“We need to follow him,” I told Brodie as Rupert bounded away again, then returned, quite anxious as though waiting for us.
“That mangy beast?” Munro exclaimed.
“Aye,” Brodie replied, then told the driver as he pulled his coach to a stop at the curb. “Follow the hound.”
The people who had attacked Mr. Cavendish and taken Lily had left on foot, traveled for some distance, then either hired a coach or had arrived in one of their own some distance away.
It was then that Rupert lost the scent, circling about, whining with what I could only interpret to be frustration, then trotting back to our coach. However, it was enough to tell us the most likely destination the ones who had taken Lily— Laughton’s studio very near London Bridge.
Brodie made one last effort to send me back to the office. I told him what he told me at the office.
“No.”
I didn’t need to say more. He simply shook his head.
Rupert had done his job. He knew the streets of London better than most people who lived there, and I was confident he would find his way back to the office on the Strand.
“Do you think she’s still alive?” I asked Brodie as we set off.
“She’s a Scot,” he replied. His voice softened then. “She’s a good deal like yerself, lass. I pity those who have her.”
My sister had said the same thing. I hoped they were right.
Sixteen
Laughton’s studiowas just off the High Street, very near London Bridge.
The area was a blend of two-story houses, shops, and taverns. The studio was on Tooley Street, adjacent buildings alight at the windows, others darkened.
We arrived and left the coach to continue afoot with Munro moving on ahead. Eventually I heard a faint whistle, and Munro appeared through the misty darkness on the street with only an occasional street lamp.
He had found the studio at the corner, with a sign that overhung the sidewalk, and announcedLaughton Studios, Paul Laughton, proprietor. At the opposite corner of the window was a sign that displayed the royal warrant.
The studio inside beyond that bow window was completely dark. Munro motioned for us to follow around the corner to the back of the building. I felt Brodie’s hand on my arm, as he moved past keeping me behind him.
An alleyway behind the building was dimly lit by a street lamp across along the street adjacent to the alley. The back of the studio and a door were darkened to make it almost impossible to see anything.
I felt Brodie’s hand on my arm once more, and waited as a sound came from near that back entrance to the studio. Brodie looked at me through that murky light, just enough to see the expression on his face.
There was a faint flicker of light and I caught a glimpse of Munro at that back entrance with a hand-held lamp. Then he silently stepped inside the back of the studio, a reminder that he and Brodie had obviously done this many times in their previous life on the streets.
Brodie’s hand found mine, and we followed Munro into the building.
The back of the studio was steeped in shadows with only the beam of the handheld light that outlined boxes, a crate, and various other things that might be found in a storeroom.
Munro slowly moved forward, stopping, listening, then moving forward again, and much reminded me of the hound on a scent.
As we moved quietly down a hallway that led to the front of the studio, I caught the faint glow of light that came from under a door on my left.
I held back as Brodie and Munro moved forward.
I hesitated and listened, my hand on the doorknob. There were no sounds coming from the room beyond. I slowly opened the door, the revolver Brodie had given me in my other hand, then stepped inside the room.
I had seen it before at Jefferson Talbot’s studio— the projection machine that cast those glass plate images at a screen, the red tinted light that prevented over-exposure of the image, the basins with those noxious chemicals, and a line overhead where photographs were hung to finish the process.
There were photographs there.
They had been hung there recently, perhaps only within hours, still shiny with the last of the chemical bath, Talbot had described. On the wall were other photographs that had apparently been taken much earlier. They included photographs of Sir John Mainwaring, Sir William, and Mr. Pemberton.
