“Now ye’re a cryptologist?”
“No, however I am well read and I’ve seen a good many symbols and foreign letters in my travels. Perhaps there is something familiar in the message that might be helpful,” I reasoned.
“That is not for other eyes,” he reminded me.
“I perfectly understand. However, if you trust me, and, I am also well trusted by Prince Edward,” I added from a previous case that involved my friend Templeton who was rumored to have had an affair with him.
“Surely I can be trusted now.”
Brodie nodded at Alex. “I’ll take responsibility, and it will give me the opportunity to examine it as well. And mind ye, ye’re to let me know if ye figure out wot the bloody thing says.”
Alex nodded. “I’ll make you a copy, Miss Forsythe. It’s not a long message and will only take a few minutes. I would appreciate it if you would not mention this to Sir Avery.”
“I could always say that I struck you over the head and stole it from you while you were rendered unconscious,” I suggested.
Alex gave Brodie a long look, most particularly at the bruise quite colorful about his left eye.
“That… won’t be necessary, Miss Forsythe.”
I placed a telephone call to Helen Bennett before leaving the Tower and requested to meet with her.
“You have some word?” she asked.
I heard the hesitation in her voice as I explained that I would prefer to speak with her in person. There was something in her voice; something familiar from when my sister had gone missing and her maid found dead. The certainty that what I had to tell her was not what she had hoped for.
Brodie accompanied me.
“My aunt has planned some sort of reception for Sir James Redstone this evening,” I told him as we found a driver and set off for Belgrave Square.
“The invitation is for both of us.”
The long pause that followed was a familiar one. If it hadn’t been an invitation from my great-aunt, he would have simply refused, preferring to have bones broken rather than attend what he referred to as a “society event.”
And, I would much rather have had the time to read through Dr. Bennett’s book, however…
There was no need to say the rest of it.
While I agreed with him and would much rather have spent the evening together at the office on the Strand or at the townhouse in consideration of the past weeks when we had been off on our individual inquiries, it very likely wasn’t an invitation that we could refuse.
Helen Bennett met us at the door of the residence when we arrived rather than her housekeeper. The expression on her face was one I had seen before in our other inquiry cases.
No words were exchanged. She simply turned and led the way into the parlor. It was Brodie who confirmed what she already suspected in that calm way of his.
And then in that way that had somehow become our way in working together, I gently asked additional questions after what we had found the night before.
Was she aware that he had an office at another location? Had he ever spoken of any concern over a particular patient? Did he ever speak of other work he was doing?
I had observed from our first meeting that Helen Bennett was not the dithering sort given to hysterics or fainting. She was intelligent, calm, and had been forthcoming with any information that might assist no matter what the outcome might be.
She had respected her husband and had spoken proudly of his accomplishments. And now…?
We spoke of my meeting with Dr. Pennington, the fact that he considered Dr. Bennett to be quite brilliant, as well as certain aspects of her husband’s work that were censured by the Society of Medicine.
“He was very hurt by that,” she commented now. “Years of research… some of the procedures he found that were more than two thousand years old.” She gathered herself.
“He felt that it was being set aside as unimportant.” She looked at me then.
“You have a copy of his first book. It was written some years ago. After the reprimand from the president of the Society following lectures Joseph gave, he set about organizing his notes to publish a new book.
