arah stood on Princes Street, peering through the window into Duncan and Flockhart’s. She was choosing her moment carefully, and as she waited for the opportunity she required, she worked on composing herself, because for the first time in her life, she was about to commit a crime.
She was not going to steal anything, merely borrow without leave, but by the borrowing she intended to facilitate a trespass upon this property. Technically, this would be a burglary, albeit one in which, again, nothing would be taken save information. Nonetheless, though there would be no theft and no damage, she would not wish to find herself explaining it to anyone, least of all McLevy. It might be enough to see her in jail, and would be more than enough to see her dismissed.
Duncan and Flockhart were the primary manufacturers of chloroform throughout Edinburgh. Every doctor using it was buying their supplies from here, where their purchases were recorded in the druggist’s ledger. Raven had enquired of Mr Flockhart whether he might see who had been ordering the stuff, feigning a curiosity regarding the uptake of the new anaesthetic agent, but Flockhart had told him the ledger had to remain confidential. When it came to the purchase of drugs, customers needed to be able to rely upon their suppliers’ discretion. Yet one of those customers was Madame Anchou’s mysterious confederate, and very possibly the man who had murdered Rose Campbell.
‘I need to see that list,’ Raven told Sarah, almost uncontainable in his frustration. ‘But how can I do so if it is locked safe in their keeping?’
‘Every lock has a key,’ Sarah had replied. ‘It is simply a matter of acquiring it.’
‘I would not be able to locate it, far less procure such a thing unnoticed.’
‘A set of keys hangs from a hook on the wall behind the counter, just to the right of the cash register. They are in the charge of Ingram, the assistant. I have heard him talk of how he opens the shop and prepares the premises before the Misters Duncan and Flockhart arrive.’
‘And how do you propose that I lay my hands on them unseen?’
‘I do not propose that you lay your hands on them at all. For such a task you require a person to whom nobody pays any notice. Such as a housemaid.’
Watching through the window, she observed what she expected: Mr Flockhart tending to some matter at the counter, assisted by the smug and dim young runt whose suitability for employment here was considered greater than hers by virtue of what dangled between his legs. Mr Duncan was, as usual, not to be seen, busying himself in the laboratory towards the rear of the building. Mr Flockhart was the more garrulous of the pair, and therefore more frequently the public face of the partnership.
In time, she saw Mr Flockhart slip out of sight too, either to the lab or one of the storerooms. She knew from experience that he was happy to let Ingram deal with customers of lesser standing, such as a maid running an errand. If someone important came in, the lad would fetch his boss.
This was her moment.
As she stepped through the door and the bell rang, Sarah felt it trilling right through her. She was jangling with tension. She didn’t only feel it in a quickened heartbeat and a tightness in her gut; her fingers tingled, her elbows, her knees. It was manifest in a heightened state of perception affecting all sensations. The colours in the room seemed brighter, the smells more distinct, the sounds sharper.
She wondered if this was down to a pronounced awareness of all that she stood to lose should she be caught. Never would she be allowed in this shop again. She would be thrown out of the household, in fact, and what future would be open to her then? Sarah became privately angry whenever someone suggested she should be grateful for her job as a housemaid, but she knew there were worse fates. Nonetheless, there was someone in this city who saw housemaids and other young women as disposable, and she was resolved to see their wickedness unmasked.
‘Can I help you, young lady?’ the assistant asked.
She wanted to swat him for that. She estimated she was at least a year older than him, possibly two.
‘I require some items for Dr Simpson.’
‘Dr Simpson of Queen Street?’
This annoyed her too. He was verifying whose account should be billed, even though he saw her at least twice a week. Either he was acting as though he didn’t recognise her or he genuinely didn’t recognise her, and she wasn’t sure which one was the greater insult.
‘Indeed.’
‘And what does Dr Simpson require?’
Sarah rhymed off a short list and cast an eye upon the high shelves while Ingram retrieved her requests, all of which were within easy reach.
‘Oh, and he also wished a quantity of carbonic acid.’
Ingram frowned and turned to search the nearby cabinets. He did not see what he was looking for. This was because she had asked him to supply a quantity of fixed air, the transparent and colourless gas that, according to Gregory’s Outlines of Chemistry, he was currently exhaling and he hadn’t the knowledge to realise it.
‘I’ll just go and ask Mr—’
‘It’s right up there,’ Sarah interrupted, stepping behind the counter and pointing to a high shelf.
‘I don’t see it.’
‘Then let me fetch it,’ she said, reaching for the ladder.
Ingram blocked her way. ‘That is not permitted,’ he told her in a scolding tone.
‘For only a man will do,’ Sarah muttered, stepping away from the ladder but closer to the cash register.
As Ingram climbed, his attention firmly upon each spar, Sarah lifted the keys from their hook and slipped them into her pocket.
‘I still don’t see it,’ he reported.
‘My apologies. I just remembered that Dr Simpson merely mentioned it. He didn’t mean for me to buy some, otherwise he’d have told me a quantity, wouldn’t he?’
Ingram sighed with irritation at this stupid woman.
As he began descending, Sarah was already heading for the door, as though some force was pushing her out of the shop before she could be apprehended. She felt heat in her cheeks and it was all she could do not to break into a run once she was back on Princes Street.
She had travelled only a few yards when she heard the voice.
‘Young woman! Stop!’
Sarah felt time suspended as the recklessness of her actions came crashing in upon her. She saw McLevy hauling her away, the stern face of a judge, rats and chains in a jail cell.
When she turned to face this grim future, she saw Ingram striding towards her, holding a brown paper bag.
‘You forgot to lift what Dr Simpson did order,’ he said, his tone patronising and heavy with scorn. ‘That would have earned you a dressing down when you got back, wouldn’t it?’
‘Thank you,’ she said, relief lending her tone sincerity. ‘Indeed it would.’