The Angel of Highgate

14 THE WHITE BLOOM

All that day Algernon rehearsed exactly what he would say to Thraxton. They had been friends for far too many years, and their friendship was far too valuable to attempt to conceal something of this magnitude. He would simply have to tell Thraxton, and let the consequences play out as they may.

But now as the hansom cab clopped along the avenue towards Thraxton’s home on Belgrave Square, he began to have second thoughts. What if Geoffrey flew into a rage? What if he simply took umbrage and turned his back, never to speak to him again? Algernon owed him so much — too much. He regretted putting himself into such a state of indebtedness to another man, and yet it had never seemed that way at the time.

The spiked railings that marked the fronts of the row of houses of which Thraxton’s was one hove into view and his mouth was suddenly dry, his pulse thudding.

Damn it, he thought. I will tell Geoffrey, no matter what the consequences. I will open my heart and inform him that Constance Pennethorne has given me certain signs of encouragement and that I mean to press my suit with her. Yea, that I will marry her, if she would have me.

The cab jerked to a halt outside Thraxton’s residence. But as he paid the driver and stepped down, his resolve began to crumble and dissolve. What if I am mistaken? What if I have misread her signs? Women are wont to flirt, to tease. Many delight in making fools of men.

As he lifted the heavy brass ring clamped in the lion’s jaws and brought it down upon the striker plate several times, his misgivings grew. What if Constance is such a woman? What if I destroy a lifelong friendship for naught?

He heard movement from within, the thunder of footsteps approaching at a run. He was surprised when the door was opened not by Harold, the manservant, but Thraxton himself, his face flushed with excitement. “Good heavens, Geoffrey! Whatever’s the matter?”

Thraxton ignored the question, his eyes falling instead upon the cab which he restrained from moving away with a violent wave. “Proof, Algy!” Thraxton cried. “That’s what the matter is.”

“Whatever are you babbling about?”

“This!” Thraxton said, holding up the white bloom.

Algernon cast the flower a cursory glance, but then looked again, closer.

“What kind of flower is it, Algy?” Thraxton asked.

“Good Lord.” Algernon’s brows knotted in puzzlement. “I don’t know. It may not be from the spirit world, but it is quite unearthly.”

The specimen room at Kew was lined floor to ceiling with cabinets containing wide, shallow drawers filled with plant specimens harvested from the four corners of the earth. Algernon had the white bloom set on top of a cabinet. Next to the bloom he paged through a huge volume filled with exquisite watercolor paintings of different genera of flowers. Thraxton looked over his shoulder as Algernon leafed through the heavy pages.

“I have never seen the like of it. Certain species of cactus have flowers somewhat like this. On the other hand, it does also resemble a genus of tropical orchid.” As he flipped another page, a sudden thought struck him. Without another word he abandoned the book and the white flower and walked over to one of the cabinets and began opening and closing drawers as he quickly surveyed their contents. Solidly in Algernon’s world, Thraxton followed him around in silence.

“Then again,” he said, opening another drawer, quickly scanning the contents then banging it shut and moving to the drawer above, “it is so exotic and exquisite it could be from some far-flung place, such as from the Galapagos Islands. I believe we have a rather spectacular collection… somewhere.”

Not finding what he was looking for, Algernon slammed the last drawer shut and quickly set off, moving deeper into the specimen room, ducking in between rows of tall cabinets, and crossing to the very back of the room where the cabinets reached to the ceiling a good thirty feet and had to be scaled by a ladder that leaned up against them. “Stay there, Geoffrey.”

Thraxton waited passively while Algernon scampered to the top of the creaking ladder and began rummaging through some high drawers near the ceiling. He lifted out one of the blooms and inspected it. “No, these are clearly not the same,” he called down. “The leaves are quite different in structure.”

“What if it really was a spirit, Algy? An angel made flesh?”

Algernon slammed the drawer shut and descended. He threw Thraxton a withering look as he stepped from the ladder. “The only spirit present that night was the spirit you keep in that walking stick of yours.”

“I was not drunk, Algy. I swear I wasn’t. Not one drop passed my — well, all right, perhaps a drop or two — but I was not drunk.”

Algernon stood with his arms crossed on his chest, a hand to his chin as he thought for several long minutes without speaking. “A hybrid!” he announced at last.

“What?” asked Thraxton.

“A hybrid. The flower. It could well be a hybrid. The creation of some clever horticulturist. Perhaps that’s why I cannot find its analogue anywhere in our collection.”

Algernon strode quickly in the direction of where he had left the bloom next to the open catalogue. Thraxton hurried to keep up with him. “If so,” he continued, “it really is a remarkable piece of work. I certainly have never seen the like—” He suddenly stopped. The catalogue lay open on the desk where he had left it, but the white bloom had mysteriously vanished. “It’s gone!”

He and Thraxton exchanged stunned looks.

“I left it right here and now it’s gone!”

“Someone must have taken it,” Thraxton said.

Algernon looked around as if not quite believing what was transpiring. “But you and I are the only ones in this room, Geoffrey.”

Thraxton thought for a second, and then looked up at Algernon. “Perhaps… the spirit?”

Algernon sighed. “Geoffrey, I assure you it was no spirit you saw that night at Highgate, and no spirit who just now took the bloom. Most likely Parkinson or one of the other botanists came in while we were in the back, saw it lying out and put it away in a drawer somewhere.”

Both men looked about. The specimen room was huge and was filled with thousands of drawers. The door from the specimen room led into one of the smaller greenhouses. Through the glass window set into the door, Algernon spotted someone working. He went over to the door and opened it. Mister Greenley, the man who had chased Thraxton with a rake the day of his au naturel romp, was repotting some ferns and looked up when he heard his name called.

“Mister Greenley!”

“Yessir?”

“Mister Greenley, we were just examining a specimen, a flower with a white bloom. It… it seems to have gone missing. Did you see anyone come in here?”

Mister Greenley rubbed at his chin, leaving a smudge of dirt. “No, sir. I’ve been the only one here.”

Algernon’s face registered his disappointment. “Ah, I see. Thank you.”

Mister Greenley continued to stare expectantly.

“Do carry on, Mister Greenley.”

Algernon closed the door to the greenhouse and turned back to Thraxton, a baffled look on his face.

“We will find it, Geoffrey,” Algernon said as he loaded Thraxton into his waiting brougham outside the Palm House at Kew. “The flower will turn up somewhere, I promise you.”

Thraxton settled himself into the seat. Algernon was about to slam the carriage door when Thraxton was struck by a sudden thought.

“Hold on a moment! That chap you spoke to. His name is Greenley?”

“Yes. He is my head gardener.”

“The grave where we found the flower, did you happen to notice the name on the headstone?”

As a scientist, Algernon was rather embarrassed to admit that his powers of observation had been lax. He shook his head.

“Greenley,” Thraxton said slowly. “Florence Greenley.”

Algernon’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? I understand that Mister Greenley is a widower…” He shook his head. The idea was patently absurd. “But I know the man. He is gruff and plain-speaking, but scrupulously honest and a strict teetotaler. Why on earth would he steal the flower?”

“Why indeed?” Thraxton asked, suddenly very suspicious. “Tell me. Do you perchance know where our Mister Greenley lives?”