I waited until he was well away before sharing that bit of information. The gesture needed no explanation.
“He welcomed us to the city and hoped that our stay would be a pleasant one.”
“Ye are a magnificent liar, Mikaela Forsythe Brodie.”
“Only when absolutely necessary.”
There was something in his voice, soft and low at my name that was now part of his. At the same time, my throat tightened. I did very much like the sound of it as if I was now complete somehow, connected to this man whom I respected, trusted, andloved. In a way that I had thought never possible.
The word came so easily. Not to say that we didn’t have our differences, perhaps would always have them, but there was the feeling that we had confronted something and come out of it with something that was deeper, truer, and as he told me when we exchanged those few words in Scotland...forever.
The information Brodie had received from London indicated that we had accommodations at the hotel.
It was also where we were to meet with Alex Sinclair, who was hand-carrying a dispatch from Sir Avery with new information he’d been able to learn regarding Sir Collingwood’s murder.
The Castelan was a four-story former private residence, built in the seventeenth century, that included other private residences along the Rue Neuve at the edge of the city center,and only a short distance from the Royal Museum and that exhibition of fine art which was to open the following day.
The main entrance might have been the entrance to the apartments of a titled nobleman, the front desk to greet arrivals on one wall of the main foyer with a staircase that rose to the floors above, and a ground floor salon that had been transformed into a dining room for guests.
We were informed thatMonsieur Sinclairhad not yet arrived and were then shown to our room. The attendant handed Brodie the key and informed us that the dining room would open at seven that evening.
The room was in the style of the private bedroom that it had once been with an entrance to the small sitting room with a fireplace, and an ‘accommodation,’ as it was called, off the adjacent bedroom.
When I returned, Brodie asked if I would like to accompany him with a tour of the hotel.
“Bring yer notebook,” he told me as I followed him from our room. He stopped just outside the doorway.
“Tear off a bit of paper from yer notebook.”
I handed him the piece of paper and then watched with growing curiosity as he inserted it inside the edge of the door as he closed and then locked it.
“If anyone should enter the room before we return,” he explained.
It was so simple and quite ingenious.
“I suppose you learned that in service with the MET, or on the streets as a boy.” I was quite impressed.
“I’m not of a mind of escaping through the window from the third floor.”
He did have a point.
Our ‘tour’included the fourth floor where we discovered a door with a short stairway that led up to the roof. We then toured the second floor, then down to the ground floor.
In addition to the foyer and the adjacent dining room, there was a flower shop beside the main entrance that fronted onto the street and a door in the hallway opposite the street.
It was discreetly marked—Personnel Seulement.
I nodded toward that door, then stepped inside the flower shop as a distraction if anyone should be watching as Brodie waited until the front desk attendant was occupied with another guest, then quickly stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
He was gone for several moments, then just as quickly reappeared, closing the door after him.
“It appears to be the laundry room for this hotel and the next building beside. There is a connecting door and the things one might expect to find.”
It well after seven o’clock and the first guests had begun to arrive at the restaurant.
We’d had only coffee that morning before leaving Paris.
“Aye,” Brodie agreed when I suggested that we join the other guests.
