“When might this have happened?”
“It’s been going on for several months. They are both unattached, after all.” Although I supposed the hound might be considered an attachment.
I was well into my meat pie, and enjoying it immensely.
“It is possible, you know,” I added. “Even with his infirmity. He is quite robust.”
“Robust?” he repeated.
I smiled to myself. I was enjoying the conversation. I angled him a teasing look.
“The old saying, where there’s a will, there’s a way?” I suggested.
He shook his head. “Ye are shameless.”
I rose from my side of the desk and returned to the chalkboard. I studied the lists of clues we had discovered, along with the evidence from the two murders.
“Two women, both from well-placed families, found murdered. Both women killed in the same manner, no apparent struggle, nothing of value taken, and no other physical violation.” I turned back to where Brodie sat at the desk.
“Is it possible the murderer was known to them?”
He took out his pipe and filled the bowl with tobacco, then lit it. I did love the smell of pipe tobacco.
“Perhaps. Or it might be that the man was so well-dressed—considering that fiber Mr. Brimley discovered—that they felt no cause for alarm.”
I looked at what was left of the second rose we had discovered in Dr. Cameron’s office.
“A rose was found with both victims,” I continued. “A red rose.” I was thoughtful.
“A red rose is a symbol of passion, usually given by a man to his lover, but that does not seem to be so in this case.”
“Ye seem to know quite a bit about that,” Brodie commented as he poured two tumblers of whisky, then rose and approached where I stood before the chalkboard. He handed one to me.
“Two apparently random murders within a few days of each other, a red rose found on each body.” I took a sip and continued.
“Either Miss Phipps or Doctor Cameron attempted to dispose of the one found on Margaret Cameron. And let us not forget that he stated that he was awaiting an appointment that late in the day—obviously an excuse to get rid of us, and then his sudden departure in a private coach.”
“Wot?” Brodie asked, that dark gaze watching me. He did know me so well.
“Something in Dr. Cameron’s manner,” I replied
“Yer woman’s instinct again, perhaps?”
There wasn’t the usual teasing tone this time when he said it. It did seem that it might be possible for Angus Brodie to learn something. And from a woman! Oh, my.
“It was something in his manner.” I attempted to explain what it was that I had sensed. “He seemed…”
“Preoccupied? Perhaps uneasy?” Brodie suggested.
“Yes! Very much so. Almost as if…”
“As if he knew more than he was telling us, perhaps even hiding something.”
I turned to him. “You sensed it as well.”
“It comes with experience. Ye see enough crimes, the people who commit them and others, and ye pick up on things. Congratulations, Mrs. Brodie. Ye’ve learned a great deal.”
It was so like a man to give himself a pat on the back and take full credit.
