Chapter 7 #2
He considered her disappearance nothing more than a ‘disagreement’ between a husband and wife, common enough, as he had insultingly put it.
However, it was no common disagreement, and there was reason to believe her life was in danger, particularly after her maid’s body was pulled from the river. Abberline had refused to investigate further.
And then there was his resentment of Brodie that had very nearly ruined him and sent him to prison, a convolution of lies fueled by old resentments.
Brodie knew me quite well. I might be tempted to take a shot at the man if I were to encounter him.
He motioned for Mr. Jarvis to wait. “There is someone else who may have information that could be useful.”
There was no need for him to explain further, the vague words he chose conveyed a great deal.
“Mr. Brown?” I replied.
A man Brodie knew from the past, with a somewhat disreputable reputation, a name that was a disguise for his real name, which no one actually knew, with a reputation for business in all sorts of enterprises, mostly illegal.
And someone we had previously done ‘business’ with when other efforts failed.
Or more specifically, I had once contacted and worked with. Brodie deliberately kept a distance between Mr. Brown and myself.
“Dealings with the man are not for ye,” he had told me. “The less ye know, the better off ye are.”
As for his dealings with Mr. Brown?
“We understand one another,” Brodie had replied at the time. And no more was said, although from bits and pieces that I had learned of his past, I assumed what that meant.
Not a reassuring thought. And now he was planning on meeting with him once again. I did wonder about that ‘understanding,’ but did not ask. It was undoubtedly one of those things he did not want me to know about.
“Do be careful,” I told him in parting. “I prefer you in one piece.”
Bruises and broken ribs notwithstanding. There was that half smile at one corner of his mouth.
“Careful as church mice.”
With Brodie, that was not necessarily reassuring.
After he left, I went up to the office. I had more notes to add to my notebook and on the chalkboard.
I organized everything we had learned on the board, with cross references to a second list that showed how the clues were related. And those clues we still had no information about.
It was well after six o’clock in the evening when Mr. Cavendish rang the service bell and reminded me that he was going to the Public House for supper. I asked him to bring a takeaway box when he returned.
The hound bounded up the stairs as Mr. Cavendish set off. Not that I was fooled. Food had been mentioned, and I was convinced he understood every word when it came to that.
“Very well, come in,” I told him as I returned from the landing. He looked up at me with a self-satisfied expression. He was quite the con-artist, as Brodie called him.
He did have the uncanny ability to know exactly what was going on all the time. I was convinced that he understood everything that was said. We got along quite well.
Mr. Cavendish returned with supper, which I shared with the hound.
Brodie had not yet returned. It did seem as though it might be just Rupert and myself. Not that it was the first time.
“I’ll be about if you need anything, miss,” Mr. Cavendish assured me.
I had urged him to return to the Public House. He lived there in a small flat with his new bride, Miss Effie. They were recently married.
He shook his head. “Orders from Mr. Brodie before he left,” he informed me with a grin and the assurance that I was quite safe.
That was not the first time either. I knew well enough that he had a rather nasty knife tucked into the waist of his trousers. A trinket, he called it, acquired when he crewed on the merchantman ships that put in at foreign ports.
Trinket indeed. It had a curved blade several inches long with a handle of carved ivory. I had seen him cleaning it on more than one occasion. It was impressive.
“I’ve responsibilities now for the missus,” he had said recently. “I’ll not have her goin’ about alone. One never knows what sort we might come upon.”
I was reminded of that as I went out onto the landing, Rupert at my heel.
“A message was just sent round for you,” Mr. Cavendish called up to me.
The courier services often worked late. However, I had no idea who would send a message at this time of night.
Was it something urgent?
I took the stairs, with a thought to Brodie and his opinion of the lift. There were times it was far more expedient to take them. Not that I would admit that, since the installation of the lift had been my idea. And it most certainly made it easier for Mr. Cavendish.
However, now...
He handed me the envelope. I quickly opened it and pulled out the note:
Please meet me—important.
Tonight. Drury Lane.
A.D.
I stared at those initials that seemed to shiver in the light from the streetlamp, along with that cryptic message.
Adele DeMille? Was it possible?
If so, who told her that I could be trusted?
There was only one person I could think of after what had recently taken place at the Old Bell—Burke and the bloodied note he had given me.
‘What will you do now, Mikaela Forsythe?’
The note I now held in my hand had most definitely been written by a woman, the handwriting small, each curve of a letter flowing into the next, unlike that of a man, scribbled and almost indecipherable.
The pen had paused where the ink had puddled after that last word, as if the person who wrote perhaps had second thoughts before adding those initials.
And then there was that unmistakable scent of perfume, almost indiscernible, but I recognized it. The same that I had first discovered at the residence at St. John’s Wood.
It was very near nine o’clock in the evening. There would be a play at the Theatre Royal, with guests arriving. The perfect place to meet someone in a crowd and not be seen?
“I will need a driver,” I told Mr. Cavendish as I turned toward the stairs.
“Mr. Brodie would not want you takin’ yerself off alone at night,” he called after me as I reached the stairs.
“As soon as possible,” I replied as I reached the landing at the office. I left a note for Brodie, then quickly gathered my bag and retrieved my coat from the stand. I locked the office door and returned to the sidewalk as Mr. Jarvis arrived.
“What should I tell Mr. Brodie?” Mr. Cavendish inquired. The expression on his face said far more.
“I’ve left a note.” Not that he would be pleased.
There was another comment amidst much grumbling that I chose to ignore.
“You’ll not leave without the hound,” he announced. “Mr. Brodie would have what’s left of me hide if I let you go off without him.”
Rupert jumped into the coach, and I climbed in after. I gave Mr. Jarvis the destination of the Theatre Royal.
“That it is,” he replied, and we set off, Mr. Cavendish still grumbling.
The theatre lights from the Royal lit up the night sky, as late guests continued to arrive amid the dozens of coaches and cabs on the street.
How was I to find Adele DeMille in the crowd? I thought as I stepped down.
I scanned those afoot around me as they rushed to the theatre entrance, along with those just arriving, and was very nearly run down by a late arrival. The coach pulled to an abrupt stop and the door opened.
“Get in, Lady Forsythe.”
It seemed that I had just met Adele DeMille.
“Miss?” Mr. Jarvis inquired, with an eye to the traffic.
“It’s quite all right. A friend,” I told him as I stepped up into the coach with the hound behind me.
The driver efficiently guided the coach through departing rigs and then set off.
“A friend?” the woman across from me inquired with a faint French accent, her features concealed in shadows created by the light from streetlamps that spilled inside the coach window, then disappeared as the driver slowed the team.
“We are not enemies, Adele, therefore I prefer ‘friend’.”
There was a brief nod amid the cloak of darkness inside the coach.
“And you have brought a special friend with you?”
She obviously meant the hound.
“C’est vrai.” I replied in French, with the hope of putting her at ease. “Voux avez demandé à se rencontrer.” I reminded her that she was the one who asked to meet.”
“He told me that you were educated. He did not mention that you spoke French.”
I was not surprised, as Burke was most definitely not one to hand out compliments.
“The creature is yours?”
I heard the trepidation in her voice.
“A friend also,” I replied. “He will not harm you.”
A hesitant nod as Adele DeMille seemed to consider that, then called to the coachman to stop. At a glance I realized that we had reached the Strand, mostly empty now at this time of night.
“Perhaps if I had such a friend...” She seemed to gather herself. “I have heard rumors, and then when I did not hear from him…”
She spoke of Burke, no doubt.
“He’s dead,” I told her as gently as possible, without yet knowing what their relationship was.
“It is as I feared,” she softly replied.
“Why did you leave the inn?”
She looked up and I caught the glimmer of something in her eyes.
Tears? I thought not. Burke was not the sort to cause that emotion.
Fear perhaps.
“You went there?”
“Lady’s clothes were delivered there on a laundry order that I found on his desk. It seemed logical after the note he gave me when he asked to meet at the Old Bell.”
“He said that you were very clever, and the only one who...”
“The only one?” I replied.
What did that mean, I wondered as I thought once more of his last words to me that night—“What will you do now, Mikaela Forsythe?”
There was obviously far more to this. And whatever it was, she was terrified.
“You asked to meet in that note you sent,” I reminded her.
I wanted very much to know the reason, and what her part in this was.
“He said that I could trust you. And now...I am not proud of what I have done,” she continued. “I did not know what would happen when it began.”