“Aye. To quote the good doctor, it appeared that the wounds were made out of rage, not the sort of thing a thief would take the time for in a robbery.” He pushed the sketch across the desk toward me.
“He recognized this. According to what he observed, a mark very near this was made on Salisbery’s chest. It wasn’t deep and wouldn’t have caused his death.”
I stared at the sketch. A mark made by the murderer, almost identical to the mark I’d made a sketch of during our visit to St. James’s Mortuary.
“He described it as looking like a cross.”
“I thought the same when I saw it.” Lily had stepped away from the chalkboard and now stood at my shoulder.
“I’ve seen that sort of thing before,” she continued. “At the ‘Church’, in Edinburgh on the wall of one of the old chambers.According to stories told on the street, the sick and dying were taken there.
“I found it when the ‘Church’ was all quiet during the daytime, when the girls were asleep and I had finished my chores. I went exploring in the rooms below that had been locked off before Madame set up the ‘Church’ for business.”
I caught Brodie’s amused expression and chose to ignore him.
“I took a lantern with me. Some of the cots were still there and I saw marks on the walls beside them. As if the poor souls there had made the sign of the cross as they were dyin’.”
It was dreadful to listen to it. She had been quite a bit younger then, and I could only imagine the horror of it.
It perhaps explained her fierceness when she had discovered the sword room at Sussex Square and insisted that I show her how the weapons were used.
Or perhaps it was there in her sudden silences that had eventually grown fewer when she simply chose not to discuss the memory.
It was another glimpse into who Lily was before I brought her to London. It did seem that things we experienced in the past were always part of who we were, no matter the education or care from others, as Brodie had reminded me.
I looked at the sketch again, and then at the one Lily had made that was tacked up on the wall beside the chalkboard.
A cross? If so, what did it mean?
There was more, of course. That envelope and note on the desk in front of Brodie. It was from Sir Avery Stanton of the Special Services Agency.
“It seems that he has been made aware of the inquiries we have been making. He has requested a meetin’,” Brodie explained.
“Will you agree to meet with him?”
“Perhaps, but first we need to meet with His Highness. With what we have now learned it does appear there is more to this than he has shared with us. And now, with the information from the good doctor about young Salisbery’s wounds and this…”
He reached across the desk and retrieved the sketch.
“I am not willing to continue until we know all of it.”
Pressing the issue, of course, was easier said than done.
He had me write out the brief message he wanted sent to Marlborough House.
I modified the language somewhat. The Prince of Wales was known to have a rather “strong” temperament. Still, it clearly set out that we would not continue the case until His Highness agreed to meet with us.
“It is not a suggestion,” Brodie pointed out as he stood over me while reading the note.
“I thought it best to be more diplomatic rather than make a demand. Honey to bees for instance?” I suggested.
He shook his head then departed for the office of the courier service.
“What about bees?” Lily asked after he had left.
It was something Aunt Antonia had once explained to me. However, her version was somewhat different.
“You hear it from time to time; however, I’ve never believed in it,” she told me at the time.
