Epilogue
BAKEHOUSE CLOSE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
“Dora Brown, ye say?” the old woman who had answered the door of the ground-floor flat inquired.
“That be the name she uses, but didna see her come in last night after her shift at the tavern, or the past few days, come to mind. Not unusual, if she had business elsewhere, if ye get my meanin',” she continued as she looked Lily up and down.
“A friend ye say? Yer not wot I usually see in this part of the Old Town.”
Lily Montgomery nodded. “I've had a post from her.”
“A post?” the woman hooted with laughter. “Didna know she knew how to write, but she is always good with her numbers. Them who ply the trade on their backsides learn their numbers quick.
“She mighta come in without me knowin' though, since the rents are due. She does that sometimes.”
Lily inquired about Dora's flat number.
“Ye sure have a fine way of talkin'. I wouldna have guessed that Dora knew anyone so fancy. Hers is the first flat at the top of stairs. If she's there, ye tell her that I'm expectin' the rents.”
“When pigs fly,” Lily whispered to herself as she climbed the stairs.
The driver from Waverly Station had been reluctant to leave her at the address written in the note.
The tenement at the Close was like many she remembered from years before, along with the 'Church,' where both had worked. Although she had been merely a child when she was taken there to live and became a maid to the ladies who worked there.
Prostitution—the oldest profession in the world according to Lady Antonia Montgomery with whom she'd lived at Sussex Square in London the past several years.
It had surprised her that she knew so much about it. But perhaps it shouldn't have. Lady Montgomery had lived a very colourful life.
She was enormously fond of her and would be forever grateful to her. But most particularly, she owed everything to Mikaela Forsythe.
She admired her, considered her to be the family she had never known, along with Mr. Brodie. A chance encounter with Mikaela and Mr. Brodie, followed by the fire that had taken the 'Church,’ and her life was changed.
Mikaela was intelligent, she had travelled widely, had learned a great many things from those travels, and lived her life on her own terms. Such as taking on the work of an inquiry agent with Mr. Brodie.
She would understand, Lily thought, as she found the door to that flat on the second floor.
She wasn't surprised by the poor conditions in that part of Edinburgh. All those years before she had lived with Dora and the other 'ladies' at the 'Church', a well-known brothel that was in Old Town as well.
Whatever the reason Dora had sent that brief note, she hoped that she might be able to help her now.
She knocked at the door. When there was no answer, she tried the latch. It was not bolted from the inside and the door slowly swung open. She called out, but there was no answer. She stepped inside the one room flat.
The building was old and there was no electricity. The only light came from the lamp at the end of the Close and spilled through the smudged panes of the window in the far wall. She called out once more.
Again, there was no answer. If Dora hadn't the rent money, she might indeed have spent the night some other place.
As she turned to leave, she caught a faint movement on the floor near the alcove where a curtain was drawn across. Then another movement, familiar from those years before when she had lived in such a place.
As she approached the alcove she saw it again, followed by the gleam of beady eyes. It was a rat. And not just one.
She pushed the curtain back and jumped back as several fled the body that lay on the floor beside the bed. She had found Dora.
Her hand covered her mouth as she stared down at her friend, her face swollen and bloodied.
She had seen bodies before, but this was her friend, and she kicked away a rat that attempted to return.
“Get on with ye!” she said, aware that it made no difference. Not now.
What had happened she thought as the tears came? Had Dora been attacked on the street and found her way back to the flat? Or had whoever was responsible followed her?
She thought of all the times Dora had protected her from the other ladies but mostly from the men. She thought then of that note.
Who was her friend afraid of? What was it about? And now…?
“Hold on there!” the sharply barked order sliced through the horror and shock at what she had found.
“Turn around. Wot have we here?”
Lily slowly turned around and found herself face-to-face with a constable of the Edinburgh Police.
The telephone rang at the desk across from where Lily sat, presently a 'guest' of the Edinburgh Police after the information she had given them.
Not that she was fooled by the temporary 'holding room' at the Central Police headquarters, the locked door, and the matron who had been left to watch over her.
She had been taken into custody after the encounter at Dora's flat. And had promptly informed the constable who wrote up the report at the central police station the name she had been given by Sir Laughton.
“If you should need assistance in any way,” he had said when they last met. “It's always wise to know someone who might be helpful. Take this with you.”
It was a note of introduction that explained her presence in Edinburgh.
That person's name was Alastair McQuarrie, a friend Sir Laughton had studied law with. The two had stayed in contact these many years since and had assisted one another in the past in legal matters.
She had been in Edinburgh less than a day, discovered her friend, dead and was now being held as a 'person of interest' in Dora's death. Not precisely what she had hoped for.
The telephone continued to ring, and a matron reappeared from an adjacent room—a prune-faced woman Lily was convinced if she had smiled her face would crack and fall to pieces on the floor. A definite improvement to her way of thinking.
The woman answered the phone. The conversation was brief, with a quick look in Lily's direction.
“I understand,” she replied and returned the handset to the cradle.
“You are to be released,” she was informed. The woman sounded almost disappointed.
Lily stood, grateful for what had to be Mr. MacQuarrie's intervention, and gathered her travel bag as the door to the holding room opened.
She told herself that she must remember to send a note of gratitude both to Mr. MacQuarrie and Sir Laughton in London once she returned.
She looked up. The smile on her face immediately disappeared as she stared at a familiar face.
“What the devil are ye doin' here?” she demanded.
“I was sent to rescue an insolent piece of baggage, and bring ye back to London,” Munro snapped back at her as he handed the matron the necessary paperwork for her release.
Lily fought to compose herself.
“I do not need to be rescued!” she informed him, which no doubt seemed somewhat questionable at the moment. Not that she would admit it. “And I am not returning to London!”
Munro took her by the arm and dragged her from the holding room at the Central Police Station, a place he was more than familiar with and had no intention of remaining longer.
James Alec Munro cursed. He'd taken on the task of finding the girl and escorting her back to London.
He'd succeeded in finding her with information provided by Sir Laughton, who was Lady Montgomery's attorney. He had not expected that he would find her in police custody. Mr. McQuarrie had assisted with getting her released.
Lily pulled free from his grasp as they reached the street.
“I said no!”
Icy rain had set in, and the chit of a girl stood there like a fire-breathin' dragon. Munro cursed as he waved down a coach.
“Ye will go!”
She stubbornly refused.
“My friend is dead! I intend to find who killed her. You would do the same!”