Which was highly debatable, but creative, I thought.
“He does tricks. Mr. Burke is doing a story about him,” she continued.
The girl did have an imagination and the trick hound was presently sniffing thehedgehog’strousers, something that usually preceded a sampling of one’s leg.
“Tricks?”
Lily smiled. “And Lady Forsythe does have an appointment with Mr. Burke,” she put in, to my surprise, as I had never discussed my family connection. Nor was there an appointment, as I had decided that it was best to take my chances and stop inunannounced. I had discovered in the past that it was easier to achieve what I was after when I caught someone off-guard.
“Of course,” the clerk exclaimed as he attempted to put distance between himself and Rupert.
He directed us to the third floor. “The lift is at the end of the hall.”
“An appointment?” I commented to Lily as we entered the lift and proceeded to the third floor.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Lily replied. “Like the ones the men used to make at the‘Church.’”
Theodolphus Burke. Once again, I wondered just who had given him that name. Perhaps himself? It was pretentious and not something that one would forget.
Burke had acquired a reputation for being somewhat theatrical in his work. His articles were often quite over the top and read like something William Shakespeare might have written, with a penchant for an opinion. He had gained quite a following.
No insult to Mr. Shakespeare, in the event he was drifting about near the newspaper offices this afternoon.
It had also been noted that his particular style had been labeled‘sensationalism’by some of the more staid news publications. That, along with his ability to acquire information about a crime that his competitors frequently failed to learn, substantially increased the readership of the Times.
We eventually arrived at the third floor and I cautioned Lily to allow me to ask the questions. Mr. Burke also had a reputation with regard to women, and not in a positive way.
I gave my name to the woman at the desk, who was somewhat plain-faced, in a grey gown, with grey hair pulled back in a bun, a sallow complexion and grey eyes. Rupert sat on the floor beside Lily, ears flattened. Usually a sign that he was about to attack.
“I’ll see if he will meet with you,” the woman announced.
“Is this about the murder of that woman, Ellie Sutton?” Lily asked as we waited.
She was indeed well informed. I doubted that she had heard it from Munro. He never revealed anything about Brodie’s work.
It seemed unlikely that it could have come from my great-aunt. She was far too preoccupied with leaving the following month for her safari. I most certainly hadn’t discussed it with her.
She was very clever. A word here, a word there might have sparked that curiosity. And the truth was that Brodie and I were frequently off on a new inquiry case. That left the possibility that Mrs. Ryan might have mentioned something, yet she only knew that there was a new case, not the nature of it.
“I read about it in the daily, written by Mr. Burke. Her ladyship said as how I could improve my reading skills. The article said it was an old case that Mr. Brodie had investigated.”
“I’m attempting to help him find who killed her,” I explained.
“I don’t like what he wrote about Mr. Brodie.”
Hmmm. Her first experience with journalism for the sake of selling newspapers no matter what the truth might be.
“And the woman had a boy?” she asked. “What will happen to him now?”
I hadn’t thought that far beyond the need to find who had murdered his mother and to clear Brodie.
Of course, there was the possibility that the boy would remain safely tucked away. Or there might be other family. However, if that was the case, wouldn’t Brodie have taken him to them?
Lily obviously had no regard for Theodolphus Burke. I was inclined to agree, still I did want to find out what he had learned from that earlier murder that Ellie Sutton had witnessed.
The attendant had returned with a somewhat disdainful look down her nose at both Ellie and the hound, and announced that Mr. Burke would see me now.
“I’ll wait here,” Lily said. “To make certain the hound don’t attack no one.” She glanced over at the attendant.
