Part 14 (2/2)

Only our conversation, in hushed tones, felt out of place.

”Yes,” I said, ”but this was before Bram had actually seen the book. He said he believed it was the personal copy of Sir Isaac Newton and, because of the original botanic prints, possibly William Coles's own copy that was meant to be a second edition.”

She smiled. ”Spot-on. Bram knows what he's talking about.”

”So who did Kevin consult with in London?”

”I have no idea. Apparently the individual was interested in purchasing the book and wished to remain anonymous. Obviously the fewer people who knew Kevin had found pure gold in a box of dross, the better.”

”I suppose you're right.”

”Shall we finish our stroll and go back to the gift shop? I believe I've answered all your questions.”

”You have, thank you. You've been very generous with your time.”

Zara Remington had answered my questions, but she'd just added a new one. Who was the individual who wanted to buy Kevin's book? It wouldn't have been Edward Jaine.

And here was another question: Did that give someone else a motive for murder?

12.

”One final thing before we go inside,” Zara said. ”I nearly forgot that I promised to tell you about Hyssopus officinalis. Let's walk back over to the Garden of World Medicine.”

”Was that the pressed plant inside Kevin's book?” I asked.

She smiled. ”I see you found it.”

”Yes, but found what, exactly?”

We walked across the spongy gra.s.s, back to the Western European medicinal plants. ”As you know, John Fairbairn told Francis Pembroke that the plant he believed was Hyssopus, or hyssop, as we call it today, was wrongly labeled. In actual fact, it was another kind of hyssop.”

”Water hyssop,” I said.

”That's right.” Zara looked surprised. ”You've done some research. But water hyssop goes by the Latin genus name of Bacopa and it's best known for its memory-enhancing properties. It grows in wet places-on pond edges, muddy sh.o.r.es, lakes, that sort of environment. And it favors warm or tropical climates. It's not the same thing at all as Hyssopus officinalis. The plant that was pressed between the pages of Kevin's copy of Adam in Eden came from the genus Bacopa.”

”So Pembroke was right?”

”It would seem he was, but Kevin did some checking and learned that particular species is extinct. In fact he half jokingly named it Bacopa lewisia extinctus.”

”I get extinctus,” I said. ”And lewisia for Meriwether Lewis?”

Zara nodded. ”If you discover a plant, then you are allowed to name it. Karl Linnaeus, who visited this garden when Philip Miller was the curator, supposedly named plants for his friends and weeds for his enemies.”

I smiled. ”How did Kevin learn that the plant was extinct? Did he bring it here to you?”

”Not to me,” she said. ”I'm sure Alastair helped him. I know Kevin made a trip to Wakehurst.”

”Who is Alastair and what is Wakehurst?”

”Wakehurst Place is a rather splendid, rather old estate in Suss.e.x, about forty miles south of London. The Millennium Seed Bank, which is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, is located on the property. It's an immense seed storage facility staffed by an international group of scientists. Their goal is to collect seeds from as many plants as possible throughout the world, to preserve them for future generations before the plants become extinct.” Her mouth twisted in a smile. ”To avoid more lewisias.”

”And Alastair?”

”Dr. Alastair Innes. Brilliant man. He's in charge of the department of seed conservation. He would have been able to look at the DNA of the plant specimen Kevin brought him.”

”I'd like to talk to him,” I said. ”I don't suppose you'd be willing to share his phone number or an e-mail address?”

”I'll give you his details when we go inside.”

The wind had picked up and another seagull screeched overhead. By now it was probably well past five o'clock. At home it would be dusk. Here it was still bright, although the sunless milky light had thickened as though a gauze curtain had fallen over the garden.

Zara pointed to a tidy row of beds designated for pharmaceutical plants. ”The plants you see here are used in modern medicines. The beds are arranged according to what discipline of medicine the drug derived from that plant is used for.”

I read the signs out loud as we kept walking. ”Oncology, neurology, psychiatry, ophthalmology.” I turned to her. ”Are all these plants really used for such serious conditions and illnesses . . . arthritis, eczema, Parkinson's disease?”

”They are. Be glad you weren't alive in William Coles's day, when the common belief was something known as the doctrine of signatures. If a plant physically resembled a particular organ of the body, it was used to treat ailments related to that part of the body.”

”A heart-shaped plant treated heart problems?”

She nodded. ”In medieval times, it did. Even today, a lot of people still believe plants are mostly used in homeopathic and alternative medicine, but you'd be surprised how many drugs used in modern-day medicine are plant based.” She paused and said in a thoughtful voice, ”Though I did think Kevin was rather too hopeful about the potential of Bacopa lewisia.”

”What do you mean?”

”The Fairbairn letter mentioned that the misidentified plant was going to be included in the national botanic garden,” she said. ”Kevin believed, or at least hoped, it was amongst the seeds in Thomas Jefferson's White House collection.”

We had stopped in front of a bed with plants dedicated to cardiology. Half a dozen small pink-and-white signs with a skull and crossbones and the words POISONOUS PLANTS were stuck in the ground in a little cl.u.s.ter. The markers looked like they had probably once been bright red, screaming danger, warning! before they were bleached by the sun, but now they almost looked decorative.

I knelt and read the names on the markers. ”Digitalis lanata. Atropa belladonna . . . My G.o.d, these are highly poisonous.”

”More commonly known as foxglove and deadly nightshade,” Zara said. ”You're quite right, so do be careful. We're deadly serious-excuse the pun-with the signs and the warning on the maps. Put your hand or a finger in your mouth after touching one of these plants and it really could be the last thing you ever do.”

I shuddered. ”I wonder if they grow poisonous plants in the garden of the Franciscan Monastery.”

Zara looked startled, but then she said, ”If you're asking whether someone could have poisoned Kevin with a plant from that garden, the answer is yes. It wouldn't be hard to do. More plants than you might think are highly toxic-the leaves, the berries, the flowers.”

I stood up and we walked back to the gift shop. ”I don't understand what could have happened to those seeds,” I said. ”If Dolley Madison knew they were so important to Thomas Jefferson, why didn't she get them directly to him? Montpelier, their plantation, was just down the road from Monticello. They were great friends.”

”Believe it or not, perhaps I can answer that question for you,” Zara said. ”I wrote my thesis at uni on the subject of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century seed exchange between Britain and America.”

She held the door and I walked inside. The room was warm after the raw, damp chill of the garden, fragrant with a pleasant potpourri of floral scents.

”Your botanic garden was originally conceived to be a showcase for American plants, all these exotic new varieties that we didn't have here in Europe,” she said. ”Unfortunately, the money and, it seemed, the political will were never there, and by the late 1820s, the current president, John Quincy Adams, turned the idea on its head. His treasury secretary wrote every foreign dignitary in America asking for plants from their countries, plus sent a letter to all naval officers, instructing them to bring home seeds from their foreign travels. And then, of course, there was your famous expedition to the South Seas a decade later that sent home more than fifty thousand plant specimens.” She paused and shrugged. ”I suspect the idea of a garden that was strictly American became too provincial, too quaint, for the world power the United States was becoming. George Was.h.i.+ngton was dead and Thomas Jefferson, as you may recall, never returned to Was.h.i.+ngton after he left the presidency. He considered being president of the United States one of his lesser accomplishments, so insignificant it wasn't even part of the inscription on his tomb.”

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