I knew the best person to assist me. He could be a bit difficult in such matters, no doubt owing to his loyalty to Brodie. However, I was certain he could be persuaded. He simply needed to see it as assisting me so that I was not going off on this alone, and he had proven to be most capable of assisting in the past. In fact, Brodie frequently relied upon him for information on one matter or another when making inquiries.
Perfect, I thought.
“No!” Munro replied most emphatically when I explained the situation and what needed to be explored next.
I had heard that before, in stronger language from another stubborn Scot.
“Very well, then I shall acquire Mr. Dooley’s services in the matter.” That brought the response I thought it might.
“Dooley? The man is competent as far as it goes, and I know he’s been of assistance in the past. But he dinnae know everything that goes on out on the street.”
I had learned over the past two years that there was a way of knowing precisely when I had persuaded one with my argument.
“He’d not approve of yer doin’ this,” he pointed out, obviously referring to Brodie.
I set aside my immediate response to the fact that I didn’t need anyone’s approval, in favor of seizing the moment as I heard Munro hesitate.
“Mrs. Bennett is quite concerned that something has happened to Dr. Bennett,” I continued.
“And Brodie would undoubtedly not approve of your sending me off alone. When can you begin your inquiries?”
There was a round of curses that reached all the way from the wine cellar below the main floor at Sussex Square where I had sought him, up to the kitchens on the main floor.
Two of my aunt’s maids and the cook looked at me with startled expressions as I emerged from the wine cellar. I merely smiled.
Angus Brodie swore at the information Alex Sinclair had picked up from one of the Agency contacts in Brussels and now handed to him.
“How old is this information?”
“No more than a few hours. Communication can sometimes be garbled coming in across the channel. And then it took a bit longer to clarify it.”
“Has Sir Avery seen this?”
“Not yet,” Alex replied. “I wanted to be certain of it, before I took it to him.”
“Is it reliable?” Brodie asked.
“The man who intercepted it has been reliable in the past…” Alex hesitated. “Then the communication ended. We’ve been unable to reach him since to verify.”
The first message and one other had been intercepted as well, some weeks earlier indicating that the man, Soropkin, was to meet with someone in London who could help their cause.
But precisely what was that cause, Brodie thought? And where was Soropkin now?
He had been chasing down bits and pieces of information since returning with Mikaela from Scotland and had contacted Herr Schmidt at the German Gymnasium.
The man had previously assisted in a particular matter and seemed to have an ear to the ground, so to speak. He seemed to know just about everything that went on in the immigrant communities in the East End. Both legal and illegal.
Brodie wouldn’t have called him a friend, but the man had proven to be reliable when it concerned matters in thatcommunity that could be most serious and have far reaching repercussions.
When the first information surfaced in that early communication, he had gone to Schmidt for any gossip that might have been picked up on the streets.
It was always a tricky matter dealing with the different immigrant communities in the East End as he knew only too well from his time with the MET. The Germans didn’t trust the Russians. The Russians felt likewise and had no love for those from Poland or any of the other European countries.
And then there was the mutual suspicion of those from beyond Europe, and some of the places Mikaela had traveled on her adventures. It was like a pot that could boil over at any time as each established their own areas and guarded them fiercely.
Someone might arrive and then simply disappear in the East End, without being noticed. But with this intercepted message, it seemed that Soropkin’s people had managed to slip into the country. Those earlier rumblings that had been merely rumors at the time about something that was planned, were apparently far more concrete now.
He needed to contact Schmidt again. Soropkin was responsible for the deaths of dozens of persons in Germany and there was most certainly no love lost there. With this, it was possible that Schmidt or one of his people might know something about this latest communication.
