The Tetrachromat (On HOLD)

Chapter 16. Once You Lie Once

Nikola closed on Miles, black beard bristling, oppressive by the virtue of his size.

The physician shivered. "M-many medicines, including mine own, when administered by an ignoramus—"

Even to my inexperienced eyes, Miles' pallor and shifting gaze appeared suspicious.

"I'm only interested in the ones you have in stock. Or..." Nikola paused—and I could have sworn it was for dramatic effect. "In Giovanni's stock? Did he supply poisons to the Tsarina Maria's court regularly?"

Oh, how subtle!

"It now occurs to me that Giovanni indeed provided the kremlin with a kill-fly caps' tincture. But!"

He had to scream this last but, because Nikola nodded as if to say that he'd heard all he needed to hear.

"But it was to ward off cockroaches and flies in the royal kitchens, not medicine! And... and Giovanni spent an hour explaining to the serving girl how it should be mixed with the bait using a stick and kept away from the cooks and dogs."

"An hour? You don't say! Just how pretty was this girl?" Nikola howled with laughter at his own witticism.

Irritation flickered in Miles' green eyes, since he was hardly in a mood for japes, even at someone else's expense.

"I think they might have been familiar," he said cautiously and glanced at Besson to make sure he was writing his testimony down. "Giovanni gave precise instructions to avoid accidental harm. If someone willfully misused this pest control remedy, it was without his knowledge or insinuation, let alone mine."

"Is that so?" Nikola asked with a sly smile I didn't think he was capable of. "But if misused, could the Italian poison cause an illness such as I've described?"

Miles sighed in resignation. "Yes."

There was something admirable about his candor.

A grin so broad that even his beard couldn't hide it, stretched Nikola's face. "That would be all."

Wait, what? Ask how this serving girl looked like. Besson! I squirmed, sending flares his way, but my only friend hyper-focused on sanding his record, then packing away his spare quills, inkwell and a sharpening knife. Argh!

The other Englishmen caught onto the finality in Nikola's words and called out to Miles with soaring inflections. Before he could interpret their pleas, Nikola sketched a bow with a flourish to the foreigners. It looked about as graceful as a tutu on a bear.

"Farewell, Sirs," he said. "Take yourself off to Moscow or wherever the devil needs you."

Miles didn't include the stuff after the leave into his interpretation, it seemed, because the Englishmen broke into the exclamations of delight. Save for Miles, whose long face remained pensive.

I could understand his anxiety: Miles was minus two masters, and both of them met a violent end in Russia's unpredictable politics. With nobody else to take the fall, he could be next.

What I didn't understand was the abrupt conclusion of the interview, just as it was getting interesting, until my two so-called detectives turned to leave. Then I spotted the likely reason: thirty paces down the street stood Matvei in his resplendent coat. Half-a-dozen of musketeers tagged along with the clerk. Despite their bright-red attire and much more respectable stature, they looked like his shadows.

Dammit, Besson, I bet donuts to dollars that this 'serving girl' was Osip's witch. Why didn't you ask?

Don't cuss.