Chapter 5 #2
“I’ve heard rumors about him,” he continued. “It is unknown what you can believe. Only the bodies know, eh? And they don’t speak.”
He gave Brodie a long look, then reached for his glass once more and poured more Schnapps.
“What is known is that he lives well and dresses as you have described him. You are fortunate to have survived the encounter.”
“The man’s name?” Bodie replied.
“He calls himself Steiner. It means from stone. And he is that.”
“I need to know whom he works for.”
“As I said, those who can afford to pay his fee. I mean no offense, Lady Forsythe, but he is the sort of man who will be found in the company of those with titles, wealth, and power. More than that,” he shrugged. “I do not know. Nor do I want to know.
“I have my family, and this place that I have worked hard for. A man like Steiner does not value anything other than what another man will pay him, although it is said that he has a particular...appetite for a beautiful woman.” He looked over at me.
“If Steiner is the man Herr Brodie is looking for, you must be careful Lady Forsythe. I would not want anything to happen to you. Do you still carry a weapon?”
Brodie winced as the coach lurched across uneven pavement in the roadway as we left the gymnasium.
Burke murdered. That note he had given me. Brodie attacked after leaving the Old Bell. And now to learn the man who had attacked him was a known assassin.
“What has this to do with Burke and that note?” I said, trying to make sense of it all.
“Ye said often enough that the man would sell his soul for a story for the newspaper, and he built his reputation on the crime and scandal sheets for the Times,” Brodie commented.
“The better question would be, wot is it about a story that was worth his life?”
It made sense. But what did that have to do with me?
Brodie braced himself as the coach lurched again, then slowly let out the breath he was holding.
After leaving the gymnasium, I had suggested that he return to the office to await word from Mr. Conner, while I continued on with the hope of learning something about that gold button.
He had given me ‘that look.’
Savile Row was in Mayfair. It was a part of London I knew well, with tailor shops for gentlemen, and included one with a royal warrant, Henry Poole & Company, which had provided military tailoring for officers for decades, from before the Battle of Waterloo.
Along with one dress uniform of a Montgomery cousin that was presently in the sword room at Sussex Square.
The foyer of Henry Poole & Co. of London was tastefully furnished and might have been the entrance to any private residence at St. James's or Portman Square, with thick carpet, a mahogany desk, an attendant who greeted us, and a long hallway that extended to the back of the shop, no doubt with fitting rooms and work areas.
“Lady Forsythe,” the young man acknowledged when I gave my name, then slanted more than one curious glance at Brodie, the bruise below his eye now a glorious shade of purple.
Brodie explained the reason we were there, after finding an unusual button and the need to determine who it might belong to.
“Of course,” the young man replied, somewhat hesitant and with another glance at Brodie.
“I will inform our concierge.”
“Bloody hell,” Brodie commented as the young man departed. “Wot the devil is a concierge?”
With experience limited to ladies’ dress shops, it was safe to assume it was much the same in a men’s shop, particularly one that provided formal wear and waistcoats to gentlemen across London that included members of the royal family.
“It would perhaps be the manager of the shop,” I ventured to guess as the man returned and introduced a formally dressed man, Mr. Hendley.
He stared at Brodie for a moment, then cleared his throat.
“How may I assist you?”
Brodie explained the reason for our visit once more, and we were escorted into a private office that resembled a small sitting room, furnished with a mahogany desk and chairs.
“May I see the item?”
I retrieved the button and handed it across the desk. Mr. Hendley laid it on a white linen cloth, then took out a looking glass and examined the button.
“It is finely made. Real gold, I would say, not plated, with a somewhat unusual insignia.”
“Do you recognize it?” I inquired.
“Not precisely.” He looked up. “Yet, there are many family crests and marks that our clients request.”
He removed a book from one of the desk drawers. It was bound in leather and embossed across the front with the name of the company. It appeared to be a catalogue of crests and emblems. He scanned the first page, then a handful more. He shook his head.
“We do keep a reference for all our work. That crest is not among them.” He was thoughtful. “It does seem to be the style that might be used by a private gentlemen’s club.
“There are several, as well as fraternal orders, religious symbols, insignias that have a personal meaning. However, this does not appear to have been made by our people.”
It was disappointing, still it was possible that the button had been made in one of the other shops. We inquired at two more shops nearby and received the same answer.
“It is possible the button was made elsewhere, perhaps Paris or another city. It does seem that Adele DeMille entertained a variety of ‘guests.’”
We entered the next shop, Gieves & Hawkes, a well-known clothier for members of Parliament and other gentlemen.
As with the other shops we had called upon, it was furnished as one might expect in a fine home, with a front counter where we were greeted by an older man in a finely made suit. And as before, Brodie explained the reason for our visit.
“Of course,” he replied. “Please wait here.”
Another man appeared and introduced himself with a polite smile as Mr. Soames.
I showed him the gold button which he examined under a glass, also as before, his assistant moving closer for a look as well.
“Most impressive work, a wolf’s head. The insignia is somewhat unusual, perhaps for a member of a private club.” He turned it over and noted the letters on the reverse, usually etched by the craftsman who had made them.
“R.M. The letters do not mean anything to me, certainly not one of our clients.”
His assistant had moved closer and peered over his shoulder. I was about to ask if he recognized it, when he turned and mumbled something about woolen cloth that needed to be attended to.
He quickly moved toward the back of the shop, which seemed somewhat unusual. He made a quick glance back over his shoulder that seemed suspicious. Brodie had seen it as well.
I rounded the counter to Mr. Soames’s protest and ran through the shop after his assistant, as Brodie turned and left through the main entrance.
The door at the back of the shop slowly closed as I ran past startled workers at cutting tables.
I followed out that door and into the alleyway and glanced in both directions. He seemed to have disappeared.
Had he recognized the insignia on the button? Was it possible that he had made the button without the owner’s knowledge? If so, why had he fled, and where had he gone?
Brodie had said more than once that in order to know a person’s thoughts, you had to think as they would. If I were attempting to flee a situation, where would I go?
The alleyway passed along behind other shops on Savile Row, while the opposite end opened onto a street that adjoined Regent Street just beyond.
He might have stepped into any one of those shops, odd as it would have seemed to those inside. Or he might very well have fled toward the street and escaped into the traffic of coaches and trams.
I ran to the back door of the next shop over. The door was locked. No help there. I then ran to the next one, greeted by startled workers who looked up. No one had entered the shop before me. Nor at the two shops beyond. The little man with those thick spectacles had disappeared.
“Bloody hell.”
I returned to the shop where we had encountered him. According to the shop owner his name was Louis Jardine. He had been employed by the shop a little more than a year. He was highly skilled, a valued member of their staff, and there had never been any issue with his service.
He was quite clear that he didn’t recognize the image on the front of the button as having been made in his shop.
“What would the image of a wolf represent?” I then asked.
“In some cultures, it has been known to represent power.”
Louis Jardine had come to the owner of the shop with excellent recommendations.
He lived in a flat at Portman Square, which had surprised Mr. Soames.
While there were areas surrounding where working families lived, the Square was noted for flats and entire apartments held by professional people.
The rents would be far more than a clerk in a men’s shop could afford.
Mr. Jardine had explained that he had money from another source. The shop owner assumed that it was an inheritance.
I thanked him and went in search of Brodie. I found him at the end of Savile Row, at the corner of that cross street.
I suspect that pursuing someone afoot was not usually recommended for someone with broken ribs. He leaned against the side of a building, one arm wrapped about himself, obviously in great pain.
“I believe a visit from Mr. Brimley is in order.”
“There is no need!” he insisted with a grimace of pain.
Yes, well...
“I learned something that could be important,” I explained as a diversion, as we slowly returned to where Mr. Jarvis waited with the coach.
“The clerk’s name and a possible meaning of that image on the button.”
As we returned to the coach, I could only imagine that we must look quite odd, Brodie slowly taking each step, as if he’d had far too much to drink.
Theodolphus Burke, scandalmonger that he was, would have been delighted to write about it in the next issue of the Times:
“Lady Mikaela Forsythe, who calls herself an author and well-travelled adventuress, was seen at Savile Row, assisting former Police Inspector Angus Brodie, obviously well into his drink, who could barely walk. A new murder case, perhaps?”