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The apothecary continued to select bricks of soap without turning around. “Anything could be a poison if used incorrectly. If Lady Cranfield ate this cake of lye soap, it could make her sick enough to die.”
“How about arsenic, ratsbane, henbane, and nightshade?” Greer asked, ignoring Lucy’s silently waving hands.
Wendel turned around, and she dropped her hands. “All things that have another purpose other than poisoning. Aye, I have them. Arsenic is part of a remedy for syphilis when the typical mercury elixir and ointment don’t work. ’Tis in ratsbane as well.”
“Have you by chance sold any recently,” Lucy asked. She set a penny on the counter. “Arsenic or ratsbane?”
Wendel scooped it up, pocketing it. “There was a man a week ago. Came in dressed like a servant but with a hood hiding most of his face. Said he must treat the disease.”
“Did he purchase other ingredients of the cure or the arsenic alone?” Greer asked.
“Said he had the other ingredients, although he hadn’t gotten them from me.” The old man wrinkled his nose. “I detected an Irish accent but couldn’t be sure.”
Lucy set another penny down. “Do you remember what he looked like besides the hood and clothes and possible accent?”
Wendel pocketed the coin and shrugged. “Had brown hair from what hung out of the hood. He was much taller than you, Lady Lucy. More like the Scot. Thin chap though. Shaved chin.”
Lucy looked to Greer, who wore his baby-bird-eating frown. “And he gave no name?” Greer asked.
“Nay.”
Lucy clinked a third penny down on the man’s counter. “If he comes again, please send a runner around to Whitehall. It may be a matter of treason, and Lord Walsingham would reward you for certain.”
He bobbed his head. “I will, milady.” He slid his hand over five chunks of soap. “Be there anything else for you this festive day? Some ceruse to hide the skin perhaps?”
Lucy had bought the white makeup to hide her marks whenever she’d gone home to visit her mother. Never again would her mother inspect her, so she didn’t need it. “No, but some of the queen’s favorite rose and musk scent,” she answered. “A gift for the New Year.”
“Certainly,” he said, fetching a glass vial, and she laid out the proper payment for the gifts.
“Thank you and a very happy New Year to you,” Lucy said.
“And to you, milady.” Wendel frowned at Greer. “Not to you, though.”
Lucy tugged Greer’s arm to get him to follow her back outside. “You don’t know how to question people very well,” she said.
“I’m certain the prejudiced bastard knows more,” Greer said.
“And I’m certain he wasn’t going to tell you more even if I poured all my coin onto his counter.”
His gaze followed a cloaked man walking down the bridge. “He described Jasper Lintel.”
“Possibly,” she said.
Greer grabbed her hand and began to pull her after him. “Did ye see that man?”
“In the cloak?”
“Aye.”
“No.”
Greer had to slow or trample an old woman whose width took up the entire center of the narrow path. “He stopped in the flow of people as if to come to the apothecary,” Greer said without looking back. “He was tall and thin and had red hair.”
“Can you still see him?”
“Nay.” The heaviness of the word made her shake off his tether.
“Then go get him.”
