Chapter 5 #2
“Is she perhaps a bit…” I searched for the right word in an attempt to gain a better understanding of Lady Ambersley.
“Eccentric is the word,” Aunt Antonia replied. “She does seem a bit odd. And then there is the dog. Very much an overgrown rat, but the woman is completely taken with the creature. Vile, yapping animal. Not like dear Rupert.”
She was undoubtedly referring to Bitsy, which I would agree could hardly be considered to be a dog.
“The nasty little thing has been known to lift all sorts of things from those who call on Kitty. One has to beware not to set anything down.”
Most interesting, I thought. In the absence of anything substantial in the way of clues and this latest piece of information, it did seem as if another visit with Kitty Ambersley was called for before I went any further on her behalf.
Not that I had anything against someone with a few eccentricities, Bitsy in this case, along with a few other things. After all, there were those who considered my great-aunt to be somewhat eccentric.
If they could only have seen her in the sword room earlier. I did adore her.
As for Lily, she was going to have to be more observant of those ‘feint’ tactics the next time she and Aunt Antonia took up the blades.
My great-aunt did have a great deal more experience in such things, and it was foolhardy to assume that someone of her mature age could not possibly be dangerous.
“You must stay for supper and tell us what Brodie is about with this other new case,” she said as she called for the footman to inform Cook that I would be staying.
That would also give me the opportunity to speak with Munro, as I was fairly certain he would know where Brodie was.
“Munro is not here,” Lily informed me when I indicated that I wanted to speak with him.
“He took himself off early this morning,” Aunt Antonia added. She gave me a knowing smile.
“It was some matter about a shipment from Old Lodge that needed attention.”
Not that she was fooled for a moment. Nor was I.
It was a familiar excuse when Munro was off seeing to some other matter that he chose not to discuss. That other matter being Brodie, a fellow Scot, who was also his very good friend.
After supper, my great-aunt provided her driver, Mr. Hastings.
“Do be careful of Bitsy,” she said in parting. “The creature can be quite a nuisance.”
I’d already had experience with that. The thought did occur that I might take Rupert with me when next I met with Kitty Ambersley. He did have a particular preference for small furry creatures. Although that might be somewhat off-putting for Kitty Ambersley.
brODIE
He slipped a coin across the table to the man who sat across from him, a man with knowledge of the streets who had been a source more than once in his time with the MET.
Sir Bartholemew was the name he went by, an affectation that spoke of his scorn for members of the ton, which included a habit of relieving them of their purses. A master pickpocket who had his portion of encounters with members of the constabulary, including Brodie.
Petty thievery, until he decided to ‘up his game,’ as it was called, and had relieved several well-heeled nobs in their coaches, which earned him the reputation as the ‘thief of St. James’s,’ years earlier, when Brodie first made inspector.
Brodie had set a trap, once he figured out the man’s usual scheme of waiting outside the residence of one of London’s wealthier clients while posing as one of their own with the MET.
A stop, as a courtesy, to warn the passenger of trouble in the area, and the man or woman was relieved of their coin and valuables. An enterprising scheme, until it wasn’t.
Once his scheme was discovered it was simply a matter of setting up a situation of a ‘wealthy passenger,’ leaving a St. James townhouse, and springing the trap.
Sir Bart, as he was known among his fellow thieves, had been more than surprised to find Brodie in the coach he stopped.
He had roared with laughter at the scheme that had put an end, at least temporarily, to his endeavors.
“It would take a thief to catch a thief!” he had exclaimed at the time, having met Brodie in a previous encounter before he joined the Met.
“I consider it a compliment, sir.”
Sir Bart had served a sentence of three years and was then released, having claimed that he’d had a visitation from God and changed his ways.
A new scheme for the schemer.
The next time Brodie encountered him was in a matter of a theft from Mikaela’s great-aunt, Lady Antonia Montgomery, after he had left the MET and worked for her in private inquiries.
“The old girl won’t miss a few bottles of whisky,” Sir Bart had pled the excuse when caught. “And you owe me for my time in Newgate.”
“A fate of yer own makin’,” Brodie had replied, then levelled a revolver at Sir Bart.
“Lady Montgomery is a client. I’ll not have ye stealin’ from her. But the choice is yers.”
There had been some additional conversation after that, but in the end Sir Bart had decided that a bullet was perhaps not in his best interest.
As for wot Brodie owed him, he was not above keepin’ a man in his back pocket, as the sayin’ went.
It was always a good policy, particularly in the inquiry business, to have certain people he could rely on for information in exchange for an occasional favor, as in putting the word out to Sir Bart, with his new business enterprise, that certain people were looking for him.
Sir Bart scooped up the gold sovereign.
“Business must be good. And then there is that nice piece I heard ye got yerself married to.”
Brodie ignored that, for the moment. He took out another coin and laid it in front of himself at the table.
“Wot do ye hear about the murder of Constable Martin?”
“A friend of yours, as I recall,” Sir Bart commented with his usual affectation in keeping with that borrowed name.
Brodie nodded.
“It does seem odd that a man with his experience would become a victim.” ‘Sir Bart’ sat back in his chair, his gaze flickering down to the coin.
“It could have merely been a common street person,” he speculated. “It does happen. Or is it possible that he knew the person?”
A thief’s perspective. Brodie had the same thought.
Someone Martin knew? Who also knew his patrol route, and that he and his partner usually split the last walk around for the night?
Brodie retrieved the coin and pocketed it. The man hadn’t told him anythin’ he didn’t already know or suspected.
“Or it might be someone with a score to settle,” Sir Bart suggested. “There’s a man by the name of Josephson who was let out not long ago.”
The name wasn’t familiar to him. But it might have been familiar to Constable Martin.
He took out the coin back out and shoved it across the table to Sir Bart.
“If ye hear something more, there will be more coin in it. Get word to Mr. Cavendish.”
Brodie left the tavern.
In spite of the hour, he found a cabman who had dropped off a last fare of the night and paid him extra to take him to the Strand.
He’d returned to the office late, only to find that his key no longer worked, and Mr. Cavendish was not about, most likely with Miss Effie now that they were married.
The lock had been changed after a previous incident. And now?
He picked the lock and let himself in and reached for the button for the electric on the wall beside the entrance. At a glance, he took in the adjacent room, darkened and with no movement in reaction to the light that filled the office nor from the faint noise he’d made at the door.
Mikaela had no doubt returned to Mayfair for the night. He preferred that she go there when he was making inquiries on his own, yet he felt the stillness and the quiet in the office in ways he hadn’t noticed in a long time.
It was in the way she filled the office with her scratchings at the chalkboard, the sound of her pecking away at the machine on her desk as she made her notes, or in the sound of the cabinet door opening as she retrieved a bottle of Old Lodge and poured two glasses.
And in her observations about the particular inquiry case they were working. The way she had of standing before the chalkboard, studying what she’d written there. It was her curiosity, the way her mind worked, in ways he’d never known in a woman.
When had she become someone he needed, when he’d told himself that he didn’t need anyone? Her spirit, her stubbornness, the courage that terrified him, and the way she understood the things in his past that few others even knew about?
He felt the nudge on his leg and looked down at the hound, unaware until that moment that he’d left the door to the office ajar.
“Aye, it’s cold and ye smell like a garbage scow,” he told him. “I’ve a notion to send ye back to the alcove.”
He could have sworn the hound grinned at him.
He closed the door and went to the stove, as Rupert made a thorough inspection of the office, nose to the floor, then unexpectedly sat at a place beside Mikaela’s desk.
“Ye can stay just until I get the fire built,” he told the beast, as if he understood.
Brodie added pieces of coal and lit the fire. Then he went to the cabinet, retrieved the bottle of Old Lodge whisky, and poured a dram.
The hound refused to move.
Brodie was more than aware that Rupert had a special fondness for Mikaela that undoubtedly had to do with the food she provided him: sponge cake and biscuits.
He’d never had an animal of any kind as a pet or companion and considered the hound nothing more than a common street vagrant that smelled bad, especially when the weather set in and he’d been out and about on the street.
Still, there was an intelligence there, and the animal was protective of Mikaela and had been known to attack more than one who threatened her. Brodie was among those who seemed to have been accepted.
“He likes you, if you would give him a chance. He is quite intelligent and excellent at tracking a person down,” she had reminded him.
“Wot is it?” he said to the hound as if he might answer.
Rupert whined then slowly made his way over to the fire. Brodie reached down and scratched him behind the ears as Mikaela had done hundreds of times.
“Aye, ye worthless vagrant, I miss her as well.”
When the fire at the stove had taken the chill off the room and he had drained the last of the whisky from his glass, Brodie went into the adjacent bedroom.
He removed his jacket and boots, set the revolver on the table beside the bed, then dropped down onto the bed. Exhaustion, the cold from the streets, and the death of an old friend still waiting to be answered overcame him as the hound curled on the rug beside the bed.
Retired Detective Chief Inspector Jeremiah Dawes closed the wrought-iron gate and walked to the entrance of the modest terraced house in Hammersmith and inserted the key in the lock.
He immediately caught the scent of supper as he hung his coat and umbrella on the coat stand. Leg of lamb, if he wasn’t mistaken, as he made his way to the sitting room.
“Good evening, Mrs. Marsh,” he called out a greeting. “I’ll be in the parlor.”
There was no answer, not that he expected one, as he entered the parlor, then went to the coal stove.
It was cold in here, he thought with a frown. Mrs. Marsh should have set the fire hours ago with the weather that had set in.
It was just the two of them, except for the occasional visit by one of the men he once worked with. His wife had passed several years before, as had Mrs. Marsh’s husband.
He had offered her a room, since she was there most days. It seemed a mutually beneficial solution when her rents were increased beyond what she could afford.
They got along. She managed the housekeeping and cooking, with Sundays off to visit her son. He kept to himself, meeting up with those he’d worked with, whose numbers were steadily growing fewer as the years passed.
Best get the fire lit, he thought.
He wadded paper from the day-old newspaper and placed it on the iron grate, then added pieces of coal from the bin beside the fireplace. He reached for the matches on the mantel.
“Eh?” he called out at a sound. “Is supper ready, Mrs. Marsh? It smells most delightful.
The blow caught him on the back of his shoulders and threw him against the mantel. He was dragged around, his attacker’s fists clasped over the lapels of his coat. Stunned, he stared at the man who pinned him against the mantel.
“Who are you?!” he demanded. “What do you want?”
“Take a look,” his attacker hissed.
The chief inspector fought to free himself as pale grey eyes glared back at him from sunken flesh.
“Take a long look and remember.”
“Whoever you are… There is nothing of value here.”
He was cut off once more.
“Nothing of value…” the man rasped. “That is what you made of me!”
The chief inspector shook his head.
“There must be some mistake. I don’t know you…”
“You know me…” the words lashed at him. “You knew me then, nothing more than a report on paper, for you and the others!”
He was shaken then, no match for the man who had him pinned, or the insanity he saw in those pale eyes.
“Take a long look, Chief Inspector, and remember,” his attacker hissed. “It will be your last.”
“No! I don’t know you…”
And then he did remember, back through the years, all the faces of all those who’d been arrested and brought before his desk.
“I see it now…you remember,” his attacker snarled.
He saw it in the expression on the chief inspector’s face. Then the disbelief as he brought the knife up and slashed it across his throat, and watched with grim satisfaction as blood soaked the front of Chief Inspector Dawe’s shirt and that last thought slipped away on a gurgling gasp…