he cupped his chin and studied her. “You’re looking different today—what is it?”

  Fiona flicked her eyes upward. “I can’t think . . . my hair is different, I suppose. Mrs. Gallagher put a bit of wave in before she made a pouf and pinned the topknot.”

  Archie shook his head slowly. “No. That’s not it.” He tilted his head. “You do have a great mass of waves assembled up there—very pretty, I might add. Is your hair very long?”

  Fiona nodded. “Well down my back when it’s undone. Mother says I should cut some of it off—”

  “Don’t.” The look on his face was adamant, but more than that, he appeared slightly undone himself. “Sorry, I have no idea why I said that. Clearly none of my business. End of a long day, I suppose.”

  He settled back and took another glance at the folder in his lap. “I was thinking we might start with a session that is nothing but rapid-fire questions and short answers. If you have a bad moment, you won’t have a second to think about the block—I’ll just push onto the next question. Shall we?”

  “I suppose it’s worth a try.” Fiona sat up straight.

  “Try to sit back, and calm yourself. It’s just old school chums quizzing each other.” Archie almost choked on the words. “All right then, imagine yourself in your lab behind the shop. Your reaction has oxygen as one of it reactants and carbon dioxide and water as its products. Name the reaction you’re having.”

  Fiona smiled. “Combustion.”

  “Good. And what is a synthesis reaction? Just a sentence will do.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Start by repeating the question, a synthesis reaction is when . . .”

  Fiona blurted out the answer before it stuck in her throat again. “A synthesis reaction is when two or more simple compounds combine to form a more complicated one.”

  “And a decomposition reaction is the opposite, is it not?” The question came from the door. Archie turned toward the feminine voice and scowled. “Yes, what is it, Miss Mowbray? As you can see, Miss Rose and I are in the middle of a brief viva voce examination.”

  “Peter Albright needs a single question answered and the door hanger must have your signature on . . . something.” When Archie rolled his eyes, she shrugged. “I know, but they won’t go away.” She smiled a bit thinly at Fiona. “Would you care for a cup of tea, Miss Rose?”

  Fiona pressed forward in her chair. “Why don’t you see to your business, and I shall take a bit of tea with Miss Mowbray?”

  Archie appeared uncomfortable with the idea but rose from his chair. “Fine.” He stared rather pointedly at Miss Mowbray. “I shall return in a flash.”

  “Come, Miss Rose, let me show you where we keep things around here. Might as well get comfortable with the surroundings.” The teapot, really just a beaker with a filtering flask, was kept steeping atop a metal instrument cabinet.

  “Do you enjoy working here, Miss Mowbray? I find it most progressive of Scotland Yard to have hired a female chemist,” Fiona said.

  Miss Mowbray held the flask by the neck and poured two cups. “Yes, I do believe Archie went to a great deal of trouble to hire me—rather sweet of him, wouldn’t you say? And he has turned out to be a most attentive supervisor.” Miss Mowbray’s gaze traveled across the room to Archie, who was shaking down a fountain pen. “I find him to be a most charming man. Don’t you, Miss Rose?”

  Fiona stirred half a lump of sugar into her tea, feeling slightly intimidated and hating herself for it. Absently, she gazed across the room. At that very moment Archie looked up from his paperwork and caught her eye. He smiled.

  Fiona turned to Miss Mowbray. “Extremely charming, Miss Mowbray.”

  The female chemist tore her eyes off him and fashioned another stiff smile. “You must call me Vivian.”

  THE MOMENT ARCHIE returned to his office, he shrugged into his coat and grabbed his hat. “Fiona, I believe we’re going to have to leave here today, if we mean to get any work done. Can I interest you in a meat pie and pint?”

  Fiona set down her cup. “Study in a noisy old pub? Take me home, Archie. My parents begin a whist tournament tonight. They’re very keen on cards and deadly serious players. There won’t be any supper, but Mrs. Gallagher can whip up a tasty breakfast for us.”

  He held open the door for her. “Breakfast for supper—a favorite of mine. And I shall quiz away at the kitchen table—or in your parents’ study.”

  Just outside Greater Scotland Yard, he hailed a cab. “What about Alfred?” Archie opened the cab door. “Up boy.”

  “We adore dogs at Rose and Company—Mrs. Gallagher especially.”

  Archie stared at her. “But you don’t have any pets.”

  Fiona scooted over and Archie settled in close beside her. “We recently lost our two highland terriers. Father brought them home as pups for my eleventh birthday. Princess Margaret went first and Nelson died shortly after. That was nearly six months ago. Mrs. Gallagher cried for a week when Nelson passed.” Fiona removed a glove to scratch behind a floppy ear. “I do believe Alfred will be fussed over.”

  “Take care—” Archie swept her skirts aside. “Pardon the forwardness, but your dress. I’m afraid he’s a drooler.” The brush of his shoulder against hers as he leaned over to pull her skirts back felt wonderfully intimate, and their close proximity, especially now, with the dog stuffed between them . . . well, there was no way to describe it, but it just felt right.

  “Sorry the laboratory was in such chaos today. Things should settle down by tomorrow. Did you otherwise enjoy yourself? Exploring the lab, meeting the staff?”

  “Very impressive, and I must say your staff seems . . .” She could not help but recall Miss Mowbray’s remarks. “Unusually devoted.”

  Archie nodded, though the look on his face seemed distant and, if she was reading him correctly, worried. “They’re wonderfully energetic and enthusiastic,” he mused aloud. “But the firing off of that shrapnel shell has me concerned. And then there’s the problem of Miss Mowbray. I do hope she didn’t—she wasn’t . . .”

  Fiona felt a twitch at the ends of her mouth. “As I said, your staff does seem unusually . . . admiring.”

  Archie met her gaze directly, then exhaled an exasperated, decidedly masculine sigh. The kind she occasionally heard from her father when Mother was being particularly trying. “I would just like you to know—even though this will seem awkward and . . . premature—whatever transpired between Miss Mowbray and myself is long in the past.”

  Fiona’s heart was pounding so loudly, she could barely hear his words. She was quite sure Archie was implying an interest in her, beyond that of teacher and pupil. A gray dusk had settled over the city and the lamplighters were out and about. Her gaze swept from the street scene to Archie. “It may well be in your past, but I’m not so sure about Miss Mowbray’s.”

  “I will insist she curb her remarks, but I’m afraid I must ask you to pay little mind to what she says in the days ahead.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble of chin beard. “Ouch.” He shook his hand, and turned it palm side up. Fiona peered over his shoulder.

  “Quite a nasty burn,” she said. “I have something wonderful—near miraculous—for that when we get home.”

  Archie grinned. “A secret Rose and Company salve?” Fiona leaned close, to get a better look at the injury. Gently, she traced a finger over the circular outline of red in his palm. “From the scorching hot doorknob?”

  He nodded. “Must be, though I don’t remember it hurting much at the time.”

&n
bsp; “And when might you have thought about the pain? When you were sent flying down the stairs?” She looked up into his lovely dark eyes. “You could have been badly injured, or worse, and I would have . . .” Fiona caught herself before she said something . . . premature.

  Liquid brown eyes glowed in the evening lamplight. “And you would have . . . ?” His gaze dropped to her mouth.

  “I . . . would have . . .” Her voice was barely a whisper. A piece of netting had fallen in her face, which he returned to her hat brim. His body was hard and warm against hers, and so close she could easily detect the subtle mystery of his man scent. They were so very close now, a sudden lurch of the carriage might be all it would take. . . .

  “Kiss me again, Fiona.”

  She taunted him with a narrowed gaze. “If I kiss you now, we won’t be able to keep our minds on schoolwork.”

  “If you don’t kiss me now,” his breath buffeted softly against her lips, “concentration will be impossible.” Then, as if the streets of London had conspired with Cupid himself, the carriage hit a bump in the road.

  Chapter Seven

  Velvet lips pressed gently to his own. And Archie responded to her, deepening the kiss. “Good God, I have missed this mouth,” he murmured. He probed with his tongue, teasing her lips open, and she returned his ardor with a surprising intensity. Her lips brushed back over his as her tongue tangled and thrilled his own, heightening his desire.

  Quite suddenly the carriage stopped.

  Breaking the kiss, his mouth traveled to the tip of her chin and down the hollow of her throat. He swept an arm around her waist and pressed her against his chest—felt the rise and fall of her breasts, heard her soft, sweet moan. Mysteriously, his tongue found a sensitive spot behind her ear and she trembled. Good God, his entire body thrummed with his physical need of her. He’d wanted her for years, and now he held her in his arms again. “It appears we have arrived at Rose and Company, chemists to the tony Knightsbridge set.”