That gaze sharpened above those steepled fingers.
“I am reminded that you are remarkably like her ladyship.”
I smiled at that. “Then, you are able draw up such a letter on my behalf, as a claimant and as expeditiously as possible, so that I might learn what the provisions of the trust are.” I concluded the obvious.
“Plainly speaking, you are asking me to determine if there is a trust, who holds it, and then to tell you what is in it.”
“That is precisely what I am asking.”
He shook his head. “Very much like her ladyship. Very well. I will have my clerk search the archive of legal documents filed by most of us about London, and have the letter for the Harris representative awaiting that information. Where may I reach you when it is done?”
I asked him to contact me at Sussex Square the moment he had sent the letter and when he might have a response.
He promised to have some word for me by end of day. I told myself that it was the best I could have hoped for.
As I left, navigating my way to the corner through the swirls of rain that had accumulated on the sidewalk, I thought of Brodie and wondered if he had been able to find the man he hoped to speak with regarding his ‘paper weight.’
I briefly returned to the office, even though it was late of the afternoon. I made notes on the board from my meeting with Sir Laughton. I was hopeful that I would have word soon from Sir Laughton and had drawn a line under the description of a trust that I hoped he would be able to find.
I then left a note for Brodie as we had agreed we would do when going about in separate directions.
I suppose I should have objected having to account for my whereabouts, as in the past with others, but didn’t. That surprised me somewhat, but in addition to our growing personal relationship, I found that I liked Brodie very much and understood his concerns that came from his work with the MET.
It was a bit flattering and oddly comforting that someone cared for my safety, even if he could be a bit high-handed about it from time to time.
Mr. Cavendish and Rupert were nowhere to be seen when I had arrived. Given the nasty weather and with both Brodie and me gone, they were undoubtedly down at the Public House where it was warm, dry, and there was food.
I called for a cab, then waited until the driver arrived below. I locked the office and set the bolt, then descended the stairs.
I recognized the driver from previous calls. He stepped down from atop the hansom.
“Good day, miss,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Nice weather out, this afternoon. Where be your destination?”
He held open the gate and assisted me into the cab.
“Sussex Square,” I replied.
As he reached to close the upper gate across the opening against the rain, I glimpsed a man in front of the haberdashers across the roadway.
It might have been the scarcity of those about on such a dreadful afternoon, the fact that the shop was closed, or the way he suddenly pulled up his collar as he seemed to stare across the way.
He had no umbrella as he stepped out from under the canopy in front of the shop, then pulled the brim of his hat low.
He was dressed in a dark suit with long coat over as he continued to stare, then slowly disappeared down the opposite sidewalk.
Brodie would have laughed and then teased me. But it was there, that certainty despite his being hardly visible through the pouring rain. I had seen the man before.
BRODIE
Bethnal Green Fire Station was in the East End.
The red brick four-story building was little more than two years old with two large bays, a tall tower at one end of the building for hanging hoses to dry after a fire, and a stable yard in the foreyard for horses that pulled those wagons.
Captain Kearney was with the brigade at Bethnal Green, having transferred from Holborn the year before.
Brodie knew him from his time with the MET, when both had found themselves called to the fires in the East End where families were crowded into flats and cook-fires were often the cause of blazes that spread throughout a building.
Kearney was a good man, more than twenty years in with the brigade that had grown from district fire brigades to the consolidated Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which had formed several years before in an effort to provide better fire service to the greater London area.
