Chapter 12
Twelve
I had not heard from Brodie, nor had he returned the night before.
I missed him terribly. However, his parting comment the previous morning had been most interesting.
Knowing him now as I did, I had sensed that he may have misgivings about the arrangement with the CID.
Also knowing him well, he would see the present matter through.
I had asked questions, of course, that last night before he left, as I have a habit of doing.
He had shared little, as I had expected.
Part of his hesitation to share anything with me was from his experience as a former police inspector.
The other part was that he was not the sort who chatted about himself or what he was about.
Most definitely all Scot in that regard.
I had not slept well the night before and had arrived at the office quite early. So early, in fact, that Mr. Cavendish had not yet arrived. The hound followed me into the lift, then inspected the office for anything that resembled food.
I went to the cold box and retrieved a sausage biscuit left from two days earlier. He thoroughly enjoyed it, dried out as it was. But then he was quite used to whatever might be found cast off in the street, including the carcass of some dead creature.
I put more coal into the stove, set the coffee pot, then turned to the chalkboard. I frowned as I made my notes from my meeting with Anthony Ellsworth.
He had apologized for not responding previously to my notes requesting to meet. I did understand the demands that he must have to his time.
He had answered my questions, which revealed nothing out of the ordinary and were very much the same as what I had read in the police report.
I hesitated at the next note, then eventually added that he appeared to be genuinely grieved over the death of his brother, appearing to press on in spite of it.
My sister had described him as being arrogant, a rakehell, according to rumors about London. A man constantly in competition with his twin brother, to the point that Thomas had chosen not to attend the same university and had moved from the townhouse they shared.
I have known such men. Full of themselves, their position, their ambitions, their accomplishments. As if the sun rose and set for them only.
And then there was the woman Anthony had married, a tragic arrangement their father had made that ended in her death. A woman Thomas Ellsworth had cared deeply for.
I stared at the board. My notes were there, exactly as I remembered the details and yet... I had more questions. I turned to the hound.
It was early in the day, yet Brodie had insisted that I take Rupert with me whenever I was out and about.
“Come along,” I told him and reached for my coat and travel bag.
Mr. Cavendish had arrived and looked up at us with some surprise.
“Out and about early, miss? And now, off with the lad?”
“If Brodie should return, I’ve gone to see Mr. Brimley.
” I wanted very much to speak with Brodie and discuss everything I had learned.
There was always a suggestion or insight from his work with the MET that I missed, and often led to other possibilities and most certainly other questions when making inquiries.
Mr. Cavendish nodded as a cabman pulled to the curb. “I’ll be sure to tell him. Miss Effie sent breakfast over,” he added.
I thanked him, but declined. However, Rupert was most eager as he nosed the carton in the man’s hands.
“Leave off!” Mr. Cavendish told him. “You’ve work to do. Get on with you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Rupert appeared quite dejected as he jumped into the cab.
Mr. Brimley’s shop was in the East End of London, in the poorer working area, his customers for health remedies among the workers there.
He had studied medicine at King’s College and could have set up private practice anywhere in London. He chose to serve the poorest, who very often could not pay for his services.
His shop was a combination apothecary, where he mixed medicines and tonics for treatment of all sorts of ailments of those who came to him, and a laboratory where he studied specimens, curatives, and occasionally evidence under his microscopes.
His assistance in the past had been invaluable in helping Brodie and me in our inquiry cases, and in giving aid to wounds. My own in particular when in one of our inquiries.
Mr. Brimley—he declined to use the title ‘doctor,’ as he felt that it was a bit pretentious in a place where families struggled to keep food on the table and had no use for titles. He was simply Mr. Brimley, and a very good friend.
“Good mornin’, miss,” Sara, his assistant, greeted me. “Yer lookin’ right fine this mornin’.”
She blushed.
She was a sweet girl who had come from the worst possible circumstances. Mr. Brimley employed her to handle the front counter of his shop and help with customers. I had heard she had recently been seeing a young man.
It did seem to agree with her. There was color on her cheeks and a sparkle in her brown eyes.
I inquired if Mr. Brimley was about. Occasionally he was asked to attend an injured person or one too ill to come into his shop.
It appeared that he was present, as he shouted out a greeting from the back of his shop.
Sara grinned. “He’s here.”
I rounded the counter and walked through to his laboratory, as he called it, Rupert content to remain with Sara as she gave him a sweet treat.
I found Mr. Brimley atop a stool at a long counter, wearing a light-beam hat, glasses fixed at his nose, probing a human skull with a surgical instrument.
“I do hope you were not acquainted with the individual,” I commented.
It was not my first skull nor the first time I had encountered the chemist in the throes of one of his own investigations.
He set the scalpel down on a nearby towel. He was most insistent on cleanliness, for which I was personally grateful, regarding my own wound that he had stitched with the efficiency of a seamstress.
He turned, the light blinding for a moment before he reached and shut it off.
“The battery had become quite weak,” he announced, then looked at me with a familiar expression. Much like a bug behind the glasses, thinning hair atop his head sticking on end, with a familiar smile.
“Lady Forsythe. It is indeed good to see you. A corpse perhaps, or one that has disappeared, perhaps a bloodied weapon?”
“A question,” I replied, ignoring his attempt at humor.
“By all means. Do come back to my office.”
His office was a storeroom at the back of the shop with a desk, two chairs, a coal stove, and the adjacent examination room where he had once bound my shoulder.
He sat behind the desk and removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
I sat across from him and took out my notebook.
“What can you tell me about twins?”
“Twins,” he thoughtfully repeated, as he reached for a glass beaker that sat on a trivet atop the stove that contained what appeared to be coffee. He offered me a cup. I declined.
He sat back in his chair, cup in hand. “Twins are a fascinating phenomenon. Francis Galton has written several papers on them,” he paused.
“Charles Darwin is a cousin. Together, they have explored different theories about evolution and reproduction.
Sir Francis has studied genetics, what makes us who we are.
He has been particularly fascinated with the idea of how twins are formed.
“He has also established that fingerprints are unique to each person, something that Mr. Brodie has been most interested in. We studied some of his work at university.”
“What can you tell me about identical twins?” I inquired. “Are they truly identical?”
“A fascinating question,” Mr. Brimley replied. “Most people simply accept that twins who appear to look like each other, are in fact identical. Hence the name. But according to Sir Francis, in spite of the fact that twins might appear identical, there are in fact differences in them.”
“What might those differences be?”
“One difference might be eye color. It would be subtle but more pronounced if the twins in question have dark eyes. There could be a distinct difference in color that comes from the shade of brown. One might have very dark brown, yes, while the other might have hazel-colored eyes. It has to do with a specific pigment that Sir Francis claims is carried in the genes.”
“And if the eyes are blue?”
“That would be more difficult. Blue is apparently a very transparent color, given to various shades depending on one’s environment.”
There was no help there, as Sir Anthony’s eyes were light blue.
“What would be another difference?”
“Other traits—height, skin tone, color of hair, features would be the same. Except for one’s handwriting. For whatever the reason, it has been proven that twins will naturally develop handwriting different from one another.”
Handwriting?
“What might account for that?” I inquired, fascinated.
“It could be the difference in life situations, influences, perhaps even education. The reason is not clearly understood, perhaps an anomaly in the genes. Yet I am confident Sir Francis will find the cause of it.”
I sat back at the chair. Handwriting. Was it possible?
“What else can you tell me about twins? Their personalities, temperaments. Do they like to eat the same food?”
He chuckled. “I knew twin brothers at university. Quite naturally they were fascinated by Sir Francis’s theories. As for their personalities, they were different as well in temperament.
“One was always getting into trouble, while the other was always covering for him by attending classes for his brother or handing in a paper that was due. He was quite successful in that.
“As for preferences in food? That is difficult to determine. Young men have voracious appetites. They have a tendency to eat most everything. I can also personally vouch that they had the same taste for the drink—dark ale and a great amount of it to celebrate the end of examinations.
“Now tell me, what of Mr. Brodie?” he inquired.
I looked up. What indeed?
“He is off on another matter.”