Or was it a message?
The priest had entrusted him with information learned through confession out of concern for the tailor. Both were now dead.
Brodie returned to the nave. Had the people there perhaps heard or seen something? Was the murderer possibly there among them?
An elderly man looked up briefly then returned to his prayers. An old woman sat silently, beads clutched in her hands. Another woman, obviously unwell by the pallor of her face attempted to quiet the child beside her.
From years of experience none of them looked as though they were capable of murdering the priest.
Had they perhaps seen something?
He approached the older man. He used the excuse of looking for a friend he was supposed to meet there. The man shook his head.
He had been there for the good part of an hour. There had been no one else, other than those Brodie saw.
Whoever had been there was now gone.
And it was apparent that the rumors they’d been following were rumors no more.
Five
“Tell me,Miss Mikaela, what brings you to my shop this late in the afternoon?” Mr. Brimley asked as I sat at the desk in his small office that was hardly more than part of the storeroom at the back of his shop while Rupert was presently in the company of Mr. Brimley’s assistant, Sara.
The hound seemed to have a particular fondness for the ladies. In another life perhaps as a human? If one believed in those things, I imagined he would have been quite the rake.
“Dr. Joseph Bennett, you say?” Mr. Brimley nodded as he poured two mugs of coffee and handed one to me.
“I know of the man. He studied at King’s College and is an associate professor of medicine there as well as his lectures at Oxford. He’s well-known both as a physician and a surgeon,” he continued.
“He has made enormous contributions with reconstructive surgery for those injured in catastrophic accidents as well as the war wounded, though I’ve never met the man.” He made a visual sweep of the office and the shop beyond.
“This is not the sort of place a man of his skill and achievements might frequent.” A circumspect smile appeared. “And you’re making inquiries for the family, you say?”
I nodded. “What do you know about the sort of person he is?”
“From what I’ve heard he’s very dedicated and well respected. However,” he added with that circumspect look again, “if you are asking me about the man himself, I cannot say.” He was thoughtful.
“There is someone who might be able to tell you. Dr. Pennington would know more about the man. They’ve shared joint lectures, I believe. Most particularly regarding the military who returned after injury in India or some other place. There was also some travel to France that I read about, and a series of lectures he gave at some university after he published a book about his works.”
A book. How very interesting, I thought.
What might that tell me about the man, if anything?
I had met Dr. Pennington. He had provided valuable information in a previous case. In one of those ways that life makes odd friendships, Mr. Brimley and Dr. Pennington had met in medical school, and remained close even after Mr. Brimley was forced to withdraw before completing his courses and had opened his shop in one of the poorest areas of London.
“I will send round a message and let him know that you will be calling on him,” Mr. Brimley added.
It was quite late when I left the chemist’s shop with Rupert. I went to the office on the Strand, hoping that I might find Brodie. However, Mr. Cavendish informed me that he had not returned.
I went up to the office, disappointed, as I was accustomed to sharing what I had learned with him in our inquiry cases. There was more to it, of course, when I was honest with myself and chose to examine my disappointment.
We had a somewhat unusual arrangement. Partners in the inquiry cases the past two years to be certain. But that was only part of it, most recently of course, with that little ceremony in the north of Scotland. Something I had most certainly never considered for myself.
The truth, when I was willing to admit it, was that I missed him. I missed our exchanges at the end of the day here at the office on the Strand. I missed the way there was usually a fire burning in the coal stove and possibly a bottle of Old Lodge with two glasses on his desk.
I had become accustomed to his habits, his challenges to my thoughts, even his grumbling and grousing over some matter. Not to mention the messiness atop his desk that I was constantly straightening, the way his hair curled over his collar for lack of a trim, and that way he had of looking at me over the edge of his glass.
Admittedly, there was often a frown, those dark eyes narrowed almost as if he was attempting to figure out what sort of species I was with my questions and comments. Then there were the other times when that frown and that dark gaze meant something far different.
