“And I suppose if I left ye here, ye would simply go there on yer own.”
“It is reasonable to share a cab and save the extra coach fare. And it might be helpful to have Mr. Brimley join us as he has considerable expertise in these matters.”
Thesemattersbeing the murder inquiries we had undertaken the past two years. He had been most helpful.
“I have already contacted him,” Brodie replied.
It seemed that great minds thought alike. “Then we should leave immediately.”
“I’ll not wait for ye to go to Mayfair to change yer clothes into something more suitable.”
“Not at all,” I replied as I grabbed my wrap from the previous evening. “I’m quite ready.” And moved past him to the door.
“In yer fine gown and slippers?”
“Do come along, Mr. Brodie.”
I was already out the door and down the stairs to the street below.
We reached Aldgate to find that Mr. Brimley had already arrived. I caught the surprised expression on his face at my somewhat overdressed attire for such things as examining the scene of a murder. It seemed that satin and a bit of lace was somewhat overdone for such things.
Sir Avery had sent his people there late of the night, and as promised, the doctor’s body had been removed, although the usual stench remained.
Even though the entrance to the basement office had been secured until a more extensive search of the clinic could be made, Brodie“persuaded”the door open. His skills from that previous life in Edinburgh did come in quite useful from time to time. I did need to have him show me how to do that.
Upon our previous visit, there had only been light from the street that had managed to find its way in through the heavily smudged street-level windows. We entered, then made our way into the adjacent room that had apparently served as some sort of examination room.
Brodie pushed the button beside the door, and the electric came on. I was surprised.
An oversight perhaps by the electric company with the building scheduled to be torn down? Or, had the doctor made arrangements for it to remain on?
That seemed the more likely possibility.
The sight before us was quite stark. Even though the doctor’s body had been removed, the bloodstains remained just as wehad found them, and I saw things that I had not noticed the night before.
There was a reclining chair on the other side of the room, much as in a gentleman’s barber shop with a rolling steel table at one side, the same as that I had seen in the police mortuary.
There was a second steel table, however, it was toppled to the floor opposite as if it had been pushed over, with blood splattered across.
“There was a struggle here,” Brodie observed as Mr. Brimley went about the room, carefully opening the doors of a cabinet, taking out bottles and jars to examine, removing lids and smelling the contents.
“There are some unusual substances not necessarily found in a physician’s cabinet,” Mr. Brimley commented. “A substantial amount of formaldehyde, and some other substance I’m not familiar with…”
“Ye’ll be certain to take it to your shop,” Brodie replied. “And perhaps learn something from that.”
Brodie then turned that chair toward the meager light that spilled in from the street.
“There is a residue here,” he told the chemist who immediately joined him while I proceeded to make my own inspection.
Not that I thought myself equal to Brodie or Mr. Brimley, however I looked for things from my admittedly somewhat limited experience, while they approached from a different perspective.
They inspected the “residue” on the chair, their heads bent together, one tall, the other substantially shorter.
“There might be somethin’ there,” Brodie commented.
Mr. Brimley then took an envelope from his coat pocket, along with a small knife.
He scraped a portion of the residue into the envelope and then pocketed it as Brodie continued his inspection, kneeling on the floor.
