Chapter 6
Six
The sound was persistent and brought him up out of sleep and old dreams, followed by a snarling sound from the floor beside the bed. A glance at the window told him it was not yet morning as he reached for the revolver.
He went into the outer office, the hound beside him as the pounding on the door continued.
A stocky shadow showed through the door’s glass panes in the pool of light from the landing. And then a voice—Inspector Dooley of the Metropolitan Police.
Brodie pocketed the revolver, turned on the electric in the office, then opened the door. The hound was there and made a thorough inspection of Mr. Dooley, then turned back to the warmth of the office.
“Wot has happened?” Brodie demanded.
Was it possible that the man who’d killed Constable Martin had been found? Yet, instinct told him different, along with the grim expression on Mr. Dooley’s face.
“There’s been another murder,” Mr. Dooley replied as he shook the rain from his overcoat, then removed his hat and stepped into the office.
“The word came in from the district office, with a call made by the housekeeper,” Dooley explained as he sat in the chair across the desk from Brodie.
“The poor woman was near hysterical after she found the Chief’s Inspector’s body.”
He used the formal title even though the man had been retired for several years. The respect was there for a man they had both served under.
“She found him dead in the parlor, blood everywhere, as there seemed to have been quite a struggle.”
“Did she see anyone?”
Mr. Dooley shook his head. “She went to let him know that supper was ready and found him. A neighbor nearby heard her screams and contacted the constable who patrols the area. Word was sent over to the station, and they put a call into me. The poor woman was near hysterical when I arrived.”
“Has the residence been inspected?”
“Not as yet. I had a constable stationed there after the body was removed. Due to the chief inspector’s long association with the MET, the people from CID will be called in. And then very likely the case will be handled by them.”
Brodie nodded. The deaths of two persons connected to the MET within a handful of days. What did it mean? Was there something at the residence that might tell them something about who had done this?
“I know wot yer thinkin’,” Mr. Dooley commented. “Ye want to see the place for yerself.”
Brodie nodded. “Aye, before the Criminal Investigation Department gets their hands into it. Ye know verra well how it works.”
The C.I.D. had been established years before to take over the investigative side of crimes after a corruption scandal.
They had the resources to investigate crimes, as he well knew.
And with the murder of one of their own, they would be all over this.
Then everything, all evidence, any possible leads, would be locked down, and the case very likely taken over by the New Scotland Yard.
Mr. Dooley agreed. “That will be the end of learnin’ anything about what happened.”
“I need to get inside the residence,” Brodie replied. “Before they begin their investigation.”
“The housekeeper is not about. She went to her sister’s place last night. And I know well the man I placed on duty there. He’s had his own encounter with the C.I.D., and he’ll not say a word of your presence there if I ask it of him.”
Brodie nodded. He needed to change clothes. The street clothes, as Mikaela called them, that he’d worn the day before, might well have the constable on duty call out the alarm at first sight.
His presence there would be far more acceptable if Dooley explained that he was there as a ‘consultant’ to the Metropolitan Police, a service he had provided from time to time in the past since he left the MET.
Abberline was another obstacle. It wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last. For now, it was best to learn what he could before the man was involved.
He was a political beast, and they’d had confrontations in the past that had seen the man put on suspension.
There would be no cooperation from that quarter in this.
When he’d changed clothes and pocketed the revolver, he left a hasty note for Mikaela, then followed Mr. Dooley out onto the landing along with the hound and set the lock in the door.
In spite of the early hour, Mr. Cavendish had arrived. The flat he now shared with Miss Effie was behind the Public House and very near the office.
“There’s a problem with the lock on the office door, I had to pick the lock last night,” Brodie told him, a reminder to get the lock repaired.
“It’s locked now.”
“It had to be changed,” Mr. Cavendish informed him as he reached inside his jacket pocket, retrieved a new key, and handed it to him.
“Miss Mikaela found the office door open when she arrived yesterday.”
That stopped him. “Open? It was secure when I was last here, and she would not have been so careless to leave it unlocked. Was anythin’ taken?”
“She said there didn’t appear to be anything missing. Then, had me contact the locksmith.”
Brodie nodded as he pocketed the new key.
He was certain neither of them left the office unlocked. That could only mean that someone had picked the lock, then continued inside.
But for wot reason? And nothin’ missing? With her typing machine and the few personal items they kept there, there was almost nothing of value.
Or was the door tampered with for some reason other than thievery?
Did that explain the hound’s peculiar behavior the night before, the animal’s thorough inspection of the place, and then his reaction near her desk?
Mikaela’s scent would be there, of course. Yet, had the hound sensed someone else?
“Aye, ye did well, Mr. Cavendish. I’ve left a note for her when she returns.” He glanced down at the hound on the sidewalk.
It was instinct and might mean nothing at all. Still, with himself off and about and her as well, and the realization that someone had been inside the office?
“You might have Miss Effie provide food for the hound, and tell Miss Mikaela when ye see her that she should keep him with her.”
Mr. Cavendish grinned. “I will do that. And be careful yerself, sir.”
Brodie nodded.
Mr. Dooley had used one of the public transit drivers instead of a constable provided by the MET and held the driver over when he arrived.
They climbed into the coach and Mr. Dooley provided the late chief inspector’s address in Hammersmith.
The constable who had been positioned outside the entrance of the terrace home was young, perhaps new to the force, Brodie thought as they arrived. Mr. Dooley gave him a cursory nod.
“A consultant with the MET,” he told the young constable by way of introduction, and they entered the residence.
There was no one inside as the housekeeper had taken herself off to her sister’s house in another part of the city.
Supper had obviously been prepared, a single place set at the small dining table with a covered pot of food, the scent still in the air.
Mr. Dooley turned on the electric, and they went into the small parlor where the chief inspector’s body had been found by the poor woman.
There were obvious things that stood out when inspecting the scene of a crime—signs of a struggle, things overturned, drawers emptied in the situation of a robbery, blood from the victim if the attacker had been caught in the act.
Yet here, nothing was disturbed. There was no indication that the attack had been for the purpose of robbery. Still, there were signs of a struggle in front of the hearth.
“The body was found just there on the floor,” Mr. Dooley explained. “It seems that the chief inspector was caught unawares from behind. As you see, there was a struggle before the person took the knife to him.”
“Did the housekeeper mention anything of value that might have been taken?”
“She was upset, as you can well imagine. But she did say that it didn’t seem that anything was taken.”
Apparently not robbery, Brodie thought. Although the attacker might have been caught and then fled.
“Did the body have anything of value on it?” Brodie asked. “He always carried a pocket watch.”
“I’ll make the inquiry regarding that with the morgue where the body was taken,” Mr. Dooley responded.
Brodie went to the hearth. There were obvious signs of a struggle in scuff marks in the ash on the wood floor in front of the hearth where the chief inspector had fought with his attacker, along with a good amount of dried blood.
A mark caught his attention, and he took out his hand-held lamp and turned it on, then knelt to inspect it closer as he aimed the beam at the floor. It appeared to be a boot mark.
“Ye saw the body?” he asked Mr. Dooley.
“I arrived shortly after the wagon was sent for by the constable who was first to see it after the housekeeper found him.”
“Wot was the chief inspector wearing?”
“Trousers, shirt with vest and jacket over, as he had just arrived after being out earlier.”
“I need to see the body and the clothes he was wearin’,” Brodie replied.
What he had found might mean nothing at all, or it could be important.
“With the New Scotland Yard to be in charge of the situation, that could be difficult,” Dooley pointed out.
Brodie nodded. “There is someone who may be able to assist.”
Someone he had previously made the acquaintance of in the course of an inquiry case. He might be willing to assist, as it was in the matter of the murder of a chief inspector of police.
For this he needed to send a formal request to meet with the man, something that Mikaela most usually would have taken care of in the past.
But she had her own inquiry case, and truth was that he didn’t want her involved in this.
MIKAELA
Brodie hadn’t returned to Mayfair the night before, not that it was unexpected, particularly when he was off making inquiries among people he knew from his past work with the Metropolitan Police.
I was very aware of that other part of his life and accepted that it was necessary from time to time. It was, after all, the nature of the inquiry business.