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I need to talk to you about.”
    “And I have something for you, too.”
    “You do? Then please . . .”
    “No, I insist, ladies first.”
    Dody drew a breath. “Mr. Borislav, I think you and I both know that you were shown two very similar papers.”
    “Ah.” Borislav removed the spotted handkerchief that usually poked from his top pocket and dabbed at his damp forehead.
    “How could you doubt me?” she asked with undisguised hurt.
    “It was not you I doubted.”
    “Then why did you not warn me?”
    “What good would warning you do? By the time I saw you, I knew Everard had already handed in his paper—what was done was done. Do you wish me to tell Spilsbury about it now?”
    Dody frowned. “No, no, Spilsbury has no idea about the plagiarism. And I have been given an extension, which should just give me time to rewrite my paper. I’m only sorry that you were placed in such a difficult position.”
    “My heart dropped into my boots when I saw Henry Everard on my doorstep the other day, wanting me to check his proposal for him. He was at the same university and in the same year as my nephew, you know.”
    Dody waited with interest for him to elaborate.
    Instead he said, “I think it is time you two met.” He turned his head and called to Joseph in the dispensing room.
    The younger man emerged, wiping his hands down his white coat. He was as tall as his uncle was short, his face as rugged as Borislav’s was soft and round. But his smile was similar to his uncle’s, and his identical spectacles caught the light in the same manner, adding a certain rakish charm.
    “I have heard much about you, Mr. Champion,” Dody said with a smile, liking him at once.
    “Likewise, Dr. McCleland. My uncle speaks very highly of you. When I heard that your Clinic was opening down the road, I was hoping we would at last get to meet.”
    “I was telling Dr. McCleland how you knew Henry Everard at university,” Borislav said.
    Joseph paused as if to consider his words. “Indeed,” and let the word hang. The lack of warmth, praise, any comment at all for that matter, told Dody more about his opinion of Everard than anything his uncle might have coaxed from him.
    Borislav exaggerated a shrug. “How can I help that he was raised to be the gentleman?”
    When their laughter had died, Joseph said, “It’s been lovely to meet you, Dr. McCleland, but I must now tear myself away and return to work.”
    “Work of your own making, I would like to remind you,” Borislav said. To Dody he added, “Joseph is working on a way of mass-producing poultices so we always have a ready stock. Frankly, I think it detracts from the sense of personal service our customers receive when they know the product has been made for them specifically.”
    “But far more efficient, Uncle. If you’d only allow me to employ an apprentice to help . . .”
    “Be off with you!” Borislav said with an undercurrent of irritation in his voice that suggested his words were not entirely jest.
    When the dispensary door had closed, Borislav said, “Change, change, change. I have to admit that Joseph has played his part in the shop’s reversal of fortunes, but the customers can only take so much newness.”
    “You mean the proprietor can,” Dody teased.
    Borislav straightened his bow tie, then leaned across the counter towards Dody and returned to the earlier subject. “Everard was quite the wastrel, according to Joseph, and about the only thing Joseph did not miss from the university when he left it. It grieved me when I learned that you and Everard had been thrown together for work. Apparently he made no effort to hide what little respect he had for female doctors, even then.”
    Dody quirked her friend a smile. “I can cope with Henry Everard.”
    “Of course you can.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “That’s my girl. There was something else you wanted to ask me?”
    Dody reached into her bag and put the matchbox of tablets on the counter.