“They undertake those inquiries together,” my aunt explained. “Mikaela has become most proficient in resolving the most complicated cases and seems to enjoy scrabbling about in old buildings or going off to some place or another. With Mr. Brodie’s assistance, of course.”
“Fascinating,” Sir James commented. “Something to occupy yourself, and of course such skills are necessary I suppose, with crime that seems to be everywhere.”
Brodie and Sir James were of an even height but with a marked difference in their appearance. Though somewhat lean, Redstone held himself with that familiar bearing among those of the ton, what might be considered an elegant bearing.
Brodie’s bearing was reserved, watchful, the evening coat stretched across wide shoulders and about well-muscled arms. And then there was his overlong hair, much in need of a trim, but which I had come to like very much.
“And you were once with the much-esteemed Metropolitan Police,” Sir James commented.
Once more, Brodie merely nodded.
“Some of their inquiries have been most complicated and quite intriguing, even dangerous I must say.” My aunt turned to me. “You must tell him about the illusionist and that poor girl who was murdered in the glass box. Dreadful situation.”
“An adventure indeed, Miss Forsythe,” Sir James suggested.
To anyone else Brodie might have seemed merely distracted, perhaps even bored with the direction of the conversation. However, I caught the slight narrowing of that dark gaze, his blackened eye notwithstanding.
Not distracted or bored, I thought. That razor-sharp mind was always at work. It had to be something else.
Brodie nodded, then turned to my aunt. “With your permission, Lady Montgomery, I will find Mr. Munro and see that everything… is in order.”
By“everything”I knew from our earlier conversation that he referred to that“perfect opportunity for thieves”with guests arriving, servants coming and going, and the manor quite accessible to anyone else who might enter on an evening like this.
“London’s finest, ever watchful,” Sir James drily commented, which I found to be irritating and not to mention condescending. It was something I had not noticed in him during our travels years past.
Brodie merely nodded. “A particular… habit of mine. To make certain that there are no issues that might jeopardize the evening or her ladyship’s guests.”
With that he was gone, making his way through the guests that had gathered and those who were just arriving.
“An illusionist, the case must have been fascinating,” Sir James said. “An unusual inclination for private inquiries into murders, a hobby perhaps?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “There are many instances where certain crimes might go unsolved if not for our efforts.”
He smiled. “I do remember from our mutual travel adventures your affinity for taking risks and going off on your own, which could be very dangerous.”
“Balderdash,” my aunt declared. “Oh, there is Sir Reginald, from the London Museum. I do owe a debt of gratitude to the man. He made it possible for me to acquire the panorama and the sarcophagi for the night, as well as some of the masks found in tombs.
“On loan, of course and with great care taken,” she added. “It wouldn’t do not to invite him after his generosity. Of course, everything must be returned after the evening. The damp weather can have a dreadful effect on them, quite different from Egypt.” She laughed then. “It wouldn’t do to have the mummies moldering inside the sarcophagi.”
I didn’t bother to explain that there were undoubtedly no mummies inside them as I had learned in previous visits to the museum and the antiquities department at university in my research for one of my novels. Those were very carefully preserved in glass cases.
With that, my aunt sailed off much like that replica of a boat on the Nile, across the bridge to where Sir Reginald stood looking very much the sort that one would find in a museum— distracted by everything about him and vaguely confused.
“I was somewhat surprised to learn that you had married,” Sir James commented. “Although you were quite young at the time, you always seemed the sort that would go your own way, and now a novelist as well,” he continued in a far warmer manner that might almost be considered flirtatious.
“I am grateful for the success, and it has allowed me to live independently.”
“Independent from your husband as well?”
That certainly seemed a bold question. I ignored it and moved the conversation in a different direction.
“Your travels have kept you away for some time. What brings you back to London?”
I caught the slight lift of a brow.
“It was time, and I was curious to see if everything is the same as it was when I was last in England,” he replied. “It seems that nothing has changed.”
That seemed quite cryptic.
