Chapter 3
Three
Late afternoon, we received word from Mr. Dooley that Sir Nelson’s body had been taken to a holding room at the Old Scotland Yard for further inspection by the police surgeon before being released. A nephew, the son of Sir Nelson’s sister, had been contacted regarding the explorer’s death.
Mr. Brimley, a chemist with a shop in the East End and good friend in past inquiry cases, was not available at the moment, but promised to meet us at the Yard. His expertise was always welcome as he had a great deal of experience with a variety of wounds—both accidental and otherwise.
He was also a good friend who had provided care and assistance when it was most needed, including a bullet wound I had sustained in the pursuit of a past case.
Brodie had been most circumspect during our ride to the office on the Strand and afterward, as I made my preliminary notes about our observations in the matter of Sir Nelson’s murder on the chalkboard. It was obvious there was something turning over in his thoughts that he chose, for the time being, not to discuss.
I was accustomed to his ruminations when on an inquiry case. It usually came from some prior experience in his time with the Metropolitan Police, some case he had worked, or even a case that we had worked together.
I now stepped back from the board and circled back to the additional desk that currently occupied the office of the Strand, a piece my great aunt had delivered and insisted that I use, with a comment that it had once belonged to some distant ancestor or another … she couldn’t remember.
“It is only gathering dust tucked away upstairs. You might as well have the use of it,” she had explained.
It was quite old in the style I had seen in the rectory of any old church. It was no use to point out that it might have historical importance. Once Aunt Antonia had decided on a matter, that was the end of it.
It was quite lovely and had been cared for before being stored away in the Normandy room, as she called it—a reference to our common ancestor William of Normandy.
The room also contained an a very old, long table that smelled of very old oak, with several notable gouges in it near the head of the table.
“He was rumored to always carry a knife ,” she had once told me when I was exploring the room at Sussex Square that had been built about the same time as William’s rule as King of England.
“ And he had a fiery temper according to family archives. I suppose he might have used the knife to make his point during a conversation or argument.”
Discovering various ancestors had been a favorite pastime. And we had a great many of them.
“All of this ,” she had continued, “will go to you and your sister when I am gone. Except for the Viking longboat.”
That was a story for another day. I will concede that for some, my great aunt had been considered to be somewhat eccentric. As for myself, I adored her.
She was an example of a woman who had chosen to live her life exactly as she pleased and didn’t give a fig what anyone thought.
Except that is, when it came to Brodie. As I had discovered since that first inquiry case regarding my sister’s disappearance.
“You will contact him ,” she had told me at the time, when the MET seemed unconcerned in the matter and had treated it as nothing more than a disaffected wife who had taken herself off.
“He can be trusted, refuses to back down when a situation becomes difficult, and will see the matter done ,” she had added most emphatically, which raised the question for me at the time, just how had she made the acquaintance of a private inquiry man?
It was only later I discovered the answer, when there was a far different conversation regarding other aspects about Brodie. The sort of conversation one does not usually expect to have with a woman of her station or one who was eighty-four years old at the time.
“ There is a great deal to be said for a man who can make your toes curl.”
Indeed!
“I could be tempted, even at my age,” she had added.
No comment to that!
However, as I discovered, Brodie was very much a man of strong character. He could be quite stubborn from time to time, but much like Rupert the hound—certainly not a criticism—he refused to walk away from a difficult situation.
He was quite handsome in a scowling sort of way, with dark hair that seemed to constantly be in need of a trim, dark beard, and that penetrating dark gaze that had a way of looking at me in a way that suggested far more.
And then there was that toe-curling part of it that my great aunt had spoken of.
We had our ups and downs, as my sister had once observed. We disagreed on things from time to time, but I respected where he had come from, and the heart-breaking aspects of his childhood.
What was a woman who had traveled, experienced many adventures, and taken risks, to do with all of that?
I would take it, an adventure to be certain.
I returned to my desk, inserted paper into the typewriter, and began typing my statement for Mr. Dooley regarding the discovery of Sir Nelson’s body by my great aunt. Along with a statement regarding my brief visit to Sir Nelson’s office and my conversation with Mr. Hosni.
As arranged with Mr. Dooley, we arrived late afternoon at the building adjacent to the New Scotland Yard, on the Victoria Embankment. This location served as additional administrative offices and included a morgue where bodies were taken in the course of investigations.
The New Scotland Yard also retained the services of their own surgeon, who added his examination to police reports. We had encountered the surgeon on previous investigations. He seemed competent in most instances, yet we also relied on Mr. Brimley’s observations as well.
Mr. Brimley had been educated at King’s College, and devoted his services to the poor in the East End with his chemist shop in Holborn. He was also a scientist. That was the best way to describe his experiments and study of body parts, mostly hands or other appendages, due to an accident.
He collected specimens and put them in jars with formaldehyde so that he could study them. He had also been known to dissect a specimen in his own investigations of how the human body worked. I often found him examining some piece of tissue under a microscope in the back of his shop.
Mr. Brimley joined us now, somewhat distracted over a situation he had been ministering to when Brodie requested his assistance.
“Poor girl got caught up in a family way,” he explained. “A young actress. Went to one of the women who assist with those situations. Dreadful business that. Your friend, Templeton, brought her to me. She’d lost a great deal of blood afterward, and very nearly her life.
“She’ll recover, poor thing. But most likely never be able to have a family of her own.” He looked up, somewhat myopically behind the glasses he usually wore.
“Now what is the business about a body found at the museum?”
We entered through the main entrance of that adjacent building at the Embankment, and Brodie signed us in after informing the young constable that we were assisting Inspector Dooley in an investigation. He then made the request to see the body that had been taken there from the museum.
I have seen several bodies in the course of my travels and since that first inquiry case that Brodie and I shared in the disappearance of my sister.
There is always that initial surprise, even shock. It then gives way to the matter at hand, attempting to learn something about the victim and the person who committed the crime.
Brodie is convinced there is something wrong with me in that regard, as I am not given to fainting at such things, although there was the body I saw before, when on one of my adventures.
The poor man had been the victim of some difficulty and was found floating in the Nile as we reached shore at one of the many small ports along the river. He had been there for some time and was covered with flies, his features bloated and distorted.
Not a great experience. Yet it prepared me for the bodies of victims Brodie and I encountered in our inquiry cases. As he once told me, after I insisted that I would not be set aside in such things, it was best to concentrate on the clues that might be found that would help us find who had committed the murder.
We were escorted by another constable to the ‘holding room’ where Sir Nelson’s body had been taken. It was here that the police surgeon would perform his examination of bodies and make his reports that would become part of the police reports.
The room was sterile, with a dozen tables, half of them draped with sheets that might be found in a hospital. Along one wall was a line of eight cabinets where bodies were placed on ice, if needed, before an examination could be performed.
Not a pleasant thought, being put on ice and then into a drawer. According to Mr. Brimley, it preserved the body for a certain amount of time until arrangements could be made by family, or ... very often in matters that involved the MET, the deceased person remained anonymous, and was buried in an unnamed grave.
I did have a somewhat philosophical view of such things. Once a person was gone, they were gone. My friend Templeton, however, who is quite famous as an actress, had a far different view. She was absolutely certain that some form of the human spirit continued on after .
She had dabbled a bit in spiritualism, and claimed to have a connection with Sir William Shakespeare, who had been dead for well over two centuries. He supposedly had a habit of popping in from time to time with advice, an opinion, or in a tirade depending on the situation.
I didn’t argue the point with her. In fact, I had to admit that she had provided information, supposedly received from Sir William, that had provided an important clue in our inquiry cases.
Who was I to argue?
Brodie and Mr. Brimley gathered round the examination table where Sir Nelson had been laid out. The sheet was drawn back as the constable in charge informed us that the surgeon had not yet made his observations.
I assumed my pragmatic manner and joined them as Mr. Brimley adjusted his glasses and leaned in close for his own observations. There was the usual mumbling, speaking more to himself, as he reached for an instrument from the steel table nearby.
He proceeded to probe the wound in Sir Nelson’s chest with more mumbled comments as he described his findings, while Brodie was intent on his own observations in that way of a former police inspector.
As for myself, I took out my notebook and made notes as I followed Mr. Brimley around the table, as I did when he was asked to assist us. I was not prepared when he abruptly pulled back the sheet, much like a magician, and revealed that Sir Nelson was completely naked.
“Oh.”
At least I was fairly certain that was my reaction, as I was not accustomed to seeing a naked man, with one exception, of course. And most certainly not one fully displayed like a fish laid out at market, right down to ...
“Apologies, miss,” Mr. Brimley said.
I immediately averted my gaze and concentrated on my notes, even as I heard Brodie clear his throat.
Or was that laughter? I refused to look at him.
“Are ye all right, lass?”
“Quite all right,” I assured him, still refusing to look at him. Knowing Brodie, he would not let the moment go without later comment.
“What conclusions would you draw, Mr. Brimley?” I asked the chemist in order to move the situation along.
“Knife wound for certain,” he commented. “The edges are clean cut and deep. From the angle and position of the wound, it was made by someone of even height and very obviously pierced the heart. There would have been a great deal of blood,” he recited quite methodically.
“Death would have been almost immediate,” he continued. “The heart is usually the last organ to die; however, with a direct wound it would have been very quick indeed. And with the rigor mortis that I’m seeing …” He poked the lower leg, then attempted to flex it.
“Death was approximately eight to ten hours ago.”
That would mean that Sir Nelson’s body had lain in the exhibit hall for a good deal of time before my great aunt discovered it.
“There is no external bruising as if there might have been a struggle. That would suggest that he was most likely come upon quite suddenly. I would guess that under the circumstances you’ve explained—the locked exhibit room, the last time his assistant saw him, that he might very well have known his attacker.”
“What about a particular scent about the body?” Brodie inquired.
Scent? Was that the thoughtful look I saw on his face as he bent over Sir Nelson’s corpse? Something he sensed at the scene of the murder?
“There is a certain scent,” Mr. Brimley replied with a furrowed brow. “I’m not familiar with it, though. My guess would be that it’s not alcohol nor narcotics. Both have a familiar smell to them.”
I tucked my notebook under my arm and rounded the table. Mr. Brimley had pulled the sheet back up over the body. The scent was faint at first, then slightly stronger as I leaned closer. I immediately recognized it.
It was quite refreshing, for all that it was on a very dead body, a subtle blend of herbs, perhaps rosemary with an undertone of spice.
“It’s absinthe,” I said with some surprise, and not at all something I would have expected, as the man I had known was very simple in his dress and manner, with no time for such things as he was always off and about on some archeological site.
Even his manner of dress that morning had obviously been somewhat hasty, more concerned about the opening of the exhibit than proper dress etiquette or formalities. With shirt sleeves rolled back, he’d had a slightly disheveled appearance that was quite familiar, even under the circumstances.
Once we’d completed our examinations, Mr. Brimley was eager to get back to his ‘patient,’ as he referred to the young woman he had attended. He kept a small room at the back of his shop for those who might be injured and need his assistance. I had spent a night there after a particularly difficult inquiry case when I was injured.
We departed as well. I had my notes of his observations as well as our own. I left an envelope for Mr. Dooley that contained my statement about the events of the morning and asked that the constable on duty see that he received it.
Now, as the coach pulled away from the front entrance of the New Scotland Yard building that sprawled along the embankment, I felt that dark gaze watching me.
“Are ye all right?” Brodie gently inquired.
In spite of his amusement at my reaction to seeing Sir Nelson, naked as the day he was born, I heard the concern in his voice.
“He was a friend. I know it canna be easy.”
He did know, with far too much experience in the matter of brutal murders, including his own mother years before, in his work with the MET, and now with our inquiry cases.
“He made my travel to Egypt exciting and so very interesting,” I replied. “Not at all pretentious or bothered by dozens of questions, or put off by a woman, as others were,” I replied, recalling that first adventure to that part of the world.
“He was much like a kindly uncle, eager to show me his latest exploration site, filled with such excitement. This exhibit was very special to him. He was so eager to share it with everyone.”
Brodie leaned across the coach and took my hand. “And ye feel a responsibility to find who did this.”
I nodded. “It’s the least that I can do.”
“Tell me about absinthe,” he said as the coach lurched through early evening traffic across London.
“It’s a fairly common fragrance. Templeton wears it. She insists that it heightens her sensitivity to messages from the spirit world.”
“Ah, Sir William Shakespeare,” he replied.
I heard the skepticism.
“He has provided information in the past,” I pointed out.
“That might have been a lucky guess on Templeton’s part,” he pointed out as he sat back.
“Not at all,” I defended my friend. “She was most accurate and the information was helpful.”
“And now a man wearing a woman’s perfume?” he commented.
“It’s not merely a woman’s perfume,” I pointed out. “Men wear it as well, usually in a pomade,” though certainly not the man sitting across from me with that mane of overlong dark hair.
“Or for other personal ... reasons.”
That dark gaze met mine. “Personal reasons?”
He had taken to using my bathing soap, a clear, amber bar, simply because it was ‘there,’ as he said.
I was quite partial to that faintly spicy scent of green things that reminded me of the forest near Old Lodge in the north. He seemed to like it as well.
“From what ye’ve told me of the man, he did not seem the ‘fashionable’ sort.”
I agreed. “Not at all.”
Which brought me back round to my first thought, that it was very possible that the smell of absinthe had possibly been worn by his murderer?
We arrived back at the office on the Strand to find a message from Inspector Dooley. It was brief and most urgent.
Howard Carter, Sir Nelson’s young assistant, had been taken to the Bow Street station for questioning in the matter of Sir Nelson’s death, and then arrested!
“I refuse to believe that he had anything to do with it!” I vehemently replied.
“In spite of that,” Brodie pointed out, “he has been arrested. According to this, he will be remanded to the Bow Street criminal court in the morning, where formal charges will be read against him.”
I was fairly certain I saw Inspector Todd’s hand in this—the murder of a member of a prominent old London family, a room full of possible suspects, many of whom were very influential people, and a police inspector most eager to make a name for himself, no matter if the person was guilty, or not.
“I want to see Howard Carter.”
“I thought ye might. I will see if Mr. Dooley can make the necessary arrangement.”
Brodie was eventually able to speak with Mr. Dooley, and learned that he had encountered some difficulty with Inspector Todd.
He had attempted to take the matter directly to the Interim Chief Inspector, Mr. Graham, but wasn’t able to speak with him. It would have to wait until morning.
It seemed that young Mr. Carter would have to spend the night in a holding cell at the Bow Street police station.
“There is nothing to be done before morning,” Brodie said as the telephone call ended.
“We’ll go first thing. If necessary, I’ll speak with the Chief Inspector myself. Perhaps we can buy more time to find the one who killed Sir Nelson.”
It was not what I wanted, but it would have to do. I knew only too well the often difficult and cumbersome workings of the Metropolitan Police.
“I know wot yer thinkin’,” Brodie told me. “But it will do no good to worry the matter. Ye need supper. Bring yer notes and we’ll see what there is there that might be useful.”