Chapter 18
Eighteen
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED...
Three of the bodies that were pulled from the water at St. Katherine’s dock were identified by the dock watch as the crew of the Celeste Marie who had first arrived from Calais.
It was the fourth body that had shocked Sir Ridley and his people, though I was hardly surprised as other parts of the case gradually fell into place.
Most particularly with pieces of debris that were also pulled from the water, including that case I had glimpsed the man holding as he ran from the warehouse. Sir Thomas Ellsworth.
The case and the debris from it during the explosion were hundreds of bearer bonds that had been held by Crofts Bank. Worth millions of pounds, completely anonymous and easily transferred into cash by anyone who had them.
That had apparently been Thomas’s plan—the theft of the bonds to be ‘sold’ to the highest bidder, a broker for a dangerous anarchist to fund his war against the governments of Europe, and including the Royal Family of Britain.
Sir Thomas provided the means, for a fee that would provide him the means to leave his family and live abroad.
Someone waited in Brussels; someone who made arrangements through a man named Heinrich, to acquire those bonds.
The thief who arranged it all? The heir to Crofts Bank, where he was able to steal the bonds, using the mourning period over the death of his brother to disguise what he was doing from everyone, including his father.
A scheme that had played out after years of anger, bitterness, and pain. And then sacrifice, as a friend had called it.
Athos, who had endured loneliness, anger, and pain, and was determined to have justice.
I met Sir Robert Ellsworth and his mother, Lady Ellsworth, at the morgue at Scotland Yard that night.
With that strength my great-aunt had assured me that she had, Lady Ellsworth had tearfully identified her grandson, Thomas Ellsworth, by the birthmark on his wrist.
Difficult as it must have been, she thanked me, even though the outcome shattered the Ellsworth family.
I had suspected the switch in the brother’s identities, that persistent intuition that things were not as they seemed. I shared that with Brodie after we returned to the office on the Strand.
Mr. Brimley had planted that seed of doubt in my head when I asked him to compare those signatures, and he announced they were made by the same hand.
Different names, but the same hand made those signatures. How was it possible?
Brodie shook his head as I explained that and other information I had uncovered.
“Yer intuition?” he commented.
Perhaps. There had been far too many questions and too few answers, the more inquiries I made.
While I suspected that Sir Anthony might in fact be his brother Thomas, and I knew of Thomas’s difficult years in his brother’s shadow, constantly passed over by their father, I had not known the depth of that pain and anger.
Murder.
It apparently came later that night when the brothers met for the last time, everything set in motion after meeting briefly earlier in the day.
A quarrel that once again spiraled out of control? Perhaps.
There was a long and contentious history between the brothers. Yet, as far as I was concerned, blame lay directly at the feet of their father.
At the morgue, he was stoic and said nothing after Lady Ellsworth confirmed the identity of Thomas. Yet in the days afterward, when arrangements had been made for burial, it was rumored that he had taken himself off to the country. He did not attend.
More rejection of the son he had sacrificed for another?
I had known people very much like Sir Robert. I had no confidence that there was any remorse for his part in what had taken place through the years. It was that old-fashioned notion of the firstborn son that had been in place for centuries.
When would it ever change?
Brodie and I attended the service for Thomas Ellsworth. There was not the usual mourning period.
On Lady Ellsworth’s instructions, he was buried in the Crofts family crypt with a brass nameplate with the dates of his birth and death, and the words, Beloved Grandson.
In the days that followed, she had received a letter posted the day Thomas intended to leave London forever. I read simply, ‘I am so very sorry. It is all ended now. Please forgive me.’
Edward Baldwin attended the service. He had been instrumental in providing information about his friend from the university days and grieved the loss of Athos.
“If I had kept touch with him the past few years perhaps things would have been different. He was always busy with his work, determined to make a name for himself, and I was away. But if I had, perhaps... My dear friend Athos,” he said with obvious emotion.
“So much pain. He once said there was only one way it could end.”
There was nothing he could have said or done that would have changed the outcome.
It was poor consolation. I felt deeply for the loss of his friend.
Mr. Browne appeared at the office the day after the service. I wasn’t at all certain what that might have meant. I had asked for his help but had not heard from him. Still...
He spoke at length with Brodie. There was a handshake between them in that way I had seen before, as if a transaction had been concluded. Then he tipped his cap in my direction and left.
I was quite curious about their exchange.
“He reminded me that I now owe him a favor now,” was all Brodie provided.
“You owe him nothing,” I replied. “It isn’t as if he was able to provide any information...”
“Did ye think he would make a report for ye, lass? Just leave it that he knows a good many people in many places.”
It was a reminder that Brodie had his secrets, even now. And refused to share more. That was the end of that particular discussion.
As for Brodie...
He was bruised from that fight on the Celeste Marie, his dark hair singed about the edges before he had taken to the water just before that explosion.
When I suggested that he might visit the men’s shop on the Strand for a trim, he replied that it wasn’t necessary, that he’d had worse.
As for the bruises, they would take a little longer.
Once again, ‘he’d had worse,’ end of discussion.
Something had changed between us.
We both felt it. A hesitance between us that hadn’t been there before.
Along with a reluctance to discuss the details of where he’d been when he went to Calais with Alex, and then to Paris after sending Alex back to London.
When I spoke of it with my great-aunt, she waved a dismissive hand through the air.
“Men can be quite into themselves. They are not like us. We say what we are thinking—well, at least some of us do. We don’t go about brooding over a thing, keeping it bottled up inside. At least not the women in our family. And he is a Scot.
“They are known to be very closed away with their feelings—stoic, I believe one would describe it. I would call it stubborn. He will come around, dear.”
She was quite certain about that, while I was not.
And as the days passed following the conclusion of the Ellsworth case and that particular assignment for the CID, any overture I made regarding the details of that assignment were met with the same response.
“Ye know I canna discuss that with ye. But this is important, something that must be done for many reasons and to keep others safe. I would hope that ye would understand.”
I was by turns angry and resentful, and I began to doubt more and more that he would come round.
I told myself that I understood the need for a certain amount of secrecy regarding his work for Sir Ridley. Brodie was Brodie. He could certainly be obstinate about things. And yet...
There was still that part of him that was closed off, that kept me at a distance in a way that he had not before.
I refused to believe that it had anything to do with the Ellsworth case as far as my efforts were concerned.
Was it something to do with the part of it that became obvious with the discovery of Sir Thomas Ellsworth’s theft of those bonds and his intention to sell them for a fee that would have allowed him to live anonymously away from the father he had come to loathe?
It was impossible to know or understand with the wall of silence between us as the days passed into weeks and he returned to his work for the CID, often leaving the office with no word of when he would return. And then his announcement just the day previous that he would be returning to France.
“There’s work to be done. It could be for a few weeks...”
He had hesitated. What did he expect me to say?
“Then I suppose you must go.” At the same time, I wanted to tell him that it was not all right. That I did not want him to go, and this was not how I thought it was to be? That was several days before.
This was one of those rare mornings that he was delayed as I sat at my typewriter, finishing our usual summary of a case.
And then? What was I to do? Wait until another inquiry case walked through the door?
With the distance between that seemed to grow with each passing day, I had given the matter a great deal of thought. I took a deep breath and chose my words carefully.
“With your work at the CID, I’ve been thinking,” I began. Then took another deep breath.
Just say it, I thought. Perhaps this would begin a conversation that had been absent the past days.
“Perhaps we should take some time away.”
Brodie looked up from his desk.
“Time away?”
He’d been waiting for a telephone call that had not yet occurred. His expression was distracted, a frown there as if I had interrupted his thoughts.
“What do ye mean? Away? As in a vacation?” His manner was dismissive. “It is not the time.”
End of discussion, yet not quite. I was not willing to continue with the silence nor the growing distance between us with no way of knowing how we were to move forward.
“It would be more like time to try and figure out what we are to do next,” I explained.
That silence was there again. Yet I was determined to say the rest of it, so that he would know my true feelings in the matter in that way that we had once shared.
“You have your commitment to the CID,” I continued. “I know that you are keen regarding the challenge of it.”
I had seen it in the expression on his face that night at the docks. Yet, it also opened my eyes. I took another deep breath and continued on.
“I have commitments for my writing. James has been after me for weeks for my next book,” I explained. “Yet, it’s been difficult to find the time... I could continue to do this alone.” I added.
“However...I do not want to do it alone. Nor am I asking you to step away from the CID.”
That dark gaze met mine, for the first time since the encounter at the docks.
“Wot are ye sayin’, lass?”
For the first time since the conversation began, if it could be called that, it seemed that I had his attention.
There was a part of me that couldn’t believe what I was about to say. As if I were standing apart, a stranger in this place we had shared. And yet there was that other part of me that needed to say it. The need for him to understand what felt like our own loss.
I took another deep breath, forcing myself past the pain of my next words.
“Perhaps it would be best to close the office. That will allow you to pursue your work for Sir Ridley, and for me to pursue my writing.”
For long moments there was only silence.
“We spoke of this,” he reminded me. “We knew that it would require long hours, days, perhaps more...”
I heard something in his voice, something besides the weariness he’d returned with, the preoccupation with the demands of working for the Home Office. Something quieter.
“Is that wot ye want?” he waited.
No, I wanted to shout at him, yet I did not. I wanted him to tell me that all of this mattered more. That I mattered...
But he did not.
“It is probably best,” I finally replied.
“Aye. I will leave for France in the mornin’. Ye should probably have Sir Laughton make whatever arrangements are necessary for the building.”
He pushed away from the desk, then went to the coat stand and put on his long coat.
“Mikaela...”
I looked up. Yet, what I needed to hear wasn’t there.
“I’ll send word when I can.”
The door snapped shut behind him.