The Apothecary Page 0,30

the halls, in my uniform. It was the perfect disguise, and I thought that if I could look like an ordinary schoolgirl, maybe I could be one.

In Mr Danby’s Latin class, I slid unnoticed into my chair. Sarah Pennington swanned in and took her seat in front of me. The boy next to me, I noticed, had his jacket sleeves rolled up, and he had inked an F on the little tag so it said fUTILITY.

Sergei Shiskin wasn’t at his desk, but I told myself he was probably just late. I tried not to think about the man with the scar slinking into the Shiskins’ kitchen and reaching for a knife. I realised we should have told them what had happened to the gardener, to warn them.

There were new quotations from Horace on the blackboard. A pimply boy with a squeaky, breaking voice recited a passage, and my mortification for him almost made me forget we were in danger. While he stammered, I studied the nape of Sarah Pennington’s neck beneath her braid. Her skin was smooth and creamy, I had to admit. And the fine blonde hair that escaped her braid curled silkily behind her small, round ears. But still it was just a neck—it didn’t seem very earth-shattering to me.

Finally the bell rang, and people started to file out. Sarah Pennington gave Mr Danby a thousand-watt smile as she passed his desk. “Thank you, Mr Danby,” she said.

He nodded vaguely. “You’re welcome, Miss Pennington.” Then he turned to me. “Miss Scott, I brought you these.”

He handed me paperback copies of The Portrait of a Lady and Daisy Miller, both by Henry James. The girls in white dresses on the covers seemed very far from anything that mattered, at the moment. But I appreciated the gesture.

“Thank you,” I said, and I felt myself blushing. Sarah Pennington shot me an unforgiving look as she left.

Mr Danby had the sort of eyes that can’t help looking kind. They had wounded depths in them. If he hadn’t been a war hero, he could have been a movie star. In Hollywood, he would have been both. He’d have been discovered at a lunch counter as soon as he got demobilised, and a studio would have engaged him to marry some starlet for the publicity. It seemed very English of him to be a plain old Latin teacher. I realised that we were alone.

“Are you finding London less painful yet?” he asked, erasing the blackboard.

Images of the dead gardener and the terrified apothecary flashed through my mind, but I pushed them down. “School’s okay,” I said.

“And everything else?”

“It’s . . . fine.”

“I don’t suppose I can do anything to help.”

It occurred to me that if I hadn’t told Benjamin about Sarah Pennington’s crush, he might agree that it was worth asking Mr Danby for help. And Sarah Pennington’s crush had nothing to do with anything. Mr Danby was kind and wise, like the gardener, but he was also worldly. Obviously he knew what it was to be in danger, if he’d been shot down over Germany. And he knew the system, in England, in a way my parents couldn’t. I took a deep breath.

“Well,” I said, “there’s this book.”

Mr Danby stood with the eraser, looking puzzled, then said, “Yes?”

“It’s a very rare book, and some people are after it.”

“Which people?”

“I’m not sure.”

“And to whom does it belong?”

“My friend’s father. But he gave it to my friend to protect.”

“And where is his father?”

“We think he might have been kidnapped.”

Mr Danby looked alarmed. “Kidnapped? You’ve spoken to Scotland Yard?”

“No.” I was in too deep here. “We—my friend isn’t sure the police would understand.”

“Miss Scott, that’s . . . you have to tell the police. Has he done something wrong?”

“No!” I said. “It seems like maybe someone was after the book.”

Mr Danby said, “What kind of book?”

“It’s written mostly in Latin. And some Greek. So I thought maybe you could help us understand it better. But my friend doesn’t want to show it to anyone.”

“I see.”

“But maybe I can convince him. If you’re willing.”

“If you like, of course,” he said. “But I really think you should go to the police. Goodness, Miss Scott, I thought you were only having difficulty with the labyrinthine St Beden’s social codes. This seems—well, rather worse.”

When I told Benjamin at lunch about our new ally, he was furious. “You did what?” he said.

“I didn’t tell him anything specific,” I said, flustered by his anger. “But I think he can help us.” We