I spent the next hour at the chalkboard, making notes that included my most recent conversation with Mr. Trumble at the bank regarding the other counterfeit notes that had now surfaced across the city. That also included a significant amount of counterfeit notes found at City Bank, Barclay & Company, and Westminster Bank, in addition to the Bank of England.
It was very near midday when the service bell on the landing rang, an invention by Mr. Cavendish, installed to let us know when someone arrived.
I barely had time to set down my pen from the notes I was making on my notepad when Constable Dooley entered the office.
He was not wearing his uniform. Instead he was plainly dressed, in the trousers and jacket that he wore when working on some matter for Brodie. He looked quite flustered.
“Pardon, miss. I called round to Mayfair this mornin’ and was told I might find you here. Have you heard from Mr. Brodie? There’s somethin’ I need to let him know,” he added, quite urgently.
Constable Dooley had worked with Brodie when he was with the MET. He’d remained a good friend since, as well as being an‘inside’ source for information, as Brodie called it, in past inquiry cases. And neither of them had any regard for Chief Inspector Abberline of the Metropolitan Police.
The Chief Inspector was a political animal, as Brodie referred to him, far more keen on becoming the next Commissioner of Police than solving crimes, unless it could advance his career. I had encountered just that side of the man in the matter of my sister’s disappearance two years before.
And he had a particular dislike of Brodie. Their enmity went back to the last investigation he had participated in just before he left the MET, some issue which Brodie chose not to speak of.
“The past is the past,” he had told me, when the matter came up during that first case to find my sister. Abberline had been less than cooperative in the matter, trivializing her disappearance as undoubtedly a‘marital disagreement.’
It was the first inquiry case where I joined Brodie, refusing to be set aside by a bureaucratic imbecile with the intellect of a centipede—the Chief Inspector, not Brodie. Although I will admit that Brodie had been reluctant to have my participation.
Actually,reluctantwas a bit of an understatement. He had initially refused to allow me to join the search at all, and thenhad conceded only when I informed him that I would carry on by myself.
During that investigation, I had eventually convinced him that I had something valuable to contribute, in addition to the fact that I could take care of myself in most any situation. That was still a point of discussion that came up from time to time. I was working on that.
Now, it seemed that something serious had most definitely happened. Had Brodie gone off to pursue some piece of information in the counterfeit case and then found himself in a bad situation?
Granted, that was not like him. Brodie was thorough, careful, and far too experienced in matters of crime to be caught in a dangerous situation.
An accident perhaps?
“Do you know where Mr. Brodie is?” Mr. Dooley repeated. “It’s important.”
“No,” I replied. “What is it? Is there a message I can give him when I see him?”
Mr. Dooley was exceedingly uncomfortable.
“I need to warn him. It’s most urgent, miss.”
An uneasy feeling tightened my stomach as he twisted his cap in his hands, obviously reluctant to tell me. Yet, I have been known to be most persistent.
“Warn him about what?” I demanded. He was still reluctant.
“Since I may very well be the first one to speak with him, you must tell me what this is about.”
I had to admit that he looked quite distressed.
“It’s the Chief Inspector…he has a warrant for Mr. Brodie’s arrest, and a good many of the men in the department searching for him. He has a man on his way here now.”
Arrest?
“For what?” I demanded.
Mr. Dooley shifted uncomfortably, and the uneasiness tightened in my stomach.
“For murder.”
Two
“Murder?!”
