Brodie looked up from the desk. “A bit of wisdom?”
“An old Irish curse,” I replied. “Although I had something more in mind for Abberline.”
“Ah, Mrs. Ryan,” he concluded as he pushed back his plate after the late supper we’d brought back from the Public House across the Strand.
“Hmmm,” I replied, standing before the chalkboard where I’d added the name of the latest victim.
“Eleanor Strachan was also in the photograph,” I said, thinking aloud. “The one taken of the young men and women at Wimbledon.”
“A possible connection,” he replied.
Yes, but what was the connection.
“And there is another young woman in that photograph, standing next to her.”
“Aye.”
It was late, and obvious that there was nothing that could be done until we were able to speak with Sir William in the morning. He was to meet us at the Agency office at the Tower with Lady Strachan.
After two meetings with grieving parents, this one would undoubtedly be just as difficult.
“There’s nothing more to be done tonight,” Brodie said then. “I’ll have Mr. Cavendish call for a driver and see ye home.”
“That’s not necessary,” I replied.
“Aye, it is. I’ll not have ye goin’ about London this time of the night, in spite of yerself.”
Well that was certainly a different way of putting it. And what was this over-protectiveness on his part?
Not that he wasn’t mindful of my going into certain areas of the city, and had even appointed Rupert the hound as personal guardian in the past, much to Mrs. Ryan’s displeasure at having the hound as a house guest.
I did have to admit that a most unpleasant odor usually accompanied Rupert depending on recent wanderings about the streets and which disgusting things he had tracked down.
But still, there was definitely something different in Brodie’s manner and I wondered if it had to do with his proposal.
I would usually have been put off by such a thing and simply ignored it and gone on about my way as I was accustomed. Surprisingly, I wasn’t put off, merely curious.
“Yer coat, lass,” he said, retrieving it from the coat rack. His hand lingered as he held it for me then settled it over my shoulders, and a question in that dark gaze. Perhapsthequestion that I had not yet answered.
“Yer scarf. It’s colder tonight,” he gently wrapped it about my neck. “There may be a storm comin’ in.”
* * *
A storm indeed, I thought as we met in Sir Avery’s office at the Agency that next morning. A storm of anger, grief, and then anger all over again as Sir William and Lady Strachan sat across from him, and he provided details he had received from Abberline.
Sir William rose and paced the office. “Within steps of our home! How is that possible in that part of London?”
Lady Strachan sat still as a statue, as if it was all she could do to hold herself together and any movement might shatter her. She was pale, her features drawn. There had undoubtedly been little sleep the night before, if any, as she returned from their country home after learning of her daughter’s disappearance and then that horrible photo.
I sympathized remembering the first days after my sister’s disappearance and that horrible death that had first sent me to Brodie’s office.
“Three murders? How is that possible?” Sir William said, his voice breaking. “And to have this in the dailies, like some common…? What is being done?” His voice rose with each question. “I want answers!”
“Mr. Brodie and Miss Forsythe were brought into the investigation by Sir John and Lady Mainwaring, and I have supported that due to their successful resolution of other inquiries in the past.”
“And Abberline?”
“I have informed him that Brodie is to have the lead on this after his people found the second young woman, whom I believe is known to your family. He has overstepped in this and that will be dealt with.”
