More sounds came from inside the apartment, much closer now.
“Perhaps when we have more time,” I replied.
He shook his head, then held onto me as I climbed out the window. He slowly lowered me to the adjacent rooftop. But instead of pulling it back up, he climbed out onto the narrow ledge, then quickly lowered himself down beside me.
“You have done this before,” I commented.
“Perhaps,” he replied.
He immediately crossed the roof to the front of the building, then returned across the narrow edge of that slanted roof, much like a cat in spite of his height. Of course, he was not that tall as a lad in Edinburgh and then London.
Cat burglar, I thought.
“Watch yer footing,” he cautioned as he took hold of my gloved hand and we crossed the roof together, like two cats.
There was a drainpipe for the runoff of rain on the near corner. It ran down the side of the building to the street below.
“The pipe runs past the balcony at the apartment below, then down to the street.” He took hold of the pipe with both hands. “It should hold.”
“Wait…” I cautioned. “I’m fairly certain that I weigh less. Perhaps I should go first, to test it.”
That dark gaze met mine. “If it holds me, it will be safe for ye.”
And with that, he began the climb down.
Bloody stubborn man, I thought. Secured by metal brackets, the pipe held as he descended to that balcony, hand over hand.He reached the edge of the balcony, climbed over the railing, then looked up.
A cat, indeed!
I had climbed trees in Scotland and at Sussex Square as a child, usually successfully, and on occasion in my work with Brodie. That hot air balloon came to mind along with the ‘church’ in Edinburgh.
However, never down a drainpipe with the French police undoubtedly about to enter that top floor atelier and discover Monsieur Dornay’s body.
I took hold of the pipe as Brodie had, grateful that I had worn gloves, and began that descent, and silently cursed women’s fashion even with the split skirt I was wearing along the way.
I found a toe-hold on the bracket below the one at the roofline as he had, held on and lowered myself until I reached the next bracket, and the next until I felt a strong grip on one leg then at my waist.
I was lifted over the railing of the balcony and let go of the pipe. He pulled me to him, arm around my waist, his other hand clasping my head.
My hair had come undone in our escape from the other apartment. There was that dark gaze, myself quite breathless from the dangerous climb down the drainpipe, the length of him pressed against me.
And I thought it was very possible that Michaelangelo’s statue of David, considered quite risqué, had nothing over Angus Brodie.
Eleven
Our escape was simply done.There was no one home in the apartment with that balcony.
Brodie handily picked the lock on the glass doors. We let ourselves in, then let ourselves out on the street below in front of a tobacconist’s shop. Then we walked several streets past until we found a driver of one of hundreds offiacresthat provided transportation across the city.
We left the district at the river, however, the driver explained that his license did not allow him to cross into other areas.
The promise of a hundred francs to take us across, then to the Westminster convinced him. Not surprisingly, he hung a cloth with another number on it over the one painted on the side of his carriage, and we continued across the river.
It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at the Westminster, the sun a fiery orange glow below the bank of clouds that had pulled back from the river.
I was tired with at least a half dozen bruises that I could feel from climbing down from rooftops. Our clothes were somewhat disheveled although I had attempted to restore some order to my hair, while Brodie looked much the same as I had often seenhim when on a case about London. I thought of the trousers I had borrowed in our previous case.
It was a reminder that I did need to consider having some made that fit better than a man’s trousers. That thought had momentarily stopped all others—that I considered I might have a need for them.
