“Good that ye’re here,” Brodie greeted us. “Ye will want to read this.”
He handed me the note he had received with a royal crest on the accompanying envelope as I laid the tube with that drawing on his desk.
We were to meet with the Prince of Wales this very same evening at Marlborough House.
“Mr. Cavendish said that Mr. Dooley was here earlier?”
He nodded. “I tried to arrange for us to inspect the body of the young man. But it seems that the family has already claimed the body and made the necessary arrangements for burial.”
That seemed rather sudden. There was usually a lying-in period at the family residence that often went on for some time. Aunt Antonia had mentioned one of her peers being “presented” as she called it in the family residence for thirty days. I had always considered that to be excessive.
“Even with the poor thing full of embalming fluids, she swelled up like a bloated fish and smelled like one as well. Yet, I will admit that I had noticed that about her when she was still alive,” my great aunt had exclaimed at the time. “I say, put the poor thing in the ground and be done with it!”
I was inclined to agree and believe that had influenced her decision to go out in a Viking longboat set afire. A blaze of glory, as it were.
“Far more efficient,” she had declared at the time. “And quite exciting, don’t you think?”
My sister was not at all surprised when she heard of it afterward.
“Of course,” she had remarked. “I would expect no less. She has been quite unconventional all of her life. Perhaps she should put in an order for two, you are quite like her, you know.”
Yes, well…
“And we’re to meet at Marlborough House?” I asked, returning to the subject at hand, namely that note.
“It seems that after the incident last night with the police called out by one of the staff, all information is now to be directed to Sir Avery at the Agency.”
Of course, I thought. The Queen’s man was now to take the case.
“Yet His Highness still wants to meet with us?”
“I suppose that it would be to discuss any other information we’ve been able to learn.” He glanced down at the artist’s tube at his desk.
“And this?” he inquired.
“It’s the sketch Lady Lenore made from my description of the man I saw last night,” Lily explained.
“A sketch?” Munro commented. “And ye saw the man?”
“It was very brief,” Lily explained. “And then he was gone, but it could be helpful.”
Brodie opened the tube, pulled out the charcoal drawing, then unrolled the sketch and spread it across the desk. He looked up at Lily.
“This is the man ye saw?”
She nodded. “Miss Lenore had a go at it several times, but that is verra near wot he looks like.”
Brodie studied the sketch, then looked over at me. “Do ye recognize the man?”
I did not. Whoever he was, he was not among those I had seen that night; however with the number of people there, it was not surprising.
He nodded. “This could be useful. At least we know what the blighter looks like and with yer other details about him,” he looked over at Lily, “the authorities and Sir Avery’s people will know what to look for. Ye’ve done well,” he told her.
With that, we prepared to leave for that meeting the Prince of Wales.
“Ye’ll see the lass back to Sussex Square?” Brodie inquired of Munro.
He nodded. “Unless she has a notion to stop in the East End and take up the search for the man there?” he replied.
