“One of his men first, on the street, then the man himself, holed up in an old tenement like the king himself—beg pardon to Queen Vic.”
The Mudger grinned up at him and Brodie could have sworn there was a resemblance to the hound.
“Had to persuade his man. Between me and the hound we got the message across just who we wanted to speak with, and not one of Brown’s other men.”
“He agreed to meet?”
He nodded. “It seems the two of you have had some dealings before. He said you were to come alone. For some reason he doesn’t trust you.”
That worked both ways.
“Where?”
The Mudger gave him the information. If he failed to show within the next two hours, there wouldn’t be another opportunity.
Not the best of situations, Brodie thought. Still, a man like Brown with his fingers in several different pies, might have information about the fire and the man whose business had once rivaled the other trade companies.
“Aye.”
He returned to the office and grabbed his coat, a patched and worn piece that looked as if it might have been pulled from the charity bin, then pulled his cap low. He checked the revolver in his pocket and the knife sheathed down the side of his boot.When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the Mudger was waiting. He looked up from under the brim of the derby hat.
“I’m goin’ with you.”
Brodie shook his head. “He told ye that I was to come alone.”
The Mudger squinted up through the driving rain that created halos around the street lamps and filled the gutters.
“There’s some that say I’m only half a man, with me legs gone.”
“No,” Brodie was firm in his decision. “Ye’ve done well enough for the night, just findin’ the man. If there’s trouble, I’ll handle it.”
“Alone?”
“I was raised on the streets,” he reminded the Mudger. “There isn’t anything the man can try that I havena seen, or done myself.”
“That may be so, but I wouldn’t want to have to answer to Miss Mikaela if anything was to go wrong. The woman has a temper.”
That she did, Brodie thought with a faint smile as he waited for a cab or possibly a drayman still out in spite of the weather.
“He didn’t say nothin’ about the hound,” the Mudger pointed out with a sly expression.
Brodie looked down at the hound. The beast had followed him back down the stairs and then dragged something long dead out of the alcove. He knew the animal was good in a fight, and he had found Mikaela in the course of a previous inquiry. Still…
“That one?”
“He’d serve you well, Mr. Brodie. With just a word or two.”
“A word or two?”
The Mudger hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hound.
“He knows three words that Miss Forsythe taught him. The first is ‘stay,’ the second one is ‘come,’ and the third one is ‘kill.’”
Some men’s wives kept docile cats to take care of mice. His taught the beast commands that rivaled what a man might use. And then there was that whole argument about his ability to find someone.
He had insisted that it was an accident or luck. She had proceeded to prove him wrong with an example of the hound’s fine hunting skills.
“He mostly ignores the first command,” the Mudger continued. “But he’s sharp on the second one.”
