I knew that he spoke of his mother, whom he had lost all those years before, the brutality of it leaving him to the streets of Edinburgh and then London.
Not that I had replaced her or even that he thought of it that way. But it was a loss that he carried, perhaps always would, the senselessness of it, someone he had cared deeply for who had cared for him. Then gone.
I understood as perhaps only someone who had experienced similar losses, and fiercely protected those who mattered to me— my sister, our great-aunt, and quite unexpectedly the man who stood before me. There was someone else now as well. Lily.
I touched his cheek with that understanding, my fingers brushing his beard.
“I’ll not lose ye, lass,” he told me then. “I couldna bear it.”
I realized then the true reason he hadn’t wanted me to be part of the inquiries he was making for Sir Avery.
However, here we were and we both knew that I wasn’t going to simply accept waiting at home like the obedient wife. That was not part of the“arrangement.”
“I suppose you will simply have to accept the fact that you will have to include me when you go off on your inquiries for Sir Avery,” I replied, then added, “to keep me safe.”
I did understand that somewhat archaic way he had of looking at things.
“However, you must admit that I have proven myself to be most capable in such situations.”
He made one of those typically Scottish sounds, more a groan I thought. But didn’t argue the point. And I smiled to myself.
There were moments when I managed to outmaneuver him. Not that I objected to those occasional outbursts of male anger.
After the dust cleared as they say, was most pleasant.
I accompanied Brodie to the Agency offices in the Tower of London. Our two inquiry cases had crossed paths after the discovery of Dr. Bennett’s somewhat bloated and decaying body in that tenement basement in Aldgate. It appeared that one obviously connected to the other.
“The question,” Sir Avery concluded after we had both provided what we each knew in the matter, “would seem to be,how is it connected. Miss Forsythe, you seem to have resolved the matter of Dr. Bennett’s disappearance, but it does not explain the reason for the location that would indicate the need for secrecy.”
“I believe it may have to do with the fact that some aspects of Dr. Bennett’s work were censured by the Society of Medicine,” I provided. “It was a known fact that he was quite resentful of it.”
Sir Avery nodded, one hand against his chin, his expression grim.
“Your thoughts, Mr. Brodie?” he then asked.
“I agree as far we know. The next question would be the reason for the murder. There were items of value in the rooms that could easily be sold to the right people on the street, yet they were still there. There is no way of knowing if money might have been stolen in the process.”
“Robbery was then not the motive,” Sir Avery concluded.
“So it would seem.”
“And what of the manner of the physician’s death?” Sir Avery asked.
I listened with interest as Brodie replied with an expertise that came from experience.
“With a blade to the throat. The artery at the neck was severed by a precise cut.”
“You are not a surgeon, Mr. Brodie.”
“One doesn’t need to be a surgeon to recognize such a wound. It was meant for one purpose and one only, and it accomplished that in a matter of a seconds, no more.”
“And in the matter of Soropkin?” Sir Avery then asked.
“He was supposedly seen in Aldgate and had made inquiries on the street regarding the tenement.”
“Is the source of that information reliable?”
“As reliable as a good amount of the drink and a crown note would purchase.”
