Brodie didn’t care to be indebted to the man. He preferred it the other way around. But if there was something the man knew about the murders…
“What do ye know?”
“I know that one was the daughter of the magistrate, Sir Mallory, and the other the daughter of Judge Cameron. And then the flower that was left on each body. No common street criminal would waste time on such a thing. A reasonable man might ask himself what do they have in common?” He smiled.
“You have what you wanted now?”
Brodie nodded. That and more, he thought, the meeting obviously at an end.
“It now seems that you owemea favor,” Brown casually mentioned as he sat back in his chair.
There was that smile, but not the sort that anyone who knew him would want to see across a table.
“There is a man, Carstairs, who has worked for me in the past. He got caught by a young constable eager to make marks for himself and unaware who he was dealing with.”
“Go on,” Brodie told him.
“He’s in the Old Bailey under a sentence of five years. I hear that you know people in certain places who can assist with a word or two from you.”
He was speaking of Sir Avery with the Agency—the man did know things. A favor then, for the information he’d just learned.
“I will see what can be done.”
It was as far as he was willing to agree, with the certainty that it would require another arrangement with Sir Avery, something he had hoped to avoid.
Brown nodded. “I’m curious,” he then added. “Do you still carry the knife yer partner in crime gave you?”
Brodie didn’t bother to respond.
“I thought as much,” Brown answered his own question. “I warned my men and while I am fairly certain they could eventually take you down, not before losing a leg or an arm. You have the reputation, Brodie.”
He stood then, a tall, broad-shouldered man, with tattoos down the length of both arms, and cold, hard gaze.
“You know where to find me when you have word about Carstairs.” He held out a hand.
It was like shaking hands with the devil.
Brown nodded. “And that offer for work stands.”
Brodie was cautious as he left the building the same way he had entered, with revolver in hand. The only surprise was that the man at the back entrance was no longer there.
He crossed the street. The hound was still there and looked up at him expectantly.
“There’ll be no fight tonight,” he told him.
The hound whimpered. He could have sworn the beast was disappointed.
It was well after midnight as he left Holborn, the hound beside him, and found a driver on his way back to the service yard. He climbed aboard and the hound followed.
He nodded to the Mudger as they returned to the Strand and the hound leapt down from the coach. Then he climbed the stairs, still carrying the damp and cold from the past hours on the back streets and a past that he had left behind, but not far enough.
He didn’t expect her to be there. She had left a note and then gone to Sussex Square. Still, there she was, stirring now under the covers of the bed as he set the bolt on the door, then hung his coat.
“Are you all right?” she sleepily asked, then he saw the faint glow of the bedside lamp as she turned up the flame.
A simple enough question that they’d each asked each other before when out and about on an inquiry case.
He didn’t immediately reply as he returned the revolver to the drawer in the desk, then pulled the knife from the waist of his trousers and placed it there as well.
