“And the third?” Brodie asked.
“Ah, well, He gets a bit excited with that one. You only have to say it but once, then don’t get in his way.”
He caught the sound of the horse-drawn wagon, then sight of the coal man retuning from his last stop.
“The hound will do you well, sir,” the Mudger continued. “And knows his way through most of the East End if there should be trouble.”
“Come along, then,” Brodie told the hound as he waved down the coal man and asked for a ride to the end of the Strand, where he would be able to find a cab. He climbed aboard the seat and the hound clamored after, tail wagging.
It took the better part of an hour to get from the Strand to the location where Brown had told the Mudger he would meet with him.
More than once, he was certain the man lied. Payback, perhaps, for that previous encounter, and then Brown’s men would remind him of it in their own well-known way when he arrived.
Brodie had looked the other way once before when he was with the MET, a decision at the time to save what mattered most—more than fifty barrels of wine that had escaped the tax man, or the life of a young boy badly injured in Brown’s scheme. Verralikely he would have died if Brodie hadn’t gotten him to Mr. Brimley.
Afterward, Brown kept his contraband barrels of wine for a hefty profit, the tax man lost out on substantial revenue, and the boy recovered. And Brodie knew that he’d made the right choice.
The way he figured it now, Brown owed him. However, the man’s memory might be short in that regard.
He left the wagon after they crossed into Holborn and continued afoot, the hound loping along beside him. More than once, he considered it a fool’s errand to bring the animal.
He’d grown up on streets like this, lights from single lanterns burning dim in most windows, the sudden scurrying among the shadows, both man and beast. And he’d learned what it took to survive.
It hardened one, forced them to close off things that might have mattered, and search out those things that could ease the pain for a few hours, a night, and then back out on the street. And he had learned those lessons well—stay, come, kill.
They served him well when he was with the MET because, unlike many of those who patrolled the streets, he knew what was out there, what waited, what mattered and what didn’t.
Until a woman, who wasn’t like the others out there, wasn’t afraid of the dirt and filth, and didn’t turn away from the hard reality of the streets… didn’t turn away from a man like him...
He found the street the Mudger told him to look for, then that tenement with the light that glowed in the third window from the right on the second story window.
He checked the revolver, then moved the knife from his boot to the back waist of his trousers.
“Stay,” he ordered the hound, then crossed the street.
He avoided the main entrance of the tenement and instead circled around to the back. There, he caught a movement in the shadows, waited until the man moved and circled round to thefront, then climbed the stairs to the service entry and slipped into the building.
Brodie glanced both directions in the dimly lit hallway, then at the stairs. The sound of voices guided him to the flat with that third window that he’d seen from the street below.
He didn’t knock then wait for permission to enter. Instead, he opened the door, catching those inside by surprise. Two men nearby scrambled and would have drawn weapons, while the man he had come to see slowly recovered his surprise, then grinned.
“Mr. Brodie, we meet again.”
They exchanged careful greetings, much like two men in an arena circling one another, taking each man’s measure, and attempting to decide when to land the first blow.
“The Mudger tells me that you are looking for information.” Brown smiled. “I am flattered that you would think of me.”
Brodie kept a watchful eye on the other two men, as well as the one in front of him.
“Keep both hands where I can see them,” Brodie told him.
Brown slammed both hands down on the table and let out a roar of laughter.
“What is it that brings you here, Brodie?”
“A favor that ye owemein the matter of fifty-odd barrels of verra high priced wine that ye saw a good profit from,” he reminded him.
There was a slow nod. “Perhaps. That depends on the favor.”
