Chapter 7
Seven
Even though it was still the middle of the night for some, there was no sleep for either of us after we returned to the office. Instead, we went back over everything we had learned since that night when Burke was murdered.
I hoped that we might find some answers at that address in Southwark where those items on that laundry order had been delivered. Items obviously for a woman. Still, that raised even more questions.
Why Southwark? And who was the woman? Adele DeMille? If so, what was the connection to Burke of a woman who had once entertained men at St. John’s Wood?
There were a few possibilities, one of which was a romantic connection to Burke. According to the maid we had questioned at the residence in St. John’s Wood, Adele DeMille was an actress. Although a minor one.
Had she hoped to further her career through Burke? I shuddered at the thought.
Still, our inquiry cases had revealed that people, women in particular, desperate to change their circumstances, were often willing to do whatever it took. And that included relationships with men. Often with disastrous results.
Burke was well-known through the articles that he wrote for the Times. That might have been an attraction for someone hoping to change their situation.
The question was, what was her situation? Had Adele DeMille merely been using it until a better opportunity came her way?
What was her relationship with Burke? And why had it gotten him killed?
It was very near eight o’clock in the morning when Brodie suggested that we find a driver, as morning traffic had already begun to fill the Strand.
He was no worse, but no better for the pain. Yet, the bruise on his cheek had become quite colorful, with an added shade of green among the blue and purple.
Mr. Cavendish was able to wave down Mr. Jarvis, and we became his first fare of the day.
“Borough High Street, Southwark,” Brodie told him as I stepped up into the coach.
Mr. Jarvis nodded as Brodie climbed in after me.
The bridge nearest the Strand was once called the Strand Bridge, according to Aunt Antonia and the stories she heard as a young girl.
It had been re-named Waterloo Bridge after the Battle at Waterloo and the military victory over Napoleon, although not without some controversy.
“Such foolishness,” I remember her saying. “Persons in a fit and falling in the middle of it because the new name commemorated a military battle. An important one, I might add, instead of naming it for a local landmark, as is the usual custom.
“There are some who have nothing better to do than complain about a name for a bridge, when there are far greater problems in the world.”
Wisdom from someone who had lived through a great many things over the past eighty-six years, and now drove a motor carriage and took photographs with a camera. She was quite remarkable.
Brodie was familiar with Southwark from his early days with the MET, and we had been taken there as well in one of our inquiry cases.
As the city of London grew and had expanded, Southwark was a part of south London that was filled with docks along the waterfront, warehouses, taverns, and pubs. With tenements that gradually gave way to residences of a growing middle class, with the constant need for more housing.
Mr. Jarvis turned the coach onto Borough Road past a cross street that led to an old hospital, then past warehouses, a boatwright and storage, stables and a stable yard, then turned onto Borough High Street.
“This be the place, guv’ner?” Mr. Jarvis called down as he pulled the coach to a stop.
It was a familiar three-story galleried building with rooms for travelers at the second and third floors over the rooms of the tavern, when it had been a coaching inn with those railed walkways that looked out onto the gallery.
A wooden sign hung from the second story over the narrow, cobbled sidewalk below and was painted with the old image of St. George—the George Inn!
I looked over at Brodie and my earlier thoughts returned.
Had Burke brought Adele DeMille here? Again, for what reason? Was she here now?
We left the coach with instructions from Brodie for Mr. Jarvis to remain, then walked the short distance to the entrance of the timber-framed inn under that sign.
It was exactly as I remembered, the smell of centuries of ale, with cigarette smoke and coffee, and quiet, as the usual customers had not yet arrived.
A handful of guests at the inn sat on bench seats in alcoves before a roaring fire on the hearth in the coffee room. Just beyond was the parlor, set with a table and chairs for suppers, that looked out into the gallery, just as Mr. Dickens had described it in one of his novels.
The barkeeper, a wiry man with shirt sleeves rolled back, and an apron, looked up from the scarred wooden bar where he had set out glasses and mugs.
“What can I do ye?”
In past cases, it was often necessary to create a story about the reason for our inquiries. Brodie could be quite resourceful in that.
We had discussed the possibility on the ride from the office, with the thought that we might encounter a tenement manager or building matron, as we had at Portman Square.
I gave the barman a smile.
“My husband and I are to meet my sister here,” I explained and smiled again. We were informed that the manager at the desk just beyond the coffee room could assist us.
The manager had obviously left on some matter elsewhere in the inn. I rounded the desk and quickly found the guest book in the top drawer.
“As I’ve said before,” Brodie commented, “ye would make a good thief.”
“Well, certain circumstances call for certain measures,” I replied. “According to a former thief I’m well acquainted with.”
While Brodie made certain to watch for the return of the manager, I scanned the ledger for entries made in the guest book over the past several days.
I abruptly searched no further.
“What is it?”
“A. Burke, in room eight?” I looked up. “Is it possible?”
“Is there any other name that looks familiar, a woman’s name perhaps?”
There was not.
At a sound from the hall, I tucked the guest book back into the desk and we left.
“The outside stairs to the second-floor landing,” Brodie reminded me.
We had used those stairs during that previous inquiry case. We left by way of the door at the entrance to the coffee room, found the outside stairs and climbed to the second floor, where we encountered an older man and woman leaving their room.
Brodie smiled congenially, and we moved down the length of the hall to the door to room eight, waited until they had departed down those stairs, then knocked lightly. There was no response and I knocked again. There was still no response.
I looked over at Brodie. He nodded then tried the latch at the door. It was locked.
It took little effort to open, which I was certain would not have been comforting to other guests. Brodie called out. When there was no answer, he stepped inside the room. I followed and closed the door behind me.
It was simply furnished with a bed, table, and washstand, with clothes hooks on the wall beside the door for coats and umbrellas. The bed was neatly made as if waiting for the next guest, with a portrait of a country scene on the wall.
I gazed about the room, far from what Adele had known in that manor house at St. John’s Wood, a memory just there at the edge of my thoughts.
“It’s the same.”
Brodie looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses.
“The name might be a coincidence.”
He didn’t believe it, nor did I.
“She’s been here and quite recently.”
It was the perfume that still clung to the air in the room.
“Perfume? Are ye certain?”
“It’s the same scent I discovered in her bedchamber at St. John’s Wood. It’s very expensive,” I then explained. “The sort of perfume a man might give a lover, and,” I added with no small amount of sarcasm, “I would guess not usually found among travelers at the George Inn.”
The question was, where was the woman who wore that perfume now?
We returned to the manager’s desk. He had returned and looked up. I provided the same information we had given the bar man.
“Your sister, you say?”
He retrieved the guest book from the drawer, searched for that name A. Burke, then looked up.
“It’s here, miss, room eight. Five days paid in advance.”
This was the fifth day.
“I was told there was a laundry delivery made here,” I inquired.
He nodded. “Two days ago. She left this mornin’, said she would be back. But I’ve not seen her. Is there anything wrong, miss?”
“Did she say where she was goin’?” Brodie asked.
The manager shook his head. “She kept to herself while she was here, had meals sent up. Seemed in a hurry when she left, like she was afraid of somethin’. Been here thirty years. I know the look, seen it before.”
“Do ye want to leave a message?” he inquired.
As if she was afraid of something? Or someone.
I had hoped we might learn something here, but it was not the first time Adele had disappeared. I was certain she would not return. But where would she go?
What had caused her to leave? Had something or someone frightened her? Had she heard rumors about the attack on Burke at the Old Bell?
I thanked him and we left the George.
It was well into the afternoon when we returned to the office. Mr. Cavendish met us on the sidewalk. There was a message for Brodie from Mr. Dooley.
He read the note. “He wants to meet at the Yard. It seems our ‘old friend’ has been making inquiries about the attack on Burke at the Old Bell.”
That could only mean Abberline. This could add a complication to the investigation. Brodie frowned.
“I should meet with him. I can inform him of our visit this morning to the inn. There is no need for ye to go as well,” he added. “I know yer feelin’s about Abberline. Ye might be tempted to take a shot at the man.”
Truer words had never been spoken. The man was despicable, that was the only word for it. In that first inquiry case, with my sister’s life in danger, he had refused to investigate information we’d learned.