Chapter 13
Thirteen
It was well into the evening when Brodie returned.
I had supper brought from the Public House across the Strand after Aunt Antonia departed, and put the portion remaining in the cold box she had insisted be installed when she gave ownership of the building to Brodie.
Brodie was quiet and moved about stiffly, in the way I had seen the past two days since his encounter with Steiner outside the Old Bell.
He had removed his coat and cap.
It was doubtful he’d eaten anything after leaving with Mr. Conner earlier.
“Mr. Cavendish was good enough to bring supper back earlier. There’s a plate in the cold box.”
When I turned to go into the adjacent room, he caught me by the hand and pulled me against him in spite of my reminder of his broken ribs. He said nothing, then lowered his face into the curve of my neck.
His hair and beard were damp even though it had not rained recently, and he smelled of soap—the same scent of shaving soap that I had noticed Mr. Conner used even though he had a moustache.
With a full beard, Brodie rarely used shaving soap, or the Sunlight Soap for bathing in the shower compartment, as he refused to smell like the lavender soap that I used.
Although he had been known to break that rule when he had joined me in the shower compartment. That had been some time in the past, as that particular pleasure had ended with the fire at the townhouse.
He continued to tightly hold me, and I was concerned it might cause him further injury.
“What is it?” I inquired. “Has something happened?”
I had been concerned when he went off with Mr. Conner after learning where Steiner might be found.
“Mr. Conner?” I then asked. He was not a young man, and if there had been an encounter...
Brodie’s hold gentled, though he kept one arm about my waist. He brushed my cheek with his other hand.
“Do ye know how fine ye are to me?”
There was something in his expression, something dark and...wounded. That was the only word that came to me.
I knew the answer to that, improbable as it would have been before that first inquiry case a handful of years earlier.
I brushed his beard with my fingers in that way that had become a language of its own between us.
“Your hair and beard are wet,” I said as my fingers moved along the curve of his jaw.
“Mr. Conner allowed me to wash at his flat. I couldn’t come back to ye smellin’ the way I did after wot we found... I won’t let it touch ye.”
It seemed that my worst fears had come to pass, although not in the way I first thought.
“Steiner?”
“Gone, by a few days before we arrived.”
“And the woman he was with?” Although I was certain what the answer would be.
“Dead. Probably the last time he was with her.”
There was more, but for now it could wait.
“I’ll warm supper for you and pour a bit of Old Lodge.” But when I would have moved away, he pulled me against him once more and held onto me.
He had not touched the supper I placed before him on his desk. Instead, he poured another dram of whisky for both of us.
He eventually told me the rest of what they found at that crumbling tenement where a woman named Kitty had entertained Steiner exclusively. And the mark left on her body. He had then closed his eyes, his head on the chair back.
“I may have learned something about what is to happen tomorrow—Saturday evening, 18 April.”
That dark gaze opened, narrow, barely a slit that fastened on me as I continued to explain the visit from my great aunt.
“I didn’t know about it, as the invitation would usually have been sent to the townhouse. Instead, it was included with her invitation sent to Sussex Square.”
There was no ‘aha’ moment, no other exclamation. He simply listened.
“It makes sense,” I then added my thoughts.
“We know that three men of position were meeting in secret at St. John’s Wood.
From Adele’s notes, we know that it has something to do with the submarine the Royal Navy is having secretly built at Portsmouth.
Along with the three men who went by the aliases of Torch, Hammer, and Saber. ”
Secretly did seem a moot point after our trip there.
“And according to Alex, the Agency has received coded messages about a man who goes by the name of Torch.”
And that date, also disclosed in the things Adele had overheard and then put down in her journal before she sought out Burke.
Had she sinned, as she had tearfully asked? And then caused Burke’s death?
I could never accept that and would defend that what she had done in the end took more courage than many of those I knew.
I had added notes about what Brodie and Mr. Conner had discovered at that flat in St. Giles, including the description of that mark that had been burned into Kitty’s body. I then added my own thought about that.
I do believe there is a special place in Hell for those like Steiner. As Lily had once said about the death of a friend from an early experience in Edinburgh before she came to London.
People like Steiner, those who procured his services for their own purpose, and anyone who would commit murder and leave a young girl terrified in the shadows had no soul...only the evil that fed them.
Quite profound from one so young.
As I finished my notes, I looked up. The fire was low in the coal stove and the room had taken on a sudden coldness.
Brodie had still not touched the supper in front him, the glass tumbler empty, his handsome features drawn.
Aunt Antonia had telephoned earlier to say that she had spoken with my sister. Linnie was thrilled with the news that we would be attending the reception at St. James's Palace.
She had no way of knowing the reason, of course. That we hoped to discover the importance of the date to those three men at St. John’s Wood.
She had promised to send a gown over in the morning that I might wear, and surely there was something her husband had that Brodie could wear, with such short notice and no time to purchase a formal suit of clothes from a tailor’s.
I closed my notebook. I went to the stove and closed the two doors across the front to hold in the heat, then set the lock on the door. I left the plate of food where it was. Rupert would appreciate it in the morning.
Brodie eventually stood. He had not spoken after he first returned, but had simply listened as I explained what I had learned from Aunt Antonia, and my thoughts on what that date meant. I reached for his hand.
Other than the barest details of what he and Mr. Conner found, he had kept the rest of it locked inside, determined, as he was so often, to protect me from the more gruesome part of it.
“Do you know how fine you are to me?” I told him and laid my hand against his cheek.
“There are things we need to talk about,” Brodie insisted.
I knew perfectly well what he meant, and where it came from.
But not tonight, I thought, as I led him into the bed chamber and unbuttoned his shirt.
Then held him against me as he had held me so many times.
It was his habit to rise early, often times having not slept at all, a holdover from his time with the MET and other things.
This morning was no different, as I awakened to find him already dressed in trousers and a jumper, his hair quite wild about his head.
He had placed a call to Alex Sinclair earlier.
“I’m to meet with Sir Avery at the Agency when I arrive. He needs to know wot we’ve learned.”
“You could remain here and let him dangle over what we now know.”
“And wait to see what yer brother-in-law has found for me to wear tonight?”
I had shared that part of Aunt Antonia’s plan with him.
“The man is a bit shorter.”
“I thought instead that we might simply lock the door, lower the shades, and...”
“Och, ye are a brazen lass.”
“What I would have suggested is sleep. You tossed about most of the night, after...”
He returned to where I sat on the edge of the bed, the blanket held against me, and leaned toward me.
“After?” A dark brow lifted in that maddening way.
“You know very well what I mean.”
“If ye are feeling neglected, Lady Forsythe, I suppose that I could be persuaded to accommodate.”
The smile was there, the way it lifted his mouth at one corner. Yet different, with that cut below his eye.
“In your present condition, I might injure you further,” I replied in consideration of those broken ribs.
He laughed and then winced. “Aye, for a moment last night there was the possibility that ye might have done me in.”
With that, he left, just out of range of the pillow I hurled at his head, which landed on the floor beside the doorway.
I attempted once more to dissuade him from that meeting, but he would hear none of it.
“There could be something important about the reception tonight. We have no way of knowing all those involved. And I gave me word to the man in exchange for the information he provided us.”
“He has no loyalty to anyone, except to Queen and country. I doubt he had any feelings for his mother.”
“I know yer feelings toward the man. Mine are much the same. But dinna look at me that way.”
“What way is that?” I replied, quite out of sorts over the matter.
“As if ye’d prefer to dump the man on the floor or run him through.”
I tried not to laugh. He was right, of course.
“He uses us and then is just as likely to hang us out to dry,” I objected, determined to make my point. “It is about power, and he uses it for his own end.”
“Aye, a government man to be certain. But I have the advantage that I know it and use it against him to protect meself and you.”
“Oh, very well,” I conceded.
“Will ye be waitin’ in bed for me?”
“That offer, Mr. Brodie, has come and gone. At any rate, Linnie is sending clothes over this morning for us to wear tonight.”
And he was gone.
I knew my sister’s taste in clothes quite well.
She preferred soft, pale colors with lace and ribbons attached, while I preferred more subtle colors, devoid of lace and ribbons.
My lack of appropriate clothes might not have been necessary except for the fire that had taken everything at the townhouse.
“You really must make an appointment to visit Madame,” Linnie had added at the end of that telephone conversation.
“She knows your measurements and could easily provide you with gowns and other clothes, instead of the clothes you kept at the Strand before the fire. And you should pay more attention to those things, Mikaela. What must Mr. Brodie think that you have little to nothing to wear?”
I knew precisely what Mr. Brodie thought of that, but did not say it. After all, she was well into her second pregnancy and had lamented about being quite uncomfortable.
Although the prospect of the evening reception at St. James's Palace seemed to have lifted her spirits.
The clothes were sent to the office by way of her housekeeper, who had never been to the office on the Strand. She arrived by way of the lift after Mr. Cavendish announced her arrival, the garments well wrapped in cloth against any stains or dirt and carried over in her arms.
She was a tall, stout woman I had previously met when calling on my sister. A Godsend, Linnie had announced, who managed their household, allowing both Linnie and James to spend time with their small but growing family, as well as the demands of James’s publishing company.
Through Mrs. Evers they had also acquired a nanny who was a perfect match for young Charlotte’s energy and precocious nature.
“Mrs. Warren has included ladies’ delicate wear as well,” Mrs. Evers announced. “And sent a note.” She handed me an envelope, then slowly approached the chalkboard.
“Oh, my. How very exciting. She did explain that you are presently on a new inquiry case with Mr. Brodie?”
Her comment was obviously an attempt at further information which I did not share.
“How do you do it?” she then inquired.
Carefully, I thought, but didn’t say it.
“Most of the experience is with my husband. He was once with the Metropolitan Police.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. Mrs. Warren did mention that.”
And to avoid further questions, I took the garments from her, then laid them across the side chair in the adjoining room. I closed the door behind me as I returned to the outer office, the bed still somewhat rumpled. In fact, quite rumpled.
“Thank you so very much, Mrs. Evers.”
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “And I must be on my way as well.”
When she had gone, I read Linnie’s note. The gown she had sent for me had been ordered when she was first pregnant with Charlotte.
‘I grew enormously with her and was never able to wear it. And admittedly it is not my color, although Aunt Antonia was quite adamant at the time. James insists that I must have had a momentary lapse when I had Madame make it for me. Therefore, you now have a new gown.
‘I am so looking forward to this evening. It will undoubtedly be my last public appearance until after the baby arrives.’
Oh, dear. I had no way of knowing what to expect if Aunt Antonia had been ‘quite adamant’ about it when Linnie had it made.
I unwrapped the first neatly wrapped bundle that contained a man’s black tailcoat, quite elegant, and neatly flat-ironed. I hung it in the wardrobe that had been added to our room, then reached for the second bundle that emitted the faint sound of starched petticoats.
I slowly unwrapped it, almost afraid of what I would find. I needn’t have worried, and almost burst out laughing.
It was quite stylish, except for the lace and bows, including one enormous bow on the bodice, the cloth a glorious shade of deep purple reminiscent of the color of her driving costume.
Bravo, Aunt Antonia!