Eighteen
Inspector Dooley accepted another cup of coffee as he sat across the desk from Brodie.
“We confiscated the paintings from the Grosvenor Gallery. And we have the statements made by the women. I doubt La Geness will be much help.
“He's been taken with spells that the physician has assured are real. It seems that the difficulty has been coming on for some time. He could barely walk when the lads brought him in. The portraits ...” he shook his head.
“It seems that his wife had painted them, though he was part of the scheme.”
I thought of my first encounter at the Grosvenor, the trembling I had seen before he appeared to hide his hands from view. Afflicted with a sort of palsy that it appeared would have gradually taken his ability to paint.
“There’ll not be any objections from anyone when I bring the case before the magistrate,” Mr. Dooley added, without actually naming the person we all knew—Chief Inspector Abberline, recently reinstated after some time away.
He took a sip of coffee, frowned, then held the cup out.
“Ah, that is better. Soothes the spirit,” he commented as Brodie set the bottle of Old Lodge back on the desk.
“I sent a telegram off to the Prefect of Police in Paris,” he continued. “It seems there is more to this than what happened here. It seems that three young women who appeared in those portraits at the gallery have also been reported as missing.”
It was a chilling outcome, yet I was reminded there was often no length some would go in protecting their crime.
“We also took the paintings from the manor at Knightsbridge as well, for evidence.” He gave Brodie a long look.
“It seems there may be one missing.”
I caught a look with Brodie. A missing painting? One that might have found its way to the office late the previous night, courtesy of Munro?
“And I will be the only one to see it,” Brodie had announced at the time. “I’ll not have others gaping at ye.”
That, according to a man who had once claimed he had no cause to be jealous over any woman.
The painting was now propped against the wall in the bedroom where no one might see it. Except, of course, Munro, who had retrieved it, and the man I was married to.
I had thought the portrait quite flattering. Although the ‘artist’—Madame La Geness, had missed the tattoo on the back of my right shoulder.
There had been a brief conversation about how the painting came to be, including the gown shown in the painting that resembled one that I had worn.
I had assured him that I had not posed for it.
“When might I have had time for that?” I pointed out.
I had also informed him that the gown was the same color as the one I had worn to the Grosvenor Gallery with Linnie, that both La Geness and Madame La Geness had no doubt remembered, with that slight alteration of course. Easily copied, I reminded him.
There had been another colorful comment after that, and then, “I can see I canna let ye out of my sight.”
The most important thing was that the young women were safe.
That included Gwen Tavers, who was first brought to my attention as missing. Mr. Cavendish had thanked me in that direct way of his, and I had received a note of gratitude from Reggie Tavers.
“I knew you would find her. My thanks, miss.”
“The Davies girl comes from a well-placed family, with her father in the Home Office,” Inspector Dooley now continued. “As for the other girls ...”
Both Gwen Tavers and Charlotte Davies had returned to their families. Sarah had worked in her family’s bakery shop and had answered that advertisement the same as the others, with the hope for travel and adventure beyond scones, cakes, and loaves of bread.
As we had left Knightsbridge the night before, she wanted only to see them again.
“What of Jolie?” I inquired. I had not seen any of the other young women after they left the gate house and had eventually found a driver who took them to the Bond Street Station where Mr. Dooley was contacted.
“The Davies family has insisted that she’s to stay with them for now. She doesn’t want to return to Paris. Understandable, with everything that has happened.”
“My great-aunt might be able to help,” I suggested.
I would speak with her when there was more time than the brief telephone conversation Brodie had made the night before to reassure her that I was safe.
“What will happen to Monsieur La Geness and his wife?” I asked.
“Murder charges to be certain in the death of Lizzie Smith, and additional charges in the abduction and imprisonment of the others,” Mr. Dooley replied.
“Further charges are usually left to the magistrate,” Brodie explained. “And there is the matter of your imprisonment as well,” he added.
Mr. Dooley nodded. “The man apparently had no part in the Smith girl’s murder. He can barely hold a cup for the shaking in his hands, let alone paint those portraits.
“Though he had his own part in the planning of it, putting the portraits on display, and accepting some sort of arrangement to tour with them. That will be for the courts to determine as well. It seems that it was the woman who beat the Smith girl senseless, and then had the man Brodie encountered take her off to get rid of her. Poor thing.”
He stood to leave.
“There should be some reward in this for the hound,” he suggested, with a shake of his head.
“Strange as it is, it makes sense—a hound that can find people.”
“He seems to have a preference for one person in particular,” Brodie replied.
It undoubtedly had something to do with the biscuits I provided Rupert. And he did have a preference for Mrs. Ryan’s sponge cake.
“I need for you to come to Bond Street, to make your statement,” Mr. Dooley reminded me. He paused.
“The La Geness woman kept goin’ on about how you threatened her? Said she was afraid for her life. It seems she did receive an injury to her wrist and hand.”
“I have no idea what she might be talking about.”
Brodie said nothing, however I did catch the look he gave me.
“All well and good,” Inspector Dooley replied. “Still, it was a dangerous thing, goin’ off on yer own.”
Brodie agreed with a look at me. “We’ll be havin’ a conversation about that.”
After Mr. Dooley left, I went to the chalkboard and slowly wiped it clean. I had my notebook back and would provide a report to Mr. Dooley from notes I had made.
Then there was the matter of Brodie's visit to Theodolphus Burke for information on those advertisements that had posted on the Personals page of The Times.
That is a meeting I would very much like to have witnessed.
He came up behind me, and that the scent of cinnamon was there.
“Ye should have taken the hound with ye.”
“I did think about it, however in the moment it seemed that he might cause suspicion and endanger the women, since I had no way of knowing where they were.”
“And ye didna consider that yer bein’ there might cause suspicion?” he pointed out.
“It was important to act quickly on the information I had, as I recall someone once telling me about investigations, particularly where lives might be in danger, and ...” I paused.
He turned me about and pulled me close. A familiar tactic when he was determined to make a point. Not that I objected.
“We need to re-examine our working relationship, Mikaela Forsythe.”
“And that might be?”
“Ye are not to take yerself off alone again as ye did. I’ll not have her ladyship to answer to ...”
He paused, his expression softening. “Ye are a troublesome baggage, Mikaela Forsythe Brodie.”
Such an endearing sentiment, but I would take it.
“Do tell me about your work for the Agency, now that it is concluded. Was there something Aunt Antonia said that proved useful?” I pointedly inquired.
“The information about the Blandfords was critical in being able to ... resolve the matter,” he admitted, without sharing more.
“You might have concluded it earlier, if you had included me in your inquiries from the beginning,” I pointed out. “And then you might have accompanied me in my inquiry case.”
He brushed my cheek with his fingers with a frown that deepened.
It was difficult from time to time, to accept that I was right about something—that stubborn Scots nature.
“Merely pointing out the facts, Mr. Brodie.”
“Point taken.”
He brushed a kiss at the cut on my cheek.
“When I saw the blood and the bruises ...”
Some women might want words of endearment, yet I sensed them in the way his voice lowered to barely more than a whisper.
“An accident, when I was attempting to free myself. Which might not have been necessary ...”
“As I said, troublesome,” he kissed me again. “But I wouldna want to have to train someone else to take yer place, if anything happened to ye.”
“Train someone?”
When I would have objected further, he pressed his fingers against my lips.
“I will not be takin’ work again with the Agency,” he continued. “I am through with that, particularly anything that would prevent me being here. Ye have my word on it. We’ll make it work, though cases, as ye know, can be few and far between, and there are expenses.”
“You seem to forget, Mr. Brodie, that I am a woman of some means. With my trust money, book royalties, and the townhouse in Mayfair, we shall carry on.”
“I’ll not live off yer money. I’ve told ye that before,” he reminded me, a somewhat heated discussion in the past.
“But it seems that the matter of the office rents has been taken care of,” he added.
“In a matter of speaking.”
I frowned. “How might that be?”
He reached around me and retrieved a thick envelope that I remembered from days earlier at the edge of his desk.
“It would seem that her ladyship has taken matters into her own hands in that regard.” He handed me the envelope.
I retrieved the papers from inside the envelope. The first was a letter of explanation for a document that had been enclosed, which I immediately turned to.
It was a Deed of Conveyance from the Chelmsford Investment Company for property known in official records as #104 and #204 Strand, London, United Kingdom, with the legal description, previously known as block number and appurtenant building, as of 14 May 1893.
And so on and such, with the name of the owner given, A. W. Brodie of #204 Strand, London.
There was also a note attached from my aunt's attorney, Sir Laughton:
“Her ladyship insisted upon this, along with her fondness and good wishes for you both.”
“So it would seem that the rents are taken care of,” I commented, as I folded the papers and returned them to the envelope.
“You are not put off about it? Yer great-aunt giving me title to the property?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “Although as your wife, I am entitled to inherit any property you have, should you succumb to some injury.
“Not to mention, that someday, which I hope is very far away, my sister and I will inherit Sussex Square and all of Aunt Antonia’s holdings. You have married quite well, sir.”
“I did not marry ye for such things,” he reminded me.
“Why did you ask me to marry you?” I inquired, as the precise reason had never been explained.
“Ye are intelligent, bold, and more brave than ye should be. Not to mention that ye have a keen mind when it comes to solving a crime, even tho’ ye land yerself in the middle of dangerous situations.”
I had heard that before.
At present I chose not to remind him that he had very nearly arrived too late in Knightsbridge. I would save that for later, although I would very definitely have broken the woman’s neck, if he had not arrived when he did.
“And?” I prompted him, since he was sharing his deepest and innermost thoughts.
“It was the way ye looked when I found you on that beach on the island of Crete, as if ye would defy the devil himself, with yer hair down about yer shoulders and the look ye gave me.”
And a confession.
“I wanted ye then and no other, even if it meant I might never see ye again after I brought ye back to London.”
“Wanted me?”
“I shoulda known better, you bein' a lady, and meself from the streets.”
“But now, a man of property,” I reminded him. “I suppose that shall have to do.”
“There is another matter we must discuss,” he added.
“And what might that be?” I replied.
He reached into the pocket of his trousers, then opened his hand.
“You misplaced this.”
“My ring! I thought it was gone forever!”
When I reached for it, he held it just beyond my reach.
“Mr. Dooley learned of it from the women and was able to retrieve it from the driver who took them to the Bond Street Station. Ye are not only a troublesome baggage, but a careless one as well.”
“It was all I had of value after my travel bag was taken,” I explained. “And I was determined that the women would leave that place. You would have done the same,” I pointed out.
“Determined. Aye, ye are that Mikaela Forsythe Brodie, and more.” He held it between his fingers. “I would buy you another with a stone. Now that I’m a man of property.”
I finally managed to take it from him and slipped it onto my finger, with that saying in Gaelic that he’d had engraved on the inside.
An-còmhnaidh . Always.
Quite sentimental for a man who claimed he was not the least sentimental about anything.
It fit perfectly.