Chapter 2 #2
Rupert the hound greeted me as I arrived at the office on the Strand.
I had come prepared with scones and a biscuit with ham.
He appeared a bit more tidy than usual—his usual state being covered with the flotsam of the street that often included a stench from some late-night snack of a dead creature he’d managed to scrounge from some waste bin.
He was a jolly fellow as long as a person was one of ‘his people,’ as Mr. Cavendish explained it. That being myself, along with Mr. Cavendish, an assistant in our inquiry cases, who carried out various tasks in spite of the loss of both legs in an accident. And Brodie as well.
Hardly disabled, Mr. Cavendish paddled about on a wheeled platform most efficiently. Usually with Rupert trotting along beside him.
They were quite a sight about the Strand.
And to his credit, Rupert was a most accomplished protector.
Not one of the yapping bits of fluff ladies carried about, he had saved my life on more than one occasion and bore the scars of a previous particularly nasty encounter.
I was very grateful to be one of ‘his people.’
“Has Mr. Brodie returned?” I inquired as Mr. Cavendish emerged from the adjacent smoke shop with a cigarette clenched between his teeth.
“He arrived a short time ago.”
“Did he perhaps mention his meeting this morning?”
Mr. Cavendish had traded his previously somewhat ragged garments for more fashionable attire after his marriage to Miss Effie, who worked at the Public House across the Strand.
She had announced before the wedding that she refused to marry a man who looked as if he’d been rescued from the bottom of a trash bin. It was a vast improvement. In truth, he looked quite dapper.
“Now, Miss Mikaela,” he admonished. “If you are not aware, as his wife and partner in private inquiries, how might I know about it?”
Point taken. I decided on a different approach.
“What was his manner when he returned?”
Mr. Cavendish had been with Brodie since he first began his private inquiries. In the beginning, he had lived in the alcove at the bottom of the stairs. After his marriage to Miss Effie, he had taken more suitable accommodations in a ground-floor flat.
“He was a bit off as they say, preoccupied would be the word, and somewhat out of sorts. He inquired as to yerself, as usual.”
Preoccupied. Out of sorts. Not that I hadn’t dealt with that before.
That might have come from his meeting with Sir Matthew Ridley, the Home Secretary. A man of considerable importance and authority when it came to matters that affected the security of the Crown.
That in itself was enough to make Brodie frown and be preoccupied, a man of the street called to a private meeting with the Home Secretary. They had met previously and got along, as they say. Even though Brodie held no affection for those of title.
There were a few exceptions. Myself, my great-aunt, of whom he was very fond, and a handful of others who did not talk down to him but treated him more an equal.
Very well, I thought. Best get on with it. Armed with that vague warning, I stood and headed for the lift beside the alcove. I took Rupert with me for support.
Brodie was at his desk with a calendar spread before him as I entered the office.
There was not the usual greeting or even an acknowledgement that someone had arrived.
Preoccupied indeed, so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed that it had grown colder in the office through the afternoon, and no fire in the coal stove.
I removed my gloves and coat, and crossed to the stove, opened the grate and added coal.
Rupert grinned at me as I set the fire, then he lay on the rug before the stove.
At least he was pleased. I crossed the office to my desk, took my journal out of my bag, and set about making notes about my meeting with Lady Ellsworth.
Several more moments passed as Brodie continued to make notes of his own in the pocket tablet he carried, a habit from his time as an inspector with the MET when on a case, seemingly oblivious that I had arrived.
“The weather forecast in the Times today has called for blizzard conditions and warned that all must remain inside until the danger passes,” I commented. Not that it was true, but more an attempt to break through whatever he was thinking about.
“And a woman was arrested for beating her husband over the head with a chicken. The chicken survived, but the man is in serious condition.” Not true either, of course, yet it had the desired effect.
He looked up, eyes narrowed.
“Here ye are,” he greeted me, something behind that dark gaze.
I had learned most of his expressions, but this one was different. There was a question there, then a frown appeared on those handsome features. There was no inquiry regarding the chicken or the man, or the weather, for that matter.
Having come from the streets and with his time with the MET, there was little that bothered him. It did seem, however, that I had interrupted something of considerable importance.
“How is yer great-aunt? In good health, I hope,” he commented.
Why was I not surprised that he knew where I had been that morning, though he had left before I received her invitation?
“Have you been checking on me?” I inquired as I went to the chalkboard and finished wiping away the information from our previous inquiry case with the felt eraser.
Not that I minded, of course. It was one of the things that was now part of our partnership. And it did have a great deal to do with that Scots demeanor—stubborn to the point of being pig-headed, protective, which had proven to be necessary in the past and something I had not experienced before.
And that frown that I did like very much, taking it upon myself to ‘relieve him of it,’ which could be most pleasing.
“Ye have a way of changing the subject, Mikaela Forsythe,” he had accused me more than once in the past. A useful tactic which usually brought very satisfying results.
He was to blame for that, of course, with that frown and that dark gaze, and...
“Aunt Antonia is in fine spirits,” I replied. “She asked me to join her and a friend, Lady Eugenia Ellsworth.” I turned from the board where I had written Thomas Ellsworth’s name at the top in the usual manner.
Brodie recognized it. “The murder of the Viscountess’s grandson in the process of a robbery the month past,” he commented.
“And no nearer to finding the one responsible than the day it occurred. The police have not been forthcoming with any resolution. Lady Ellsworth has asked that we make our usual inquiries with the hope that we might be able to provide information that could lead to the person responsible.”
He nodded. “And you assured her that we would take the case.”
I looked at him with some surprise. I heard the objection in his voice.
“We do not presently have another case, and it is a favor to Aunt Antonia as Lady Ellsworth was quite beside herself over the matter after the time that has passed with no answers.”
I was surprised at his reaction. It had taken him several years to grow his inquiry business, and he was not usually reserved about taking a new case.
“She has agreed to pay whatever fee there might be,” I pointed out.
He came out of his chair and rounded the desk.
“It’s not the matter of the fee,” he replied as he joined me and slipped an arm about my waist. “And I respect the woman’s need to have answers in the matter.”
There was something else as he stared at what I had written there.
“I’ve been offered a position,” he commented as he continued to stare at the board, that frown deepening.
“Your meeting this morning at Marlborough House,” I replied.
“Aye, that included His Highness, the Home Secretary, and the Prime Minister.”
That explained the frown. He was acquainted with both the Prince of Wales and the Home Secretary from past inquiry cases. Yet the meeting had also included the Prime Minister. I frowned as well.
For the meeting to include all three, it did seem most serious. Perhaps more so for someone who came from the streets and worked his way up to inspector with the MET, and then the private inquiry cases since. Particularly the two that involved the Prince of Wales.
“What is the position?”
“Director of the Criminal Investigations Department.”
The C.I.D. I knew of it, a position that had been created a handful of years before. It was rumored to handle covert detective work, counter surveillance against threats to the Crown, and in response, at that time, to the threats from the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
“I would answer only to the Home Secretary,” he continued.
Sir Matthew Ridley. It was possible my great-aunt might know something about him. She was connected to a great many people, and as she explained it, ‘knew where the bodies were buried.’
“One cannot live as long as I have with our family connections and not know a few secrets.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said that I would think on the matter, as there are other important considerations.”