Chapter 6 #2
I returned to the office as he set off across the Strand. The man in question had poured himself another dram of my great aunt’s whisky and sat in his chair at the desk, his head against the chair back, eyes closed.
The pain was there, although dulled, no doubt somewhat from that first drink. He had not touched the laudanum that sat exactly where Mr. Brimley had left it before he departed earlier.
Bloody stubborn Scot, I thought. Though not without sympathy. While I had never broken any ribs, I had taken more than one tumble from one of my great aunt’s horses that she raced at Ascot years before.
There is that moment when one has been unseated unceremoniously, dropped to the ground, and cannot catch one’s breath. That particular incident had played itself over on one of my travels, though I had become somewhat more accomplished in my horsemanship skills by then.
I had discovered on a trek across the Sahara, however, that desert sand is no more forgiving than the track at Ascot. I had recovered from both, but not without substantial bruises.
The pain in both instances was gone in a matter of days, but not without the occasional reminder that I had been quite foolish. Not that it stopped me. In the years since, I had become quite accomplished at riding a horse. But the memory was still there.
Brodie’s encounter was hardly a tumble from the back of a horse. He had suffered substantial injury with cracked ribs and the constant reminder of them with every move he made. It was there in the lines around his eyes and about his mouth.
“Not a word when I ask ye for another dram,” he said now, without so much as cracking open an eye.
“Not a word,” I replied as I bent over and gently kissed him.
“I prefer that to laudanum,” he replied, still without opening an eye. “Perhaps even yer great aunt’s whisky.”
“I will remind you of that later.”
He eventually stirred when Mr. Cavendish arrived, by way of the lift, with supper from the Public House.
“You might try ice for the pain,” he suggested after taking a look at Brodie.
“Ye speak from experience?” Brodie inquired as I set our supper out on his desk.
Mr. Cavendish grinned. “There weren’t no use for ice at the time. Me legs were already gone, cut clean off when the cargo shifted and trapped me under. Beg pardon, miss.
“Old Benny, who shipped over with us, said they were still there when they hoisted that crate from the deck,” he continued. “Even now, I would swear I can feel me toes wigglin’ about, and I don’t have any. Me bride says it’s me imagination. But it happens whenever the woman comes near.”
For the first time since he’d been attacked, I caught the faint smile at one corner of Brodie’s mouth. Toes. A most amusing tale.
It did seem that he fared no worse the second night after the attack, even though he moved about in the bed, unable to get comfortable, then eventually rose with a curse and went out into the adjacent office.
I joined him, unable to sleep as well, ignored his comment as I set the coffee pot on the stove, and poured him a dram of my great aunt’s tonic.
I then returned to the adjoining chamber and dressed for the day. Afterward, I sat at my desk and went through the notes I’d made in my notebook.
It was barely light through the windows when the service bell on the landing broke the silence and rang persistently.
Inspector Dooley appeared at the door. He frowned, with a look over at Brodie, but made no comment about the bruise below his eye.
Brodie had updated him on the latest developments the previous evening, including our visit to Portman Square, only to find that Mr. Jardine had not returned there nor to the shop on Savile Row.
“Come along then,” he said with a frown. “From the description you provided, it would seem that we’ve found the tailor.”
We rode with Mr. Dooley to the London Docks in a coach provided by the Yard.
A handful of constables were gathered there, along with a police van. It quickly became apparent what they had gathered round.
Inspector Dooley nodded to one of them. “Mr. Brodie and Miss Forsythe are here on my authority,” he told the constable, who stepped aside.
I had seen bodies before, admittedly an unfortunate part of our inquiry cases. In particular, the body of my sister’s maid, which had been pulled from the Thames, cruelly murdered in my sister’s disappearance.
I had asked Brodie then if one ever got used to such things. His silence in response was my answer, and I felt it now as I stared down at the body at the wharf and realized that I would never become used to it.
It was shocking, and at the same time enormously sad, that a human being would be reduced to nothing more than a bit of flotsam or garbage, thrown into a river to be gotten rid of.
Some were never found, while others often washed up against the pilings or floated among the dockside vessels, as if the person the body had once been was determined that others might know of their tragic end.
A day did not pass without another one washing up after suffering some misfortune—those who left taverns and were assaulted for a meager coin, a prostitute who had taken the company of the wrong person, most of them nameless and buried in a pauper’s grave after being retrieved from the water.
The body that lay at the dock had a name, or at least had at one time—Louis Jardine, the tailor’s assistant, whom we had hoped to speak with regarding that gold button.
I took a sudden deep breath as I stared down at the body with a combination of surprise and horror.
Brodie was there as he stepped between me and that ghastly sight, blocking my view of Jardine’s body, bloated and battered from being tossed against the pilings with the incoming tide.
“Go back to the coach,” he said gently. “There’s no need for ye to be here.”
“I’m quite all right,” I insisted as I took another deep breath and remained as Mr. Dooley commented.
“There’s a good deal of bruising about the torso and head,” he pointed out.
“The body hasn’t been in the water that long.
It would seem that someone had a go at him before he was dropped into the river.
The lads went through his pockets,” he added.
“They were empty. It would seem to be the usual robbery.”
Brodie crouched down beside the body in spite of the pain it brought.
“So it would seem,” he commented as he inspected the injuries, then slowly stood once more.
“It’s the tailor’s assistant, but that is only for ye to know,” he told Mr. Dooley. “I ask that no information be released to the newspapers yet.”
Inspector Dooley grimly nodded. “What about Burke’s body?”
“Nor about Burke. If whoever did this is curious, it might draw them out when there is nothing reported in the newspapers.
“There is more to this than another body of someone who had too much to drink, then washed up in the river.”
And a woman who had entertained gentlemen, I thought, remembering where that button was found, and now she had apparently disappeared.
How was it all connected? What had Burke been pursuing when he was killed? What did it have to do with Adele DeMille? Or myself, for that matter, with that note he had given me, considering our somewhat contentious past?
“I’ll do what I can,” Mr. Dooley replied. “But there are those that will be poking around with the rumors that are already out on the street.”
Chief Inspector Abberline.
Of course, I thought. Never let an opportunity that might improve one’s position to pass by.
Abberline had thwarted our inquiries in the past. Though he was presently stationed at the Bow Street station, he did have a way of inserting himself into situations that might benefit him. And he had no doubt heard of the attack on Burke at the Old Bell.
“I understand,” Brodie replied.
We waited in the coach as Mr. Dooley gave instructions to the constables who had found Jardine. He then returned to the coach as well.
“Let me know if you have any information that could be important,” he said in parting.
“And I will do the same.”
A look passed between them.
We took the lift up to the office. I poured coffee that had cooled considerably, then went to the chalkboard. I studied the most recent notes I’d made.
That insignia on that gold button could be important if we knew what it meant.
There was no word yet from Mr. Conner with his efforts to find the cabman who had driven the coach away from the Old Bell the night Burke was murdered. And then, there was the woman at the residence at St. John’s Wood.
How was she connected to this, and why had Burke given me that note with her name on it?
Brodie studied the board as well. He’d had little sleep the night before. It showed in the faint lines at his eyes.
“I want to go to Southwark where that laundry order of lady’s clothes was delivered. It could be important, particularly if she is there. I could be there and back within a few hours.”
“And if there is someone there other than the woman?”
I had thought of that as well.
“I will take Rupert with me should there be any difficulty, and I will have the revolver with me,” I pointed out.
There were few men who stood over me, given my height. However, that included the man who stood beside me.
“Aye, but ye’ll not go alone. And I dinna mean the hound.”