Chapter 13 #2
Another sound. “A portion for the beast.” She shook her head, much as a mother would have.
“Will you be taking coffee at your desk in the front parlor?” she asked.
It did seem that I had perhaps been forgiven. I smiled.
“Yes, please.”
The fire in the fireplace was warm; the coffee was perfect with that hint of cinnamon that Mrs. Ryan insisted was good for me. And then there was a dram of Old Lodge, my great-aunt’s whisky distilled in the Highlands, to smooth the edges of my nerves over the message I had given to Mr. Cavendish.
Was he able to find Brown’s man who would get the message to Brodie?
Had he received it?
What of Blackwood?
Where was he now?
Was Brodie the next target?
I poured another dram of whisky and went to my writing desk.
I worked through the evening, adding notes to my notebook, then read back through the last chapter of my current Emma novel.
It was a thinly disguised account of an inquiry case I was involved in.
I smiled at the description of the rather handsome, strong-willed man who was now part of her adventures in murder. The last two novels had met with great success.
It did seem as if the ladies of London had a particular fondness for ‘murder most foul,’ according to Sir William. Shakespeare, that is.
My good friend Templeton, who claimed to be connected to the spirit of Sir William, would be highly amused. She was presently on tour with her theater group. I did miss our often-bizarre conversations.
Mrs. Ryan had bid me goodnight some time earlier, not without a parting comment about supper.
“Shall I prepare supper tomorrow for one, miss?”
I hoped not. I did hope that Brodie would return, the business of Blackwood resolved. However…
“I will let you know. And once again, Mrs. Ryan, supper was magnificent,” I complimented her.
“Not that anyone would know by the small amount you ate, not enough for a child. I put the roast chicken in the icebox and locked the door for the night,” she continued. “Good night, miss.”
And she was gone, mumbling something about her efforts with the sponge cake she had prepared for dessert.
I looked over at the hound stretched out across the rug before the fireplace.
“You do seem to have put on some weight,” I commented. His response was the snoring that continued uninterrupted.
Then there was only the sound of the door closing from Mrs. Ryan’s room beyond the kitchen, and the hiss of the fire in the fireplace as I continued the next chapter in Emma Fortescue’s latest adventure.
It was well after midnight. Two paragraphs in more than two hours…!
I pulled the sheet of paper from the typewriter and wadded it in frustration. It joined several other pieces on the floor. I looked over at the hound.
I had obviously disturbed his sleep.
“What are you looking at, sir?” I demanded. Not that I expected an answer. I glanced at the clock on the mantel.
It was after midnight, several hours since supper…several more since I had sent that message to Brodie.
Was there some difficulty getting it to him? Had something happened to prevent Mr. Cavendish getting it to Brown’s man?
Rupert groaned and laid his head back on the carpet.
It was quite marvelous, the way he was able to simply ignore everything around him and return to sleep. Not unlike someone I knew.
“Oh, bloody hell.” There was nothing more to be done in the middle of the night.
In the morning, I would return to the office. Mr. Cavendish would be there, and I would learn if he was successful in delivering the message.
I retrieved from my bag the revolver Brodie insisted that I carry, and put it into the pocket of my dressing gown, then went to the fireplace.
Rupert did not move a hair as I set the screen in front of the fireplace, one of those small things Brodie usually did when he was here. I then turned off the lamp on my desk, rechecked the lock on the front door, then turned off the electric in the hall and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
I placed the revolver on the floor beside the bed as Brodie did each night, then removed my dressing gown and crawled under the covers as the rain beat on the window.
There was a faint scratching at the door, then the familiar sound of Rupert’s nails on the wood floor. He paused. Undoubtedly a question, if one was into communicating with animals.
Oh, very well, I thought. “Are you going to just sit there?”
He responded by leaping up onto the bed and settling himself without further ado at my feet. Undoubtedly a mistake on my part. It was Brodie’s fault for not being there.
Where was Brodie? I thought, as the hound settled himself, quite content.
Had he received that message…? Was he safe?
In spite of my current bed partner, the bed seemed cold and empty. I tucked my feet against Rupert. At least my feet were warm…
It was some time later that a sound wakened me. Coming out of sleep, I realized that it was Rupert. He was no longer on the bed but somewhere near the door and obviously upset in a way that I recognized.
Another sound came then, far different, and seemed to come from downstairs.
I left the bed, put on my dressing gown, then retrieved the revolver from the floor beside the bed. I went to the door and slowly opened it, then placed a hand on the ruff at Rupert’s neck that was standing up. He whined softly.
“Stay,” I gave the command I had been teaching him. With mixed results, as he had a mind of his own.
He obeyed and stayed by my side as I left the room and went out onto the second-floor landing. Beside me, the hound growled, low and threatening, as I glanced about the ground floor, fully illuminated by a ceiling light in the foyer.
I was certain I had turned off the electric before I came upstairs. I listened for other sounds—the familiar clink of Old Lodge as Brodie poured a glass when he returned late at night, or the sound as he sat wearily in one of the chairs before the hearth.
I heard neither, as Rupert pulled against my hold on him.
It wasn’t Brodie.
“Milady?”
Rupert whined softly as Mrs. Ryan called out from the entrance to the dining room next to the front hallway.
She was suddenly dragged into the light in the hallway, clad in her nightgown, the braid of her hair over one shoulder, a knife pressed against her throat by the man whose other arm was wrapped across her shoulders.
I raised the revolver as Rupert exploded with snarls and furious barking and would have charged down the stairs.
“Call off your hell hound and put the revolver down, or the old woman dies!”
For those few seconds, I glimpsed that strong Irish spirit on Mrs. Ryan’s face, fierce pride and grim determination as she shook her head. In spite of the man holding her with a knife at her throat, his eyes gleaming from pain and the morphine that pulsed through his veins.
I had no doubt that I had just met Sir Edward Blackwood.
Gone was the confusion when first coming out of sleep. I was now frightened and angry. Afraid for Mrs. Ryan, and furious at the despicable, drug-riddled man who held her.
I slowly descended the stairs with a death grip on Rupert. He struggled to break free, but I held on, certain that if he escaped it would mean Mrs. Ryan’s death.
“Now, put down the weapon!” Blackwood rasped. “I will not hesitate to kill her.”
I believed him and laid the revolver on the floor at the landing. No mean feat, as Rupert continued to whine and thrash.
“Step away,” he ordered.
I stepped away from where I had laid it.
“Now put that beast in the dining room.”
His voice was cold as ice, even as beads of sweat streamed down the side of his face, his features gaunt, eyes sunken with the disease that ravaged him and the narcotic that burned through him.
I dragged Rupert through the doorway of the dining room.
“Close the doors,” Blackwood ordered, backing farther away.
I closed the sliding doors, Rupert barking furiously. I took a slow deep breath and forced myself to remain calm as I slowly turned around.
“What do you want?”
“What I have wanted the past twelve years…I want Inspector Angus Brodie,” he whispered, his voice thin now, his face tightening as he sucked in a sudden breath, the pain there in his expression.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My thoughts raced as he continued to move toward the parlor with Mrs. Ryan his prisoner.
“I saw you.” His voice was a ragged whisper as he stood with her in a pool of light that spilled from the entry hall into the parlor.
And then a forced smile, gruesome with the pain that twisted his features.
“You told the driver,” he replied. “Number Ten Hanover Square.”
He was there tonight! And not the first time, I thought, remembering that impression I’d had earlier, that I had seen someone watching the office.
It had been brief, and I thought I had imagined it…the office door unlocked though nothing taken.
He had been watching and waiting, even as he carried out those gruesome murders. Even with the effects of the morphine, it was obvious that he was intelligent. The drug only sharpened his anger, even as the words slurred and he struggled with them.
“Where is Angus Brodie?”
In the very least, he knew that we worked together, there was no point in arguing the matter. I attempted to bury my hand with the ring Brodie had given me in the folds of my dressing gown.
“He is obviously not here,” I told him with disdain.
That sickening slow smile.
“Do you know where he is?” he demanded again.
“I have no idea.” It was not a lie.
Brodie was out there somewhere, searching for Blackwood. He might be anywhere. That drugged gaze narrowed. He reached out and seized me by the wrist, dragging my hand from the folds of fabric where it had been hidden. He stared at the ring on my finger.
“You are his wife!” he announced with something very near childish glee. “How very perfect. So much more than I could have hoped for.”
I jerked my arm away from him.
What was he talking about? Was he delirious from pain and the morphine?
He grabbed Mrs. Ryan and shoved her toward me. He aimed the revolver at her.
“You will dress warmly, then immediately return. You are going to deliver a message for me, and you will get rid of that cursed animal! Now! And if you do not return, I will kill her.” He aimed the revolver at me.
Mrs. Ryan looked at me, her expression pale. I nodded for her to do as he said, and she quickly left through the dining room, closing the doors behind her against any possible escape by Rupert.
His furious barking abruptly lessened, then ceased altogether. I could only assume that she had sent him outside.
She eventually reappeared, dressed ‘warmly’ as ordered, in one of her usual gowns, sturdy walking boots, with a coat over. The braid still hung over her shoulder. She had not taken the time to put her hair up as she usually wore it.
“What is the message?” she asked in a voice that steadily grew stronger. “How am I to get it to him when I don’t know where he is?”
“You are to take it to the cripple who occupies the alcove at the Strand. I believe you know what I’m speaking of?”
She nodded. “I know of it. What is the message he is to carry?”
“Tell Angus Brodie that I will take from him what he took from me. You’re to tell him exactly that. Brodie will know the meaning of it. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I do,” she replied, then with a look at me, left, slamming the door behind her.
It was a pointless gesture. Still, I admired her spirit as I watched through the leaded glass in the door when she left, with Rupert at her heel, to deliver that message for Brodie to Mr. Cavendish.
Blackwood would take from Brodie what Brodie had taken from him?
I could only guess what that might mean, and it seemed that I was now part of it.
“You will dress as well,” Blackwood said after she had gone.
He started toward me, the revolver aimed directly at me. He motioned me toward the stairs and followed.
My thoughts raced for some advantage. I was at a disadvantage as long as he had the revolver. I thought then of the blade I usually carried in my boot, given to me by Munro.
“Ye never know when ye might need it,” he said at the time.
Yet a knife was no match for a firearm, and it was obvious that Blackwood was clearly unstable due to the pain of the cancer or the effects of the morphine, perhaps both. Still, I needed to wait for an opportunity where I might be able to stop whatever madness he was determined to carry out.
I could hope that Mrs. Ryan would promptly deliver that message, but then Mr. Cavendish would need to get it to Brodie. There was no way to know how long that might take. My only weapon at present was my refusal to be intimidated and to wait for an opportunity to escape.
“I do not have any weapons in my rooms, and I am perfectly capable of dressing myself,” I informed him at the stairs.
“No doubt, yet I prefer not to take the chance that you might escape. You see, you are part of this, Lady Forsythe.”
I was past any possibility of intimidation. I was furious. Yet, it would do no good at the moment.
I was grateful that I had left on my chemise and petticoat.
When I reached the door of my bedchamber, I quickly stepped inside, pushed the door closed and dressed before the door opened. I finished tying the laces on my boots, then grabbed my jacket.
There was only one man I dressed, or undressed, for!
When we returned downstairs, Blackwood instructed me to call for a driver.
And we waited.
“What are you going to do?”
A slow smile. “I am going to pay Mr. Brodie back for what he has done to me.”
I had not known Brodie then, and he had never spoken about the cases he pursued as an inspector with the MET.
Yet, from the few things I knew from him about Blackwood, the circumstances far too closely mirrored the circumstances that led to my own father taking his life. Three people who were directly involved in his imprisonment were now dead. I could only assume that he intended to kill Brodie as well.
“I understand.”
He smiled that faint, drugged smile filled with pain.
“You cannot possibly understand what it is to lose your family, your home, everything.”
But I did, far too well.
The driver arrived and Blackwood motioned for me to go ahead of him. He held back briefly.
I ran to the driver then, but Blackwood quickly caught up, a hand on my arm.
He pushed me up into the coach then closed the door, the revolver in his pocket pointed at me as he gave the driver instructions.